Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

dustydigger

Bit of a mixed morning. I had intended to spend some time sitting in the sun and reading for 10 mins or so on a bench outside the surgery. Huh,it drizzled on and off.,so scratch relaxing.

I went to the mini-mall was shocked to see just how few books were there,6 of the 8 shelves were totally empty,and . I had only taken about a dozen books,and they just aboutcompletely filled the second shelf . I will readily take more books. Pity most of my books are not highly popular bestsellers and the like. Mine are mainly science fiction titles. SF fans would definitely like them,but I am not sure just how many people in our small town would want them.Oh well,at least they are out of the house.

Came out of the shopping centre only to find the Pennywise shop has closed down. My go to place for housecleaning products,light bulbs,cheap makeup,and nice birthday cards. 30 years as a go to shop,its sad its gone.

Next door ,but they are goneis a costume shop for halloween,Xmas,birthday costumes and the like. At the best of times it was a precarious business,and I dont know how they held on so long.

A kicker was when I went for Mr Dusty's fantastic sausages and found the butcher had closed down. A note on the door thanked the patrons who shopped there for the last 20 years. Griff the manager is now going to drive a delivery van for the local electrical goods shop. Ouch. As for the poor shop girls,I cant see any jobs around for them. Some have been there 15 years or more.

Trade for the butcher  went downhill,ever since Asd@ opened up 10 years ago. There is one other butcher's shop,tucked away off the beaten track in a way at the other side of the town centre.,but next door to a bank and chemist. Very pricey,top quality meat,its a bit snobby in some ways. In reality one man owns both butchers,one away from the centre for the better off,the one at the bottom of the shopping street for us peasants! The old man,around 90 has run his butchery for 70 years,is very canny,but has decided its not viable to run 2 shops.

What will happen when he finally retires or dies? Then probably Asd@ will reign supreme.

So what do I do about Mr Dusty's beloved sausages. No idea,will have to try and shop around Sunderland in search of good sausages. They are always inferior in his eyes,full of gristle,or herbs which he hates. Or the skins are like plastic,or they ooze grease or whatever.

At least there doesnt need to be a face to  face with the doc about his meds.,maybe by Tuesday our pharmacist will have permission to supply us.. Good job we have some spare tablets on hand No info on why the retest for me,and I waited 25 minutes past my time and was out in about 2 mins

dustydigger

Wow,its freezing this morning. Mr Dusty is cutting the grass early,and having the window open for the cord is allowing a gale to rush through the house. Its 10 C,but feeling like 5C,because of the winds.

- Healthwise,problem of the day is the eye that needs an op,its tender,I forgot and rubbed it and got a nasty pain shooting through,and the eye is watering constantly. Also my elbow and wrist are hurting because of carrying heavy bag of books yesterday,so I will have to ration my computer use today.The legs were a bit wobbly when I walked yesterday,but not too bad.I will rest them today,try to do a little walk tomorrow,if I dont get blown away into the sea.

- Happy to hear Chancellor's plans for helping the cost of living. Out of a rise of at least £1000,probably £1500,in fuel bills this coming year,at least these grants will cover a decent part,at least to the almost £2000 price cap level. But the next rise will have to be covered by our savings. I am spot on the average usage level,£1230 last year so its pretty easy to guess at my payments.Likely it will get up to around £2400 early next year.,so around £200 amonth paying equal amounts each month.

- Yet another school shooting in the US. What is reported here is only the tip of the iceberg,they only report it if more than about 15 or more die. There are literally hundreds of mass shootings ( 4 or more deaths)a year in schools,offices,supermarkets etc,214 attacks already so far,and its only May.!

pelirocco

dustydigger said:

Bit of a mixed morning. I had intended to spend some time sitting in the sun and reading for 10 mins or so on a bench outside the surgery. Huh,it drizzled on and off.,so scratch relaxing.

I went to the mini-mall was shocked to see just how few books were there,6 of the 8 shelves were totally empty,and . I had only taken about a dozen books,and they just aboutcompletely filled the second shelf . I will readily take more books. Pity most of my books are not highly popular bestsellers and the like. Mine are mainly science fiction titles. SF fans would definitely like them,but I am not sure just how many people in our small town would want them.Oh well,at least they are out of the house.

Came out of the shopping centre only to find the Pennywise shop has closed down. My go to place for housecleaning products,light bulbs,cheap makeup,and nice birthday cards. 30 years as a go to shop,its sad its gone.

Next door ,but they are goneis a costume shop for halloween,Xmas,birthday costumes and the like. At the best of times it was a precarious business,and I dont know how they held on so long.

A kicker was when I went for Mr Dusty's fantastic sausages and found the butcher had closed down. A note on the door thanked the patrons who shopped there for the last 20 years. Griff the manager is now going to drive a delivery van for the local electrical goods shop. Ouch. As for the poor shop girls,I cant see any jobs around for them. Some have been there 15 years or more.

Trade for the butcher  went downhill,ever since Asd@ opened up 10 years ago. There is one other butcher's shop,tucked away off the beaten track in a way at the other side of the town centre.,but next door to a bank and chemist. Very pricey,top quality meat,its a bit snobby in some ways. In reality one man owns both butchers,one away from the centre for the better off,the one at the bottom of the shopping street for us peasants! The old man,around 90 has run his butchery for 70 years,is very canny,but has decided its not viable to run 2 shops.

What will happen when he finally retires or dies? Then probably Asd@ will reign supreme.

So what do I do about Mr Dusty's beloved sausages. No idea,will have to try and shop around Sunderland in search of good sausages. They are always inferior in his eyes,full of gristle,or herbs which he hates. Or the skins are like plastic,or they ooze grease or whatever.

At least there doesnt need to be a face to  face with the doc about his meds.,maybe by Tuesday our pharmacist will have permission to supply us.. Good job we have some spare tablets on hand No info on why the retest for me,and I waited 25 minutes past my time and was out in about 2 mins

Surprised at Butchers round here people queue to get in .Even in a small town close by they have 2 in the same street both always busy 

dustydigger

@pelirocco. I dont have any details. Could just be that he is getting old and is simplfying.! .And the closed shop is only a minutes walk from the Asd@ store.

When they opened the mini mall,Wilko opened a store,and within 2 years both of our hardware stores closed down,after many decades..We used to have 3 fruiterers,now we have 2.. We once had 4 banks and 3 building societies. Now one bank with reduced services,and no building societies at all.  So it goes n the modern world.

dustydigger

Morning folks! Window cleaner has just been,so I expect rain any time soon

Month almost at an end,and my first Frugal Fortnight ends tomorrow. Seems neverending actually,some rough days healthwise,but I am pulling out of the brain fog,lethargy and weakness just a little,so thats good.Typing has been an issue at times,when my fingers were curled so far under it was almost impossible to do my one finger typing. My little finger,so curled up as to touch my palm,was adding unwanted letters, which I had to delet.Hey ,but I havent been so bad that I had to use a pencil to tap the keys,thats happened a few times in the past

But got to stop these War and Peace length posts.ie do two medium length ones instead.I'm amazed to see 9.5 viewsof my hardly stellar ramblings in two weeks.Cool.

 Am off to mop bathroom floor,havent done it for a fortnight. EEK. Its upstairs facing the main bus route, bus stop only yards awayso much oily fumes flying up into the bathroom,its amazing how much grime builds up on floor and tiles.Off I go!

dustydigger

Mopped the bathroom floor.looks much better.but I got dizzy bending over to wash the skirting boards,gave up for now. Like Scarlett O'Hara says,'' Tomorrow is another day''

I  am searching the house for a passbook and document about a matured savings account,as I want to use that towards rising energy costs. I have a horrible feeling that last time I decluttered the box in a drawer where I keep latest bank statements,bills docters appointments etc,I put that envelope in the discard pile by mistake. I am ransacking all sorts of bags of paperwork,family history documents,and medical  stuff in the vain hope of finding it. Oh well,I will have to do all that tedious trying to phone the bank and see what to do. I think my longest wait was 40 minutes

But leafing through medical stuff I found this. Dated July 2018.

''We regularly review our prescribing to ensure that it remains safe,effective and offers good value to the NHS. We have identified that you are currently taking Vitamin B strong tablets.We have decided to stop the prescribing of this product in line with DDES CCG guidelines.

Eating a healthy varied diet is advised.

We do not expect you to notice any difference when your prescription is stopped.''

Oh boy.It was safe,it was effective,so I have a sneaking feeling that the 3rd factor,which I have bolded,was the main purpose of the cancelling.

Fast forward 3 years and I am lying on my bed sure I am dying,and they find that I have no Intrinsic Factor at all,and need B12 jabs the rest of my life  to combat pernicious anaemia.........sigh................

I have also unearthed my old Slimming World stuff,better start perusing. I also found my Body Magic booklet,must get back into exercise. Its a gradual thing,like a staircase to fitness. I am down on the floor,havent even taken a first step yet. Head whirling with different eating plans,low carb ,,different exercises,and a host of other related things.Baby steps,baby steps....

Oh and what happened to shorter posts? Failed again

oh one last thing (do I sound like detective Columbo?) . Yep,never fails,window cleaner did his job,its now raining.

dustydigger

Morning. Raining again. Mr D is very happy he got the garden mown on Thursday.

Glad my DS1 and his family were flying from Newcastle airport yesterday,miserable scenes down south of frustrated people whose planes were facing major delays. DS1 is off for a week,starting in Rome then on to Paris. Paris is having similar weather to us,but Rome is 28-30 degrees. Far too hot for me. In 2019 I was in Virginia visiting my stepson and it was 36C,and the day after I left it was a record breaking(for Virginia) 37.7C,100F.At least in US you scuttle from airconditioned house to airconditioned car to another airconditioned building. DD1 and GD1 loved it,but they did their sunbathing at 8.30  am,too hot after 10am. I stayed indoors almost all the time and people marvelled that I had no suntan when I came home! I dont have red hair like my father(his nickname when young was Rusty!) but I did get his delicate easy burned skin,

dustydigger

I haf all sorts planned yesterday,but my daughter had a catastrophe. She slipped in her flip flops stepping down from her french doors onto the patio and fell facedown,broke her elbow and her nose. She is suffering badly and looks awful with the usual black eyes,swollen nose.Her poor daughter was terrified at the amount of blood.It will take a while for the swelling to go down before they can assess any damage but it should improve in a few weeks. The elbow is very very painful,it will take at least 6 weeks to heal. Since she is an administrater who uses her computer and phone as an extension of her self ,work is going to be a problem,no idea yet what will happen there.

She works in a NHS offshoot which assesses laboratories to see if they reach the necessary standards in administrating cancer tests etc. They are actually in the process of leaving the NHS and becoming independent. She is up in the important management level and very busy overseeing the exit. This couldnt have come at a worse time.There's always something.

dustydigger

Okay,got to get my head around my day,I am so distracted.,already gave Mr Dusty the wrong breakfast(he asked for weetabix and I gave him an omelette),forgot to put sugar in his tea.Forgot to defrost the beef last night I was intending to slow cook for tonight's supper,tomorrows meals,  will sustitute with chicken curry.

+Its the end of my first Frugal Fortnight today,need to look at how it went,what I saved,plans for the next FF.

+ sort out what eating plan I intend to follow for my proposed attempt to up my normal 1 lb a month weight loss. Must get online and google ideas. Also exercise plans

+ sort out more books to take to the mall's free library

+ make the chicken curry.

+ make plans for decluttering regime. I MUST clean out the clutter to ease my mind,its a burden imagining thecupboards bursting 

+ make my final reading TBR for June.and complete one more story to make it 12 titles for May.

no physical work except cooking today,but lots of planning.With the state of my brain its tougher work than household chores!

dustydigger

Mr D has just said he doesnt want chicken curry. Just as well,I have onlyone onion.I NEVER run out of onions. So am making chicken and chilli.  Tinned tomatoes,but fresh chillies. I wore gloves to deseed then,bright red ones,good job no one was around..Added Mr Ds beloved peanut butter and its all simmering extremely slowly. Hope  he likes it,when he changed his mind I had already marinated the chicken in garlic and curry paste.Not much different from curry really,just a different colour and with chillies!

I am keeping the other chicken thighs for myself,will make chicken pasta bake for supper