Get a grip woman!

Suffolk_lass

@Busy_Mee ha! I will lend you my yawny DH - he is programmed to be so bored by shopping he used to buy just what was on the list. Went rogue last year until I took it back - got into that "these looked nice!" and "I thought we could try..." 🙄 - I remain hopeful that a bit of a reboot and reset to factory default settings has happened.

I used to be too obsessed with the grocery spend, now I am a bit more relaxed. Apart from toothpaste where I kept thinking we must need some (and had about £20 worth in store - with some due to go out of date) I try to wait until I have nearly run out (well, started the last but one) before I start looking for offers - that way I try to only buy brands when on offer or make do with one (for a brand I cannot compromise on) or simply try an own brand one, which often has become the regular thing (Morries bran flakes - marvellous!)

trix-a-belle

SL
i'll join you on irritating places for animals to nest, last year I had a blackbird in my wood store, I cleared the nest out and made the particular area nice and open to humans to discourage but nope they're apparently happy to be out and on show & another has joined the fun on the other side of the garden precariously in the branches of the fig against the fence which I was contemplating hacking back as its spreading a bit too much but also its right next to the next house wall I can throw paint on & have to push past it to get to

I've also got lots of bees (good) & wasps (bad) hoping they haven't set up residence anywhere as last year it was the front hedge
Is it just me or do bumble bees seem to be absolutely huge this year? its like they've also had the covid lockdown munchies

& i'm also doing battle with sketch up to try and design a bathroom vanity unit

I also find I either have a glut or am on the verge of running out with toothpaste

Karmacat

I adore bees, but I didn't love them so much when they were following through holes in the mortar between the bricks, and pushing through into the cavity wall insulation.  That was a bundle of no-fun.  And the building company refused to work, while the scaffolding was up, until a special bod came out and filled in the holes.  Only then would they repoint the rest ... 

Suffolk_lass

Having been putting off the colony split due to cold weather and wind we must do it today, even if it is windy. I am convinced the bees need more room and splitting into two hives is the answer (the one without a Queen should make one). Our problem is we never see our Queen and she is not marked. Two colonies also gives us insurance against a problem in one.

Lots of planting of seeds this week. Outside. In the hope that the prevailing weather system reverts from the arctic NE direction and things warm up. Everything is very late this year, but oh so dry. I also planted up some begonia corms in hanging baskets.

Very cold yesterday so I changed the taps on the washbasin in the bathroom (my job, as I am more bendy than him) and DH swapped the toilet seat, which was MDF and had chipped so I was convinced it was unhygienic. I bought the same make from Argos but it is very different quality and the lid is very thin plastic (no good for two people who use it as a seat, in the absence of any other options in the bathroom). When he gets up I am going to suggest we buy another and swap again, keeping the installed one as an emergency "spare"(!). It is, at least, clean.

We assembled my new (in March) cold frame and that is ready for beans and squashes to harden off before planting out. Hopefully a bit more mouse-proof than the greenhouse this year - I discovered a tunnel under the weed-suppressing membrane is one corner with two runner bean seeds, so definitely not secure!

In the dead zone for money activity but not for long. The electrician is coming Monday and we will be without power for the day - that will be over £500 with another £500 after that (urgent bits first).

Have a good weekend!

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear to mice in your greenhouse! Sounds like lots is getting done your end though! 

Suffolk_lass

Right. a bit of an update. I gave tomatoes to my cousin, my neighbour, and two more going to my friend.

I moved all the squashes into the cold frame only for one of the mini-munch (£.45 for for seeds) to pop up, having escaped the mice. It was in an 8" pot so I moved it to a small one and brought it indoors to nurture it with the single crystal lemon and two tromboncino (climbing squash like a cross between a yellow courgette and a butternut bell-bottom) that also evaded them. One was buried in the compost but both are now looking perky on the kitchen windowsill. Being turned every time I am in there.

Then I planted two more big pots with runner beans and one pot is indoors, the other in the cold-frame. I will swap them once they have germinated.

Too cold to check on our bees - we are really suffering with the cold here in the east. weather is usually across the UK from the SW but coming down from the arctic (and the gulf stream needs a poke). Plants are 1/3rd size they were this time in last 7 years ( all the FB memory pics have to be useful for something).

Meanwhile, did I mention I replaced the taps on the bathroom washbasin? well one opens back to front! none of the forums advice works to reverse the turn.  And because you instinctively turn it the wrong way (well, DH does) the pipe it screws onto has now worked loose and water is dripping on the more accessible cold water side. I had to ask DH to help (rolls eyes in frustration) because I hurt my back doing the hot tap (I had to get him to finish that off too as my left thumb is crook and I could not get the purchase and my right arm was in the wrong place IYSWIM) - anyway. He helped, the tap is no longer dripping but one of the wall fixings is loose and the bottom end of the valve to allow me to turn the supply to the tap on/off may have worked loose. 

We live opposite a retired plumber who is just lovely when I bog it up. But oh B****r! I feel inept and incompetent.

We also replaced the toilet seat but the plastic replacement was relatively poor quality and so that is now an emergency spare, with a second wooden one having been purchased. So much for money saving. I know @beanielou and her thread readers are all experiencing similar frustration with toilet seats. 

Had our annual parish meeting last night - that is another nonsense. The high court dismissed a submission that stopping remote meetings for local authorities (Parish, District, County) was premature and they refused to grant an extension. That was yesterday. This means councils must either break the law (they have to have certain meetings in certain deadlines) or to be able to Zoom they must hold them before 6th May (with buildings not opening until 17th). Coupled with the official period of mourning for the Duke of Edinburgh, which meant official notices and agendas could not be publicised and there are literally thousands of meetings taking place in the next week. Our District Councillor did three annual Parish Meetings last night. Really, you could not make it up.

Still in the dead zone of money, but the new month approaches!

Karmacat

No way are you "inept and incompetent"!!! You have physical limitations that you're not used to, you're 18 in your head, aren't you ? Thomas Hardy wrote a poem about it, when he was *much* older than we are.  

The thing about parish meetings sounds really insane - people at the top of the tree really don't live in the same world as the rest of us, do they?  

rtandon27

Karmacat said:

...you're 18 in your head, aren't you ? ...

We ALL are KC!  These days the OH starts his stories referring back to the good old days, which somehow always centers around that magical year.  I caught him out the other day, when I pointed out his children were not born until he was in his late 20s 🤣🤣🤣

Karmacat

So true, RT    

beanielou

I personally think Zoom is the way forward.
How short sighted.
I cant see the foodbank ever going back to physical meetings at all.