Hi Happy, yes I’m a bit of a ring in here, and totally understand the confusion 😃 Purple, my biggest key was eating more on non fast days I think too, thanks again xxxx
This topic contains 11,627 replies, has 174 voices, and was last updated by hermajtomomi 7 months ago.
Thanks Happy, it’s only my determination to get back to a healthy weight and life style that has got me here, it’s so easy to throw in the towel when things aren’t working quite like we hope, but hanging in there with a non defeatest attitude will win out over all. I think too, finding what works for each of us, it’s not one size fits all but trying suggestions from others is wonderful. Sweet dreams, oh did you see I amended my weigh in? After a trip to the loo, 70.9k now so my body is reacting well again. 😉Xxxxx
Is there no end to my technoklutzery? I haven’t been ignoring everyone. Somehow, I managed to un-tick the little box below. I just I assumed that the Maintenance thread was taking an extended tea break.
Thanks to everyone for asking about the lactose intolerance. I’m back to normal now but treading very warily around dairy. Anything thing that makes me feel sick is quickly consigned to oblivion – or I stop posting on their thread (witch-like cackle). Like Happy, I’d hate to have to live without cheese, but for the time being I’ll only indulge now and then.
Before I was finally diagnosed with lactose intolerance (having persuaded the idiot GP that I wasn’t in some sort of psychological distress and in need of counselling), I was very picky about cheese – Cheddar or Double Gloucester and that was it. When I finally returned to the cheese-eating fold I found my tastes had broadened – the bluer the better. Let’s hear it for Roquefort and Saint-Agur!
Now lactose intolerance is widely recognised and there are plenty of lactose-free products around (some quite disgusting to tell the truth), but back in the early 80s you were regarded as a spoilt yuppy fusspot who should just shut up and eat what’s put before you. Eating out was a nightmare. I remember on my first date with Hismaj, I had to choose steak, which I’m not overly fond of, because it was the only dish that wasn’t smothered in gloopy, creamy sauce. He would not have been impressed if I had picked something else, turned nauseous and had to be driven home – with car window open just in case. Not exactly conducive to romance. 🙁
Snared? Not quite. On a very long leash? Maybe. Probably the truth is we are two daft old buggers, who alternate between quiet grumpiness – like a couple of old moggies, we each tend to creep off and sulk in some corner or other – , ear-splitting shouting matches involving some very creative swearing, and happy hysterical giggles. We sometimes get right up each other’s noses, but actually rather like each other. A bog-standard example of a couple coming up for 30 years together and married for five, maybe?
1967 was obviously a good year, P – depending on your point of view! – that was ours, too. Have survived / enjoyed a lot since then – sometimes with difficulty, sometimes with gratitude, and with at least 2 major changes of ‘contract’ at crisis points and an understanding which has saved us, that this is OUR relationship and doesn’t have to conform to anyone else’s pattern. I find it salutary to reflect occasionally that being married to me can’t be any picnic, either….
Well done to all – it’s probably (parenthood aside) the hardest (but most rewarding?) thing in the world!
Thanks for all the good wishes. It was second time round for both of us.
Bay, how do you do your wonderful emoticons? I see I’m not the only one with a good innings, Happy with 23, Purple with 50 coming up next year. This doesn’t make you old, P, you were just very young when the two of you got together
Purple, your reference to Mr P’s ancestor finding him/herself with a one-way ticket to Tasmania prompts me to ask you to put your social historian’s hat for a moment as I have a question.
Was what we ignorant Brits call an “Australian” accent (I know there are in fact loads of different ones) brought by those deportees from the UK? Obviously, these poor guys, some of whom had probably done no more than steal a loaf of bread, came from different parts of Britain and Ireland, so it’s a bit difficult to pin down any one accent.
I remember you telling us once about one region where a vast number of the inhabitants had roots in the West of England – can’t remember if it was Devon Cornwall – and some of their vocab came from there.
Great description of marriage, Fast. I confess I dipped out of parenthood – maternal instincts of an amoeba – but I have huge respect for all those who do it so successfully against all the odds.
It can’t be a picnic putting up with me either. Sometimes it must be like being forced to eat Marmite sandwiches when you’re one of those guys who hate Marmite. 🙂
Like all accents, Herm, the Aussie English has an amalgam of sources and forever changing. Universal communication has been a major influence in recent years!
The Cornish miners in Burra, South Australia are who you were thinking of.
Re convicts…the British Govt was determined to rid itself of the excess prisoners it had due to it’s draconian legal system. They varied through the full range …from hardened criminals to Irish girls, burning down barns in order to get transported, to avoid starving to death, due to famine exacerbated by English landowners selling the food that could have saved them.
In fact, many more of us are descended from free settlers, coming to a new country for a better life.
English has been evolving, all over the world, for at least a thousand years. Grand, isn’t it! P
I wouldn’t have said there were different Australian accents hermaj. But maybe because im Aussie I hear the accent differently. I don’t think Aussies sound different to each other unlike people in countries like England say and the US where there are a variety of accents depending on what region people are from.
However, we do use different words for the same thing, an amalgam as Purple says of our mixed ancestry. Some words are pronounced slightly differently also depending which state you are from but I think it’s pretty hard for anyone else except another Aussie to identify. One thing that disappoints me now is the increase in the use of American words in our language.
I live in SA, we are a free settler state. I had 1 English grandmother, one English great grandmother, one Irish grandfather and one Norwegian Great grandfather, other grandparents were first generation Australian.
Purple, I thought you were Scottish?
For the record, 41 years married, 42 living together and our relationships sounds very similar to all those described above. 😊
Hermaj
I can pick if someone is from Queensland or is from Adelaide. The differences are not as great as those in England. I think our basic accent is said to come from London working class. For many years our ABC Radio broadcasters spoke with a fake English accent. Nowadays, people just tell it like it is.
My emoticons come from using an iPad. There is a button next to the numbers button, and I just insert them when I want them. 🍷🍷💐💐💐🎉🎉😉😉🌺🌺🐾🐾🌶🌶💃💃⛳️⛳️💤💤
OH and I are second timers and we’re coming up for 18 years. Anger and yelling are a part of it, plus lots of affection, and respect, and admiration, and a huge wallop of determination to stick at it. I appreciate that I am as hard to live with as he is. 😉😉
Cheers, Bay
Hi Bay
The emoticons are on my Samsung too…
🍸🍺🍻🍷🍹☕🍵 Choose your favourite drink 😉
I have a divorced friend who says we argue. She said she never argued with her husband…tells you something, doesn’t it! 🎡🎠⛺🎪🎨🎭🎲
Edit:
Rural Qld and NSW have very different accents to city accents, Carol. In fact, that can probably be said for the whole country. We always s l o w r i g h t d o w n f o r Q u e e n s l a n d e r s 😉
P
I buried (one at a time) an old farming couple whose marriage I described in my address as ‘a running battle of friendly fire.’ Brought the house down, as everyone in their small village knew exactly what I meant, but also that they were rock solid. Some couples never argue because they get on so easily; for others it’s a sign that they just don’t care enough to bother….
How about a new thread – How our other Other Halves get up our noses?
Politics: if a person has a loving parent whose political views are dodgy to say the least – like my m-i-l who is somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan – it’s not unusual for the dutiful offspring to go along with them. Not in my case, my parents were lefties but with suspect credentials – racism, bigotry, snobbery etc.. Even so,I’ve always veered towards the left.
I realised there was work to be done with Hismaj, when he used the phrase “Maggie is right!” Then, when I began to cry while transcribing and translating interviews with survivors of the Belgrano, sunk during the the Falklands conflict on the orders of aforementioned witch-of-the-woods he told me “It’s war for God’s sake. Get over it!” In fairness, his dad was a professional soldier. Massive leftward moves have ensued and he now hovers in the centre, and also expresses compassionate and humane views I’d never have dreamt of hearing. In fact, he’s more tolerant than me – i.e. he manages to suffer fools gladly. And when we visited the battlefields of Verdun a couple of years ago we BOTH cried like babies.
Haircuts: – I always play the “Irish navvy” card. Retrospective racial stereotyping it may be, but he is genuinely of that descent. Research suggests that his ancestor came over to Yorkshire to help with the harvest and may also did a spot of road-building, and never returned to the Emerald Isle. When Sir returns from the hairdresser – sorry, barber (hairdressers are poncy and overpriced in his opinion) – I tell him, absolutely truthfully, he looks years younger.
During our last visit to New York, we had a spectacular ding-dong while walking across Brooklyn Bridge – can’t remember what I was alleged to have done this time. The following day, by which time we were back to normal, we were in a studenty cafe on the Lower East Side when a young woman came over to us and said, “I’ve been watching you guys, you’re just so wonderful together.” Little did she know… But I guess she was probably right.
Bay, accents. I also suspected that basic Aussie had a strong connection with the London working class accents.
Are there accents Down Under that are considered “not quite nice”? Over here working-class London is one of these and as a kid I was made to “talk proper” or get a clip round the ear. My snooty brother still picks me up occasionally for “sounding common”. Cockney sparras (sparrows) can sound extremely silly when they try to talk posh and a lot of comedy is based on just that.
It still makes me cross. Losing your accent is losing part of your heritage. As long as a person speaks clearly and what they say is worth hearing, who gives a monkey’s what sort of accent they’ve got?
Brooklyn Bridge and the Lower East Side are on the same side of NYC but a couple of miles apart so it would have been a bit of a coincidence if the young lady had caught us in mid-yell – unless she had just happened to be passing the previous afternoon. “Back to normal” was perhaps a misnomer. Maybe “peace had been restored” would have been nearer the mark.
As for “normal” all sorts of things in a partnership, both good and not so good, could be described as “normal”.
Interesting question re: what’s normal! That depends on how ‘normal’ both partners are. I know I’m well-adjusted and well-rounded of course 🙂 But as for OH…!
I guess in a relationship, ‘if it works for you’ is the important factor. Whether that’s socially acceptable or fits neatly with stereotypical ideals is another matter!
I probably wouldn’t feel half as badly done to…if it wasn’t for the pity and sympathy I receive for putting up with OH…
Hermaj, I’m starting to think you’d be great material for reality TV 🙂
Not reality TV Happy – pleeeeees.
In so many ways I’m an oik – don’t talk posh enough, use naughty words, know a lot of rude songs, yadayada but I can’t stand reality TV, which in my book is oik telly. If that makes me a snob – well hard Cheddah! Anyway I’d probably be banned and make headlines in the oik red-top press.
I was in trouble today at the local branch of the Halifax trying to draw money from my own a/c, which I’ve had since God was in short trousers, when they informed me that they couldn’t oblige unless I produced photo ID – a recent ruling which to the best of my recollection I’d heard nothing about. I don’t drive and I don’t carry my passport, so I was stuck. I thought I was talking under my breath as I muttered how effing stupid the system was but clearly it was audible enough to the manager – who looked about 12 – who threatened to throw me out. I was tempted to ask what they thought I wanted my money for – “To fund Islamic State, or what?” Then the silly buggers would have called the Old Bill and I’d have been up on a terrorist charge.
I agree that relationships operate on the “whatever works for you” principle. Does it work best if you are polar opposites or if you are very similar?. Don’t know. I think we are too much like one another (apart from the beard – him not me), which results in a certain level of understanding but can also be inflammatory when we both go off on once symultaneously. But I couldn’t put up with some goody-goody. Let’s face it, we are both pains in the posterior. No sane person would put up with either of us.
Some lovely insightful (or might that be inciteful. 😊) thoughts on relationships. It’s lucky we are all normal!
I’ve been working hard in the last 2 weeks…. proper Monday and Thursday fasts and absolutely no bread, spuds, rice, biscuits, scones and virtually no added sugars…..the occasional Mayo and of course wine in moderation. The result? I’m back down into the middle of my “wriggle room”. Another week of this scheme should see me safely down another kilo.
Yesterday’s press here was publicising a Melbourne Uni study attacking “Paleo” diets, but they used mice, concentrated on high fat/low carbon, but did not restricted calories. The mice on the LCHF diet were little piggies. I would have thought it was bleeding obvious, if you eat too many calories, no matter how healthy, you will gain weight. This sort of press gives excuses to fatties to stay that way. 😣
Enjoy your weekends, Maintenance Mates. P
Luckily we don’t come to blows much anymore, but I think OH feels the need to argue because as we all know men know best and the world order would be at risk if a man acknowledged that a woman might know better on any subject (even one she has a DPhil in 🙂 ).
I don’t do shouting anymore. I learnt it’s too easy to escalate, far better to really annoy him by not losing my cool. I remind myself I’m dealing with a teenager, keep calm, keep respectful, pull him up on disrespectful language, remind him that he clearly knows about effective communication as he manages a team in work and suggest that he might like to practice those communication skills at home… Funnily enough he still does shouting…I just do trying not to laugh 🙂
I hope you dear ladies realise that Hermaj has NO sense of humour – at least not according the Esteemed Spouse.
Problem is I don’t like “man walked into a pub..”, or “there was this blonde…” jokes. I don’t do sexist, homophobic or racist jokes either although, in the latter case, if the joke is told by someone of that ethnicity and it’s genuinely funny, I love it. We’ve got some great black and Asian stand-up comics of both genders who are a joy to watch and listen to, whose material relies largely on observational humour, which is often the very best sort. I also have a lovely younger relative who is half-Indian, but born and brought up here, who does brilliant impersonations of her “Delhi Aunties”, based on observation and affection.
We have a radio channel, BBC 4extra which replays recent programmes from other channels which is great if it happens to be a favourite that you’ve missed. It also plays a lot of archive comedy from the 60s and 70s, even as far back as the 50s, which I no longer find the slightest bit amusing. I confess that some of them dating back to my childhood, teens and twenties are unfunny to me because they remind me of bad things happening at home back then. What appeal most to my sense of humour are sometimes hilarious things that come out in conversation with family or friends – e.g. right here on this thread.
Hi Fast,
Nice to vada your dolly old eek. Yes, Round the Horne has stood the test of time and although I’m not over-keen on some of the regulars I LOVE Jules and Sand. Indeed I wait for them to come mincing on and then, when they troll off, I go and do something else. Maybe the Beeb censors really didn’t understand. I contend that you need a dirty mind in order to censor things so maybe the censors were too well brought up to notice.
Obviously, Mary Whitehouse was too innocent to realise that to call her campaign Clean Up National Television was NOT a great idea until her rather more earthy hubby explained. (Apologies all round for the inevitable rudery the aforementioned quote entails.)
I also like Steptoe and Son, which is more comedy-drama and to some extent social commentary. Apparently in real life the two actors hated each other, so the animosity between father and son was easy enough to portray
Update on the Hermaj-Halifax confrontation. I now have no regrets about mumbling naughty words and being threatened with what I believe was once called “the bum’s rush”. Indeed I wish I’d shouted a lot louder. It has emerged that their refusal to serve me and patronisingly telling me “it was only for my own protection” was based on incorrect information.
This afternoon I went to another nearby, somewhat larger branch, duly armed with my passport. When I reached the counter the charming, polite, helpful young woman checked and found that photo ID is only required for withdrawals of £5K or more. My request was for less than a quarter of that figure. She told me she’s a relative newbie to the bank and this was the first time she had been asked to raise a cheque, but with a senior colleague talking her through it she dealt with the transaction quickly and efficiently. She also went the extra mile by suggesting that, as I had the passport ready to hand, she enter the details on the system so that I would never be bothered again. Sure as hell I won’t. I shan’t be going back to the other branch any time soon.
I’m trying to word a moderately polite, elegantly-worded but angry letter of complaint to Halifax HQ about the inefficiency of the bunch of tossers in N8, compared with their colleagues in N12 a couple of miles away in the opposite direction. It’s also a nicer, longer walkies, as it happens.
Hermaj, when writing perhaps you could bear in mind that, following an unfortunate first try, my DH once had an extremely courteous and helpful conversation with an HMRC official after I suggested that it might be better not to begin the exchange by calling them a ‘bunch of thieving b**t**ds’. (For the record, on good days he, like me, regards paying tax as a privilege, and a way of contributing to the good of society: this was a bad day. )
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17 Feb 16