Light the fire...

savingholmes

You are doing well with the garden. Glad you made time for rest and relaxation too.

woodfired

Hello All.
Apologies for the period of prolonged absence.  We have been very busy at home and the diary gets neglected but there is lots to catch up on so here goes:

General

Myself and the children are 10 days into a self isolation following my Mum's positive COVID test.  She still looks after the children whilst I'm at work so they and I had been in contact with her the day before she developed symptoms.  Dad tested negative but is now showing symptoms also.  Mum is OK, she's very tired but seems to have got off lightly so far.  Dad is full of a cold and has lost his sense of taste and smell but is carrying on as usual, he has no choice really with a farm full of animals to look after.  My sister and her family also have it so it is a bit of a worrying time.  Fingers crossed they all recover quickly.
Meanwhile DH is the only one allowed out in our household, he is very busy at work and also having to go to the shop and run around after us, including Mum and Dad, bless him!

Home

Before lockdown and self isolation, we had the front of the house re-rendered and new barge boards fitted.  We then spent several weekends painting the front of the house whilst the scaffolding as still up.  I also finished painting all of the hardwood windows around the house in a sagey greeeny grey which looks fab against the (now white) render.  We re-painted the porch and the side of the house and replaced the fascia boards - painted again to match the windows and front door.  We have also fitted LED bulb effect outdoor lights around the porch which look lovely and light up the drive nicely. 

I removed a too-big tree peony from the border at the front of the house and re-homed it at the farm then replanted the border with winter bedding surrounding a 4ft potted xmas tree which I can move out of the way after Christmas.  It all looks really nice (if I do say so myself) and the house looks 'loved' once again - it was looking very neglected and sorry for itself when we bought it.  The elderly lady who sold it in 2014 confessed that she cried when she saw what we had done as it looked 'like it used to years ago when we moved in' they had lived here from 1990 until her husband had a stroke and it became too much for them.  That was a lovely thing to hear.

Elsewhere I have spent some of these isolation days cutting back hedges, grape vines, bean plants and various fences covered in climbers.  I have moved a few plants about and raked up over 20 barrow loads of leaves.  I have put away in the gazebo all of the outdoor furniture and swept most of the paths and patios, some need some patio cleaner on them  as they are getting quite slippery.  I have still got a greenhouse full of tomato plants that need disposing of soon, however, we are slowly eating them and they seem to continue to ripen so we will leave those as long as possible.

The children and I have sprayed some plain plant pots white and planted up some narcissi 'Earlicheer'  in the hope that they might flower for Christmas.  They would make a lovely table center piece but we shall have to wait and see as the instructions for this variety were vague - lots of info on paperwhites, not so much for earlicheer.  I have my fingers crossed though.

Inside the house I have been working on DS' room.  I picked up two chests of drawers cheaply on fb and have painted both navy blue (farrow and ball Hague Blue) with a grey lid and used copper cup handles on them, they look brilliant and have provided some much needed extra storage.  I have wallpapered behind his bed in a white washed brick effect, bought him a new grey double bed and black bedding and curtains with grey stars from Dun3lm.  All that remains if for DH to sort the run of built in cupboards above the bed with some new, handmade shaker style doors that I will also paint navy and we are done.  It looks fab, dark colours in a north facing room but with some fairy lights to warm it up and a splash or two of red in a blind and throw.  Very boyish but grown up too.  We also have space for one of us to hop in with him if he's unwell in the night or a more comfortable bed if one of us swaps for the same reason, which does occasionally happen.

Finally, Money.
With all of the work that has been happening, we have suspended OPs at the moment.  The rendering and fascia work cost just over £2000, which was very reasonable, but we still have lots to do.  In the spring we are going to replace our drive, which is predominantly muddy chippings at the moment, with tarmac.  It is going to be quite a big job though as we could probably squeeze around 11 cars on, so it's fairly big. I'm running a savings pot that everything is going into and that stands at £3000 currently, this is our drive fund.  We also have just over £20k in PBs as our EF.  I'm hoing to have doubled our fund to £6k by the time we start the work in perhaps April but we will have a decent tax bill between now and then so we will see.
Anyway, I think that's enough for now!  Sorry for the essay. WF.x

greent

Phew - that's an update! Glad to see you again

Sorry to hear your family are covid-positive and fingers firmly crossed that they all make a full recovery and that your household remains unaffected. How are you managing with the shop? - do you have enough trusted staff that can cover all of the hours and DH just nip in now and again to check on things/ collect stuff? Must be very frustrating for you - and DH sounds like he is very busy with it all! It's no surprise that you've kept yourself busy, though - sounds like you've made great progress on teh garden - and what a lovely compliment to receive from a previous owner x

Fortune_Smiles

Good to hear from you @woodfired.  I hope the family recover soon.  Great progress with the house.

Fortune x

lucielle

All sounding exceptionally busy
L

woodfired

greent said:

Phew - that's an update! Glad to see you again

Sorry to hear your family are covid-positive and fingers firmly crossed that they all make a full recovery and that your household remains unaffected. How are you managing with the shop? - do you have enough trusted staff that can cover all of the hours and DH just nip in now and again to check on things/ collect stuff? Must be very frustrating for you - and DH sounds like he is very busy with it all! It's no surprise that you've kept yourself busy, though - sounds like you've made great progress on teh garden - and what a lovely compliment to receive from a previous owner x

Hello greent! Nice to see you, thank you for the warm welcome back.
Thanks for the well-wishes, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they all recover quickly.
I'm very lucky with the shop, we do have several lovely members of staff who have really stepped up to cover for me and have been dropping of paperwork, banking the takings, doing the ordering and such like over the week. I will make sure I treat them when I'm able to leave the house.  We had loosely planned between us what would happen if one or more of us had to isolate and I had dropped some shifts myself to stop key staff and I working together so one wouldn't have to isolate if the other came down with symptoms.  So far it has worked out which is good. 
DH is feeling the strain a little though.  I sent him with the cat to the vets last night, convinced the cat had something stuck in his throat.  DH and the cat do not see eye to eye and the cat gave him a nasty bite as the vet took his temp, DH was especially unimpressed when they diagnosed him with just a sore throat!     

Hope you are all well, I really must catch up on some diaries.x

woodfired

Fortune_Smiles said:

Good to hear from you @woodfired.  I hope the family recover soon.  Great progress with the house.

Fortune x

Thank you for the welcome back Fortune and for the well wishes.  Hope you and yours are doing ok. I did have a quick catch up on your diary, all sounding on track and positive, well done on the self-care I am a bit rubbish on that front and must try harder! xx

woodfired

lucielle said:

All sounding exceptionally busy
L

Thanks L, it always seems to be busy!  I think I just make work for myself, I have a list of upcoming projects and I'm very impatient!

woodfired

Oooh, yesterday I forgot to mention my recent financial wins.

£260 win on the lottery.  2 lines, each winning £130.  This paid for the chests of drawers for DS and the paint for them. 

A while back we talked about installing a water meter as our bill was over £1250 per year.  After much to-ing and fro-ing the water board have decided they can't fit a meter and have put us on a reduced rate of just £500 per year!  They also credited our account with £10 because the whole process took so long.

Our bank managed to complete a chargeback on a dodgy retailer who accepted our money for a fridge that they claimed was in stock only for it never to be delivered and requests for a refund to go unanswered (along with the phone line!).  Santander took action and the cash was back in our account a week later.  Phew.

We have finally paid off a small, long-running business loan we took out when we bought the shop.  It saves us £150 per month on top of the saving on a lease car that we got rid of earlier in the year.

I'm sure there was something else but I can't remember what it was! x

greent

woodfired said:

I'm sure there was something else but I can't remember what it was! x

Ooh - all good stuff - and £260 on the lottery is fantastic! And what a result with the water x