Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Done some small, fiddly extras in the cleaning and tidying tasks - cleared down the kitchen table (which attracts *all* the junk 😉) and cleaned inside and out the cupboard above the kettle which has a glass front and glass shelves. 

Two loads of washing out on the line, rained on and back in, almost dry 😊

All financial tracking done - nothing major to report but have updated my signature. 

Lunch was a mixture of using up left overs and salad. I still have a scrap of hummus to consume but I shall whip that into the left over dressing from today when I have salad again tomorrow. Baking tofu in the oven was interesting - I shall do that again 👍

Three episodes of Little Dorrit watched and three rows of blanket knitted - feels good to have got the latter moving again 😊

Did some garden pootling: 

- two big buckets of weeds / unwanted rooty-things pulled, 

- greenhouse planting consolidated on one side and cedar bench set up on the other  

- 2 weeks worth of kitchen scraps taken down to compost dalek and bedded in over the top of ripped up egg boxes
- lovely wafts of daffodils down by the pond and had a really low flyby from a Buzzard! ❤️

- grate cleaned and kindling brought in

Mr KK is home after a good day out with his mate, sold a few £100s of stuff but not a lot and caught up with his parents for the first time since his surgery. 

I have managed to stay awake all day. 😊

KK

SandyShores

Really productive day, bet you'll sleep tonight

KajiKita

Had another banging headache again - texted work colleague and yes, it’s her bug! 🙄😉 Oh well. 

Texted my new starter from the US this morning about delaying his start slightly (IT issues in ordering a laptop for him and all the Easter BHs) - no reply as yet ….

Managed to do a bit of garden tidying in a sunny spot before the headache really kicked in. Felt like I was working through treacle ….

Washed Mr KK’s weekly wash - he said confidently that there wasn’t much there …. Actually love, yes there was! Got it out on the line and although there was very little breeze the sun dried it quite well. Finishing off on the heated airer now, giving off that lovely smell of line dried washing 😊

*Finally* re-set the gas boiler after the clocks change - it’s been so chaotic here neither of us had got round to it. 

Little bit of shopping done - mainly veggies for expanding my healthy eating. Not going too badly - haven’t had crisps since Friday …. Also picked up some echinacea and vitamin D to try and speed up my recovery. 

More Little Dorrit and knitting this afternoon. Finished another book but boy was it grim - feel slightly mentally soiled now! 😂 Moved on to something a bit more upbeat 😊

KK

KajiKita

Woke up feeling a bit more human today - yaay! 😊 Even Mr KK said I sounded better today. 

- cleaned one windowsill and window and rehomed various bits of random junk from there.
- wrote and submitted a character reference for a friend who is going back to work after 19 years - really proud of her and writing references for people is one of my favourite things 😊
- washed the sofa blanket, apron and oven mitts and bathmat and got all of them pretty well dry on the line. Swapped the bathmat to my preferred cheerful pink and purple one! 😉
- finished clearing the top pond of dead ornamental grass stems / leaves and hoicked out a significant volume of gunk and weed. I think i need to take more out though - maybe tomorrow. 

- made a start on trimming back the huge, flopping everywhere, sage bush and then realised I was almost getting holly and hawthorn stems in my eyes so started trimming that hedge back stem by stem - I am cut to ribbons! But, I have removed 4 big floppy wheelbarrows of holly and hawthorn for the burning that Mr KK is thinking of doing tomorrow so we will have space to erect my Christmas present compost bins over Easter!!! ❤️
- had salad for lunch and then spoiled it by having 4 chocolate digestives afterwards …. 🙄🤷‍♀️😉
- done 3 rows of knitting (might be 2?)
- wrote and posted Easter card to my parents
- folded and took upstairs Mr KK’s washing from yesterday 
- did a bit of reading but not massively into this latest book - maybe it will ‘warm up’?
- finished watching Little Dorrit and started watching a biopic about John Ruskins wife - Yee Gods, what a miserable marriage! 

- when Mr KK came home, made us both a brew and took it down to our sit spot by the pond for the first time this year 😊

A good day 😊

KK

Suffolk_lass

What are you reading? We (our book club) have just abandoned the choice for April after the two people that had started it agreed it was rubbish and so yesterday we swapped to something else. I am currently plodding through the Hilary Mantel memoire "Bring up the Ghosts" but it is not really to my taste. It was my choice too, after listening to an abridged version on the radio.

Re your spot with a brew, we were only saying yesterday that it won't be long until we start meeting some of our older neighbours for a glass of wine/beer on the Green (at 5pm on a regular day) - something we started in the pandemic so we could see each other safely outdoors. Two of them had seen nobody at that stage. 

And that was a good nudge re Easter cards (thank you!). I have just written and addressed one to my Mum that we will post today.

Oh yes, ditto re being cut to shreds. Brambles here (also got hawthorn I need to tackle, but after it flowers as it is good for bees)

KajiKita

@Suffolk_lass, it’s a book I found on the ‘sharing library’ windowsill in work (near the canteen 😊) called The Fair Fight by Anna Freeman. It had various good reviews, but I am struggling because it describes a bleak living (19th century London) and I am just fed up with wading through misery, strife and struggle in novels. I want something that reads as uplifting and cheering, leaves me feeling lighter at the end of it, not weighed down yet more ….!! Enough of me moaning though! 😉

In a way I am glad to hear that your book club ‘cancelled’ a planned book - some are just too bleak to engage with. I’ve read the others in that series by Hilary Mantel but that one I found the heaviest going - I think because she knows how the story ends and so does the main character so the psychological trappedness and writhing starts to increase as a result. 

No problem on the Easter card nudge. 😊 A couple of hours after posting mine, ours from my mother arrived - not remotely Easter themed - I think it is a oil painted view of Venice? 🤷‍♀️ I was quite surprised it did as it had an old style 1st class stamp on it - didn’t think that you could use those any more?

My right hand looks like I have been fighting with a dervish and is sore all over with random areas where I got spiked by the thorns. My left hand is untouched! 😂 Mr KK has hoicked out dozens of brambles at the end of the winter for me - it’s made such a difference ❤️ He got so fed up with the thorns he starting using welding gloves to protect himself - apparently they work very well! 😂

Enjoying the idea that a post-pandemic socialising habit positively continues - that’s made me smile this morning.

KK

Suffolk_lass

The book we cancelled is "My grandmother sends her regards and apologies" by Fredrik Backman. The person who suggested it apologised and described it as "dreadful!" Last month we read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn which is a fictional account based around real characters and events at and around Bletchley Park in WW2. I thoroughly enjoyed that.

The most painful scratch here is inside my right forearm. The blood on the weathered top of my arm I only found later, but the inside is still sore this morning. 

KajiKita

Ooh, the inside of any limb is always that bit more tender! Do you have anything you could put in it to sooth it a bit?

I remember you mentioning that book, but not the title. I will see if I can order it from the library 😊

KK

badmemory

KajiKita said:

. 

No problem on the Easter card nudge. 😊 A couple of hours after posting mine, ours from my mother arrived - not remotely Easter themed - I think it is a oil painted view of Venice? 🤷‍♀️ I was quite surprised it did as it had an old style 1st class stamp on it - didn’t think that you could use those any more?

KK

They have extended them until July.  I suspect due to some of their mix ups re the exchanges causing a few problems for them.

KajiKita

badmemory said:

KajiKita said:

. 

No problem on the Easter card nudge. 😊 A couple of hours after posting mine, ours from my mother arrived - not remotely Easter themed - I think it is a oil painted view of Venice? 🤷‍♀️ I was quite surprised it did as it had an old style 1st class stamp on it - didn’t think that you could use those any more?

KK

They have extended them until July.  I suspect due to some of their mix ups re the exchanges causing a few problems for them.

Ah, that would explain it then 😊 Interesting though, as I swopped mine over very easily 🤷‍♀️

KK