Oops another double post.

Depression is the answer.

Oops double post

Slugs might be the explanation because twice I’ve found a sticky mess where the sultana was.

If you can’t get a powdered flavour why not just buy a small bottle of food essence? Try vanilla to start with. Be very careful on dosage though, probably start at 0.1 percent and see how it tastes. That’s 1cc of flavour per litre of drink.

Come to think of it, it might be better to disperse the liquid flavour in the maltodextrin powder, giving it a good mix up.

This is exactly what’s happening to our new build right now. Even my neighbour, a very hard-working builder, came home at lunch time today. We’re goosed, we won’t be in by Christmas.

The fitters will nail gripper rods right round, about an inch from the skirting them push the edges in and trap them so no, the carpet should fill the gap but if your house is old lots of air will bleed out under the skirtings and if you live in a town atmospheric dirt will get trapped in the edges of the carpet slowly making them dirty.

If that bothered you, you could tape the gap closed before the fitters come.

Ours took 2 weeks but we were lucky to have a builder friend who pushed it along for us. I can’t remember any of it at all so either I went on an Africa trip or I’ve suppressed the memory. I do remember borrowing a friend’s camping stove.

When I was a student in Spain the barman in my local bar made tea by frothing UHT milk then dipping a tea bag in it.

Tea as drunk in the middle east is pretty good – strong, black and served in a small glass super-saturated with sugar.

Earl Grey tea came about because Chinese tea merchants sometimes adulterated tea with sand or iron filings to increase the weight. One shipment reached London adulterated with dried bergamot rind and tea drinkers loved it and asked for the same again.

Tea. Weetabix. Porridge. Not very gourmet.

The bloomin stove smokes like hell into the room when I open it so yes, perhaps the chimney doesn’t draw well.

This is a Charnwood stove that’s recessed into the fireplace. I have to go and mess with it every ten minutes to keep it going.

Oh yes.

We brought four large boxes of kiln-dried birch with us but we are reluctant to burn that here because it burns so nicely that we’d rather keep it for after moving. It’s so well dried that it actually smells cooked.

What about VOIP?

Does fibreglass burn well?

If you’re going to ignore and just nod, for God’s sake make sure you have a buffer in your head so that you can remember the last couple of sentences. Then when she says “you’re not listening! What have I just said?” you can repeat parrot-fashion.

Yes BBC Sounds has been a boon to me, although I can’t listen to the relaxing classical music now because I associate it too much with the misery of lying awake!

I can’t even doze on the sofa by day because I have nasty little dreams that jerk me awake. Luckily I have no trouble dropping off at bedtime after a shower and some reading. I’m reading Michael Palin’s books of his travels, which are entertaining and don’t cause any distress to my mind. Lots of stuff reminds me of my old life and job so is too upsetting.

My poor mum aged 90 has restless leg syndrome so seldom sleeps properly. She takes Ropinerol to control it but that causes loud bangs in her head.

From someone who has just retired on the basis of short-term frustrations from an excellent job of 32 years, I would say: tell your friend to think VERY carefully indeed before burning those boats. The frustrations may be real but the times are unreal. Does your friend possess the mental stamina to resign and find a new job in the present times? If your friend is finding it hard to cope with the present stress, what makes him or her think leaving the job will suddenly magic away all the stress?

Whatever you do, you MUST keep the communications open. If either of you stops discussing and rolls over agreeing to things in the interest of a quiet life you are heading for bad decisions and catastrophe. Stand your ground, be reasonable, consistent and supportive and keep talking.

That’s what I’ve learned, but too late.

Plastic Padding, sand, gloss paint.

A lot of white British and Americans have Irish or Scots ancestry and there tend to be surprising numbers of records that were lost in a fire.

If an ancestor emigrated there’s a good chance their name may be on the passenger manifest.

One thing I can suggest for fellow insomniacs is Mirtazapine, which is an effective tranquilliser with very few side effects and the added bonus that it helps you sleep. I have recently moved up from 15mg to 30mg a day and I am sleeping through to about 3.00, which is far far better than not sleeping at all.

The snogger looks like a young Lance Armstrong

I’ve had sea urchin spines in my heel, it took a chiropodist three sessions of shaving away the skin to get them all out.

An army cadet died of septicaemia after falling into a gorse bush and getting so many infections that his body couldn’t cope. I’d have thought cactus man would need some strong antibiotics.

This is going to be a nightmare for me when we move into our new house and start putting up pictures, mirrors etc.

I need to get the electrician to brief me on the convention for cabling – I guess always vertically down to a socket.

We sit all day doing nothing because we are depressed, bored and lonely, probably like 99 percent of the population. There’s no pleasure in going out in the rain, we have nowhere to dry our kit. We have no possessions and no books, no way to bake some cookies or do some gardening or DIY or listen to music because everything in in storage.

The worst thing about lying awake all morning is the knowledge that you’ve got to get up and spend another day sitting on the sofa doing nothing.

Same here. Deepening mental crisis with anxiety, depression, insomnia and a touch of paranoia feeding off each other means I sleep so little that I’m incapable of sitting in the car without falling asleep so Mrs Gti has to do all the driving. Typically lights out at 10.30 or 11.00 then I’m wide awake at 2.00 and listening to BBC Sounds until I have to get up at 7.30 to feed the poor bored cat. I sleep in the spare room so as not to disturb my wife but when Gti junior return we will have to share again.

If I nod off on the sofa I fall straight into a mini nightmare so unpleasant that I jerk awake in shock, so daytime sleeping is a horrible experience even when I’m nodding, we sit doing nothing all day because we are in temporary and we have no possessions and nothing to do or read.

My Passat estate. Super spacious boot, great drive, excellent fuel consumption over 60 mph on A roads.

The owner is paying a vermin control firm. We’ve had dead mice and smell and flies.

The roof is coated in thick moss, which is why water penetrates in heavy rain.

We took it because in June we panicked thinking wee Nickie would close the border (I know, I know) and we booked another place nearby for 3 months. It turned out to be pretty grim so we left early, got a refund and in desperation found this place – beware the rental that has no bookings in August! This is better in size and location and as I wrote above it’s warm, quiet and draft-free as it has good double glazing. It’s just that being a holiday let it’s not suitable for long-term rental, not to mention the cost at holiday rates. So yes we’ve messed everything up big time, a string of bad decisions and now we’re deep into the incident pit.

Thanks all for the sympathetic posts.

It’s a holiday let but “long term” and we’ve paid until mid December. It belongs to an elderly lady who now lives in care in the city. Her son in the same city uses it for holidays with his family and there’s a managing agent. The positive points are that it’s warm, very quiet indeed and a short walk from our plot. The negatives are that it’s unsuitable for letting as it’s unhygienic, full of family rubbish and the fridge is about to die, along with the leaky roof, dangerous glass panels and a few other things I expect. It does have smoke alarms. We have our cat here and not many landlords allow pets.

There are other holiday lets around but not long term as bookings are still strong. As somebody writes above, when you are suffering anxiety, depression, insomnia and a touch of paranoia the smallest victory feels like a huge achievement, just sorting the car after the mouse damage was a battle. Moving to a different holiday let a few miles away would be a huge stress and then moving again and again would be too much to bear especially as most places have mice at this time of year and I’ve got the mice out of this place.

Long term lets are mostly pretty grim flats in town or they are 20 miles or more away. The postie here knows us and brings our mail over, which is dead handy.

If the owner threw a wobbler and gave us notice to leave we could be in trouble at Christmas if something prevents is from moving into the new place.

I know I’ve droned on ad nauseam about this but as some of you know depression saps you of energy and the will to do anything all to help yourself.

Thanks for the offer of a ride out, I don’t want to leave Mrs Gti here alone and I have no interest in cycling at the moment. A 2 mile totter is all I can manage.

I wish I could tell you the size of our folly, it’s much worse than you can ever imagine.

Get up, shave shower and shoot then get in your car and go and find a traffic jam. Join it, go round the block and rejoin. When you’ve had enough go home and feel grateful that you haven’t had to endure an hour of that. Do the same at 5.30 if necessary.

Sorry to say this but when we cleared out our house three months we threw about half our books, mostly paperbacks, in the skip. It’s too much hassle getting rid of them.

I hope a metal/wood/metal laminate?

I’ve just had an hour online with a counsellor, the poor woman has probably never experienced such negativity. She’s made me promise to try to get out on the bike once in the next week.

Good thing about the blog, it helps to discuss and write things down. I’ve had a huge amount of support from people on this forum.

Builder still hopes mid December

About 90 minutes a night of light sleep then awake for the rest of the night. Can’t doze during the day because waking is too horrible when I realise where I am.

At least in East Lancs we weren’t 12 miles from the nearest shops and facilities, 28 from the town and we had security, comfort, no debt and cash in the bank. It may have had its downsides but it suited us perfectly.

Well it’s part of my mental breakdown that I was catastrophising as always. It weighs 27 kilos so it was easy. Been lying awake since 2.00 listening to the old fridge droning away all night and wondering whether it or I will be the first to conk out under stress.

I think I am that bloke, screwed by his own failure to speak up when harbouring doubts and by allowing himself to be cajoled and browbeaten into spending a frightening amount of cash on a project he’s deeply unhappy about. If you knew the amounts involved and the size of the project in the most inappropriate location you would go pale with shock.