Good morning everyone, it's showery here again.  Sadly they have changed the forecast and now it looks as if the rain is still continuing next week.

 

Good luck with the physio Yogi, I am suffering the same at the moment, I dread the thought of an operation, which I know my Dad had at my age.

 

I will have to check the Photobucket site again, I had given up on it.  Yes well said Summer, Skylark we miss you, hope you are back with us again soon.

 

Off to buy a washing machine with my daughter, so hopefully catch up later

Drizzle and grey here, I'll have to make my own sunshine today!

Yogi, good luck at your appointment

El, I hope you're not too overloaded with the last few days left.

Squiggle I hope you feel a bit better today

Hmmm

Soon after my last post it started raining again.

 

Yogi, I hope all goes well at the physio

Squiggle, I sympathise with you, and the thought of an operation would be daunting

 

Summer, I'm on the finishing straight with clients' tax returns. I'm electronically sending the last 2 to a husband and wife for their approval shortly so am not expecting problems.

To you Angry Bird fans, GCHQ is watching you

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25922569

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs

 

Good afternoon Buddies

Not been sleeping very well so decided to give the forum a miss for a couple of days.

Be back soon Have a good day everyone

Moonie, Im sorry to hear that you aren't sleeping well and hope you are back with us soon

El, I had to delete Angry Birds from my Ipad. It made me so angry, I wanted to chuck the Ipad out of the window.

 

Moonie, I hope your sleep pattern improves and you are soon back with us.

 

Went to my physio appointment this afternoon. The young woman I saw was absolutely lovely. She says there is a weakness on my right side (caused by my arthritic hip) and noted that I also have back pain. I have been given an exercise plan to strengthen my muscles and go back to see her next week.

 

 

Come back soon moonie I hope you catch up on some quality rest & sleep

Good stuff yogi, I'm glad your physio was lovely. Hope the exercises aren't too strenuous, I'm sure they'll make a difference and it won't be too long before you feel the results too

I'm vet cautious about what app's I use, I always decline access to my information- for that reason.

Angry birds turned me in to an angry bird too it's the pigs, they're horrid!

Yogi, I'm glad your physio was nice. The exercises that the NHS physio gave me when I damaged my shoulder worked well for me and I hope your exercises strengthen your muscles. The key is to follow the instructions we were given. I was instucted to repeat the various exercises 10 times every hour - time consuming but it was worth it.

 

How is your shoulder these days El?

I have to do my exercises three times a day, and 10 repetitions of each exercise. I shall do them conscientiously, and hope they help.

 I felt the same about the pigs and the birds.

It's been fine for months now I still do the exercises if either shoulder feels stiff,

 

Yogi I hope that the exercises make all the difference.  I am glad your shoulder is better now EL.  I didn't get on at all with Angry Birds, I don't think I got as far as pigs - not my thing I think.   My daughter loves it.

 

Have you all seen that our next page will be our 1,000th?  A milestone!

Squiggle, yes, the 1000th page will soon be achieved

 

 

Woohoo, 1000 pages will be worth celebrating.

 

Minding PB in the morning, so trying to get an early night.

Goodnight Summer, Moonie and Ros, sweet dreams.

SIL was on phone - so missed CBB - night yogi

*night owls*

Sweetest of dreams to all you've turned in, and those who are absent tonight

1,000 is very special, I'm very happy to have joined the party

Good morning everyone

 

Very cloudy here but dry.

 

Yogi, I hope you have a good PB day

 

 

Good morning everyone. Damp, showery weather up here.

Sorry I missed you last night, Ros. I hope your SiL is doing okay.

Summer, I am delighted you joined the party.

PB and Harv will be arriving soon, so I will catch up this evening.

Have a good day, everyone.

 

 Thanks El. You have a good day too.

Good morning rain showers here today

Yogi, have a lovely day with PB & Harvey I'll look forward to the latest news later

Good morning everyone, still drizzly although we were promised dry today - it seems the rain just can't bear to stay away.

 

I hope you are knee deep in cuddles by now Yogi, such an exciting time with new toothypegs, new words to learn all the time and first steps quite soon.  Have a lovely day.

 

We bought a Zanussi in the Currys sale, we avoided Indesit because that's the machine that my daughter had that caught fire, and Beko because her friend's machine also caught fire and that was a Beko and when I was telling a friend about the fire said her daughter's machine had also caught fire.  Frightening isn't it?

 

I am busy studying paint charts, with colours whizzing around in my head,  I found a brilliant online firm that do wonderful quality carpets for ridiculous prices.  I ordered samples from them and also from Carpetright and the difference in quality is amazing.

 

Have a good day everyone

Squiggle, my washing machine is a Zanussi and I've never had problems with it so I think you've made a good choice

 

I hope you can find what you are looking for in the carpet samples.

 

So far it looks as if I'm the only person here where the weather has remained dry so far though I wouldn't be surprised if it did rain sometime. I delivered my round of the February church magazines earlier and there's a cold easterly wind and tomorrow is forecast to be the coldest day this year so far. It's unlikely to snow though in my area but it could snow elsewhere. It's only cold for the one day then it's back to more rain on Friday.

A particularly good episode of Doctors today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/e...5_The_Boy_Narcissus/

It starts off as being a fairly standard episode of Doctors, but as the storylines develop during it, and by the end it has become more profound.

It's worth watching.

 

I've now filed the tax returns for that husband and wife I mentioned the other day. So that's all the tax returns I deal with filed by Friday's deadline. There's the one exception of the client who I last heard from in August and has ignored my letters. His mobile phone has no answering service. I've now sent him an email setting out all the penalties he will get from HMRC. Although they start off quite small (£100), continued failure to file the return and pay the tax would result in quite scary penalties (eventually £1000 + 15% of the unpaid tax + interest).

 

I see that the Met Office has weather warnings which if you put all 5 days together covers all areas apart from the East of England. Ice, snow, wind, rain, so everything apart from fog. There's a rain warning for Gloucestershire in the Met Office text, but their maps don't have the warning area covering any part of Gloucesershire so that's a bit of a puzzle.

 

afternoon

Ooh colour selections are not an easy choice, good luck squiggle! Have you narrowed it down to a few favourites yet?

I've walked just under 10 miles I'm treating myself to a lay down now

El, I wonder what has happened to your missing client, I hope they're alright. Can you give yourself a few days off early next month?

Well done Summer on your walk particularly as the weather isn't good

 

I don't know what's happened to the missing client. He's in his 40s, so not elderly, and has a family so if anything had happened to him they could have contacted me. My guess is that he doesn't have the money to pay his tax so is just ignoring things.

 

I'll be taking things easy for the next few weeks as far as work is concerned. There will be some work to do but February and March are quiet months. I will have the accounts to do for that client who "lives out in the middle of nowhere" at some stage.

 

I also need to purge old client files from my filing cabinets. I try to do it annually but didn't do it last year so have 2 years of papers to deal with. Extracting the papers from files and reorganising the files in the filing cabinets is relatively quick and I've already done over half in the last week. The time consuming part is the shredding (as the papers are confidential, just recycling the paper without shredding is not an option).

 

I also will need to look into replacing my elderly computer during that time as it uses Windows XP, and Microsoft are withdrawing their support during April. I will almost certainly have to have Windows 8 though I would be insisting on 8.1 rather than 8 as that at least has the desktop option. I would have minimal use for the touch-screen element which 8 is heavily reliant. I would be going for desktop, not tablet, as my use is heavily business. Moving from the old computer to a new one is something which is best done during this quiet time, and with my busy time ending in January, and the XP support ending in April, February/March is the perfect time to do this.

 

I started typing the above some time ago but got a phone call.

Guess who it was from, Yes, it was that client, my email obviously stirred him into action. He did have a partial explanation for the delay as in mid November he had big back problems and was diagnosed with 3 disks which not only had slipped but had collapsed. He had been in hospital, had been given very strong painkillers, and has only been back home for a week. He will be having an operation due in early February. This has meant that he's had no income since then, and can't get any state benefit (being self-employed), and is reliant on his wife's income.

 

I only had a couple of queries in those letters which we dealt with over the phone and he is going to see me tomorrow afternoon so we should get his tax return in before the Friday deadline. Paying the tax is a different matter. I haven't worked out how much it is yet but I can at least give him the HMRC contact details for arranging a payment plan if needed.

 

Well done Summer you deserve a lay down.

 

Yes I have a lot of rooms to do and I can see the colours I want in my head so just a question of matching them.  I have lots of tester pots, have ordered paint samples - paint on squares of paper from Dulux.  I am after a faded red for my utility room, an apple green for the spare bedroom upstairs and a lavender blue for the spare bedroom downstairs.  Then there's turquoise for the hall and possibly a pale pale green for the kitchen - maybe Apple White or something like that.  For the lounge I am keen on the Dulux Light and Space range, they have glass in it to catch the light and lots of pale pale colours.  We bought a couple of testers yesterday so now it's a question of putting some on the wall and seeing which I like the best.

El, I'm glad you've heard from that client, the poor thing he must be struggling, and in a lot of pain! I hope he's going to be alright.
I do think it's unfair he's not allowed to claim any kind of illness benefit- self employed people do pay in to the system after all.

I think you're sensible doing those jobs after you go quiet, I would do the same I hope you have a few days off too

Squiggle, I like that you already know what colours you want, I do that, then just have to find the right shades. Are you having decorators do the work?

Oh dear, poor soul 3 slipped discs and collapsed as well, it sounds really serious.  I am glad you are able to help him.

Yes the son of my dearest friend does all that sort of thing, as well as small building jobs so I hope he can tackle it all.

Summer, I agree with you that it's unfair that we self-employed people aren't entitled to any state illness benefit. I suppose the state would argue that the rate of national insurance is lower for self employed people than employed people to compensate for that.

That sounds like a lot of work, it's good that you have a quieter time of year to tackle it all.  My computer guy strongly dislikes Windows 8 so maybe you could have Windows 7 installed?  Microsoft are still supporting that format and I know that Windows 8 is designed mainly for tablets with its touch screen format.