Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

ebayqueen_2

Morning Moo
You are up before the larks this morning. I have been like that all week but this morning slept late 6.30!!!!
You have certainly done well not spending money this week, I wish I could say the same. Enjoy your day and happy jam making.
take care
E

chevalier

nice one on the none spending. interesting what you say about joe browns. cos i always thought their quality wasn't good either, and their sizing was mostly no good for me being large chested....

chev

moo2moo

I hate E-bay. Have a late payer whose parcel has gone awol and who isn't impressed that I'm refusing to reimburse the full costs of contents and packaging because its six days since they paid and it hasn't arrived and I have a second unhappy chappy whose item went via My Hermes courier service taking ten days from sending to arrive and finally arrived looking like someone had played football with it which damaged the contents so am having to chase the courier up for compensation. Meh, meh and double meh.

Spent yesterday morning pottering round school. Got loads done. Meant to go back later on to do a couple more hours but ended up going to watch the DDs do their other martial art grading only running in the door to lock up and then quickly running out again. Means I need to go in tomorrow, whilst OH is at work, to clear up after holiday club and mop the hall floor.

Spent the remainder of the day removing more bits from the Landrover. The DDs helpfully shotblasted some of them in the garden which now has small sand dunes and then DD1 spray painted them and did a better job than I do. Mutterings are still being made about the removal of the rear body but not until next week because the weather forecast for today is awful.

Picked loads of strawberries yesterday, am anticipating the same amount being ready today. Debating whetehr to risk strawberry and rhubarb jam although the combination does seem a little odd. Also came across a couple of interesting sounding recipes for tangerine marmalade so may well investigate those at some point this week.

Decided not to go to the game fair at the unpronouncable Bodelwyddan Castle which means not forking out £26 to get very very wet. Also means no ridicuous purchases of stuff we didn't know we needed. We have enough of that already. So much so that I've started another wardrobe cull. Pu on two tops yesterday neither of which felt comfortable so they've both departed. Also found a pair of jeans which cut into my thighs when I bend over but are too baggy round the waist. Vaguely recall them being an E-bay purchase so have bunged them on one side to make DD1 a handbag as promised after she saw one in a shop made from a pair of jeans and I stupidly said £50 for that... I can make one. Must remember to think before opening my mouth. Of course I could attempt to make one. Whether it looks anything like the one she saw is another matter entirely.

Plans for today involve riding lessons and the purchase of doggy food. Also need to delve about in the bowels of the freezer to come up with something more interesting than veggie burgers for dinner. Seems to have been a run in, grab the quickest thing, scoff and contiue kinda week. The rest of 'em are soundly sleeping so I'm going to quaff coffee and munch toast whilst reding diaries and then I'll ferret about in the laundry mountain for a sports bra. If theres one there I'll zumba or have another go at Exerbeat and if not I'll veg some more, anythings preferable to actually tackling the laundrry pile.

chevalier

nice to hear that ther eis more progress on the landrover. i am guessing that it is kind of coming together now. will it actually be driveable this summer?
chev

TallGirl

Moo2moo hope you don't mind me asking which Zumba on do you have wii? My gym is closing and I loved their Zumba classes but I don't have a wii, xbox etc. Do you get a good workout from these "games".

Also like to say well done on the jam making I love making jam too any idea what I can make with red gooseberrries. only got about 10 blackcurrents but quite a few strawberries.

moo2moo

Hi Tall Girl, I have this. Its a bit of a giggle and usually leaves us all hot, sweaty and out of breath but like anything what you get out of it is entirely down to what you put into it. I get just as good a workout from Just Dance but then I tend to do that for a couple of hours at a time. Its fun though and anything that I can do as and when it fits is always going to work for me.

As for the jam try mixed berry jam. There are loads of recipes about but they're generally along the lines of weigh the fruit and use the equivalent amount of sugar. Bung a couple of spoons of water in a pan and simmer the fruit until soft starting with the firmest first. Add the sugar and boil until set. There should be enough pectin in the blackcurrants to achieve this in 5-10 minutes.

Gooseberry and strawberry jam is lovely too although not one I'll be making this year as the one and only gooseberry bush has leaf curl and needs to be pulled up and burnt.

and Chev... if its drivable this summer I'll bounce round the village naked!

Trying_to_be_good

Hi Moo - is this the sort of handgbag DD1 is after: www.ehow.com/video_4953483_make-jeans-handbag-materials.html. Not sure quilting the bottom, nor lining, is strictly necessary. And quite annoying american accent that you may want to mute. And not call it a 'tote'. Other than that, the link is OK!

TallGirl

Thanks Moo2moo that is really helpful just signed up for 12 bootcamp sessions hopefully that will keep me on the straight and narrow until I invest in a wii.

moo2moo

Trying_to_be_good wrote: »

Hi Moo - is this the sort of handgbag DD1 is after: www.ehow.com/video_4953483_make-jeans-handbag-materials.html. Not sure quilting the bottom, nor lining, is strictly necessary. And quite annoying american accent that you may want to mute. And not call it a 'tote'. Other than that, the link is OK!

Thats ace thank you! Appears my first challenge is to find a pair of scissors that actually work as the last few pairs got used on roofing felt and are blunter than airline cutlery.

Bought dog food and milk and a few other things and am now £25 poorer than I was when I nipped into Lidl.

Got issued with the summer schedule for pony club have whittled it down rather ruthlessly from an event a day to a mere three over the summer. Still £110 of stuff though.

And TallGirl 12 bootcamp sessions is dedication indeed. Hope they're not the 5:30am ones cos that would be a step too far.

moo2moo

Jam making is indeed a miraculous thing. Have had really really crap hands for months. Really crap. The sort of hands that wouldn't be out of place on your average garage mechanic. Horrible dry cracked skin full of ground in engine oil and other delights. 30 minutes of citrus fruit chopping later they're pink. They're still cracked and horrible but the grime has gone faster than Barry White can yell "bang!" in the annoying Cillit Bang! ads.

Meanwhile the kitchen smells most citrussy and the slow cooker is full of lemon and lime in anticipation of improvised and v. lazy marmalade. Couldn't be faffed with leaving it to boil for two hours so have bunged it in the slow cooker instead and will plonk it in a pan at something approaching lunchtime to add the sugar and heat it to volcanic temperatures. Its worth noting at this point that this is my first ever attempt at marmalade making and I really haven't got a scooby doo what I'm doing so it could all go terribly wrong, especially since I've already adapted the recipe on account of not having any oranges to hand.

It looks like being fabulously sunny out which would be great for getting the laundry out of the way but OH has filled the line with bits of Landie in various stages of painting so I'm stuck with using the airer indoors or improvising outside and hoping that stuff doesn't snag on the bits of metal. Its all rather annoying, especially as some of its been there for almost a week. Most inconsiderate of him. Mind you he did have a bit of a wobbly yesterday and admitted its a bit more expensive than he thought it was going to be. Meh. Really. I refrained from saying I told you so v. smugly indeed but it was oh so tempting.

Meanwhile 5 minutes walk from the house a tiny one acre field has hit the market. Haven't figured out how much it is yet, have a feeling that being occupied by a ramshackle hut with mains electricity is going to make it vastly more than I'd like to pay. It would be perfect for a few sheep and a small orchard, lots of fruit bushes and vegetables. Not convinced its the sort of place that would do as a holiday let though, v.v. tempted to arange a viewing via the estate agents just to appease my curiousity though.

Spent yesterday afternoon avoiding the houswork by canoeing down rivers whilst being chased by crocodiles, an activity my bum is far too bony for. The demonic daughters then figured out how to edit their own torture session and sniggered rather a lot as I lurched from kung foo class to salsa dancing with the odd bit of boxing thrown in. Quite why its called a Dance Workout escapes me, especially when the marathon running option is proffered. Mind you its not as annoying as Exerbeat which likes to stop after every activity so the wii mii can weeble its way around the world whilst telling you that your last 20 minutes of activity burnt three sodding calories.

Chased up My Hermes to claim compensation for the delay and damage to the parcel I sent with them. Apparently all I need to do is provide proof that it was collected and delivered, pictures of the inside of the box and the outside of the box and the resulting damage as well as proof that the item is valued at the amount I claim it to be valued at in order for them to assess my claim. Clearly they're having a laugh. The recipient has already rebuilt the damaged unit by using another broken one for spares and the likelihood of the packaging still being around two days after it arrived is pretty much non-existant. Have e-mailed them anyway but am not holding out any hope at all. Definately won't be using them again though.

OH is at work so the DDs and I have been issued with a list of tasks ranging from spraying rusty bolts on the old landie to last minute e-bay bids for parts for the new one. Further plans extend to transforming a fridge full of strawberries into jam before the next lot are ripe and then rather a lot of cleaning, starting with the kitchen floor which is beyond disgusting.

In more exciting news we're teetering perilously close to breaking through the 10K barrier for the third and hopefully final time although I've also had a quote for 6K to reroof the dodgy part of the roof so we may well hit this point again another year from now. Still for now at least we're on the homeward straight.