Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

SusieT said:

Cheery, please make sure you speak to them before doing a top up. It may well be that those years (being before 2016) will not increase your pension, and only adding years after 2016 will do that. If you can top up it is well worth doing though especially if you can get to the full pension level early and can then retire knowing it is sorted out and you can forget it until you claim it.

Oops, sorry, missed you there Susie, thank you for this! Yes, I'll ring them first thing on Monday - then I'll be able to report back to Mr Cheery after he's been to the dentist (what a fun Monday he'll be having! 🙄😂)

KC, I'll keep you updated on my laundry liquid experiments! It does seem to be getting a bit thicker as it cools which is good. Going to peg the washing out now - nothing was particularly stained mind you so not sure what I can report. Will have to find (or make 😂) something grubby to do a test 😂

Karmacat

Sounds good, Cheery - maybe the chickens will help 

Cheery_Daff

Right. Washing is out, chickens are in, after a small incident with me having the audacity to use the foot pump on the car tyres made Sunshine flip her lid and hide 🙄 Found her eventually, thank goodness, and the scary foot pump won't be used while they're out again! 😂😂

I am DELIGHTED to report that ALL pieces of plasterboard are now fixed to the ceiling! Including the fiddly ones round the edges, the ones the builders cut away to install the new pipes, and the one that needed Mr Cheery to disconnect the electric so we could thread the light fitting through it. Utterly thrilled.

I've started the tedious caulking process - it's a messy job of much masking tape and me generally getting covered in caulk 😂😂😂 but I have refined my technique over the course of this ceiling, and I'm pretty efficient now. Just need to stop getting sidetracked...

Mr Cheery is out working this evening, so I have the place to myself til 1am 😁 I am currently having my customary sit in the garden, luxuriating in the fact that there's not a single person anywhere near me 😂😂 90 year old neighbour is in his house, but that's way at the top of our long drive, and there's nobody else within half a mile 😁 (unless a walker goes past on the footpath, but I've only even one all day). Just been enjoying an ice pop 😂

Need a plan for the evening though, else I'll just sit here and as nice as this is, nothing will get done! 

5-8 COOKING AND CEILING
* Put something involving aubergines in the oven - they're looking a bit ropey, and I want to batch cook something for the freezer anyway

* have some tea - I could eat the aubergine thing, but I want to stick a decent few portions of something in the freezer... There are some elderly noodles in the fridge - had some for lunch and they won't last past today. Not enough for a full meal though. Trying to talk myself out of making pancakes...

* get as much caulking done as I can while in the kitchen! 

8-9 SCYTHING
* want to make a start on the hay field. This will take me forever, but getting started will help, especially as I'm starting in a different place this year, and going in a different direction, so I'll be able to see progress every time I go up the drive. Started on the far side of the field last year and it was quite demoralising as for weeks it looked like I hadn't done anything!

9-10 MONEY
* Happy wheel - not done anything yet today

* banks and YNAB

10-WHENEVER: LEISURE
Might have a bath (might not!), paint my nails, watch a film, do some knitting...

First of all though I need to ring my mum before I go back inside...

SusieT

Karmacat said:

Oh, from Rhonda!  Thank you for posting the linkie too - I keep wanting to try this, and I never get round to it.  Another one earmarked for September and after (erm, I have two bottles of Asda's own brand to use up, hey ho).

On the pensions, that's an interesting point from Susie, that there may be a time cut off - I wonder if it's associated with keeping tax records or anything like that?  As a tangent - most of my tax records are electronic now, so every year I have to keep fewer pieces of paper, and throw away more, it's wonderful  

It is because in 2016 they changed from the "old style" pension which was a lower basic, plus extra depending on your contributions, to a single amount. Anyone retiring after 2016 will have 2 calculations done, 1 for the old type and 1 for the new, whicever gives the higher number would be the amount received. So adding to any years before 2016 may not increase the pension if you are being paid at the new amount. 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Susie, very useful, and definitely worth ringing the helpline. 

Another sunny day! Pretty warm already, and unusually for here, there's barely a breeze - we're on top of an exposed hill so it's usually pretty windy up here. 

No plans for today other than band rehearsal late afternoon, so I'll be focusing on the ceiling

* filling any little gaps in the caulk - there are a few old ones I can see this morning

* cleaning the bits of plaster from the joists where the plasterer sloshed things about a bit

* painting the remaining boards - not all of them, I was doing it as I was going along. Mostly just the ones I fitted or caulked yesterday - and painting is MUCH quicker. 

Then, if there's time and it's still too hot for outside work, some other jobs

* final coat of yellow on the kitchen

* make blinds for the bedroom

* start shifting spare bedding and accumulated stuff out of the new bedroom, so we can move the mattress in and start figuring out how to dismantle the bed

Reckon that's probably a big enough list 😂😂 There may possibly be a bit of scything when I come home later but we'll see. I'm off tomorrow as well, so anything not done then will roll over.

Have a good one folks, try to keep cool!

Cheery_Daff

Gosh I love my optimism 😂😂😂 I achieved the first on the list (filling little holes) and part of the second (cleaning plaster from the joists) but that was it 😂

Ot's been hot, but that's not really an excuse as it's perfectly cool in my kitchen, which is where I've been all day. 

Still, I am VERY pleased to be past the sticky caulk phase, and also very pleased that I didn't get a single bit on either the oak kitchen doors or the granite 🙄

Back home from band practice - the last one for the summer and a little deflating for various reasons (although someone did make a nice cake!) 

Just making my sister a little home made card and then I might get back up the ladder and clean a bit more plaster- at least that's not a messy job.

Remembered to fill the little car up on the way home to make use of a credit card cashback offer - get £5 when you spend £50 at a particular garage. I won't get it til this time next year, but I've had £108 this year, so £5 will start next year's stash nicely!

Fortune_Smiles

It did seem like a very long list for a very hot Sunday afternoon 😂 But I love that you aimed high.

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

Ha, I do love an optimistic list Fortune! 😂😂 Wouldn't do to actually get to the end of a to do list, would it? Then what would I do?! 😂😂

Bit if a sheep mystery here. Both Mr Cheery and I heard sheep through our sleepiness very early this morning. There are sheep in a neighbouring field, but these sounded much closer, but I couldn't be sure because I was half asleep (and yesterday I woke up singing 'you picked a fine time to leave me Lucille',  but replacing Lucille with Marie 😂 so who knows what's going on with my dreams right now 😂)

Anyway, today some neighbours we don't know very well were herding about 40 sheep in a field that is really nowhere near where their own sheep should be, and then we spotted what MIGHT have been trodden-on sheep droppings on our driveway...

All of which point to a real (not imagined) early morning sheep incursion - possibly with the cow farmer driving them back off our drive when he checked on the cows first thing...

Anyway, as long as they're not still here, that's fine with me. Looks like a bit of one of our walls has fallen down overnight - nothing to do with the sheep, but hoping it doesn't also lead to an escapee cow as I'm not fixing it tonight...

So, an overambitious list for tomorrow. Mr Cheery has a dentist appointment which will, with the driving, take most of the morning. I've got to be somewhere about half 5. In the day, I might...

* finish cleaning the joists (this isn't just wiping, it's also clearing up the remnants of my shabby first attempts about 2 years ago before I refined my caulking technique, so it's quite fiddly)

* paint the ceiling

* possibly deal with the wall collapse 🙄

* might paint the kitchen if I finish the ceiling

* banks and YNAB

* pay garage

* order a replacement weight for Mr Cheery's blinds, keep forgetting

* order diatomaceous earth for chickens

* ring HMRC re pensions

* moral support for Mr Cheery when he rings them

* pop sympathy card round to neighbour

* post parcel to sister

OK, list is getting wildly out of hand. If I do the little things at the end and the ceiling I'll be happy!

beanielou

That is certainly some list!

themadvix

If it helps Cheery, my list for tomorrow is similarly out of hand (and has hangovers from today too as it was wildly unrealistic as well!)