Travelling On

Karmacat

Karmacat said:

The last quarter of the year!  UPDATE, for before Christmas.

1. Operation Clear Cat Hair, I'm going to pretend this is done, I found a few stragglers yesterday, but that's all.

2. Inquest and funeral: brother updated us on how the funeral went - Coroner announces whether or not there's an inquest on 9th November, then we'll see, and take brother's advice.  
Preliminary report issued last Thursday (while I was visiting the car dealer) apparently it's full of omissions and inaccuracies, so a further delay.  No childminding/support needed from me till at least after the Christmas holidays, so crossed off the list for now.

3. Learning to drive - weekly lessons going well.
Last lesson of 20 is tomorrow - I'll wait for more until I've got a car. It's now Tuesday 28th, that last lesson is done, I was a bit worried I'd have backslid, but it was great, I actually drove new routes, to the little town south of me - I was so tired by the end I couldn't drive straight, but it was a great achievement.  No more lessons till I've bought the car.

4. Deciding which car to drive.  Just the Autotrader app at the moment, I've learned that imports are a no-no.
Toyota Yaris - in checking out specifically Toyota dealers, I may come across another model - Aygo, Camry - but the Yaris is the base model.

5. Accessories to driving: no change, I'll buy what's needed when I've got a car.
Again, no change, so deleted for now.

6. Craft work.  Finish remaining curtain, work on recycleable fabric gift tags.  Sadly, no change here either.  
Oops.  Still no change on this - I've underestimated the amount of work around the car.

7. Growing things.  Get the garden ready.  There's a few small trees that look like silver birch that party wall neighbour and I both thought belonged to them.  But they're growing in my soil - and the son of the house can't finish the new fence until they're down, because of the way they kink over the boundary.  I want them to finish that fence!  So I'm prepared to sacrifice those trunks.  I can do that this weekend.
This didn't happen - I didn't cut down the silver birch type small trees, because they don't obstruct the party wall neighbour.  They've abandoned the fence - I might have guessed, because of their rubbish-strewn back yard.  The dad of the family refused to speak with me when I called out to him (he's seen me turning tail and going inside when they turn up, though I've never ignored them speaking to me.  Because they haven't spoken to me 🤐  The whole situation would be comical if not for the dog, who's still suffering, locked in his tiny shed in the garden, for an average of 23 hours a day.  I'm not interested in talking to people who are so cruel to an animal under their care, and since the RSPCA has declined to prosecute, I can only conclude there must be a whole lot of even worse animal cruelty that completely flies under the radar.

I've decided to talk to the dog when I'm in my back garden and he throws himself against his bars because he thinks somebody's coming to see him.  I don't think it does anything for him, but it helps me, and I need to be out there - I'm doing simple things like cutting back the raspberry canes at the moment.  Still.

8. Genealogy biographies.  Carry on having a play.
Yep!  Doing my late brother-in-law's family, on the toddler's behalf - I'm in the 1920s right now, very recent according to my lights, but it's very different from mine, very interesting.

9. Self care.  A wide one, this!  As per immediately previous post, teeth and skin need looking after, with electronics.   The main other thing is getting rid of client files safely. 
After all the fuss I made on these, no progress whatsoever.

10.  FINANCES.  Since the last update, not much - finished the money shuffle finally.  If I buy a car soon, unless I get a free offer of 0% finance, I'll have to take some money out of premium bonds.  Which is fine - I wonder about taking some tax-free money from a pension?  Lots more work needed on that.
I've gathered together bits and pieces of money: Asda Rewards, "Rewards" from the bank, from one of the baby Happy Wheels.  Increased the amount on my main credit card by £2k - between the two credit cards, they come to well over £10k

Main focus is on items 6 - 10.  Of these, today will be:
- pruning some more in the back garden.
- setting up an experiment with sprouting parsnip seeds, they seem to be very difficult to grow from seed, but they also produce a *lot* of seed, so a buddy on another forum has sent me some he produced purposely, and I'm going to experiment.
- I'll doubtless have a play with the genealogy  

Extras for between now and Christmas: cards, such as they are, presents for the small family numbers I still buy for, and tax declarations, uh oh, its that time again 😯🤐😎

beanielou

Aygo is very similar to the Yaris as you know. 

themadvix

Im sure you talking to dog will be beneficial and calming for him - if nothing else he’ll learn that not every word in his direction is harsh. Definitely worth doing for both of you. Poor thing.

beanielou

Poor dog 🐶 

Watty1

Poor dog. Look, I know you probably dont want to hear this but have you offered to have the dog with you when you are gardening?  Or even to walk the dog?  No charity will be interested because it is not starving and it has water sadly.    

I ended up with my heart soul dog simply because he was kept on a chain and i thought he was too nice to be on a chain so I used to chat to him so he learned some humans were kind.  Eventually he moved in with me and was the best most amazing dog ever.

I can't bear cruelty to any animal. It is so unnecessary and they clearly don't really want the dog with them.  You could frame it as offering to do them a favour?  I know you probably don't want a dog    TBH I didn't want the dog on the chain but I took it when they offered him to me to "get rid" just to get him out of there.  My plan was to re-home him but that is a whole other story!

Karmacat

Watty1 said:

Poor dog. Look, I know you probably dont want to hear this but have you offered to have the dog with you when you are gardening? 
I haven't, Watty.  I've thought about ways I could help the dog, but I have chronic fatigue, remember, I can't fully look after myself - I do fun stuff in spite of my home life, not because of it.  Some parts of the house haven't been cleaned since I was catsitting   And there's now the minor facts that as well as me not talking to them, they're not talking to me.  And how would I get the dog out of the shed in the back garden?  Two locks to get past, even if I was well enough?  Not going to happen.

I ended up with my heart soul dog simply because he was kept on a chain and i thought he was too nice to be on a chain so I used to chat to him so he learned some humans were kind.  Eventually he moved in with me and was the best most amazing dog ever.

I can't bear cruelty to any animal. It is so unnecessary and they clearly don't really want the dog with them.  You could frame it as offering to do them a favour?  I know you probably don't want a dog    TBH I didn't want the dog on the chain but I took it when they offered him to me to "get rid" just to get him out of there.  My plan was to re-home him but that is a whole other story!

I couldn't possibly have him, even though you're right that they clearly don't want the dog, but looking after a self sufficient cat for two weeks tired me out earlier this year, for a week afterwards.  Looking after a big, young, fit dog regularly, permanently, even for half an hour a day, would be a complete no-no.  Even though they're being cruel to him in my eyes.  That's the energy I'd use to get out of the house, I'd be trapping myself all over again.  My previous life gave me chronic fatigue.  The situation you're describing would kill me, eventually.

Watty1

Then don't do it.  It was just an idea.  I felt sorry for the dog and it was a similar situation I rescued my darling ex dog from.

Karmacat

Watty1 said:

Then don't do it.  It was just an idea.  I felt sorry for the dog and it was a similar situation I rescued my darling ex dog from.

Indeed, I will action my own thoughts on the matter.  I was really shocked by your post, after all the support I've given you over the last few years.  

I won't mention the dog again on here, I can't cope with this.



ETA: I sat with this for a bit, and I'm taking a break from the diary, maybe permanently, chronic fatigue stress is triggered.  I'll just copy my quarterly to-do list and I'll be off.

beanielou

So so sorry that you feel like this Karmcat. 

Always here for a wee chat. 

Take care of yourself xxx

rtandon27

Oh - so sorry to hear that KC - but you need to do what's right for  you. xxx