Cheery's country living adventure

Fortune_Smiles

Happy New Year Cheerys.  I hope 2021 brings you health, wealth and happiness.

Fortune x

missymoo81

Oooh i really like your list of jobs for today, I also like the sound of lazing around watching The Vicar of Dibley (my favourite) and reading Country Living. I’ll see if my library has it too! I hadn’t thought of that! Whatever your day brings, I hope it’s nice and relaxing.

Cheery_Daff

Thank you ladies!

Well the day was a bit up and down... but some things got done.  Mr Cheery wasn't sleeping well,  so I ended up on the sofa,  but then I didn't sleep that well either, so a lazy morning of watching the Vicar of Dibley then back to bed for a bit - I did get breakfast in bed though

Then we went to town for milk and veg,  and decided to park at the edge and walk in to the shop - it snowed really heavily and while it was fun walking in it,  it was less fun trying to get the car back on to the main road again... Much swearing, some stomping off, and a large chocolate bar,  and we managed it eventually... Most vexed at myself - I knew snow was forecast but figured we'd make it home before it arrived - but even so,  the other bloody car has snow tyres on! getting snow tyres fitted on this one as a priority - I think they would have dealt with this fine. 

Hey ho, no harm done (except perhaps psychologically - neither of us behaved very well and there may have been a teensy bit of shouting... )

So I didn't get most of the things done on the list,  but some things were achieved:

* had an hour long walk with Mr Cheery with some slightly different scenery

* we did actually manage to get the car out of the side road, despite the swearing (there are currently lots of people being rescued by the police not far from here because they came out to walk/sledge and are now stuck in the snow...)

* cleared space in the kitchen and lay the plasterboard flat - it's been propped against the wall so long it's all bent slightly

* started knitting myself a new hot water bottle cover

My other hot water bottle sprung a leak last night (fortunately while I was awake and on the sofa,  not asleep in bed) so i'll cut it up for tree ties or something.

Bit sad today - meant to be meeting friends today but we're in tier 4 now and they're still in 3 so we couldn't - but they met up without us. We'd told them to of course,  but I still had a bit of a pang when I saw the pictures.

So, tomorrow is my last day off add lovely as today's lazing around was,  is like to do something more tomorrow.  So...

* tidy study
* bring in coal ready for fire
* batch cook a couple of lunches
* clean out chicken bowls
* bring in and fit at least some insulation
* clean out chicken house and replace bedding
* time for chickens' regular worming medicine I think - need to measure food and mix it in (quite a palaver as a tiny scoop has to be mixed with a lot of food so you have to do it in batches)
* long walk
* bit of stretching
* more knitting!

That'll do I think! I have at least watched all episodes of vicar of dibley now so no getting sidetracked by bnb that!

Karmacat

What a shame about the snowed-in trip to get the shopping it sounds like you got off lightly with the snow, since people are actually ringing 999 around you, but it sounds really stressed.  Plus not meeting with friends   It's good that you and Mr Cheery had walks afterwards.

Good luck with knitting a hat!  I need to work on my cold-weather headgear.  I have two woolly hats, and neither of them quite fit.  The sad truth is my head is too big, I'm serious  I'll knit one of those ones that trail down the back of the hat for next year, but right now, I might roughly sew together a scarf, because I have about a million.

Have a lovely day.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks KC - I think you must be psychic - I'm knitting a hot water bottle cover, not a hat! But I was thinking about knitting a hat after this Mr Cheery has a similar problem with his head being too big... Sewing a scarf together sounds like a good plan! 

Well today has been nicely relaxed, and a good final day off work. I did even manage to do most of the things off my list! 

 * tidy study
* bring in coal ready for fire
* batch cook a couple of lunches
* clean out chicken bowls
* bring in and fit at least some insulation
* clean out chicken house and replace bedding
* time for chickens' regular worming medicine I think - need to measure food and mix it in (quite a palaver as a tiny scoop has to be mixed with a lot of food so you have to do it in batches)
* long walk
* bit of stretching
* more knitting!

Mr Cheery and I walked to the local shop for our walk today - we've been trying to walk for an hour a day, and this was a bit longer (especially as the cafe next to it was doing takeaways so we sat on the bench in the village for a bit with a cuppa). It was nice though, although rather muddy. I had a lovely time this morning watching a film and doing my knitting, and have had a nice leisurely bath this evening with a new book. I've also done a couple of minor admin tasks, and arranged for the covid research man to bring our swabs tomorrow afternoon (that'll mean another round of vouchers to pay off the mortgage - although I think I've still not had the last lot, must check...).

The study is tidied (well, the desk and the bit you can see on the webcam anyway Got some work to do on the shelves!) I've laid out clothes for tomorrow to get me off to a decent start. I could make breakfast too I suppose... anything to make the morning smoother and less objectionable!

Right. I got half way through a blog post yesterday and never finished it, so I might make another attempt on that... 

Cheery_Daff

Oops, meant to say I'm not making any grand plans for tomorrow. I feel quite relaxed about going back to work, but I've got a major deadline in a couple of weeks, and a new course to teach from mid-Jan, so I suspect as soon as I open my emails I'll become rather less relaxed... 

However, I DO want to make sure I drink plenty of water, and still go for a walk at lunchtime with Mr Cheery. It's Money Monday of course so a couple of little tasks in the evening
- checking whether I'm missing covid study vouchers
- emailing tree man - apparently he's already sent his invoice once but I've not received it (no idea why as the person he copied in had got it!) Need to check if he's attempted to send it again - I'd hate him to think I'm just not paying him!
- check banks/YNAB

We're due an LPG delivery tomorrow too. Really must get round to tying us into a new contract. Too late for this delivery of course, but I want to make sure we've not automatically entered one at a higher rate! 

That's it though I think. Might put up another few bits of insulation if the fancy takes me, but might not

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

Oops, meant to say I'm not making any grand plans for tomorrow. I feel quite relaxed about going back to work, but I've got a major deadline in a couple of weeks, and a new course to teach from mid-Jan, so I suspect as soon as I open my emails I'll become rather less relaxed... 

Ditto! - 350 this morning!!! YIKES! (insert the missing blue shrieky smilie here!)

Cheery_Daff

Only 149 for me! But I'm quite diligent at email triage - at first pass I deleted almost 100 for being either circulars, things I'd subscribed to but didn't need to read every issue of, announcements that had been updated by further announcements etc. Replied to about 25 this morning (mostly stressing students...) and the remaining 20 odd will get sorted in the next few days. Could have been a lot worse - at least I don't work on some kind of IT desk where ALL 149 of them needed actually answering! Hope you can delete plenty of yours too RT!

rtandon27

Slightly over 150 of them got deleted! YEAH!!!  Of the remaining, I had to read quite a few &  bring myself up to speed on various projects & really boring (but necessary) operational updates.  The rest (under 100) can be tended to over the next day or two! I'm a lot less shrieky now that I was earlier - LOL

Cheery_Daff

Evening MSE chums

Well I'm slowly easing myself back into work, although this morning I just did NOT want to do any. Eventually settled into it though, and after a 2 hour meeting at lunchtime, Mr Cheery and I went for a day time stroll, and I was much more energised after that. Going to attempt to do that every day over the next few weeks at least, it made such a difference to both of us. 

So, I missed Monday Finances Day yesterday, but have done it today. 

I was going to email the tree planting guy, but actually he emailed me this morning. That's twice he's sent an invoice now and I've not received it. Where are they going?? I've been getting other emails! Have told him to just email me his bank details and I'll send it over. 

Checked YNAB and banks, and realised after all my shuffling, I didn't actually have enough in the bank to pay the darn invoice when it does arrive! So I've transferred from the savings account (which will take a few days). Realised the monthly interest had been paid (£26 odd) so I've added that to the long term savings bit of the budget (I never used to track that, but I am doing in this new budget - not decided whether to add it off the mortgage or not). 

Also checked for the COVID study vouchers - turns out they'd been going into a different email folder and I'd missed the last two lots, eek! I've claimed them all now, and sent them to my work email account to print tomorrow. In total it's £100 worth, so I've transferred that as a mortgage OP, hooray! 

I had another text yesterday saying we were going to have an LPG delivery, but they still haven't been - although I'm not surprised as the side roads are very icy today. We had a delivery this afternoon - the driver rang to say he couldn't reverse down our lane because it was so icy, and was walking down - he ended up leaving the delivery at the top of our drive, near someone else's house. We found it eventually after I spotted it through the binoculars from the house

I think that's it - quite enough messing for one day! Time for a hot chocolate I think...