Cheery's country living adventure

Pyxis

Cheery_Daff said:

Life is just a series of minor administrative annoyances sometimes isn't it??

😁😁😁
When things go right, though, it can bring great joy, out of all proportion to the thing that went right! 😂😂
This morning, there was a bottle of beer missing from my delivery, so I rang the helpline and, after the preamble of which button to press and the warning that it might take time to connect me, I got put straight through to an call operative! Yey! No waiting at all! And she said she would credit my card with the missing item, and about an hour later I got an email confirming the £2.50 refund. Sorted! Well done, Waitrose! 👏👏 It brought a big smile to my face, such is my sad, uneventful life! 😂😂😂

Wish the same could be said for other things, though, which as you say, produce annoying niggles of doubt and minor worries until they do get sorted.

Cheery_Daff

Well that is indeed a heartwarming story Pyxis! You're quite right of course - small things bring joy as much as frustration, and we should definitely try to focus on the 'joy' side of things! 

Today's joy - the sun is shining! Gosh it's lovely out there. I'm in here, of course, in front of the computer... but it's a nice incentive to focus and get on so I can get outside! Got a departmental 'social' web chat at 3 and I might do that in the garden

Hope you all have an uneventful day (or if you do have 'events', I hope they're cheerful ones!)

Pyxis

Cheery_Daff said:

Well that is indeed a heartwarming story Pyxis! You're quite right of course - small things bring joy as much as frustration, and we should definitely try to focus on the 'joy' side of things! 

Today's joy - the sun is shining! Gosh it's lovely out there. I'm in here, of course, in front of the computer... but it's a nice incentive to focus and get on so I can get outside! Got a departmental 'social' web chat at 3 and I might do that in the garden

Hope you all have an uneventful day (or if you do have 'events', I hope they're cheerful ones!)

Well, it was annoyingly niggly that one bottle was missing at all! 😉

Now, an order of Ikea garden furniture was due to come yesterday, but it didn’t. ☹️
I think it might come today, as the tracking has progressed a bit. However, I had two other deliveries yesterday and I was hoping to get all of them over with on the same day, as receiving deliveries is such a palaver, what with having to be gloved up, washing hands interminably and quarantining and washing stuff.

Thought I could have a rest today! 😁
If it does come today, I might just unpack it and bin the cartons/packaging, and leave any assembly until tomorrow.

Cheery_Daff

Hope all your parcels arrived & were suitably dealt with Pyxis! 

Excitement here yesterday. Took the day off to enjoy the sunshine, did some walling, farmer, guy who works with him, and his dad all turned up separately to do various bits od fencing before our cows arrive so ended up stopping colour a chat each time.

 As farmer was leaving he mentioned he thought our electric tank overflow was leaking 😮 dug us a big hole tp find the pipe, explained what we needed to do, I nipped to the farm to borrow his drainage rods and then he left us to our, and Mr Cheery and I spend a couple of hours unblocking the pipe.

 It was a bit disgusting but not half as much as you'd imagine 😂 and very satisfying to have fixed it ourselves!

 Off again today of course, and I'm going to ignore the main bit of wall I'm rebuilding and go round the edges of pr fields tp fill in any gaps that have appeared. I've been putting it off but gained new confidence in my walling skills now, and it needs doing before any of them ferry any worse, and it's much easier to do when the cows aren't here!

Jessy103

Living on your country estate sure is glamorous, cheery 😂

Pyxis

Jessy103 said:

Living on your country estate sure is glamorous, cheery 😂

Yes, a day in life of a Country Laydee! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Yes, all my deliveries did come, thanks, and almost all dealt with. Still got some veg to wash and the beer bottles to scrub down, and I haven’t assembled the garden chairs/table yet, as was too shattered!

This morning I was putting up home-made bunting and flags and setting up a loudspeaker to play We’ll Meet Again down the road after the 11am silence. 

Am worn out and it’s not half-past ten yet! 

Cheery_Daff

Hope you get plenty of rest this afternoon!

No, it is definitely NOT all glamour round here 😂 Barely any glamour at all. Sometimes people at work talk about my 'country manor'like I'm wafting round the garden in a frilly bonnet picking roses to arrange but I'm far more likely to be up to my elbows in sh*t or rebuilding walls or some such non-glamourous task. 

Not that there aren't beautiful moments too of course, and I never tire of the view 💜 I do just sometimes wish I didn't have a full time job so I could do everything else - but if I didn't, we wouldn't be here at all, so...

Hey ho. Hazy today but nice and warm. I've been out for a couple of hours fixing small gaps in walls, and despairing over the state of some of them. All this gap-fixing is all very well but in reality they could mostly do with rebuilding from scratch. But that's expensive if you pay someone else (although there are grants which may cover part of the cost, but not all), and never-ending if you do it yourself 😂

Still, I'm getting better, and slightly quicker, and it's a good skill to have so I'm not complaining! I'll botch what I can this summer (and finish the bit I'm rebuilding of course), then when the cows go in October ish I might start with one end of the worse wall & rebuild a section at a time. Might still be doing it when I'm 80 but at least I'll leave it all better than when I started! 

Fortunately nobody's judging - lots of the walls round here are a bit ropey & kept upright by occasional gap-fixing rather than complete rebuilds. I do have a couple that are quite high &next to a footpath though and I do worry about them 😮

Pyxis

Did you say you were getting cows?

Cheery_Daff

Pyxis said:

Did you say you were getting cows?

Ha - I might have said that, but I just mean that the pregnant cows from the local dairy farm will be coming to graze our fields, same as the last couple of years. No cow responsibilities for me, thank goodness! 😮🤣

Nice morning so far. Decided to focus on the veg garden today - It's nice to knock about with the chickens while they're out, and I can get back to walling once they've gone in the run at about 5pm. So I'm digging the long grass out of what will be the beds (obviously the chickens are unhelpful menaces in this task but they're having such fun I can't deprive them...)

Made a tasty soup for lunch. Trying to eat down the freezer so this morning I chucked a whole bag of frozen peppers in the slow cooker with a stock cube, and Mr Cheery later added lentils  and more seasoning, and we just enjoyed an extremely tasty and pretty frugal soup. 

I also realised We've got rather a lot of potatoes so I'm going to have a go at making crisps in the dehydrator! 😍

Feeling very virtuous and housewifely with all this cooking and gardening, and I've even got a load of washing on the line too! But everywhere is still a tip, and yesterday's washing up hasn't been done, and I ate my soup from the same bowl as I used for my breakfast without bothering to wash it up so we're not exactly in domestic goddess territory just yet 😂😂

Jessy103

It's a good the cows aren't your responsibility, cheery, they'd be in the house with the chickens eating cake 😂