Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, finally got the results from the covid study tests we did last Tuesday - when I'd started with symptoms but had a negative lateral flow. Unsurprisingly, mine was positive (Mr Cheery's was negative). There's nothing to do with that info at this point of course, but it's interesting, and unsurprising, that the PCR picked it up before the lateral flow. 

Right, best at least try to get on with some work, especially as I've got another five days off after today! 😂

LadyWithAPlan

Just caught up with your diary and I will say keep the harp if you have the room - I also have a few instruments I cant play well but its a joy to have them. Mind you I did actually sell a musical saw as I really couldnt get any real notes out of it  - and those saw teeth freaked me out.

Congrats on the promotion and how's the chicken with the large vet bill? Thriving hopefully. 

 I had a cat I adored and I did spend £1700 just on one op he needed (London vets), then more money on chemo for 3 weeks but he still had to go to cat heaven. From health to heaven in a  month ;( At least I had the cash to do it as you did and I was glad I tried my best ..
The next cat his sister, I took to a local farming vet near my family for check ups and was advised to not mess around she was just ageing, she died of old age so less hard and expensive decisions to make.

My sister has a very old horse 31 years of age and she is currently at that stage where she is paying an absolute fortune for daily drugs hoping for him to put weight back on etc, hand feeding him a few times a day but is now giving him a last 10 days as he not getting better or fatter. Every summer for the last 5 years she keeps hoping for one more summer with him and he has been ok but .... She does have other horses but this one is very much a family member so harder. Plus putting such a big animal down is in some ways even more traumatic.

scandimore

Out of lurkdom I come to say congrats on the promotion Cheery, well deserved

KajiKita

Hi Cheery

De-lurking to say congratulations on the promotion - very well deserved!! And I'm glad you've finally had a negative result on the Covid test and can 'be released back into the wild' again!   

I went down with Cvd at the end of the first week of my 2 weeks' leave - Boo!  Very much to my surprise, when I got to work and told people, they all said I could claim the time back .....! So, I waited until I was safely past my 6 months probation date (17th July) and then asked my boss if I could have 4 leave days back and he said yes!  Whoop! (I have since booked three of them  )

It is lovely to see you posting regularly again and I ought to restart too, but I am still struggling with mental capacity atm - by the evenings I am like a zombie .... <sigh>

KK

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, more lovely lurkers! Welcome, and thank you all for your kind wishes 😊😊

Ladywithaplan - glad it's not just us with the ludicrous vet bills 🙄 I can well imagine how difficult it is to say goodbye to a horse. And gosh, 31 years old! Bessie Chicken is, thankfully, thriving (touch wood) and will be 5 years old next month- pretty good innings for an ex battery hen 😊

Bonny chicken on the other hand is looking a little ropey today, and we are glad we're off to the vets tomorrow for an implant. We had to wash her bum again this evening, she was NOT impressed 🙄 and goodness knows how we'll catch her for tomorrow, she does make a fuss. I think we'll leave them all in the run tomorrow - I think she might just abscond altogether if we let them out after today's indignities 🙄

Kajikita, sorry to hear about you having a covid holiday as well! Yes, I could get my holiday reclassified as sick leave too, and I may well still do that (although only if I can carry over til next year - I'm only working another 5 days before the leave year ends and I've got stuff that needs doing!)

Considerably brighter today. Full day of work, and things actually got done! Then I washed the dishes, washed Bonny Chicken 🙄 and changed the bed sheets - I am to be allowed back into the marital bedroom tonight apparently! Just running a bath, and going to try not to fall asleep in it... 

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and still no harp decision - difficult to make a decision when it's so out of tune, and we need to acquire the relevant tuning thingy to sort it out. Will investigate tomorrow.

I should reassure (or alarm) you that there is NO shortage of instruments here 😂 At a rough count, we have two harmoniums (one supposedly a 'travel harmonium',  although given it took me and three farmers to get it into the house, I suspect it's the kind of 'travel' that involves several coaches of servants 🙄), a very ornate American organ, an acoustic double bass, an electric double bass handmade by Mr Cheery, a violin, flute, clarinet, piccolo, several sizes of recorder, a xaphoon, a zither, a balalaika, about 5 normal electric bases, and I've just counted 11 guitars just in the living room, as well as a large assortment of disembodied guitar bodies and necks 🙄😂😂 As well as the usual assortment of xylophones, keyboards, shakey eggs and the like 😂😂

I'm not really sure why we're hesitating about adding a harp 😂😂 I think it's just because it's SO rare to acquire one for nowt, that it seems a shame to waste it hanging round in our house if we're not going to use it - it genuinely might be best passed on to someone who will make better use of it. 

But we'll see 🙄😂😂

Right, bath!

Viking_mfw

Feeling so much better about my husband's mere 4 melodeons....

South_coast

I've never even heard of some of those instruments, let alone actually heard them. I do know of a balalaika though - but only because it's mentioned in the lyrics to Back In The USSR 🤣🤣🤣

badmemory

South_coast said:

I've never even heard of some of those instruments, let alone actually heard them. I do know of a balalaika though - but only because it's mentioned in the lyrics to Back In The USSR 🤣🤣🤣

I'm sure it was in a film too.  Omar Sharif??  Got to be in the 60s based in Russia.  That's where I knew of it from.  Doctor Zhivago was it?

Cheery_Daff

Viking_mfw said:

Feeling so much better about my husband's mere 4 melodeons....

Ha - I'm pleased to say we do not have a single one of those! 😂😂

Goodness knows where you all know of a balalaika from - I'd never have heard of them if there wasn't one in the house 😂 A friend has a giant bass one, it's huge! Mr Cheery's is a titchy little one.

Off work tomorrow, trying to decide what to potter about with so that I'm not tempted to overdo it. Might get up the ladders and do a bit of ceiling stuff - at this stage it's just scraping little fiddly bits of sealant off with a Stanley knife so not exactly energetic. Also I picked blackcurrants etc yesterday and they need sorting and freezing, and I might see about picking the rest as that'll be a whole job ticked off. So...

* fruit picked and into freezer
* washing on and hung up
* see if I can tick a couple of little jobs off the big list - I've got one or two Internet things to investigate which is pretty low energy
* take Bonny to the vets in the afternoon
* remember to put the bins out in the evening!