Travelling On

elantan

I'm loving the garden chat it sounds so exciting, will need to look up witch hazel, how big is your garden? I'm loving the sound of Rhodies but do they not need a lot of space ? 

Karmacat

Hi El!  The garden is small, 35 feet long and the width of the house - there's no garage at the side to add width, so its small across too.  Rhodies need a huge amount of space - I've pruned this one down at ground level before, but the crown is beyond me, I think I'd need a professional to do it.  When I moved here, there were *five* others - I think it was "landscaped" by the previous owner, who didn't know or care what might be appropriate.  The others have gone, they were quite little, but this one is a proper tree.

The witchhazel, I do love it, but its shading the whole garden now with its growth habit.  I've just looked again at the RHS site How to grow witch hazel / RHS Gardening and it gives advice on coping with a tree that's got too big for its site.  Basically, I wait till its finished flowering, which is fine, as its flowering right now, it won't be long.  It's very lovely, it's just too big.

There's another job I've done, not on that list: submitted my meter readings again, they sent an email last Friday.  So, over ten days (since my last submission) I've used £55 of energy.  Blimey.  £5.50 a day.  That's the dishwasher, washing machine, heating, hygiene, cooking.  I *have* used the oven a fair bit, roasting frozen veg, instead of my halogen, even though I'm only doing one portion at a time usually.  That's the only thing I can think to cut down on.  Actions:
- get the floor insulation I bought and put it down!
- I have a tiny little solar panel that can charge a phone.  Start using!
- clean halogen oven and start using it again (I just use it for roasting eggshells to put in the garden at the moment 🙄

Got in touch with pharmacy services at Boots, and they'll take OOD OTC stuff too, like glycerin, Deep Heat, that kind of thing: its 7 - 12 years old, this stuff, and I'm not using it, some things aren't worthwhile.  I'll go do my exciting local shopping trip first thing tomorrow 🤣

elantan

ahhh yes I submitted readings as well ... I am dreading my next bill, was online to them for 1.5 hours on saturday and on the phone for 45 mins today ( didnt get through today) as I want to sort this bill out. 

aye I was thinking that about Rhodies they are big plants, beautiful but big, your garden sounds lovely though, and a good size. 

good luck with the pharmacist and getting your drugs taken back, I've had to do that a time or two myself for various people

badmemory

You mean I shouldn't keep the last valium from 1972 then?

beanielou

badmemory said:

You mean I shouldn't keep the last valium from 1972 then?

Not sure if you are joking or not, but no.

badmemory

No definitely not joking.  I last took one about 2 years ago.

Karmacat

elantan said:

ahhh yes I submitted readings as well ... I am dreading my next bill, was online to them for 1.5 hours on saturday and on the phone for 45 mins today ( didnt get through today) as I want to sort this bill out. 
I dread having a problem, El, I hope you *can* sort it out soon.  Customer services from energy companies seems to be non-existent nowadays.

aye I was thinking that about Rhodies they are big plants, beautiful but big, your garden sounds lovely though, and a good size. 
Thanks!  I think of the garden as quite small, tbh, its one step up from a courtyard garden, but its as much as I can cope with.  My previous house had a loooong garden, and steep too, so that from the end, you couldn't see anything of the house except the roofline, far below 🤣 that was exceptional 🤣

good luck with the pharmacist and getting your drugs taken back, I've had to do that a time or two myself for various people

Thanks again - I think it will be okay, as I checked with Boots themselves and that's where I'll be taking them.  I'm more worried about leaving the house early enough to avoid half-term children 😁 Recycling frozen veg bags, and buying a diary are the other two jobs.  I hope to use our Poundstretcher type shop, so if there's any low-cost handcream, for instance, I'll snap that up too.

badmemory said:

You mean I shouldn't keep the last valium from 1972 then?

Sorry, badmemory, I'm with beanie on this.  Not because they become poisonous or anything (though this whole exercise was sparked for me when I found some strepsils from 2010 that looked **disgusting**) but its giving house room to very elderly drugs that won't be terribly effective any more.  All the proper medical websites I've looked at say that older stuff doesn't become dangerous (I'd point to strepsils as an exception, personally 😲) but I still wouldn't do it.

Hmmm.  Haven't sponged down the sofa.  Five minutes, and then I'm off out into the garden, its a beeyootiful day 🌞

elantan

I remember my mother in law taking antibiotics that were 7 years out of date , no wonder she cant get antibiotics to work anymore 

Karmacat

elantan said:

I remember my mother in law taking antibiotics that were 7 years out of date , no wonder she cant get antibiotics to work anymore 

Antibiotics were one of the many prescriptions we filled for my mum the year she died, 2016, and I must admit when we were dismantling the household effects, I took them and kept them - didn't include them in this "wildly out of date list" either 😁 Though I'd go to my own doctor first if I had need, of course.

Anyway, an hour in the garden, pruning the box hedge on one side and the nettle roots under my lovely new fence on the other, plus a few laurel branches at the far end - that's nearly done, I'm very pleased.

I haven't done the 3 short finance things that were on my list for today, but I can do them tomorrow, not worried about that.

Suffolk_lass

I have had to skip a vast amount of content in my favourite diaries but just read the last few posts and you are talking about OOD stuff. I am notorious for keeping things. Pain killers mostly, but I know I have some steroids and antibiotics from my winter rescue packs that the GP lets me have. I need to collect an inhaler today so will take some. Feeling guilty now!