My home is a mess

alec_eiffel

Having a bit of a house rescue this morning after a busy and tiring weekend!

sonastin

Wow - seems like everyone has been busy this weekend!

fpcat - i can totally sympathise. I wish I had that killer retort for you to put him back in his place but as Emm says, some men are just truly oblivious AND hurtful in the way they trot out their recollection of how it used to be without checking out whether things have changed since.

YL - enjoy the camping. I love camping in the rain! As long as the bedrooms stay dry, getting wet doesn't need to be miserable. As a tip, provided you don't end up getting too cold (which is really possible with this weather so you might need to ignore me!) shorts & flip-flops are much better than jeans and trainers in the rain. You can wash the mud off and dry skin much better than you can any sort of clothing! I must add that a lot of my camping has been done at sailing events so there has almost always been some sort of clubhouse to disappear into to get warm though.

We had 2 lovely days out over the weekend while the sun was shining. I couldn't help but curse the fact that I wasn't able to get any washing done and dried because we were out though. Monday morning I put the first load in and actually said to OH "as long as it stays dull & grey like this and not raining, this wind should dry it in no time". We popped out to aldi just before the first load finished & before we were back, the rain started and still hasn't stopped! I have 3 loads on maidens in the living room and last night we had the woodburner stoked so hot that I'm sure it'll all be dry by now. At the moment, laundry is the biggest issue between me & OH. Before we had the heating working, he was forever complaining that his clothes smelt fusty. Well what did he expect when I was trying to dry them in a cold damp house?! Now we have heating, the fusty smell only appears occasionally but he's now complaining that his clothes don't smell of anything. Apparently he wants them to smell of washing powder. So still no nearer satisfied. And yet when I look at products to help me get things dried (cover for rotary line, lakeland's dri-buddy, etc) he tells me that I'd be wasting my money and he'll put a radiator in a cupboard upstairs to use as a drying space. Great, except upstairs isn't on the programme for renovation until 2015 so I've got another 2 years of battling with the laundry in the meantime and having to listen to his moaning. I'm in need of some new work clothes anyway so perhaps I'll give up doing laundry and just buy myself something new to wear. Then he can do it himself! or I might just buy myself the cover for the washing line outside so I can hang the washing outside in all weathers. After all, its my money to spend on what makes me happy! How sad is that? that drying my washing outside is now classed as something that makes me happy?

I really need to get out more

Emm-in-a-pickle

Hi Folks!
JPS, well done wih the fishes, I`m sure they`ll be happy now.
Alec E - `house rescue` ...love it! Image of circling helicopters springs to mind, but I`m sure your house wasn`t that drastic.
Sonastin - I must be honest, I like my washing to smell nice, and I do use fabric conditioner (only bought when on offer, sniff before I buy to be sure I like the smell cos some are not very nice, and I don`t use as much as they say, half a `dose` does the trick) Most of my washing gets dried indoors, hanging from hangers in open upstairs doorways. Is your upstairs reasonably ventilated & leakproof? Even if it`s not renovated yet, as long as you don`t hang the wet stuff too close together it should dry ok without mustiness. Mine usually does fine, without opening extra windows or central heating on just for drying. I never got on with the maidens as I`ve had a few that were too prone to sudden collapse, but I have 3 of those little `peg chandelier` thingies that are great for the small stuff (also hung in doorways if it`s wet outside).

Busy day so far.
DGD fed, showered/shampood/de-dagged, and collected by her mum.
Kitchen cleared & cleaned (except floor!!!)
Nipped to MrT`s to use some vouchers, cleaned fridge & did fridge tetris.
Ground to a halt now....
I REALLY want to get outside and do a bit, but it`s wet, rain stopping & starting again every time I think I`ll just nip out for a quick potter. Another coffee, then I will go and DO something!

jpscloud

Afternoon messies!

Emm it was Buffy's fish - I can't lay claim to anything so virtuous as cleaning indoors Messy situation in the house is unchanged, but I have hygiene-ified the areas that need it - even a self-confessed sloblady can only go so far! Well done Buffy by the way - when I kept fish it was always a job I dreaded.

Garden is untouched today as it's rained all day so far and it's cooooooold as well! I've managed to plant a hydrangea that I got half price a couple of weeks ago, but my lovely new plants are all waiting for a dryish or at least warmish spell so I can put them in pots and baskets.

I've decided I'm not letting the weather dampen my week off, so I've bought a tub of Neapolitan Ice cream, cranked up the heating and am sitting at my pine table with the small telly on one end, computer on the other and a hot water bottle for my back eating bowlfuls of ice cream and watching the birds on my feeders through the French windows right next to me. Who needs expensive away holidays eh?

The woodpecker's become a regular and has been lovely to watch, but I've also got coal tits, blue tits, dunnocks, sparrows, goldfinches, woodpigeons, collared doves, blackbirds, and magpies at the feeders and some swifts barnstorming over the garden.

There are some wrens in the *cough* wildlife-friendly corner (aka the rough bit I haven't managed to clear for a few years) and I now have the perfect excuse not to clear that up for the rest of the summer... wouldn't want to disturb them now, would I? :cool:

Hope all messies are well and happy, and enjoying whatever you are up to.

Edit: the daft sparrows are arguing over whose turn it is in the bird bath... and it's pouring down!

Emm-in-a-pickle

A thousand apologies Buffy, of course they are your fish. Thanks JPS for pointing this out.
Re the rough bit of your garden JPS, you do indeed have the perfect excuse. Just think, with a little less effort you could have an even bigger rough patch, and have it end up like ours!! Seriously, it`s good to have areas where the wildlife isn`t interfered with, and even when the grass is cut where the birds feel safe to feed - so rewarding just watching them.
My amnesty does not, however, extend to oven-ready chickens, so I am now going to bother a chicken with a variation (!!!) of a Thai sort of thing. The recipe is for stir-fry but I`m going to put lime/chilli/ginger/lemongrass/garlic inside the bird and sort of roast it upside down....I will blame the recipe if it goes horribly wrong, but claim it as my own if it`s nice!

bearcub

Afternoon/evening Messies.

I hope you're all well, although I noticed that Jps hasn't been, but it seems you're a lot better now, jps!

Emms, lovely to read that you're mobile again - ie driving - and enjoying it. Lots of creative meals again, I see. You are good! It's as much as I can do nowadays to come up with ideas for OH to cook, never mind me!

Congrats to the new Mrs Gilly1964! Looking forward to hearing all about the event and the honeymoon.

Buffy, I'm not surprised your fish were spooked, given that they can now see the world with scary clarity again.

Sonastin, how awful about the now-ex tenants. It's hard to understand how people can treat other people's property with so little care. It's the same as landlords charging their tenants a small fortune, then neglecting to take care of even the most basic of maintenance, then blaming it on the tenants (as experienced by DD2 and bf). Total lack of respect!

Alec e, I hope the lifesaving device you used for the house worked ok. Sometimes, the situation just gets to a point when I think, "Am I ever going to get this cleared up?"

I hope YL is having a wonderful time camping, and she 's not getting too much of the weather we've had today - non-stop rain.

Well, sorry about going awol. Life sort of took over, having to be constantly somewhere or other, and/or helping someone or other. Neither situation is at all bad, but it does mean that, when I have time to sit down, I do just that - and not much more. However, the bathroom's been kept clean - one thing I'm determined to keep up, given the amount we spent on it. The house has been vacuumed, and dusted occasionally and, with the weather having been really good for the last three days, I've caught up with the washing. Over a couple of weeks, I've had a HUGE sort out of my cardmaking materials, putting some aside for the making sessions, some to advertise on freegle, and the rest re-sorted into files, and put in a portable file case. They 'just' need putting away in a sensible and practical fashion in the conservatory. Actually, DD1 is coming to stay for the weekend and, although she doesn't sleep in this room (she prefers the lounge sofa to the futon in here), I really must clear some of the stuff away, or one of us will fall over it eventually.

Had a bit of a shock on Sunday when an elderly farmer at our church told me that the farm that surrounds where we keep our horses is up for sale. :eek: Little worrying for a while but, having looked closely at the details on the agent's site, it looks as if it won't affect the livery yard. We have another farm (both are organic farms) that surrounds where we live, and the owners of that own the yard. If the land is sold (anyone got £6m to spare?), we'll lose a lot of off-road riding, but we'd rather know that we still have somewhere to keep them!

jpscloud

Welcome back bearcub! Yes I am much better - it's been very uppy downy this month, I nearly missed a month but then it made up for it with a vengeance I've got an essential oil burner going with some frankincense and patchouli - that seems to have a magical effect on my weird urges to burst into tears.

Scary stuff re. the farm sale - hope you get some lovely new "neighbours" who are every bit as keen to keep things as good as they are.

Emm I always forget you have your DGD around a fair bit, I honestly take my hat off to you as you always do so much to keep her entertained. Glad your recovery is going well too!

Continuing my holiday theme today I've had pizza (pepperoni baguettes, 69p for two from A*di) for tea. They're really good, and so far the only pizza type food to cook perfectly in the Halogen.

bearcub

Thank you, jps. Tbh, farming being the way it is atm, I don't think the land is going to sell in a hurry. I suspect the difficulty of farming in the current financial climate is exactly what's made the vendors put it on the market. The owners of the farm next to where we live have been farming the land that's up for sale (there's a family connection) and, with the weather we had in the last year, a lot of the land just hasn't produced nearly enough.

I'm glad you've found something that helps. I'm past 'that' time, but I still have spells when I feel really 'hmph', as our DD1 would put it, and I don't mean just down. Fortunately, I do have something that never fails to pick me up, and that's the horses and mucking out. I simply can't be miserable when a horse is trying to nuzzle me! And mucking out is the best way to get rid of frustrations!

Emm-in-a-pickle

Morning Messies!
Bearcub, welcome back - I thought you`d gone visiting or holidaying, it being that time of year...but I know what you mean about `just sitting down` as I get to that stage some days myself, just run out of steam! I`m glad your horse accommodation won`t be affected by the farm sale (when it eventually happens) but it`s a shame that an organic farming business is selling up. I used to love seeing fields of bright yellow rape seed oil plants around he place, but last week when we saw some I thought -`has this lot been planted with the neo-nicotinoid insecticide coating?` as it must have been planted before the EU ban came in. I didn`t get the usual joy from seeing it at all.
JPS, the oil-burner sounds a great idea. Smells can be very effective on our moods and feelings. My `summer smell` in the house is Basil! I buy a couple of pots of Greek Basil (usually Tesco) and keep them on the windowsill, just give them a little pinch & twiddle a few leaves and they give off a burst of Mediterranean mood smell.
Also deters flies!
Off to farmshop now, laters...

bearcub

Afternoon Messies.

Emms, anyone buying the land would be tied to a 5 year contract of organic farming, because of the grants applied. The vendors have offered to farm the land, or offered their staff, because they're definitely not farmers themselves. Seems to me like a really crafty way of having your cake and eating it! It's always been a lovely area to ride in, because of the wild flowers, and the wildlife, although we've always been expected to respect areas where ground-nesting birds are, such as pheasants, partridges and skylarks. At least the farm near home, which is about 600 acres, will carry on.

Love the smell of basil, too. It reminds me of holidays in Italy. Talking of which, we don't really do holidays since moving here. That's partly because of where we are now, and the practicality of getting someone to look after the animals, mostly the equines.

Lovely day here, although the sun keeps coming and going. Two lots of washing out, and cardmaking stuff on its way to the conservatory. Cleaned the work surfaces in the kitchen yesterday, but I do wonder why I bothered. <sigh>