Moving on

Cherryfudge

Sun_Addict said:

Did you find out about the rice and wild birds? 

Thanks for the reminder! I've just looked it up and several sources (I nearly put 'sauces') say they can, though not salted, spiced or fried rice. The conditions in a bird's stomach are apparently not hot enough or wet enough to make it swell. Brown rice is best. That reminds me, last summer I was wondering about the church eco group putting out a bird bath on the bit of land they're reclaiming. We got some pollinators last year and when I was watering in dry weather, they used to like something to drink from, even if it was just a scrap of plastic bag from an adjacent abandoned piece of land. I'm sure over time we could encourage birds, too.

I think I'd like that corned beef dish your mum made. I love pastry... And it sounds like comfort food.

redofromstart

The bird (and hedghog) related stuff I read was that when everything is frozen fresh water is more useful than food so I now always defrost our bird bath and put out tubs of water where we feed them.  

Cherryfudge

That's good to know thanks, @redofromstart. I bought a big shallow plant dish for a bird bath and noticed them using it to drink from but it also froze over easily so I went out with the kettle a few times. If this wind continues, I might have to top up the water levels!

It's so mild! I woke up early and stayed in bed reading but eventually got up and was all ready to chase up yesterday's email. That was a saga that lasted much of the day, on and off, but was thankfully resolved satisfactorily. I received a call late in the afternoon from one of the women who interviewed me, wanting to discuss my start date. I explained the situation and she checked the paperwork and assured me I was cleared to start. At about the same time recruitment sent me an apology, explaining it was due to 'system error', which I suspect is fudge for 'human error'. Anyway, I start on Friday.

I was quite tired all morning and a bit cold so I didn't go out with DH to take DGD to the toddler group. After lunch I went back to bed and slept, since when I've felt better, so it was probably tiredness making me cold. I will have to measure myself out in future weeks so I don't get too revved up while the Monday classes are on.

Having had no exercise, I headed off to the shops late in the afternoon for some more coffee and ended up spending £15 on things, especially crispbreads as there's a good offer on some wheat-free ones. Those are now in the 'emergency' cupboard. I then talked DH into a short walk to enjoy the mild air while we have it (13 degrees). This evening it's stormy again but I went to my friend's for tea and we had our study as planned. Was very glad of lifts there and back as it's wet and blustery now.

I just remembered I hadn't ordered H's birthday present, so that's now done with a nice discount for signing up for emails. I'll get her some chocolates or something too - she's definitely got the 'Mum' syndrome of spending on the girls not herself so she has a body spray (that DGD1 will undoubtedly try, despite being all of 2 years old) in the hope it will give her a lift when used.

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £14.95
Gift £24.75.

Cherryfudge

Today looks like being bright, mild and breezy, so the first thing is to check if I need to to laundry.

I also looked round me this morning and saw how untidy things have got over the last few days, so there's work to be done there.

Admin-wise, I need to try out some of the maths I need for next Monday, go through the induction paperwork for the cleaning job and see what courses are outstanding for the TA job (need to be done at some point and I do get paid for the time!) I probably need to synch diary, calendar and WhatsApp messages as there are a few things people have mentioned that haven't made their way into the the diary.

On the back burner are the dyslexia course with Futurelearn and choosing a starting course with proofreading, but I want to tidy the bitty things out of the way, after which perhaps A Plan is in order.

At some point I need some exercise, so I'll walk into town while the weather is nice and get a card for H as well as visiting the eco shop to top up on a couple of ingredients - and we're going to J and L's for dinner tomorrow so I need to check I have ingredients for the pudding I've promised.

Then if there's prep to be done for anything else... I might just get the bullet journal out again to keep track of things.

Cherryfudge

I had lots of energy this morning, so there's a lot of washing done, including hand washing, and I've picked up twigs off the garden and checked the back lane for fallen branches (only odd bits found). Then I went to get some more washing up gloves and found there's been a mouse in the cleaning cupboard. It seems a very clean beast as it's eaten it's way through quite a lot of stain remover soap! Annoyingly, it's also eaten along the edge of a roll of kitchen compost bags, so those are probably fairly useless. I've thrown away some bits like the old toothbrushes that were used for cleaning odd corners, and the cupboard is clean again, though I'm going to have to wipe down each item before it goes back. Grr. Anyway, after a few days of no perceived mouse activity, we're back to the trap, but this time it will be under the sink.

At least I'd done the dishes and had clear surfaces before finding out about our intruder.

Before this diversion, I went to get salmon out of the freezer and can't find any. Not blaming the mouse, I hasten to add, we must have used it all. There's a big block of sausages defrosting now. Why didn't I separate them before freezing them? We will have some in toad in the hole again tonight, and I'll casserole the rest: half for Friday and half for the freezer.

Admin-wise, my cleaning contract has come through so the next job is to review and accept it. Hopefully I will have some energy left to do some of the other paperwork before the day's out.

Onebrokelady

Weird mouse 😀  Congrats on the job as well 😊

liselle

Ah perfect spot to leave a cupful of bleach……!

Sun_Addict

Oh no not another mouse 🙁 They really like your house don’t they. It’s a shame it’s not a tidying up mouse - did you hear about the bloke who has one in his shed that tidies up? 

Good news about the job start date, hope it goes well. 

Cherryfudge

Onebrokelady said:

Weird mouse 😀  Congrats on the job as well 😊

Thank you. There's no accounting for taste, Mr Mouse.

liselle said:

Ah perfect spot to leave a cupful of bleach……!

Now I'm stuck: I want to get it caught and deport it to some field edge somewhere, but the bleach might drive it to another part of the house... Perhaps I should put the bleach in the cupboard and the trap by the bin where we've caught two others.

Sun_Addict said:

Oh no not another mouse 🙁 They really like your house don’t they. It’s a shame it’s not a tidying up mouse - did you hear about the bloke who has one in his shed that tidies up? 

I wish I could attach a tracker to see whether it's a returnee! Thankfully they seem to be just at one side of the kitchen and prefer soap to food, but the lower food shelves are tins so it probably doesn't appeal. I did see the tidying up mouse - it really put some effort in, didn't it!

Sun_Addict said:

Good news about the job start date, hope it goes well. 

Thank you!

Cherryfudge

The contract is signed and sent. Job's mine. It may sound odd to be looking forward to it but it's a relatively undemanding role in which I won't have to deal with people too much, and certainly won't bump into the guy who was the beginning of the end of that long-term post. I still keep a look out for him in crowded situations - and generally I'm not easily scared. I used to be the one who went with a colleague who thought they heard a ghost/intruder, as it didn't bother me. Anyway, he won't be in this building.

I'm still muttering opprobrious epithets (to quote Dorothy Sayers) about the organisation, though. The payslips were published today and four fifths of mine has gone straight into tax. I bet it's being taxed as a second income, I've had that before. Email time again tomorrow. 

Shopping today was a card for H, some dehumidifying sachets (and I got the wrong ones so will try to think of an ingenious way to adapt them) and some veg. Dinner was toad in the hole and ratatouille.

Expenditure:
Gift 99p
Household £5.49
Housekeeping £2.82.