make do and mend for tougher times

homerdog

kidcat wrote: »

You lot cant half talk, have skimmed so please accept my apologies for any glaring ommissions.

FairyP - could you look in your recycling centre for a few tins, if they are only for growing it wont matter so much if they have been a little weathered.

Kittie - I am exhausted just thinking of what you achieve in a day, one day I aspire to manage a tenth of what you do.

PAH- well done on the babysitting and school runs, speaking from experience school runs exhaust me.

SDG - I hope your day in the shop went well

I managed the school runs and then had yet more blood tests, I then finally had an appointment with a doctor who was lovely, she actually examined me!!! And has requested X-Rays, she says that when she knows exactly what it is she will forward me to pain clinic too.

Another no spend day as I really could not be bothered shopping at all. ended up cooking five different dinners tonight to use up bits and pieces.
Tomorrow will have to take out a prepayment certificate for my prescriptions as I now have three to put in so it will pretty much pay for itself immediately.

My daughter took one out for her husband last week...you can pay by DD over 10 months...not bad when it's £7.65 per item...if you do it that way you have to pay up front and get a receipt and claim it back when your card comes in about 3 weeks...it works out so much cheaper...I'm lucky cos my husbands work runs a benevolant fund and we get the cost of ours refunded...all he pays in is £1 a week.

homerdog

I like the tins too, lots of ideas there...I remember using empty baby milk tins for stilts when my son was born and my girls were little.

[Deleted User]

Well done KIDCAT - finally someone is doing something to help, what a relief. Lets hope they can sort it out for you now and make you comfortable again Cheers Lyn x.

[Deleted User]

Ahh please don`t do as much , you have children and other responsibilities, my dh will do all the ironing, clean the windows, vacuum and dust etc I don`t even ask him and it is because he CAN do those jobs, whereas I am programmed to whizz through several more complicated tasks all at once

Got a letter from sippdeal today, where I have a very small pension pot in drawdown. Due to quantitative easing, gilt yields have plumetted and this affects annuities. The amount you can get via drawdown is based on gilt yield. My max allowable drawdown has been £2045 per year, it is now going to be £1745 pa and that is a drop of 21%. Imagine all those pensioners with private drawdown pensions who are suddenly told that they will get 21% less pa, many must be taking the maximum to cope with day to day, they will be horrified if they didn`t know this was going to happen :eek:

I must just say that the courgette curd made yesterday is absolutely lovely. Dh has it on toast at every opportunity, I also finally made the green bean relish after saving beans in vacuumed pots in the fridge. So nice to get stuff tucked away for winter. Reminds me of last sept when I was manic with preserving but come winter I do get into hibernation mode and I simply dip into my preserved food and then all I do is relaxing stuff like knitting and eating chocolate. Oh I wish I had hid my choc stash better, I dipped into it yet again this evening

[Deleted User]

Glad the courgette curd is nice KITTIE, Cheers Lyn x.

SDG31000

Hell everyone

I'm on the iPad so apologises for no individual thanks, but thank you all so much for the good luck/best wishes messages. My first morning went well. I basically got shown the book cupboard and asked if I could sort it and the book shelves in the shop itself out. Queue a few mini avalanches of books and my biting back a few swear words at people who think it's acceptable to put an s book in with the d books. It was all sorted when I left, fingers crossed it isn't too bad when I go back on Friday. I think I'm now "The Book Lady" much to the manager's relief as she apparently hates sorting the books. DH came in to check on me and is threatening to make me a badge with my new title on it :rotfl:

I was going to make toad in the hole for dinner but just couldn't face it. So thought I would make sausage, egg and chips as a simple alternative. Then everyone put requests for extras in, so I ended up making eggs, chips, sausages, roasted onions, fried onions, mushrooms and beans. It would have been less stressful to make the toad in the hole.

Tomorrow is knit and natter and I'm up to about 40 little hats knitted. I want to start my cardigan tomorrow. I've decided to make a purple one (using the wool I paid £3 for from Kemps) and my posh, sparkly John Lewis buttons to jazz it up. I'm hoping it will be done by Christmas, but I refuse to say what year.

Hope everyone is well and happy and safe xxxxx

Possession

Glad it went well SDG.
The children had their first karate lesson tonight, got 8 lessons for £14 on a Groupon deal so can see if they like it. DH was a bit apprehensive when he dropped them off as there were only 6 people there and 3 of them were black belts! But they really enjoyed it, particularly DS who I've rarely heard so enthusiastic about anything that isn't lego. Which is good as he's been having a few issues at school about not sticking up for himself and we're hoping this will help.

valk_scot

Briefly back from Tesco, DD is at swimming training two evenings a week and it's a good time of evening to go for YS stuff. Bought DS a couple of school shirts which rang through at £1 more each than on the label so I trumphantly went to claim my DTD. It really cheers me up when I get to do that, I don't go looking for DTD items but I like it when one turns up. Got some nice tubs of main course salads and wraps in the YS too, something different for packed lunches for the kids.

charlies-aunt

Byatt wrote: »

My cottage is timbered...original wattle and daub...:rotfl: well the last bit may not be true as I don't know what wattle and daub is or even if I've spelled it correctly. But the plaster is lime based and I need to do some remedial work. /QUOTE]

Our cottage dates c1670-ish, beamed, fully staffed with huge hairy legged spiders and still has the some of original horsehair and dung 'plaster' in parts of the loft. It looks like coarse, slightly uneven, grainy plaster. If you have this throughout, I am very jealous as its so authentic - our cottage was [STRIKE]vandalised[/STRIKE] renovated by the previous owner in the 1980's before we bought it and she not only replastered all the walls but also removed and skipped all the cast iron fireplaces, one with a side oven and meat drying cupboard :eek:
If I was ever lucky enough to win the lottery, I'd love to be able to put the fireplaces back in .... and have an Aga for the kitchen too.



Wattle and daub was more Iron Age buildings made with walls of interwoven willow twigs and then plastered with clay to render the structure draught and water proof


Still waging war with the slugs - the bran was a huge hit with them - they find it yummy and I have dozens crowding the dish evey night, getting bigger and fatter but not one fatality yet!

kidcat

Charlies aunt - it never ceases to amaze me how people can do these things.

Have taken my pain killers so please excuse me if I dont make sense

It is absolutely torrential rain here at the moment, DS8 is racing about wearing a fleece blanket as batman, DS14 is dancing about the living room excited we may be flooded!! Its past ten oclock and neither shows any sign of sleep any time soon. I definitely think the weather change has affected them, even the animals are acting up the rabbit growled at the dog earlier, the cats are all fighting, and the dog keeps breaking through the baby gate to raid the kitchen bin.

Even DD17 is acting odd, diving outside willingly to check car windows were closed and laughing hysterically.

Am trying to buy a bike shed to house the bikes, currently they are stored in the toy shed but they dont all fit and to get as many as I do inside I have them stacked on top of each other rendering them unobtainable without major work. Now DS14 has won a bike (well a part of one anyway - I will have to pay more than half of it) thats expensive (well to me anyway) I would like them stored in a specific shed that just houses the bikes, meaning that the kids can simply wheel said bike out without dismantling half a shed.

But oh boy its difficult, its hard to compare like for like as the sizes quoted are all measured at different points, some come with floors, others you buy a floor seperately and so on. Have chosen one I think is ok but have had to resort to emailing my dad to check it for me. Havent told OH yet as when I brought it up last week he wasnt at all pleased.

But as its me that has to deal with the issues of getting bikes out, and I am struggling with much more important things this will make my life easier - besides DS is beginning to get anxious he will lose his "prize" if we dont get it soon, so I dont have time to coax OH. So am going to order and deal with fallout later.