Simple living in the country - back to basics

beanielou

What a star you are on the painting 

Fortune_Smiles

Very sorry to hear about Bunty chicken 😢

Fortune x

Baileys_Babe

Are you saving for next years MB subscriptions anywhere?

Cheery_Daff

Thank you lovely people xx

That's an excellent question BB - and the answer is no 😂 But I should be, you're right. Hmm, I can't remember the annual amount off the top of my head but I think it worked out roughly £25 a month? I've got a 'memberships' category in YNAB so I'll add that to the total I need to save in there. That way it can come out of the normal funds as any other payment would, rather than having to mess about reducing the new income amount.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter how I account for it, as long as I do somewhere! 

Chickens are up, and I've done a poo pick of their house and given them extra treats as we're going to be out all day. Still no sign of Bunty of course.

Off to Mr Cheery's dad's again. I'd say it feels like it's getting more predictable as we're getting a better handle on what needs doing the following week, but of course who knows - I don't want to tempt fate. Anyway, I'm hoping it won't be too late tonight. A friend has kindly lent us their van, but we only put Mr Cheery on their insurance so he's going to have to do all the driving today.

I confess I'm enjoying being in a van though 😂😂 My first car was a van, an LDV pilot, old post office van, and I loved it 😂 We certainly miss the space, even of the Kangoo we scrapped last year, which wasn't a van but we took the back seats out and could sleep in it if necessary. Next time one of the cars dies we'll be replacing it with at least a Kangoo style thing. we've really missed the practicality of being able to lug stuff around easily.

Anyway, not going to think about buying a new car yet! 😮😮 going to think about breakfast instead.

I had an EXCELLENT dream where an ex colleague sent an email saying her and her husband ran a bakery/cafe on the side, and they had a load of reduced pastries available. I went to get some, no idea why reduced because the cafe was full and they were all fresh, but I got a massive bag of them for £10. Woke up drooling over almond croissants 😂😂 whatever I have for breakfast now is going to be a right disappointment t! 😂😂

redofromstart

I have some '20 mins cook from frozen' croissants in the freezer for those type of emergencies.  The co-op ones are nice, Mr T less so.  

Sorry about Bunty.  Henrietta Houdini used to clamber over the dry stone walls and escape but as the church warden knew she was ours she got brought back from the church yard.  

Cheery_Daff

Love the idea of a croissant emergency 😂😂

Henrietta Housing is a great name 😊😊 Love the idea of her having to be brought back by the church warden. Ours have never been escape artists, but that's mostly because we don't have fences so they can just wander as far as they like - they never did go far though. Love how they have their favourite places to go. We often talk about creating a chicken map - so they have the dust baths (which they created themselves), dust baths 2 (stay more dry even in the rain), chicken mountain, chicken road, etc etc 😂

Fortune_Smiles

The chickens we kept were all quite heavy breeds so couldn't get off the ground very easily.  However, one time, Sophia Loren jumped up onto the compost bin lid which was balanced on the edge of the bin.  The lid tipped her into the bin and flipped itself over to close quite firmly.  I looked for her for a hour before I heard a plaintive cheeping coming from inside the black plastic 😲

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

Oh no, poor thing! Glad you found her. My friend has a chicken called Sophia Loren 😊 

savingholmes

Love the chicken names

Cheery_Daff

Evening  chums 😊

Another long day today, although at least I didn't have to do any of the driving today. We took Mr Cheery Snr the new rocking armchair we got for a tenner in a charity shop, and he was delighted - it was only meant to be temporary til we got something better but he might never give it up 😂 

Dog has learned to use the dog flap, clever boy. Sadly he has also learned how to nose his way out of the gate, so escaped twice, halting proceedings while we looked for him (and then figured out how to secure the gate properly).

Today was quite hard work, and I'm quite worn out now. Yes, I'm in bed and about to go to sleep! Didn't get back til 10.15 though so still a bit wired.

Spent £37 on various supplies for Mr Cheery Snr, and another £60 on diesel - we filled up friend's van that we'd borrowed until the thing clicked, paint, then when we got back in the car it said it was only three quarters full. Not sure what was going on there. Still, that's far more diesel than we've used so we've not diddled her, but we were planning on leaving her a nearly full tank to say thank you.

Hey ho. Back to work tomorrow, and I'm fretting about various things at the minute so need to face those head on and decide what I'm going to do. Also need to ring granite guy (kitchen geezers have been on the the granite guy's boss, but he's not rung me either - is there no end to this that doesn't involve me learning how to do the damn epoxy myself?)

I'd also like a trip to the gym at some point.

Sleep first though!