Caz counts it down

hiddenshadow wrote: »

I've always wanted to try spinning - did you sign up for a class?

No, I used a £10 voucher eBay sent me to get a free spindle and then followed a video on YouTube - very MSE!

JustAboutThere wrote: »

I'm fascinated by drop spinning - but I've got too many other craft projects that still aren't completed. And, yes, that includes some beadwork that's not even started.

I've run into major problems with my latest knitting one I think I'll have to write to the pattern writers and ask them to clarify something. According to friends who are more expert, its not me, its the way its (badly) written. Until I get that reply (OK, I've got the write the email first), I can't move it forward and I'm sure it'll look lovely once its eventually finished.

If you haven't already, consider signing up to www.ravelry.com - there's some groups for drop spinning on there - from my quick look.

Thank you for reminding me about Ravelry, I'm signed up but haven't visited for years (funnily enough, roughly since the hyperactive cocker spaniel arrived four years ago and knitting became a somewhat fraught thing to do in the evenings!!)

It's been an interesting bank holiday weekend (not that it's a bank holiday in Scotland, but since Mr RPC was off, I gave myself the day off too). One of the horses developed a massive lump on his stomach and after phone calls with the vet and some emailed pictures plus me going and prodding it in various ways and reporting back, they decided I didn't need a Sunday call-out and could take the 'see what happens' approach, as he was behaving perfectly normally and seemed unbothered by it. It seems to be on its way down now, a bit of it has deflated, but it looks like it's an oedema caused by being bitten or stung by something several times in roughly the same area and the whole thing swelled together and filled with fluid. Fingers crossed it will continue to go down, the vets are quite anti-puncturing it as they don't want to make a hole in him that might get infected when there's currently no infection present.

The new windows and door went in down the road on Thursday and Friday - unfortunately they sent the wrong lower panel for the door (plain instead of Edwardian), but their head office assures me they'll sort it out and I haven't yet made payment of the final balance, so have some leverage if it gets sticky. I don't think it will, in all honesty, we've used them before, as has my mother-in-law, but if, as I suspect, they've actually manufactured the wrong panel (the lady I spoke to thought they might have put a temporary panel in to give me a complete door due to a manufacturing delay, but it seems unlikely they'd have one dark green on one side and white on the other just hanging around) then it's going to be 6-8 weeks before a replacement is available and I suspect I may have to make payment for the windows at least.

John, who was our tractor driver and adviser for the hay-making, turned up at 8am this morning and took me to see a tractor he'd found about 20 miles away which he thought would be a good one for me - a Massey Ferguson 35, restored by someone well-known in the area for producing mechanically-sound tractors, only 16 hours on it since the restoration and reasonably priced, because the bodywork wasn't quite show quality. It turned out to be exactly as described and although the guy won't sell it to me yet, because he wants to get a mechanic to double-check the hydraulic lift (it lifted me fine when I sat on it, but he said it had struggled a bit with his mower and he wanted to make sure there wasn't a valve leaking), we shook hands on a price It'll probably come up to the village 7 miles west of us to be looked at, so once they're finished with it, I'll take the cash down to the owner and it can then come straight over to me, rather than it going back down the Strath and back up again.

Got home from that very chuffed with life and checked my email to find that I've been offered a Border collie puppy from a litter born to two very good working dogs that I'd enquired about - he'll be 8 weeks on 24th September, but they've kindly agreed to hang on to him for another week, so that our spaniel has a few days after we're back from holiday to settle back into our daily routine before we introduce a whirlwind baby brother to her life

So I'm a bit 'all the gear and no idea' with the crofting at the moment, but I've learnt an awful lot this year and if I can pick up a small disc mower, should be able to make hay all by myself next summer!

The problem with (a) haymaking and (b) summer holidays is that they get in the way of earning money

Mr RPC - £690.20
NEL - £48.50
Small agency - £77.00

Total £815.70

And I'm away for 10 days next month as well - better get my head down for the first part of it!!

I seem to be frantically busy doing nothing at the moment! Or at least nothing that earns me any money.

Quick catch-up - Merlin's lump deflated by itself and we proved the midge theory by Finn getting a couple of identical ones straight after another big midge cloud a week later. The tractor is arriving on Friday after being checked over by the local garage and pronounced sound as a pound (I drove back down the strath today to take a cheque to the seller, who very kindly said if I didn't get on with it, he'd have it back and give me a full refund - don't think there's much danger of that, I'd have to kill Mr Minx to get the key off him if I threatened to return it!)

I've decided that as well as throwing money at Ethel's House, I also need to throw a bit of money at me, so I now have a direct debit for £10 a month going into my Ratesetter account, to be put into 5-year loans at market rate (the capital and interest are automatically set to reinvest into the rolling market, so I'll slowly build up an instantly accessible emergency fund in there) and am going to increase the mortgage payment by £5 a month each month. Not much, but every little bit will help.

Also worked out today that the non-property-development part of the credit card debt will be paid off in 6 months