22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

All is well kerri-gt,  all is well.   There was lots of running around due to it being the last week of term, the f/b has suddenly gone bonkers busy, probably due to half term looming, the kids  suddenly all lost their minds, along with ties, PE kits, blazers, testicles, and anything else that is able to be put down somewhere and forgotten.

DS1 is now an adult.  I signed all his money over to him on Thursday.  Today he went out and bought himself a Switch console and was going to use his birthday vouchers to buy games. So he got DH to drive him in to town, he bought the console and DH drove it home, and DS1 was allegedly going to go and buy some games from The Robbers' Shops (TM), however when I rang him  4 hours later to check he was not dead in an alley, he sounded like he was in a pub, and he was definitely not alone.   He did mention that there was  a gathering planned as a few of them have turned 18 in the past fortnight, but he said he was too sensible to be doing that in a global pandemic .  Yeah right,  lots change in a fortnight it seems.  They are all the kids he is in 6th form with, so hopefully they are not mixing with people they do not mix with on a daily basis anyway, but still.  What a muppet!  Anyway, he will not be home for tea tonight ( Quelle surprise!).  Wonder if he will 'fess up or tell a lie ...... 

I have been moving stuff about, tried to get hold of plumbers (nobody rings back) and emptied the buckets in the roofspaces.

It is now officially half term, I am roasting a BNS and lots of other root veg with masses of garlic, I have made a stew for tomorrow, and I have made a sausage tomato pasta for tonight,with lots of sauce to go on the crispy polenta slices.

There is about 2 slices of birthday cake left, a massive tropical citrus fruit salad in the fridge, and a cup of tinned spaghetti, as I thought it  was a tin of baked beans, and then stood there like a muppet wondering why it was spaghetti - cos I did not read the label properly.  Twit.

Moved a smaller storage unit into the kitchen to do the job of the bigger storage unit that was in the kitchen, so I could move the fridge and get to the central heating controls.  I will program them tomorrow - 18th October is ok to set the heating to come on in the morning.  It worked well today, DH stayed in bed until just after 10am.   I was up and had walked over 1k steps before he  had even come downstairs - he has bought a watch for DS3 that did lots of stuff (v cheap on pr1me day and with his birthday vouchers he went a bit wild, got presents for the C word for the youngest 2, ended up spending £20 of his own money) but needed to be in contact with a mobile phone for GPS, and he got a bit worried, and he gave it to me instead.  It even tells me the weather!

So, need to go and cook some pasta and feed these menfolk before somebody starts a fight - DS2 and DS3 are at each others' throats now.  It used to be DS2 and DS1, but now they are the best of friends,  and so  DS3 and DS2 are at it hammer and tongs.

They are so boring! 

f0xh0les

I have just been out and scored a free solid wood double bed frame for DS1 - that is everyone in this house with a decent bedframe now, except me and dh.  DS3 and 4 have had new quality mattresses in the past 12 months.  DS1 and 2 each need a double mattress.   Good job Freecycle!  It has been very quiet on there recently.   So that is another thing off my list of stuff we needed to 'buy'.  They posted it up yesterday and I picked it up this afternoon.

As it was ys'oclock at Mr T's I also picked up some ys hummus, ys spinach, ys parsley and ys mint.  Also stuck £20 worth of diesel in dh's big car, as he has been complaining he needed some for over 3 weeks now, and has not bothered.  I have not told him.  It is half full now, surprise! Not my car so I am not filling it up to the top for him because if I borrow his car I fill it up and give it back, if he borrows my car, I get it back practically empty, but if we go out together, we need the big car.

I have plans to watch the football this afternoon, dye my clothes back to black, eat the creme carmelle I made this morning (packet mix,  but the kids have been complaining about the lack of a pudding - I told them to eat birthday cake!), eat the fruit salad I made yesterday, have ys pittas and ys hummus (with ys salad and ys roasted veg) for supper tonight, and have a bath and get ready for volunteering tomorrow.  See ! Look!  A plan!

I am so impressed with my bed-nabbing over the last 24 hours, plus I reversed dh's 7 seater back out of their driveway onto a busy road  with cars parked on either side, without scraping either the parked cars, or the wall.

So, a nice fluffy relaxed rest of today planned, just mooching about and being on the sofa, and then tomorrow is 'Split Shift' volunteering day with a fun ys raid of both Mr C00P and Mr T's shopping emporia at 7pm, and home on the sofa with Victoria Coren-Mitchell and  0nly Connect by 8pm.  Will make scones to celebrate work being over.  There might even be one left for me when I get home, but as there is often no food left for me when I get home, I will not count my chickens....

Baileys_Babe

Congratulations on the bed frame. It is always good when something on your wish list materialises especially for free.

kerri_gt

Well done on the freecycle win, love it when that happens. Our local site has been quiet over the summer but picking up now. I just rehomed a couple of items on there myself. 

f0xh0les

Scones turned into shortbread, which was pretty spectacular.   The kids loved it. 

f0xh0les

Well what have you been up to today? I got up, cleaned and tidied the living room, made sure the kids were all awake, even if lying in their beds, breakfasted, stuck the laundry on and out on the line, cleared the pots of weeds, rescued the plants that might overwinter and put them in a planter that is waist height from the ground so might avoid the ground frost,  and can be covered with fleece if necessary.  Split the rose campions into 4 planters from their congested original 2, but they are popping up in all the planters.  They have been herded together for the winter.  I have about a 50cm square of bricks and pipes and oddbobbins to shunt into the shed and it is done, finished. yay!

Made a broccoli soup for lunch that was lush, and to stop them from complaining their faces off, I made a sponge last night while the oven was on for the shortbread anyway, and used up the 2 punnets of ys strawberries with half a carton of Elmea plant double cream whipped up into happy clouds.   There were no complaints.  ha ha ha.  Layers of happiness. No soup = No cake.  They do not argue. At least 2 of their 5 a day in lunch.

Poor DH is pulling his hair out, he is being bombarded with meeting requests from students who have problems, so he schedules them, prepares, finds their grades etc, sits down and waits for them to log in......then they rock up late, and ask one question that is answered on the first paragraph on the first page of the course materials booklet ( - When is the asessment date?), and then they go.  Leaving him wound up and upset and braced for impact.    The stress is going to kill him.

I am waiting to see the results of my dyeing.  They look jolly black to me! I bought a jumper in a c/s off the sale rail.  It was a cream cotton loose knit jumper, nice shape, but I only wear black, but it was £1 so it came home with me.  I had a pair of grey jeans that went in too, and a hemp crossbody bag (not a hemp cross bodybag) in green that just needed to be black.  I used the vouchers I get from the postal survey to pay for the dye, so it is all a free experiment.  So I am on the sofa with a cup of tea. The lovely bin men have delivered the orange recycling bags on a roll, so I can get on with tidying again, and I want to clip the front bush and give the bricks out the front a good brushing and a bit of weeding just to make the place look a bit nicer before the clocks go back.

Fell down a rabbit hole in the Ikea Website, and I think I might treat myself to a couple of those star shaped light shades for the winter season that look like this https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/strala-lamp-shade-printed-lace-white-40474191/  and scatter them around the house.   I wish my credit card bill would turn up! It seems to be getting later and later every month.  Still, it is just under £70 this month, instead of the £300 it has been for the last few months. I am considering getting another couple of golden thrones for the living room - the kids love them and dh has to keep turfing them off his one.  They are £50 cheaper now as well! They were £40 off when I bought them!  2 for £300 is not bad.

Anyway, this tea needs drinking and then I will have an hour to do the front garden before The Great House Giveaway starts.  I work best to a deadline

tjp70

I hadn’t heard of the Great House Giveaway. I’ve watched 2 episodes and I’m addicted. 

How did you learn to be so good with diy foxholes? 

f0xh0les

Necessity @tjp70 .  The more you do it, the easier it gets and it gets quicker too. Every time you diy you learn one small thing that makes it easier next time. If something is broken, then it costs nothing to have a look.

However plumbing is still a mystery to me. It all makes sense, it should all work, you do it right, but it still leaks, so you get a man in who laughs, pulls out some tube of magic plumber trade secret stuff, does it in less than a minute and charges you £70. 

At least the electricians take their lives in their hands....

f0xh0les

Well finally the loo upstairs seems to be working properly.  I did prostrate a badger (glove puppet)  in front of the cistern to appease the gods of plumbing, and it seems to have worked.  I told the badger to believe.  No more dripping.

The clothes dyeing worked brilliantly..  It seems I really am a size 14 now.   The other 2 pairs of trousers that were gifted to me, and the same size as the ones I dyed, did not fit, so I gifted them on.  Everyone wins. I get a free pair of jeans, she gets 2 free pairs of trews.

Today has been a ridiculously spendy day. I spent £17 in Mr T's on ys meatless things - the freezer is full of them now.  A few specific cleaning things - and some descaler because DH robbed all mine to sort the flush mechanism on the loo -24 hours in a bucket of descaler worked wonders.  I went on The Great Bourneville Chocolate Fingers hunt, and failed.  Boo!

£11 in 4ldi on kids lunchbox tat.  £6 in a c/s on black sweatpants and black T Shirts for DS3 for PE 4 days in a row (they have to go to school in their PE kit and sit in it all day -I am not doing a wash 4 times during the week!).  The kids still have not done their homework, we have been on at them multiple times a day, they are just ignoring us.  DS1 still has not dismantled his divan so I can put up his new bed.  Their bedrooms are a mess. I was literally ready to start gnawing at the stair rail in frustration.

Not a good time to open a web page and impulse buy an oven (£220 - to be delivered on Saturday next) that actually works!! and then 1kea seduced me with 2 more golden thrones(£150 each) and one kiddie throne in grey (reduced to  £70 from £100) and the star shaped light shade.   They will be delivered on Sunday next. 

Anyway, I am £660 down on this morning, and am slightly regretting it, but the spends needed to be spent - and at least I did it while the sale was on (it ends next Saturday).  I think I am actually a little bit phobic of spending money. 

After all this money is paid out, I will still have £14k left in the kitty.  It is time to find an architect.

Tomorrow will be spent scrubbing the house from top to bottom, and tidying the kids bedrooms, and making sure they are all ready to go back to school.  All the silly piddling little jobs (and finishing off bits of jobs) will be done.  I have made a list and can work my way through it.  There will be no spends tomorrow.

f0xh0les

There were no spends today.

Lots of jobs finished off, the top floor totally cleaned and hoovered, front and back yards cleaned, cleared and weed killered. All ready for winter. Loo still not leaking.  I have masses of laundry to do.

The kids are being awful. They just laughed when I told them to tidy their rooms. Totally ignoring me.  Not a good day.