Moving on

rtandon27

On the gardening front - my own needs a bit of work, but I've not been able to devote time this spring.  Suddenly decided to to 10 min burst of activity yesterday throughout the day & the view out our dining/living room window is almost acceptable - the rest of the garden is a jungle, but the patio and potted plants are almost tidy!  1/2 the chitted potatoes are planted in potato bags and the other half will get tackled today - it's just amazing how much of a difference a small amount of effort makes!

Cherryfudge

Go you, @rtandon27! That's great. I still have potatoes struggling in a bag with no soil... at least I bought a potato-planter the other day. Having a nice area, even if it's a small one, does wonders for the look and feel of a place.

We are both tired today: DH had stuff to do for a couple of church things and I think I'm just getting over yesterday. I really am not looking forward to getting the house 'guest ready', though there's only the guest room in need of serious attention (only!)!

I decided to type up my notes which is taking ages of course, but the reminder is useful before I forget what I meant, and it's serving as revision. One of the others had the bright idea of taking one of those pens with four colours and his notes are not only neat but colour-coded and some bits have fancy margins. I can't write that fast! However the typed version has the course notes on the left and personal or group comments on the right, and I've added green for books and apps, and red for things that are personal to my situation. I've only just got as far as the second part of the morning, though, so I can't promise I'll finish.

I took a break and tried to have a sleep but I didn't actually manage to nod off so I came downstairs and have been alternating playing computer games with typing. Dinner was roast chicken, so I'm properly fed apart from the rhubarb cakes - I think the rest will get thrown out, though I may nibble the topping. I've lent my friend a book we discussed, borrowed off a mutual friend 20 years ago and I've lost touch so I couldn't return it. Perhaps it will get to go home now! That doesn't create much more space but at least it's back in use. I've not spent anything though DH bought milk and eggs.

And it's been cool with quite a lot of cloud, and even a tiny spot of rain this morning. We need a few days of light rain to soften the ground but from what I remember, that's not what happens. The weather breaks with a  vengeance and the water runs off the hard soil. These clouds look like ordinary rain, though, so we may yet get back to green grass. At least we've not needed to mow for a couple of weeks.

Cherryfudge

Last week's list all got done apart from updating timesheets.

This week's plan is:
Monday - work in the evening and take bras to bra bank. Look at client notes for Wednesday. Timesheets.
Tuesday - Class in the morning. Look after the GKs in the afternoon. Possibly meet friends for pizza at mine in the evening?
Wednesday - Wednesday job. Get some recycling done: pens to Ryman's, batteries somewhere that sells 'em, and see if I have enough to qualify for the Boots recycling voucher (I think five items to their specialist recycling plus a £10 spend gives a £5 voucher, so unless there's something we need from Boots, I might leave that for now). Ironing. 
Thursday - help at Toddler Group. Work in the evening.
Friday - Church cleaning, friends coming for weekend.

Obviously that's heavy on the early part of the week but some of those are small jobs and can move later if necessary.

Last weeks 'fit in somewhere' jobs were:
Course work - progress made though I've to fit in the backlog at some point!
Looking up things that the team don't have access to but need to know (allergies etc. for the children we have on a Sunday) and re-reading some stuff for the Wednesday job.
Garden - at least 15 minutes a day, whether that be general weeding, mowing grass, watering tubs, battling the ground alder or potting on things that have outgrown their pots.
Tidy and clear in the spare room
Shampoo carpets - two stains have resisted recent cleaning.

The guest-readiness needs to happen this week, the course work can pause if necessary, garden work needs to continue but at least I put some good chunks of time in there. (None today).

Now we have the new printer I should be able to look up the info for the children's group and make a copy inside about half an hour, then take it in on Thursday.

rtandon27

Such a great weekly roundup & way forward! Hope there is time to rest in between the activity!

Cherryfudge

rtandon27 said:

Such a great weekly roundup & way forward! Hope there is time to rest in between the activity!

I hope so too! Looking at it with a weekly overview is proving useful - I have a checklist not only of the scheduled activities, but also the ones that need to be done sometime. A few times I've looked back at last week's daily list and been reassured that I'm on track. Things may well be in the diary but often the regular events don't get written down because I know I'll be doing them, but that adds to the vague feeling of 'a lot to do'. Analysing and writing down gets me past that. This time I rearranged some Monday things because it was getting filled with lots of bitty stuff.

Now, according to one weather forecast, it's raining lightly. Once again, I'm seeing cloudless sky, and it's supposed to get a bit warmer than yesterday. The washer is on. DH has gone back to work. Time to... have breakfast.

Cherryfudge

Basic timesheets now done. I realised I was shrinking from things that involved logging in as a different user but I could do this through my laptop so I did. Last month's claim is submitted and two new timesheets opened, one for each relief job. I've still to brave my TA laptop as I can't remember how to fill in the separate accountability for that post which is classed as flexi time for some reason. I do need to do that though - or no pay! 

Cherryfudge

How things have moved on since this morning! Tomorrow has been significantly rearranged.

I spent an hour on the garden, mostly weeding what was the dense patch of ground elder. The new fork is very helpful: the ground is really poor and riddled with roots, bit of plastic, rocks and, as I got a bit lower, a stone slab and a small tree stump. Those had been under the small wall I made along the edge of the area.

Despite all that work, only about a square meter has been cleared, and I think there are more roots yet to find. I was very detailed though: lots of tiny bits of plastic have been binned and the stones, potsherds and roots are separated out. I saw a tiny frog and relocated him to the ground level bird bath which has islands for him to sit on or under, and plants to shelter him.

The cleaned soil has been mixed with compost and used to start a potato bag.

I had a walk into town and got some groceries, had my glasses repaired and put the defunct pens and batteries in recycling. That saves a tiny bit of space on the kitchen window sill, and some headspace too.

I'm not sure where the day went, but I had two and a half hours at work and fully expected to be up latish preparing for the class tomorrow. However, the person I was going to support is poorly, so I can go to bed without revising basic spreadsheets, and get up with a bit more time than expected.

I also heard from my friend to say she's working tomorrow so we can't do our pizza tea, which is a shame as I've not seen my Tuesday group in a while. On the other hand, it means I get Tuesday evening to prepare for Wednesday morning.

DH had an email from 'path guy' that sent us into a spin: we thought he was ringing us to discuss plans but he was talking about starting tomorrow! We just aren't ready! That's now been put off till Wednesday morning. Meanwhile my work laptop was playing up but thankfully a restart fixed it. I'm therefore down to one login still to be braved.

DH heard from his cousin that his auntie (not the one who sometimes stay with us but the one down south) has been hospitalised and may need to go into a care home. That's very sad: she has been declining for a while so it's not entirely surprising, but very hard for her husband and daughter.

Now I must get some sleep.

Expenditure
Housekeeping £13.36
Pets £2
Garden £4
Phone £0.99

Cherryfudge

I have an hour or a little more that I didn't expect to have this morning, due to the class not needing me. Into that I have to cram what I can to get ready for the path to be replaced, and I need a plan.

1.  Mow the grass at the front because it needs it and is soon to be covered with plant pots.
2. Water around the little apple tree - might try to move it tonight!
3. Start moving pots away from the area that will be broken up
4. Water things.
5. Take the washing line in tonight, first having washed the guest bedding as I'm not sure when it was last done.

Cherryfudge

Mission accomplished! I got the lawn and laundry done before meeting DH and the children, spent the afternoon (so hot!) with them then back home for chicken and chorizo pasta before working till dark to get the various garden tasks done. The detail of that is here.

I texted tomorrow's client, praying she would somehow cancel, and she did! I would have gone in to see her tomorrow but she's asked to do next week instead, which actually gives me a bit of time to do the work I should have done with her data. I was able to remind her of a couple of things we'd discussed and I'm pretty sure she'd not looked at them either, so this is another chance for that.

I'm so relieved not to have to go to that appointment tomorrow! There's just too much to do at present. It freed this evening for me to work and it means I can be there most of the time while the workmen get started tomorrow, rather than struggling to make a decision in the time before I had to be there. As DH says, I work best under pressure. He did try to help but he's set his back off picking up the children, and he has to be able to work tomorrow. He also had two consultant appointments, but one turned out to be an error (12 weeks instead of the recommended 12 months).

Tomorrow's plan now looks like this:
Meet the workmen, discuss what path to install
Touch base with the Wednesday job
Put out feelers for the Sunday morning team to cover a gap
Check if the person interested in assisting on the Wednesday job has seen my email yet
Do more ironing (DH has been valiantly battling it).
Any other stuff I can't now think of - oh, that would be making the guest room nice, then.

Cherryfudge

Amazingly, I got the above list done. Yesterday seems a long time ago.

The workmen arrived and I explained what I wanted, so that's all been agreed. They intended to use the lane around the back to carry equipment and rubble but the snicket is overgrown so they had to go through the house, but they were very good about it. The work started with the concrete slab by the back door, which they made short work of but discovered there's a fragmented land drain underneath it. As this is the area that is awash in a rain storm, I've agreed for them to make a new soakaway and replace the pipe, which they'll do tomorrow. It will add to the cost but should reduce the risk of water damage to the house.

On the other side of the house I dug and pulled up lots of plants that had spilled over the path. It's sad to let them go but I have saved lots too and had a bit of a moment of clarity that there are too many of some.

I went into the office to touch base and to the shops on the way home, where I picked up a couple of discounted shallow planters for some of the rescued irises and a zip up storage bag to store more of my winter clothes. 

I really didn't get much done in the afternoon apart from putting winter woollies in the bag and making up the guest bed. Dinner was liver, bacon, fried onions and mushrooms with potato/sweet potato/beans according to who was eating. Afterwards DH gave me a lift to L1dl for compost and I planted up the new planters with irises. There are so many left over that I've filled two bags and watered them in the hope of finding people who want free irises.

We've paid the deposit for the materials so the path guy can put the foundations in tomorrow. At present we have a narrow strip of the old path so we can get to the car, and the old concrete step into the kitchen is gone as if had never existed, leaving a bit of a reach to get indoors, they've made us a makeshift step so we aren't marooned!

Expenditure:
Garden £1,307.97
Housekeeping £8.75
Household £2.99
Gift £1.99