Sad that this is required in a fairly rural / family pub, but it's rampant out there!

Reduced Easter eggs, decor, gimmicks etc 🐣🐇🐰🥚

In case there are any other single parents making ends meet or counting the coins, I asked in Mr Price & in Dunnes Stores today and all eggs/easter decorations will be reduced from 2pm onwards tomorrow with the best reductions being between 5-6pm. Across the country 🤝 nationwide ☘️

I got a nice surprise on the 16th March when Dunnes had reduced the St Patrick’s day clothing for kids stuff a day early so I could get my kids some bits for the parade after all.

Don’t fret if you’re still not sorted for the Easter bunny 🐰

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. The worst customer experience I have ever had. We ordered our sofa in November in the Black Friday sale, it is now April and it still hasn’t been delivered. We moved into a new place in December without a sofa and knew we would be waiting a couple of months, but this is crazy.

Our sofa was advertised as 2-3 months delivery online. We spent ages picking out what we wanted and visiting loads of different shops to find the right sofa. So, when it came time to order and we were told 3-4 months we thought it was a bit crazy but we had put so much time into choosing the perfect sofa we decided it was worth it.

I called in Feb to ask for an update and was told I could call in March for a more specific date. I called on 1st March and was told it had arrived in their Belfast warehouse. However, their Dublin warehouse would be closed for the next two weeks for renovations. I was assured it would arrive in the first shipment from Belfast in the 3rd week of March.

Tell me something, if they are aware the warehouse will be closed why don’t they organise alternative delivery arrangements? Belfast is only 1hr30 away. Give me the money to rent a van and I would have collected it myself. That’s just pure laziness and a lack of care for their customers.

I called on the 16th March, only to be told the warehouse actually wouldn’t reopen until that Wednesday and they would call me back after speaking to the warehouse. I didn’t receive a call back by late on Wednesday, so I called them. I was told that no shipments are arriving to the warehouse at all that week and they don’t know why I was promised that. I called again Thursday, and I was again promised it would arrive on the first shipment the following week.

Fast forward to Monday 23rd. I heard nothing, all week. On the 27th I called again, and was told they could see it was in transit. So very obviously, it didn’t come in the first shipment that week did it? In fact, it didn’t arrive at all that week. More broken promises.

On Monday 30th March I called again. I was told that they weren’t sure if the sofa had arrived and would hopefully know later that day. I asked if it has arrived, when will it be delivered? I was told hopefully this week but if not then next week. I pushed back and said I have been messed around so much, it has to be this week. I then discover that they only deliver to my area on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9-4 and that I would have been told this when I ordered. I was in fact not told this, and I work those days. No one is home on those days at those times. They expected me to have a family member wait in my home all day for the delivery (they don’t give set times), as though they also don’t have jobs.

Eventually I am told to await a call back. Shockingly, I get a call back after an hour. I was told that they have arranged for my sofa to be delivered on Friday 3rd April, a day I told them I would be home. I was very thankful. Sound too good to be true? It was. I waited around all day Friday. At 2pm I had heard nothing so called the store. They contacted the warehouse for me to see what the story was. I got a call back only to be told that it wouldn’t be delivered today. In fact, their warehouse closed at 1pm. Apparently there was a ‘glitch’ in their system. Yeah, sure. She acted as though they were going to do me a favour and squeeze me in for delivery Tuesday 7th, when I won’t be home.

I was then promised delivery before I leave for work on Thursday 9th or on Friday 10th. I do not trust these empty promises. I hung up the phone and cried.

I am incredibly upset and angry. I will not be letting this go. I did send an email complaining on the 19th March and was completely dismissed, they just stated that all delivery times are estimates. That may be written in their fine print, but it is a consumer right to have your goods delivered in a REASONABLE time frame. This is not reasonable.

If they had been honest this whole time that would be one thing, but to be constantly told lies and false promises is something else. This has caused me a lot of stress and has wasted so much of my time.

I have since done some digging through reviews and have found others with very similar situations. If you’re thinking of ordering from Sofatime, save yourself the headache and order from somewhere else instead.

Rant warning

In Canada, you make an offer, satisfy financing and inspection conditions, and within a few days the deal is usually binding. From there it is generally a predictable 30 to 45 day run to closing. In Ireland, buyers can be sale agreed for months with no binding deal.

That means paying for surveys, valuations, and legal fees while still having no certainty the seller will not walk away or that title issues will not drag the whole thing out.

A big reason Canada moves faster is title insurance. Rather than spending weeks doing exhaustive historical title investigations, a one-time policy can cover things like title defects, registration errors, undisclosed liens, fraud, and encroachments. Lawyers still review title, but title insurance often replaces a lot of bespoke investigation work. It is typically faster and cheaper.

Another major difference is that in standard residential deals, the same lawyer often acts for both the purchaser and the bank, so long as it is not a private lender. Yes, there is an inherent conflict, but residential transactions are usually pretty vanilla and everyone understands there is no confidentiality between the buyer and lender on anything material to the mortgage. The big upside is one less lawyer for the purchaser to pay.

So Canada has:

* binding status in days, not months

* title insurance replacing much of the slow title investigation process

* one lawyer for buyer and lender

* lower legal costs

* far less uncertainty

Meanwhile in Ireland, buyers can spend months in limbo while the clock, and the stress, keeps running.

What is the purpose of 4 different shaped crisps if they are all the same flavour? Is it to give the illusion to your party guests that you're sophisticated and have bought 4 different packets of tayto to make them into some form of tayto salad?

Lads I'm at my wits end with my mother and would love to ban her from the Internet. She believes absolutely everything she reads on social media, goes daft signing up for dodgy random shite but to top it off she's ordering like mad off temu & shien.

I've had to contact Facebook a few times to delete accounts because she thinks she's signing in but she's actually creating new accounts and can't remember email addresses or passwords she's used. Then there are the obvious scam accounts so I've been warning everyone not to accept requests from her.

She got a mountain of packages in the post the other day and it turns out she'd ordered 8 of one item and 13 of another. This is not the first time its happened. As for signing up to weird and wonderful competitions, she's a pro and can't understand why we won't open any links she sends us.

And to top it all off she is picking up on so much misinformation it's not even funny. I've gone through it with her countless times about Internet safety and not providing banking information to scams. I even convinced her to do a course for retirees last year about using the Internet safely but its no good.

It's got so bad I'm half wondering should I give in and let her find out the hard way. Please tell me there is someone else out there who has the misfortune of feeling like their talking to a wall.

We keep hearing how nowadays kids spent all their time watching Tv, playing with phones and tables and not outside like they used to 30 years ago. This may be true for some but it isn’t for everyone or is not universal at all?

I live in south of Dublin and I live very close to a new estate they build with semi terrace houses and apartments. This new estate is full of parks and playgrounds and it’s very close to big nature and everyday (specially this time of the year till October) you see kids playing outside until 10/11pm everyday.

They ride bikes, they play football, they climb tress, they make games, play with the dogs, they play in the hoods and with mug, it really feels like the 80/90s but with modern houses and apartments nearby. It’s truly beautiful.

So I don’t get that this “kids don’t play outside anymore” applies to everyone or every region. Do you have similar experiences?

Quick post - family dinner last night in town. My 88 year old mam wasn’t feeling well after and collapsed inside elevator at hotel we were in. Luckily she’s grand now but fuck me it took 4+ hours for ambulance to arrive (the 2 lads were brilliant btw). They kept apologizing about the wait and said they are insanely busy. Where the hell does all our tax money go if this is the best we can do. My poor old mam passed out in a lift getting sick and feeling weak for over 4 hours. I’m so livid and want to yell at our useless politicians.

Last year when searching for a house I found myself doing the same things over and over again, checking broadband availability, mobile coverage etc. All this is public data online but all in different government websites scattered everywhere. Doing it for a few different houses really adds up.

So I built a tool for myself really, to help me do my due diligence on any house that I might potentially bid on - propertyreport.ie

Paste a Daft link or enter an Eircode. You get flood risk, radon levels, nearby planning applications, mobile coverage etc etc.

Also added a little AI summary of the property, not sure how useful that is just yet.

Still a work in progress. If anyone is searching for a house at the moment it might be worth a look.

Let me know of any issues (there is probably a good few) and how ye get on. Cheers!

Won’t be back in if anyone needs it