NST Sweet May 2023 - Pick 'N' Mix Challenge

Shrewbie

Pinch punch first of the month! (I can’t be the first?!)

Happy Labour Day turtles!  One of the few bank hols that coincides in Spain and UK.

Had a great day yesterday. We got up early and went looking for brekkie, then when we we’d had our caffeine fix we went and looked around the Alcazar which is so beautiful. Definitely a LOT of magic and awe. The gardens are amazing, I recommend it if you haven’t been. (I think almost as amazing as the Alhambra in Granada but on a smaller scale) We saw peacocks, loads of ducklings, hibiscus, Jacaranda trees. 

 Went for a bite to eat (salmorejo, rabo de toro and patatas bravas) then looked around the plaza España and met up with my sister and her friend for a drink. Had amazing Italian ice cream. In the evening we went to a free flamenco show and then dinner was Italian, bf shared pizza and pasta and my sister paid as we’d got dinner the day before. 18km walking total for the day but some of that was midnight-1am the day before. Was so nice to catch up with my sis and her friend is lovely. Sis told me that she is thinking of coming to live in Spain (she lived in Córdoba during her Erasmus) 

Feel a bit woozy today, not sure if it’s the drinks I had yest (3), hayfever or the air con being on all night or a combo of all three. 

Looking forward to getting started with a new month.

@Thrifty_Taylor you are 18! If anyone else wants a particular number pls shout

newcomers more than welcome!!!

f0xh0les

Morning all!

Happy May! Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary to me! Happy Beltane for last night.

Can't do budgets or plans until tomorrow. Kids only have 3 days at school this week due to bank holidays and strike action.

Then 4 days the week  after due to Charlie's Hat.  

The warmer weather is definitely on the way, we have not had the heating on for 2 whole days, and it was only on for one hour the day before that!

thriftylass

Good morning,  glad we're not the only ones still having the heating on occasionally. Unusually cold spring. Glorious day here today too.

Happy anniversary @f0xh0les!

Kids are off with DH today. I'm in work . 

Got loads more decluttering done yesterday, books, kitchen items, DVDs, started the kids' nursery art folders. Also unintentionally had to "declutter" a ceramic roasting dish as I cracked it last night. I thought Le Cr3uset is indestructible. 

apple_muncher

Happy anniversary f0xh0les + !!!!!! prof f0xh0les! (unless he's been promoted again and is prof)

DawnW

Morning all,

Not sure if I have asked to join or not (forgot) but hopefully nobody will mind.

Went to a boot fair this morning and bought plants, so not a NSD. I also bought plants yesterday, so am hoping the weather is ok to plant them all out this afternoon when I have got over the route march the dog inflicted on me after the boot fair!

I may go out in a bit to buy yet more plants, for my pond this time. I only need a couple more, as my pond is tiny - more of a puddle really   Must then stop buying plants for a while!

I really ought to clean the kitchen and take the net curtain down in the bedroom, wash it and clean the window ready to put it back up. I am not a lover of net curtains, but this bedroom window overlooks the street so needs must.

Minimal cooking at least, due to all the baking I did yesterday. There is a nice quiche, and there are salad bits in the fridge.

Starlight_at_Sea

Morning turtles. Happy anniversary @f0xh0les! Shrewbie your description is giving me wanderlust, in one of my alternative lives I definitely travel overseas a lot more than I do at the moment!  Please keep the descriptions coming so I can enjoy vicariously  

Awoke and into action early today as hot water bottle had leaked! Two loads of bedding washing later, am now perched on dry side of bed, in the limbo between up and about and returning to an unmade and uncomfy bed! I think I best just up and dressed now. 

So, to my ambition for May.... I am gorging a little on the selection! 

1. Money. 10 NSDs. Not sure how feasible this is, given the range of things going on, but am up for trying, and also attempting to record these more accurately. 

2. Monitor savings and budgets. I have very much enjoyed seeing savings gain interest this month, but they are destined to be the deposit for the new place, so will cease to exist as positive bank balances soon! But it has made me think about how to rebuild emergency fund and savings, so I need to do some calculations. I also need to set out the budget more accurately for the new house, now there are a few less unknowns. This doubles as a frog! 

3. Mini lives full of magic and awe. I'd like to explore being more of an active person, an outdoors person, a traveller, and a DIYer. This combines with magic and awe for me. An intention throughout the month (I don't think weekly will work, due to diaries this month) to: 

3 longer walks, in nature, around my hometown and writing these up as a part of guidebook for guests to new house.  Getting outside every day. 

Return to wild swimming, assuming wounds allow, towards the end of the month. 

Thrice-weekly trips to the gym/classes 
and to setting up a programme so I am more self sufficient when there. 

Researching so that our brief two-city city break with 🇺🇦D and BF feel like real adventures, including throwing myself fully into the spirit of Eurovision! 

Three DIY jobs at the current house, ahead of taking on the new place.


4. Mealplans and everything plans. 

List food in freezer at my house, and use this up so there is more space for the girls to use. Make sure food is at the most relevent house! 

Batch cooking session with BF. Long overdue. 

Plot out the month so I can see where opportunities to plan ahead fall. 

5. Make/maintain connections. 

Catch up properly with one friend per week, and nurture one work/professional relationship a week too (when I am at work, I have a week off!). 

6. Mindfulness. 
Adapting this slightly, to conscious self care and taking time in personal grooming etc. I have a plethora of creams and home-spa type things that I enjoy when I take the time to use them, and also a couple of health related things to get on top of this month. 

7. Frog and elephant munching. 
Am still very happy to have munched that big paperwork task yesterday. It's set me off in the right frame of mind to manage some other ever-looming tasks this month. 

1. make appt with financial adviser to ensure I understand and have a grip of my 3 local govt pensions. 

2. Filing - try to see this as liberation from the stress of locating papers when needed, rather than a chore! 

3. expenses..just do this, before the 10th 

4. working hours set up correctly on work system. just do this. it's boring to have it hanging over me. 

5. last part of the annual financial aid frog for DD university.  Requires printing, scanning and finding a piece of paper that I'm not sure if even exists.

6. Tidy bedroom at my folks. 

7. Sort out with mum some of the things she is keen to gift me, before she gives them all away to keener people! 

pollyanna_26

Can I join please? I haven't been om the forum much lately. Rotator cuff tears and sore ribs from heaving a very  heavy mattress on to my bed have meant pain and sleepless nights and triggered Sciatica.

I have had scans but no idea when the hospital will do anything about it.

I had to resort to ordering food etc from the big river site as I wasn't up to going to the little Coop a short walk away where I've been shopping as I gave up going to town a couple of years ago.

As a tourist town we've been going in and out of lockdown. We went into the top tier a couple of years ago when Atletico Madrid played Liverppol some years ago at Anfield and visited our town miles from Anfield before ging home.

I'd watched that match online. No facemasks and both lotsof fans shouting . singing and no social distancing I'd hoped the visitng team would go straight home but hudreds came here.

The annual Air show, flower show and other events are due here so not a good idea to go near town. I'd run out of everything so resorted to the big river site. Many of the deliveries were meant to be early morning but a lot of things turned up in the evening.

I felt quite sorry for some of the couriers who had been backed up in the Liverpool hub waiting to get out with their deliveries. Yesterday one due early morning turned up in the evening.

i was making the orders during sleepless nights. I'd run out of sugar long ago and suffered sugarless tea for far too long. It reminded me of my mum and Aunties talking of after WW2 when Tate and Lyle began selling sugar again .

One of the factories was just a short distance  away but closed. When I was working in the Inland Revenue I was seconded to a smaller branch for a while I used to walk past Tate and Lyle and watch the steam from processing discharging in to the canal next to the factory.

Lots of children used to paddle or swim in that canal many without their clothes. My younger sisters and I were under dire warnings should we ever attempt it but it never appealed to us .

my mum and aunties used to speak of their relief when tea came off ration and they no longer had to keep reusing tea leaves. I remembered that and always kept a stock of Yorkshire tea bags. Our little coop has always had the big boxes usually had the big boxes on offer so I've always stocked up on them.

I was horrified when a huge box arrived a few days ago. Not a good idea to make an order when sleepless and in pain. Umpteen bags of sugar. I've always had doorstep deliveries of milk in glass bottles so have been glad of my milkman . I finally had a proper brew last night and did sleep.i had walked to our little Coop yesterday for the first time in a long time .

There is an elderly man who has Empysema who has been a thorn in my side since the start of the pandemic. He began asking me to pick up a packet of cigarettes.for him. I am not a smoker my dad and uncles were. Dad had served in the Royal Navy during the war protecting the merchant ships on the food convoys. Uncles on those Merchant ships or in the army.They were supplied with cigarettes.

I was15 when my dad died of Lung Cancer so was never going to smoke. The old mans daughter and son in law live down south and this time of year he goes to visit  them. A while back he began to ask me to pick up 10packs of cigarettes at a time. I did for a while though I thought it a very bad idea.

The 10 packs were about a hundred pounds and I was paying for them with my debit card along with my shopping. He'd begun arguing about the cost. In the past he could buy Woodbines for about 5 shillings a packet. I had to tell him those days were gone.

I had to make umpteen phone calls to his family down south about the problem even suggesting he moved either to live with them or near them. He is unwell and very vulnerable.

Yesterday I told him I could not buy his cigarettes any more saying I didn't have eough money in my current account to pay for them. A total lie because not going shopping or in to town means I haven't spent much.in the last few years.

He was not happy so I started to walk to the Coop and realised I was struggling to walk. The pharmacy owned by and next door to the Coop wasn't open so couldn't buy pain killers or hayfever tablets. No sign on the door when it would be open and none of the staff in the Coop knew.

The shop was very well stocked so I could buy everything on my list including the Cheese topped rolls, grated red leicestser cheese locally grown tiny organic tomatoes and butter which are quick and handy when energy levels are low.

I phoned a taxi from the freephone taxi firm phone in the store and was told it would be a long wait. Pushed my heavy trolley outside for some fresh air and there was a tiny very loud dog tied up outside. Barking and yapping. I stood outside for two hours and no taxi; Looked in my bag and realised I'd forgotten my phone so couldn't phone youngest daughter to ask her to phone anoother taxi firm.

Back in to the store to ask if there was a landline phone I could phone from and was pointed towards the freephone taxi phone I'd already used. Rang them again and finally got a reply they were very busy but hadn't forgotten me and would send one as soon as they could.

Back outside to the noisy dog and a woman came out and started to tell me he he had issues describing them all in a lot of detail. by then I was losing the will to go on.She said she only lived over the road so would keep me company while I was waiting for my taxi.   I told her I was ok and she was very kind not mentioning the yapping, whining and barking was driving me mad. After a while she took him home and a short while later a taxi pulled in. A driver I've got to know over the last few years. He said get in the cab love and loaded all the bags in to the boot.

It's a very short journey and other drivers have complained in the past but he never has so I always pay more than the fare on the meter. He carried all the bags to the front door unlike those who dump everything on the pavement and drive away.

I have never been so glad to get home for a proper cup of tea something nice to eat and a comfy armchair.

The missing big river order turned up a while later so I could relax for a while. Later I phoed the old mans daughter down south to tell her what had happened earlier and I wasn't happy but neither was he. I did say again he would be better with or near famity as he is very unwell and vulnerable and told her my youngest dd is ECV and terrified of the virus. She hasn't picked up the virus at all because her GP and us have kept her safe with all the jabs and staying indoors. I don't even know if her father has had his jabs but he wanders around grabbing people and shouts. I have told her I wont speak to him again. I still wear a face mask outside but I've never seen him wearing one.

I've been thinking of the cost of landline calls down south far from this area. my eldest daughter  in Yorkshire always calls me from her mobile or emails so does my son in Cheshire. The two youngest dds living near me usually email.

I said I wont be contacting down south again but they need to check on her father.

He doesn't seem to realise he shouldn't be grabbing hold of people or shouting at them. I keep my distance but when he's angry he tries to grab my arm or shouts at me as I try to back away.

In the past two years two of the neighbours died with Covid. It isn't a big road. One a very good friend we met the day we both moved in to these newly built houses. I didn't try visiting her as she had heart and lung problems but we were phoning and emailing each other then everything changed . I never noticed her in the garden then a while back another neighbour told me she'd died with Covid which was quite a shock . Her daughter was a small child when we moved in in the 70s  and used to play with my youngest. She never let me know but turned up one day to put the house on the market. Sold it and never seen again..The other was older and someone I didn't know well as they moved    here long after we bought our houses in the 70s and were older than us.

I'm going to stop worrying about the old man. His family should be taking care of him. I don't know the history whether he lived here for years though it's only a few years since I've noticed him about. Not sure if he was from down south but his family haven't answered that question or the one about whether they moved from this area. He has a bad attitude so possibly difficult to live with.and they needed space We never know reasons why things happen.

I need to keep trying to get an appt at Boots for an eye test . They always did my eye tests and replacement reading  glasses but I'm sick of phoning for an appt.

It's been nearly three years now. A couple of years ago I resorted to buying a twin pair of reading glasses in Wilko. Not brilliant but did the job. A year ago one of the frames broke and now a lens has fallen out of the other pair so it's difficult to read with that pair.

My youngest dd has been having awful Dentist issues over the last few years.her wonderful dentist who was the school dentist took her in to his practice years ago when he realised she was in poor health with many meds that were damaging her teeth and had bad anxiety issues and her wisdom teeth needed to come out.

He took her in to his practice and the wisdom teeth were removed without any fuss which amazed us all . He remained her dentist over the years but retired shortly before the pandemic.

Phoning . messaging and emailing every NHS dentist in this area was a waste of time none were taking on new patients. Our GP began a search and the nearest one he could find taking on new patients was in Birkenhead many miles from home across the river Mersey and somewhere that had gone downhill over the years and a bit of a no go area.

She was in so much pain she started searching BUPA dentists in our town, The costs were eye watering but they were taking on new patients. All the years of 19 strong meds every month had damaged her teeth some crumbling away and others so painful she was living on soup.

The first dentist was lovely he understood anxiety and took things slowly and carefully. She needed implants so all the teeth needed to come out which happened a few at a time.. He was very gentle and explained each step as he went. She  was adament she would pay the cost but I said if you like I'll help you out . She refused the offer so I said I'll pay for your taxies there and back. She'd never travelled alone but was so determined to have the problem sorted she did.

All was going well then her dentist caught Covid and had to stay off work. She hadn't caught it but a while later he contacted her to say he wouldn't be back in the practise apologising for leaving her mid treatment. We never found out why he left but his replacement was horrible. Short tempered rushing things while not telling her what he was doing and pushing the anxiety buttons.

She informed them she was leaving and began another search. She emailed me saying she'd found another BUPA dentist nearby . My heart sank when she told me which. Years ago that practice had my eldest and middle dd as patients. i don't know if they were BUPA but they weren't normal NHS  dentists but private and very expensive. My two eldest dds were obsessive about their teeth but I began to notice each time they went there they had to make repeat visits at more expense for more treatment as a tooth had been chipped or the wrong ones filled. I told them both to find another dentist . There were plenty of good NHS dentists taking on patients back then and the one they were going to were causing repeat paying visits.

Both of them ignored me and went on paying a number of times for one filling or something else

They are a lot older than youngest so Iwasn't sure if that private dentist is still practising. They don't have a website which always seemed odd . Patients always had to phone. I did remember the name and address from years ago as they were near our local hospital. Had a look online and found the man and woman who used to be in charge are still there all these years on.

No doubt they're raking in the cash. They wouldn't acknowledge damaged teeth or wrong tooth all those years ago so I doubt they've changed.

When I spoke to youngest she didn't believe me although she must remember her older sisters problems as every appoinment they'd come home complaining  about the wrong treatment damaged teeth and the need to pay again.

She got quite stroppy so the only thing she has told me is they said it is going to be very long and expensive treatment. That doesn't suprise me as the older two were told the same thing when they first went there for a couple of fillings were overcharged and the wrong teeth were filled plus other teeth perfectly fine were chipped and needed more dentistry.

She's stopped talking about the dentist so I haven't mentioned it since.

I have enough to think about than arguing about robbing dentists. i really don't like ordering off the big river site. I have a lot of huge cardboard boxes to flatten for the recycling bin. Our local council have changed their collection days Royal Mail aren't delivering and I keep checking which days are bank holidays writing them down then forgetting where I wrote them.Time to put them in the diary which I'd normally do.

Now wondering if the big river site sell reading glasses it's difficult to read with only one lens.

I downloaded a book to my cloud a few days ago and can't read that without squinting.

I'd ordered the most recent Rebus book to her home for youngest a while ago but decided to try the ebook version for myself. I discovered many ebooks in my cloud when I ordered the Rebus one dating back many years through many laptops over the years.

All the way back to my beloved Dell laptop many years ago. Rhonda Hetzel in Australias books. Elaine Collier who used to post on mortgage free in three lots of craft books and Hygge and others. Elaine no longer posts on MSE so it was good to see her book.

Think it's time for a brew and a search for reading glasses. Sorry for rabbiting on . I hope all are well and I will catch up.

pollyx

Toni'sfriend

Welcome to May. Let's hope it's a bit warmer, drier and less windy than April! 

My Granny used to say "Wash your face in the May dew and you'll be beautiful all the year trough". Didn't work then and I don't think it would work now and besides it was too damn chilly this morning.

So:

• NSD No1 . Probably helped that it was a bank holiday and we avoided the shops.

• Bedding changed.

• Washing done and mostly dried outside and put away. Just a little to be finished off upstairs.

• Soup made using some sad looking carrots and bendy celery. That's tonight's dinner with some bread rolls decluttered from the freezer.

• Some pancakes liberated from freezer to have with a cup of tea before bed. Not conducive to weight loss but there are so many together with scones and apples pies etc in there that it's becoming imperative to use them up. (well that's my excuse and and I'm sticking to it).

• More boxes in the recycling.

• Larder tidied. Nothing thrown away because it will all be used but there's an awful lot in there.

• Planted up some basil and mint that I'd been "rooting" on the kitchen window sill. More greenery for the little "garden". Plants all watered. It's looking good.

• Started reading the first of the books last night.

Not too bad a day all things considered. Oncologist tomorrow. Fingers crossed. xxx

Shrewbie

Of course @pollyanna_26
Do you want a specific number? 

Esmeralda2662

Hi Shrewbie, please can i join in for May? I haven't posted much recently but like to read everyone's posts. Thank you!