Breaking Through, Travelling On

ocean123

Hey KC! a' la Benny The Ball

I am so glad you have a diary again - i liked popping into your old one

Your post really struck a chord with me - I started my thread on here for the focus this would give me - i felt after clearing the debt i needed the new challenge and target

beanielou

Big huggles to you xxx

Karmacat

Thanks beanie.

Ocean 123 - I *do* know of some people who lived in Vietnam, but I don't know anyone in the Vietnamese travel industry, I don't think so anyway. If you're someone I used to know ... well, hi, hope you're good, but I'm in the middle of a bereavement and everything else crisis right now, I'm not doing well on the social front.

Hair appointment made, for the day I wanted, its walking distance even for me, with 50% off. Result. Offline now.

Watty1

Sending love and hugs xx

Karmacat

Thanks Watty - I had quite a bit of work today, and more phone calls to make, so I've been glad to sit out on the patio whenever I can. And the important bits of the house are clean, the rubbish is out, I have a list of stuff to do tomorrow :eek: including using my snazzy little dehydrator on all the lovely lemon balm I'm growing ... I might even manage to eat some of my chives, as I have a load of tomatoes that need to be used up. Such are the elements of amusement



ETA - just glancing through my 1976 diary, the one where I took the train all over Europe. When I planned out a fantasy version, I had me getting myself smuggled into a French Foreign Legion base (the town I au-paired at was the Legion base in the south of France). And the smuggling bit was fantasy, so I thought Turns out that actually happened, though - in Norway, with another girl, and we were turfed out by Military Police :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: my amazement knows no bounds, as I'd completely forgotten

EatingTheElephant

Sorry for your loss KC, your travels sound like they would make an interesting read

Watty1

Travels sound like the basis for a novel ...another book to write!

Karmacat

It's very odd, isn't it! What a thing to forget! If I can try to rebuild what happened, and then write it in the present tense, I think that might be good.

I meant to be focussing on my little dehydrator today, but my sister fancied a walk, so we had a pootle about the new linkups of all the footpaths on the edges of my town - never known a place with so many footpaths, it must be very old and/or very densely populated.

And the dehyrator has just gone on - I hope its finished before midnight, it's very low powered. Lots of learning about what's appropriate has already taken place, its a good subject for a blog.

Karmacat

Having a think today ... not only about my friend who's just died ... but reading diaries on here, where people don't post regularly but are focussing really hard on finances ... looking at the Alice Roberts programme about food, on iplayer, and it contained a big section about the updated version of Quidco (I think) ... 40% off the cost of shopping, though I'm not sure if that was supermarket own brand or not. And thinking about how horrible I felt to be strrrreeeettttccccching money as far as it will go in the local town centre (no wonder I only shop online these days).

And also thinking how I managed to walk yesterday, with my sister, for about two hours, and I did that last weekend too. So no more prevaricating; I've committed to the Scottish wedding, for sure, but thats at the end of May. I'll be working through June, July and August, and there are several rotating priorities, and I'm trying the coloured posts again, just got to keep at it, maybe a weekly summary :

1. carry on getting the garden in order (there's a constant surge of chaos at this time of year, of course ). Pruning, planting, soil improvement, whatever.

2. carry on decluttering and making the house liveable, everything from tip visits to shredding to cleaning areas that just haven't been done Getting things repaired too, like the boiler.

3. take up the challenge to be as savvy with money as I used to be: not things like mystery shopping, as I'm not *that* energetic any more, but things like keeping up to date with the best utility prices, checking my broadband, checking rates on my accounts in various places.

4. keeping going on the blogs, and preparing the books, though the writing will only flower fully once I'm retired, especially as the therapy work will probably get more intense in the months before I retire, people suddenly realising they want to book in a few sessions before its too late!

5. financial research too. I've realised thats a topic on its own: matched betting / peer to peer lending / using pension money / getting the accounts for last year finished accurately.

slowlyfading

I'm just looking at peer to peer lending as an alternative to put some money apart from my s&s isa your retirement date creeps closer and closer!