What made you UNHAPPY today!

[silverfrost]

Sadly i feel it is vets that have ruined the insurance for pets.    Have you ever noticed why they always ask if you are insured ?  The reason is because they know what the maxium level they can charge for a procedure and get away without the insurance company questioning it.  The greed of the vets has ruined the insurance and in turn increased the cost of pet health care and general surgery.  

Also a few years ago a friend of mine did a review on a large number of pet insurance companies, and as always in the small print many of those insurance schemes would not cover long term pet illness after a year. 

Bibs does the same as me puts moneys in a jar but as always you pay your money you takes your chances. 

P.s not all vets are money grabbers, most are now though, but still many fantastic vets around 

 

[march]

Well not really unhappy but....  SWMBO father has arrived for a visit - We were given less than 12 hours notice for Carina to go and pick him up from Kent (round trip of 500 miles), he has now arrived clutching a bottle of opened white wine (CJ's driving is actually not that bad, anyway it's better than last time - it was whisky he was swigging in the car). It's mid August but we have to run an electric heater to keep his bedroom at glass house temperatures and the central heating is running full blast as well. I am now in the living room in a thin T shirt and shorts and starting to perspire profusely. Fortunately he is in a good mood so the pontificating hasn't started yet. Any way I have been told I am being unsociable sitting here doing this so better get going...

[andydclements]

The greater the amount of alcohol in the body, the more the body releases core heat and so we feel warmer at our skin where the body's sensors are. Get him (and keep him) sh**faced and then at least he'll not need that heating and who knows maybe he'll not be in a state to loose the good mood.

[march]

Nice idea but he's always sh**faced - I think he may be well on the way to be immune to alcohol. Oh and the best bit is - He is not allowed to know I have the Lotus in case he gets sh**ty about it, he has already thrown his toys out of the pram when he found out I bought a radio controlled helicopter. Weird chap.

[Barrykearley]

When he's pissed is he any good at poker 

[johnpwalsh]

Cant you just find a nice big open slurry pit and explain that the fumes have the same effect as alcohol and it's free, then point him in the right direction.

 

[Kimbers]

Sadly alcohol abuse is a very real and horrid issue. Once you get to drinking everyday, it increases in quantity per day until your body is just a dependant on it as Air and water. I was talking to some people just last week after meeting a guy who was like this. Long and short, the guy was alcohol dependant and 4-5 bottles of wine a day was a light day! I explained to them that the Police have awful problems when arresting people who are drunk. Many times they are alcohol dependant but in denial and so they don't admit it! What then happens is, as the alcohol in their bodies dissipates as they are in a cell, their body starts to shut down. As it would from being Air starved or Water starved. Normally the first thing the Police know is that they go unconscious, or at the very least, unresponsive and confused. 

If they don't get treated then within a few days they can die.

I love my alcohol and like to think I am a happy, likeable drunk. But if I get to the stage where I drink more than 3 times a week and on a regular basis, I stop for a few weeks all together. 

Try and understand that, sometimes (I'm not saying this is true with your father in law) it can change them. 

[johnpwalsh]

This is a bit close to home for me. My ex wife turned into a raving alcoholic and after 7 years of trying everything under the sun to help, in the end I had to give up. She was on a bottle of vodka a day, plus some wine if it was in the house. I could come back from being at work for a few weeks and her body stank of Vodka, the house would be wrecked, and our dogs starved and being fed by neighbours. Not going to go into all the gory details, but it was not very nice. The end result was basically to save her life, I threw her out. Sounds hard, but she was killing herself and it was a last resort for a wake up call. A beautiful and very clever woman wrecked by abuse. The disease, and thats what it is, wrecked her brain, her look's and her health. Sadly, 8 years on she is still the same and living in a hostel having blown/lost the best part of 300k and left me many ten's of thousands in debt. She was also a brilliant musician and previously played solo in the Albert Hall as part of one of Europes best Brass band's. What a sad loss and waste of a great talent.

[Kimbers]

Damn John. thats very sad. So sorry to hear it. And you are right, it is a disease. 

[march]

John, I m so sorry hear about your wife and I apologise for dragging up such bad memories.

[Barrykearley]

So - this week I've spent some "quality" family time at centre parcs. Wife, 3 kids and spanked an absolute fortune!! Makes the yearly running costs of the esprit look like pocket change.

come home to an award letter from the local constabulary inviting me to a morning of tea drinking and slide viewing 

And it's raining

[johnpwalsh]

15 hours ago, march said:

John, I m so sorry hear about your wife and I apologise for dragging up such bad memories.

Hi Mark, no sweat, I lived with it for years. Sad thing is most people simply don't understand how horrible a disease it is and what it does to people and families. I got through it. My ex is still suffering, which is the sad part. It was actually our family doctor who said in the end that is was time for self preservation and that I had responsibilities to the rest of the family.  We had no children, but the ex had a daughter who I brought up as my own, and still do. She has been through college, got a cracking good job and is a very clever young lady of whom I am very proud and she still treats me as her father regardless of what happened. Her biological father and I have become good friends as well. I worked my arse off for a couple of years, cleared the debt, saved the house from being repossessed and for me it all came good.

 Thought I should just add. I am now happily married again to a wonderful lady who is also a petrol head, stone bloody crazy ( Bibs can confirm) and makes me laugh a lot. She owns a Lotus, which I payed for which she occasionally let's me thrash which is a bonus, (my main reason for paying for it LOL) and allows my indulgence in old cars (as long as the house jobs are done) when I have the funds to do so without question. Well she did put her foot down once, but I had 11 cars sitting about at the time

[pete]

[silverfrost]

Oh bugger, Bad news Peter, hope everyone was ok  envolved in the  the bump 

[pete]

We are the deer isnt

[johnpwalsh]

Ouch, as long as  everyone's ok. Parts can be replaced.

 

[Barrykearley]

Hmm venison ...... Sausages !! 

[Steve V8]

Our local butcher pays good money for deer roadkill. Did you pick it up? 

Look on the bright side, you weren't in the Esprit! 

[pete]

23 hours ago, pete said:

uneconomical to repair.

[march]

21 hours ago, Steve V8 said:

Our local butcher pays good money for deer roadkill. Did you pick it up? 

It's illegal to pick up road kill that you kill yourself iirc in the UK - it is OK however to pick up road kill if someone else has hit it.

[silverfrost]

Sounds about right Peter given labour rates vs used car prices these days.

[andydclements]

27 minutes ago, march said:

It's illegal to pick up road kill that you kill yourself iirc in the UK - it is OK however to pick up road kill if someone else has hit it.

It's all a bit dubious and hard to tell what the court would think. 

IIRC there was a case of a person that killed pheasant with a car, and picked it up, where it wasn't accidental (swerved to hit it). There's a law about using an "engine" to kill one, when written the term "engine" really mean apparatus or mechanism, such as gun, bow and arrow, trap etc not internal combustion engine. I think it went to court but the person was eventually acquitted because the car wasn't deemed to have been an "engine" in the sense of that law.

Then factor in whether (if you tried) you had a reasonable chance of finding the "owner" if it could be considered to be owned (if the deer wanders across land owned by lots of different people then can probably argue it's not owned, but in the middle of a massive estate owned by one person it's probably theirs) as there's the thing of theft by finding.

[pete]

the other problem with roadkill is that there is a good chance of internal organ damage which can leak bacteria into the carcase

[Bibs]

When I was trouble by a deer in an Evora on the way to the factory, the Lotus staff all wanted to know if it was in the boot! 

[Iconic Ride]