Caz counts it down

DebtFree2012

How's the new shift going? Were the horses ok with pooch this and her scary light this morning?

I second not burning the candle at both ends - I am very guilty of doing this and have been conciously trying to get to bed as soon as my 10pm hours are done as I've been up since 5:20. Sometimes it works and I feel fine, other times I am super tired.

A tight month is good once in a while, makes you think harder about what you really need I think £50 up is better than the alternative

Any plans for the weekend?

cazmanian_minx

I'm going to cautiously say it's not too bad - I only woke up at 4.20 this morning I've found my head torch now, so I was able to spotlight the dog as she went into the field and the boys were fine.

I've not worked too hard today. 4 hours of proofreading, then 45 minutes in the field to shovel two barrowloads of manure, about an hour and a half for Mr RPC (and more to do for him over the weekend) and I have just over two hours to do for NEL, one of which I've promised to try and get done by the end of the weekend.

I spent the afternoon up at the farm - I have been promoted from just being allowed to stand and watch to scanning the microchips and boiling the kettles to keep the hot water coming We were preparing ewes for the sale on Tuesday, but I'm invited up for when they do all their pre-tupping dosing, when I'll be allowed to get hands on and will learn how to dose a sheep and give a bolus.

cazmanian_minx

Not too busy this weekend. I managed to have a lie-in until 8 yesterday, then we tootled into town to do the weekly shop (only £66, we must have forgotten an awful lot!), came back here and Mr Minx settled down in front of the rugby while I rattled my way through 20 minutes of the work in from NEL. I had a break for supper and then rattled through another 25 minutes in the evening while half-watching Divergent (a better film than I thought it was going to be, I'll have to watch it properly at some point!).

Today's been a getting stuff done day. I gave both horses a brush and it was nice to see Finn really enjoying it, as at one point he was so sore with his ulcers that he couldn't even bear to be touched. Today he was standing in the sunshine with his head lowered, his eyes half closed and his bottom lip all floppy, thoroughly loving it. I cleaned the house, did two hours of ironing in front of Person of Interest (two more episodes of Season 3 to go), packed up some eBay orders, finished off the first file for NEL and sent it back, did some letters and meeting notes for Mr RPC and then downloaded all my assigned audio for tomorrow morning's agency shift.

I've also updated my laptop to Windows 10 and it now seems to take twice as long to boot up. I'm hoping that it's just because it's updating itself almost every time I reboot at the moment and it'll be quicker once it's all up to date. Think I've managed to turn off everything that sends information back to Microsoft I don't want it to.

DebtFree2012

Fabulous re the farm work. Nothing like hands on learning.

Windows 10 is a nightmare sometimes. We've had issues since loading it and my parents PC is ridiculously slow now. Good luck!

Glad the hours aren't too bad, it will all be worth it!

Mara_uk7

If you want more farm experience ... I have about 120 Cattle that need feeding twice a day over the winter .... and you get to poop scoop with a tractor ! Number 1 Hubby will be delighted to have a willing pupil

cazmanian_minx

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

Fabulous re the farm work. Nothing like hands on learning.

Windows 10 is a nightmare sometimes. We've had issues since loading it and my parents PC is ridiculously slow now. Good luck!

Glad the hours aren't too bad, it will all be worth it!

It seems to have settled down okay, a little bit slower to load, but once it's up and running it's fine.

This morning was the first time I didn't wake up at least an hour before the alarm clock and I'm feeling a lot better Not sure about it being worth it though - I had a first transcript from someone this morning and although the file was under 15 minutes, it took me 45 minutes to fix all the formatting issues, for which I earned a grand total of 92p! Think I might have been quicker retyping the whole thing!

Mara_uk7 wrote: »

If you want more farm experience ... I have about 120 Cattle that need feeding twice a day over the winter .... and you get to poop scoop with a tractor ! Number 1 Hubby will be delighted to have a willing pupil

I think the commute on the ferry might be a little expensive but thank you for the offer! Joyce has cattle too, but I think she's just under 100, she's mainly sheep. She's been at the sale in Lairg today, can't wait to hear how she got on, as they were looking fantastic. Shame about the rain though.

I'm not quite sure where the past two days have gone. I've done two proofreading shifts, sent out 28 eBay orders (for a total of nearly £300), done about 4 hours for Mr RPC, another file for NEL and emailed a friend of Mr RPC's who might be interested in my VA services - fingers crossed, because he's in property!

The library arrived today with 17 books for me so it's off to bed for a little bit of reading.

cazmanian_minx

Having said I wasn't going to burn the candle at both ends... I started work at 6am and finished at 8pm today It would have been earlier, but Pete the Roofer turned up and since Mr Minx was at home, we took him down the road to have a look at the roof on the one we're buying. Pete's opinion was that it will hold a while longer, but if we're certain we want to get the two Velux windows enlarged and put another two in the bedrooms on the back side of the house for views over the moor, then we're going to be taking so much of the roof off anyway, that it'll only be an extra £2,000 or so to get the whole thing re-slated. So it's going to be about £12-14,000 for taking out the two existing windows, enlarging them, putting two new holes in the roof, fitting heritage Velux windows (they sit flush with the roof rather than sitting up proud of it), re-roofing in slate (rather than the Eternit tiles on there at the moment) and re-doing all the flashings etc. in lead (rather than the aluminium there currently). Assuming the purchase all goes through okay, we're on his schedule for March next year.

On the plus side, Pete (who used to own and run one of the largest building companies in the south east of England) reckons we've got ourselves a gem of a project and it should do very well as a holiday let. He was working on a roof a couple of miles away and was chatting to the owners about the house opposite, which was a holiday cottage, and asked about occupancy rates. They'd lived there over a year and could only remember about six weeks when it hadn't had guests, which bodes very well for us, as Pete said ours has nicer views, and I've been basing my calculation on 20 weeks' occupancy!

DebtFree2012

That's great news Caz, what an income that would be! I have everything crossed for you for smooth sailing wrt the purchase.

I can't say I had a surprised look to hear you're burning the candles at both ends but do take care of yourself.

cazmanian_minx

Another busy day (when are they not these days??). Pete arrived back at 8.30 and took my roof to pieces to find the leak around the landing Velux. There was much swearing when he reroofed what we thought was the offending area and it proceeded to leak exactly as it had been before when we turned the hose on it. Four hours of investigations and many tiles later, he found one loose nail above the window where water had been getting in, getting under the edge of the Velux, trickling round the edge of the frame and then coming in at the bottom. All fixed and standing up to a serious hosing with the spray nozzle.

I wasn't doing too badly on the work front today, my proofreading shift went smoothly, I had 11 easy-to-pack eBay orders and needed to finish 30 minutes for NEL. 'I'm doing fine,' I called to Pete as I went past the foot of his ladder with another load of laundry. 'My PA client is being quiet today.' Famous last words... Mr RPC came through big-time in the afternoon and then a neighbour called round and kept me talking for an hour, with the end result being I was still typing letters at nearly six o'clock.

One piece of very good news is that I've heard from my solicitor and it appears that buying the crofts is going to be easier than she thought, as the deceased is still the registered owner, which apparently makes it simpler to transfer them to me. She's asked me to walk down the road and check that the oil tank is situated in a suitable place and wants to make sure I'm happy with the fact that the seller can't verify certain things because she's an executor rather than the owner, but other than that, all I have to do is deposit £95,000 with my solicitor to be held in escrow and the seller's solicitor will get the paperwork signed. Will be phoning the bank in the morning to start the process of getting the cash transferred

Verbatim

Exciting news about the croft. Love your blog about Ethel's house Caz. the photos are great for giving a realistic view of what needs doing.