Travelling On

rtandon27

It was a gorgeous spring day today!  Put washing out to dry, spent 1.5 hours gardening in the late afternoon & got the OH outside for a stroll before sunset.  The birds were most curious as it's been months since we've done anything other than fill the bird feeder or take out the trash!  It's so good to be able to spend a good portion of the day outside again, hopefully it won't be long before I can spend the entire day at my 'outside desk'.

Karmacat

Wasn't it lovely outside today!  I don't have an outside desk as such but I have a couple of nice aluminium patio chairs, very lightweight.  The table is horrible, even that needs decluttering and then a deep clean, but at least I have one  

I *did* get outside, and I'm afraid I carried on with the work I was already doing, the digging up roots (all done on that side now!!!) and laying out a line of sturdy posts to act as soil retainers.  Very heavy, so they might do the job.  I had to saw one to make it fit, though, and that was tiring.  But that job, of protecting the fence by lining underneath with existing pieces of concrete or paving or pottery, plus getting up the bramble roots, plus laying an initial line of posts as the first layer of the raised beds, is 95% done.  Very, very pleased   But I'll be in bed soon, I'm not kidding 

rtandon27

Karmacat said:

...I don't have an outside desk as such but I have a couple of nice aluminium patio chairs, very lightweight.  The table is horrible, even that needs decluttering and then a deep clean, but at least I have one ...

Ha ha - 'outside desk' makes it sound much grander than the reality KC! - Our patio set is about 10 years old and many times mended!  I try to oil the wood every year, but the OH is correct when he says it's fit for the fireplace.  That being said, nothing a couple of padded cushions can't make better & it's outside in the fresh air which makes me very very happy!

debtfreeoneday

Karmacat said:

Wasn't it lovely outside today!  I don't have an outside desk as such but I have a couple of nice aluminium patio chairs, very lightweight.  The table is horrible, even that needs decluttering and then a deep clean, but at least I have one  

I *did* get outside, and I'm afraid I carried on with the work I was already doing, the digging up roots (all done on that side now!!!) and laying out a line of sturdy posts to act as soil retainers.  Very heavy, so they might do the job.  I had to saw one to make it fit, though, and that was tiring.  But that job, of protecting the fence by lining underneath with existing pieces of concrete or paving or pottery, plus getting up the bramble roots, plus laying an initial line of posts as the first layer of the raised beds, is 95% done.  Very, very pleased   But I'll be in bed soon, I'm not kidding 

I made it to 8.50pm last night before DH and I hit the hay. A day of gardening and weeding broke me. Awesome day and so much fresh air. 

Suffolk_lass

I sat squinting at Dire Straits on Sky Arts trying desperately not to fall asleep after the same @debtfreeoneday! What are we like!? (I think I was at that concert...1983 and it was the rendition of Telegraph Road that got me listening properly to Bruce Springsteen)

Karmacat

I'm glad I'm not alone on the crashing out very early   it has to be obeyed, because if I stay up through it, I don't get to bed till 1am, and no sleep until 2am.  Not a good look the next day

A boring post about today's prospects, in spite of such fantastic looking weather (though the deep frost this morning also looked fantastic) ... just carrying on, really, the computer, a few emails, the half bag of bark chippings can now go down, tidying up the fence posts on the patio that are to be used for the raised beds, the fiddly stuff that I'm *so* bad at doing, the finishing off things that make something look good rather than solely functional

apple_muncher

Karmacat said:

But that job, of protecting the fence by lining underneath with existing pieces of concrete or paving or pottery, plus getting up the bramble roots, plus laying an initial line of posts as the first layer of the raised beds, is 95% done.  Very, very pleased  

Glad you worked in a % there! I was missing them! I can say that at midnight tonight, I will have done 100% of Feb. Not bad, eh?

rtandon27

KC - even a boring post is a good one as it means that you are plotting & planning & even doing (in little bits) which is better than the alternative!

The weather does indeed *look* gorgeous & I fully intended to finish off the bramble tidy started yesterday, but 5 minutes out there says it is frrrrreeeezzzzing cold and not worth bundling up for!

During my 5 outdoor minutes, I measured up the base of the partition fence, as the chicken wire on the neighbours side that had come loose seems to have been replaced with unsightly boards, which look a bit meh.  I've yet to come up with a visually appealing and affordable solution to that little problem that involves zero interaction with said neighbours, who have gone a little doolally over the past year and are not pleasant to interact with atm!

I'm sat at the freshly tidied kitchen table with a cuppa coffee.  Paper & pen in hand to plot our where plants are going this year!  I went a bit mad with ordering summer bulbs so now to figure out how tall they grow and plan a bed.  For now I'll ignore the fact that the bed in question needs de-mossing & the soil amended.

Karmacat

As far as % are concerned, greenbee has given me a revelation: press Windows and full stop, and amazing things come up, like:
👀🐱‍🚀✔🎁✨💋(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞€ (that will actually be useful) 🧙‍♀️🛀🦶🤦🏿‍♂️🧵👕🧨🎄🎗⚽⚾🏒⏰🍘🥦🚖🌍🏡🆘🔆🔺 well I never

RT, I'm definitely plotting and planning and I've got the "retaining"  wall of the first layer of raised beds nearly all along the fence, plus the open bag of chippings has been used - it covered a pathetic square footage, but there you go .  Still more to do, but I'm starting to feel a real sense of accomplishment with that.  There's a list for March on my phone, but about half of it is leftovers from February - such is life And I've done a lot in February that wasn't on the list, plus the vaccine knocked me out for a few days.  Not too bad at all. 

Karmacat

February finish:

23 items and I fully completed only 8:

buy £10k premium bonds

sort Coventry BS

find phone handset

email French maintenance company

fix leather belt

emplace pavers and concrete posts

open isa for this tax year

regular fast walks

Almost completely done:

French accounts

vitamins and supplements

exercise at home

facial care (all these 3 not perfect, but better than I was)

lay out timber for raised beds

lose half a stone

clear slate and put down hard core

Not done yet:

see to underneath mahonia

plant kale and echinacea

repair lightpull in bathroom

use up brilliant white pot

get compact radio going

get sewing machine set up

make face masks

There were other things I did that weren't on the list:

- sorted keys: I kept finding little stashes of unknown keys, gradually got them all together, sorted out what opened what, what was useless. I have a padlock on my side gate because of this Still need to find out how to recycle the metal in keys from locks that have been discarded.

- because of sorting the keys, I also had to sort jewellery. I don't wear much, but what I have, included the inherited stuff, needed to be laid out to be more accessible. Job jobbed.

- part of the jewellery thing, which was odd: a little facebook lockdown project, finding out where the solid silver replica of my head girl badge at my school was made. My sister said the badges girls wore at the school were from Iona, and that's correct. But the badges that were given to head girls after their year had finished were made in Birmingham by WHDarby (another head girl was on there and posted up the same hallmark that I had). Just a little piece of history.

- started sorting the photos in my genealogy files: they were in folders named according to the decade, but within that it was chaos I started with the 1930s, and I'm still on it, oops.

- tidying. Although I ended up doing quite a bit, it was basically a Fail! So much so that tidying the upstairs of the house is its own project this month.