pboae

We are going to the Mastiff fun day on Sunday and I just realised that Lyme Hall is where they filmed Darcy coming out of the lake

I think it would be steak und pommes frites

She keeps her teeth in a jar?

maybe she did mean now, maybe I do smell I blame the foot

I'm on my own in chat again. Do I smell?

<shudder> what is it with kamikaze spiders? We had one in our bed last week. It got away so I insisted we decamped to the spare bedroom. Last time it happened the spider got hurt in the scuffle (as I leapt out of bed) and left one leg behind wiggling around on it's own on the bed. I still have nighmares about it.

About 45 mins if the traffic is good.

jparkers do a dwarf pear for £10.

I grow tarragon indoors, it doesn't do well outside here either, I have basil, corriander and chives indoors too(as well as outside). I love the way it makes the house smell too. This is the first time we've had a garden big enough to grow stuff in, so I am still very excited about it all. I haven't decided about tomatoes yet. My Mum has some plants for me, but I had 8 last year and Sully ate them (the whole plants, not just the fruits) and I don't have anywhere up the other end if the garden that would really be suitable. Next year I should have the greenhouse ready, but at the moment it's still completely overgrown, and I am concentrating on our main fruit/veg bed this year. I might post some pics of the garden tomorrow if I can get some photos, as long as you don't all laugh cos it's still very much a work in progress.

Melp: how about bark chips/flakes? It's easier for poo picking than gravel. Elricc: masking tape works, honest! But it comes off with water, so it's no good if you are likely to get sweaty or rained on. I've been gardening today as well I have lettuce, rocket, basil, corrainder, chives and spring onions coming through. I'm just hardening off squash and courgettes, and the chilli, tarragon and oregano are starting to sprout. Realised today that I haven't sown any bell peppers this year though. The plum tree an=d the dwarf fruit trees are all covered in blossom, but I only planted the dwarf trees last year, so I'm not expecting much (any) fruit off them. On the downside, I planted out a load of gladioli, and then realised I've put them in a really stupid spot, they are going to completely shadow my blackcurrants, so I'll have to dig all the corms up tomorrow and move them. D'oh.

The TSS that is associated with tampons is a form of Staph bacteria. It needs a food source, and a warm moist place to live and breed. An absorbent tampon is an ideal environment. A mooncup, or similar, is made from silicone, it won't hold the heat like a cotton type material, and there's nothing for the bacteria to grow on, so it's a much smaller risk. Having said that, TSS is pretty rare, and only causes a couple of deaths a year, and they aren't all associated with tampon use. Tampons and pads take around 6 months to degrade in a landfill. Plastic applicators, and plastic packaging, backing strips, etc, won't degrade in your lifetime. There's also an increasing problem with human biological waste in landfills (i.e. sanitary products, nappies, etc) polluting ground water. Rain passes through the landfill taking the bacteria with it that then breed in the ground water, which is either tapped directly, or eventually finds it's way into streams, etc. Water treatment works are having to be adapted to cope with this increase in bacteria, but that doesn't help people who draw their water direct from wells, or the animal, plant and insect life that survive in and around our waterways. If you know your waster goes direct to an incinerator, it's not such a big issue, but very few people know exactly where their waste is going, most councils send waste to more than one site, and they will be mixed between incinerators and landfills.

The difference in the case of self defence/ an abusive partner is that the 'victim' is culpable, that doesn't apply in abortions. So we are back to punishing the woman for being careless if society doesn't feel she has suffered enough already.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'true' rape, but I am still interested to know why you think it is OK to abort a baby conceived through rape, but not through other ways. It's not the baby's fault it was conceived that way, so why doesn't it deserve the same protection?

I think, from a previous thread, that I am in a minority of one in my views here, but here goes. I am definitely pro-choice, I think there are far too many humans in the world already, and I would like contraception to be the answer to that, but if that fails, then I have no problem at all with abortion. I could easily end up at 24 weeks and not know I was pregnant. I have an implant contraception, so I don't have periods, and neither my Mum nor my sister showed as pregnant on pregnancy tests. My sister said she knew when she was a few months gone with her oldest, but couldn't convince the Dr. For my Mum, the first she knew was when my sister (the eldest) started moving. If I ever did find myself pregnant, I would do anything within my power to have an abortion, whatever stage the pregnancy was at. At least I hope I would, it would be the right thing for me to do. (But of course the point of being pro-choice is that I can see that that would just be the decision for me, and would not be appropriate for everyone). Aside from population control, I would still be in favour of abortion being legal. I absolutely do not accept the argument that abortion is 'OK' for a rape victim, but not for someone else. If a baby is an innocent life, that has a right to life, then that right is absolute, regardless of any wishes of the woman, or how it came to be conceived. How can it be OK to abort that baby, but not one that was just the result of contraception failure or even just carelessness? No matter how vicious or disturbing it's conception, it's not the baby's fault. The only 'logic' I can see behind it is basically mysogyny. A woman's emotional distress is recognised after a rape because she is 'innocent' too, but other women's distress is somehow less valid or relevant, after all there is a long social history of women being 'punished' for having sex. But, having said all that, I do wish there was less stigma attached to adoption, and particularly in giving babies up for adoption. Having an abortion might raise a few eyebrows, but having a baby and giving it up for adoption seems to be seen as a lot more shocking these days. I think that is really depressing and sad, to have women having abortions who would rather not, but equally know they can't care for the child, whilst other women are putting themselves through all sorts of fertility procedures because they can't have a baby. I know adoption isn't for everyone, but there's rarely a problem placing 'normal' healthy newborn babies, and maybe even more people would consider it, if it wasn't such a bureaucratic nightmare, and they actually had a decent chance of having a healthy newborn baby at the end of it.

You have to cut the end off to make it fit you (think of it a bit like trimming cord of a tampon). If you don't do that it won't fit properly and it will leak. So there is no way they could send them out again. It would be very obvious if it had been used before.

If they get full they just leak. But they hold an awful lot, far more than tampons etc. I used to have very very heavy periods and would have to get up during the night to change, but I never had to change the Keeper over night. My friend in USA (who told me about them in the first place) had fairly light periods, she only had to change hers twice a day, (when she got up and before she went to bed). I used to have to change it 4 or 5 times on heavy days, but that was still better than hourly tampons. It had no effect on flow or pain for me though.

If you posted too much info, I guess I did too. Maybe I went too far with the photos though, * *jk

That was my point Some girls do worry that tampons will make a noise when they are removed, because they fit snugly and are essentially water tight, so they worry that it will make a 'slurp' noise when it is removed, but anyone who uses them knows they don't. When I was a kid I did find tampons quite awkward and uncomfortable at first. It took a bit of getting used to. There is a definite knack to putting them in, and I had to figure that out. I'm sure that's not the case for everyone, but I bet I wasn't the only one either. It is, and with a bit of thought it would be perfectly possible to use them and nothing else. If you are out you can just take a small bottle of water with you for rinsing. Also, they don't need changing nearly as frequently as towels or tampons (just a few times a day, because they don't cause TSS and menstrual blood doesn't come into contact with the air until it's removed, so there is minimal risk from bacteria etc.) so in most cases you wouldn't even need to remove it while you were out. But I was talking about how I used them. I used the keeper probably 90% of the time, but sometimes it was more convenient to use regular tampons. I know that's not ideal, but it was a trade off for me, and I was happy enough with that balance. In other areas of my life I probably only recycle 3/4 of the paper, cans, etc. that I could, I only compost about 1/2 of what I could, and I only a grow a tiny fraction of our veg. I have lots of room for improvement, but it's better than nothing. So in those terms, I managed to drastically reduce the amount of sanitary products I dumped in landfills (or flushed to pollute waterways). That's how it worked for me. YMMV of course.

Sherlock Bones, how did you explain changing a tampon or towel in front of your niece? Why should it be any different? At 3 she won't have any embarrassment about it. I used a Keeper which is basically the same thing. It didn't make a noise when you take it out, any more than a tampon would. They are a bit fiddly to get the hang off, in the same way that tampons are. If you are caught when you are out and about you can rinse it out in a (clean ) toilet, and then use a tampon. (Personally, I wouldn't want to use it again until has been washed properly). They come with a little waterproof pouch to keep it in and they fold flat to go in a pocket.

I've tried a Keeper, which is a similar sort fo thing I think. They were OK, but you had to have a sink in the same room as your loo for them to work. No good in public/communal/work loos really. They are great if you are going backpacking, etc, for a long while. Easier than packing months worth of supplies, it can be surprisingly difficult to track stuff down in some countries. Then again, I've not needed any of it for a long while either. I was on the Depo for a couple of years, and then moved to implants. I'm on my 3rd implant now so I've been trouble free for over 15 years (except for a 6 month gap between Depo and my first implant). I need to get it replaced this year cod they only last 3 years now instead of 5.

I've only read a few pages back, there's so much bad news on here tonight re: gas, our bill went through the roof when we were in London, we had the meter checked and all the central heating but they couldn't find anything. Eventually we had the boiler replaced, and during the process they discovered a pipe with a hole in it. The pipe had been run up the inside of an old chimney, and the leak had caught fire, so there was a huge (i.e. 4ft flame) burning away up inside the chimney. I suppose we are lucky it was burning or it would have exploded but it explained our crazy gas bills anyway. I found out later there is a way they can tell if you have a leak like that. They have to turn off all your gas appliances and then measure if gas is still being rawn from the meter. I don't know exactly how it's done though.

Awww poor birdies, sorry, I didn't mean to belittle their dining needs. I have more space than I know what to do with I've ended up turfing half of it just to keep the weeds down and I'm cutting beds in as I go along, but I've still got 2 huge beds that I've barely started. I'm trying to be sensible and pace myself with it, but I get tooo excited in garden centres. Re: smears, I once had one done in a surgery that had an enormous window looking out on to a busy walkway The nurse assured me that it was one way glass and no-one could see in, but I was totally freaked out. So of course I couldn't relax and it really really hurt and I made a right fuss about it Afterwards I went round to check, and she was right you really couldn't see in. It was only later I realised that the poor woman after me would have been able to see me apparently peering at her through the window.

just a bird table, that was hardly worth the effort, you should at least have bought half a ton of compost (cos it's on offer, and you are bound to need it eventually) or is that just me? I have just spent £40 on ebay It started out as a couple of kiwi plants, but it was a 'one price' postage thing, so I thought I may as well get a couple of other bits too... and I still haven't got the rose I was actually after, but I do have a peanut plant.

SiL says she may have had a fire but she is going to dig the number out and I will pm it to you.

I am shocked, is that legal? I am buying plants off ebay, even though I swore I would have no more plant binges after last weekend, it's not my fault it's too rainy to actually go out in the garden and plant the ones I already have. Gemstone, my SiL got her cats through a lady on Wirral. I don't think she runs a 'proper' rescue, just takes a few cats in and tries to rehome them privately, but I am not 100% sure. I can get get her details if you want?