Moving on

Cherryfudge

I ended up avoiding all admin jobs except a bit of receipt-logging. Most of the holiday expenses are one the app or on here and I think I might move them to the notebook in a different colour, so they can then go on the spreadsheet under 'holidays' - not forgetting to subtract something for the amount we'd usually spend on food. I have to admit though, that while I track that, I don't set aside an amount, so I need to go back to the spreadsheet and get it to talk to me about averages.

I do think the holiday went well financially, though. I still have around E65 and DH has some too, so I didn't even need to top up my travel card.

This afternoon has been a couple of hours weeding the garden and hacking my way down the lane at the back to try to create access for the green wheelie bin. Someone has put weedkiller at the far end, someone else has fly tipped some branches in the middle and it looks as though one place has dumped mortar or clay. What a mess! It's everyone's responsibility, and no ones. The mess is all at least a few weeks old, as the nettles and brambles have grown over it since.

In better garden news, I've rescued our spindly rhubarb plant and put it in a decent-sized pot, and sown 10 orange pips from Italy. It was lovely seeing the oranges and lemons on trees everywhere - even falling on the pavement as happens with apples here. I have no illusions that Yorkshire weather will create the same quality of fruit, but it's fun to try


Dh has bought another painting... mind you, he has some degree of turnover of them. He's also put some hooks under the stairs to store recycling bags and ear defenders.

Right, I'm off to make lentil and chorizo soup, and the rice pudding is already cooking.

Laura_Elsewhere

Rhubarb usually prefers ground to pots, but if it's a good sized one... but they adore sunshine and serious amounts of water, preferably in the morning or evening- I lived in a flat as a student in the 1990s which had a "garden" that nobody had looked at for years- I started ferreting around and found a rhgubarb plant, barely recognisable... stems the thickness of a pencil and an ugly yellow... I cleared round it and just put buckets and buckets of water on it and oh, it was rewarding to see it thrive!! 

Cherryfudge

That's worth knowing, @Laura_Elsewhere, thanks. In fact next door has a decent-sized rhubarb and I'd like to put mine in an equivalent place, but at the moment I'm still battling the ground elder invasion (this is going to be a long job) so I'd like to be sure the soil is cleared of that before anything permanent goes in.

What fun to discover the rhubarb while you were a student! If I remember rightly, you're now a guerrilla gardener? So what are you growing now?

Laura_Elsewhere

Oddly enough, there's a rhubarb plant... It's in full sun (good) but it doesn't get watered often enough (baaad...)- last year I nearly lost it so this year I've only had a few stems to eat and am letting it grow ginormous leaves to help the root recover- then it will be lots of watering in future during its main growth period and then mulching like anything! They like to sit with the crown just above soil level, and you leave a sort of six inch circle round the crown but mulch 3-4 inches thick for a good six inches all round that- Grandaddy taught me that, much like his rose treatment, ideally adding a 2" thick circle of well-rotted manure under the mulch! 

I have the little wild strawberries, the British native ones, not the Alpine ones- these spread by runner, not seed, and so they make fabulous ground-cover. I have a couple of roses, half-buried under lush green growth of everything! And Mr E built me a wonderful raised bed, about 8 foot by 5 foot, and we recently used coppice-poles to build a really sturdy frame: a tripod in each back corner, with a cross-pole joining them about six foot above soil level, and a couple of diagonal brace-poles across the back of the bed up to the cross-pole, and then a four-foot pole towards the front along each side, iyswim, and a diagonal pole from that to the tripod, to make sort of "wings" coming forward. So effectively I can now grow tall plants along the back, and medium plants along each side, with the middle having low plants. 
I plan runner beans up each tripod, and tomato plants at the sides and back (I didn't know til last year that a tomato plant grown in the ground can be five or six foot tall and still productive!), with patches of salad leaves (small areas sown successively) and spring onions in the middle. I have the perforated-plastic cones from inside cones of knitting-wool, which are no use to anyone for anything, but Mr E intelligently suggested I plant those, pointy-end down, and then I can use those for watering plants below soil-level which helps reduce watering, but also helps reduce weeds as the surface stays drier.
Along the front, I have chives, and will have parsley, lots of it, and also when I buy celery I plant the bottom two inches and it re-grows (narrow stems but distinctly celery, and lots of leaf, which is ideal for using like parsley, esp useful in winter as a garnish or in sandwiches - and free!). The corners at the front have pots of mint sunk into the ground. 

So I have the "kitchen garden" in the raised bed, and er, ahem, kind of flowers in the other flower bed (and rhubarb and a half-buried gooseberry and a whitecurrant...)- but being the waste-ground beside a coppice woodland, it is a constant battle and I really let it go last year, and then this year has been just so darn wet! The few days when I could have gone out and done lots have coincidentally been days when I was already tied up doing other stuff, so... 
Your asking has given me a bit more determination, though- I WILL get out there and get some clearing done for flowers! 

Cherryfudge

It sounds to me as if you have a really worthwhile garden there, @Laura_Elsewhere. Lots going on, and planned out, and some very constructive help from Mr E.

I like the yarn cones idea too: I have done similar but small with yogurt pots in hanging baskets. I melted a hole in the base using a lighted match to create drainage and it helps target the water to the roots.

Do you find the celery you've grown yourself is incredibly strong? Mine is... I can't work out if it's meant to be, or just because the stems are very thin!

Well, today I've been tired and can't work out why as I slept well. DH made dinner (chicken pie using up some freezer contents) then we went to the garden centre for our free hot drinks. It rained quite heavily later in the day so he gave me a lift to and from work. My Tuesday group wasn't meeting so I fitted in an hour and a half of paid work before a meeting of the church cleaning team. I don't think I managed a proper tea but DH saved me a cinnamon bun and I've been picking at junk food since... Good job I have porridge made for the morning to set me right again.

I've not spent anything today as far as I remember, but DH got himself some pastries and eye drops.

The rest of the evening has been spent pulling together some notes in the hope of being of some use to the debt advice people tomorrow.

Expenditure:
Medical about £5
Housekeeping about £2
Entertainment free (one Earl Grey tea and one hot chocolate free per month with garden centre loyalty card that cost £12. The tea was £2.45 and the hot choc was £3.35, so saving £5.80, or more accurately, as this is the second time we've done this and spent the same last time, we have 'saved' £11.60 set against the £12 spent for the card - so we've not actually covered our initial layout yet).

WelshmansDaughter

Small One has been watching snails lately and they move quite quickly. I was surprised 😂

Cherryfudge

I'm past the '2.30 slump' but will be going for rest soon before work.

This morning was okay - I feel I did better for my second client than for the first, who turned out to have an issue I'd not anticipated but thankfully I've been able to pass that info onto the manager who is better placed to help. I played to my strengths - putting them at ease - but I wish I'd got further with the good advice side of things! However, a small amount to work with for the time being is less likely to be overwhelming.

I called at the market on the way home: missed the £1 boxes of strawberries, alas, but for £1 each I got a bag of small apples, a bag of Conference pears, 3 bananas (65p) and a decent-sized punnet of blueberries, so I'm happy with those. Total £3.65. Then I got two bags of seconds of chocolate biscuits - must limit myself to one biscuit a day - for £1.50 each. Then it was on to Iceland where I was thinking of getting mushrooms but came back with four half price cinnamon buns instead. How did that happen? Two are safely in the freezer and one is safely in me.

So £8.15 spent on housekeeping.

I've finished the porridge from yesterday for breakfast and my share of the chicken pie for lunch, plus a bun and one of the choccie biscuits, so I've eaten well for very little outlay.

A lady from down the road just called in to offer us some tomato plants and as I haven't sown any at all this year, I was doubly delighted. One is going to DD who always used to enjoy surplus tomatoes from this lady very much.

WelshmansDaughter

There is a discrepancy in your cinnamon buns maths. 4 were bought and only 3 accounted for. 🧐

Watty1

WelshmansDaughter said:

There is a discrepancy in your cinnamon buns maths. 4 were bought and only 3 accounted for. 🧐

I dont think we are supposed to notice that

Cherryfudge

WelshmansDaughter said:

There is a discrepancy in your cinnamon buns maths. 4 were bought and only 3 accounted for. 🧐

Watty1 said:

I dont think we are supposed to notice that

Ha ha maths was never my strong point! In this case I freely admit... I gave it to DH.