starting to get my zing and pep back! 
caseydog it seems that 80 series landcruisers are well known for putting up all sorts of totally random warning lights on the dashboard when the alternator fails. I did a whole load of tests ruling out blocked oil filters or air filters, engine oil levels, and so on, and ended up driving her down to the garage this morning with no less than 4 warning lights on the dash. I missed 1 previously because I expected the big red letters called BRAKE to be on, but it didn't go off when the handbrake was released.... so 3 warning lights were lying to me, and only the 4th was correct!
Garage have confirmed my suspicion that the only genuine warning light was the battery discharging light...
Vehicle is off the road until Monday at least because tomorrow is Australia day and a holiday (plus my garage don't work Fridays anyway, it's a rural garage)... hopefully the new alternator will arrive on Monday if I'm lucky and she might be back on the road early next week.
Glad youāre doing better and back amongst us all!Evening all
Been a hard week, even ended up going to the GP which is unheard of for me but all good
Hope everyone on here is doing ok
Yeah, me too...
I've never been a huge fan of winnie the pooh but I love the humour of that too!
On its surface, that just too twee for meā¦until I realized that someone has given poor Winnie a craniotomy, stuffed him with stew or whatever, and is using his skull as a cooking-serving vessel - āWhoās the hunny pot now, Winnie?! Youāre the hunny pot! Mwahahaha!ā
Wonderful storyā¦once you bought it and got it back, did you inquire as to how the seller ended up with it?Get this for freaky.
When I was about 7 years old my Grandmother gave me a little brooch she had as a memento from a trip to the US. Not valuable but I oh so coveted this brooch. I never wore it and kept it my jewellery box and just took it out and stared at it imagining all the things my Dad had told me were good in America.
My friends were envious and it would often come out for us to admire.
Then it went missing.
It's quite obvious what must of happened and I was devastated. I thought about it often and hoped it would return but no such luck.
Recently I was looking for a brooch for a winter coat and although it's not even vaguely within the parameters of my search up pops the exact brooch being sold by someone about 30mins from where I live?!!
What the actual?!!
I recognise this is a popular brooch in America (well at least that's what an ebay search revealed) but it isn't and wasn't a thing here. I examined closely and realised this is my brooch! I'm certain because one of the top line of red gems is fractionally out of alignment (damage done before it was given to me), plus one of the only ones for sale in the UK coming from 30mins down the road?
I now have a lucky charm for the trip to America!
I can't quite believe it, it's made me nostalgic for my grandmother and so happy to see it again
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It only arrived this morning by super slow snail mail. It's from a 'vintage' shop (aka old tat shop) so I don't think there's much point
Well, now you need to novelize the whole situation, make it out that your grandmother was a British spy during the war, but sort of double-agenting between the US & UK, because sheād fallen in love with an ace American pilot, though their love could never be, and the brooch was a small token from him that also happened to contain secret plans to a joint US-UK invasion of the Soviet Union, as soon as Hitler was dealt with (thatās what that whole off-kilter stone was about), and of course your gran knew karate and looked like Emma Peel in a catsuit and the American pilot was a real Lee Majors type, but she wasnāt really a double-agent, that was just a bluff to get her taken into custody and placed in super-secret lady-prison confinement where the real traitor to the whole operation was the evil warden, a sort of Joanna Lumley character (gotta get her in there), calm and cool on the outside, but with a devious and sadistic side, and thenā¦oh well, you can finish the rest!It only arrived this morning by super slow snail mail. It's from a 'vintage' shop (aka old tat shop) so I don't think there's much point
Well my grandmother was good looking and pretty cool.Well, now you need to novelize the whole situation, make it out that your grandmother was a British spy during the war, but sort of double-agenting between the US & UK, because sheād fallen in love with an ace American pilot, though their love could never be, and the brooch was a small token from him that also happened to contain secret plans to a joint US-UK invasion of the Soviet Union, as soon as Hitler was dealt with (thatās what that whole off-kilter stone was about), and of course your gran knew karate and looked like Emma Peel in a catsuit and the American pilot was a real Lee Majors type, but she wasnāt really a double-agent, that was just a bluff to get her taken into custody and placed in super-secret lady-prison confinement where the real traitor to the whole operation was the evil warden, a sort of Joanna Lumley character (gotta get her in there), calm and cool on the outside, but with a devious and sadistic side, and thenā¦oh well, you can finish the rest!
Thatās exactly how my paternal grandmother was. I want to be fair in my assessment, though: she was in no way a feministā¦except where her own welfare was concerned.
I'm pretty sure my grandmother would have been child free born in a different era.Thatās exactly how my paternal grandmother was. I want to be fair in my assessment, though: she was in no way a feministā¦except where her own welfare was concerned.
Her and my grandad were hardcore Kentucky hillbillies. Neither finished high school, and TBH, she was barely literate. They followed the Southern migration north for factory jobs (he landing in the steel mills around it SW Ohio), and it was exactly as you described with your grandparents - women didnāt work, and husbands gave them an allowance (side note - thatās precisely how my parents operated, right up until they went into care, more or less).
Well, my grandmom had things she wanted that he didnāt feel was necessary, so she got a job - housekeeping at āthe āversātyāā (the local university), and it paid fairly well for what it was, being that it was a state school, and she got her own retirement to boot, so thatās what she did.
Instead of getting her fired, though, my grandadās plan was to bankrupt her - when she refused to quit, he charged her rent and utilities and groceries! He split everything right down the middle!
She called his bluff, though, and paid it, because she was making enough to do so, and still have money leftover for flowers, clothes, and all the knickknacks she liked.
She was also different from a lot of women of that time in that she absolutely did not cook. At all. She also didnāt like children at all, did the barest minimum to raise hers, and Iām fairly certain that, had she been born into different circumstances, should would have been militantly childfree - the first time I came home on leave from the Air Force, sheād asked if Iād met any girlfriends, and Iād answered that no, not really, and her response was, āIf yer smart, honey, youāll keep it that way - girls lead to chilāren and theyāll take everā lasā thing you haveā¦time and money!ā
