Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Had toast in the cafe today, and a free drink, very jolly. Spent the morning very slowly ambling round the charity shops - did me good to be moving, but it was quite uncomfortable. Spent a little bit -

£3 on one of those long thin hot water bottles that can lie all down behind me in bed 😀

£4 on a top

£2 on a giant bag of Epsom salts for today's planned luxury daytime bath 😀

A few bits and pieces of food we couldn't get in @ldi (tofu and the like).

Planning a gentle afternoon now, and hopefully a quiet evening. I think Mr Cheery is hankering after some social contact, but I think I need a quiet night... We'll see how i feel after a bath...

joedenise

Cheery_Daff said:

Thanks starnac 😊 With my longer-term career head on, this is a good opportunity, so fingers crossed. I'll have to be ruthless about saying no to other things though...

Spotted another job the other day... 👀 essentially exactly the same as mine, but somewhere else. I was very annoyed on Thursday and ready to bung an application straight in 😂 

But we talked about it in the pub last night, and I'm not going to. It's very much a sideways step - it would be the same money as we're on a national pay scale (although I'd have to work full time, so would get considerably more of it!). I'd have the advantage of a couple of years of rose tinted specs before I became aware of all the usual office politics nonsense 😂 and I do like a bit of novelty 😂 I know a couple of nice people who work there.

BUT it's considerably further away - 4 hour round trip rather than 2, so very tiresome to do in a day, so it may end up with hotel stays, and of course I'd lose my Fridays off. I'd have to teach, but not the same stuff as now, so that's a considerable chunk of work to get up and running.

So, nice to feel capable, but it's not for now. There are considerable advantages to where I am now, it would have to get a LOT worse before something else outweighed it. It's very convenient working in the same city as most of our friends, dentist etc.

Anyway, in other news. Did a Prolific study last night, the money cleared, but the study wouldn't disappear from the page, so I declined it, because it wouldn't let me opt in again, and it removed me altogether and removed the £2.36 from my account! 😡 and of course there's no record of who the researcher was, so can't contact them, very vexing. Still, up to £15.46 cleared in there, and just tipped over £14 in 1P so hoping for a payout this month (or next month anyway).

Happy wheel is rubbish - on about minus £7 for Sept I think 🙄

When prolific does some thing like that to me I just close it down and then go back it a few minutes later which usually clears it.  If not then it might be worth closing the laptop/phone/tablet or whatever you're using off completely and restarting it.

Cheery_Daff

I should have done that, yes, but it's too late now! Next time... I've just done another one that worked fine, fortunately 😊

Cheery_Daff

Well, the quiet evening has won 😊 I had an extremely long and cheerful bath 😊😊 and we've both lay around on the sofa for a long time 😂

I did rouse us to sort out the pile of clean washing and washed visitor bedding in the spare room, I was getting very annoyed by it at 4 this morning when I was busy NOT sleeping in there 😂 All washing away, duvets vacuum sealed and under the bed, spare coats hung up. I even identified a couple of items of clothing that I might try a Vinted experiment with. We'll see. 

Also cleaned the bathroom properly before my bath earlier, and gave the kitchen sink a good scrub after a week of idly throwing tea bags in it 🙄

I have reached my mouse tolerance limit officially now, so we have traps set in both living room and bedroom, and we're going to hang out at the kitchen table for a bit to see if we can catch the culprits. We got quite good at this when we first moved in - let's see if we've still got our technique 😂😂

I'm up for another quiet one tomorrow. I'm slowly feeling more mobile, pottering about today has helped. Some tasks for tomorrow though:

* meal plan
* batch cooking
* banking (ahead of Monday's payday)
* hoover living room, study, and bedroom
* make laundry liquid
* take compost out
* check on tomatoes and rest of garden (I think actually DOING any gardening at this point is ambitious, but I can look 😂)
* put the petrol can in the car - need some for the strimmer! Been saying that for at least a fortnight!

Mr Cheery is planning on putting the shelves up in my study tomorrow - the detritus has been lying around in there for a week, and the books have been in piles in other rooms since last October so it's about time 🙄😂 Fingers crossed it goes smoothly!

KajiKita

Well done on the putting the linens away - a very satisfying sort of job to do 😊
Mouse tolerance in this house is 1 at a time! (Are you listening cat?!! 😂)
Glad your back is feeling a bit better - don’t do too much though ….
Do share how you get on with Vinted - I have a load of stuff I could sell that way but not sure how much hassle it would be ….
Feel you on the shelves delay - Mr KK does an excellent job of pretty much anything I ask of him (craft cupboard 😊) … once I can get him focused on what I want to do …. 🙄😂❤️

KK

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, I slept SO much better last night! Only woke up briefly once, about 1am, and then straight through til morning. It's still not right but I'm a lot more mobile.

I've been out in the garden this morning 😊😊 It's not very warm, mind you 😂 Ate breakfast on the swing and read my book, then harvested the damsons - a fair amount this year! Currently letting to beasties escape, and then I'll remove the stalks I didn't catch, and get them in the freezer for later use.

I think last time I had any, I made damson gin in about November. Might attempt jam this time too, but not today.

Also freshened up the carpet in the living room and bathroom. Feeling in quite a pottery, homely mood today 😊



The damsons look like there are far more now they're in the house - taking up the entire large mixing bowl and the biggest pan 😮😂

Ramouth

We have also been picking for jam but am not sure if we have damsons or kea plums (a local, rather sharp variety).  Are the damsons sweet when eaten raw?

Cheery_Daff

Nope - damsons are really small, and quite bitter eaten raw 🤢 ours are only the size of large grapes, if that. Interesting about your local plum variety! 😊

We've had what will probably be our final trip to Wilkos - there were SO many empty shelves, and signs saying it's closing in a few days 😕 Felt silly getting sad over a shop, but it does feel like the end of an era. They didn't have the light bulbs we went for, but we stocked up on a few other bits given it was our last chance 😕

Washing is on the line - it's breezy but not very warm, so it'll end up over the airer tonight I suspect.

Mr Cheery was planning to put up my shelves, but got sidetracked looking for the drill bits, and instead decided to empty the entire downstairs loo, which basically serves as an indoor shed. Dining room is now full of shoes, bags, tools, drums etc, and the shelves are, obviously, still not on the wall 🙄

I'm only in the office tomorrow this week, and he's at his dad's, and he's not doing it while I'm trying to work in there, so it'll have to wait til next Friday now. 

We took the last shelves down last October, so I suppose it's fitting if these ones don't go up until this October! I did predict this would happen at the time... 🙄

Anyway. I am NOT ready to go back to work after only 2 days off, which cements my decision not to apply for that full time job 😂 

EssexHebridean

Boo to the shelf failure - but definitely better to delay them going back up than for it to happen while you're trying to work in there! You'll appreciate them all the more when you finally get them back in use I'm sure! 

It was interesting hearing your thinking process around the job application too - while there isn't necessarily anything wrong with making a sideways step, it does seem that there isn't really anything solid to make the job you were considering "better" than where you are - just different, and as you say some of the stuff that makes it different will probably wear off quite fast anyway. I have to say I'm not sure I could be paid enough to persuade me back to 5 days a week now either! 

rtandon27

Ladies - it is so interesting to hear your views on 4 vs 5 days in the office - atm I'm on a phased return to the office which is not going as quickly as I would have liked, but my occupational nurse keeps telling me it is for the best.  I'm firmly of the view that the 5 day thing is what gives me the zest for all other parts of my life!

As to OH's and working from home - I've reminded mine at least 4 times this morning that I'm actually working, and can't pay attention to home things - that is what the weekend was for so he's missed his window of opportunity!!!  He's grudgingly gone off to make a list that I'll look at after work, this evening & we can plan into next weekend!