Breaking Through, Travelling On

misscousinitt

Well done you - quite satisfying saving money and getting it done yourself when you previously couldn't! - A real achievement.

So glad you are getting so much out of your retirement already.

It's really great to see.

MCI

Karmacat

Thanks MCI! Until I get used to being almost well, I'm going to think about these sorts of decisions really carefully - 3 months ago, I couldn't imagine doing what I've just done this morning, and though I can still see me needing to spend up to £100 *maybe*, I'd have wasted nearly £200. As it is, between freegle, bonfire societies, council waste days and learning to make a bonfire *myself*, I'm really hoping this won't cost anything!

There are other things to spend on - the boiler has broken down, I want an asbestos shed roof removed and replaced by polycarbonate, with a upvc door, and I need a new garden gate ( i.e. the old one has fallen off the rotted hinges :eek:).

The other element of new retirement is getting used to setting more social things up (I didn't used to have any while I was ill ...). This week, it's the Sound Healing from the games evening friend, Friday with an mse friend in London :j:j:j and Sunday with my sister.

Funny old world :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, how great you've been able to lop a load of the cheery (:rotfl: typed 'cheery automatically instead of cherry :rotfl: ) laurel yourself! :j Excellent money saving strategy now you've got the energy :j :j

Sounds like you've got a nicely sociable weekend coming up too

Karmacat

Cheery, isn't it :rotfl:

I've realised, with all this going on, I'm not ready to join U3A yet - catching up on cleaning, catching up on maintenance, and most importantly catching up on family and friends :j

Speaking of which, I booked another trip to Merseyside, mid-November, just a few days this time as I'm up there for Christmas.

Today: YouGov have played nice, 75 points, pay a credit card, faff around with transferring money, saw some more laurel

And **triumphal trumpet sounds** sort a definite strategy for becoming a kindle bestseller :beer: I know roughly what I need to do, I want to lay it out in detail now, I managed almost 4,000 words transcription yesterday, though a bit of actual *writing* will need to be put in here and there.

[Deleted User]

I'm loving the 'new' you these days, KC. Your joie de vivre is a delight:j


We had to lop a lot off a massive willow tree which is growing in the corner of next door's garden nearest to our boundary. It's next to a natural pond, almost a small lake, that he has there and it shoots up at an alarming rate. OH has mentioned it to the neighbour before and he doesn't seem to want to do anything about the tree but it had got out of hand recently and was bashing against our overhead telephone lines. We rarely see him as his house is at the farthest end of his massive garden and he's often abroad anyway. OH decided to take matters into his own hands and lop some of the dangerous height off. I hope there won't be any repercussions:eek:. Country life isn't all sweetness and light:(. I wonder if the water and tree are responsible for our damp/subsidence issues?


I love your new shade, KC. I often shop at Wilko, they have some bargains. I had to smile as just below it there was an 'other things you might like...' section with pictures of those spherical paper shades that used to be all the rage in the 70s. I loved them and had them in every room:rotfl: but they weren't all that robust especially when OH went on a mad fly-swatting spree:eek:. I never realised those shades had made a comeback and am seriously considering risking some more;).

Karmacat

Thank you CBC! I'm just so happy to have come back from flopping around like a beached whale ... unattractive to see and to experience, I guarantee you :eek: :rotfl:

My sympathies on the overgrowing willow - that's a classic site for a willow, isn't it, and they're fast growers anyway It was probably a really good idea for your OH to take matters into his own hands, especially as your phone wire was involved. My non-party-wall neighbour has a tree through which my own phone line threads - and he's clambering about in it every other year, making sure none of the branches or twigs come near it, which is very good of him, he takes a lot of care of that tree because of the wire.

How far is the lake from your house? Could well be your subsidence problem I didn't realise you had one, I'm afraid. I'd really hate that, in my last house I had tree roots undermine the foundation of a retaining wall for the front garden (very hilly area!) and I had to have it pulled down and rebuilt - £2k!

As far as the lampshade goes, isn't it weird to see the old globular paper lampshades back? The one I just got rid of was made of the same paper, but it was square, going up in a triangular sort of shape, and it was **horrendous** to change a lightbulb - this new one couldn't be easier :rotfl: :cool:

Been doing more transcribing and sawing. Life is good :j

[Deleted User]

Sadly we had subsidence problems about 25 years ago. This area is notorious for its clay soil and subsidence is a pain for a lot of people. This house was really a pair of almost derelict semi-detached farm labourers cottages when we bought it and did it up. We employed a firm of builders and turned it into a single detached house but I suspect the foundations in the bit we added on to and didn't replace were poorly done. OH said farm labourers often used to build the houses themselves and may not have had much building expertise:eek:


We claimed on our insurance for the major cracks to the walls and it was put right without any underpinning. It hasn't been too bad since, although there are always small cracks emerging here and there. When we shopped around to find cheaper cover we found new insurers wouldn't accept us because of the subsidence history:eek:. We had to stick with our original company who put the premiums up alarmingly. I doubt they would entertain another claim for the same problem;)

I've often wondered whether the pond/lake(which is natural and not man-made) means water is seeping under the dodgy part of our foundations and hence causing the damp issues. Our own garden shows no sign of waterlogging though, except in spells of torrential rain when everyone suffers from it. We have had 3 different damp-proof courses in our time in the house:eek: and although most of the walls are OK I suspect water may be just under the solid floors which could have cracked by now. We have thermoplastic tiles (another blast from the 70s) everywhere under the carpets. What tiles I've managed to check (the carpets are very hard to peel back) don't have any cracks in them.

Karmacat

That sounds rough, CBC sorry to hear it. With an older house, you just don't know, do you

The first house I bought, back in 1987, was a terrace built around the 1860s, I think. Made of "clunch" - which was explained to me as being "builder's rubble" :eek: after I'd bought it, I hasten to add, not before. It was a solid little house, though - quite big, actually, though the bathroom was fairly new because it had never, ever had a bathroom before :eek: :rotfl: No damage at all from the hurricane, 3 weeks after I moved in!

This one, to be honest, it feels like there's always something needs doing, but at least it feels sturdy, which my 2nd house didn't. You pays your money, and then you just pray .... thats sort of how it is with this stuff.

I've had a little bit more sawing work - I've got through the layers of tree trunks enough to see that there's a screen between me and my neighbour made of bamboo, which is encouraging. I might have a go at training something over the space that will exist once the shed is pulled down. Bit tired now, though, so I'm just going to relax.

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atypicalblonde

Hi KC, lovely to *see* you again

Retirement seems to be suiting you my lovely, and I'm pleased for you Free wood for a fire is something I dream of, we have a wood burner and I am constantly on the look out for free wood rather than paying £75 per bag.

Have a lovely evening x

Karmacat

Hi ATB :hello: hope you're good.

Retirement really does suit me, that's for sure :j

I'm very hopeful that the wood will be useful to someone, even the branches that are only a few inches in diameter, they'd be sort of kindling, compared to the monsters that are coming up :rotfl:

Sound healing workshop tomorrow cancelled, not me this time.

And I haven't done any of the financial stuff I was supposed to do today Okay, I officially appoint Wednesdays as the finance day, because Martin's newsletter comes out on a Wednesday. See, that gets me off the hook.

Oh yes. Retirement. Hurray. Yes indeedy. I've got to stop this, I do apologise ...