Today I've mostly bin...

[Wulfruna]

Not your old used copy, I hope??

And why not.....? I am very appreciative of gifts that have stood the test of being played and recommended.
on the other hand....... perhaps that thought should be deleted before Kingsely and Fernando get the idea of second-hand prezzies.....

[eirian]

.... trying to find suitable colours for our nursery....

We want creams and browns. Didn't think it would be so hard. Waste of time looking at websites since the colours bear no resemblance to the actual paints. We got a selection of taster pots to try them out, but they don't even bear relation to the colours on the outside of the pots!
There are too many options as well - can't afford to buy tasters for all the paints that, in the catalogues, look as if they are possibilities, just to see which are even close to what we want!

Oh, and on the matter of wireless, does anyone know whether there is a problem if we connected two BT HomeHubs to the same phone line? It's just that one hub seems to provide better broadband for the PC, and the other is better for my laptop's wireless (or if anyone can suggest why this laptop keeps both losing the connection, and being unable to remember the code for the hub - I seem to be able to keep the connection for no more than 10 mins at a time, and every other re-connect request loses the key (or rather the little option, in advance options for the Hub, for 'key is provided for me' (or words to that effect) becomes clicked and it therefore loses the password))

[Bunnylump]

Can't help on anything to do with computers, but paint colours maybe. Have you thought of finding the colour you like and then getting it mixed up?

[LAT]

I can't even ask my friendly IT expert at work as he is away on holiday until Friday. And I'm not much use on colours either.
Today I've mostly been saying the wrong thing I think. Not deliberately mind you

[strep98]

Dulux and Crown used to have mixer machines in Focus and B and Q (used to work for focus for 20 years, and I mixed a lot of paint) have you tried all their little swatches?

[maisie ladybird]

Have you tried Farrow and Ball, they are a little more expensive but having used several of their colours around our house, they always seem to match with the colour swatches in their little pamphlet of colours and they have some beautiful shades, they're available from Homebase or mail order.

[strep98]

trying to contact the letting agents, of the flat my son has been trying to rent. Six weeks after we viewed it they have told him I don't earn enough to be his guarantor. the owners must be livid as they could have been getting rent for the last 6 weeks.

[katsmom]

Spending the morning at the dentist and the afternoon in the puzzle shops.
Katherine was brilliant! Mom wasn't! She watched the dentist drill and fill a chipped tooth just above the crown and it was very sensitive. It was all I could do not to cry out in pain I had to be brave because she was in the room, but the tears were streaming down.

When it was her turn, she jumped right up in that chair and opened her mouth without prompting. What a good girl she was. No tears, no screaming, no problem. I hope the next visit goes as smoothly. Today they just cleaned. Next week, they take the roots out. And we all know how painful that can be. Poor kid, she's got mom's bad teeth.

[MBH]

Owwww - poor kid - how old is she? I've been plagued by abcesses all my life and had many root canal fillings Not nice at any age.

[Bunnylump]

...wandering around graveyards with my son photographing lichen on tomb stones. Like you do.

[BassBloke]

This aft, I spent a very very long time out in the garden with my 3 kittens. It has been the first time they have been out and left to get on with it sort of on their own (waiting for the jabs etc). They completely loved it. We have a lot of bees around just now and obviously they found these VERY interesting. How we got through the day without any stings beats me. They went out at about 1 ish and I had to bribe them with tea at about 6 o'clock to get them back in. Cleverly, Sarah took the oportunity of me being outside with no real agenda to get me helping with the gardening, planting strawberries and stuff. Actually, I quite enjoyed it. But don't tell Sarah.

Needless to say the cats are all now fast asleep, as they normally spend all day sleeping and the evening destroying the sofas and curtains.

More of the same tomorrow I think.

Cheers. BB.

[Bunnylump]

They're so lovely when they first encounter "outside", aren't they? When mine was a kitten she used to love to get inside people's wellies.

I got strawberry plants today, which will no doubt never get as far as the garden and will just die in their little pots for lack of water. I'm a bit like that with plants.

[LAT]

When ours was a kitten she was desperate to get outside and we had to distract her by throwing her favourite toy across the room whenever we wanted to go out. And of course she managed to escape so we spent about an hour once trying to catch her and only managed it after she jumped imto our pond and emerged looking completely like a drowned rat! She still loves to be outside and her favourite game is to climb up higher than me and attack me from above.

Today I have mostly been ignoring an unsolved puzzle. Swimming, housework, cooking, gardening and knitting are all great alternatives and good distractions.

[Bunnylump]

I hope you weren't swimming in the pond too, LAT.

I found the graveyard a good distraction from the same unsolved puzzle.

[eirian]

we got our two cats as 12 & 18 month old, so not kittens, but you are always advised to keep them in for a while. Well, one decided he really didn't want to be kept in, and after one night we came down to find a broken cat flap..... he wasn't trying to escape though (was back in for breakfast), think he just didn't want to use the litter tray!

today I've mostly bin... decorating the nursery. We've decided on the colours (finally) and stripped the wallpaper, sanded and washed the walls ready for an undercoat. This left a thin coat of paint over the plaster (even after sanding), which decided to attach itself to the undercoat and flake off... not what we expected and frustrating. So we went back to B&Q to see what they suggested.

B&Q had no real idea and just suggested a paint stripper that was really more suitable for removing from wood/metal.
If you ever need to strip paint off plaster, we can recommend the undercoat - Polycell Base Coat.... Much quicker than official paint stripper! - so we painted a quick coat, didn't even need to wait for it to dry, (or blister the paint which the paint stripper would have) before removing it, and the paint underneath, with a wallpaper-stripper-thingy, leaving a nice plain plaster ready for another, and this time more permanent, undercoat. Might even get round to the proper colours tomorrow!

[giraffe]

That brings back memories of decorating the spare room for Lally's (our third) arrival. It was a huge room as it was over the double garage and a very strange shape. I painted animals doing silly things, which I copied from a book the other two liked. (Coincidentiially called Ten tall giraffes!) The animals were all running towards a party with really comic expressions on their faces. It seemed like a good idea when I started, but by the time I was on the forty-something th animal I was sorry I had started.

[Bunnylump]

So what colour did you pick in the end? Not pink or blue...? (Actually, do you know what flavour you're getting?)

[eirian]

well, we have no idea of the flavour, but would be avoiding pink anyway!
we wanted cream & brown, and found ones we liked in the end that went with the Winnie the Pooh border we already had (thanks Wulfruna!) Rather a dark brown, which we're a bit worried might be too dark when it's up, but it's too late now!

The walls are plain paint deliberately so we can add animals or other decoration at a later point - however, I don't think I'd ever consider painting them on myself, Giraffe! It'll be stickers only I suspect for us. Much respect to you for painting them all!

Should have finished preparing the last wall by now, but got distracted watching the Grand Prix instead....

[Bunnylump]

When my oldest was a toddler, I drew and painted her a border which had tumbling clowns all along it. That was a big double room with a bay window, so that was a really bad move!

[gill216]

My friend painted underneath the border with blackboard paint all the way along one wall.