Filipinos, what is it like living in the UK? Any tips or practical advice?

Manchester United Boxing Day 2016 the wife dragged me there!!

And having to light the bloody fire in the middle of summer just so you could have a bath.

Thank god for slipper baths

We had an on-demand gas water heater - until it exploded. And coal fires in the bedrooms. One day when I was perhaps five years old I was in bed with a childhood ailment and the chimney caught fire. My mother, who had collected a degree from London University in the 1930's, when wimmin getting edkjicated was less usual than now, and who had crossed the Atlantic in a convoy in the middle of WW2, ran to the telephone and rang - her mother! "The chimney's on fire - what do I do?" "Call the fire brigade, of course!" And they duly arrived, leather boots, brass helmets and serge uniforms, and put the fire out.

We had a paraffin heater in the kitchen till the wind blew open the back door one night and knocked over the heater, no more kitchen no more heater.

Happy days in that terrace house, there was more ice on the inside of my bedroom window than the outside. Used to wake up in the morning and look down the bedding to see a dew settled on the top cover.

We were so poor that if you didn't wake up with a hard on.... on Christmas day you had nothing to play with.

You were posh

i grew up in a house with no bathroom. lavatory was in the backyard--informally shared with a bunch of factory workers who would scale the yard wall to use it. loo paper was crumpled up newspaper. bath time was in a tin bath in the kitchen--hot water from kettles heated on the gas stove.

this wasnt in the countryside--it was in balsall heath in the center of birmingham. one of a few houses still standing after world war 2.

As my parents moved to the Far East, I was dispatched to live with my paternal grandmother in a Thames-side house deep in rural Berkshire on my fourth birthday. A splendid coke-fired three-hotplate, multi-oven Aga cooked our meals and provided lashings of hot water stored in a huge copper cylinder housed in an airing cupboard on the upstairs landing. Although there were fireplaces in the bedrooms, I can not remember them ever being lit but there would be a roaring fire in the living room during the wintry months and another in the dining room when there were family gatherings.

Sounds like you were one of the lucky ones out of the old codgers here on the forum

I can picture junior mac now kicking a can about in the street, tipping your hat as the old folk go by.

The young kids of today are spoiled, "they've never had it so good", where I have heard that before, but its true

Original and Two Ronnie's Hovis advert below

was the original filmed in Clovelly ?

Not really. My grandmother had spent the inter-war years in Australia with her somewhat older husband, the Lord Chief Justice at the time. Upon his death in December 1937, she and her four young children returned to England pretty much penniless but did have a rather grand family home in London to fall back on which she promptly sold and bought her river-side country cottage. She spent the next fifteen years - through the war and beyond - as the local Special Constable and had two villages and a number of outlying farms on her beat which she patrolled on horseback. Her financial - and food! - situation was apparently eased by the billeting of six Land Army girls in one of her outbuildings.

Not, it was filmed on Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, Dorset and directed by Ridley Scott.

no Gold Hill Shaftesbury

Carpets all cleaned & toilet cleaners will arrive tomorrow the same day we are finally moving in my Fiance's flat! I'm so excited because it's a lovely home I can't wait to decorate my son's bedroom.

Btw, I don't like the aromatic scent that the tenant left. Is there any way I could freshen the air aside from air fresheners & opening the windows? I need air so bad and the kitchen has no windows. Guess that was my only problem.

Another question, The heater in my son's room, can it be removed? He keeps turning the switch on & off. I need more tips about baby proofing the house. Phew!




Thanks for any home tips,

- tired mum

If its your chaps place then yes you can remove the heater but if I was you I would just look at removing the power supply from the heater, look if there is a short cable leading from the heater to a fused socket, there should be a little screw you can remove and the fuse holder will come out, then you can just remove the fuse and replace the holder, job done

Regarding the odour I would just buy a air freshener that you like, the smell will soon go.

I don't like the idea of not having any windows in the kitchen

Try incense sticks when safe to do so or potpourri.
The heater I agree with @Timmers also I would check if your allowed to decorate if you are tennants.

Charcoals are good alternatives and popularly known as air purifiers. Just look around the shop for such (commercialized) products and make sure to put it in a spot where your kiddo won't be able to reach. [/QUOTE]