Cherry takes the reins

Honeysucklelou2

I'm like that with reading...just one more page...one more chapter!

Interesting to read about running possibly being easier when it is cooler ...

Cherryfudge

Honeysucklelou2 wrote: »

Interesting to read about running possibly being easier when it is cooler ...

I struggle when I'm too hot, whether I'm running or lounging around! Running out of doors as I do, I had to make the decision to embrace the constant variations in conditions as helping me be stronger/ more versatile etc. Warm weather is definitely tough for me! Running into a cool headwind is easier. My daughter tells me rain is good, but I've only tried it once so far, and real winter weather may yet send me back under the duvet.

Cherryfudge

Days off again... spent this morning lazing and the knitting has grown a bit.

Then I had a call to say the nursing home still has some of Mum's stuff. (Translates as 'please could I remove it' ). Well, I've been putting it off: when I went in to collect some stuff the day after her funeral, it had all been boxed up and the room was being repainted for the next occupant. I was kind of looking forward to a last couple of visits there to work through her things and say goodbye to the years she'd been there, and I didn't get to. Instead, boxes. I've been back and picked up some bits but we don't have space here to store much and what I have stored is waiting for me to do a final sort and ebay/give away/keep. The 3bay is getting nowhere as I find it hard to do around shifts. The giving has partly happened already. The keeping is a problem! So anyway, no progress made at the nursing home for months. Now the time of reckoning has come! I did point out it'll mostly have to wait till I can get a car to help carry things but I've said I'll pop in this afternoon to assess what there is. It turns out one big box has turned into three or four! I think they have found the missing laundry.

So that's one job for today.

We are going to a birthday tea later so I'm taking some garlic bread to help out.

I haven't had a run for days and need one this morning... er, I mean lunchtime. When I get back I'll have a shower and wash my hair then go to get a passport photo done. Big Trip Next Year is going nowhere with out-of-date passports.

There are some veg in the fridge that need to be used today so I'm making soup when I finish this post. Waste not, want not, have no green furry items in back of fridge.

I know that lot will take hours but I would like to do some larder-sorting too. Someone has posted their larder on FB: so homely and orderly! Mine is a heap of bags of things, so I'm going to make a little progress by putting odds & ends into jars and writing BB dates on the base. I have cleared a shelf in the coffee cupboard already. Not sure how I'm going to get all the contents back in, mind.

I was very brave this morning and rang the boiler company to ask about the revised quote: turns out they have us booked in for next week! They are going to send the paperwork to Mum's as I'll be there from tomorrow. (I loathe making phone calls so I'm pleased I did this).

So there will be some spending today: I'll try to get back later with a list of things I've actually got round to and money accountability, which reminds me - check my pay has gone through and transfer remainder of last month's money into the mortgage account! :beer:

charlies_tribe

Hope collecting the belongings isn't too upsetting. Is there anything you could leave? Like if you were going to give clothes away anyway, they may be able to make use of them. When I worked in nursing homes we had residents without families and hardly any belongings. Would mean less to collect and store.

Well done on keeping up the running, after a junk food holiday I said the diet and exercise started today... I've drank about 6 cups of tea (All with 2 sugars each) ate a bowl of cornflakes and sat on the sofa most of the morning.

Cherryfudge

Things done today:

One load of laundry
descaled kettle
Tidied a shelf in the coffee cupboard
Moved most of the remainder of this month's money over to the mortgage (I have a day to go and there may still be unaccounted calls on this month's money).
Went for a run. (2K and personal best time ).
DS gave me a lift to the nursing home and we collected everything! Except the laundry, that is... that still hasn't turned up.
Got passport photos
Packed most of the stuff for trip
Wrapped birthday present
Repacked the boxes of Mum's stuff so now we have 2 not 4.
Had a lovely evening with family
Listed presents already bought. DD and DDiL are, as usual, the best provided for. They are so much easier to buy for than the men.

Cherryfudge

charlies_tribe wrote: »

Hope collecting the belongings isn't too upsetting. Is there anything you could leave? Like if you were going to give clothes away anyway, they may be able to make use of them. When I worked in nursing homes we had residents without families and hardly any belongings. Would mean less to collect and store.

Well done on keeping up the running, after a junk food holiday I said the diet and exercise started today... I've drank about 6 cups of tea (All with 2 sugars each) ate a bowl of cornflakes and sat on the sofa most of the morning.

Thank you Charlies tribe, it really wasn't too bad. DS came to help and I knew the staff member who showed us in. The boxes weren't too big: it was mostly books.

I've thrown out some bits and packed a small box with a series of books that I know my sister wanted. There is a part-filled one of socks (Mum didn't have socks!) waiting to go back. Now I have a medium-large box of books that need to be sorted properly - some I know I don't want but others I might. Mum and I had similar tastes in books.

Of course that means there's even less room at home but not as bad as I thought. I did ask about clothes but they aren't allowed to accept any so charities benefitted and hopefully some other ladies somewhere got things they loved as a result!

Cherryfudge

Spends for 30th:
Housekeeping £2
Holidays (passport photos) £6

Cherryfudge

I'm back! Spent a bit longer than usual trying to sort Mum's old house out... not sure 3 nights there is good for me due to loneliness and dust (!) but it does mean I can get more done for the cost of a rail fare. I'll break it down into separate posts as there's lots to say.

I went clothes shopping on the way and picked up a small Christmas pressie for someone. A couple of items weren't suitable so I went again on the way back and got a £6 refund but I have a nice snug hoody from Primarni for all of £8, some undies and some PJs (also snuggly) to keep at the house and save packing space. Oh, and batteries for the house, which I can probably claim off the estate but is it worth it for £1.40? (Possibly).

When I arrived I saw progress as the lady who does the garden had cleared furniture away from one side of a room (so the heating engineers can get access) and it looked so much better! However, I then discovered the fridge has died (and I had a supermarket order due to be delivered) and also, following on from her clearing, I moved into another corner of that room and found the carpet was disintegrating. Damp had got into the corner so badly that a large wedge of plaster fell off! Needless to say, I wasn't hugely encouraged by this.

I did do a thorough clean of the whole corner that evening, including getting mould off some furniture ( ), cut out the shredded carpet, put bin bags over the area and an offcut of carpet on top, then moved some furniture back. Result: the decay has gone and it doesn't look so bad even though there's work to do.

When the food order came (jolly driver cheered me up a bit ), I made a 'fridge' of a bucket of water to stand the milk in, with a cloth draped over and a lid to keep out the light. I've seen this done before and the theory is that the water evaporating from the cloth keeps the temperature down, a bit. To my surprise, the milk lasted till the third day! I did have a small amount of stuff to throw out from the fridge but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

There were some useless substitutions in my order so I sent most of them back but this worked out well as some, had they been what I ordered, would have needed the fridge. I did do rather well out of them not having cheap peppers available: I got a bigger delivery of 'posh' peppers for the same price.

The good news was, despite the antiquated heating, the house isn't all that cold.

I also threw out a carrier bag of typed up carols. They will be on the Internet if anyone needs them, and paper is such a huge area of clearing that I had to make a start somewhere.

Spends for 31/10:
Train fare £57.10 (reclaim most from the estate)
Household £1.40 (ditto)
Clothes £21.50 (after refund)
Gift £4.00
MS stuff:
Accidentally didn't get a coffee en route. I had allowed for one rather than carrying the weight of a flask because I needed to travel light, but there wasn't time.
Improvised fridge to save the milk.
Substitutions in food order will have reduced the cost to under £40 but I will still get free delivery as I ordered over £40's worth.
Free peppers.
No electricity being used by fridge. :eek:
Didn't get the slipper socks I'd planned, and now won't need any as heating will soon be sorted.
Confession time:
Clothes buying - but I will use them.

Cherryfudge

The second day was massively frustrating at first as I was trying to order a new fridge online and had a deadline of 12 noon if I was to get a delivery before I had to catch my train home. No option of changing my plans as I had to be at work - then I lost the Internet signal with 20 minutes to go and the order part-completed! And I got a text to say I'd nearly finished my mobile data. No fridge, then. I'll have to try to sort that from this end and find some company that will allow me to arrange a specific delivery date well in advance.

When I had to give up on the order I decided to do something that would show results. I dragged out an old camping fridge that was squirreled in a corner of the lounge (as these things sometimes are) and tried it out but it's dud so when I can get things to the tip, that will be one of them and create about a square meter of space. Every little helps.

I did some more white gloss - arguably a waste of time and energy as a future owner may just remove it all, but it cheers the place up. Went for a walk (needing an excuse to get out of the house) and bought a smoke detector battery, then my friend showed up with a bag of things for charity - long story short I donated to the charity and am now the proud owner of a brand new (unworn) elegant coat and some lovely boots! she also helped me clear an area upstairs for the workmen to get access. I know they will move stuff if they need to but I'll be paying for their time, and besides, it all looks better when cleared and cleaned. I later sorted and recycled/filed a big (collapsed) pile of papers from upstairs and found some amazing stuff in there, including the letter my Dad wrote to Mum back in the late 1950s, describing the house which had just come on the market. I'm keeping the letter as a piece of family history. It gives a lovely sense of his enthusiasm as well as a snapshot of the place nearly 60 years ago. I know they had a massive amount of work to do to bring it up to a liveable standard, and now here I am again... but progress, though smallish, is real.
Spends for 1/11:
Household £2.25 (to reclaim)
Clothes £10.00.
MS stuff:
£10 for a couple of hundred's worth of clothes.
Confessions time:
I never set out to buy a coat or boots. Though the coat is very smart and the boots will replace my all-time favourites which had to go after they got beyond repair.

Cherryfudge

The last full day was such a contrast - I really felt I'd done well. Some more papers sorted, a 5K run (I'm losing fitness and the timing went wrong, so although the app told me it was a personal best, I'm fairly sure it deleted 10 or 15 minutes :rotfl:) but I did it, which is the main thing.

Yet more white gloss: second coat is easier and quicker.

I phoned the heating company and took £250.00 off their bill by cancelling the widget that lets me control the temperature from my phone. Nice idea but my phone and the Internet conspire against it in this case, and a thermostat will do the job instead. I also found their plasterer will have a look at the other work that needs attention, and they have someone trained to do guttering so it looks as though I may have a few solutions to the oncoming tide of things that need fixing. Their electrician is going to give me a costing for the work need on the electrical, so I've been making him a list, starting with 'ensure everything is safe'.

I had another hours' help to clear the landing - looks so good. I found my old College photo up there and my friend found a box of collectable teaspoons that had been missing! In the evening I pulled out furniture from around a radiator in the lounge and cleaned the area. Access isn't good but it could be a lot worse. They will just have to shift furniture around.

Having to take more food back than I'd planned, the travelling light plans went out of the window and I cleaned up an old suitcase of Dad's to carry stuff. Just a small one.

Spends for 2/11:
I resisted the temptation to buy more Internet time or go to the shops. NSD
MS Stuff:
Found leather conditioning spray (dating from the 1980s by the packaging) for the valise and I think it liked it.
Found a couple of books by an old fashioned favourite author under the stairs.