Life is a minestrone as the song says - my new diary

beanielou

Positive vibes your way.
16lbs is excellent.

teapot2

Karmacat said:

From me too, best of luck for the repetition of the test - it really does turn out to be something very minor.  I "progressed" as far as a cancer clinic one time, where they emphasised to me that, even on irregular scans, only 1 in 25 turned out to be cancerous.  I was one of the 1 in 24, luckily for me, so no further problems.  Hope yours turns out to be something similar too.

Thanks KC, glad your 'scare' turned out well.  I find it a bit nerve-wracking fi theres a long wait for results in these situations.

teapot2

beanielou said:

Positive vibes your way.
16lbs is excellent.

Thanks Beanie, long way to go still but definitely in the right direction

teapot2

Redid the test I mentioned above on Thursday and phoned for the result on Friday and pleased and relieved to say it was clear this time.  Had a good online sale to post so after that I went for a walk and treated myself to an ice cream to celebrate.  Sat down by the harbour and the sun came out and it got quite warm so hung around there for a while.

Saturday was a bit of a washout weather-wise so I did some work admin as its end of the month invoice time and also paid £200 off my 0% CC.  Unusually for Prolific my balance was an exact number of £s and 0 pence so I cashed out £75 and will leave that in PP to cover birthdays or treats.  I had a spendy week in this area as a tiny Highland human has an imminent birthday so bought them some arty stuff and had another small thank you gift to buy for someone along with a birthday card for another friend as my stash of cards is getting low.  Money to cover all of those transferred from PP.

Today started off a bit chilly but warmed right up in the afternoon, hoovering and a bit of cleaning done, washed all the towels and line dried them.  Did about 90 minutes in the garden mostly deadheading and weeding as the rain has made the ground much softer.   Repurposed an old index card box into a seed packet box and that works really well.  I'd been thinking what I could do with the box as never use index cards now, it was from when I was at Uni and just as PCs were beginning to come in so before that things tended to be hand written or typed! I eventually got an Amstrad and did my essays on that lol.

Got an online food shop delivered this week and used a £10 voucher I got for a survey so bought a few things like Maple Syrup that I wouldn't normally include in my shop.  Made a cauli, sweet potato and peanut stew which was yummy and made 2 meals, I'll have that again sometime.

Have a feeling my state pension claim has not been fully processed as no sign of it so will have to phone them tomorrow, I assume whatever has gone on will be blamed on Covid though.  I know it was being processed as I got a text to say so then they wrote asking for a document which I sent and they returned but since then silence.

greent

Glad the test result was clear 👏 

Good idea repurposing the card index box that way - we used to have a couple of boxes in different sizes - long gone to a CS! X

Karmacat

Excellent news on the test, teapot!  Very glad to hear it   It also sounds like you're catching up on those "bitty" jobs - repurposing an index file  card box is a great idea.  So is checking on your pension claim and hurray to the Tiny Human birthday  

teapot2

Thanks both.  Finally got to meet the tiny highland human - they are toddling about now and very cute.  Was a lovely evening but felt strange spending time with 4 other adults and 4 children, thats the most people I've seen socially since last March!  

I phoned up over a week ago to find out what has happened to my State Pension claim, took ages to get through but did eventually and was told my claim was being processed but hadn't been finalised.  The person I spoke to could only email another team of people to remind them my SP is now overdue and it seems to have done the trick as I got a text on Saturday to say they will send me a letter telling me 'everything you need to know'.  Hopefully this will arrive in the not too distant future.

In other money news, I suspect my finances will be a bit squeaky this month.  After all these years of being self employed you'd think I would remember that August is one of the months where I don't earn as much because folk are on holiday doh.  Also heard that a couple of my invoice payments will be delayed because finance people are off as well.  Maybe I should have held off putting money into my savings at the end of last month but fingers crossed I won't have to take any back out again mind you I should have had a SP payment which would have made it all less squeaky.  I also forgot this is the month when my house and contents insurance is due so not really been paying attention.

I did however win £25 on the PBs - first win so thats good, I'll leave it in my CA for now.  Did a PC survey yesterday and that was paid out today, I'm also approaching cash out on 1poll but Prolific has been a bit quieter for me though am back up to £5 on there.

The weather seems to have turned quite autumnal here, and we've had lots of sudden heavy downpours.  Hopefully its not the end of the summer yet but we'll see.  Hoping to get out for a walk tomorrow and on Thursday the plan is to go out with family.  Work is very thin on the ground this week so I might as well make the most of the time off. 

beanielou

Weather much the same here.
Hope you get your state pension soon.

Karmacat

Yep, what beanie said - appalling that they've sidelined your SP.