Learning to walk before I run

savingholmes

Hope you feel better soon. Sounds an irritating day.

edinburgher

Feeling a bit less crap today, back at work and managed to return to my exercise class, just about survived!

Repair guy is coming out tomorrow, despite the frustration it feels very good to have a repair guy, beats just replacing things when they conk out. Definitely something that we've been guilty of in the past.

I have been paid but no actual financial news as YNAB has bagsied my wages for next month

beanielou

Hope the repair guy can work his magic. 

Suffolk_lass

I know what you mean about repairing rather than replacing but we are going to replace DS's oven if we are selling his house. It is beyond the point where anyone not in a complete hazmat suit should go near it. The house feels beyond my capabilities to pull it back now too.

edinburgher

Sorry to hear about the difficulties with DS @Suffolk_lass, sounds like the problems have been building for a while. No days off for us parents, eh?

beanielou

I think we worry more as they get older!

savingholmes

Hope repair works. I have saved loads by moving to a repair philosophy for most things 

killerpeaty

Sorry to hear you've been unwell!

Ovens are a pain in the neck aren't they? My mum's is on the blink as well and I just don't know how to use mine. I swear, it just has a mind of its own

South_coast

I had an oven with a broken thermostat once. Had someone round for dinner and impressed them no end when I managed to cook a toad in the hole in 10 minutes 😀!

edinburgher

@killerpeaty - thank you - feeling largely recovered now

Repair guy came out on Wednesday and tried to pretend there was nothing wrong with the oven after carrying out some tests. I then had him try and get it to go up to 200 degrees and he couldn't... He is going to get a price for replacement elements and come back to us. That was on Wednesday, had hoped he would get in touch by the end of the week but he didn't. I'm guessing IRO £50 for parts plus labour to be added to that.

I started doing some gardening today, our garden is heavily weeded, overrun with horsetail/marestail and we had bushes and brambles growing about a metre onto the pavement. Cut back the bushes and brambles but that's the wheelie bin full. I'd appreciate some tips. 

In the past I have tried to use cardboard and bark chippings as mulch to keep down weeds but I garden too infrequently for it to be effective. As a result, we have the aforementioned horsetail plus beds that are being taken over by grass and lots (tons)? of unsightly bark chippings. Would removing the bark chippings to a big pile for composting then covering the as bare as possible ground with black polythene kill off the non-horsetail weeds? I have a bottle of SBK brushwood killer that seems to do well against the horsetail. Perhaps spray liberally with that, then sheet up? I hate gardening, can't afford a guy and want a low maintenance garden.

As a wee treat to ourselves at month end, I purchased some very green Egyptian cotton towels on offer at JL. It was less than £65 for 2 hand towels and 4 bath towels and they look lovely and thick. Budgeted for and I've been looking for within budget towels and bedding for a while now