NST September 2022 Picture yourself on a boat on a canal

hazeldreams

Morning! Update on Saturday;

1. Eat/drink to nourish mind and body - struggling still. It all went downhill after breakfast. And I drank some wine when I'm supposed to be cutting it out.

2. Yoga, meditation, exercise - YWA 1st thing, body combat (55 mins) and took our woof on an hour walk yesterday too. I do need to get back to meditation, this has slipped a lot recently.

3. Gratitudes - lots to be grateful for; food in the cupboards, emergency funds (see below), quality time with my youngest DD, my eldest DD settling well into her first part time job before she starts college.

4. NSDs - 3/10 - today will not be an NSD. Woke up to one of our bifold doors shattering. Over £200 to board it up until we can get it replaced. Thank god for emergency funds. Hoping to be able to claim on our home insurance.

5. Pause before purchases - Had a great time with DD yesterday on our picnic. She loved it! And we didn't spend a thing!

I'm supposed to be clearing out wardrobes to get ready for winter today. At the moment, I just can't face it!!!

Happy Sunday!

Shrewbie

Happy Sunday all and congrats to grandmanerd!! 

NSD 2 for me yest, unheard of on a weekend. I walked down the river to use the rollerblades in a designated area (not brave enough to rollerblade there yet) but it was too busy and I'm not confident in my ability to avoid squashing small children, so had a little five min roll about and then packed up and went home. Realised I need knee pads. 8km walk there and back, was shattered when I got home. Had a look around the second hand book shop but didn’t buy anything, then spent the rest of the afternoon listening to podcasts and wondering if I was getting ill or just exhausted from the week and the long walk. 

Woke up this morning convinced I was ill but think I just had a sore throat from the fan being on all night and probably sleeping with my mouth open.

Meditation and morning pages done this morning. No alcohol drunk yest. 

Also I finally set up the extra pot in my bank account for savings, although it is only useful to separate them from my current account for ease and does not really benefit my savings (will need to transfer it to investments as savings accounts in Spain are pointless)

Today won’t be an NSD as meeting a friend who’s visiting, she lived here for 15 years before going back home to the UK 2 years ago during the height of the pandem and I haven’t seen her since then, so we have lots to catch up on. 

Grateful for feeling motivated again after yest, finally eating the bank account frog, for looking forward to seeing old friends.  

apple_muncher

Toni'sfriend - headspace do some free stuff you might like to try out. https://www.headspace.com/

f0xh0les

Scrumping went fabulously well this morning.  The trees were dripping with fruit, some of which was already rotting on the branches.  Use your local community orchard!!!   Even some last blackberries were to be had.

I now have a full fruit bowl of apples of all colours and sizes,  in the kitchen I have cookers to be processed and frozen, big fluffy ones to be stuffed and baked, and the rest to be stewed with cinnamon and sultanas.    The russet apples are always left on the trees as they are not  as pretty and nobody (except us) seems to pick them. They are gorgeous.  Everything seems to be much earlier this year.  I am usually scrumping well  into the end of October, but the apples are going to be over well before then.   Lots were windfalls, and we met some people who were picking them off the ground to make cider with

Grandmanerd, I drove past Pennington Flash on my way to Mickle Trafford from Bolton, never knew what the flashes were. Thank you for that.

pollyanna_26

Hello Turtles hope you're all enjoying your journey on the Canal. I lived at the Liverpool end and hadan ecccentric friend in my teens who rescued and restored classic cars and motorbikes. He was bonkers, think Mr Toad. Used to wear ripped jumpers vred in engine oil his lovely little Yorkshire mum knitted.

They had a big house a short walk from the Leeds to Liverpool canal. His equally bonkers father decided he would build a large canal boat to trawl the waterways. In recent times BJ and his father remindedme of them both.

There was a boatyard a few minutes away but Dad was going to build the large boat on his driveway. The por mum already trying to keep a clea and tidy house was already trying to cope with partly built motorbikes , cars and spare parts under all the beds,on sofas , chairs and other surfaces including floors.

When boat building started she had to climb over the front garden wall to go shopping. Personally I'd have headed backk to Yorkshire asap.

We would go there every day after tea and the giant boat got bigger and bigger attracting crowds from far and wide. Launch day arrived and the boat was too big to get off the driveway. Eventually it had to be hoisted off at great expense was taken to the canal and dad, son and some slightly dubious male friends set of on a short maiden voyage. Having been threatened by out mums we girls had to wait for thier retur

It had to stay on the canal as it couldn't be hoisted back and forth. Dad wanted to leave it on the road outside but it was pointed out their house was on a bend on a bus route and he would be in trouble with the council and highways agency.

We girls had our big day out out on a glorious summers day and travelled all the way to Lymm in Cheshire sitting on the cabin roof waving to passersby , other boaters and admiring all the floral displays on other boats.

You need some planters GMN.

It was a very good and unforgettable day. Many other trips but that day lives on in my memory/ A while after Mr Toad asked me if I would marry him when I finished Grammar School. I had plans which would one day mean I could be a teacher.

Unknown to me I already knew the man who would become my lovely first husband on of the lads 2 years older.

Mr Toad courted me leaving boxes of quality street and other gigts on our drive until my mum reached her limits and chased him away with the yard brush shouting get your self to a barber. He is the only person I ever met with BJs hair and with all the overexposure we've had am often reminded of those days.

Saw him a couple of years ago in his going out outfit with a neat cravat clean and tidy. We heard a parp parp car horn in town and youngest said it's Mr Toad.

I could write a book about him the tumbledown cottage with lots of land he bought near to here to "restore" it just fell apart around around his ears all services failed he somehow managed to find a wife lord knows how.

We often used to go for a meal in their country local and I watched a lovely woman sink in to depression.

No hot water workig electrics he favoured homemade candles and oil lamps.

She wasn;t allowed a washing line and was handwashing in cold water with no way of drying anything. All the acres of land were covered in car wrecks and bits of bikes.

She believed things would get better. She would one day get her chickens, fruit and veg plots and washing lines. She was fadig away and I said he wont change and nothing will get better, If I were you I would get out now. I've known him most of my life.'Later I heard she left o the 2nd Anniversary of their wedding. No idea where she went but I hope she got basic human comforts at least and some joy in life.

Reading the title of this months challenge GMN reminds me of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Picture yourself on a boat on a river with Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies.

Never a Beatles fan but liked John Lennons songs.

Don't often post here but want to send positive vibes for a fuss free sale. That's avery good offer.

I've read some of this months thread and Ithink it's one of your best. It will help many it different ways.

As you know my mum raised us with a fear of debt so I have never been in debt. I didn't see a mortgage as debt though she disagreed. However every monthly payment was made on the due date and 25 years later I owned the home.

I seldom use my credit card just for things I want a paper trail for and pay it off promptly.

I'm grateful to mum. When the courts finally got rid of toxic 2nd husband he didn't exist at this address. Living under the radar. refusing to have his name on any bill, electoral roll or anything else, help feed his 2 children or anything else.

Total opposite of my lovely 1st husband who was someone who wouldn't drem of hitting a pregnant woman or terrifying his children and the two older ones.

Alcohol and Minbending drugs should never be a priority in anyones life, There's a place in hell for people like that.

My father never raised his voice to me nor did anyone else in my life.

I don't know if the pension service, all the toxic ones work, union and private pension services and bsnk and savings accounts took any notice of my response when they wrote with condolences on his death. I wasn't aware he had died just felt we had closure after terrible years. He died a very wealthy man with a rotted brain. Govt Pension service did put a final Pension Payment in my account but I returned it telling them as I'd told the others to donate it to Charity in his name. God knows he never helped anyone in life.

Hopefully women's and childrens aid or any of the others I suggested will get the help they need.

Sorry for the long post. I've been a bad mser . Think I last posted on another thread on the hottest day we had. Arthritis and Fibro flares and a return of the Rotator Cuff Tears- One of the lagacies from exs behaviour left me under Drs orders. I wasn't going out and was going stir crazy.

Sleepless and in pain I took myself into the garage the only cool place and decided to defrost the big chest freezerIt's years old I bought it in 2001 when I'd had the garage built. I left the smaller one behind for the next tenants when I moved here with 2 eldest.

Managed with a half and half in the kitchen while saving for the builders then a big chest freezer.

It isn't auro defrost so cooled me down hand defrosting.

It kept us well fed from scratch for decades through tough times. Got rid of loads of ice came in for a brew and decided stupidly to do some batch cooking . Totally flattened.

I hadn't been out since June 29th so very week and wobbly. Haven't been able to concentrate to read a book,

Yesterday late afternoon I though ok enough is enough. Got ready and did a wobbly walk to our Coop which has been my saviour throughout the pandemic. Didn't plan to be there long I'd written a big list which I didn't even glance at. I was transfixed looking at the prices.

I had a shocking energy bill this month but had been unaware how high food prices had risen. I've been sugerless for weeks. Can drink Cappucino without it and Hot Chocolate but not my Yorkshire brew. Bags were tiny and a lot dearer than the lrger size used to be. I had to buy a few muttering daylight robbery.

By the time I'd finished I was glad I'd done all the cooking for the freezer. There is an alarm in the kitchen which monitors the garage freezer and one for the fridge in the kitchen so an audible warninf of a power outage.

There is a temperature monitor in both fridge and freezer cheap as chips- maybe not now- from the big river site. I check them often.

There isa lovely young man who has looked after me well in the Coop. He is ECV himself put has worked throughout the pandemic. He always opens a big checkout for me, puts my shopping through the till packing my bags as he does.

There was a man behind me with his little boy. We were all masked. I love the fact Coop have masks welcome i this store signs.

The man made some random remark wondering who the next PM would be and the young man said they should bring Boris back he's done a brilliant job. He's a good leader like Trump. Deadly silence it was though all freezers in the shop were on max freeze.

I asked why Boris was a good leader. Well he got rid of the virus deserves to have parties and holidays because he worked so hard.

Sensing an atmosphere the man took over. He wrecked the NHS and gave them out of date PPE. Things will never be the same again. I was really the young man thought that way. He's been on the frontline himself throughout not highly paid though Coop are decent employers.

I was in the shop one night a while ago. Shopping and chatting as the staff restocked all the shelves. They are lovely people and were telling me to stay in the shop with my trolly until my taxi arrived. It was blowing a gale and starting to rain.

Next day there was news on our local website.

Police called to our little coop in the early hours. Ram Raiders. They smashed the doors wrecked the cash machine but couldn't access cash. They wrecked the shop instead.

Staff were called in to work early to face carnage. Shop was closed for some time. Windows and Doors replaced with much more expensive ones and it cost a fortune to get to any sort of normal.

I thought of all those late night staff laughing and chatting late as they restocked everything. Ordering me to stay in the warm when they had work to do when others were at home with their feet up.

A  cash machine only came back a short time ago in a different part of the store. I only tried it twice and it is hard to get your card out of the slot.

I've started to ask for cashback when I pay for my shopping instead. I only need it for taxies. Noone gets to handle my bank cards and most drivers prefer to have a cash float.

Have a good day Turtles. Looks like rain on the way here. I'm going to make Parsley dumplings to go with one of the Lamb Casseroles I batch cooked and a load of home grown veg.

I hope those who fancy canal life get a chance to try it. I would have loved to live on a houseboat.

pollyx

Toni'sfriend

Thank you for that, Apple. I've had quick look and it looks very helpful. I've also downloaded a book on my kindle which I'll look at when I'm on holiday. Probably the best time to get into it properly.

firsview

Afternoon Turtles. Yay on the bungalow sale grandmanerd. That will free up a lot of time for you to concentrate on your own house.
Have had a very productive weekend, I don’t know if I have mentioned it but I have had the ashes of one of my customers and her husband in my shed for the last 2 years. No family apart from a brother she hadn’t spoken to for years, so I just bought them home with me. I have today swallowed the frog and scattered them up on the downs. It was all very furtive as there were people paragliding up there so OH and I tipped them into a large blackberry bush and ran away.
We also cleaned and oiled the decking and fitted a new blind in the bathroom. OH started the new doors but the circular saw blade decided to go blunt after one cut so we are waiting for new one to be delivered.
 DS2 and myself went for a haircut on Friday but we only had dry cuts to save money. Have done some batch cooking to save myself time in the week as I feel my whole life is spent cooking ironing or working!
I am really enjoying grandmanerds description of our voyage, I want a canal boat holiday now!

grandmanerd

well spotted polly. One of our mindfulness exercises was to notice our troublesome thoughts or worries and pin them onto clouds or leaves in the water and let them float away. The course leader kept starting "Picture yourself on a boat by the river" and the tangerine trees and marmalade skies followed on for me. Making it a canal doesn't flow as well.

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for getting out for a walk, for finishing knitting some small items, for recorded programmes, for next door's friendly cat, for my laptop.

f0xh0les

What did you do at the weekend @firsview ?  Well,  we dumped a couple of bodies on the moors, and ran away before we were spotted,  then realised we needed a new circular saw blade....    no really, we did!!