Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Fingers crossed indeed. She's going to go for a PCR on the way home and isolate til she gets the results. 

Texted granite guy to ask for approximate time as I'd not heard - he replied to say he's not coming today 😠 For goodness sake. I feel like we're going to be messed about every day til after Christmas now. Most annoying. 

Anyway. Friend has left, Mr Cheery is in bed feeling very sorry for himself, so I might snuggle up on the sofa with a Christmas film and do some online present ordering since I have not bought a single present yet, aarrgghh!

EssexHebridean

Oh how annoying with the granite guy - you'd think he'd been keen to just get the job wrapped up, now! 

themadvix

Pun intended, EH? How annoying for you though Cheery.

Hope friend is OK - it sounds like a very similar situation to the one we're in - so frustrating so close to Christmas.

Good luck with the present buying - I don't think I could cope doing it that close to the wire!

Cheery_Daff

I've had no choice really RT, just had NO headrace to do anything with both work and kitchen happening, so had to wait til I finished work at least, and I've been busy doing stuff ever since.

Delighted to report that I have no bought my first present! And have got another one sat in a basket in case I want to add something to it to share postage.

Fortunately I won't be seeing anyone other than Mr Cheery until after Christmas so there's a bit of time, although Mr Cheery may not have much at this rate!

Karmacat

My word - hope you're all clear with the covid - I'd just read madvix's, and now you!  And you in your lovely kitchen!  I know that doesn't flow very well  but I'm getting a vibe of "blimey, now it's all about the testing" instead of you relaxing and enjoying your time off.  Hope that still happens anyway  

Cheery_Daff

Well I've just had a nice hour watching Escape to the Chateau and looking for presents so that's a start! 

Sent a slightly grouchy text to granite guy asking for him to let me have an actual time he can commit to so I don't have to keep waiting unnecessarily.

Two presents bought now, although unhelpfully they're both for the same person 😂

Cheery_Daff

Right. I've made 2 pasta bakes - eaten half of one and I'll parcel the others up for the freezer.

Also madea batch of mince pies, although quite frankly I've not made pastry in a long time and I was never great at it, so these won't be entered into any competitions 🙄😂😂 I enjoyed one with a cuppa though! 

Been poking around on the leisure centre website, and I think I might cancel my gym membership. Looks like I can sign up for some free discount card, and then I'll be able to do 4 swims plus 4 classes/off peak gym sessions a month for the same price of membership. The chances of me meeting that, let alone exceeding it, are pretty slim... and I've used it so little that yesterday's swim cost a fortune 🙄 So that sounds like a good pre-January activity! 

Withdrew enough from premium bonds to pay the final invoices today. We're left with only ('only'- I'm aware how that sounds...) £8500 in there now. That's our entire savings fund - emergencies, holidays, new car, income replacement, payments for annual bills, everything. Not really a situation I want to stay in for long, so the focus of 2022 will be building that back up to a more acceptable level. 

We were fortunate last year in that Mr Cheery's pension lump sum allowed us to get the house work done, but this is all that remains now, and my pension is a long way off 😮😮😂😂 

greenbee

Whenever I think about how much money work on the house has cost, I remind myself of the impact on my quality of life. When the house finally was warm (so when the floors went down after about 5 years) it made a massive difference, as did last year’s kitchen installation. Getting the sink plumbed in this year was also life-changing in terms of making it easier. 

Hopefully most of what’s left is stuff you can enjoy doing yourselves, while topping up your savings. I’m always happy when I can cash flow the small jobs or materials for doing things myself. I’ve currently got the bill for the landscaping (drive) to pay, which will be from savings, but I did cashflow the hedging plants.

Baileys_Babe

greenbee said:

Whenever I think about how much money work on the house has cost, I remind myself of the impact on my quality of life. 

I need to remind myself this when we spend on the house.

Cheery_Daff

Definitely greenbee - even just since we did all that tidying yesterday I can already feel a massive lifting of tension from my shoulders. Huge difference in quality of life, and some of those smaller jobs that some of you have been ticking off are starting to feel like things that can be tackled now too.

We did a bit of a storecupboard inventory and top up this evening. We had lots of rice, pasta, cous cous, kidney beans, and various bits we don't eat that often, but had run out of stuff we eat all the time. 

We'll make an effort to eat a bit more of the stuff we do have, but we've also been out and done a top up store cupboard shop this evening for stuff we do use. Got everything we'll need til after Christmas too, and have made sure we've got easy to eat stuff in case the power goes off again (there's a local suggestion that we may be in for some more 'weather' over the next week or so - I'm not taking any chances...)

Hoping all this means we might manage mostly just with the covid study vouchers through January.

Tomorrow I'm meeting my running pals at the gym first thing, then covid study woman is coming (meaning another set of vouchers, hooray!) Then I'm heading off on my own for the day to do what Christmas shopping I can. Went a bit overboard last year and ended up buying for all kinds of people I wouldn't normally because it felt like we all needed cheering up... but pulling things back in this year. Hower, I do still want Mr Cheery to have something to open, and at the minute he has literally nothing!

Right, bed.