Cheery's country living adventure

Pyxis

Another really nice one is Blackcurrants and Clotted Cream by Marshfield Farm. Chunks of blackcurrants, and you can taste the clotted cream. 
Not widely available, though, and I’ve only seen it as small tubs, unless someone was selling cornets.
It was delicious.


I just got really excited as I went onto their website and saw they were doing home delivery, so thought I’d get some............and then found they were only delivering to a very small number of postcodes in their immediate vicinity, so that was that idea scotched. ☹️

themadvix

That sounds good too! Sadly that’s the problem with ice cream, it doesn’t travel well!

redofromstart

Snugburys (Cheshire) do a lovely maple and walnut.  We always go that way to Wales as a result.  

Sorry to read about Mildred.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks redo xx and thanks for all the ice cream tips!

My plan to spend the weekend dry stone walling has been foiled by the rain, so I've been reading instead. Mr Cheery is making soup for lunch, then I'm going to get out of his way while he works on some musical projects. 

Plenty to do... here's a short list of things that may or may not get done...

* dust and Hoover bedroom (and sort out whether some of my clothes can go in boxes under the bed for now)
* sort out my clothes that are just dumped in the bathroom
* washing away
* washing up
* make orange curd from the dried up satsumas I forgot about (oops)
* order fencing stuff for veg patch
* ynab and banks (payday yesterday)

That's probably enough for now...

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums

Just been fettling with banks and YNAB - all looking ok. Got a professional membership that I MUST check - I thought I'd checked it last year when it came out unexpectedly, but it's come out again... Couldn't see it listed as either a direct debit or standing order with the bank, so will have to check with the organisation themselves. I don't mind being a member - but I've got three in total, and I wanted to cut it down to two, and this was the one I was going to drop... 

Hey ho. Must remember to do the tax thing too before it builds up again (can't even remember how to do it but I have notes somewhere from last time!)

Tried to ring the building society to get a balance for the 'Mortgage Free in Three' challenge but they're now not open til 9am. I'm going to increase our monthly payments too. We were going to put a large lump sum from Mr Cheery's pension towards it, but a little reluctant to do that right now with things being so uncertain, so I'm going to just up the monthly payments substantially for the time being and see where we are in a few months.

According to my spreadsheet the new monthly payments will bring the finish date down to November 2040. It was Feb 2043 after we fixed it in October, and we'd already knocked a few months off that, so this knocks even more off. I'll still be 60, but I'm hoping that as we get closer we'll be able to knock that date down even more... 

PurpleFairy26

Sounds like a productive morning all before 9am! 

Cheery_Daff

More productive than I normally am before 9am PF!! I put some washing in as well! Probably all downhill from now on

Spoke to the building society - had to give all my security info twice as I got cut off half way through the first call. I do wish they would let us see balances  and make extra payments online, I know I complain about this all the time... 

Hey ho. Monthly payment increased from £930 to £1000 for the time being Balance currently stands at £196,800 and at this rate will be paid off when I'm 60 which currently feels like an awful long way away!

But we do have the option of throwing some of Mr Cheery's pension at it at some point if and when things settle down - won't be more than about £20,000 though which seems to only knock another 2 years off the end date.

Yawn. Hey ho. By the time I'm 60 I imagine £1000 a month will seem like nothing (I remember when I first met Mr Cheery and his mortgage, which was within a few years of the end, was about £250 a month, which yes, seemed tiny!)

Felt good to dip under £200,000 though, and I'm taking part in the 'mortgage free in three' or whatever it's called three year mortgage challenge, aiming for under £180,000 by Jan 2022 which I should easily make now. Chipping away I suppose! 

Might break out the Matched Betting accounts again this evening, try to just do a little bit and throw any extra into the pot towards the mortgage, that's a nice thing to aim for! 

Pyxis

I heard a woodpecker for the very first time this morning! 😃😃😃

I’d gone out really early (05:45) for my first walk in 5 weeks, to post some letters, and went to a postbox near a small wooded area, and due to the lack of traffic was able to hear more birds than usual, including the woodpecker! 
Tried to spot it but couldn’t. Still, it was great hearing one ‘live’ at last! 👍

Baileys_Babe

At the back of us is an ancient woodland with woodpeckers which you can hear very loudly when out for a walk, I've only seen them on my friend's bird feeder.

PurpleFairy26

Great to have those milestones of below £200k, below £180k etc... 

its a great feeling.