Cherry takes the reins

Sun_Addict

I’d buy the wool now while it’s on offer. I like how you negotiated with yourself 😆

Cherryfudge

I'm going to get it today, @Sun_Addict. I'm also ordering a couple of balls of the nearest match I can find to add to some wool for a project I started six years ago - jumper for DH. As the front has progressed it's become clear that the recommended amount of wool isn't enough (though I did a swatch an' everything): I can only assume the meterage in the wool I bought differs a bit from that of the original in the pattern as everything else seems to match up. Of course I can't get the original for love nor money though I've spent hours trawling the internet this weekend. It still exists but those who have it are holding on to it - which is understandable as it's lovely. Another company does a very close alternative so I'm ordering that and going to knit alternate rows with it if it's at all feasible - otherwise I'll either have to shelve it or frog it. At least plain charcoal colouring is quite common - even if that's like getting 'the same black'!

Saturday was soaking, but the rainwater barrel celebrated by tipping slightly and detaching itself from the downpipe, so we didn't benefit. DH emptied it again, re-centred it on its bricks and by this morning one barrel is full and the other has started to fill.

I had two walks out on Saturday: in the morning I went to the charity shop and treated myself to the antique rug making tools I'd spotted there, which came to a fiver. The Fashion on the Ration people have once again come up trumps and found details of how it's used - not like a modern latch hook, more of a punch. Of course I would love to have a go with it but I have more than enough to be doing for now. I then had a look in another charity shop and found three 1930s sewing magazines for £4: that wonderful pre-war world. The oldest needlework magazines from Mum's collection date to the late 1940s so these are new territory. The Saturday queue outside Tesco was enough to put me off so I went back in the evening, ran out of phone data so I couldn't ring for a lift and had to walk home. I've since added the data.

Saturday spending (15th)
Hobbies £9.00
Housekeeping £20.33
Phone data £2.50
Dh also had a stressful time at work (IT not responding as it should) so we treated ourselves to the chippie and the supermarket fish and chips are in the freezer for another day. That's about £6.

Sunday (16th) was quite sociable by current standards - I watched the church service from home while DH took part in one elsewhere in town as a rep of our church on behalf of a charity. We had an odd thing happen with the YouTube stream - when my service finished it flipped momentarily to the home page then started to stream what turned out to be another service from somewhere called St Clare's which turns out to be in Preston. It was oddly intriguing, so we watched a bit. Nothing unusual about the service, just the fact we joined them by some quirk of technology and they probably had no idea. I felt like Dr Who!

When the rain stopped, yesterday was actually quite nice and warm so we went for a walk and bumped into a couple we know. I'd texted the lady and not heard back but it turns out her husband is having medical investigations and it's a worrying time for them. I'm glad to be better informed, not just wondering what's happened to her. We talked for quite a while and caught up on a few things.

Apart from that, I've been knitting... and nothing spent yesterday though today I have bills to pay and the yarn to order. I've done my flow test for work (negative, thankfully) and am steeling  myself to do a fingerprick test as I've been asked to take part in a survey on Covid antibodies. I should have some, having been fully vaccinated for some time, but apparently it doesn't show up for everyone.

That was a very long post, sorry!

Cherryfudge

Days off again. I have decided I am my own worst enemy, often sabotaging what I really want, especially through late nights and consequent lack of sleep. I'm therefore trying to outwit myself.  

Last night I got the yarn ordered: some for the new jumper while it's still on offer, some that might just blend in and enable me to finish DH's jumper in one colour though that's not likely to work, and one ball of a contrasting shade but same yarn so I can have a go at adding fibonacci stripes to eke out the base colour. That's a lot spent on yarn by my usual standards and would have blown a hole in my Fashion on the Ration coupons but it's for DH so I have let myself off the hook.

Total £46.94  

I've also spent £5.99 on a gift for J and L: J sent me some photos of the puppy and one is so gorgeous I've ordered it as a photo tile for them to remember her puppy days: she is changing so fast.

It's a lovely sunny day and I have  few things I ought to be doing and which I'm putting off: saboteur at work! The trusty bullet journal needs to be updated from yesterday: new page new start. Really important things are to prep for tonight's study session, to do the fingerprick test for the antibody survey and to push on with decluttering some of the stuff I've piled up in DS2's old room. Good news is that we're going to have dinner  at A and H's tonight, yippee! It's so nice to be able to meet people indoors again, and all of us except A are vaccinated, with H and I getting tested several times a week, so it should be fine.

Since my last visit to Mum's old house I've been hiding in the knitting, so to speak (at least it's a project getting done, though it's taking up more time than expected). This means I haven't done any of my paid-for course in 3 or 4 weeks, though I've kept up with the French on language apps. Not the Portuguese or Latin, though! Portuguese is hardest as it's newest to me, so I leave it if I'm tired, and somewhere I've missed some of the info on the Latin one so I keep making mistakes. That course isn't as well designed as the others, though, which is odd as its from the same provider. I will definitely go back to both, but not yet.

Oh, and I'm trying to use some Flylady stuff as I used to because otherwise things are getting neglected. The structure there helps me get past the self-sabotage somewhat, and I'm doing everything to avoid making progress on the clutter!

Seasidegal58

I hope DH's sweater turns out well Cherry - you've certainly put a lot of thought into it.
How wonderful to find the 1930s sewing magazines - even though I'm not a sewer by any means I would have loved to look through them. I have a book called 'Eating for Victory' - it's made up of reproductions of the Government's food guidance leaflets from WWII - very interesting!

Honeysucklelou2

What a lovely idea to get a photo tile done. I’ve not heard of them before but a really thoughtful gift idea 🙂.

Cherryfudge

Quite a lot has gone on in a couple of days: yesterday I ordered three loads of yarn and today, having had a revelation about how much this jumper project will actually take, I've ordered another three balls! I am astounded that 100g of one yarn can be 65m shorter than the same type of yarn from another manufacturer, but that's what they call a learning curve. So to date I've ordered:
1x 'Storm' grey as a complementary colour (£3.00 + £3.30 p&p)
1x experimental ball of main colour wool from another company (£4.49)
2 x beautiful yarn in larger balls for another project (£30.20)
3x a different contrast colour (£17.70)
...all because I had missed something in the instructions years ago when I  bought the main yarn. It's no longer available so I have to be inventive with complementary colours!

We did have a really good evening yesterday though as we went to A and H's for dinner, then later I had a funny video call with a friend. H is a lot better than she was over winter but A is not so good at the moment. However it was great to spend time with them and also to know we can give them a bit more support for the time being.

Today has been expensive: DH had to get an electrician to check the flat before it's let out and it will be around £600 to bring up to standard. Some of it is things that were looking a bit old but I don't think he expected it to be this much. It will come out of DFiL's estate so it's not a direct expense to us.

In the afternoon we drove out to the little town where the clock mender is and collected the innards of the grandfather clock. I was sure he'd said it would be about £25 to repair but it came to £80! Then when we got home we found he'd not trimmed a pin to size so it can't fit back in the casing till we can find the wire cutters, which are packed away till the new shed is delivered.

We had a look round some charity shops and nearly didn't buy anything but at the last minute DH spotted a silk shirt and bought it for me. It's a lovely colour but a bit snug - a good incentive to get back on the weight control bandwagon! So that was another £9.99, and he also popped into a deli as we went through another town to get a pie and some posh cheese (price unknown), while I bought some greetings cards which came to £5.40. I've also paid for the plumbing we had done recently: £211.73.

I'm thankful for having enough in the bank, especially when big things come up. It wasn't always so. I'm glad of some positive news for some people we know and grateful for help on these boards and elsewhere for my 'have a go' knitting efforts. I'm grateful too that the onions we planted last year are actually (finally!) getting to a decent size, and for a sunny day today and time spent with DH.

Sun_Addict

Anything to do with electrics is never cheap. It’s a good feeling to know you have money to cover big things as they arise, like you once were there was a time when we wouldn’t have funds to pay for them either.

Cherryfudge

A very soggy day today, and around 11 or 12 degrees - so different from last year! I had a walk into town for some groceries and was completely unable to get my cappuccino sachets anywhere. I found some nice greetings cards in a charity shop so I've stocked up on a few more.
I had to change when I got back and before work as I was so wet, and somehow managed to squeeze in my flow test, though I had to take it to work to get the final reading and enter the data. My phone then decided it didn't like the letter 'L': it's been a bit temperamental in that corner of the screen before and I didn't think too much of it, but not only would it not let me type it in, but when I tried to copy and paste, the 'L' was still missing. However later in the evening it was fine to send a text including the letter - perhaps predictive text is still working? Now, of course, trying it again, it still won't let me enter the test code. Really strange and possibly expensive?

Work is still short staffed and looks like being so over the next month to the point where the service is being limited. At last, however, there's an advert published for new staff. 

I also received another ball of yarn, ordered on the remote chance it would tone with the main colour of my knitting, but it doesn't. I'm not sure if I can return it but I don't know what else I'd use it for.

Spending
Housekeeping £14.84
Gifts (cards) £3.98

Tonight I'm thankful for a clear Covid test and falling infection numbers, a piece of vegan orange cake at work, a phone call from the estate agent to say the sale is one track, and a feeling that at last I'm beginning to let go of some of the remaining things at the house.

Cherryfudge

The last few days seem to have been spent mostly at work. I did the sleep in followed by the early, but had a rubbish night's sleep (caffeine and worry about clearing the old house) so by the end of the shift I was fit for nothing, but J and L invited us to tea and to meet the puppy so we had a lovely evening with them, and the puppy is adorable. I was exhausted by bedtime but got a good night's sleep which really helps.

The wool arrived for the next jumper but I'm still waiting for the other colour to continue with the one I've started. Also in the post was the photo of the puppy that I'd had put on a photo 'tile' so that was a gift for them when we visited (it turned out to be J's favourite picture of the puppy, so that was good).

It was quite an MS day as we had a lovely tea provided and didn't get our usual fish and chips.

Today was a quiet shift at work and I've come down a bit from being upset over all the clearing I've still to do at the old house. We are going over tomorrow and have agreed to sort out what I want to donate to various 'right places'. My Dad kept everything which means there are trade journals dating back for decades so DH has found a specialist museum we can offer them to. I don't want them but I very much doubt they exist anywhere outside a museum now so it seems wrong to recycle them without at least trying to see if there are any geeks interested parties. The trade journals are just a bit of it but for some reason they weigh heavy on my mind. I've personally claimed the back numbers of Readers' Digest which go from the 1950s to the 1990s! Some of the stuff in them is really interesting and surprisingly up to date.

Well, I need to sleep soon. Things I'm thankful for this evening: some emotional progress on decluttering the old house, time spent with J, L and the puppy, the arrival of the new yarn which is going to knit up nicely.

Seasidegal58

Hi Cherry - the tile photo idea is lovely. My DD and her OH have just got a puppy and they love him to bits. I have some nice photos of him so I think I will borrow your idea as it will make an ideal Christmas present for them. Thank you!😃