Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

Lynplatinum

Hiya

Its been madness here today - managed to get most of gloss work done in the room (does that count as mending??) inbetween - a visit from a friend for coffee and gifting me some pumpkin - another viewing of my house - cleaning house for viewing - making a spag bol - but (and this is the best bit) picking up my son from the train station! yea - hes come to help me finish mending the house :j

Making Do - still using paint that I had stored in the shed.

Minimising - not yet but my boy is going to help me by lifting the heavy stuff into the car and thence helping me to get it to the tip! Tomorrow that is!
nite all

GreyQueen

nursemaggie wrote: »

No meritaten it was not in bad condition before they took all the picture hooks out but someone used pink filler on blue and green walls. I don't like the dark colours that make it very dark so we will lighten it while we are covering all the pink filler.

You may remember Thursday was a very dark dreary day so we could not see very well. The electricity is off until next Friday. DS called the pink filler smudges.

One amazing thing is we have a back door very unusual in a flat. I shall enjoy that in the summer.

Oooh, a back door, envy envy. My last flat (private rented dump) did actually have a back door into a tiny scabby back yard, but it was outdoor space and I do miss it.

Re having removed picture hooks and filled in the holes, that may have been the HA's instruction to all outgoing tenants, it's our council's instruction, too. And it's normal to give decorating vouchers if the place is in poor decorative order but not if it's in good order, even though it's highly-unlikely that one person's taste would suit the new person's taste.

You might be able to ask for the first week rent free if the water and electricity were not on, if those lacks were as a result of action/ inaction by the HA. A home without water isn't considered habitable and total lack of water or power is considered an emergency repair if it happens whilst the tenancy is running. HTH.

Today's plans involve spending most of the day with friends indoors, which is great as the weather is appalling and the wind has been cutting up rough overnight. Don't know if weather might improve later today, in which case I might do a fast flit to the allotment to harvest veg, if not, no biggie, I have allotment veg in the freezer.

Keep on the good work, GQ xx

[Deleted User]

The wind is blowing a hooley at the moment and I am trying to decide if I really want to go to the local Dickens festival in Rochester I did promise my history tutor I would go, as she is doing a two hour discourse on Victorian Christmas's which I thought I would like I think I may have to wrap up pretty well first though.Its a freebie as well so I think I will go as a promise is a promise.I will take the bus there though as parking is a nightmare at this weekend in Rochester as most of the roads are shut anyway.I'll even break a bit of cash from my Happy Stash and perhaps have a mulled wine to keep me warm,only in the spirit of warmth of course :):).A wander around the Cathedral would be nice as well as its very Christmassy there as well
have a good day chums
JackieO xxxx

THIRZAH

My DD used to live in Rochester and I really enjoyed staying with her.
We went to a Dickensian Festival in Ulverston last week. The weather was foul. I felt really sorry for the stallholders standing in the cold and wet trying to stop their stalls blowing away. I spent far too much money and now have a freezer half full of sausages! It was a two day festival too so the poor people would have had to face it all again the next day.
The wind here is so strong I could hardly stand up when I went out earlier.

nursemaggie

I think this wind is national, it must be very strong I nearly tripped over a satellite dish in the middle of the pavement. Must take strong winds to brink one of those down.

Sounds really nice JackieO, The Dickens Festival the talk sounds interesting and if the weather was OK the wonder round.

Sorry to give you back door envy GQ it gets better the door leads to a big yard with individual bins and whirligigs for your washing, then into lovely communal gardens.

Do tell us all about the talk tomorrow Jackie. My first thought was I would love to go to that but Greater Manchester to Rochester is quite a journey and expensive. I like Rochester. I should have been born in Maidstone but my mum decided to visit her mum for the weekend and I came early. She did it again two years later and my brother was born a month early and two weeks before the NHS started.

When ever my brother was impatient when we kids mum would say "You are so impatient you could not even wait to be born under the NHS."

Lynplatinum

Hiya

Phew - house feels a lot lighter and airier as my hard work bore fruit today!! My son helped me take - the old carpet; part of a BBQ; a very large paint tin; an old bike frame (neither use nor ornament) and loads of other bits up the tip.

The back room is painted all over and looks really great and now it is rubbish free!!! Yea!!! Tomorrow it is moving the middle bedroom stuff into this pristine little bedroom to enable son to reskim plaster the last wall in the middle bedroom so I can paint it! :j

Making Do - used up half a bottle of Teryaki sauce tonight - also minimising :rotfl: I prefer my own Teryaki sauce but felt compelled in the spirit of not wasting stuff to use this up! I added stuff to enhance it such as a few chilli flakes; honey; taosted seasame seeds.

Mend - hum does the last bit of painting this morning count???

So glad you have a flat Nurse Maggie - and it is just such a good example of how good this thread is that GQ is helping by sharing her knowledge.

Not sure who it was who put the lemon curd recipe on here but thank thank thank you - tried it today and it works brilliantly!! A whole big jar is going in the hamper that is going to the posh house for Christmas.

nite all :A

charlies-aunt

Hi Nurse Maggie


Does your council allow for overlapping HB claims?


Here in your old stamping ground of Sunny Scunny - if you have to move at short notice to secure the tenancy of another house, you are able to ask for up to four weeks overlapping benefit to pay the notice period on your old property


Unless you are on Universal Credit and that only pays housing allowance on one property

fuddle

I have been tidying up my newly inherited garden. DH's arbour has a new home and looks stunning atop of the (very slippery!) decking. I have been digging out my new to me brick built raised bed 4 metre x 1 metre and planted all the dandelions in a pot so I can pick 'em for my rabbit. I'll just have to watch for flower heads going to seed. I have transplanted my pruned rasp canes, rhubarb and strawbs. No idea if I have done the right thing but they're in. :cool:

GreyQueen

The rasps, strawbs and rhubarb should all be fine, fuddle. Don't fret if the rhubarb disappears underground for a few months, it's just what they do. I used to keep a bean cane stuck beside mine so I didn't lose track of it.

Have spent about 2.5 hrs on the allotment this morning and timed it right as the day started gorgeous and is spoiling fast. Very mild, have been working without a coat and plenty warm enough.

Have harvested leeks, beetroots and some leaves from my feral chard ( I have three monstrous self-sown chards, two ruby and one white). I treat them as saladings and just pull leaves off at random. These plants are about 5 ft tall and 4 ft across and they grew from tiny seedlings which I used to also treat as cut-and-come again veg in the summer. As in, if they had 5 leaves, I'd pinch off two of them and smack 'em in my cheese sarnie.

Treating them mean seems to have made them grow like triffids.:D

I'd highly recommend chard, they have lots of leaves and they're several feet off the ground so keep clean and mostly slug-free. As was true of my observation of red cabbage and red lettuce, ruby chard is less attractive to slugs and snails than white chard. But it's not really a problem if you have white chard leaves 18 inches x 12 inches with a couple of slug holes in them, there's still plenty to go around.

Lynplatinum

Hiya All

A quiet day today as a friend of mine (well - its another case of he was my sons friend but over the years I have moved from being his 'step Mum' to friend!) came to stay overnight - they (he and his lady - who is also a friend and we used to go scrapbooking together) moved to Portsmouth a few years ago and I now only see them occasionally! So it was great to catch up - plus they bought their dog with them - so lovely a woof - well trained and polite - and great fun to take for walkies! He also treated me and my son for breakfast at a local carvery!! It was really delicious and only £3 each!!! However - bottomless coffee was £1.90 and his lemonade was £2.50!!! :eek:

So we spent today - eating and walking doggies - lovely!
Nite all