NST March 2024: The Magic Roundabout

Starlight_at_Sea

@grandmanerd I hope your injuries are healing a stumble sounds scary. I join others in being quite excited and relieved there are possibilities to gain some space from the kid-ults and regain control of the sofa! I can understand the counsel about a bungalow but wonder if that is taking too many steps at once (haha) and if the house you are sorting out now offers an opportunity to try out a new way of living. 

@Chrystal welcome!  We are a very easy going bunch   Readalong and lurk, comment, share as much or as little as you like, we are here to encourage, chat about and be virtual friends especially at times when real life friends are a bit overwhelming and overwhelmed x 

apple_muncher

Thank you everyone for joining this month on the roundabout ❤️

Today I am grateful for waking up naturally, for my kettlebells, for the apple tree budding lots of leaves, for Pip being excited about bouldering, for dh hanging new shower curtains.

grandmanerd

Thanks for running March, apple, and April too

DawnW

Thank you for the March challenge @apple_muncher    

I have completely lost track of NSDs, but don't think it was far off the target. Today wasn't one as I bought a few groceries from the corner shop to take to my brother. I took them over to him this afternoon.

We didn't have a traditional Easter roast, as I am trying to run down the freezer. We had posh sausages with mixed veg mash (potato, sweet potato, carrot and swede), cabbage and gravy instead. It was yummy, and I made enough mash to have with something tomorrow as well.

I was working yesterday, and we were super busy, so took things fairly easy today. The weather wasn't too bad, we even saw the sun a couple of times. Still chilly though, and it is raining now, and from what the weather forecast says, for most of the coming week    

Looking forward to the new month, and hopefully some better weather!

Grateful for spring flowers, my garden and that my brother is keeping fairly well.

Thrifty_Taylor

Thank you for this month's thread @apple_muncher, & in advance for next month too! I've not done well with NSDs this month, don't think I've quite reached double figures. DS1 is in Aberdeen & nipped into H0bbycr4ft for me today, so I had a little spend there, but he used my £5 off voucher, which helped.

Happy Easter!

A dry day again, hung washing out, then walked 4.5 miles with DH. Read my book whilst eating my dinner (& recuperating!), then spent 3 hours painting a trellis.

Washed the dishes after tea, practiced Norwegian then had a bath. Did some if my jigsaw when I got out.

Grateful for a hot chocolate to warm me up after painting, a dry day forecast for tomorrow, stopping using a shampoo bar that made my hair feel 'clarted' & instead finding one same as a previous one in the cupboard that I liked

Starlight_at_Sea

Sneaking in to say thank you to Apple for this month and next! I did enjoy the magic roundabout references at the start of the month and have just revisited, diverting via wikapedia for a bit of magic roundabout history, in which I learnt there's another version coming out later this year, and there are many more french connections than I realised!

Successfully completed several odds and ends today, spent a bit of time at the flat power washing this afternoon - it has made such a difference - and all done while the electricity was cheaper too! I am sleeping there tonight with friends visiting. Dinner with one set of cousins and picked dad up from where he was with another cousin for dinner, so family time has been had, for which I am very grateful! 

weenancyinAmerica

@grandmanerd - Does your grandmother's home have a bedroom and bath downstairs for you? I would be concerned if all of the bedrooms are upstairs as I have read all of your posts, and you have had to request help taking things up and down the stairs quite often. If you are the only one there, you would need a place to sleep downstairs I would think so you don't have to go up and down. But getting away from DS3 and Beloved would be a very good move on your part - avoiding toxic personalities is best. Does your current house have a place for you to stay downstairs if you throw them out? I will admit starting in a place without all of their junk might be the best answer. I sometimes wish I could do that (okay, all of the time). Good luck in wherever you decide.

grandmanerd

Weenancy, both places are what we call 2 up, 2 down terraces - 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a lounge/ living room/ front room and kitchen downstairs. My house is 15' wide and about double that  back to front so the rooms are quite generous - probably the floor area is equal or better to many modern bungalows. The ones  I've looked at that I can easily afford are small, badly located and would drain the soul  out of me. The proper bungalows are in posher (more expensive) areas, very lovely but way beyond my pockets. There are occasional in-between ones, older but a bit run down, good square footage but so so location (built on pockets of land but sometimes adjoining rougher estates) would need work in nearly all the cases (probably been occupied by the same people since they were built - 1960s?). 

So at either house I would need a bed downstairs - probably a day bed or sofa bed with maybe a trundle and/ or storage underneath. I intend having a downstairs toilet (need to call in Mr and Mrs Builder to check on feasibility and options) and ideally a shower downstairs. This would mean I could go downstairs and stay there all day and sleep there too if I was too exhausted to make it back up the stairs or  had  an early appointment or delivery the next day. In both places I'd need a new kitchen (less urgent at grandma's house) and eventually the bath would need replacing with a walk in/ sit down shower.

I'm hoping I could have some covered space in the yard - a 'lean-to' greenhouse against next door's extension would be great. It won't get loads of light but would  mean I could potter in the garden even if it was raining and put washing out to  dry (grandma's house still has the old pulley airer - the one here was already gone in 1980 when I bought the house, like this  https://www.castinstyle.co.uk/product.php/285/traditional-kitchen-maid-pulley-clothes-airer?msclkid=74a17f6ec1441b39c73a194d54279b93) . Thiis woulld be easier than a washing line as it can be llowered for filling and emptying.

I'd need to work on social things as I could feel isolated but I think I'm getting too old for breaking up fights on the car park and the problems with the rented house are driving me up  the wall (trees, weeds, broken down back wall, ancient rubbish in the yard). I'd need to get myself organised and make the effort to go to film club and exhibitions, maybe one or two other activities. But my sons and their families could visit me there, so I could see more of them (too ashamed to let anyone in the house in it's present condition and they'd have a job squeezing between the furniture).

weenancyinAmerica

My house is that way. It wasn't before I started taking in the homeless or nearly homeless (2 of each). It was actually clean enough to invite people over. Now there is no room. Have to work on one of the roommates to clean her room so we can move the boxes in there. Now I just get frustrated with her most days. I can't move much myself because of health issues, but I am going to try. I want it cleaned up this summer. My father added onto this house - was four bedrooms and two bathrooms, but he added another bathroom and two bedrooms upstairs. One of the downstairs bedrooms became a large hallway for stairs going up and for stairs going down to the washer and dryer. We call it the "library" as it has built-in bookshelves but they mostly have our pantry on them and the books are in boxes instead. Still trying. Wishing you luck on figuring out what to do. It is hard.