Simple living in the country - back to basics

Bluegreen143

I completely agree re life admin. 

My son’s school has no fewer than FIVE websites/apps we need to use - one for class announcements & pictures of their work. One for homework. One for choosing their free school lunches online. One for whole school announcements. I don’t know what the fifth is for so I refused to download it 🙈 

Last week the homework one logged us out and it took all week for the school to unlock us. So couldn’t do that week’s homework. What was wrong with just putting worksheets and reading books in their school bag?!? Not to mention the actual child just choosing their meal when in the canteen, as we did in our day, instead of me spending Sunday nights doing it? And we had a separate online tool to book a slot for parents night, which again didn’t work. Previously it was just a slip in their school bag to fill out and send back. 

A bit like how the invention of hoovers and washing machines only increased the amount of housework women did, the invention of online tools and processes has just increased how much life admin we do 🤷‍♀️ 

Baileys_Babe

Ouch, 5 apps to communicate with the school @Bluegreen143 I feel a lot of families could become disenfranchised due to not having compatible technology as people delay upgrading their phones for monetary/environmental reasons.

VintageHistorian

This is why I always roll my eyes when I hear or read people complain about how Millenials and Gen Z are too dependent on their phones and shouldn't keep spending money on upgrading them. You don't really have a choice any more! If you don't have a device you are cut off from everything from kids school to applying for government benefits. And if you have an older device then many new apps don't work on it so you're forced to upgrade.

My husband still uses an iPhone 4 but he can only use it for texting, phoning, and checking websites. No apps work on it because it's too old, so we're always using mine as a sat nav when we go out together, or my in-laws send photos for him to me via WhatsApp because his phone doesn't like photos either.

People are hugely ignorant of the digital divide, and then get shocked when it finally affects them.

Cheery_Daff

Goodness me, five apps for a single school?? My sister has 3 kids who were at one point at three different schools - I can only imagine the chaos! 😮

Well, we have been on strike today. Although I've actually spent most of the day writing a funding bid 🙄 I'm officially striking - but making myself work 15 hours on Monday is going to hurt nobody but myself, and not getting things to external collaborators in plenty of time is only going to mess up the work of a voluntary organisation, so...

Anyway, good progress has been made, and a colleague has offered to use her free tickets to a local ish tourist attraction when we meet next week, so overall a productive day.

Cold though, and I am SICK of the weather 🙄 Cold and wind and SO much rain. Constant battle to stop the area round the chicken run turning into a quagmire. Various repairs are needed, but obviously can't be done in this weather. They're fine inside of course, there's plenty of shelter from the wind and rain, there's one small bit that turns to mud but we keep adding wood chip so it's fine. They don't like the noise of the wind, but nothing we can do about that! 

Tomorrow will be a long one - off to visit Mr Cheery's dad, and meeting some other relatives for lunch as well as trying to get a bit of stuff done for him. 

Need a plan for tonight else it's going to run away from me while I sit on the sofa...

* get recycling ready to go out in the morning
* fetch chicken water water containers inside to be washed and refilled
* prepare chicken treats for tomorrow
* decide what clothes I'm wearing and get them all ready
* make breakfast and get it in the fridge
* get bag ready

Seems like overkill, but we're leaving at 8.30am, need to get the chickens sorted and recycling put out before we go, and we have form for taking forever to leave the house...

Elisheba

Oh, this weather is dreadful, isn't it?! It gets so dark at times I need to put the lights on in the middle of the day, and earlier I felt my car being pushed about by the wind. Very dreary indeed.

Good luck with your strike. I hope something decent can be agreed. 

badmemory

It has been a bit dark & dreary hasn't it.  I got up to close the curtains the other day, then looked at my watch & it was only 1pm.

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff said:

Need a plan for tonight else it's going to run away from me while I sit on the sofa...

That's exactly why I make plans in a fair amount of detail these days - even so, today, I stood in the middle of the living room completely puzzled as to what to do next, because its still like playing tetris in the house 😏

Anyway, hope the journey and the visit go well tomorrow.  And that the weather gods smile on you!

Cheery_Daff

Thanks all. Yes, having yo put the lights on in the day is indeed depressing! Tis very gloomy in my study, it's surrounded by trees and outbuildings (at least it's warm now though! 😁)

Ha KC, I know exactly what House Tettris feels like 🙄 This very evening I had to retrieve the recycling box, which was in the downstairs shower, full of craft stuff 🙄 Craft stuff is still in the shower, but at least we've put the recycling out foe the first time in a month 🙄😂

Got quite a bit done tonight! Recycling out (quite an epic performance round here), and we loaded the flooring into the car ready for tomorrow. Put the compost out, cleaned and filled the chicken water containers (and put in some nutritious 'poultry power' drops). Mr Cheery played drums for a bit, and I watched Escape to the Chateau and did some sewing - I bought two festive tablecloths from a charity shop the other day for £3 (for both) so I've started making present bags. Made three tonight, and did some French seam for the first time! Very pleased with them! I've got a mismatched assortment of present bags I've made from other bits of fabric, but it will be nice to have these all festive together 😊

EssexHebridean

The bags sound great - photos needed I think. I spotted on FB a few days  ago that a pal has been crocheting little strings of Christmas baubles so of course I’ve gone down thr “crocheted Christmas decorations “ rabbit hole now and come out with all sorts of ideas of things I’d like to make! 😂

Annoying about that parking fine nonsense too. Cheeky blighters - and of course it has to take up your time dealing with it too - pah! 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, di let us know what you end up crocheting! I saw some little crocheted trees the other day, I might have a go of those.

And yes, I'll post pictures of the bags - although there's nothing particularly exciting about them, but the fabric is quite festive. It's not particularly pretty - I only bought it because there was loads of it and it was cheap!