Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Missy

Well today's trip was far more successful. I was in town by 9am, and it was quiet and pleasant, and I even got to have a bit of a leisurely mooch around a few places, even a couple of charity shops which I was the only person in. Most lovely. I don't exactly see shopping as a leisure activity, but I've missed a weekend morning mooching round the charity shops occasionally. 

By 10.30 though it was starting to get a bit busier, but Mr Cheery now has a few presents, and I won't be heading back to get any more. 

I popped into the bike shop while I was out too, to pick up my wheel. Not cheap (£80 ) but that's for a new wheel, gear cog things, tyre, inner tube etc, and they've put it all together for me but not charged me for labour. Looking forward to getting back out on my bike again! 

Veg box is due again tonight - I'm just having veg this week, not fruit. Veg box is £18 for types of (organic) veg, which was a decent amount, has lasted all week, and has meant I've eaten more veg than I otherwise would have done. Not gone for the fruit one this time - that was £14 for a melon, 4 apples, 5 small bananas, a small box of blueberries, and a few peaches. Very nice, and I imagine good value for organic, but I don't think I'm going to do that every week (especially as I wouldn't usually splash out on blueberries, peaches, melons etc normally, and Mr Cheery gets through a LOT of apples each week, so we're having to buy those extra anyway).  

Need to decide whether I want a regular veg box though. Well, I DO - but need to decide whether to go with weekly or fortnightly. It's been a week and I still have half a cabbage, a handful of onions, and a few mushrooms left (partly because we already had a few mushrooms before we got the last one) so I'm going to wait til next weekend and see how much I've got left before I decide.

Right, on with more work. Can't be bothered today! 

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

...Right, on with more work. Can't be bothered today! 

Totally agree with you Cheery! It's a bit to stiffling to be bothered today!  I did about 3 solid hours at my laptop outside this morning, including teaching a lesson on how to use new software!  Not at all sure how that became part of my job duties, but these days it happens at least once a week - lol.   Anyway by the end of three hours, it was too hot to function, so came inside to cool off, and have some lunch.  At least this work from home thing means I can spend the day in shorts and a t-shirt with hair pinned up!

ETA - lol - I love that you thought I marched into the council office - not a chance that's happening, I don't even know where they are! - OH got on the phone and got cross with them, with factual numbers in hand provided by yours truly - lol

Fortune_Smiles

Hi Cheery 😀

I get the Riv£rford veg box and, although I have a weekly order, I can cancel any week if I find I haven't got through it all.  I generally find I get two week's worth and then have to skip a box.  Although I'm cancelling most weeks at the moment because we have so much in the veg patch.

Mooch around the town sounds lovely.

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

Riverford won't deliver out here! So I'm pleased this new little local one has set up. It was just a lockdown thing originally but I think they've decided to keep it going. Which reminds me, it should be arriving in the next hour or so, must keep an eye out. 

Such a lovely evening out there! Been on a video chat with a relative having a look round their garden which has been nice. Just came in to make some food (which i think will have to be egg based - not got used to having regular eggs again yet so we've amassed quite a stash...) then I might do a bit of weeding - not got enough every for scything tonight...

Cheery_Daff

Sorry to hear you didn't actually march into the council offices RT, what a disappointment!!  

We are fortunate here - our old house with its thick stone walls doesn't actually warm up much inside, especially not the room I work in, which is in one of the older parts of the house, and doesn't have a carpet (and has a fireplace). In the winter I curse it as I sit here wrapped in blankets, but in the summer, it's great - although I do sit here with a hot water bottle on my knee most days even now, and yesterday was completely floored when I went outside in my jumper and realised how warm it was out there  

Nothing much to report. Started the day with a grumpy email (FROM me, not to me, oh dear!) so trying to turn my brain out of grumpy mode and back into cheerful focused work mode - lots to do today!

I did do a bit of MB-ing last night, up £15 for August now which is good (and goes some way to making up for the £51 I was down in July ) Not doing it very regularly at the minute which doesn't help, but I am at least trying to cover the subscriptions each month... 

Ooh, meant to say thank you to the person (greenbee, I think?) who mentioned the Green Deal the other day. It doesn't cover boilers, but it DOES cover things like heat pumps... and as we have a large relatively flat field next to the house it would actually be of minimal disruption to install a ground source heat pump...

Knowing literally NOTHING about heat pumps I did some minor investigation

- heat pumps draw heat from their surroundings, condense it to liquid, and use it to heat your home. Ground source ones are more effective, as the temperature of the ground in winter is warmer than the temperature of the air [don't ask me any questions about this - you've now hit the limit of my tiny amount of knowledge ]

- air source are cheaper to install than ground source as they are above ground (VERY roughly about £8000 rather than £20,000), but some of the cost of the ground source ones is because the large bed of coils won't often fit in a 'normal' garden and so have to be dug in vertically. We'd have space to put them in horizontally, which would make the installation cheaper

- The government pays a kind of feed in tariff (the Renewable Heat Incentive) depending how much you generate (kind of like with solar panels). Supposedly it covers the cost of installation within 7 years, which isn't too bad (especially if there's a discount on the installation). A VERY rough calculation on our house says we'd get approximately £1300 a year for air source, and £3400 for ground source. VERY approximate, and of course subject to change (although there are restrictions on how much it could change). 

This isn't something I'd considered before as an alternative to LPG, but it looks like it might actually be viable. We've been paying almost £2000 a year for LPG, and this is set to rise, so with an air source one, we'd say shell out £8000, and get back from the RHI almost as much as we were paying for LPG, and that's even without the Green Deal thing. 

Hmm, lots to think about. First step with the Green Deal is to get an assessor to come and look at the house - they won't shell out for renewable generation without you being properly energy efficient (fair enough), and of course the first thing they'll say is 'finish putting up your kitchen ceiling Cheery and sort out the massive open hole into the loft!' And they'll be right... 

Still, an incentive to get on with it, and yet another new thing to learn about...

Cheery_Daff

Aha - link to a short explanation of heat pumps if you're interested! 

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/blog/air-source-heat-pumps-vs-ground-source-heat-pumps

And a brief list of what came in the veg box last night... 
- onions
- carrots
- new potatoes
- cherry tomatoes
- green beans
- white cabbage
- mushrooms
- lettuce
- spring onions

I'm sure there was something else too but I can't remember it. Right, must get on!

Karmacat

The ground source heat pump is a wonderful opportunity for you, Cheery, how fascinating.  My imagination has already skipped ahead to how you recognise where the pipes/whatever are that collect the heat, so you don't dig into them with a little tractor or something to plant some fruit trees ....

Hope work goes well today too.

fannyadams

greenbee said:

Well done on all the scything Cheery! I've been clearing the long grass that collapsed in the wind/rain using what I thought was a billhook but is apparently a 'hand scythe'. Rather a lot of bending and at times more hacking than cutting. But I did at least get several bags filled before the garden waste collection this morning. It'll need cutting shorter before I can mow it, but I'm trying to avoid strimming as it leaves so much behind that it keeps the grass healthy and the wildflowers don't get a chance. 

<delurk>
Monty Don was scything his side borders on Gardeners World on Friday just gone (7th August). I think it's available on iPlayer. Although I didn't think his technique looked very efficient (looked like a lot of effort for not much cutting) and the scythe looked a bit blunt tbh.
<goes back under floorboards where it's cooler>

Cheery_Daff

Interesting question KC, and the answer is I'm not sure! As far as I know there's nothing visible above ground, although it's about a metre below ground so I wouldn't be planting anything deeper than that. In our case it would be in the corner of the hay meadow, I imagine - so just me and my scythe These things are usually heavy duty enough to stand a tractor being driven over the ground above them (so if we ever got someone in to mow the hay it would be fine) but yes, if you dug into them with a digger that would probably be... expensive... Obviously we'd have to leave the plans if we ever sold the house. All things to ponder. 

Not today though! Most of my morning has been taken up sorting someone else's problems out so I need to move on to getting some of my own stuff done before it too starts creating problems! 

Hi FA Good to see you! Shocking that Monty has such poor scythe technique, tut tut Will have to watch so I can feel like I know something better than him  

More tea I think... 

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

...Shocking that Monty has such poor scythe technique, tut tut Will have to watch so I can feel like I know something better than him...

I been told I'm not allowed to 'monty-bash' as he's an 'institution'...
...but that man could talk a fly off the back-end of a horse - ROFL...
...in other words he has strength in his convictions, though sometimes I wonder about his technique! 😁😁😁
I mostly watch his show for the beautiful golden lab having naps - lol