As good as it gets .

[pulisa]

Well done, Buster! You can't let people get away with things like this. I have never had a problem with confrontation-I've had a fair few confrontations in my lifetime but maybe that is more down to my circumstances.

[Buster70]

HI guys and thanks , fish I was a bricklayer when I left school I started work on my 16th birthday , straight in at the deep end digging footings and hod carrying , funny thing I worked for an old guy and the other bricklayer was mr universe , he gave up building for body building he was quite famous eat the time , but christ it was hard trying to keep two brickies going , I worked in most areas of building so I know how a house is put together, i later went into car restoration, this roofer is so full of shite he can't stop the endless lies and excuses, my daughter has been onto him again today armed with a lot of facts about what he's done wrong from me and my cousin ( we've both looked in the attic today ) he's trying to worm his way out of it but it ain't happening.
Funny ( ok not really funny ) how anxiety is triggered by different things for us I'm ok driving but others struggle with it , I can be laughing and joking with strangers then it just pops up from nowhere, I'm ok with a short spur of the moment confrontation but if it goes on too long the panic sets in but I think this happens with " normal people " ( anyone else hate people doing air quotes? , you don't do them do you ? ) .
My partner has depression and anxiety but also anger issues so she's ok with confrontation, are you a angry raging lunatic in an argument pulisa or the cool calm type ? It may seem old fashioned but I can't live with the idea of someone fighting my battles for me like I'm
Hiding behind them , I'd rather put my bare toes under the front of a moving steam roller .
Terry I would rather be making people laugh and happy than feeling shite about themselves but it is sometimes deserved.
Sorry you lost a pet this year Darksky , two and a half years since I lost my dog and I still miss him even with two more dogs it doesn't quite fill the void .

[Carnation]

What's with all this bricklaying?
My dad was a bricklayer too.
He worked on some iconic buildings in London.
Even I can mix cement and build a garden wall.
Buster, my o/h has anxiety and anger issues.
I like to run away.
My partner can get uptight over the smallest of things like parking a car, overfilling a kettle, trying to zip his jacket up and having a non runny egg, too name but a few.
I'm a bit like you Buster. I can exchange a few words, but anything over 5 minutes and my brain starts to wander, my focus wanders on to their feet or the clouds in the sky and by then I start to inch away sort of smiling but more like a gritting of the teeth.
Buster, you do make people laugh. If everything else fails, you could consider stand up comedy.

[Darksky]

Oh boy yes I've done air quotes in the past. Not often but yes I'll fess up. Now I'm laughing at myself for doing them so it's all good.

I lost two dogs this year Buster, it's a killer. They just don't stay long enough. But I light a candle for them and the others that have gone. I'm a soppy sod.

It's good to laugh and on here things can get heavy at times so a good laugh along the way is good for the soul. Was chuckling tonight...did anyone else watch Mickey Flanagans Christmas. He really tells it how it is, funny guy.

[pulisa]

Buster, I'm a raging lunatic internally but can manage to hold it together for a subtle killer verbal punch when I need to..

[fishman65]

Terry - yep the building trade is dog eat dog. We would often be the main sub-contractors with subbies working for us. A lot of the big building firms would knock a big chunk off what they owed us, then we couldn't pay the guys expecting their wage come Friday.

One job we did was on a restaurant. The client owed us £10,000 for work done and passed by the building inspector. He told us to chase the main contractor for it, which we did only to find him bankrupt. They both knew we could never afford to take them to court, so we never got that money. And that was in 1988. We had a few like that and the business folded. We later heard that original client (a dentist) was fiddling the NHS by doing non-existent emergency call outs and was sent down. Another thing I noticed over the years, the wealthy customers were the worst payers, which got me thinking 'how did they get wealthy?' We had this couple with a tatty old cottage, five kids driven off to school in a rusty old van. And guess what, they paid up right away on request, the full amount.

Good to see lots of bricklayers on here

[Buster70]

I think it's a generation thing with the building and manufacturing, nowadays we don't build or make much it's all virtual, Nottingham were I am used to make everything from beer to bicycles and it all needed buildings now it's all gone , I used to go to the pub on payday pack my job in and start a new one in a different trade you can't do that anymore .
Carnation don't you think a bit of anger is needed for passion ? All the great footballers , artists , musicians etc seem to have anger issues , it takes a lot for me to lose it especially now I'm a different kind of nuts but when I do it's quite spectacular, my brother has no patience at all , I went round to help him because mum said he was struggling to fix his car and by time I got there he was hitting it with a hammer and swearing , ten minutes of calm and spannering and I'd fixed it , he also tried to kill me when he was young in a rage he pushed me through a glass bedroom window it was only the strong curtains I grabbed that saved me , a bit of anger good , too much ehh not so good .
Darksky you made me laugh with your admission of air quotes ( only thing worse is air quotes when they aren't even quoting anyone ) what next air question marks ? or air guitar ? Oh yeah that's allready a thing , any way laughed then read you lost two dogs and welled up , losing one was heart breaking it wasn't like losing a family member it was losing a family member , I said I could go through that again but the other dog would go out so here we are again two dogs one old one young , oh and as for soppy his ashes are still in the living room as no one would let me scatter them .
Pulisa I remember you saying before you're more likely to keep the fruit and veg in the shopping trolley than start screaming and throwing it at the shoppers , is that a metaphor ? I think I did a metaphor
Anyway rambling on so I'll leave you all be .
Ps Ive been looking into wether I'm dyslexic and all the online tests said high chance of yes 70% I scored and it would explain a lot of things that may be obvious to you guys , it's not catching or life threatening so you lot will be ok

[Carnation]

Buster, think I'm all angered out.
Do you need anger for passion. No, I don't think you do. You need feeling, but not necessarily anger. I would have thought sensitivity was more the emotion.

Darksky, so sorry to hear about the loss of your dogs.

[Darksky]

Thank you, I don't believe they have truly gone. We just can't see them. I know they come with us on our dog walks, following behind quietly. Well maybe not quietly, my dogs are never quiet.

Now you're talking Buster...Air Guitar.....yes I'll admit that, loud and proud! Put a bit of Queen or Zeppelin on and I'm there strumming away. Can't actually play a real guitar but I'm awesome with an air one

[Carnation]

Sound like you'd make a good rock chick Darksky.
I'll let you in to a little secret........
I used to play electric guitar many moons ago, but now I'm more Laura Ashley, as Buster puts it.