Moving on

Sallyforth

Many congratulations on your new baby by granddaughter - such lovely news x

KeepOnKnitting

Congrats on being grandparents again. I hope everyone is settling in smoothly.

Cherryfudge

Thanks everyone! We visited yesterday afternoon: lovely to have a good chunk of time with them all and get to cuddle the baby! They will probably go home today: I think I'm turning into my mum, who I can remember encouraging me to stay in hospital as long as possible to get some rest! I wanted to be back at home but I think my own daughter is making the advice work for her.

Nothing spent yesterday... didn't get the book. I did manage a bit of laundry and a few minutes battling the ground elder in the garden, and in the evening went to my church group. Dinner was tuna pasta.

This morning - another beautiful day. I had a text to say I was expected at work last night, so I've apologised. I've no idea why I said I could work Wednesday but not Thursday when I always do Thursdays, but anyway I'm now working this evening instead. Possibly something to do with typing in a hurry and my phone putting in a pattern of alternate days?

Cherryfudge

This morning was the last Toddler Club before the Easter break of two weeks, and one of the families brought roses for us helpers. Wasn't that nice? Red, dark pink and white - they look lovely in a vase by the hearth.

Afterwards I did a bit of tidying up in the room the toddlers use so we can tick that off the cleaning team list. We are now officially understaffed, so a bit of time today makes it easier further down the line. There's one day every three weeks where I'm the only one available, but DH's team, who were cleaning tonight, have come up with another possible rota which would mean I was only on in a pair with someone.

I also had a bit of time to sort out resources for the pre-schoolers this coming Sunday, as I'm leading. I've not planned the story part yet but I've got an idea which way it's going.

As I was in the right part of town for a Sains trip, I had a look at the app and took advantage of some offers (still resisting pastries, though chocolate and biscuits have sneaked back in - but in general I'm feeling well on my lower-cholesterol diet and am aiming for weight loss too). Wandering back through town I found a couple of small future gifts in charity shops which will ease the bills come December or birthdays as well as being just right for the people I have in mind.

I was quite proud of myself as it was lunch time and I was getting hungry - so I  bought yellow-sticker mushrooms to nibble! Almost no calories, no fat or sugar, but nice! The rest will go in the freezer.

Dinner was the Spanish-style stew from the other day with brown rice. It's really filling.

The afternoon was supposed to be course work but I forgot and did another session on the ground elder and, now the green bin has been emptied, trimmed the holly hedge. I ran out of time to mow the lawn before work, which was two and a half hours.

Expenditure:
Gifts £4.95
Housekeeping £10.21

Cherryfudge

I woke up early (for me), worrying about how I'm going to manage on my solo slot on the cleaning rota so I've sent off an email to make the situation clear, though how they are going to conjure volunteers out of nowhere when we've had no new ones for a while, I haven't worked out. Then I had a Sunday rota problem to sort out but thankfully that's improved now.

A load of washing is done. Oh I could get used to so much sunshine, even if it means I have to water the plants. Talking of plants, I had ten minutes fighting the ground elder today. Would you believe there are new leaves in the area I hacked back the other day? I then potted up a lot of cuttings that had been sitting round the house. There are two large pots of houseplants for the room where we have the children's meeting, though perhaps I'd better wait till I know they're growing before I leave them there. There are nine cloves of garlic planted - aren't you supposed to plant them on Boxing Day or something? But these were quite old and it was plant or throw, so nothing lost if I don't get a harvest. There were also some geranium cuttings, three of which were still alive, so they're planted. The other year I had pots of red geraniums either side of the shed door and it would be nice to recreate that look.

It's been great having enough energy to do these things. I'm definitely on the mend. Still slightly light headed but better than I was.

I took a leaf from @Sun_Addict's book and made the nutty sweet potato and lime stew again. It's so good! It also finished up a bag of sweet potatoes that have been hanging around for ages. I was working by the time DH got in so we didn't eat together. He had a fishcake so there's lots of stew left for other meals. He was out to a fund raising talk this evening and had to take a cake, some of which came back and I had a slice. That set off a milder version of a really odd reaction I've had a couple of times since the virus: when I have cake, it sets off a tingle deep in my throat. This isn't the sort of thing that makes you cough, it's more as if it's being tickled inside. I can still feel it a couple of hours later.

I had another two and a half hours at work and called at the supermarket on the way home for onions and coconut milk. I managed to spend £8.56, so obviously I bought more than the original plan.

Cherryfudge

Car boot again this morning, and I bought so much that I've stayed home rather than go with DH to another this afternoon! Instead I have the second lot of laundry churning away, including some of my 'finds'.

Travel kettle to replace the one that died on us £2
Terracotta plant pot 50p

Two pairs of casual trousers (cords) £1.50
one jumper £1.50
one summer top 50p

I've not tried any of these on so they may not be keepers. 

Too many books! :
Round Ireland with a Fridge (Tony Hawks) 50p
Super Grains (Jenny Muir) 50p
The Healthy Lebanese Family Cookbook (Mona Hamaden) 50p
River Cottage Everyday Hugh FW) 50p

My total spending was therefore £8. DH bought a couple of collectables, total £6.

I'm most excited about the Lebanese cookery book. There are a few things there that I want to try. First I'm going to have a rest and read funny stories about travel in Ireland, as we're going there in May.

in_need_of_direction

Which part of Ireland are you visiting?

Cherryfudge

in_need_of_direction said:

Which part of Ireland are you visiting?

County Down - exciting as I've never been before! It's only a short break as we need to fit in between child care and other things, and we've booked overnight on Scotland en route to give ourselves a more relaxed journey (by ferry and car).

Yesterday I was fighting a sinus headache and struggled to get down to the things I needed to do but I'm pleased to say I've sorted the Sunday morning rota bar one slot, up till the summer break. Phew. Then I did what I could with the prep for this morning's session (colouring in a Roman Centurion at 1am probably says a lot about me). Yet it all went fairly okay today.

I forgot the bag with the two plants I'd intended for the window of the room where the children meet, so that can happen at some other point. I'd had an emergency offer of help. We normally have one leader and two helpers per session but are so short of people that I only had one helper and knew I'd have to ask a parent to stay with their child. Then my helper took ill the other day and a member of the other team with the right clearances offered to cover. Then he and his wife did a swap so she came to help, as did a regular parent-helper who I can't count towards staffing numbers as she doesn't have the right paperwork. However, she'd just emailed me to ask about sorting this out - yippee! Then the other Mum (the one who had swapped tasks with her husband) also mentioned that she and her husband are willing to be asked to help. So I potentially have new helpers, though nothing can happen till the paperwork side of things is done, and I can only do a certain amount towards that.

Anyway... so there I was with three adults (the third being someone's grandma who stays with the grandchild) and half a dozen children, which should have been fine except that three other families arrived late with more children and I had to stop marching my Roman army up and down the basement (I rather enjoyed the power ) and let the others pick up the reins while I sorted out the new children. Then I realised we needed to ask another adult to stay to get the adult/child ratio right as some children were quite tiny. Well, that fell on the shoulders of a regular leader who was actually supposed to be on another team but covered so long as someone could take over from her to let her get back to her place in time. And as it happens one of the children then fell over a toy so I handed her the accident book to fill in, not having seen it happen myself. She was muttering about not even being on duty, poor woman, but it really helped to have her.

And the activity went quite nicely in the end.

For dinner we finished our sweet potato stew and in the afternoon DH went on a walk or a bike ride or something and I slept till nearly five. It took a while to wake up after that but I've mown the grass and spent twenty minutes weeding, and this evening DH was out so I searched the fridge and freezer and turned lots of odds and ends of vegetables into soup. There are therefore officially no wilting things in the fridge and no bags of unlabelled greenery in the freezer. The first soup is very green, but I've cheered myself up by remembering that all soups taste good with cheese on. The second is spicy parsnip - amazingly I had two bags of parsnips left over from Christmas, and they were edible as there was enough moisture trapped in the bags for them to form small roots and leaves! In other words, absolutely fresh and growing, though I wouldn't put money on it as an infallible way of preserving them. There was even enough fridge space for bother containers tonight.

Nothing spent, and I hope I sleep after that extended nap earlier.

Cherryfudge

I woke up early this morning to a frosty lawn and a heat detector bleeping for a new battery. We didn't have the right type in so I'm going into town later for that, along with a short list of things like milk that we've used up and a birthday card.

Other than that, I want to

• update my timesheet and send off last month's
• try the soup (wish me luck!)
• do some gardening including rescuing some blue geraniums so I can dig out where the ground elder is spreading
• ironing
• put the Sunday rota up on the official site (no objections received)

Cherryfudge

All the above got done, apart from the gardening. I've also finally bought a replacement bulb for the standard lamp - weeks ago I discovered the recommended ones are no longer made but there's an LED equivalent. However, neither the lamp nor the heat detector is back in service as the detector won't stay in place on the ceiling and the lamp only came on briefly. Going to have to look at both in the light of day, especially as the mains have to be off to refit the heat detector.

The soup was quite passable with cheese on, and really filling.

I worked for three hours this evening, and last month's time sheet is completed and sent off. Now I'm too tired, thanks to the bleeping alarm, to add up what I spent so that can wait for tomorrow. It's not going anywhere - though that reminds me, I need to pay off the CC.