Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

Suffolk_lass

My sympathies too. It does sound as though the end was something of a release for your Aunt. Well done for telling your Dad x

Merlin's_Beard

Condolences on your loss, although it sounds like your uncle is at peace now.  Hopefully you will get to hear about the funeral personally, or if not through the intelligence network you've got set up with your dad.

KajiKita

Gardened to the point of absolute exhaustion today - I was genuinely struggling to do the walk back up the garden at the end of the session. I was still tired before I started, after yesterday’s efforts.

- greenhouse weeded and dead-leafed, Mr KK also helped me get a little wren out of there when she flew in and couldn’t find her way out again ❤️

- the cordon sanitere I have on the east side of the greenhouse was deeply mulched with bark at Christmas but had an edge of weeds up against the wooden sleepers it sits on and various tap rooted things were poking their noses through, so all of that has been cleared. That’s a job I never got to last year. 👏💪 This massively affects light levels in my greenhouse. It still needs cleaning, but that can wait for a warmer, stiller day when I won’t die of exposure! 🥶😂

- the new flower bed next to the greenhouse, also on the east side, has been weeded (slightly extended into the background ‘rough land’ in the process), manured and bark mulched. This has a pretty yellow-red rose in it that I rescued from the front garden last year, so it will be good to see how it does this year. 

- the whole of one half of the new front garden border has now been weeded and the primulas from Ps-in-law have been planted where I can see them from the kitchen window - it’s really lifted this planting. Of course, this has now made me realise that I need some more for the other half of the border on the other side of the gate for brightening up the view from the Snug (at the opposite end of the house) …. 😉😂😊 I have to go out tomorrow anyway to refuel the car, so will pop to my friendly local (cheapish) plant centre and get one flat of four to pop in. 😊

I am quite disappointed by how many of the wallflowers that I grew from seed and planted out in the autumn in this front garden border have died - I thought they were bombproof! 🤷‍♀️ The best one seems to be the one nearest the stone wall, so perhaps that cold spell we had in the winter was just too much for the rest of them who were further away from the wall? 

- Mr KK is out early tomorrow to an militaria jumble thingamee so did his washing today, which actually is probably the better drying day of the weekend. I put his washing out on the line and it is is just airing off on the heated airer - no TD needed 😊

I have gallons more gardening to do tomorrow but I suspect I will barely be able to move …. 😂 I think I hear the potting shed calling 😊

Starting to get sympathy emails from people like my godmother about my uncle dying. It’s very sweet of her but also a bit odd - she knew him as a family friend c. 30 years longer than I have even existed and yet *she* is offering *me* sympathies? I have been digesting this as I have been gardening to think of the best way to reply. 

Sausage, mash and beans for dinner (who needs haute cuisine?! 😂) with possibly one of the two remaining lemon possets, if they are still edible. 

KK

Suffolk_lass

What is a cordon sanitere? I know of the French sanitaire, a trench toilet much used in WW1 but I am not familiar with this or what it does.

KajiKita

‘Fessed up on the Groceries challenge board to my complete crashing through the budget in March, but with food inflation running at 45% in February (and therefore probably similar in March too, after all prices never seem to come back down again ….) I think I can be forgiven! 🤷‍♀️😉

It is wet, dank and claggy here this morning. Might brighten up later. If it does, I want to get my sprouted shallots in the ground, to make room for my tomatoes in the conservatory, so I can then start some more seed sowing in the potting shed ….. (seasonal growing Tetris challenge! 😉).

I also want to crop fresh bay leaves, parsley and thyme for Mr KK’s ‘use up all the random bits of fresh chicken in the freezer’ cacciatore batch he is making later. I have added the value of these to my produce tracker; £1.82 (overall the tracker is now up to £9.87 since the start of 2023, feeble I know but it will pick up as the year progresses I think).

LI premium subscription (due mid April) has been CANCELLED so I have saved myself £237 😊 Don’t really use the Premium options any more now that I have a job again, apart from the ‘free’ training and since work have subscribed to H@vard Spark I don’t even use that any more. 

Worked out that our contributions to the joint account (after council tax, mobile internet etc increases etc) need to increase by 5.3%, so have set my DD contribution to increase by that on the 28th of this month (should create a TT saving in April). I will tell Mr KK when he gets in. This increase in my contribution to our joint account still leaves me with £108 of my payrise, which is a useful amount for savings, OPing etc. 

Right, breakfast calls! 😊

KK

KajiKita

Suffolk_lass said:

What is a cordon sanitere? I know of the French sanitaire, a trench toilet much used in WW1 but I am not familiar with this or what it does.

Oh dear …. I might have made this up but I’m sure I have heard it somewhere. It’s basically a ‘clean zone’ around something you are trying to protect, so a patient undergoing surgery moving into a clean area, or my greenhouse not having weeds growing up against every face of it blocking the light from it. I’m being nonsensical really in using this term, but it is quite motivating as it feels like a ‘proper strategy’ - I’m probably odd! 😉😂😂😂

Ooh, I’ve done a g00gle and found this:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&hl=en-gb&sxsrf=APwXEdc7SPGWj5ieCu1GDnb40LANo4UerQ:1679820520920&q=cordon+sanitaire&si=AMnBZoGI9uVQ6wfpPgpCtbZaXNR4QmMeFiDvwOFBrr-4g5iTkHjvJ6Q-ivsICgmM6_DoPgC8XBhZeRtNkrVH5sQ71K-9HkY6UCXccrwfXMV3D2cCoMmK2p8Ec17Xsq8nwgmomGHCRP5a&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_hr6Lm_n9AhXPRMAKHbRDC_0Q2v4IegQIEhAR&biw=1180&bih=713&dpr=2

So I’m not making it up, but goodness knows where I heard it? On my food safety training maybe ….?

KK

Suffolk_lass

Ooh thank you. I think the context I heard it in relation to WW1 was when there was some sort of dysentery and they isolated it to stop an underlying thing like Spanish Flu spreading so maybe the same origin. It is a vary interesting and sound approach. We do it with bees. If we collect a swarm, we put them in an isolation area in case the are infected

KajiKita

Suffolk_lass said:

Ooh thank you. I think the context I heard it in relation to WW1 was when there was some sort of dysentery and they isolated it to stop an underlying thing like Spanish Flu spreading so maybe the same origin. It is a vary interesting and sound approach. We do it with bees. If we collect a swarm, we put them in an isolation area in case the are infected

You are advised to something similar when you get new fish - keep them in a small holding pond or separate tank until you know they are disease free. 

KK

KajiKita

Didn’t manage to get the shallots in the ground - just too wet all day. I did spend some time in the potting shed, potting up new dahlias and bulbs etc and topped up the tomato seedlings moving them across to the conservatory so I now have room to sow more seeds in the potting shed. (The annual juggling of pots and plants has begun! 😉)

Rice and beans batch done, with some smoked tofu that was hanging out in the fridge, grated through it for a bit more flavour and a further protein boost. 

Inspired by @Bluegreen143 I have picked up my knitting of a purple, pure wool blanket that I started last year sometime, so I will have two lap blankets for my parents for C-word this year (my dad’s is already made). Mr KK was most impressed to see that moving again 😊

KK

KajiKita

Tough week so far - ended up in A&E again on Monday because of Mr KK’s kidney stone again - he was in sooooo much pain 😢 Seeing him with leaking eyes was hard for me to take, let alone him! I left him on a bed in casualty corridor and got to bed at c. 1.30am and then was back up for work again after 4 hours …. Zombie-zone. 

He stuck it out in casualty, nil-by mouth, on a saline drip for a whole day and then they *finally* operated on him at about 5pm last night!!!!!! 🎊🎉👏😊😂🚀 Sooooooo relieved! 8 weeks of misery finally sorted. 

Sent a crazy fortune on parking and junk from a vending machine on Monday night during the 4 hours of waiting …., but heck, I really don’t care!

About to go back up to the hospital for collect him this morning. I’m a bit tired still but feeling a bit better after a decent lump of sleep last night. 😊

KK