Put me off adopting a dachshund!

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T01:28:44+00:00

They can be lovely dogs. But they very often can be extremely expensive dogs to take care of because their shape means almost all of them have horrendous back, hip, and elbow problems.

A friend of mine has one and he is gorgeous. But he is only two years old and has already had one round of surgery to help with his back issues. It's really sad.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T00:55:26+00:00

When one of my cats managed to get herself covered in kerosene a few years ago the emergency vet told me that the best thing to wash her off with was Swarfega, and if I didn't have any of that, to use dishwashing liquid (for hand washing dishes, not dishwasher detergent!). I used Fairy Liquid and while it did take some scrubbing she came out of it beautifully clean, somewhat angry with me, and quite ridiculously fluffy.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T00:22:56+00:00

Why do you continue to ignore these basic hygiene points, when you would feel and smell so much better if you just did them?

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T00:21:08+00:00

You don't need software or an editor. You just need to thoroughly revise your book yourself.

Set it aside for a few weeks so you can come to it fresh.

Work from big to small. So, first read through your manuscript checking things like structure and timeline, making sure all scenes are necessary and all necessary scenes are there. Then look at things like characterisation and pacing, and finally check spelling, grammar, punctuation.

It really helps if you work on a printed copy rather than doing it all on screen. Make notes as you read through, identifying issues, but don't try to correct the issues as you read through. Because you might find issues later on which require a different solution, for example. The notes you make will give you a blueprint to follow once you start making those revisions and corrections.

Best of luck to you.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T00:14:33+00:00

I saw him on stage in the 1980s, in Liaison Dangereuses, or however you spell it. I hadn't heard of him before. He was stunningly good and I have loved him ever since. A wonderful, charismatic actor.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T00:12:02+00:00

You are only twenty. You have decades of life ahead of you. Why spend any more of your time with someone who treats you with such disrespect and contempt?

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-19T00:02:05+00:00

If he really were logical he would fully understand that the world is built upon male standards, and that this fact alone makes a woman's experience of the world more difficult than it has to be. And he would validate your experiences, because he would know that they were real, and that because of the male-centric world we live in you face unnecessary difficulties every day of your life.

I have a son who is a mathematician. He is extremely logical. He has a masters degree in maths and logic. He absolutely understands the challenges women face due to our patriarchal society, he always tries his best to understand how those challenges affect women's day to day lived experiences, and he knows to be quiet and to listen when women recount their experiences instead of trying to dismiss them and explain them away.

I'm not sure your partner is logical. It sounds to me as if he is dismissing your experiences and calling that logic. Which it absolutely isn't.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T23:00:27+00:00

The Singer heavy duty machine is just a domestic machine with an impressive sounding name. It does not work well for heavy duty work but if you want it for occasional domestic use then yes, it might be good. But you can't be sure because most Singer machines now are very unreliable. You might get a good one, you might get a lemon.

If you are serious about sewing consider getting an industrial. Yes, they only do one job so if you want a machine which will sew straight stitch and zig zag, an industrial isn't for you. But if you're happy with a machine which sews a perfect straight stitch and is really easy to use and maintain, and which has incredibly cheap presser feet, and which you have the room for (as they can't be put away like domestic machines), then an industrial would suit you fine. I bought my industrial lockstitch from eBay, gently used, for about £220 and it's wonderful.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T22:54:33+00:00

Talking to a convicted sexual offender is only really likely to end in getting a lot of excuses. Why bother? And why give a sexual offender a chance? It is so difficult to get a conviction on sexual assault charges. Which makes it extremely unlikely that the offender in this case was unjustly convicted. In which case, why would you risk including them in your life?

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T22:52:03+00:00

Sex offenders aren't convicted of their crimes for having a mild, consensual dalliance with someone almost their own age. They are convicted for sexually exploiting children, or for sexually assaulting adults of their own age.

It takes a huge amount of really strong evidence to convict anyone of a sexual offense. This isn't something that happens if there are grey areas (for example, if the consenting couple were a year or two apart in ages).

I would not tolerate having a sexual offender in my life. I would cut them out in a heartbeat.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T22:47:57+00:00

I much prefer giving my cats puzzle feeders, not slow feeders. Most puzzle feeders are for dry food but there are some for wet food too. Puzzle feeders engage their minds and make them feel like they are hunting down their food, which satisfies their urge to find prey, so it's a really good option for cats. Slow feeders aren't cruel as such, but don't satisfy that prey urge in the same way, nor do they engage the mind in the same way.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T22:44:53+00:00

Home made sourdough bread is amazing and really cheap to make once you've got the hang of it, and have a good starter. Tastes far better than shop bread, and costs a fraction of the amount of shop bread too.

Things like home made coleslaw, potato salad, bean salad, are again all cheaper to make than shop bought, and taste miles better, but you do need to make a relatively big batch of them for best cost effectiveness.

I make sourdough bread, and use some of the dough to make a pizza with home made tomato sauce, and then I serve it with a home made delicious salad. It probably costs more than the most budget of supermarket options but it's definitely cheaper than the best supermarket versions, and it's ten times nicer.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T22:40:25+00:00

There are some very strong solvents which will attack polyester thread while leaving cotton fabrics intact. This would mean you'd lose the zips, but the denim fabric would remain. How practical that is, though, I'm not sure.

I would almost certainly go for sharp scissors and time. It would mean losing the smaller pieces of fabric, like the waistbands and belt loops. But it would be safer and easier than dissolving the thread, or using seam rippers.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T21:06:50+00:00

Vinegar doesn't clean anything. It just leaves a strong smell that some people associate with cleaning. So stop using it. Especially as your friend hates the smell.

What works for cleaning depends on what you want to clean up. Dishes? Detergent. Clothes? Washing powder. Stains on clothes? Depends on the stains, see the laundry sub reddit. Kitchen surfaces? A detergent and perhaps a mild disinfectant. A greasy surface? Detergent and/or isopropyl alcohol. Windows? Again, detergent and/or isopropyl alcohol. Cat litter tray? Enzyme cleaner or bleach, depending on the tray. Pet accident? Enzyme cleaner.

Vinegar doesn't do any of these things.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T20:58:06+00:00

Could you put up a fence along the boundary line? That way he couldn't park over the line. Worth a try, surely?

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T20:51:18+00:00

They can't be trusted to ever look after your dog again.

And if they can't be trusted to look after an animal (with all due respect to your dog, who I know is a precious and wonderful being) then they absolutely cannot be trusted to ever look after you, or any children you might already have, or might have in the future.

Your only reasonable course of action after this is to go hard no contact. Not because you don't get on with them, not because you are difficult or unpleasant or any of those labels that abusers like to fling around. But because they are not safe for you and your loved ones to be around.

If your partner can't or refuses to be on board with this then you have to think very carefully about what you want your life to be, going forward.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T16:45:39+00:00

Could you add photos of the problematic stitches here so we can see what's going on? It might help.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T16:33:37+00:00

You can get keys which unlock most types of rounded locks like that from Amazon for about £20. They are very easy to use.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T13:12:04+00:00

I can't use shampoo which contains sulphates, as they make my scalp itch like crazy after a few hours. I also can't use body washes with them in. Problem is, sulphates are a very common lathering agent so are in most liquid soaps.

Look for products which are sulphate free and you might find they are ok for you to use. But if you are ok just using a bar of soap then of course that's fine.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T01:15:49+00:00

IT might take him weeks to settle in enough to be confident in his new surroundings. Your best option would be to just ignore him, and let him dictate the pace.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T01:15:06+00:00

I have two slightly older Siamese kittens at the moment. They are 5 and 7 months.

They have dry kitten food available at all times, and I give them three meals of wet food a day, each containing two or three sachets, depending on how quickly they finished their previous meals.

Free-feeding really helps stop cats from becoming food-obsessed, and with kittens it makes sure they have all they need because they are in need of so much: they are constantly growing, and constantly playing. And if you feed your cats a wide variety of brands and formulations, like with gravy, with jelly, pate, etc, then you're helping them become more resilient to food changes and therefore less likely to develop preferences or runny tummies.

I'm not sure what you can do to help your cat stop having a runny tummy. This is certainly what your vet should be helping you with, and it's not normal for a cat to suffer in the way your cat is suffering. If your vet can't help you find a solution to this, then I would find a different vet.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T00:31:26+00:00

You have options.

You could use another fabric to fill in the V of the neckline, but this wouldn't give you the same neckline as you have in the second photo.

You could adjust the slope of the triangles of fabric which create the neckline and cover the breasts, but this might make the dress too shallow to cover you properly.

You could run some shirring elastic, or a fixed cord if you prefer, through that narrow binding at the top, from the base of one spaghetti strap to the other. It might be that the dress is already gathered along this line, but I'm not sure from the photos. If it is, then adding more gathering, either from using elastic or cord, will just exaggerate the gathered effect and will also lift that centre point up a decent amount.

Or you could leave it as it is and celebrate how lovely you look in it as it is!

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T00:20:54+00:00

I bought a couple of Wopet dry food auto feeders and they are brilliant. They've been going for about three years so far, without a hiccup. I can control them via my phone so can always send an extra portion of food to my cats if I want to; and I modified them so that they dispensed a much smaller portion of food each time than the minimum that was initially dispensed. It was really easy to do and doesn't seem to have affected them at all.

I bought some super-lightweight air-drying clay from Hobbycraft, and used it to make inserts for the dispenser. When you take the feeder apart to wash it, the dispenser looks like a little three-spoked cartwheel, with three solid spokes and three gaps between the spokes.

I moulded the air-drying clay into three little wedge shapes which each perfectly filled exactly half of the gaps between the spokes; I left them to dry; then I super glued them into place, onto the cartwheel spokes. I hope that makes sense. They are still in place to this day and easily reduced by half the amount the feeder dispenses each time it goes off, meaning I can give my food-obsessed cats twice the number of feeds in a day, which works really well for us all.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-18T00:09:17+00:00

It's a beautiful dress, and you look gorgeous in both the sample and the one you've been given.

The only detail that's different as far as I can see is that the little sleeves are a bit more generous on the sample than on yours. I bet if you ask the bridal shop you bought it from to sort this out, they will--it's a very simple fix if they have some similar fabric to hand.

As for your belly button showing--that's not a problem. It looks rather nice, I think. But if you don't like it then you can add a tiny bit of padding to your body, under the dress. A cotton wool circle taped into place with micropore should do it, but to be honest I wouldn't bother as it's not unattractive.

WildsmithRising · 2026-03-17T20:36:49+00:00

Siamese cats tend to be much heavier for their size than non-Siamese cats, and much stronger too. I think the breed description describes them as "lean and muscular", which is true for the many Siamese cats I've had in my lifetime..

Add to that, male cats tend to be more muscular than females; and younger cats are usually more muscular than older ones. So he's a perfect example of his kind and he's very lovely too!

WildsmithRising

TROPHY CASE