Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

rtandon27

@Cheery_Daff - I completely understand why MrCheery is not impressed!  My OH would have been livid as well.  We live in a town now with regular waste disposal services and our 'neighbours of the plastic grass' insist on burning their paperwork at least once every quarter.  They always pick a weekend day that everyone else in radius of the smoke would like to be outside!

Queen_of_the_Hive

Cheery_Daff said:

beanielou said:

Cheery_Daff said:

Oh, and I also didn't mention that current building closes this month, new one doesn't open til September 😂😂

So what do you do between now and September 🤔

Work at home! Or in the library, or a random desk elsewhere (they're allowing us to use someone else's hotdesking room I believe, which just feels weird 😂).

Thank you for all your suggestions. I may very well end up with a wheelie suitcase, although right now I favour an old fashioned 4 wheeled shopping trolley 😂😂 and neither are practical on a bike 😂😂 I'll likely end up parking further out and cycling or walking in (and I don't think many wheelie suitcases will stand an hour a day of walking city streets - I'm not sure my nerves will stand it either). 

I'll likely settle on a rucksack, as I have now 😂 But with a smaller charger, smaller notebook, more organised packing etc, and maybe a little pencil case and a little toiletries bag. I've got the summer to consider it anyway!

Hey Cheery, am often on the road too with WFH. I too find a rucksack the easiest. Have one set up and ready to go. Something to consider is getting yourself a storage bag for all the electricals, plugs, mouse, headset etc. Have done this myself and its really handy as its easy to loose a cable here and there. 

rtandon27

@Cheery_Daff - I completely agree with @Queen_of_the_Hive 's comment about a storage bag for bits!  My work rucksack is filled with pouches to corral the mess!  Most of them were freebies from 'gift with purchase' so very MSE.  One for cords & chargers, one for assorted glasses, one for toiletries & make-up & finally a clear zippy for hand-sanitizer, herbal travel tablets, plasters, tissues, dental bits & things I reach for a few times a day whilst commuting.  I like that when everything has a home I'm less likely to loose bits or have to dig to the bottom of everything to find that one elusive thing that's trying to escape!

Cheery_Daff

Thank you @Queen_of_the_Hive and @rtandon27 I will definitely be needing little bags within bags (possibly an opportunity for a bit of crafting!)

Thank you also for your sympathy for Mr C re the neighbours. I'm afraid I haven't been as sympathetic as I could be... (partly because I could sense a pattern with what happened with our previous neighbours, and can forsee years of emotionalness and disaster 😬). He's trying not to spiral about the neighbours, and I'm trying not to spiral about his reaction, and quite frankly we are providing no comfort to each other 😬

Sadly another tree is down this morning, and another fire. There's a big digger digging up the garden. I'm hoping the fires will stop once the trees have gone at least 🙄 but anticipating a good while of building site and then goodness knows what 🙄

Could be worse, we're not super close after all, but...

Anyway, I am now at a small local event, and Mr C is in the car in a lay-by 🙄 Hoping by the time we meet again we will be marginally more cheerful, or at least one of us will! 😬 

Cheery_Daff

Mr C dropped me near home and disappeared off, and still hasn't returned. No new burning since this morning, but this fire's still smouldering and everywhere still a bit smokey 😬 

Hey ho, nowt i can do about that except not go mad myself, so I have had a nap, sat on the swing with a cuppa, and am now potting on seedlings in the greenhouse. Going to take advantage of it not raining to do some more weeding, so all these seedlings have got somewhere to go if they ever get big enough to go outside...

Cheery_Daff

(On a different note...)

Just had the weirdest dream 😂 Had bumped into Stephen Fry in the street, and he was explaining that he was going to St Ives for his birthday, and the way he avoided scrolling on the Internet while on holiday was to suck the tip of his thumb (he was demonstrating, and the person I was with was following along but i was reserving judgement) and push it against the side of his neck, under his ear. This made a weird buzzing noise 🤔

And of course I woke to find a large bewildered bee had become stuck behind the bedroom blind 😂 Goodness knows how it got there (that window was shut - the other was open, but the blind on that one was open too). 

Anyway, after a lot of messing on the part of both me and the bee, I am pleased to say it is now outside 😂

I'll never know Stephen Fry's trick (unless it was nothing more complicated than literally pressing your thumb against your neck, I suppose). Might try it now so I can get some more sleep before the alarm goes off! 😂😂

Cheery_Daff

Well, we are being marginally more practical after a day away from home. More developments next door and the fire was still smouldering last night but...

We have decided to prioritise boundaries.  We aren't that close, but they're very visible from our house and we don't want to have to obsessively look at a building site for months 😬 at the minute aside from the fire,  is a mind of earth almost as tall as the house with a giant digger on top 😬 so we're putting up a fence outside our living room - there's a patch of grass there behind the house which we never really use,  but if we fence it we can actually make quite a nice little private garden, and have a seat to see the best view across the field.  It'll be the only bit of our garden not visible from the public footpath which will be nice! 

Also I'm going to extend the windbreak area (where I have damsons,  elder etc growing) so we can't see them,  and they can't see us,  from the main but of our garden. 

Quite an undertaking but I think it'll get us back to some feeling of being in our own world. 

I know it's ridiculous, when neither of us have ever lived in a detached house before moving here and I've spent most of my life in a terrace 😂😂 and I realise we've been spoiled for several years with just one elderly neighbour.  but it's actually quite inconvenient living here,  and the benefit was always the tranquility and peace so we're just trying to find a way to keep hold of some of that...

Anyway,  back in work today,  need to do some more office clearing.

Will do some budgeting tonight. Don't want to have to reallocate the holiday budget to fencing as I suspect we'll need a holiday come August so I'll see what we can rejig...

Watty1

Not ridiculous at all.  I've lived in studios, flats, terrace houses, a 1950s semi and never thought about the neighbours really.   

Here i am in a detached and quite often I find myself grumbling about "Mr Self Sufficiency" 2 doors down who frequently spooks my horses when I'm riding, or "the Londoners" who are next door (there is a lane between us) and the noise they make (why can't their children live on their screens?  I thought that was a thing?) or Mrs Laurel Hedges obsession with her hedge (I get privacy but it is like living in a laurel hedge prison by the house) or the many builders that visit and work on her house (it is gorgeous btw)  Yet living close by people in previous place neighbours never bothered me

I should add they are all lovely people. I've nicknamed them, but genuinely they are lovely, I am just clear my next house should not have any near neighbours,

Appreciate you don't want to live near a building site. Hope you can work out a solution for you.

Greying_Pilgrim

Watty1 said:

..... or "the Londoners" who are next door (there is a lane between us) and the noise they make (why can't their children live on their screens?  I thought that was a thing?) 

Dearest Watty - your comment made me laugh out loud 😁

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Watty1 said:

Not ridiculous at all.  I've lived in studios, flats, terrace houses, a 1950s semi and never thought about the neighbours really.   

Here i am in a detached and quite often I find myself grumbling about "Mr Self Sufficiency" 2 doors down who frequently spooks my horses when I'm riding, or "the Londoners" who are next door (there is a lane between us) and the noise they make (why can't their children live on their screens?  I thought that was a thing?) or Mrs Laurel Hedges obsession with her hedge (I get privacy but it is like living in a laurel hedge prison by the house) or the many builders that visit and work on her house (it is gorgeous btw)  Yet living close by people in previous place neighbours never bothered me

I should add they are all lovely people. I've nicknamed them, but genuinely they are lovely, I am just clear my next house should not have any near neighbours,

Appreciate you don't want to live near a building site. Hope you can work out a solution for you.

Thank you! We had many near neighbours for many years in our old house, and never thought about any of them much (except for hello etc) until the final lot (you may remember their 4am singing escapades). Our lives became quite miserable and it did culminate in us moving, and having no near neighbours (these aren't near, but they're near enough, especially when they're setting fire to entire trees at a time!) 

Anyway, at work today, which has its own annoyances without me thinking about home ones too 😂