Relapse! Coping, Symptoms and Tips.

[.Poppy.]

Thanks, Carnation. I talked to my boss and he suggested the same thing. No response yet, but we’ll see.

I started setting up a proper budget since I’ll be getting a pay increase with my new job; I thought I’d have a lot of extra money but that will not be the case. I guess I wasn’t aware that I’ve been running on a bit of a deficit recently. Financial stuff can be really depressing.

But, the sun is shining and it’s almost the weekend. Hope everyone else is doing well today.

[Lencoboy]

Something rather eventful (but interesting) happened to me this afternoon.

My 6-year-old Huawei smartphone that has done me proud since 2018 died on me due to expiring software that's now discontinued, so my dad took me down to the EE shop in our town centre and came back with a gleaming new Samsung Galaxy A05s.

Although it was all rather long-winded with various lengthy rigmaroles to go through in the store, the customer service was superb, and both me and my dad feel a sense of good value for money with the package purchase.

But it doesn't end there.

While me and my dad were walking through the one tired old partially-covered 60s shopping precinct towards the main indoor shopping centre (that first opened at the very end of the 70s) where the EE shop is, I heard the sounds of banging, clattering and JCB engines reverberating down the partially-covered mall and to my pleasant surprise, demolition work on part of that tired-old 60s 'concrete jungle' precinct was underway, with boards cordoning off the demolition site with info about the major redevelopment and regeneration project of our town centre printed on them, and I thought 'Hurrah! At long flippin' last'.

Something that I think should have been done 10 or more years ago, but at least our local council finally biting the bullet and going ahead with said project now is certainly far better late than never.

[Darksky]

1960s architecture was indeed abysmal Lenco. And to think of the beautiful buildings that were demolished to make way for it

[fishman65]

You're both right about 1960s architecture. It was an attitude of 'throw them up quick'. I remember being on a school trip circa 1979 to Milton Keynes. It was a 'Humanities' class and the teachers were enthusing about the architecture. MK the brave new city of the future.

Not quite though. My daughter works for a cleaning firm, house clearances included. While there are some 'posher' parts, much of it is now slums. She's shown me on her phone, graffiti and rubbish in the streets. But then if you're using sheet metal bolted to the front elevation (an example), that might last a few decades but it will want to return to its natural state. So 50 odd years later you have slums.

[Carnation]

Don't get Lencoboy started on graffiti, we've been through that one.

I personally like Victorian buildings.
The trouble with building in the 60s and 70s was construction on the cheap. It took a long time to recover from the war years with rationing lasting a long time.
The futuristic sixties was the introduction of plastic and breeze blocks for building (fishman will know that).
Owning your own home became impossible unless you worked 3 jobs and took your kids to work with you.
Instead of everything appearing to be futuristic, it became the make do and make everything yourself decade, also well into the 70s. DIY was the trend, knitted jumpers, crotchet bed covers, rug making, wine and beer making, grow your veg. The wife cutting her husband's hair while she did a home perm. Camping holidays and if you were lucky, Pontins or Butlins. I'll shut up now otherwise I'll start talking about blamange and nesquick milkshakes, lol.

Poppy, the email route will be the test.
Oh yes, money is always spoken for, never enough and when you get an injection of funds, you wonder how you managed before. But somehow you do.

[Lencoboy]

You're both right about 1960s architecture. It was an attitude of 'throw them up quick'. I remember being on a school trip circa 1979 to Milton Keynes. It was a 'Humanities' class and the teachers were enthusing about the architecture. MK the brave new city of the future.

Not quite though. My daughter works for a cleaning firm, house clearances included. While there are some 'posher' parts, much of it is now slums. She's shown me on her phone, graffiti and rubbish in the streets. But then if you're using sheet metal bolted to the front elevation (an example), that might last a few decades but it will want to return to its natural state. So 50 odd years later you have slums.

Yes I know MK is often much maligned, but the problem of graffiti and litter is unfortunately pretty much across the board; not helped by the fact that many of us have seemingly become more blase about them over the past 20-odd years or so with the notion that there's other far more important things to be concerned about, which I have often perceived as a lazy, get-out clause, even long before all this council cuts lark.

[Lencoboy]

Don't get Lencoboy started on graffiti, we've been through that one.

I personally like Victorian buildings.
The trouble with building in the 60s and 70s was construction on the cheap. It took a long time to recover from the war years with rationing lasting a long time.
The futuristic sixties was the introduction of plastic and breeze blocks for building (fishman will know that).
Owning your own home became impossible unless you worked 3 jobs and took your kids to work with you.
Instead of everything appearing to be futuristic, it became the make do and make everything yourself decade, also well into the 70s. DIY was the trend, knitted jumpers, crotchet bed covers, rug making, wine and beer making, grow your veg. The wife cutting her husband's hair while she did a home perm. Camping holidays and if you were lucky, Pontins or Butlins. I'll shut up now otherwise I'll start talking about blamange and nesquick milkshakes, lol.

I agree with much of what you said here.

And contrary to popular belief, the 60s and 70s weren't really the 'good old days' in the grand scheme of things, plus I do think we have things a bit too easy at times nowadays, despite a lot of the economic/financial turbulence of the past 20 years. And sadly that wider sense of community has petered out since the 70s with a lot of us subsequently absorbed more and more into our own little worlds, likely aided by a lot of the technologies and personal creature comforts that have seemingly become the norm in our lives during the intervening period that we now take for granted, plus back in the 60s and 70s, and even well into the 80s, holidays abroad were mostly the reserve of the wealthiest of our society, unlike today where they have basically become de rigueur for the vast majority of the population, sometimes even more than once per year, and then when people arrive back home they often moan about being skint and how dire Britain is compared to abroad.

Going back to a lot of the post-war developments, especially those of the 60s and 70s, many of them sadly weren't designed and built with the risks of crime and ASB in mind, especially certain housing estates and shopping precincts, complete with dark walkways, pedestrian underpasses, etc, that soon became magnets for muggers, vandals and serial graffitists, and the inward-facing, 'back-to-front' (Radburn design) housing that often became easy pickings for burglaries and car crimes.

[Lencoboy]

1960s architecture was indeed abysmal Lenco. And to think of the beautiful buildings that were demolished to make way for it

Absolutely right Darksky. And inadvertently designed in crime and ASB in many respects.

But BlueIris did admit fairly recently that she actually has a bit of a soft spot for so-called 'brutalist' architecture typical of the late 50s-early 70s era.

Each to one's own, obviously.