So close, we can smell mortgage freedom!

savingholmes

Glad overall things are going well. 

Hope your mum recovers quickly

themadvix

Thanks Karma. She OK - was pretty miserable yesterday but today is just overtaken by apathy, as you'd expect. I keep reminding her she is ill and that her to-do list can wait!

Work focus has finally come to me and I've made good progress at a time when I'm normally unable to focus. Would love to get to the allotment this afternoon but must finish this first. And there's the tennis too...

Have also been looking at a local campsite - it's close enough we could feed the cats mid-afternoon and a late breakfast the next day and not have to ask anyone to see to them, while being somewhere quiet and pretty. Not something for immediate concern, but I'd love to get the tent out this summer... (also looking at automatic cat feeders on ebay, but last time we had one greedy ginger cat pushed it under the sofa so it couldn't spin and they didn't get any food (fortunately we were only out for the evening, not gone for the night!).

What was it I said about focus?!

ETA Mum's just scored 62 against me on Word Feud, so she can't be that ill!

killerpeaty

You are a busy bunny, I feel like automatic car feeders are a better idea in fantasy than reality

themadvix

I think they work well for most cats - several of my clients use them to great effect, but my cats, I’ve decided, are not most cats. When you have to have hooks on the inside and outside of the kitchen door to keep the cats out, there is something not normal about them! 😂

savingholmes

Good luck with the cat feeding solution. I know you feed cats for a living - but a deep bowl full of dry food or more than one can work wonders if you don't want the auto feeders. I didn't like using them with wet food anyway. We also have one of the bottle dispenser type water things - and often have a spare bowl of water out just in case something goes wrong.

themadvix

savingholmes said:

Good luck with the cat feeding solution. I know you feed cats for a living - but a deep bowl full of dry food or more than one can work wonders if you don't want the auto feeders. I didn't like using them with wet food anyway. We also have one of the bottle dispenser type water things - and often have a spare bowl of water out just in case something goes wrong.

Thanks SH. We’d only use them for dry- for one night/morning they could cope with just that anyway. But a deep bowl full freely accessible would not work - ginger cat has no off switch when it comes to food. When they were little we used to store their dry food in a cupboard at waist height. We came back one day to discover that B&W cat had mastered how to get into cupboard (jump and grab handle with front paws, push against wall with back paws) and the two had promptly climbed in and helped themselves to about 500g of kibble. We didn’t realise this to start with - just that they’d opened the door - and proceeded to get their dinner ready (wondering why they were complaining louder). Funnily enough, B&W cat took one look and wandered off, but ginger cat tucked in. We rapidly realised that they’d eaten the dry food while we were out and picked ginger cat up to remove him from the food he was tucking into - he’d eaten so much you could feel the lumpy biscuits in his belly!! The cupboard door was always locked after that (never learnt how to turn a key 😂). Free-flowing food just doesn’t happen in this house as a result - it just gets demolished as soon as it’s put out. (We use maze toys to slow him down as he’d choke otherwise and the sound his teeth on the bowl is horrendous!). We do always have two bowls of water out - they will splash it everywhere and then run out otherwise. Good idea about the water bottle though - like one for a small animal? Wonder if they’d work that out?

themadvix

Morning all,

Eventful evening last night between Norrie and the government! Hooray for Norrie getting to the semi-final though!

Did finally get my work done, but annoyingly had a query which hasn't been answered yet, so that's going to hang around today until my client is awake. A decent chunk of work has arrived from main US client overnight, so I'll crack on with that this morning. I also need to pop to collect some cardboard book envelopes from a Freegler as they will work well for several books I've got on Ebay.

Collected my Olio stuff this morning. My last morning collection as our store is switching to evening collections. This means there'll be less waste as we'll be able to share use by stuff, but it also means late evenings, which I'm not thrilled about. It'll be a case of seeing how it goes. This morning's collection did include some fruit and veg, so I've bagged 2 lots of tenderstem broccoli as part of my allocation (as well as a couple of pastries). Think we're going to have gnocchi tonight, so will do a creamy cheesy sauce and add the broccoli. (Mr MV is back on lacto-free milk, so I'll be giving that a go. Cheese should be OK as it's fermented, which changes the lactose somehow (so I've read). Tbh, if he is intolerant, he's not very intolerant IYSWIM, so some dairy is fine. It's still an experiment at this point though. He's also still not very bothered about food since he had Covid (and still struggles with finding words sometimes - something else I know others have had problems with since Covid), which means he's not eating breakfast and so our milk order has been substantially cut.)

MS things:
* Clicks done - 35p on HW, over halfway to next payout. VB at payout so should be processed next week?
* 1P surveys done - will reach payout this month (at £21)
* Have started tax return - but need some paperwork about jury service out of the loft - will get Mr MV up there this evening

Gratitudes:
* Breakfast in the garden this morning
* Work - a constant but manageable stream is wonderful
* Norrie is in the semi finals (why did I arrange to see friends on Friday night?!)

Have a good day y'all!

Suffolk_lass

Have a good day! Bottling is easy - the way I do it.

Make a light syrup, (1:1 kilo to litre 0r just under with sugar) pack as much of the (raw) fruit into the jar as you can, then fill with the syrup. Put on top but not the screw band/don't screw tight. Stand the jars on a deep oven tray (in case they boil out). Put in the oven and warm it to 140 from cold. When you can see the syrup bubbling, stop. The fruit will have gently stewed in the syrup. Then wipe the outside of the jars, top up with syrup and screw down lids. Turn them upside down and pack together with a towel over (ideally overnight!) until cold. Then check if the pimples are in and tighten the bands. They will keep for a couple of years and turning them upside down stops any fruit sitting above the syrup and not being preseved.

Karmacat

Wow, I've never seen that described before!  Thanks SL.  Though, can you just clarify what this bit means, in the first line of your main paragraph: "(1:1 kilo to litre 0r just under with sugar) ".  A kilo of fruit to a litre of ... no, I can't tell, sorry.  Brain isn't working too well this morning

themadvix

Thanks SL - will reread that later - it sounds good! - but Karma took the words out of my mouth, sorry I’m if  being a bit slow.