Bookworm

When our boiler decided it needed replacing at a bad time for us, I found the recommendation on here for Lee Garvey. He was able to fit around our plans and give us an appointment very quickly, which was what we needed. Both Lee and Simon are professional and obliging and the work was done in good time. We now have a super efficient boiler with a 10 year guarantee. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

I work near the RCJ a couple of days a week ,and get the Denmark Hill train to Blackfriars and if I'm lazy, jump on the tube to Temple, then walk up. Depending which end of Covent Garden you are, you could walk from Temple or Embankment which would only be 10 mins. I'm paying for an Oyster anyway, so the tube journey doesn't cost me any extra.

I'm looking at this with my daughter, who is a history undergrad. She started singing Wemba Lea. One for the football fans! We love the spellings of the local names and it shows how they have developed over the centuries. Fascinating. Thanks for posting.

Foals are playing tonight and Yannis, the lead singer lives in Peckham. We saw them at Wembley earlier this year and they were excellent. Mind you, I'm looking forward to Muse who were also brilliant at the O2 in April.

We had a card through the door on Wednesday stating that a small parcel we were waiting for had been taken to the delivery office. My husband went to collect it the next day and was told they couldn't find it. I rang customer services today and they are now investigating but it takes three working days. Sound similar to your problem.

I used to meet a friend in my lunch hour at Ponti's, which is (or was) on the upper level looking down on the platforms. It does get busy but has a selection of sandwiches, cakes, hot food etc. More recently, I met a friend for coffee in the Leonidas caf? in the Arcade over the road, which was small but the coffee was good and it was easy enough to get a seat.

I went there at about 8.15 a couple of weeks ago and was out by about 9am. There were a lot of people in front of me but they were dealt with quickly. I m not good with blood tests or injections but the staff were really nice.

I was waiting at the bus stop to go to Denmark Hill at around 8.10 this morning and heard a loud crash. When I went past on the bus, like you, I saw the silver car, which was mangled on one side. Coming home this afternoon, I noticed how badly the wall had been smashed. I wondered if the other car (that stopped nearby) had hit the silver car as it came out of the turning.

Do you know if you are in a Wimpey or a Beazer House (ones with the white doors)? If it is a Beazer House, you can turn the water off under the sink and it is accessible.

I go the same route as Copleston Charlie and have found that to be the easiest and quickest. Coming back, we got sick of getting stuck on the Euston Road on a Sunday night so now head for King's Cross, go down the side of St Pancras Station and on the road running parallel with Grays Inn Road (it avoids the traffic) then over Blackfriars Bridge. I've tried other routes, over more years than I care to admit to and recently got stuck for ages in a queue for the Blackwall Tunnel after coming down the M11 from the A1, so won't make a habit of that one.

Sarigerme is about an hour and a half's drive from Marmaris. It's about 10 mins from Dalaman airport. The biggest town nearby is Ortaca but Dalyan is not too far in a taxi. Sarigerme has some bars and shops but not as many as Dalyan.

Lady M. After seeing what my father went through,with arthitis and the effects of vascular dementia, I can understand how your friend feels but for her decision to be that extreme, it can't have been taken lightly. Yes, this time is about her but her actions will affect you and after looking after her for four years, you will feel a void. That is where you will need the support of your friends and family. When my father finally died, after seven years of suffering, my mother felt a terrible void, not just because it was her husband, but also because so much of her time had been taken up with caring for him. Our house is open to you any time you need us. We do understand how you feel. M

We have to go to Turkey every year to visit people. We've been taking our children since my daughter was 6 months old. Now we have to go in school holidays but tend to go at the end of the summer break, when it is a bit cooler than at the beginning of the holidays. My husband's advice to me is that when we are eating in restaurants, it is better to eat a grill than a casserole or a meal that has been prepared in advance. We always go self catering because we just use the apartments as a base and have never been all inclusive, so I can't comment on the quality of food in the hotels. Turkey has certainly changed a lot in the last 10 years and the tourist areas are much more similar to any other European resort than they used to be. When we are in the resort we buy bottled water but when we go to the village, we just drink tap wate because it comes straight from the mountains. If you want any advice, just PM me.

If you think Ladymuck is raucous, BBW, try going home on the bus with her, once she has encountered fresh air............ Thanks for a good evening everyone.

we haven't been to a German one but we went to one in Brussels. It was really easy to get there on the Eurostar and so close to the station that we walked back to it on the way home, rather than taking the underground. We stayed in a Novotel right next to the market and it had a swimming pool for the kids. The market itself was really good with a skating rink and a big wheel (not unlike the one in Hyde Park). There was much more variety than the London one and plenty of gluwein and interesting food stalls. We went on a Friday, which was much less busy than the Saturday, which was heaving.

I really enjoyed last night and it certainly cheered me up. Everyone was so friendly and made us newbies really welcome.

We have loads of blackberries too. Can you post your Ribena recipe please, Mellors?

Hi Ratty I'm in Abbotswood and before that in Colwell Road.

I wouldn't recommend learning Turkish online to begin with and agree with Cassius. One word can mean a whole sentence in English and the word order is very different. The verb goes to the end of the sentence like German. There is a Turkish teacher with Southwark College who is very good. I think the lessons may now take place at Waterloo. The course starts in September, but I'm sure you would be able to join the beginners course and pick up the basics if you are really keen. The good thing about Turkish is that it is phonetic, so every word you read looks as it sounds, but there are a couple of different letters in their alphabet that you will need to learn.

My father died in January after a long and towards the end very painful death. He couldn't do anything for himself for several years and it was down to the strength of my mother that he died in comfort at home. She refused to allow him to go into a home (apart from a few days of respite care a year, for her own health and sanity) because she had heard terrible stories of people like him being starved or not properly looked after. Because her council would not pay, she had to use her savings to have carers visit several times a day, as it was a lot for a woman in her seventies to do. I live almost 300 miles away with a young family, so could not provide daily support. We watched him slowly deteriorate and at times, I hoped he would go out of pain peacefully but it didn't happen for a long time. That did not mean that I wanted him to die, but it was hard to see him barely existing. My father was not in a position to be able to change his mind had he put something in writing legally, to ask for euthanasia. That in turn would have put tremendous pressure on my mother and I and would have been a terribly hard decision to make. If I had made that decision, I would always have wondered if it had been the right one. I had always been in favour of assisted death for the sake of the person suffering, if that was what the wanted but when the situation arises when the person involved is incapable of communicating, the decision becomes more difficult.

You may find this useful http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3231506.ece This is dealing with insurance but I'm sure similar concerns apply.

We found masses of them living in the window frames of my daughter's bedroom. She sprayed them with cheap Barbie perfume, which got rid of them temporarily (but made the room stink). We've noticed a few have come back but not in the same number as before. Someone did suggest bleach might work, which would probably get rid of the secretions.

It may have been less affluent but it wasn't a "rough area". There was always a nice community atmosphere because families had lived in ED for years. Now, I would say there are more young people who have moved into the area. There are certainly more commuters now but the trains were not as frequent when BR were in charge. I used to get the bus or a train from Denmark Hill to work when I first started working in central London. Nowadays it is more trendy. I don't think places like Caffe Nero or White Stuff (or the 80s equivalent) would have been interested in the area back then. The pubs were not really for young people either. I remember bar billiards at the back of the Lord Palmerston and The Magdala seemed to lack windows so always seemed dark and dingy.

I spoke to the person whose name appeared at the bottom of the orignal letter, at the end of June last year and he seemed very surprised that I had rung the head office number and reached him. I was then contacted quickly by someone from the consultancy firm who were dealing with the whole project. I explained that the only real issues I had were to do with safety because of the parked cars, negotiating drivers going to the carwash then having to drive across two lines of traffic to get out of Abbotswood Road. He was very polite but I'm not sure that he realised how dangerous the situation was(and still is). I told him he needed to visit at a weekend, not at a quiet time during the week. In a polite and roundabout way, I was told that more people were using Sainsburys than live on the estate, so their needs took preference. They also had to prioritise for the buses. They would try the layout for three months and then reassess. I wonder if the reason they have suggested putting the roundabout in is not because of safety or because of complaints from the residents but because it takes ages to get in and out of their car park at weekends and their customers are complaining. It was a ridiculously dangerous road layout from the beginning.

When Sainsbury's sent out their letter last year outlining their plans for the extension (even though, by then, work had already being going for quite a while), I was one of a number of people who took them up on their suggestion of emailing with concerns. Since then, all those who contacted them have received a number of letters outlining the latest developments. The last one was dated 21 January 2008. Under "Other issues" it says: Parking on Abbotswood Road Owing to abuse of Sainsbury's customer car park for communter parking, parking controls were introduced in July of last year. Some residents have commented that they believe that more cars have been parking along Abbotswood Road as a result, which can cause visibility problems for drivers at the junction with Edgar Kail Way. Whilst this problem is outside of Sainsbury's remit, the Company is keen to help wherever it can. It is therefore proposed to make a financial contribution as part of the new planning application towards the introduction of yellow line parking restrictions on Abbotswood Road in the vicinity of the junction with Edgar Kail Way. Of course, the ultimate decision to introduce any addtional parking restrictions rests with Southwark Council. LG - I was told a while ago that because the car park had lost a number of spaces due to the extension, Sainsbury's staff no were no longer allowed to park there and so were parking along Abbotswood Road. The Sainsbury's letter says the problem is due to commuters, which is a word that applies to their own staff. The problem is just as bad on Saturdays and Sundays when there are plenty of spaces in St Francis Road for train/bus commuters to park in, so I think the term commuters is being used broadly.