Get a grip woman!

Suffolk_lass

Oh my goodness! Nearly 3 weeks away and we are in utter chaos. Yesterday was catching up on washing (4 loads, another to wash this morning once the sun is up and then 2 to dry. A further bedding load postponed until later this week. We (DH) have actually liberated the unheated clothes airer and it is in the spare bedroom, with most of his underwear and t shirts drying on it. 

This Yesterday morning the sweep is coming came, about 09.00, then the boiler man to do the annual  service at 10.30. The boiler pressure is stubbornly low and making gulping noises and I can't do the 10 second re-pressurisation thing as one of the valve controls to re-pressurise it has stripped off the thread . I have got the other one open in the hope of a little trickle through, but it had not worked so far. Of course it might be the display gauge, but the gulping noises suggest not. So it is good that he is here this morning. Then we are back to walking our neighbour's dog, before I had a bee study group. Meanwhile DH has collected 3 gas bottles - one each for us and the Village Hall (19kg) and one for the motorhome (13kg). Our second cylinder did not change over properly so this morning's first coffee was made with microwaved water. The second cylinder is also almost empty. It is a result of our more considered use of the electric aga and postponing its annual switch on last year, with the resultant increase in gas use. The aga remains off this autumn as the increasingly familiar warm autumn continues. 

Bees
Nothing to report on the actual bees as we have the varroa destructor treatment on all hives for another two weeks, and the advice is to leave them to it. I think we should check them the next fine day to see if any need feeding, but the time for inspections is done. All five in the garden have survived the wasp interest this year and are happily foraging. There are reports now that bees are on grapevines and rotting fruit and i believe this will be of interest to @foxgloves.

I must remember to buy some more honey jar labels (and lids) but other than that we need to find a home for the new electric extractor and jar up some honey, ready to give and sell. I also want to make bags of natural firelighters, comprising used wax melted over pine cones, possibly with a little pine cone oil, to sell as Christmas gifts when I do my now-annual bee stall at the Christmas Shopping coffee morning in early December. I will have another go at lip balm, furniture polish and cooked items too - honey fudge and honey cakes, I think. I do have some oil I could add to make worktop/wooden board beeswax conditioner too, but this is dependent on time.

I am also studying to actually take an exam in mid November. It's been a while... - related to this, the operating system on my old (2012) iMac is not supported by the exam software and nor is my Chromebook. Nightmare! I knew the i-Mac operating system was no longer being supported and have been planning a replacement for over a year but I was hoping to wait until January Sales, or when the security updates for the OS stop.

Garden
Not sure what happened re picking but we have returned to some giant green courgettes and about 30 yellow ones, 20 of which were filling the fridge (10 more unpicked!). I picked many raspberries, including the mouldy and over-ripe ones that had been left, so that hopefully they will continue to fruit (or even possibly resume fruiting). 

There is a huge amount of pruning and weeding and tidying to do, and many foxgloves to transplant (having seen Monty planting his out on GW). I definitely want to split and reduce or transplant many perennials, especially the ones our bees enjoy. Lots to do this month.

Money and household things
I have SORN'd the motorhome and have the refund. £243.75 cheque has arrived today. I wanted to explore the new energy efficient aga but having looked online, it seems it is irrelevant as I am not willing to replace mine for over £20k. I think we might go and look at one to see if the new style doors could be interchanged with ours as they proclaim the inner insulated part can be washed in a dishwasher.

I have received my £50 account credit from Octopeds and so has @beanielou, even though I transferred by phone and failed to mention the referral code (stupid woman syndrome here!). I subsequently emailed them to ask if they would honour hers, even if not mine but they have paid us both - definitely brownie points to them! We are electricity only users on an economy 7 tariff.

I know some of the readers of this are also with them and I have been exploring other tariffs. I think we need to get a SMART Meter installed to be eligible for some of the better options and it might be worth us getting our electrician in to install a timer so the biggest user of energy (the electric aga) is off from 1600-1900 as the rest of that "Cosy" tariff looks good to me (others may know better). One of the cosy (off peak) bits are 04.00-07.00 - I am up about 05.30 normally and we could set the dishwasher timer for 04.00, so it runs then, and run the washing machine either when it is sunny and we have solar energy, or between 13.00-16.00 when the other cosy times are in place.

Just checked and I won £25 on PB this month. DH did not (again!)

I need to get some other stuff done so signing off for today (Quite enough twaddle from me!)

Karmacat

Hello Suffolk Lass!  Welcome back you've really hit the ground running - I hope the house is toasty now that the sweep and the boiler man have been in attendance.  And that the rest of your jobs get done, that's a *lot*!

beanielou

Welcome back to lots of lovely courgettes. 

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - Yes! Bees & fruit defo of interest to me as have lived with our old pear tree for 20 years & this is the first year we have had such an interest in the fallen fruit from honey bees. Wasps & butterflies, yes, but never seen bees tucking into them. I went to clear away the most rotten fruits again the other day & the whole area under the tree was a busy hum of bees. There are up to half a dozen on each pear & there are others drinking from the fruit which are still on the tree out of our reach. If this is because they are short of flower nectar, then I think we must now be known as a major bee pub! When I remove the particularly rotten fruit with a grabber (so as not to get stung), they continue sucking the juice out of the grass. We are both interested in garden wildlife but have honestly not noticed this happening in previous years. I am making sure I never clear them all away. I am leaving a few each time in case they are providing a valuable food source.
F

rtandon27

Welcome back SL! 

A bumper crop of courgettes sounds lovely - I have a recipe or two or three that use up the lovely things OH has been keep on fritters - and as he's making them I'm not going to argue!

Watty1

oh a bumper crop of courgettes reminds me of one of my fav soups!  Courgette and parmesan yum.

trix-a-belle

I always default to roasting & stuffing courgettes when they get missed and turn into monsters

dawnybabes

I loath courgettes, I still have nightmares about my mums stuffed marrow we had to eat at least once a year ! 

Suffolk_lass

dawnybabes said:

I loath courgettes, I still have nightmares about my mums stuffed marrow we had to eat at least once a year ! 

  bless! We love them (well you would need to, having planted 6 plus tromboncino! It was fine while I was picking 4-5 a day in August-September but 3 weeks? yes, somewhat out of hand...

Watty1

A couple of weeks ago our local food bank was overrun with them so they started to offer to anyone in the church at that time, regardless of need.  I love them!