Get a grip woman!

Suffolk_lass

Down to less than £50 in the bank account today as all the first DD have gone (I missed one increase but fortunately it hasn't pushed us into the OD) I can see my OP pending, ready for tomorrow, and I must push £800 of it (temporarily) to the other C/A to satisfy the loyalty payment conditions as DH's OP arrived on 31st March and the payments run per calendar month. Normally I just top up £50 into the other account so I think £850 with £800 retuning before the big credit card goes.

Amazingly, with the workshop, spare room and garden full of beekeeping "stuff" I still need to buy more so I am researching currently!

I seriously need a day in the garden, cutting down raspberry canes and seeing to some of the brambles showing their stems. I also want to cut down some of last year's seed heads that have been left for the birds and just look tatty now. I think I will presume we are not moving and I might put some perennials I have in the cold frames in if I still have some energy. A sitting down job would be to sort out the double height raised bed with strawberries and their runners (and lots of weeds). It is meant to be 8-9c today too!

Suffolk_lass

Hooray! Payday! 

We spent about an hour and a half in the garden yesterday and cut down all the raspberries, and cleared last year's Verbena Bonariensis that was bent over and dried out. I also cleared a load of brambles, periwinkle and St John Wort that had ambitions beyond their allotted place. More to go but three aggregate bags of stuff to take to the dump now. We need to cut down seed heads, trim a couple of plants, cut down another Buddleja that didn't get pruned and continue with the bramble, sweet pea and periwinkle clearance while the ground is soft.

Suffolk_lass

Phew! more pruning - roses overhanging paths, a giant hardy fuchsia (I can see the entrance to the bee hive on the right now), plus a part of a shrub that didn't get done last autumn. Just an hour at a time, then a cup of tea and a bit more reading and support for a FB group I am an admin for. Kettle boiling, must dash...

Suffolk_lass

Lovely surprise! I logged into the Coop bank this morning to find £143.47 in interest has appeared! I then checked PBs after a nudge on here and I had won £50 on two different bonds - so £243.47. The interest is higher than I expected (actually I always forget this), probably because we had the solar installation money sitting there waiting for a couple of months.

I was expecting the water bill to be more this month (the letter said April) but maybe payment on the 6th means we have sneaked in a day before the systems change as it remained at £25

themadvix

Great result with the interest! 

You sound like you've been very busy in the garden - but it's beginning to be that time of year, isn't it? 

EssexHebridean

Interest and a PB win is a definite positive for the month then - excellent news all round! 

beanielou

Good news on the interest & on the PB's.

Suffolk_lass

I keep catching up with diaries, posting on everyone else's and forgetting my own!

A quick update - I put my leather gloves on and dived into the chest freezer this morning. I offered the last aga-roast of the season to DS for Easter Monday and let him choose the meat (I even offered duck!).

So 1.35kg of British slow-roast joint of beef was on offer at £7 per kilo. This piece was originally £9.44, reduced YS to £4.72. I have potatoes, carrots, and cabbage in stores, also a butternut squash I grew that might sub for parsnip. I will make my own Yorkshire pudding to cook in the meat tray, have goose fat I saved from the Christmas Goose for roast veg, and I have picked some new season rhubarb from the garden to have in a crumble.

While I was in the freezer I spotted two rolls in with the meat so they are in a bag defrosting ready for supper this evening, and we will have them toasted with the big burgers I bought, and a small salad of just lettuce and coleslaw and some fresh pickled red onion. I also checked and pulled 7 small beetroot that have been cooked and can be sliced over the lettuce, for supper. You've got to love the mix of low and no-cost food.

I did buy the other beekeeping kit we needed and DH has continued making up the frames of new foundation. He has just come in so I will stop and pay him some attention

themadvix

Always very satisfying when you can pull together a feast with little cost/the smugness of self-sufficiency!

rtandon27

Happy Easter! 🐣 🐰