Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

OBL - Hope your cooker engineer arrives & the social distancing works.
These are measures we are all going to have to live with for a long time. Whatever Boris Johnson thinks, viruses don't just disappear, however much we might wish it so & try to do feeble Churchill impersonations.
F x

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
The workmen left about an hour ago. I've swept up a bit of rubble.... not worth spending ages on it as they are back at 7.30 tomorrow. I've been round their route through the back of the house with my disinfectant bucket & gloves, doing door handles, doors, loo, mug.... It feels awful really to do this, but the only way forward, maybe even more so as more sectors re-open, is for us to assume absolutely everyone has the virus except us.
I'd planned to do a couple of jobs but the sun is shining & I couldn't wait to get outside. I watered the greenhouse veg at 7.30 this morning but the garden has felt off limits after that, not just social distancing but I didn't feel it was fair to keep traipsing over the foundation layer they were working so hard to correct.
So I am at last on my pondside bench with my knitting basket at my side. I've put some apple & songbird mix out nearby & a robin has been tucking in, while a little dunnock is currently enjoying a splashy bath. I don't know where Captain Beaky is (blackbird). He'll be proper mad if he finds he's missed apple & mealworms!
I've done a few random jobs today - Did next week's meal plans, wrote the shopping list, chose a couple of chutney recipes to make in the next few days, wrapped a couple of parcels, lots of little odds & ends like that. I skyped my sister too, which was nice, though did get roped into helping my nephew with his German homework.
Mr F has had an online training conference & skype meetings all day so has just announced he needs a change of scene & is off to the supermarket for our groceries.
A delivery today.... the lovely set of tins which were a free gift with my magazine subscription. I cooed over them, then boxed them back up again. I'm going to save them & put them out in the autumn when the planned building work in our kitchen has been completed. It will be like shopping from home.
Well, I haven't knitted a stitch yet, so must do a few rows while the caveman hunter is braving the supermarket queue.
Love to all, 
F xx

Blackcats

Hello Foxgloves - how exciting that your tins have arrived and how disciplined of you to save them til the Autumn.  I am still delighted whenever I use my Orla Keily storage jar that you made me buy 🤣 I noted your candle wobble from a few days ago .... candles are so tempting.  I found a small candle in my stash that I don't even recognise and have no recollection of buying or receiving as a gift and I'm pretty sure I didn't steal it.  Anyway I have started to use it and it does indeed smell of mango as described. 

I smiled when you used the "not as green as I'm cabbage looking" expression.  My great aunt used that saying all the time and I hadn't heard it for years.  

Glad your building work is progressing well.  

foxgloves

Blackcats - The tins are beautiful. They arrived all nicely boxed. There are 5 of them from a little one which would hold a few posh biscuits, up to a really big deep cake tin. Each one is a different pattern. I am enjoying the magazine too. I am thinking the set of tins was a very good free gift for a £20 magazine subscription. I expect they are expensive to buy.
F

foxgloves

Blackcats.... re the candle 'wobble'. Yes, I did have one. This is how it happened: For my birthday, I received a Dartington glass flower bottle. Do you know the ones I mean? They are all mouth blown & come in a range of lovely colours. I'd wanted one for the longest time, but as I am no longer a naughty spender, I couldn't justify buying one for myself. So a lovely gift......
But the box contained a rather tempting leaflet showing other items in this range.....all of them lovely.... including glass candle jars. My first though was how nice one would look in the bathroom..... or on my bookcase..... or on my dressing table..... or anywhere! Am pleased to report that I have continued to exercise restraint!
They are very pretty though...... 
F x

stitching_witch

foxgloves said:

Anyone else had a dodgy looking text from a phone company first thing? Mr F had one, then me too. That kind of raised our alert levels as the mobile account is in his name, not mine. Usual MO, 'your payment wasn' t able to be properly collected from your bank, please click on this scammy link, etc, etc'. Three things: April's payment went out correctly according to bank statement, Monthly DD showing on bank account as still being operational (& last payment was April) & the fact that May's payment isn't due until 20th.
Hmmm.

I had an email this morning from ‘TV Licensing’ It looked like the real deal and I could imagine some unwary people falling for it. I spotted two glaring mistakes though. Firstly, the email address which was purportedly on the license is my business email, which I NEVER give out for personal use. The biggest gaff though is the expiry date on the license - 10 May 2020. I haven’t had a television (or license) for over six years! 

Yes, of course I will click on your link...  🤔

kayannie

stitching_witch.... I have had two of these emails, supposedly from TV licensing. I opened neither as I could tell from the few words that I could see that they were not genuine. They weren't quite the same, the first said the licence was about to expire and the second one said that I had cancelled my direct debit to them. I did pause to think when I saw the 1st one, as we have had a free licence for the last couple of years as my husband is over 75. The free licence for us oldies has been taken away & was due to be payable again from his month, but this has now been postponed for a few months. I double checked with TV licencing that this was correct before deleting the 'reminder'. The following day the 2nd email arrived to tell me that I needed to set up a new direct debit. What is worrying is that so many older people would be tricked into thinking these emails were genuine, given that we were initially told that we would have to pay for a licence again from this month.
KA

Toni'sfriend

I got that one too. My son told me that it helps to click on the email address that it came from to see what it says. The latest one was from Japan. I would treat anything like that with caution. So many scammers about

savingmore

Thank you so much foxgloves for yr advice re the thyme plants.  sadly min early were definitely dead .... no work it looks like garden centres may be open next week will treat myself to a new plant, and may even see if i can find an orange scented one...sounds scrummy.

Many, many thanks ccl for advice on bicarb.  that makes sense.  i will try it in a soda loaf and see if we survive.. may feed to dh first, hee hee 😀.   hope you are all enjoying ve day. we had a celebratory glass of pimms.  would have been so special to celebrate a rossi the land together, but nothing compared with the wartime generation.  

foxgloves

Hello M'dears,
Well, I am feeling a bit weary tonight.....not because of oodles of useful activity on my part, but more because it is difficult to switch off when there are workmen hard at it, needing to ask questions, explain bits of procedure, etc. They all worked so hard & I experienced no issues with social distancing & went round with the disinfectant bucket & gloves again as soon as they'd gone.
We weren't allowed in the garden today. Well, I did go out at 7.15am to water the greenhouse veg & fetch some some jars in from my stash in the shed, but they arrived at 7.30 & after that, we were banned from going out there because of having to walk on the new stone slabs while they were being laid. Cat was allowed out as they said he isn't heavy enough to dislodge them, but then he got done for walking straight through their cement, & I wasn't happy either, as cementy paws are not good news for animals. I'm pleased to say that the various stresses of the work - they seem to have made a very neat job of sorting out that piece of broken drain, which I was worried about, as it did look bad enough to cost additional money at one point - will all be worth it tomorrow when it's finally finished. Just the finishing touches to do, so I think probably just one workman tomorrow.
I felt I needed to be at least a bit productive so I fed my sourdough jar ready for making a loaf tomorrow, made a batch of pineapple chutney to my own secret recipe (which developed after a bit of a strop I had about mangoes 2 or 3 years ago!), had a minor tidy up (pointless doing much until we have seen the last of the builder's dust, mostly from stone cutting) & baked some scones. This was our only vaguely VE Day activity. We made a brew & ate warm scones with butter & home made blackberry jam at afternoon tea time & ignored all the mess for half an hour. It felt quite civilised & Cat joined in with a pouch of fishy stink with a teaspoon of tuna on the top. 
I have now run out of baking powder & I don't have any self-raising flour either. I was thinking about this the other night because when Mr F went off on the supermarket run, he wasn't able to get baking powder but mentioned that there was plenty of Cream of Tartar on the baking shelves & was that any good for anything? And that suddenly sparked a memory from school cookery lessons back in the day, when alongside other bits of arcane knowledge, we were taught that baking powder is made from........bicarb of soda & cream of tartar!! I knew it was a 2:1 ratio, but couldn't remember which way so had to check.......it is 2 tsp of cream of tartar & 1 tsp of bicarb of soda. So I made sure cream of tartar was on the shopping list this week (there was still plenty on the shelves) & today I made some up in my empty baking powder tub. I used it in my scones today & they rose nicely & tasted fine. 
Mr F has just shared his bar of chocolate with me, which I think I deserved actually, for having done 3 days of disinfectant bucket duty. It was still nice of him though. I am going to read my free magazine now. I have swapped one with my sister by post. I received 'Country Living', so I will make sure I use the interiors pages as inspiration & ideas, rather than temptation to spend money in various upmarket emporia. I do find I am much better at this than I ever would have thought possible back when I was spendy. I used to spend such a lot of money on magazines.....then each of those just seemed to flag up more stuff I 'needed' to buy! It was a perfect circle of overspending, waste & financial insecurity to which I will never return. 
Anyway, I hope you have all managed to have a decent day.
Love F x