Put away your purse & become debt-averse

HairyHandofDartmoor

There is something very unsettling about having workmen in the house isn't there? You also feel obliged to keep offering them cups of tea. But it's lovely to get work done that needs doing so it's worth the disruption .

You sound like you had a productive day despite the workmen with all that marmalade made and prepped.

foxgloves

Yes, HHoD, you sort of can't get too settled with anything because of all the jumping up & down to see to things. But as you say, it is very much worth it to get long outstanding jobs crossed off the list.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Foggy People......or maybe it was just us who woke up to a blanket of fog this morning. It hasn't been as cold though. Nice not to be woken up by the sound of shift workers scraping their cars, but even so, I awoke at 4.30, grrrrr.
Anyway, the workmen were back even earlier than they said they'd be. I made sure I fuelled them up with caffeine & they got the job completely finished by 11.15! While they were doing that, I cooked an assortment of fish & hardboiled some eggs, peeled potatoes, etc, ready for making a big fish pie later, which will feed us for two days. I also made my second batch of marmalade, which set nice & easily & I only need to label the jars now. I might make some more actually, as it makes a nice gift, especially if visiting someone's house - a change from flowers & chocs. After the workmen finished, I did a bit of a tidy-up then decided I'd sit down with my lunch & watch 'Cold Feet' - Some hope! We suddenly became the most popular house on the street - first the workman's boss wanted to inspect the work, then the person who subcontracted to them arrived to see how they'd done & see if I was happy. I managed a couple more mouthfuls of my lunch before the door knocked again & it was a charity worker who thought I might like to set up a direct debit, then about ten mins after that, a van pulled up outside, 3 lads jumped out & banged on the door to see if it was alright for them to take all the old iron gutters, downpipes, etc, which the workmen had removed & left by the end of our drive for that very purpose (very active scrap metal trade around here). It's lovely to be able to cross a house refurb job off our long list, but I am looking forward to tomorrow & Friday when I don't have any workmen coming and will be able to catch up on a few things.....& I still haven't sorted out the recent energy bill issues.
I don't think it will involve any heavy jobs though. I have developed a sore little group of muscles in my back today. I expect I've bent over to get something out of a low cupboard or something very dull & routine like that & given my back a bit of a twist......or it could possibly be my desk chair, which although a proper office chair, isn't really very good with my old vintage desk & tend to make me sit at an uncomfortable angle. Ah well, I shall make sure I sit with a hot water bottle behind my lower back tonight to see if that helps. At least I've got plenty of co-codamol if necessary, as the arthritis in my hands for which it was prescribed, hasn't really been much trouble lately & I haven't needed to take any strong painkillers for it since spring last year.
Anyway, I would much rather think about making my nice big fish pie (topped with leek mash) than think about dodgy back muscles, so I shall sign off & go & do just that.
Hope you've all had a peaceful & productive day. I'm really hoping for one of those myself tomorrow.
F x

Blackcats

Great that a house maintenance job is crossed off the list but it is nice when the workmen leaves. I had some scaffolding put up at a previous house by the noisiest sweariest scaffolders in the UK. Their bad language reverberated throughout the neighbourhood as they shouted instructions to each other from the top of the roof. And they needed constant tea and coffee supplies. When they finished I sat in a quiet room to recover. Luckily taking it down again was quicker and required less directive instructions to be shouted.
Fish pie sounds yummy and great to have 2 evenings of meals sorted with one lot of cooking.

PurpleFairy26

Sounds like you've managed to be very productive whilst you've been confined to barracks maybe a hot soak in the tub would do wonders for your back, with Epsom salts or similar if you have any for good measure.

Glad you've managed to get a couple of house jobs done so early in the year. What's next on the list?

I've been enjoying the peace and quiet after the builders left ( most days for 8 months :eek:) mainly only 1 or 2 a day but still.... not sure I've quite recovered to get them back for the next job :rotfl:

HairyHandofDartmoor

All scaffolders are really noisy imho. They never talk they always shout and are frequently quite sweary (we have constant scaffolding going up and down at one house or other on our Edwardian terraced street so I consider myself an expert :rotfl:).

I'm glad your work is finished and once your doorbell stops ringing :rotfl: you can finally settle down to some jobs and relaxaton .

Onebrokelady

When I had my boiler replaced by my brother in law he left the old copper water heater out in the garden I had a man come and knock on my door to ask if he could take it,i think he was a traveller as we get a lot here, so I told him he could take it and he was over the moon, he said he had got a parking ticket that week and the money would pay for that
When my brother in law came back to next day and asked where it had gone I told him and he wasn't very happy because apparently it would have been worth about £100, he had told me he would dispose of it but he hadn't tell me it was worth anything so I thought I was saving him a job,serves him right for trying to rip me off ��

foxgloves

Blackcats - Yes, even though I love cooking, I'm a big fan of 'Cook once, eat twice', hence the big fish pie. I've included another two day meal on next week's meal plan too - chicken jalfrezi, which is a slow cooker recipe. I'll serve it with rice one night & garlic flat breads the next. Nobody here is going to moan about having curry for dinner two nights running!
F x

foxgloves

Onebrokelady - Oooh, that was nearly a cheeky little rip-off, wasn't it? Although when I was growing up, we used to have the 'Any old iron' truck coming round the village now & again, I hadn't realised as an adult that scrap metal was still 'a thing'. We'd not lived in our current house very long before we had the old taps & shower mixer changed in our bathroom. We'd got a skip on our drive at the time, as we were having some other work done & I came home one day to find a little old man - I mean really old - sort of partly sticking out of the back of the skip. He emerged with visible embarrassment clutching the old taps & asked if I minded if he took them as he sometimes made a little bit of cash from unwanted scrap metal. Since then, we've always put scrap metal at the end of our drive & it hads always been collected. I don't begrudge anyone making a bit of extra money from my rubbish. I'd much rather that than have to take it to the tip for landfill.
F x

foxgloves

HHoD - Actually, ours weren't too noisy, but I know they can be. These had a good sweep up too & did make a neat pile of all the scrap iron for collection. They also seemed very grateful for all the coffee, but it was the coldest day of this winter so far, when they arrived, so they probably needed it to thaw out!

Purplefairy - Next job is some big garden jobs which we don't have the tools or aptitude for heights to tackle ourselves, including tree work. Then we will need to sort out a builder to come in & discuss possibilities for what we want to do. In addition, we want a dodgy wall sorted out - I suspect it will need an anti-damp treatment - but I think sorting out one or two problem areas to make them more usable may actually help with the source of some of this damp ingress. It's a bit complicated & until we speak to a builder, we won't really know what is possible. Oh & we hope that after all that, we may still be able to afford a full heating upgrade. So busy times ahead! Feels quite stressful, but really does need doing & now that we own our house in full, we are determined to get it (& keep it) in as fine fettle as possible.
F x