Happy (and bloody) birthday

[Mattemma]

Speedy healings and belated birthday wishes.I like quiet days on my birthday as well.

Sad thing about the drunk neighbor dad. Mum works at a restaurant next to a liquor(dsp) store,and the store owner told her one time," Business is booming despite the economy.People will buy their alcohol before buying food or paying bills." I don't care so much if it is just them,but when there are kids and pets starving then it is sad.Alcohol can be so evil.

 

[sumi]

Thank you. I think next year I'll wish for an exiting day full of drama LOL.
Where I live we have a very high number of alcoholics. Once a month the poor (majority of the people round here, sadly) gets Child Support from the government, locally known as "all pay" and much of that money gets spent on alcohol. One day in town a very sweet boy asked me for something to eat. I asked him why he's asking me, since all pay was only a few days before. He said to me "Madam, you know what our parents are like" My DH says every month they should rather hand out vouchers for food and clothes. Or close the liquor stores on those days. What makes me really, really mad though, is when we give the children clothes, for example, and their parents sell it to get more drink money. We have a big problem here with kids breaking in and stealing stuff to survive.

 

[Nicole01]

Happy Birthday!

I'm so sorry to hear about your son.. I'm glad he's doing well and will heal. How scary though! I have 3 children myself and had my fair share of misfortunes.

 

[sumi]

Thank you. He was so good until this year, when he cut his knee open all the way to the bone! I was hoping we'll get through his childhood without any dashes to the ER

Yeah right!

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Ireland sounds lovely! All the pictures I've seen look green and beautiful. And no snakes in Ireland! Will you be able to take your chickens? One less predator to worry about! Great that you will be able to take BYC with you!

Your son is going to have an interesting accent, when you throw an Irish brogue on top of British and SA! Most of us Americans can't really hear the difference between them, though. The mom of one of my son's friends sounded very British to me, so I asked what part of England she came from, and her reply was "South Africa." oops!

She was glad that "at least" I didn't think she was Australian, which in her mind was not a good thing, for some reason.

Times are tough for a lot of people, I know, but it seems like some don't try very hard. The old "food stamp" system here now uses a debit type card that will refuse payment when things like cigarettes and alcohol are scanned. Makes it a bit harder not to buy food for the kids this way, but I think in the US childhood obesity is as much of a problem as kids not getting enough. What a world!

 

[sumi]

Ireland does look and sound amazing, but the best, best thing for us, personally is the property prices. With our available cash we can't buy anything but a not-too-great house in a not-too-great area in England, so buying a property was out of the question there. And forget about anything with a decent yard, never mind land! In Ireland we can choose between a few fix upper cottages with land ranging from 1/2 acre up to 3 acres. I'd be quite happy with 1 acre! We want to keep chickens (obviously!) and goats and grow lots of fruit and veg. I got used to our home grown food and it's much cheaper to grow your own food nowadays. Unfortunately I can't take my chickens with, so I've sold/given away most of them already

My son learned to speak Afrikaans by playing with the neighbour's kid, who doesn't speak English. He learned it quickly, but speaks with a horrible local accent. I'm going to have to work on that once we're away from the local influence! We chose English as our main language at home since MIL still can't speak Afrikaans (after living here for more than 30 years) and we live next door to her. But I think when DS is older I'll speak both languages to him. Heaven knows what that'll do to his accent

 

[Wishing4Wings]

My hubby's parents both emigrated from southern China, but settled in a very small town in northern California. They spoke heavily accented English at home, which was just as easy for them because they spoke different dialects of Chinese. Unfortunately, my hubby didn't learn very much of the language growing up. The first thing he's always asked at job interviews is if he speaks Chinese. Nope. He's pretty good with French and Italian, though!

Now my 13 yr old son is entering high school this year and has decided to take Mandarin for his foreign language requirement. He's taken some basic classes in earlier grades (his school just happened to offer it, none others around here do), and so we got some language tapes from the library to help him practice. I'm pathetic, but my hubby picked it up pretty quickly. After 2 years unemployed (economy hasn't been so great) he found a good job and will be traveling to China for the second time in a year, so will get some practice there!

A couple of Irish acres sounds like a dream come true! Can you house hunt via the internet? I'm envious of the green you will be enjoying. It's so dry and crunchy here in the summer too. Always worried about summer fires. I have developed a very good sniffer! Too bad about your chickens. Maybe there will be some neat breeds in Ireland.

Do Irish chickens say Bawk-Begorrah?

 

[sumi]

I've been looking at some Irish chicken breeders and found one that does quite a variety of the known breeds. I've no idea what breeds I'm going to buy still. Wait and see when we get there... The biggest problem with Irish property is that wonderful thing called peat. It's got it's uses, sure, but a few acres on bog is a nightmare to farm. Sadly the most promising smallholding I saw online recently seems to be on bog

That's the second one. Either that or they sold and the agent didn't update their site. I did find a few others that looks interesting though, including a school house and a church. The right one will come at the right time. We'll just have to go see. And take a spade with! Find a place that has what we need, the right soil, hopefully some outbuildings, the right "vibes" LOL. I'm more interested in the land than the building though. I want my son to grow up in a rural area with space around him, animals, fresh food... The simple life.
I'm quite interested in languages and I'd like to learn to speak Irish. My son will probably learn that in school over there. I used to speak Dutch, but lack of practice...

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Peat bogs..... Isn't that were they found those ancient mummified people? Somewhere in England, I think. Maybe not ancient, but really old. Read they were black from the tannins in the peat and historians learned a lot from the clothing found with them. (

Hope you have a really BIG shovel!) I've been to England a few times and Scotland (not Ireland

) and was awed by the sense of history, time stretching back so far, cathedrals and buildings that were built a thousand years ago. In California, something 200 yrs is considered ancient (mostly the early Spanish missions) and a few surviving artifacts from the original native people. Redwood trees are the oldest things we've got here.

Don't know that I'd care to live in a church. Sounds like a major retrofit to be comfortable. Maybe a school. I think you're right that the right home will come in time. Good vibes are vital. The house we live in now came to us through the longest string of coincidences and good luck (or maybe a little help from parts unknown).

Heard a Welsh man speaking Gaelic, and it was the most unusual sounding language I've ever heard. Tried getting directions from a Scotsman, and I couldn't understand a word! He was supposedly speaking English and was enjoying himself tremendously at my expense!

I have a terrible ear for languages, and need to see things written out before I can learn.

Must be exciting, all the new adventures ahead for you and yours. New home, new country and people, new chickens! You have a great life planned for your son. (Sounds similar to how I was raised, without the green summers!) Best wishes to you. Curious (nosy) - Is your MIL staying in SA? (Feels like I'm talking in code.

)

 

[sumi]

MIL is undecided still. We nearly sold her house as well (we co-own it), but she changed her mind at the last second

After all that effort! Guess she'll end her days here and we'll fly back and sell it. I have no intentions of coming to live here again!
If you think Gaelic sounds strange you should hear Afrikaans! I heard Gaelic and Irish spoken and I think it's beautiful. And I agree with the Scot's accents. I'd probably spent a lot of time there going "what?" We were going to move there first, before our plans got changed. But I don't mind, Ireland sounds very nice.
If anything I'm even more put off peat bogs now. The last thing I want to found in my garden is a corpse, no matter how old it is. Don't get me wrong, I've been fascinated by mummies and such since I was a child, but not in my back yard!

When we moved in here we dug a hole to plant a tree and found a skeleton. Took quite an excavation to find enough bones to determine what it may have been. My money's on a pig, but we're all glad it wasn't human! You never know on these farms... Friends of mine bought a farm here and discovered a small graveyard on it. Another friend is pretty sure he's got a grave on his land, but he won't let me dig it up to check