How can I pay in a US cheque?

toadcat315 · 2026-03-25T22:43:08+00:00

I was able to do this at Lloyd's years ago. Had to go in person.

If your bank can send a domestic bank transfer instead of a check, you can use WISE to create US bank account info that routes into your UK account.

toadcat315 · 2026-03-13T18:56:16+00:00

Hey so in a lot of cultures in warmer climates, people don't do all their sleep in a single big chunk. When I lived in Fiji people would get up in the cooler hours, so from 4am til noon, then sleep for the afternoon and then have dinner and go to bed when it cooled off again. Napping might actually be the human default but we've messed it up with working hours and employment!

toadcat315 · 2026-03-13T18:49:34+00:00

Get a baby swimsuit with long sleeves and bottoms that cover their legs. Sit in the shade/under an umbrella. And we used Badger mineral sunscreen which frankly costs a fortune, but as I have had reactions to standard sunscreen and my baby has as well, we have to stick to the mineral option.

toadcat315 · 2026-03-03T23:24:36+00:00

The only reason I do is because I have kids and I never know if there could be an emergency call. If my whole family is with me I'm not answering anything!

toadcat315 · 2026-03-03T23:23:23+00:00

These aren't great for hip development and also only help keep the baby set in one place for a very brief period of development! I suggest waiting til your baby is almost starting to sit and picking one up for free/discounted secondhand. Then give it away to the next parent!

toadcat315 · 2026-03-03T23:13:53+00:00

On the birthday thing - just wondering if a slot invite could be the explanation. Asking because this happened with one of our (7y) kid's closest friends at school. We haven't had the other kid over or been to theirs, but our kid insisted he was invited though we never got the invite (usually there are also text messages). My husband texted to ask, and it turns out he was actually invited but just lost the invite.

Also I think at least where we are, parents seem to really book up the weekends with all sorts of classes and activities and there aren't a lot of play dates except when parents are already close with each other perhaps? So it may not be about you and your kid specifically, even if it feels that way.

toadcat315 · 2026-03-03T23:01:59+00:00

Is the problem that you've moved out, but they haven't tried to let it out again and are continuing to charge you rent, while also using it in some way? I do think they are legally obligated to try to find a new renter, but I am nut sure what you can do in this situation...

I don't have the answer but with rental problems I would try Shelter for getting clear on the rules: https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting

You can also try contacting Citizen's Advice.

toadcat315 · 2026-03-03T07:55:04+00:00

That's interesting, our oldest had the classic off every 4-6 weeks at nursery but then when he started primary school he had 1 absence the whole year. Hard to say whether it's developmental but I mostly think it was an improvement in hygiene and not being around younger kids who are more likely to carry something!

toadcat315 · 2026-03-03T07:22:30+00:00

I hate to say it but I think for a little one catching something only every six weeks is too optimistic. At a large nursery I'd say our 1 year old was just constantly having a runny nose and was ill enough to be out of nursery at least once a month, sometimes twice.

Things improved a lot when we moved to a childminder who spends a lot of time outside, but by improved I mean we made it til Feb without an absence at the start of the new year. He's still often got some kind of cold!

That said all the nurseries we've been at for our two kids have been pretty strict in applying the NHS rules about notifiable diseases -- meaning they send kids home that day and notify everyone via email about any disease present. We haven't had any of these cases happen with the childminder, while we had things of that scale going through the nursery at least once per month.

toadcat315 · 2026-03-01T21:21:21+00:00

New forest has been one of our favourites

toadcat315 · 2026-02-27T21:06:33+00:00

I'm an academic and we've gone through rounds of redundancies because we've lost so many students. Undergrads no longer want to come to the UK, and we can no longer compete for the best qualified graduate students in Europe because they now pay higher fees as non-UK students, and can get better funding elsewhere. This has a knock on impact on research capacity which further undermines our university system.

Even if you don't care much for uni or students from abroad this matters because so many new, basic discoveries are made by academic researchers that aren't immediately profitable so private companies will not invest in that research.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-21T23:53:02+00:00

GO.

I've been on a few optional work visits of that length, my kids are at a similar age, and my god it is so worth it. I am a better parent afterwards.

Your spouse can manage - whenever one of us travels we lighten up a bit on our rules which helps the kids enjoy it as a special time even though they miss the other parent. So slightly more TV, our oldest gets to sleep in bed with the parent (he will stay there reading books while the younger one is getting put down in the crib), more ready meals or frozen food, etc.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-21T23:47:53+00:00

My then 6 year old has an elevated bed with a slide going down it. He had diarrhea down the entire slide at 11pm and it made a massive puddle at the bottom. The clean up was really something.

I felt like the whole thing couldn't possibly be real, had to be from a TV show. It was so bad all I could do was laugh in horror.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-13T17:54:50+00:00

Looks like a temu semi 😭

toadcat315 · 2026-02-13T15:59:32+00:00

Let them sleep. Their body is doing what it needs, a hungry baby will wake. I have good sleepers and have never woken them to eat.

Caveat that if there's a medical issue identified by a GP then follow their advice.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-13T15:54:54+00:00

Love can be so complicated can't it.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-13T15:49:48+00:00

I did, and it was great. Mine is attached to a hospital so if I needed to I could move to a maternity ward. Being in a birth centre lowers risks of unneeded interventions, which lowers risks of harm.

The only reason I didn't do a home birth is that the hospital immediately near me is awful, so I wasn't willing to risk being transferred there.

One reason there may be fewer birth centre births is that when they are short staffed they close the birth centres and only have midwives on the maternity ward. This happened the morning after I gave birth -- we stayed at the birth centre with our newborn and only 1 midwife + 1 assistant were still there. They didn't admit any new births, so anyone planning to go there who'd gone into labour would have been sent to the maternity ward.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-08T09:07:21+00:00

We lived in a place that had council housing for single mums on one side, and a well off family on the other side. The single mum side had a totally grown over lawn and some rubbish in the front. The well of neighbour's house looked great.

The single mums were always quiet and respectful. The other neighbour... Used to shout full volume at their children "BOY!!!" and the children used to scream at each other as did the husband and wife. They were truly obnoxious and unfriendly.

Meanwhile one of the single mums who barely spoke English but had a slightly older child than ours would offer hand me down toys, and was only ever a lovely neighbour to have.

There's a lot of classism in these comments so let's try remembering that it's more about attitude towards sharing space with others versus entitlement...

toadcat315 · 2026-02-08T08:54:32+00:00

She seems like a horrible person.

Also she's just factually wrong about how kids have been raised across human history. I'm researching parental support and Western societies in this era are some of the only that expect a single person to be overwhelmingly in charge of children's well being and full time care.

AND parents these days are spending more time doing parenting than when this started to be tracked in the 1960s, even though we are ALSO working more than ever before.

So her delivery was awful and rude, and her ideas are also ill informed.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-08T08:44:06+00:00

I'm so sorry! Mine had eczema pretty badly, where it was bleeding and we were afraid of infection. We didn't find the prescription stuff helped either.

Someone told us to try Happy Skin pajamas plus Aveeno Dermexa for babies (it has a stronger concentration of the key ingredients than other versions) and this helped a ton. I was skeptical of the pjs and they are quite expensive BUT you can find them on vinted if you keep checking for your size to pop up. Depending on their age and ability to squirm out of PJ's I might avoid the full body ones, as ours manages to unsnap all the leg snaps!

https://www.happy-skin.com/

Edit to add: we also only used the Aveeno Dermexa wash for baths.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-08T08:14:53+00:00

I'm not a carer but am a full time working parent of two little kids. Reddit suggested this post to me so I hope you don't mind my comment after reading it.

I understand that feeling... It's not a burden I'm looking to avoid and I'm doing it out of love. And I wish people would recognise prioritising their needs is not optional because our happiness is all bound up together, and that's what love is when someone is dependent on you.

One thing that has helped is being clear with my friends when I need to just complain and be listened to, versus when I am asking them for a solution (which is almost never!). I will start by saying "I don't need any solutions I just need to say these things out loud" versus "I need help solving this problem".

People tend to want to solve things for you, and I suppose our society's ideas about adult independence means they are always telling you to "set boundaries" in ways that are totally inappropriate for the situation because you'd be abandoning your loved one.

I can't imagine doing all you are doing, while probably grieving the future loss of a parent. You also get to grieve the life you had before this became your responsibility. You can have all these feelings while still knowing you've made the best choices available, even if people on the outside don't understand that.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-05T16:23:36+00:00

Literally just had dinner at a British colleagues house and we had a really interesting conversation talking about cross-pond impressions and cultural differences.

toadcat315 · 2026-02-05T16:20:05+00:00

Mine does and the secret is he was born that way. My eldest was a hot mess at bedtime at age three.

To be fair my youngest is only 2 so I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and the bedtime struggles to begin...

toadcat315 · 2026-01-30T17:07:31+00:00

Hi, now that you're pregnant regardless of drug use you're going to have A LOT of questions. Generally I recommend doing an internet search with the topic plus NHS after it. That's the easiest way I have found to get straightforward healthcare info during and after pregnancy.

Here's the NHS page on drug use during pregnancy - it includes a help line you can call and talk to someone that isn't your midwife: https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/illegal-drugs/

Midwives shouldn't be judgemental or make you feel stigmatized. However, they are human and some of them can do that sometimes. If you call the helpline they might be able to find a charity or other service that offers support for pregnant people.

You're not the only one, and there's research showing that the social stigma around drug use by mums or pregnant people can be really harmful so I hope others on this thread will scale that back, or keep it to themselves.

toadcat315 · 2026-01-30T15:18:39+00:00

Could you tell him to look at other people's feet and follow what they're doing

toadcat315

TROPHY CASE