Tales from The Shire

Fortune_Smiles · 28 December 2020 at 9:46AM

A New Home

Thank you everybody - I'm sure you all would have done the same. It was the right thing to do and in the true spirit of Christmas. Uncle F has been emotional but I think also relieved. It looks as though he will be coming to live with us permanently. There will be a lot to sort out but, for the time being, we are continuing with Christmas. I think he needs a bit of space to think things through before taking any action. He'll move into the Annex. It's a lovely space and completely separate from the house. It will be a big change for him but also for us so this next year will be a period of adjustment. We'll have to work out the financials too of course.

But for the time being we are having a holiday. I'm keeping chores to the minimum and using up the Christmas food. We have already decluttered the Christmas cake and the posh box of chocolates I got in. I've rejigged the meal plan to accommodate Uncle F. We have plenty of food in the house so he'll eat with us until the New Year when we can start settling in to a new routine.

We have a video call with the boys today. I've put together a short Christmas quiz for us to do and we'll exchange our Secret Santa gifts. Fortunately we were able to get them to the right homes beforehand. Uncle F will join us too so I'll find something for him to open.

I have a T£$co delivery booked for Wednesday so I'll need to have a think about what we need - hopefully not much. Other than that we shouldn't need to spend any money until the New Year.

The Fortunate men are planning to meet up at an off roading venue tomorrow (we are Tier 2 and so is the venue) so I'll have a nice quiet day. Think I'll do my 2020 review then.

Hope everyone is having a happy Twixmas!

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff · 28 December 2020 at 5:34PM

Gosh, all change at the Fortunate household then. So pleased you can offer your relative a home. Enjoy doing your review of the year! I love reading them

savingholmes · 28 December 2020 at 10:08PM

It's good of you to do. Important to set ground rules if it will be a long term thing...

Viking_mfw · 28 December 2020 at 11:01PM

Very out of date but wanted to add my admiration for bulldog and cow paintings. You are very talented!

Fortune_Smiles · 30 December 2020 at 5:00PM

2020 Review

Well, despite events conspiring against us, I think we've done ok in 2020. My original goals were structured around wellness and, although I revised them once or twice thoughout the year, the themes remained:

Financial

we continued to overpay the mortgage. I was determined to have a full record of overpayments for each month of the year, however, it became more important to bolster the emergency fund, so we missed 4 months overall. We overpaid £4500 and have now paid off 22% of the mortgage. Very exciting as we're so close to having paid off a whole quarter 😁
the ermergency fund reached 104% of target
and we increased the income from the Annex by 35% against a target of 25%. I'm amazed by this but think we managed it through increasing our minimum night requirement, bringing up our prices to market rate and taking advantage of the period after the first lockdown when people were desperate for a break but didn't want to risk holidaying abroad
we opened 2 additional savings accounts to get the best interest
we repaired a roof leak, fixed a boiler fault, resolved a niggly long term problem with my car, had the patio relaid, replaced 6 windows, installed faster broadband, commissioned an orchard and made various small repairs and improvements to the homestead
the Tittervating Pot funded a new kitchen tap, a washing machine and dryer, a water filter jug, a fire pit, some vegetable racks, a wool duvet, various smaller items and... a cuddly toy 😆

Emotional

We couldn't do much in the way of the exploring, adventurising and socialising we'd planned but we managed a few meals with family and friends and couple of days out. I mastered the art of video calling (which I'd never tried before) and we kept in touch with people that way
we'd also planned to do much more in the way of gardening and here we were successful. The veg patch has now doubled in size and we were able to grow lots of our own fruit and veg
I'm just happy that we've managed to get through the pandemic so far with our mental health in tact. We've had some hiccups along the way but we're still standing and have managed to stay mostly positive throughout.

Intellectual

I did some baking, upcycling, painting and writing - I even managed to get to Writers' Group for some virtual meetings.

Physical

I practiced yoga at home managing 3 sessions a week
Couch to 5k had to be abandoned again due to a problem with my hips. However, since increasing the yoga, my joint pain has subsided so I may give it another go in the New Year. We did go out for a walk with FDawg at least once a day though.
I didn't reach target weight (probably because of all the lockdown baking 😆) but, until Christmas, I had maintained.

Environmental

we kept more on top of the garden
decorated one of the two rooms we planned to and bought the paint for the other
identified and prioritised home improvements.

Social

Mr F and I have spent most of this year together. And it's been lovely 🥰

It's been a very positive experience looking back through this year's diary. It has been such a desperately hard year but I can see that it hasn't been all bad and it's brought lots of happy and positive things too.

Now to think about 2021 and what we'd like to achieve going forward. I'm struggling a bit with that as there's so much uncertainty to navigate and our personal situation has changed somewhat and we're not used to that yet. I shall give it some thought.

The ultimate achievement for any of us this year has been to keep physically and mentally healthy - so if you have managed that you are a 2020 winner.

Fortune x