22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Busy plastering all the millions of holes in the walls. I accidently ended up stripping the entire top floor landing and stairs. I didn't mean to, but once I started I couldn't stop and I was like a wild thing. So there are another million bits of hole to plaster and I have run out. I will use the £7 gift card from Homebase I have to buy some more plaster. Then it will be sanding and emulsion time.

The in-laws are descending for October half-term.
Better get a move on with all this decorating then!

Put up another bookcase and a daybed for sale on the local f/b selling page. Hopefully something will come of it. I really need the things gone so that I have some room to move in the back living room. It is becoming the dumping ground for DH and the kids' stuff that they cannot be bothered to take upstairs. This needs to be stopped.

So, my plans for the weekend involve - stripping wallpaper, filling 'oles, decoupage a coffee table with Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, finding a chest of drawers for #4's bedroom in the second hand warehouse or the LOROS shop, and going on a crunchy leaf walk in my wellies. Oh, and doing something with 2stone of apples.

f0xh0les

Oh! Forgot to mention, it's PAYDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and tomorrow is Mortgage payment day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Monday will be signature update day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!

f0xh0les

Except today is not mortgage update day, as they only tell you the balance up to 8pm yesterday, and so the monthly payment has not been subtracted from the amount. Grrrrrr.

Had to buy 4 new Airtex shirts for DS4 who seems to think coming home like the mud man makes him so much more endearing to me. Even on a hot wash the mud is so ground in even a weekend spent in a bleachy bucket has had minimal results. So, £5 spent I didn't want to.

DS3 has a strange effect on his duvet. I am blaming him, rather than the duvet, which is totally unfair of me. I bought one from somewhere or other - it was either Wilko or Tesco, but the duvet keeps turning sideways inside the duvet cover. I assume it is one of those things where it has a 'right way' and a 'wrong way' to have been stitched in , and it has been cut the 'wrong way' - like those coats that make your skirt ride up because the lining is cut in the wrong direction ( I do hope someone knows what I am talking about - honestly, it really is a thing, I have not gone totally loopy yet, and think my clothes are out to get me) anyway, as I do not know how cold this house is going to get this winter, he is now the owner of a nice shiny fluffy new 13 tog duvet £6 spend in Wilko, and if it misbehaves it is blimmin' going back. I will not have disorder in the bedding department.

No doubt DS4 will want one, and I noticed DS1 has the double duvet that is older than he is, and he will be 14 in a fortnight - it has been dry-cleaned many many many times, and through the washing machine a good few times too. So I suppose an update will be in order. I am expecting it to be cold in the attic!

Can you tell the in-laws are coming? Wouldn't want the laundry not to pass muster.

Oh, and I found a shop selling hot water bottles for £2.49 each rather than the £15 ones that come with a cover that the kids take off anyway. So I bought 4 of them to go with the 3 ones that are still usable - one had perished over summer. Hot chocolate before bed, and a hot water bottle. Poor deprived children of mine.

So, I spent the weekend filling 'oles and sanding down plasterwork, it is going to be ready to paint soon, I just have the very top of the wall above the stairwell to do, the death defying bit where you have to wedge the foot of the ladder up against a stair and extend the stupid thing right to its greatest extension. Aaaahhhhhhh!!! Then DH wanders past and offers you a cup of tea, and announces ' You wouldn't catch me up there! ' As if!!

So, the jobs on the list this week are......

Book in a chippie to put some doors on the 3 top floor bedrooms (it is a bit 'Benny Hill chase scene' at bedtime) and to turn the other 5 so they open into the room, rather than 'Victorian Modesty Setting' . When I had the electricians in, I got them to move all the light sockets to the 'wrong' side of the door, so when the doors change direction, they will be on the 'right' side of the door (- forward planning!!)

Finish up 'oles and get painting.

Winter duvets for all! well, DS4 & 1

Launder all the beds while the sun is shining

Get a replacement for my dodgy tumble drier at a discounted price.

Put 2 skirting boards back on bedroom walls

Find DS 4 a chest of drawers so he cannot explain his floordrobe is a practical solution to his laundry issues.

Try and sell 4 IKEA bookshelves,3 IKEA storage boxes, bundles of kiddie books, 2 x Velux windows, one black day bed, and a partridge in a pear treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (not).

f0xh0les

Oh, forgot to say - the central heating is still firmly OFF!

Moneyfordreams

Hi F0xh0les,

your diary has made me laugh out loud... looking forward to being entertained some more .

f0xh0les

Oh good, nice to know I am not just rambling on to myself! It helps to be able to look back and see I have actually done something, rather than just keep on making longer and longer lists of stuff to be done.

Pizza dough rising in the kitchen, sauce made, bought a 49p Aldi pineapple and a 49p red pepper. Half the sauce will go on the pizza, half as a tomato and red pepper soup for later in the week - DS4 is not a soup fan.
Might make a pesto of the last of the herbs in the pots in the yard. Parsley has done ridiculously well considering it was reduced to 29p in May, stuck it in a pot and it is still doing it's thing. Basil the same, just picking leaves and it keeps on coming but they are looking a bit sad, except the ransoms DH found in a mudslide by the side of the road, they have gone absolutely mental in the last 2 weeks. Stupid things.

Everything has been cleaned and tidied away, getting masses of laundry done in the good weather. It never stops!! and when it seems to, then there are sheets, duvets and towels on the go.

Anyway, off to pick up kids from school - only one has an after school club til 5. Why can't they all just do clubs on the same stupid day???? oh, and it is a Tutor meeting for DS1 and 2 tomorrow night. It will be in and out in 15 minutes though. Show willing and all that.

f0xh0les

The tutor meetings went well, so we have decided to keep feeding DS1 & 2 for a bit longer. Sadly it was not in and out in 15 minutes, it was mucking about for an hour, and talking to tutors for about 15 minutes of that.

Sold another bookcase this morning, and delivered it at lunchtime £15 for a £15 bookcase.

Mortgage currently stands at £116, 139.74, so when the child benefit comes in next Monday, I will try and put it down to £115,999.99 or something - it is purely psychological, but I want through that £116k barrier, even if the interest takes it back up again.

Still filling holes, you must all think my house looks like swiss cheese. It is looking much better, and the walls are much firmer in places (like the places I have knocked the plaster off and refilled it so it it attached to the laths)

Put up a curtain rail in DS2's bedroom yesterday, so now the hunt for curtains is on..... one thing gets struck off the list, and then another one takes its place.

Have put a daybed on the local selling site, only £40. Lots of demands for photos, but nothing firm yet. Still, it only takes one person to say yes, and then it is gone.

I stupidly decided to take all of the extra furniture and bits and bobs we no longer need and put them in the rear living room. So it has turned into a complete dumping ground. I have photographed all the items and put them up for sale, and offered free delivery, but I am so impatient to be rid of them.

I have bought DS1 some books and bits for his birthday, DH is buying his main present - it looks like if it is computer related, DH has decided to step up and get involved. So for the first time in 14 years he has bought DS 1 and 2's birthday presents! Wow. He is much more tech savvy than me, after all, 15 years in IT before a career change must have left him with some skills. So more money in my account for me to overpay the mortgage with.

Am a bit worried about the £ vs $. Nobody else seems to be concerned, but I know our fixed rate mortgage deal ends next year (yeah, I know we are only 6 months into it) and with Brexit and triggering Article 50, I am a bit worried we are going to end up being stuck on a 7% rate and nobody else willing to take us on. Hence overpaying as much as possible so we look good on paper, and me picking up any old job so I look like I am earning a wage rather than DH having 5 unwaged dependants on one salary. Oh, so much to think about and so many unknowns..... and that is not even mentioning the prospective President Trump ............

Weekend : 'oles, shelves, ORDNUNG!!!! and less stuff in the back room. Oh, and baking for lunch boxes and taking DS2 to town as he has put the wrong PIN into the card machine three times in a row. I warned him just before he left to run over the road and check his balance to see how much of his allowance he had managed to earn, if it did not work, do not put the same number in three times or it will block your card. So what did he do? yep, three times. So all his birthday money and allowance is safe and sound in the bank, until Saturday when he gets his silly mitts on it. Hopefully that is the lesson learnt, and he will never do it again.

Right, enough procrastination.........Action!!!

f0xh0les

Weekend over!!

DH came home on Friday complaining of a headache, vision blank spots and 'not feeling right', so I fed him and sent him to bed with i/b and paracetamol. He was terrified he was having a stroke, but a stress related migraine was so much more likely during the first week of Uni term. He came down with a completely numb left hand side of his face and vision problems at Easter when the exam setting/marking stress got to him, it was all the symptoms of a migraine but without the headache, so I am getting used to this 'odd head' phase of uni terms. I checked on him every hour to make sure.

But he was soooooo grumpy with the kids I had to have words with him on Saturday night, ok, he had a point the kids were being naughty, but his response was totally over the top. I mean, who can shout about a kid asking for a hot water bottle? He doesn't even make the hot water bottles in our house! Thankfully he does not get ill often, so we should be ok until Xmas when term ends.

On a happier note, I spent most of the weekend up a ladder filling holes! I shouldn't be this happy about this. But I am! Less holes = firmer plaster = when they bang the new slates on the roof next year, less plaster will fall of the walls, and there will be less redecoration for me to do afterwards.

M-I-L rang this morning to tell me she has ordered the kids some stuff from M0untain Wareh0use and it will be delivered sometime soon and is addressed to me. Then she said there is stuff in there for the kids, for her, for her neice, for her neice's kids and husband, for her sister, the postman, the bin man, and the president of Barundi, so not to think there was anything in there for me!
Charming!!
Then she said she had ordered some other bits to be delivered here this week, and some bulbs she wanted.
What the FLIP does she think I am, the bloody post office?

This is all because she lives in Ireland and is too tight to spend the postage getting it sent to her house. Even with the weaker £. Bloody woman.

So looking forward to her visit at half term! :rotfl:

I have put up masses of stuff for sale on the local selling page, 2 book cases gone, a few books taken, the daybed has not flown out the door the way I expected it to. Annoyingly, as it is taking up a hell of a lot of space in the back living room. I have also offered the 2 enormous velux windows on the local freecycle site, as I found out I would have to pay to take them to the tip if I cannot find a home for them. Hopefully they will all go before the in-laws descend. Otherwise I will have to take them to the charity shop / tip.

Busy filling up the kids' 6% savings accounts DS 3 & 4 will be on target for March when they mature, but DS 1 & 2 are woefully behind, so will sort that out after Xmas.

Getting quite a few Y0u G0v surveys recently, so that pot is filling up, only £5 to go for a £50 payout. :beer:

Have also earned £8 in Amazon vouchers this week too doing surveys(£5) and winning prize draws (£2) so I spent them on a new blind for DS1 who is being so very patient about not having a bedroom door. He does have a blind! He just broke it, in case anyone was worried.

I have about £5 in my purse, half a tank of petrol, and a food plan for the week - I might have to buy some spuds and some spread but everything else I have or can make out of stuff I have.

Child Tax comes in on Friday:j, and Child benefit on Monday:j so I am aiming for a very frugal week and then it is H A L F T E R M !!!!!!

I was just looking through the local paper and the National Trust magazine (my birthday present was a family subscription from in-laws) but it seems Leicestershire has different half term dates than Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire:mad:. Oh well, if we go up that way we will have the places to ourselves! :rotfl:

giblet1979

Hi Fox,
Just wanted to say hi - have found your diary and will be following we also have an old house that we are in the (slow) process of doing up bit by bit. Our motivation waxes and wanes (usually when we have a visit from the in-laws we get productive, despite them being lovely I'd hate them to think we're lazy!)
Hope you're having a good day.
Gib x

f0xh0les

Visits from people definitely make you do more jobs!

Welcome aboard, Giblet.

Well, it was blimmin' cold on the school run this morning, I have sorted out all the coats, hats and gloves since coming back. Heating is still off, but it won't be for much longer.

I rescued a huge box of my long long dead GF's things over the summer that his wife was chucking out.

It turns out I have rescued his fly fishing things. So I had a merry hour this afternoon finding the moulds for his fishing weights, and his strange items for making his fly fishing flies- I cannot believe he bought seal fur in various colours for this- , he was a great fisherman, would stand for hours in streams and rivers. Crippled with arthritis in his knees as a result by the time I came along, but he loved nothing more than to be up to his waist in water. Found 3 fishing rods, half a dozen reels, and enough fishing line to keep a dozen anglers out of trouble for years. And all of it absolutely no use to me. So I showed the kids who think the fishing hooks of all sizes from 1cm right up to about 10 cm are the most exciting things EVER! So they are now way up high on the top of a bookcase, as they were just too interesting and I didn't fancy a trip to casualty any time soon.

Didn't get much done house wise today, but did clean and tidy a lot, so it looks quite presentable in about 80% of it, and did quite a bit of filing in the process.

Tomorrow is spray painting a bedside cabinet I picked up the local charity shop for DS4's room, he has asked for it to be sprayed silver, as he likes robots (?), so I said 'Ok' as it makes sense inside a 6 yr old boy.
Then I read Calvin and Hobbes in an effort to understand my children... I think it has worked.