What's happening in your life?

I've ordered some white thread.

My grandparents kept a faint line drawn on the inside of their cast iron baths. Unless it was a special occasion, or you'd had an especially torrid time, or my grandmother was out and it was up to my grandfather, you weren't really allowed to let the water go above that line. About two inches.

Before the plug was pulled, a series of buckets were discreetly on hand so as much water as possible could be taken outside and used to water the plants. Needless to say, my mother and uncle, boomers both, rebelled against this kind of thing and favour lavishly wasteful excess in all things.

I'm kind of in the middle myself. I do cut into tubes of toothpaste and various creams to get the very last remnants. But until now I've never stitched a bed sheet, let alone with the intention of keeping the thing for my continued use.

My grandmother would have examined it to see if it was suitable for being laundered and sent to a charity, or whether it was only fit for being torn into strips to use as cleaning cloths.

cosmictanya wrote:I do cut into tubes of toothpaste and various creams to get the very last remnants

I do that too. I keep a craft knife in the bathroom specifically for that purpose.

Toothpaste.

Moisturisers.

Mayonnaise.


Ketchup and brown sauce get 'watered' down with vinegar or Worcestershire Sauce.

I haz ordered a new WD Red hard 4TB Hard drive.



I feel like I've been done.

I'm feeling like I haven't been done. I must be deprived because on my outing there, every single man I passed would've sufficed. I didn't see one that wasn't attractive. Fortunately the face mask covers automatically parting lips.

My kitchen sink is blocked.

And I've got a new itchy, large, sore, raised mole on my tummy.

We had a lovely mother and son evening here at Tanya Towers yesterday. Under a duvet on the sofa, watching Full Metal Jacket while I provided an Indian head massage, and then hypnotically brushed his lovely hair.

We also had a conversation about his great grandmother. Aka my nan, the bane of my life. He hasn't seen her since he was a toddler, although there are a couple of pictures of her around. She's very glamorous in a white stiletto and brassy costume jewellery sort of way. Nolan Miller meets C&A.

He'd never seen footage I have of her on London Tonight, standing on the steps of a court, telling the press to 'get out of my bleeped way' because she was heading 'over Oxford Street'. Or the other clips of her burned on the same CD. It's the first time he's seen her in action as a living breathing person.

I've made sure that nobody in his life has ever treated him with the self esteem cancer of icy indifference that old cow has treated me with. I'm luckier than my sister, who has instead of indifference been treated with open hatred. We've served as nothing more than conduits for her to communicate her feelings about our mothers.

He's old enough to hear it now. My sister rang a week or so ago to ask whether, in light of lockdown, we should get in touch. I said not. A few months ago I met my grandad in secret. That alone, the need to, tells me she's as bad as ever. What she has done to our self esteem has been costly.

That's before we come onto the threats to life and limb, vicious insults about maternal relatives and threats to them, and the exhumation of a stepmother - photographed and couriered to me to emphasise a point. It resembled pea soup with bits of flesh sliding off bones, served in soaked and stained satin.

Considering his current obsession with his grandfather, and the questions about that, it seemed like the time to put things in context. At least now his well meaning but absolutely terrifying idea to ring her up for a chat is no longer something to put off/put off/'err, maybe, let me talk to her first'/put off/plead with him not to do.

Yeah, but my sink.

Do you not have a plunger?

I don't, but I've borrowed one from my next door neighbours.

It hasn't worked.

Have you tried a bottle of sink and drain unblocking gel?

Don't you have a plunger? I have one. Thank god. I had to use it when several of his friends came round. Some dirty little b*st*rd left something unspeakable that furious flushing alone couldn't fix.

As I plunged away, I thought how strange it was that nobody had invented a pull out device to throw up in, so you could continue plunging while vomiting into a different receptacle.

I don't have any.

You probably just need to plunge harder. Don't be shy about it. Maximum force and a determined will gets you to the hallowed experience of it signalling by noise alone that it's, finally, fully cooperating.

There's a hack you can use with a plastic bottle.

You put an empty 1.5 or 2 litre bottle over the sink hole and squeeze it, forcing the air into drain and dislodging the blockage. You might have to do this several times at first but also you may have to decant any debris that might get sucked back up into the bottle when it does. In my experience it works better when there's still some water in the sink rather than waiting for it to finally drain then doing it.

You can also try pouring water into the plughole from a height, that works a treat on my bath.

Or you can use the shower head if the basin is near enough.

Plunging also works a lot better if you put a wet cloth over the overflow while you're doing it.

The plunger I've borrowed from the neighbours is actually a fancy version of Helium's bottle hack.

It hasn't worked.

Pouring water from a height hasn't worked either.

The overflow thing is a problem however as water keeps squirting out over me when I 'plunge' in.

I'll consider the cloth thing as a remedy to that though.

I'm probably going to have to call the council.

My living room light has been broken since early March if it's any consolation