Travelling On

Cheery_Daff

Excellent work, and I love the idea of a half year reflection :j :j You have so many things achieved :j Very impressed with kitchen progress, in fact I'm quite jealous (we 'stopped for Christmas' and haven't yet restarted... :rotfl: )

Excellent planning for holidays and things too! :j

Pensions... hmm. We'd been working on the assumption that Mr Cheery would get his works pension at 65, but apparently this is tied to the state pension age, so he won't get it til 2029, another ten years :eek:

Still, that's a nice point to aim for, for us. I'll be 50 a few months after that, and the pension can replace quite a chunk of my income, meaning I'll be able to drop a couple of days at work (if I haven't already). Feels nice to know that's not toooo far away - I reckon even I can manage another 10 years of work :rotfl:

And there's always the option of him taking it early, which he's eligible for now, although it does knock the amount quite substantially, so it seems pointless while I'm still working. Good to have it as a back up though.

Sorry, waffling on you just got me to thinking about pensions (and it's a nice break from what I'm actually MEANT to be doing right now at work :eek: :rotfl: )

Karmacat

Thanks Cheery! The kitchen work ... the emotional stress was mine, but the work wasn't :rotfl: I suspect you're doing a lot of the physical work yourselves, more power to your elbows.


Pensions, yes, its 66 now for state pension - what a shame Mr Cheery has the tie-in to that for his private one. Good for him for getting it done though. Your waffle isn't waffle at all :rotfl: and definitely connected to what I was tootling about :rotfl: breaks are good, anyway.


I'm having a break (a long one!) at the moment. Very satisfied at the garden work I did this morning, half an hour of clearing - I have a blueberry bush, with berries, thats being drowned out both by enthusiastic plants nearby. Did that till I started getting hot, then on to a bit of cleaning and opening the post and sorting the papers, over a week's worth but nothing that needs immediate attention. Though I do have an email to pay attention to, for my bandwidth for the blog. I've already tried to pay it, but the same cc that was going funny the other day is going funny again - maybe I'll give in and ask them for the refund, I don't think they like the account being in credit. For now, I'll pay the bill with my other cc.


When I can get my act together, I'll get the recycling and the green rubbish out of the house, then whatever appeals, basically, that fits in to the overall aims.


Oh - my monthly water bill has gone up. That *may* be because of the building work, partly - a lot of extra water was being used, in all sorts of ways, and of course the payment per unit has probably gone up. The water meter itself is sealed away, to stop drafts, oops :cool:

Karmacat

A three year ISA of mine ran out at the end of May this year, and I hadn't got round to doing anything with it. In the post there was a letter from them, they've reinvested it, also for 3 years, at 1.75% p.a. which is a really good rate. I shall leave it where it is now I got a lot of garden waste into the bins - when I'm on an even keel, I'll do as much of my own composting as I can, but right now, it feels impossible, better to let the council do it, and I'll get on with clearing the weeds.

apple_muncher

Glad to hear my rasp rootlets are happy with your nurturing. The strawbs I got seem to have developed runners, so once I find out how to 'plant' them, I'll find a way to get them to you. The fruit is deeeelishuss!

Karmacat

apple_muncher wrote: »

Glad to hear my rasp rootlets are happy with your nurturing.

Awww ... yes, I did set them up well in terms of new topsoil and weed-free surrounds, though they do need doing again. The work I did today is right next to them, so that will sort of help by default. I'll be working on them tomorrow.

The strawbs I got seem to have developed runners, so once I find out how to 'plant' them, I'll find a way to get them to you. The fruit is deeeelishuss!

More "awwww"! But honestly, not strawberries, don't worry - I can't *stop* runners in my garden - but there's very little fruit ever happens, they're a nightmare, to be honest. I'd rather have my herbs that I'm growing, and I want to make space for kale, and proper space for garlic, and nasturtiums. You enjoy your strawbs, you've earned them.

I'd offer some of these alpines, but honestly, they're not a good breed, too much greenery and very little fruit!:kisses3:

teapot2

Sounds like a productive day and good news re the ISA, as you say, a decent rate:cool:

Suffolk_lass

Karmacat wrote: »

A three year ISA of mine ran out at the end of May this year, and I hadn't got round to doing anything with it. In the post there was a letter from them, they've reinvested it, also for 3 years, at 1.75% p.a. which is a really good rate. I shall leave it where it is now I got a lot of garden waste into the bins - when I'm on an even keel, I'll do as much of my own composting as I can, but right now, it feels impossible, better to let the council do it, and I'll get on with clearing the weeds.

Just want to interfere to say I think even when you compost yourself, there are certain weeds you need to continue to put in your neighbour's bin (you could swap so you take some stuff from him for your compost bins) - you don't want to put things that root too easily or weed seeds in unless you are going to hot compost and kill them...

apple_muncher wrote: »

Glad to hear my rasp rootlets are happy with your nurturing. The strawbs I got seem to have developed runners, so once I find out how to 'plant' them, I'll find a way to get them to you. The fruit is deeeelishuss!

Re planting your strawberry runners - they will drop roots into soil/compost where the plantlets contact it - I liked to pop a small pot of compost under them and put a wire u-shaped pin over each side of the plantlet to keep it in contact with the growing medium. When the roots have dropped you can chop the runner cord from the parent (and the baby on the other side, if it is being really ambitious). If they have already rooted you can just snip the cord off and take away any babies so the new plant's energy goes into making it robust.

shangaijimmy

Love the idea of a half year reflection, and in true MFW fashion I will be pinching it!

Karmacat

teapot2 wrote: »

Sounds like a productive day and good news re the ISA, as you say, a decent rate:cool:

shangaijimmy wrote: »

Love the idea of a half year reflection, and in true MFW fashion I will be pinching it!

Thanks both! I saw something comparing it to a ship's voyage - you check the compass every now and again, and this is the landborne equivalent

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Just want to interfere to say I think even when you compost yourself, there are certain weeds you need to continue to put in your neighbour's bin (you could swap so you take some stuff from him for your compost bins) - you don't want to put things that root too easily or weed seeds in unless you are going to hot compost and kill them...

Good point, SL - I think Grey Queen leaves roots like that to dry out, or to drown them, but of course weed seeds just never go away.

Re planting your strawberry runners - they will drop roots into soil/compost where the plantlets contact it - I liked to pop a small pot of compost under them and put a wire u-shaped pin over each side of the plantlet to keep it in contact with the growing medium. When the roots have dropped you can chop the runner cord from the parent (and the baby on the other side, if it is being really ambitious). If they have already rooted you can just snip the cord off and take away any babies so the new plant's energy goes into making it robust.

Thats good advice for apple - if you've got a well-fruiting variety that you like, runners are brilliant. I'm afraid I class the ones I've got in the same category as blackberry brambles

Karmacat

I've wasted all my time in the last 15 hours really, really annoyed with myself.

- didn't put the dish washer on last night (still haven't, see below)
- stayed up till 1am reading - Stargate Atlantis fanfiction I've just discovered. It was good, but not good enough to do that!
- woke up with a headache because, duh, I'd been reading till 1am.
- staggered off to my U3A environment group, to find out there's no meeting. Checked the website when I got home, and its very clear that the meeting is cancelled in favour of a site visit, to one of the biggest recycling sites in the south of England, on Friday. And the trip is full, of course Argh!

The only good news is that the group is continuing next year, it was on point of closure, and there's a site visit to a local organic farm already planned.

And breathe .... I haven't had a cup of coffee yet either. Thats next, it can brew while I put the dishwasher on ...