Moving on

Cherryfudge

I am entirely failing to engage with being useful this morning so it's time I pushed myself.

get dressed
make bed
Replace bird feeders that I cleaned yesterday
see if laundry needs to be done
go to shops

I got a three-day free family membership from Duolingo so I've been doing some of that. They often seem to time their promotions for when I'm busy and can't take full advantage of them, and all this has done is let me make a lot of mistakes with object pronouns... but at least I can keep practising without having to earn more lives.

Cherryfudge

I've got all the above jobs done except going to the shops, though I admit I went online and bought a couple of small gifts and a Christmas tee shirt in the sale. The gifts were 'grab it when you see it' things for a couple of people I always struggle to buy non-edibles for. The tee shirt - well only a fiver, 100% cotton so that ticks the boxes, and I'd been thinking I need more Christmassy tops for when a jumper isn't needed. I still have plenty of Fashion on the Ration coupons left so I will be looking in the sales again. I also checked for a really nice Christmas jumper I'd had my eye on for DH, but I can't find it now. Saving of £X.

redofromstart

I have five cats, but also a lot of regular birds on our feeders - mealworms, nijer, sunflower hearts. It took a few years for the birds  to add us to their routes and I always fill the feeders/make sure the birds have water. The RSPB advice used to be to feed the birds anyway, strength in numbers and they shout cat warnings to each other. 

Justcrackingonwithit

I think I need to make a start and put feeders out. My back garden is barren, no plants, trees or shrubs, so not a very exciting space. But I’ve got a lovely tree out the front so might put some feeders on that. I can see them from the lounge too, if they do come to visit! 

Seasidegal58

Finally caught up with your diary Cherry - from October!  Phew!  But very entertaining as usual!
I especially found the discussions on the Tesc0 coupons and the Lifebook really useful so thank you very much!😀👍

Cherryfudge

Justcrackingonwithit said:

I think I need to make a start and put feeders out. My back garden is barren, no plants, trees or shrubs, so not a very exciting space. But I’ve got a lovely tree out the front so might put some feeders on that. I can see them from the lounge too, if they do come to visit! 

That sounds like a very good idea. Give them a reason to come. It may take a while but keep trying.

@redofromstart, five cats - lovely! We always had cats when I was growing up but can't now due to allergies. My mum rescued a collared dove from the chicken run as it was just standing around oblivious to a cat, and put it in a cage indoors. She had the cat so much in awe of her that it would curl up on a blanket of top of the cage while the bird was beneath it and they ignored each other.

Dh was at work today (something odd going on with their rotas as he couldn't be sure till he got in that he was meant to be there) but unfortunately has set off the tachycardia again by running upstairs. It's been going all day so I really hope a night's rest puts it right. He's off now for Christmas.

A load of laundry was about to be pegged out when I felt the first rain, so it's on the airer and hangers, but at least it's done.

I made one of the three bags of parsnips into soup, which actually doesn't save any fridge space as the extra fluid counteracts the portion I had for lunch. I nipped into town before work and got some Marmite cheese for a gift but there wasn't really time to risk exploring further. I went again later for discount vegetables and got carrots and two lots of shallots from L1dl, and broccoli from Mr T as well as sundry other bits including nice juice (which will also take fridge space) and a spare couple of pints of milk - forgetting there's no milk-based hot chocolate anywhere to be found at present.

DH kindly gave me a lift back and cooked salmon for my dinner. Now I need to go and rearrange the fridge to get as much in as possible. Thankfully home made jams and marmalade will be fine for a couple of days on the larder shelf. This isn't forecast to be one of those Christmases where cold storage can happen in the garden. 

Expenditure:
Gifts 16.74
Housekeeping £11.01
Clothing £6.00

Cherryfudge

Seasidegal58 said:

Finally caught up with your diary Cherry - from October!  Phew!  But very entertaining as usual!
I especially found the discussions on the Tesc0 coupons and the Lifebook really useful so thank you very much!😀👍

Just cross posted with you @Seasidegal58 - thank you for your tenacity! I've started to fill in the Lifebook now. Some of it feels slightly dated and made me realise how changes slip in. There are no accounts with local shops - there used to be the milk man but he gave up. There's the window cleaner, but no newspaper account. I can't fit all my bank accounts on the page so it will be names of banks and hope the other details will enable the banks to find my accounts. I'll have write neatly to get all my medications in, but much of the rest of that page isn't relevant at present. The oddest thing was listing my children as 'Mr, Mrs, Mr'!

Cherryfudge

Credit card paid up to date though there's one payment pending. Payslips are in too: mine is looking fairly healthy, very healthy if you consider I'm on relief hours only. Pay isn't in till 31st.

I've also (finally) got back to updating my list of stocking fillers so I can see where we stand. The pressure is off as we aren't exchanging these till next week, so I will undoubtedly be doing a bit of end-of-week gift buying.

Sun_Addict

I read somewhere that if you usually put out food for birds then stop doing it or forget the birds are disappointed. There was a blackbird and a robin hanging around on our patio yesterday and I realised their food had run out. Once replenished they dived straight on it. We have two cats but it doesn’t seem to put off the birds, although we have plenty of trees for them to shelter in. 

Cherryfudge

Our wild birds are like a lot of MSE-ers! They keep an eye open for a good deal and flock (literally) to the bird table at certain times. There seems to be a mid-morning slot and an after-lunch slot and the later prepares them for the night, apart from blackbirds who, I assume, are shift workers dropping in late on the off-chance of yellow-stickered items.

Yesterday there was a pair of collared doves on the food for a while. They used to hang out down the road so presumably one of them had spotted this 'shop' and they decided to have a nosey round for anything interesting.