Caz counts it down

Hiddenidenity

Oh it looks lovely we had rain! x

Mara_uk7

I see your grass is as lush & abundant as ours over here Caz, We are plaqued with thousands of icelandic greylag geese all winter, Almost ready to turn out the cattle, but no grass, all eaten or s**tten on by blooming geese !

Second cow of the morning about to produce a calf, first one on its feet looking for breakfast ! So much for a lazy Sunday !

cazmanian_minx

After a bit of rain overnight (the first in about a week), my field is covered in green shoots today! Congrats on your new arrivals, we have lambs popping out daily in the field next to the house

We've had a totally lazy day here, most of it has been spent reclined on the sofas watching football. I actually dozed off for about an hour at lunchtime and probably would have slept longer if my own snoring hadn't woken me up

I forgot to say yesterday - we got £11 off at Tesco with coupons

cazmanian_minx

That's another year of contact lenses bought - £77 from Vision Direct with 8% cashback through Quidco. The same lenses from Specsavers are £97.

I have £155 left in the First Direct account. The only payments left to come out of it this month are the two card payments (Barclaycard 6.9% and Nationwide 0%), the rest can be transferred into the NatWest account as soon as I know what those payments are. I've also been religiously rounding down the balance to the nearest £5 whenever a payment goes out and now have £21.16 in my savings account. Given that the washing machine is making slightly strange noises, I think I'm going to be keeping that as an emergency fund until it reaches £250 or so.

cazmanian_minx

I've spent most of the day in town refereeing mother-in-law versus double glazing saleswoman. It's debatable who needed me there more actually, mother-in-law for me to explain things in terms she'd understand or the saleswoman who sat through the stories of mother-in-law's cleaning lady problems with an increasingly fixed smile It was a great quote anyway (£5,700 for 13 windows, including hardwood sills) and they're a reputable local company - they did our doors and MIL's doors and we know loads of people who've had windows from them, so it's just a case of MIL deciding whether or not she wants to go ahead. She's been grumbling about her windows for the past 5 years so I'm really hoping she gets them done!

It was 1.30 by the time the saleswoman left, I hadn't had lunch and MIL had a cheese scone and a banana waiting for her which didn't look particularly appetizing, so I suggested chips which perked her up until she remembered that the chip shop did enormous portions of fish and she didn't fancy that much. We ended up going out to the Bistro....and she had almost the same sized portion of haddock and chips as she would have got at the chippy PLUS banana fritters and it cost me about 4 times as much!

Mr Minx was planning a special supper and had emailed me a shopping list, so it was off to Douglas the butcher for two fillet steaks and then Tesco for asparagus, shallots and carrots (£30 in total). I filled up the car (£65) and then swung by the vet on the way home to pick up Jura's worming tablets (£3.14).

Tomorrow I am SUPERGLUING myself to my PC and getting all the new stock that arrived on Monday afternoon photographed and listed, as some of it is a special order for a regular customer. The Czech glass beads have been paid for and could, at the outside, be here on Friday so I need to get organised.

cazmanian_minx

Well, I applied my backside to my desk chair and have made good headway with the order that was delivered on Monday. Everything I've stocked before is listed and the remaining 29 new items have all been photographed, the photographs have been edited to put them on a pure white background, uploaded to my webspace and I've got three of them listed on eBay and my website - just 26 listings on both left to do.

I've had another two emails to tell me that overseas orders are ready. My lovely freight agent is on the case and around about mid-May I'll be having 15 boxes delivered from China and Hong Kong, most of it new stock I'm also trying to get earrings made to the same design as a popular pendant I buy from a UK wholesaler. The wholesaler got in touch with their supplier and got samples made, but when I said I'd like it made with an 8x6 setting instead of a 14x10 one, I was expecting them to scale the whole thing down and they haven't, they've put an 8x6 setting into the same frame that the 14x10 one was in, so it looks a little peculiar! With the help of a print of a photo of the original pendant, a ruler and a calculator, I've managed to work out what the frame dimensions should be, so I'll scan the photo with the dimensions marked on it and send it back to them. I hope this works out, because I think they'll sell really well - I've done this with this wholesaler before and they ended up putting the item into their regular stock.

cazmanian_minx

I'm slightly cross-eyed and stiff as a board from sitting in one position for too long, but those remaining 26 items are listed on my website and eBay :beer:

I'm currently debating the pros and cons of getting up at stupid o'clock to go and see FAB1 arrive at John o'Groats

They're having a draw at each stopping point - if you turn up wearing pink you can get a raffle ticket from the support crew and the winning number gets a quick ride in the car with Chris Evans, Gary Barlow, James May and Brian Cox. Now, there aren't that many people up here anyway and I can't see too many of them wanting to turn out of bed at the scheduled arrival time of 4.26am, so I have a reasonably good chance of getting in the car if I go.....BUT they're already running 40 minutes late at Birmingham and if, as I suspect, they're booked onto the 7.40am flight from Wick to Aberdeen to get connections back to London, they're not going to hang around too long for photos and driving nutty bead sellers about

Mara_uk7

If thats Professor Brian Cox, Im looking out my swimsuit now ! Its only 7 miles across the water to John O Groats !

cazmanian_minx

Mara_uk7 wrote: »

If thats Professor Brian Cox, Im looking out my swimsuit now ! Its only 7 miles across the water to John O Groats !

Get swimming, they'll be here in an hour and a half!!

Mara_uk7

Did you see them ? Chris Evans was on his show as normal this morning wasnt he ? I LURVE Brian Cox ........ ~~