22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Morning!
Well I managed a small bowl of something for supper last night, regretted it immediately and spent the evening with a hot water bottle on my belly, and DS3 watching the model railway programme, then DS1 came down and watched it too. Usually they do not leave their lairs, so it was lovely, dh was properly surprised, but they do it quite a lot when he goes away. They are reclaiming the living room from old grumpy pants!
The tv aerial splitter replacement arrived. So now I have a working tv in the kitchen and the back room at the same time! Went rootling about in the box of spare wires and bits and things that live on the downstairs shelving rack (that lives in the bath - don't ask!) so all extensions and leads and connectors and what not are all from stores, and I only spent an hour with a drill enlarging the holes in the walls to get the wires through. Woo hoo!

Yesterday was a dead loss. So I just left it all and wrote Saturday on the head of my Friday list and lay on the sofa and groaned.

Still managed to pick up ds1 (who had left his passport and college letter at home) and make him take them to the bank to get his account opened - walking into his bedroom is like walking into a drug dealers den. There are piles of £10 and £20 notes everywhere! Sticking out of everything! Under everywhere! I wish I had kids who understood how wallets work - y'know you put your money in them, and then remember to take them out of the house when you want to go shopping, and don't stand there, looking a bit sheepish when you have to ask your mum to buy things for you when you have the money at home. grrr, Kids eh?
So DS3 headed off to ping pong, DS4 ate so much breakfast he said he feels sick and could not possibly go. The swine. I need to start monitoring how much he is eating, or this is going to become a problem. He is trying to eat as much as his 16 yr old brother as, in his head, if he does not get as much, then it is not fair. The muppet. Competitive eating I am afraid (well, mindless greed really).
DH who is the master of these things, has taken DS3 out to get a proper pair of running shoes for parkrun tomorrow - they will be passed down to DS4 so the cost will be halved anyway, but he got his personal best time of 12:12 last week and he wants to get down into the 11's for his 2km time. So they have gone off to the running shop, and dh has said he wants to go with DS3 & 4 and do the 2km run with them nice and slowly (the swine is one of those 19 minute 5km runners when fit - in pain, but still speedy). So I will offer to pay for those when he comes back, but I doubt he will take me up on it. I have done the washing up and cleaned the kitchen, had a load of laundry done by 7.30 and on the line.

I did the weekly shop after the larder inventory and meal plan, I have got everything for the next 7 days for £58. I will buy nothing else except ys bargains. Leicester City play at home this lunchtime, so I had to go shopping at 9am so that there was something on the shelves, it is like the locusts have been by 11am on matchday. So, I managed half way around the shop before my stomach started hurting again, so I am back on the sofa and dh has agreed to cook for today. Bless him. So even though it is before 11am, I have done loads and I refuse to feel guilty about lying on the sofa for a bit. If I got up at 9am like normal people on the weekend, I would not be finished until well after lunchtime. I just have a different timetable.

kerri_gt

Hope you feel better soon f0xh0les there seem to be loads of bugs around at the moment with the kids being back at school and seasons changing.

I know what you mean about people hoarding drugs, our local S@vers has been out of any kind of reasonably priced ibuprofen for several weeks.

OH parkrun time is something I could only dream about, I've never really done a proper timed 5k, the chip timed one I did was in fancy dress in the dark so not sure it is entirely indicative of what my time would be but it most definitely would not start with a 1.

f0xh0les

Kerri I was firmly stuck at the 30:04 for 5km for months, then the pollen asthma struck, so I only got slower and dh would bound around me like a happy puppy chatting away and being annoyingly encouraging while I was practically dying. He did the great Manchester run after 3 weeks training because his mate got injured and gave him his place. He is soooo annoying. He needs to be able to run again. It makes him happy.
Well, my planned afternoon lying on the sofa evaporated, dh decided he was going to take the living room radiator off and stick it on the hose outside to wash it out - it has not worked properly since we moved in - I told him it was not a one man job, but I heard his cry for help while I was upstairs moving a bookcase out of our bedroom. Anyway, when it had been washed out, and turned upside down and washed out again, then turned the right way up again and washed out, and the water finally ran clear of the black sludgey yuck, it went back on the wall, the heating went on for 10 minutes, and it heats all the way from the top to the bottom. Hooray! It only took us 3 and a half years to think of it, and it only took dh this long to get with the programme and try and improve the house - I think me having nearly cleared the whole of the ground floor in the past month is making him think, and knowing we have the money to do an absolute load of stuff that needs doing.

We really need to get a few quotes in soon. There in no point in getting new sofas yet if we are going to be plastering and repainting, knocking down walls and moving pipes. There is not a room on the ground floor that will not be in utter turmoil, but the living room will be the first to be finished, so that can be a sanctuary/ kitchen. It is all very scary and grown up - I am 45, at what point are you supposed to feel adult about this sort of thing? I suppose the more building work you have done, the better you get at it, by the time I am through with the next two houses I bet I will be fine with this. Currently, it is blimmin' terrifying, even thinking about it. I blame Nick Knowles.

kerri_gt

I know exactly what you mean about this adulting malarkey, I currently have more 'do not use again' on my trades lists, that ones I'd get back. I think we should all get a practise house growing up before having to adult proper and learn about what order things need to be done in, how long things really take (take Trade quote and double...actually that goes for cost too) and finally just how to do it ourselves when said trades fail to turn up.

We also had our lounge radiator sorted this year, also 3yrs after moving in and it gradually heating up less and less to the point it didn't work at all last winter....just needed opening up and balancing with the rest of the house. Thank you mr plumber who was servicing the boiler.

f0xh0les

I bled all the radiators as well this afternoon. They all work apart from the one in the bathroom - will have to investigate that one next.

PurpleFairy26

foxholes just wondered if you had been to your local community orchard yet this year? Whether it was worth a visit over?

Just take the plunge on the building work, it will all be worth it in the end, if nothing else to have the money you are saving for the work to be thrown at the mortgage.

f0xh0les

I am actually off there this very morning. Love an equinoxical visit scrumping. Will report back on the pickings. Apparently Aylestone Meadows is dripping in fruit still.

Just cashed out £24.18 from the cashbacktop people. Much needed in the week before payday.

In the months where I have to buy the kids shoes or trainers, there is just too much month left towards the end of my money - well, budgeted money anyway.

yogavibes

Hi foxholes - I caught up on your diary - you are doing ace. You also inspired me to go and get some blackberries and make a crumble at the weekend with all your cooking - it was delicious so thanks!

f0xh0les

I filled a woven bag for life in about 10 minutes purely from windfalls, Purps. Seemed to be plenty of fruit on some trees, and the rest were stripped bare. So tomorrow will be spent prepping the fruit for the freezer, stewing fruit, and making crumbles and crumble bars. It will all be delicious.

I am just back from my stint at the foodbank, which was busy tonight. Stinking weather out tonight, it is rainy and horrid. From tonight the nights are longer than the days, sounds like a wonderful reason to have crumble. It is supposed to be mostly wet for the rest of the week. It sounds like custard weather to me. Soups, and fruit puddings are on the cards this week then. Perfect food for colder evenings and wet weather.... and avocado, as I have 6 ripening in a fruit bowl next to my bananas. I might not have planned that particularly well, but I do have 2 packs of tortilla chips in the pantry, and the last of my home grown tomatoes, so I could do guacamole and salsa and hummus with that. I doubt anyone would complain.

Too tired to do much else tonight, so going to watch 0nly Connect and then read a bit.

night night!

PurpleFairy26

Thanks for the info, my try and get over this week if I can. Crumble and custard sound the order of the day indeed. DH batch cooked soup on Sunday and we had hm rice pudding definitely all things autumnal