Travelling On

Karmacat

Karmacat said:  Right, I have an agenda this week:

- read some of the Highway Code today, driving lesson is tomorrow.
I've turned to the right page 🤣
- ring dentist for hygiene appointment and tooth appointment.  
Done.  Dentist is on holiday, but I'm not in pain.
- French management company needs paying.
Done.

It seemed like more than that when I was doing it.  Cat has his needs, of course.  Might try to phone ex-partner right now, or get a bit of weeding done.  

Karmacat

Karmacat said:

- read some of the Highway Code today, driving lesson is tomorrow.
Driving lesson cancelled, car had a puncture.  Still not read any of the Code, but WILL DEFO DO THAT TODAY.

- ring dentist for hygiene appointment and tooth appointment. 
Done - middle third of next month for both.

- French management company needs paying.
Done.  Very easy nowadays.

- phone ex-business partner, a birthday this week.
I did, and he was in!  I timed it right for once, yay!  Nice chat, newsy too.

- coconut loaf cake to be baked today.  I need something like this with all the juggling going on. 
Did it!  Recipe creates almost a kilo of cake, but I eat big slices 🤣

- curtains still unfinished: hand sewing the finish of the hem, and gathering the tapes are both to be done. 
STILL TO DO

- healthy walk on Wednesday.
Just come back from it.  We walked along the village high street, specifically to look at shops, and I was told to stop looking at *other* shops and keep up with the group.  !!!!!!.

- text brother to see if he'll chat.  School run starts again tomorrow.
WILL DO THIS ON THURSDAY.

- hopefully Friday, pick up the purchases from M&S, decide what to keep.
Still no news of delivery to the store, so no chance of doing this yet.

- gardening: a week till the green bin.
Yep, I'm doing some, found a *big* hazel seedling hiding under the gooseberries.

- good grief my living room rug is dirty, between cat hair and cat biscuits and 3 humans trolling about 🤣  
STILL DIRTY 🤣😺

So, its the stuff in capitals: the Highway Code, the curtains, and condescending to clean the carpet 😺  No more gardening today, my back is feeling the strain of bending over to stroke the cat, who likes to flop to the floor to have all round his face gently stroked, he purrs like a mad thing 😺 utterly irresistible.

Prolific is sending me invites to join, as I'm at the top of the list, but I also seem to have an account.  As I'm hearing they pay so well, I'm going to go for it.  I still do YG, after all, Prolific sounds much better.

Cheery_Daff

Prolific is definitely better than yougov! You can claim a payout at £5 if nothing else! Some of the studies are actually interesting 😂 and they appear far more frequently than yougov too. 

Health walk sounds very annoying today!

Karmacat

Sounds good, Cheery, thanks!  I didn't get round to Prolific, but I did finish off one curtain entirely, and read the Highway Code (not in it's entirety).  And of course I did some genealogy work - sorting out who's who in relation to my Irish soldier who fought at Waterloo.

And yes, I was very distracted at the healthy walk by this woman ordering me about (I'm exaggerating, but I was irritated!) the idea of backstop is a good one, but taken too far, its a complete pain!  Never mind, worse things happen at sea.  I (temporarily) have a cat who demands adoration, thats fine 🤣😺⭐

beanielou

Always messy when you have a cat or two around 😹

Karmacat

Moggy is keeping me busy with contradictory demands.  Flopping on his back to stare at me and purr, and then swipe me if I dare to stroke him 🤣 he's adorable.  Loves Dreamies, they might as well be addictive 🤣

Today, I've got the washing machine on - wondering about putting it out, actually, it doesn't look good out there, and I've been summarising my notes on alchemilla plants - mostly the leaves - to know what I'm doing.  I'm determined to harvest more from my garden, and they self seed everywhere, so they'd be a great start.

So, today properly:
- make sure the recycling is out - I might start on the folders holding all the old client files, there's no confidentiality issues with getting rid of the folders straight away.  It'd be nice to have them out of the house.
- text brother (snack first, in case he says, ring now!).
- a walk: there are some books with the client folders, they could go to the charity bin  
- possibly a bit of weeding, as long as my back will take it.  There's an old cat litter tray to clean well enough to come back in the house, I could clean some potting-on plantpots as well.
- erm, I could even charge my electric toothbrush, as LadyWithAPlan mentioned   

beanielou

Dreamies are indeed addictive! 

Karmacat

The last quarter of the year!
Oh good grief.  Starts on Sunday, I only thought about it because Cheery just mentioned it.  I have a sense that I know what I need to do, because some projects are ongoing or just started, but there are some things I'm not paying attention to.  I think I'm going to write this out for the fridge door.  So:

1. The cat has to take priority right now.  He's being collected on Wednesday 11th - then it's clear Operation Clear Cat Hair.

2. Inquest and funeral: my nephew wants the funeral to be family only, by which he means people who know the boys.  And we don't, so we might well not be going up for the funeral.  Inquest, we'll see, and take brother's advice.  

3. My priority for me is continuing to learn to drive - got another gap this week, because of the puncture just before my lesson - but keeping on keeping on is the only thing to do.  Following on from which:

4. Deciding which car to drive.  Test drives?  Don't know if they deliver it, or I'll have to beg a lift from someone.

5. Accessories to driving: the Highway Code says "Take an emergency kit of de-icer and ice scraper, torch, warm clothing and boots, first aid kit, jump leads and a shovel".  Very surprised about the shovel, and the jump leads too, come to that, but to hear is to obey 🌞  And I've been with sister when she's bought a motorist's size sack of road salt, her drive is as steep as mine.  Might be necessary.

6. Craft work.  Finish the curtains.  The recycleable fabric gift tags are cut out and ready to go, in a little tin, I can get that going at any time.  I'd like to learn to use the sewing machine, and I'd like to work on the nightie I adapted from a sarong.  That might not be *before* Christmas, but we'll see, the curtains and the tags take precedence.

7. Growing things.  Get the garden ready.  It wasn't too bad at the beginning of the year, but it became a nightmare, because I stopped doing anything.  Learn that lesson!  I also need to set up a proper spot, with the grow lights I bought, for seeds, seedlings and sprouting.  I really don't know quite where - its got to be in the second bedroom or the office, I think, and the office is probably the one because its a more constant temperature, even though its low.  

8. Genealogy biographies.  These have been going well, ever since I found a previously unknown connection on Ancestry, who actually responded to me almost immediately.  I sent one of the biographies to my sister and niece, as they're in New York, and our great-great-grandfather emigrated there with some of his kids, in the 1890s.  It felt really good to be able to do that.

9. Self care.  A wide one, this!  Getting the electric toothbrush going, visiting the dentist (all booked up), looking after my complexion, toning exercises (not done any yet), disposing safely of the client files.  Bit more social life: visit ex-partner once I've got a car, getting out with sister to walks near us (if I rely on her for a lift, it adds one or two hours to her journey time, not acceptable to me), stuff on meetup, a bit of fun with planning my neverending cli-fic novel.  Self-care would also include using the car for short journeys when the dog next door becomes unbearably barky, its very distressing and distracting to hear.  Hopping in a car to read or work on the gift tags or write or investigate spots for the novel would be great.

10.  FINANCES!  That's what we're supposed to be about, after all 😮  I need to open that high-interest savings bond I was going to use.  I need to make arrangements for what happens when I win the million £ premium bond 🌞, get the taxes done in time for me to research the house and contents policies properly - actually, that could happen when I get the car, could well be better to have them all together with one company.  I don't know.

themadvix

Crikey, that's quite a to-do list KC! I'm tired just reading it.

Car seems to be a key factor in this. Not sure they'll deliver them for test drives - you'll probably need to go and deal with creepy car salesman - could your bro or sis help with this (appreciate it might not be possible for bro at this point though)? I'd definitely recommend taking someone with you for moral support and to think of things you might not have thought of. Are you going to buy from a dealership or via a Cinch-type platform? I'd avoid the car supermarket places like the plague - awful place and they're not interested in anything except selling you the car (and finance). We visited one and they hadn't even charged the hybrid - did they think we were going to buy something without knowing that it worked fully? They did! Never again.

Re grow lights etc. I can't imagine you'll need these until after Christmas, so I would put this on the back burner for now.

I think you can probably adjust the 'emergency kit' for the car a bit - if you're Cheery you might need all that most of the winter, but down here, especially if you're not going far, you probably don't! We never take a shovel unless it's actually snowy or forecast. Likewise, we don't own de-icer (not environmentally or cat friendly) nor do we pack boots or warm clothes unless the forecast is bad. Scraper and first-aid kit are definite yeses though! Jump leads will also depend on the car - probably not needed if it's a hybrid.

Cheery_Daff

My car is always full of blankets anyway 😂 And always a scraper, which came in handy when I got stuck at work (well, friend's house near work) when it snowed in March. I could have done with a shovel to dig myself out of the snow drift that had enveloped my parked car, but sadly didn't have one, and had to use the ice scraper instead, very ineffective 😂 Will make sure I have a shovel next time! 

But yes, I probably wouldn't bother unless there was snow forecast.

Lots of plans for you there, exciting times!