Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Good grief, I've been called both a sensible young lady and a sensible grown up in the space of two posts!! 😮😮😂😂😁 I am very flattered 😁😁 I fear my real life acquaintances may laugh their socks off at either of those descriptions 😁😁😂😂


Ooh Redo, you were really VERY close to here - if you're over this way again and ever fancy a cuppa do give me a shout! Sorry to hear of your disappointing lunch 🙄 I hope it wasn't the same place as my tomato lasagne the other night 🙄 what a shame.

Bless you edwink, I' glad you find all my waffly details helpful. I sometimes think being able to type almost as quickly as I can think isn't particularly a useful thing 😂

Friend has arrived and is putting up tent, I'm just waiting for the kettle to boil again then we're having a tour round the grounds 😂😂 He knows a lot about trees so I await his verdict on our new little woodland.

Wish it was a bit warmer for sitting out though! We're going to have a little fire tonight, just in a bowl type thing, not a proper campfire, but I wish it was a bit warmer! Hey ho. Blankets and damson gin will keep us warm no doubt 😂

Cheery_Daff

Well we had a lovely night last night. We'd bought a kind of bbq bucket thing from a charity shop in the day and it was very effective as a kind of fire pit (and for cooking our tea on) - bigger and easier to use than our lovely little more decorative things, so I hope we'll get more use out of it. Between that, blankets and damson gin we were plenty warm enough and stayed out til about 10.30.

Up and went with friend to cafe for breakfast, and since then me and him have been pulling nettles and clearing the understory of the windbreak area - it's SO nice to work on one area and make a big difference. I keep flitting from task to task, which means I never get a big sense of progress. This is definitely the way to do things.

Just boiling the kettle. Friend doesn't take half as many breaks as I normally would - I may be seeing the reason why things don't get done very quickly round here... 😂😂

greenbee

It's always much easier working with someone else than on your own Cheery! 

I'm with you on the flitting thing. I now make myself finish a task and clear up before I go on to the next thing. With the mowing, I've mentally divided the garden into sections, so I don't have to do it all at once (which used to be feasible, but now takes too much energy) but I do have to finish a section before I take a break. It also means I can prioritise the areas that need to be kept under control, and those that I'm prepared to let go of and deal with periodically. 

hb2

Cheery, I do agree that it's often easier to get more done with a companion, especially one who doesn't take many breaks! Listening to you makes me very glad that our flat didn't need much doing when we moved here, and that our little patch of communal outside space is looked after by a gardener!

I suppose you probably are a responsible adult now, although I still think of you as young

We went to a 'picnic proms' yesterday evening, amateur orchestra but fairly good, and it was certainly chilly long before we left. Fortunately, we had lots of blankets between us (went with friends) so were comfortable enough (sadly, no damson gin though).

Cheery_Daff

Sounds like a lovely even hb! 

Friend has gone, but did get a decent amount of scything done first 😁 Building work is progressing nicely - the electrician is here so we've been making decisions about plugs and lights and switches, and they're nearly done removing old plaster from the walls (a rather noisy job all round).

Unhelpfully, the council have chosen this week to start a drainage project on our single track road 🙄 we were aware they would be doing something at some point, but first we knew about specifics was being blocked in by a massive digger yesterday morning 🙄 There are only two houses down this lane, and we don't have any other means of access, so it wouldn't have done them any harm to send a letter...

Hey ho, it is what it is. The on site geezers have been lovely so far, but I might take them a tin of sweets or something to ensure continued loveliness and easy access 😁 the only other house is a 90year old with no car, and we'd normally not go out that much - but of course will be escaping more often at the minute with the noise, and the builders themselves regularly turn up with 3 or 4 vans, so it's going to be a bit of a fiasco round here for a few weeks! 

I have arranged my first in-person meeting for next week 😮 I'm going to have to start teaching face to face at the end of September, which I've not done for over 18 months of course, so I figured I should at least visit the office before then to break myself in gently 🙄 so arranged to meet a cheery colleague to sort out some stuff, and also to go and choose some granite on the same day while we're in town. 

Just checked the list of high value premium bonds winners, and it looks like we're not on it again 😡Most vexing! But we might still have won a little bit... fingers crossed for the full list tomorrow!

Baileys_Babe

🤞fingers crossed you get a small win on the premium bonds. It seems most unfair they haven't let you have a big win considering how regularly you bring them to everyone's attention. 

Cheery_Daff

Ha, yes, they should definitely have some kind of affiliate programme! 😂😂 

Cheery_Daff

Oops, also meant to say, just cashed out £11.96 from Prolific, so I'll add that to the kitchen fund once it arrives.

August's MB total was, er, £8 😂😂 Still, every little helps... so I'll transfer and add that later as well. 

Don't think there's any extra dosh this month, although I've not actually got round to adding Mr Cheery's gig fee and myexpenses claim yet, so I'll do all that tonight and sort out a grand total.

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, today has been a bit of a trial! Mostly inconvenient girly stomach ache 🙄 meaning two baths already, a load of pain killers, and only the most superficial work done. Lots more drilling, got stuck twice behind lorries getting out of our lane, and the builder got stuck too - YAWN.

Anyway... some things got done, builder assures me tomorrow should be the last of the destruction, then they'll start putting plasterboard on, and it should feel like we're making more progress! Very exciting. 

Done a bit of shuffling. To the kitchen fund I've added

£8 MB total for August
£11.96 Prolific (I just do this when it gets over £10 so it's not a monthly total)
£138 from Mr Cheery's gig
£84.15 expenses claim from the brain scan research
£580 from Mr Cheery's pension on the last day of August - this always went to mortgage OPs before but we've been channelling to the kitchen for the last few months instead. This might be the last time we send the whole lot though as I'm not sure whether I'm getting full time wage in Sept, or whether it'll be a partly part time one.

Anyway, kitchen fund now stands at

£3894.05

Which is pretty good, seeing as I'm aiming for £7000 😁😁 Over half way! I could probably work out the percentage of my brain was working properly 😂

Ooh, and covid study man is coming at 9am tomorrow for swabs and whatnot, so that'll be another £50 worth of vouchers winging its way over in the next couple of weeks too 😁

Cheery_Daff

55.6% apparently! 😁 Hadn't thought about it in those terms before, but of course each £70 is another 1%, so that's a nice target to aim for!