December 24, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Roads with lakes round every bend
There is an old saying that problems come in threes. I was cynical: people face many problems and they can always group them in threes. From personal experience problems always come at Christmas. All sorts from serious to trivial. This year three problems of the same kind, all car related, have arrived together at Christmas. Not serious but all perfectly timed to create maximum inconvenience. Continue Reading →
December 15, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Christmas comes more frequently now
When I was a kid my grandma used to say that time speeded up when you got older. I didn’t really understand what she meant. I pondered: could it be that every year was a shorter proportion of your life, that older people were busier, that older people were less efficient or something to do with relativity that Einstein had missed. I still don’t understand it but it seems she was right. Continue Reading →
November 25, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Lie in or Run?
It’s been one of those miserable, wet weekends.
When I woke this morning there was heavy drizzle, grey bleakness and the wind buffeted, almost leafless trees, were struggling to stay upright. Continue Reading →
November 11, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Narrowband for price of Broadband
According to my local authority I don’t live in a rural area. My council tax includes an urban supplement but I don’t have a gas supply, pavements or street lights or decent broadband. We have opted for oil instead of gas and we can manage without the pavements and street lights most of the time (although it is dangerous walking at night in the dark) but is getting increasingly difficult to manage with broadband that barely gets over 1Mb. Of course we pay for “up to 8Mb”. This is narrowband for the price of broadband. I think the assumption of the service provider is that a minimum 2Mb is available, but at the moment that is a pipe dream. Continue Reading →
October 28, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Up the down escalator
It was my birthday recently. Three years ago I was seven years from state pension age, now its ten! I feel like I’m running hard up the down escalator and even if I collapse I’ll have to keep struggling on up because although I took the precaution of income protection insurance it will stop in four years time. You see, twenty five plus years ago when I took it out I my crystal ball failed to predict the recent dramatic increase in pension ages and adjusting it now is very expensive. There was me thinking I could just pay the same premiums for a few more years. How naive. Silly me. Of course I’ll be a much higher risk and would only be paying the premium for 13 years not over the original 30 odd years. Off course! Obvious really. I hope I don’t need it, but I am left feeling cheated. After all I wont get what I thought I’d purchased: income protection in the years when I am likely to need it most. Continue Reading →
October 7, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Twitter beginner
A new celebrity Twitter beginner: David Cameron joined twitter and #askDave became an instant attraction. His profile says the account is run by him and the @conservatives team. Who thinks he will manage it himself? I’m guessing he will get the edited highlights. At least I hope he wont have time to sit and read everything himself – he wouldn’t have time to do any other work. Or maybe that is the point. The Twitter using public think it would be better if he spent his time reading faintly humorous and sometimes crude tweets rather than run the country and think up policies. Continue Reading →
July 8, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Is God a misogynist?
My Mum is a member of the Catholic church. My Dad isn’t. When I and my siblings were growing up he wanted us to understand that the church didn’t have a monopoly on righteous behaviour and that he was no worse a person than the typical attendee at Sunday Mass. Continue Reading →
June 1, 2012
by Liz
Comments Off on Not a matter of taste!
Last week a lot of people commenting on a BBC Have Your Say (HYS) topic were getting heated about prescription pizzas. Why should anyone get their pizzas free at the tax payers’ expense?
To avoid misunderstanding these weren’t ordinary pizzas but gluten free pizza bases available on prescription for sufferers of a medical condition that can be seriously debilitating if gluten is ingested. Continue Reading →
February 17, 2007
by Liz
Comments Off on Double Standards
When my first husband died, aged 46, I was initially told that I was entitled to a widow’s pension for myself and my children. My husband had paid national insurance contributions and would not now be claiming his pension. It seemed fair. My husband would have been pleased that his contributions were being used for the benefit of his children. Continue Reading →
October 3, 2006
by Liz
Comments Off on Genealogy: filling in the dates of death
I spend a lot of time researching my family tree, or rather my children’s family tree – just to double the challenge. Not one branch but all of them. For some I’ve gone back about 12 generations, others only three or four. (See my family tree database). I must admit it is not all my own work – I’ve swapped information with plenty of other people, but I always try to re-research it for myself. Continue Reading →
