Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Rainy Readers, Oh, what a day! It was raining at 6.30 when I first got up & it hasn't stopped at all. The river has only just fallen back to where it should be, so all this rain won't be helping. Anyway, no point wasting a day. Mr F on leave all week except this afternoon, but he sensibly decided to work from home as a 52-mile round trip's worth of petrol for 4 hours of work seemed over-the-top. We've been to a big garden centre this morning (the one full to the brim with temptation), had scones & coffee for brunch & bought compost ready for my Spring garden jobs, greenhouse glazing clips to secure the glass better having dealt with the storm damaged corner, a new pair of secateurs for Mr F (he has got through heaps of cheap pairs, all of which have ended up in landfill, so we are trying a better quality, left-handed pair) & some poppy seeds. I'm glad I didn't buy these online, as I'd have paid postage & they were in stock at the garden centre - an unusual variety called 'Amazing grey' - I saw pictures of a drift of them & thought they looked like moonlight. 500 seeds, so will be able to grow a few extra plants for gifting.
Other stuff:
*Sowed mustard microgreens on kitchen windowsill
*Squelched down to greenhouse & sowed free sweet-pea seeds from my friend. Used big yoghurt pots as I always do for sweet peas & beans as they like a long root run. 
*Made bread
*Did 3 surveys.
*Sorted clean laundry & ironed as little as I could possibly get away with.
*Did meal plans for next week. Mr F had seen enormous pork loins on offer at local butcher for £15 & was all for getting one of those as it would provide several meals. It's true, it would, but we have a lot of food in, including batch-cooked home made 'ready meals' in the freezer & I have said we need to prioritise those for next week & suggested he use what we already have in stock to make a big cottage pie to feed us on Sun/Mon - we literally have only to buy a couple of leeks for that, for the leek mash topping. He's fine with that. Says the yellow sticker mince in the freezer is chicken mince, so now reckons he might invent a new sort of pie, lol!
*As Mr F was so pleased with the 3 pairs of stash-use-it-up socks I've just knitted for him, I decided I'd knit a 4th pair as my next knitting project so I cast those on this morning while watching the latest dreadful news from Ukraine. Honestly, it is hard to take any of the minor moans & inconveniences in our lives seriously when you think what those people are going through. 
Well, as it isn't my cooking night, my jobs are pretty much done, so I am going to read. I found an Ellie Griffiths novel my sister gave me which I had forgotten about (one of her stand-alone titles) so I shall read that next.
I hope someone somewhere has seen some sunshine today, but it certainly isn't me!
Take care, all.
F x

Sun_Addict

You’ve had a busy day. The weather has been awful. I have no success with poppies in my garden, despite many attempts, yet they grow in abundance in cracks in pavements locally. I’m also feeling for the people of Ukraine, everything seems so petty compared to what they’re going through 😢

foxgloves

Evening frugal friends, 
Popping my post on while waiting for dinner to finish cooking. Today has flown by - it has simply disappeared up its own what-not. Started by Mr F failing to get worm pills down cats, followed by me also failing & two more combined fails before giving up 5 hrs later & consigning untouched drug-laced breakfasts to bin. New pouches opened. Ash ate about 4 mouthfuls & Soot refused to touch it - apparently not the flavour he was hoping for. So food waste today, which is against our household policy, grrr.
Very useful garden session, with Mr F removing plant thugs from a section of hedge. I planted up my new strawberry area with free runners & the old plants - 4 long troughs & a pot in the middle. Weeded the gravel around those, then transplanted 8 nice chunky self-seeded foxgloves to fill gaps in borders.
Builder pinged to say could he come round tonight to 'discuss the project'. By the time he arrived, I'd convinced myself he was coming in person to tell us that our work has had to slip to 2023.......so it was a proper shock to hear that it hasn't, & they're starting in 3 weeks time!!
And I have quite a bit to do before they start.
Nothing like a bit of pressure to boost productivity!
F x

Sun_Addict

My cats have the wormer that goes on the back of their necks like the flea treatment. I’ve had some success in the past with tablets hidden in a dollop of squirty cream though. Cats are very crafty. 

ladyholly

The advantage of dogs over cats is they tend to be much greedier and therefore more likely to be fooled by disgised food. Having said that the poorly one who has 4 tablets a day at different times can find them unless they are very well coated in meat paste.

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict & @ladyholly - Tablets (which were beef flavoured) were hidden in one of those 'cat angel deelight' fishy paste treats. Slurped it down but left pill. Ditto next attempt. By this time, pill soggy & had lost its beefy looking coating. Mashed it into their breakfasts which were ignored. They held out for 5 hours before I gave up & fed it to the bin. We have form for epic fails at getting pills into cats.......even cutting tiny secret pill-containing trapdoors in cubes of cheese rarely worked with any of our past cats.
F

ladyholly

Watching my BiL with his cats it is so easy. He just puts it in their mouth and hold them with their head up and strokes their throat. Sounds simple doesnt it? I bet it isnt though, we have never had cats so I cant judge.

foxgloves

That's the textbook method, @ladyholly. For the more difficult cat, it is recommended to rub their throat too, to get them to swallow. One of our past cats would submit to this, do an impressively big swallow, then immediately we let go of him, he would spit the pill out. They were fake swallows!
F x

blue_eyed_girl123

May have laughed out loud at "pill soggy & had lost its beefy looking coating" 😂. Also advocate for back of the neck wormer like @Sun_Addict - much easier all round. 

Sun_Addict

ladyholly said:

Watching my BiL with his cats it is so easy. He just puts it in their mouth and hold them with their head up and strokes their throat. Sounds simple doesnt it? I bet it isnt though, we have never had cats so I cant judge.

My DD has this knack with cats 😆 It’s how vets do it.