22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Just logged on to the mortgage free wannabee overpayment spreadsheet, and I am only slightly behind on my target, of £10,000 off the mortgage before December. Quite happy with that as I did not really start properly until after the remortgage in April.

I am very excited about being able to print off a 100 square in December, and know every square I colour in is 1% of the mortgage.

It does feel a bit like all I am doing is diy and money saving for the overpayments though. Wish I was as motivated to diet! Maybe I need another 100 square for that.

Right, if I can't paint the skirting boards I am monitoring for critters, I can at least paint the window sills.

greenbee

I'd pull up the carpet now if I were your foxholes. Tell DH that it'll get the dust and dirt out of the house and make it cooler... (I hate carpet - I have painted floorboards where there are floorboards and either tiles or bamboo where there aren't... you can put rugs on floorboards if you need to soften/warm them, but carpets just collect dirt.

f0xh0les

There is a 5 foot drop under our floorboards with a force 10 gale going through the air bricks underneath. Also some numpty decided to pull up all the floorboards in the bay window and replace them with the wrong size generic b&q tongue and groove flooring. All needs replacing. The temperature would definitely drop, but this room is an absolute ice house from October - March and only has a tiny radiator that barely takes the chill off . Will be fine when there is a fire in, when it is lit anyway, but I still need a sweep and the cast iron job fitting and a hearth.

Also the neighbours would not thank me for the excess noise of my kids on bare wood floorboards. DH would not thank me either.

But it would be a bit rude of me to pull it all up and then go off for 2 weeks, while he is only away for 3 days and would have to live with it all in a state of upheaval.

So I will do it at the beginning of August. While monitoring the paper for signs of activity.

f0xh0les

Rang step-gran to let her know I will be with her for 9 and a half days at the end of July.

'Oh dear, I don't get you for very long' she said.

Very nearly told her to fiddle off.

Some people are simply never happy.

f0xh0les

Bl00dy bl00dy bl00dy step gran has decided to cancel her 3 x a day carers for the entire time I am in Ireland.

Even when I am down with in-laws for 3 1/2 days.
She reckons she can cope, and if she gets hurt it is my fault for not telling her exactly when I was going to be there, so she just rang the agency and cancelled every single call.

She took great delight in telling me what she had done.

This is all because I am going down to the in-laws. She is a jealous, manipulative old bat.

I am used to her cancelling her carers for when I am there, think she really fancies a 24 hr body slave, but she usually gets them back when she knows I will not be there.

Honestly, I am livid.

greenbee

Cancel your visit. Tell her you were coming to visit her, not look after her.

f0xh0les

Managed to calm down a bit by the time I picked up kids from school.

Was a bit worried I was going to turn into the angry bald man shouting F*** Off at the pigeons. Kept it together.

New day, new challenges.

in_need_of_direction

I'm sitting here wondering if your step gran is related to my mother. NI is a very small place

f0xh0les

Honestly, she really takes the biscuit sometimes

I am really hoping she decides she is too lonely and getting on too much to stay in her own home. I do not care if every penny goes to a nursing home. They are welcome to it.

I can't go on much longer doing this. I told DS1 I would not make him go over again after he was 16 if he did not want to. If she goes into a residential facility I can visit a couple of times a year, for 2 days at a time, I can stay in a b&b, I can 'visit' not clean/haul rubbish/ do diy/ do the gardening..... I do not mind.

I actually just want to sit by a pool like normal people do with their kids for a week or two and actually have a holiday. My kids have never had that.

They have sat in old people's houses so that said old people can feel like they have 'had the children', while not actually wanting to do anything with them, and talking about other people's children who apparently are better behaved than mine (until they are arrested or commit suicide, or get pregnant - sadly a common occurance) .

But at the same time I do not want my kids to say - I never knew my grandparents because you didn't take me to see them.

As the new rebranding of me, I think I might just impose the '3 day fish theory ' with us as houseguests. I can afford to take the hit financially, Less may indeed be more, and I will knock the Easter visit on the head completely. They do not appreciate my time, and the kids don't enjoy it either.

Bah, this time next week I will be there, and once it is started then it will soon be over. And I won't be going back again this year.

inneedofdirection Norn Iron is indeed a very small place and everyone either knows each other or is related to someone by marriage!
However step-gran (and her brother and sister) has no children, even though she is apparently a parenting expert.


In other unrelated news .... I have lost height. I have been 5'5" since I was 14. I am now 5'4. I am gutted

f0xh0les

Executive decision has been made.

Today I am doing NOTHING!!

I plan to float around a bit, make people food, and maybe do a load of laundry.

We are off to a YHA tomorrow for a night. Not far away, but we still do not know this area much, even after 3 years and I just nod and smile when people are talking about where they have been around here.
I have been lazy, and while I dragged all 4 about the place in Manchester and Sheffield, the eldest 2 no longer want to come along with the youngest 2, and so the 2 smaller ones are missing out on all the park trips and swimming trips and museums that the 2 older ones had. Plus this rotten hayfever has not helped this year.

Tomorrow I am taking them all to an Abbey, a reservoir, a forest and.......... an outdoor swimming pool that stays open until 10.30pm, so hopefully not too many applications of sunblock if we go later in the day. I got 2 x 3 bedded rooms for £13 each after all the discounts and sales reductions came off. Should have been 3 x that.

As long as I can find a cafe and somewhere to eat, DH will be a happy old chap.

He is easily pleased.

Still want to find a few days by the sea, but the sales are not yet on, and DS1 has decided he is allergic to sand. He would be happy in a cafe though. Like his Dad. To him, a trip to the seaside = chips and peppermint rock.