Moving on

Cherryfudge

CC paid off last night and just as well as it had two hotel bookings on it and I wouldn't have wanted to pay interest on them.

Today has been very full. After dozing off in the bath last night I went to bed with damp hair, so this morning I washed it while DH was out taking the grandchildren to the library, then I joined them at the swings and we walked the back route to their house. That's a pretty little path that's much more countryish than the usual roads, and longer but it was yet another cloudless sky and the birds were singing so I thought that was a nice thing to do. Most of the afternoon was spent playing in their garden: N was put in charge of the sun cream and gave us all some, but she also spent time applying it to the soles of her feet. What it is to be three.

We called at Sains on the way home and I forgot to pick up a scanner so just put things through the till as usual, then realised my discounts hadn't been applied. The staff were very helpful and refunded me, then got me to scan the items and this time the discounts went through (giving us back 84p). It turns out some discounts only apply if scanned: the ordinary loyalty card doesn't add them. This used to be made clear on shelf edges, but apparently no longer is.

I had another bowl of the dark green soup for tea, so I should be very healthy!

This evening was the fourth session of my course, and was quite interesting.

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £4.10

Cherryfudge

Today is J's birthday so we visited them in the afternoon. The midwife called as we were about to have lunch so three of us took the dog for a walk to give her and J some peace and quiet, then had lunch later than planned but it was a good 'picky' selection which we enjoyed and gave us plenty of time to talk and hold the baby!

Other than that and work, I've done very little. I was nearly dozing in the car on the way home! I've managed to avoid the shops, though DH picked up some bits as our contribution to lunch, and he's also accepted the quotation for the work on the path, which I really hope comes to something.

Cherryfudge

Warm, sunny, fairly full-on day. There was only me to do the church cleaning: I knew I couldn't do all of it but it's a staffing matter that they are trying to address. I left the hoovering and mopping but did the rest, had a sit down in the afternoon then another two and a half hours at work this evening.

I got some groceries as there were Sains offers that I didn't wasn't to miss, and I've added some data to my phone.

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £12.92
Household £1.49
Phone £3

Cherryfudge

Another sunny day, and forecast to be hot! I still haven't got my summer clothes out of the loft but I have a few tee shirts and light tops that I kept out last autumn, so those will have to do for now. Two things I prefer only to do when not alone in the house: use the chain saw and go up the loft ladder!

I'll head down to the church soon and try to get the hard floors mopped and the smaller areas hoovered before this morning's group gets in. I had a quick look round yesterday and the large floor areas are passable. Others on the team have been helpful about what to prioritise and one has said she may be able to do some herself today. The difficulty is that the people with the most 'free' time seem to be the older ones who aren't up to manual work. It's us younger 'oldies' who are generally keeping this going, with the exception of one younger woman who comes and helps after her working day - laudable as she has a 6 am start. Yes, they are considering paying someone to come in, but that's a lot of hours to fund.

I decided against the car boot tomorrow, so DH is free to do his volunteering. I bought lots last week and I think all the things are 'keepers'. I don't need a lot more only a week later. Probably I don't need it at all. The book of Lebanese recipes is still sitting on the dining table waiting for me to choose one to start with.

Anyway, the washing needs to go on the line and I need to get myself moving.

Cherryfudge

And... I just saw on GreyingPilgrim's thread that Easter veg offers are about to happen, so I'm thinking freezer space!

Offers don't start yet.

I finished the green soup and have started on the spicy parsnip... still a couple of days' worth, but yesterday I treated myself to a single scoop of the ginger ice cream I made the other week. It was nice having a very tasty lunch and realising I'd made it all myself. I will get a few more berries out of the freezer for DH, but yesterday I added more fishcakes so that bit of space has gone. Having them in saves DH buying ready meals when I'm working. (He doesn't like parsnips, so no good sending him in that direction).

Looking at the lists released so far, we don't have an A1di and Sains/L1dl are very similar so I will be after Potatoes, swede, parsnips, carrots and possibly green beans. There are also spring onions but we never get through those. The swedes will go in that swede and lentil dish that turned unexpectedly yummy. Will find a link later but I really must get a move on now!

Cherryfudge

The morning's cleaning didn't go as expected. There was a meeting still going on when I arrived but the person who'd offered to help me was already there so we shut ourselves in an office and had a lengthy talk about the way forward with the cleaning team. She's offered to swap teams so I'm not working on my own, and there are still two on the team she's coming from. That will make a huge difference, though we will still probably be working alone and having to hand over to each other what's been done.

When the meeting finished I saw someone I know well and went to show off a photo of our latest grand daughter (and some of hers!), then realised the person I'd been talking to a few minutes ago was in distress. She'd just had a message with some bad news, so a couple of us tried to support her and of course she then needed to get home - so I ended up doing the job she'd just started as well as what I had in mind to do originally. Another late lunch followed...

I had a rest before work and another two and a half hour shift. On the way home I went to L!dl to use a discount that was about to go out of date - saved £1 but spent £16.35, and I've just noticed a yellow sticker price wasn't applied, grr.

Cherryfudge

I'm not getting a lot done this morning while DH is out at his volunteering. I've deleted some photos - just screen shots of shopping vouchers mainly. No point in clogging up storage with things that don't 'spark joy'! I've also messaged a couple of groups with admin stuff so I'm not entirely unproductive.

A bit of me feels like going for a (gentle) run this morning but I've not run in such a long time that I'm putting it off... would be great to get back into it as despite plenty of activity (17,000 steps yesterday), I'm not really raising my heart rate. I feel so much healthier than I did a few weeks ago so I think the virus is mostly gone: brain fog and tiredness seem to have resolved, I'm not getting light headed so much (maybe once a day if that) and I wasn't worn out by cleaning as I would have been even a week ago. So next stage has to be to build on this.

Other things to do: mow the grass, fend off the tide of ground elder, put receipts in notebook, find a recipe for tonight, do some of my course (I've not managed any recently apart from actually attending).

Cherryfudge

How’s that for a beautiful place to run? I just did the first session of Couch to 5k for the umpteenth time. I’ve done the whole lot in the past and on to 10k, but the app tells me I last did this one on March 22nd last year - so it was time to start from scratch again. I’m pleased to say I was okay with it so I’m aiming to do more in a couple of days. My route was the path shown, and round the rise of ground to the left, then back along the top of the field. There’s a place where the ground must have broken down a lot over winter as a dip has been filled with stones and there’s mesh as you go across a tiny bridge. I only just saw that in time and will watch out for it as it’s a bit of a potential hazard.

Here’s the blackthorn in the hedges. Laden! Perhaps it will be a good year for sloe gin? 😊 

rtandon27

Utterly loverly!  What an incredible view.

Cherryfudge

It's a lovely area and only five minutes from home, though we live in town. Near the edge of town, obviously! There was a lark singing and the ivy in the hedges was in bud. No hares, but perhaps it's a bit late in the year for them.

It's been the cheapest car boot day ever, as we went to neither. DH has filled up the car, though, and bought odd bits of groceries, taken some glass and a broken plant stand to the tip then came and helped me in the garden. I've mown the lawn and spent ten minutes on the dread ground elder. I read recently that the best way to conquer it is 'never let it see a Sunday'. I think it's won this round, though I did pull out two handfuls of roots when I moved the bird bath to clean it and the mower helps where it's in the grass.

DH got the chain saw out and sorted out the remaining pile of wood that was in the way, then helped me prune back some bits of next door's euonymus and honeysuckle that were getting a bit too far into our garden. Both are nice but have ideas above their station. That corner of the garden is looking neater now, and at the other side of the house there are some small pale yellow double daffodils just beginning to flower. They are doing well as I planted them late. I've lost the note of what they are: they look like 'Yellow Cheerfulness' but smaller and not scented. The pot next to them, I remembered, are Pheasant's Eye Narcissi. I also saw strong growth on eight of the nine garlics I planted about a week ago! I looked it up and it seems to be legitimate to plant garlic in spring, and to eat the 'scapes', which I'd never heard of but apparently are the flower stems before they flower.

One of my favourites, the bleeding heart vine (Dicentra), came into flower a couple of days ago and has a patch of violets round the base. That and other things I rescued from my parents' garden are all in tubs and I should think about dividing them this year as the soil must be exhausted, and I don't want to lose any.

Dinner was fish in batter with bulgar wheat, which I cooked with onion, tomatoes and peas. It was semi-successful - more liquid and longer cooking needed next time, but there's enough in the fridge to have cold tomorrow too.

I've also got a load of laundry washed, dried and ironed - and mostly put away. That included using eucalyptus oil to get bike oil out of DH's work trousers. Very MS as the stain was really obvious and we didn't want to have to replace them. Of course it leaves a faint scent of eucalyptus, but that's quite nice and fresh.

So it's been a cheap and enjoyable day. I've contemplated getting the G. World magazine for the garden discounts but really we rarely find ones we can use so I don't think I'll bother this year. At £10 for the magazine, I'd rather have the money! I will have to check for local discounts before I finally decide though, as J and L have suggested we visit a place near them and it might just be on the list.

P.S. I found my list: the daffs are indeed 'Yellow Cheerfulness'. I was sure they were bigger and scented! But they are a beautiful colour. Planted 15th of December, I think.