Tales from The Shire

Cheery_Daff

Excellent work Fortune - you really are being organised and proactive with your house! I love how forthright you are with all these tradespeople who haven't done things right, I am SO bad at that. 

Good job on buying lunch for the man you found, and for finding the local key cutting place. Always good to have local knowledge of that type of stuff. 

Any exciting plans for the coming week?

ruby_eskimo

Well done on the winnings and loving the sound of all the improvements.  Think we've stopped on the house stuff for the year now and will revisit in spring when we need new carpets and internal doors - better to do those things when the weather is a lot nicer.  Never thought of putting the emergency fund into the premium bonds so might look into that @SandyShores

Fortune_Smiles

SandyShores said:

Red wine and pizza - sounds lovely Fortune.  I will be doing that soonish with MrShores.  And congratulations on the winnings.  It was the first draw we had our emergency fund invested this month so wasn't surprised to not win anything, but was impressed to see someone had invested only £850 last August and won £10k.  

Enjoy your weekend x

We've been very lucky with premium bonds @SandyShores and have had a win every month since we started putting the mortgage ops into them.  I too love it when someone with just a few wins big.  Fingers crossed for you for next month.

savingholmes said:

Hope you get your patio sorted. Sounds like you are really sprucing up your home. Well done on the winnings. Have a lovely weekend.

No news from the builder yet @savingholmes.  I shall chase him this week.  We've been in the house four years now and our efforts have been concentrated on outside and emergency maintenance stuff up to now.  It will be lovely to have the inside freshened up.

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Cheery_Daff said:

Excellent work Fortune - you really are being organised and proactive with your house! I love how forthright you are with all these tradespeople who haven't done things right, I am SO bad at that. 

Good job on buying lunch for the man you found, and for finding the local key cutting place. Always good to have local knowledge of that type of stuff. 

Any exciting plans for the coming week?

Thanks @Cheery_Daff.  I am good at dealing with tradespeople because I am naturally short-tempered and intolerant 🤣  If I were nicer, I wouldn't be so skilled at it 🤣

Our decorator starts work this week.  I'm not expecting the disruption you're having to cope with though - there's only one of him and he's very quiet and tidy.  Thank goodness as he's due to be here for the month 😲

ruby_eskimo said:

Well done on the winnings and loving the sound of all the improvements.  Think we've stopped on the house stuff for the year now and will revisit in spring when we need new carpets and internal doors - better to do those things when the weather is a lot nicer.  Never thought of putting the emergency fund into the premium bonds so might look into that @SandyShores

I've got my fingers crossed that the weather improves here by Wednesday @ruby_eskimo.  It's forecast to.  It will be so much easier for the decorator if it's light enough for him to see what he is doing 😆  I hate the disruption of having work done in the house and only psyched myself up for having so much done in one go because the decorator was so easy to have around.  Let's hope the sun shines.

Fortune x

rtandon27

Fortune - you've done the right thing nabbing a pleasant tradesman while you can! 

We found ourselves a lovely local chappy to replace our boiler and put in some extra plumbing.  Turns out our houseproud (fussy) lovely new neighbour uses him as well so I'll take that as a recommendation!

In our former home (rental) we spent most of the summer stressed out by the most horrible tradesmen I've ever had the displeasure of meeting so vowed that if it didn't feel right I'd never employ their ilk!  So far have found great movers, a lovely cleaner and a lovely gass certified plumber & thank my lucky stars that going with my gut has worked out!

Fortune_Smiles

Bit miffed 😡

Uncle F moved out the last of his stuff on Saturday and bought a friend with him to drive his second car back (he has a van for work).  I cooked Cabbage Soup for us all followed by Sunken Damson Cake with butterscotch sauce and custard (I wanted to give him a nice send off)  We sat at the dining room table and had a reminisce about Uncle F's stay and a few laughs.  Then off he went to his new house and new life.

Today I had a good look around the annex to see what needs doing.  Uncle F has left it filthy 😲  More than that - revolting 😲  Mouldy, old, half-eaten food in the cupboards, fridge and freezer.  Rubbish left about.  A bin full of used tissues and dental floss.  And the list goes on.  Every cupboard I opened had a nasty suprise in it for me.  And it's obvious that he hasn't cleaned at all in the whole nine months he's been with us 😡  Every corner of the floors and window sills are full of cobwebs, dust and dead flies.  It's gross.  I am so upset.  After everything we've done for him, I feel very disrespected.

I made a start with the clean up this morning and removed all the rubbish, sorted out what needs to come back into the house and defrosted the fridge and the freezer.  I had to chisel the food out of the freezer compartment in the fridge (he'd obviously left the door to it open at some point and it had become a solid block of ice 😡)  The annex looks a little better as a result and definitely smells better 💩  I'm going to go in for an hour or so a day and chip away at it.  It's too horrid a job to face doing all at once 😥

At least that chapter is over now and I can start looking forward to some fun stuff 😁

I cooked a big pot of Courgette, Potato & Cheddar Soup today made from courgettes and potatoes from the veg patch.  It's for one of our Twixmas lunches and I'm planning to bake some flavoured soda breads to go with it.  All will freeze well and save me some cooking time.

We had leftover cabbage soup for lunch with buttered rolls and supper will be the rest of the Patatas Bravas Meatballs I made for supper last night.  The cabbage soup used up the Savoy cabbage and one of the carrots I got in my raffle prize veg hamper.  The meatballs were made with potatoes from the veg patch.

Today's grocery shop came in a little under budget but was offset by Mr F's trip to the hardware store this lunchtime.  More concrete is needed for the last of our gate replacements apparently.  I also ordered some roosting pockets to put amongst the little trees in our courtyard.  I've rescued two little birds recently who flew into windows - a blue tit who knocked himself out completely and a long-tailed tit who was very disorientated.  I got to hold both of them in my hands 😁 They each recovered after a little warm inside the house.  We love to see the birds around and know that they often roost in our log and welly stores so we thought we'd give them some cosy homes for the winter.

I'm planning a lovely, hot bubble bath this evening.  I need to get Uncle F out of my pores 🤢

Hope your week has got off to a good start

Fortune x

badmemory

I suspect you are a master of understatement.  A bit miffed!  I would have had steam coming out of my ears.  I hate cleaning & whilst I know you would have felt the need to redo, to have to clean up almost a years mess of someone elses making is just ************.

beanielou

How dissapointing.
Worse too when its a relative 

VintageHistorian

I don't know how you managed to stop yourself texting him asking !!!!!! happened, I'd have hit the roof. I'm not the tidiest of people but even I wouldn't leave a place in that kind of state!

Cheery_Daff

Gosh Fortune, how awful 🙄 After all you did for him as well! I know people have different standards but that just sounds dreadful. So sorry you're having to deal with that!