Botanical blunderings on a budget - good life starts here.

MrsMoo2U

Hi Pippi. Pah to slow internet. Just popped in to see if any cuppas going for lunch.

Keiss, my SIL sold bits from an old car on ebay and made a fortune. Dont feel that you are being cheeky. Get several car dealers/scrap merchants around and get quotes from them. Then you could advertise it on ebay for spares or repairs/scrappage. You could sell the tyres seperately. You will be amazed what people will pay. I would try that route first if you can afford the space to park it for a week or two

Cheery_Daff

Keiss, I second (or third!) the call that you're not being cheeky! We put our old van on ebay for scrap (even though it still actually worked, the MOT was running out and it wouldn't have passed), someone rang and offered me £250 to take it out of the auction, I stupidly said no, it went for £175 and the bloke never came to get it, and I had it scrapped by someone local for £175, and that was without new tyres or diesel! Like MrsMoo says, if you have somewhere to park it for a bit while you sell the bits separately, you could potentially make a fortune - we don't have off road parking sadly or we wold have done the same!

Karmacat

Seems like that slow internet's really boogered you up, Pippi, and you're probably up to your neck now in teatime and the class ... hope it all goes well.

MrsMoo2U

sorry for this hijack but Keiss I just came across this blog post and thought of you and your knitted coat
http://kandipandi.blogspot.com/2011/10/golden-hands.html

Kittikins

Good morning campers! I'm trying to convince myself that I feel perky this morning as I had a carp night's sleep, was up for nearly 4 hours in the middle, grrrrrr.........

but in great news, it's the 6th of the month and I'm still in credit! This time last month I was whining that I was already spending next month's salary. Woohoo! That's enough to nearly wake me up, but maybe a good hot shower will do the trick!

Amazing change in the weather down here, I had to close one of the bedroom windows this morning! and boy, the wind whistling down the chimney when I couldn't sleep...wonder how the garden has fared......

Checked the bank accounts and nothing scary going on there, hope my ex will forget he double-paid me last month and will stick another lot in, the likelihood is slim to none, but hey, a gal can dram! oops or even dream

Pippilongstocking

KK well done - what a great feeling for you I hope the eating challenge is helping you its defiinitly helping me

Weather here, um interesting - sideways rain again and gales, last night I swear it sounded like killer hail - but with the flooding today I think it was just rain with boots on

Taught last night (no one died) and I bribed them with brownies - I mean soil, pH and crop rotation concepts - hmm, not much fun!

I've enrolled in a local polytunnel course with a chap who grows commercially (£20) should learn things from a different perspective

HM food yesterday and a nsd

Boiled eggs for brekkie
Lunch - brushetta wiht 10p ciabatta and HM tomatoes and parsley pesto
Tea - um at 10pm cereal - I get so nervous (and am almost sick) before I teach

Ended up with three plates of vegetables (whole veggies big platters) and a tin of beans (no peas or beansl left growing here) to illustrate crop rotation which got a bit of a laugh - I didn't proport I can grow tins of beans - but it made life a bit lighter. Illustrated organic matter with various carrier bags (grabbed on the way to work in heels) of things like seaweed etc - why am I telling you this? Lol, you guys said you've got your own style - so instead of trying to fit into someone elses, I kinda thought, OK how would I learn this - so thank you. I took in lots of props, I'm a very visual learner.

And then of course bribed them with brownies and took my old botanic garden jumper - comfort blanket lol.


Money not great yesterday - juggled money from one to anoh

Karmacat

That weather sounds dreadful to work outside in, Pippi - I'm glad you've chosen not to do the work. I don't think its a question of you not being tough enough! The building sites empty of builders and labourers in weather like that! The polytunnel course sounds brill - it must create its own issues to do it, best to learn from the best sort of thing.

Love what you did with crop rotation! And bribes are always good I'm just sorry things are so tough for you financially

Pippilongstocking

acht KC - we've food and dd's paid and petrol and brownies - lifes not very tough, moneys tight but hey I had my last f/t wage this time last year - so we're ticking over.

If and when that job gets advertised I'll be grateful (if I get it) for 2.5 days a week paid work and regular money to top up the patchwork stuff. I've been really lazy and distracted by alot of non-paid work. I need to keep a balance with that - I'm really busy but only paid for 1.5 hours teaching and an hour or so gardening. Lifes been sucked into a few unpaid projects (which will lead to paid work) but atm, I've got to get a bit more of a balance in the future - better to be busy and working towards future financial gains I guess than not busy at all.

I do have to be careful though, in my line of work alot of folk think you'll just hand over hard work for free (like the man at a meeting, when I said I had a tonne (OK over 10K digital high quality botanical pictures)) anyway I digress - when I mentioned it (in a meeting about a revision of book project (possible republished online) which is unpaid but great for cv).......

Anyway when i said I had so many photos, he thought he could just have free access to them. Um, NO I don't think so, I don't mind working on a project for free if its good promotion if I use my photos in this project, really good PR, but I'm not handing over my photos for someone else to rifle through (if they go into this project it will be great PR but they will be watermarked or annotated to me).

Mr Cheery and I had a good chat about it - when you do something professionally which other folk do for a hobby/pleasure - the lines between work/paid and otherwise get a bit blurry - talking to you guys and Mr Cheery really helped. There are projects I'm happy to help with, others I'm happy to be paid to help with if folk want me. I'm gettting better at it, slowly.

I hope you're good.



good point re builders.

Karmacat

That sounds great, Pippi, if you know where your boundaries are, thats the main thing.

Pippilongstocking

I don't have much of a clue normally!