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

themadvix

Not only that Cheery, but consider the cost if you were to get someone to sort your lawn out (I very much doubt it's the sort of lawn you'd pay someone to sort, even if you weren't a DIYer, but you get my point) - they can't go around damaging people's property with no consideration! From what you said, it wasn't like he tried once and failed, but just kept digging himself in, which is unacceptable.

Cheery_Daff

Indeed! No word from them yet, but I did pop to M&S to pick up a giant box of posh biscuits myself. Never entirely sure what a suitable gift is in such circumstances. He doesn't drink, and actual money doesn't feel appropriate. 1kg of biscuits will have to do for now and hopefully I'll be able to present him with some form of compensation from them at some point!

EssexHebridean

themadvix said:

Not only that Cheery, but consider the cost if you were to get someone to sort your lawn out (I very much doubt it's the sort of lawn you'd pay someone to sort, even if you weren't a DIYer, but you get my point) - they can't go around damaging people's property with no consideration! From what you said, it wasn't like he tried once and failed, but just kept digging himself in, which is unacceptable.

Exactly this. Frankly had the farmer said "Yes, I'll help, but that will be £100 please" to the driver, they would have had little choice but to pay it as it would still have had les financial impact than waiting for their own breakdown people with a suitable vehicle to get there. That he went onto the lawn in the first place could be a genuine error - but he should immediately have stopped, apologised, and asked you guys if it was practical to try to drive off, or what...

Cheery_Daff

Exactly! No word from them yet... 

Today's main task might be finally bothering to figure out the timer on the boiler 😂😂 We never use it, just turn the thermostat up when we want the heating on, and turn it down to about 8 degrees overnight. The boiler in our old house didn't have a timer, so we never got into the habit, and we've only lived here 6.5 years 😂

Anyway, I stayed in bed far too long this morning because it was cold, and now I'm hanging out in my dressing gown waiting for the thermostat to say something warmer than 8 degrees 😂😂

More snow overnight, so things are looking lovely out there. Obviously not made it outside yet, but here's a picture from the other day



Taken from the front gate at 7am while I was clearing the car to go to work 😂 Fortunately not going anywhere today! 

Had a really weird dream after I drifted back off this morning though. I lived on a boat, I had a horse but it was mostly in a kind of small stable and I was very concerned about letting it out, the driveway was on the edge of a cliff and in the snow a large part of it had dropped into the sea. As I cam back into the house though (it was now a house, not a boat) there was an utterly fantastic tiled floor, blue and red and with star patterns on in glittery white 🤩 Never seen anything like it and was quite disappointed to come down this morning and find our normal floor 😂😂 (very glad not to be responsible for a horse though, and also that our drive hasn't collapsed into the sea - although I think if it had I wouldn't be the only one with problems given we're about 80 miles from the coast 😮)

themadvix

Beautiful photo Cheery and what a bizarre dream! Our minds do the weirdest things when we're asleep!

You definitely need to work out the timer - or better still get a smart one - then you can get it to do all sorts of clever things (and turn it on in the car on the way home when you've been out all day (and it's clever and knows you're out so hasn't turned the heating on) - so nice to get home to a slightly warmer house!)

Cheery_Daff

Well that does sound nice! 

Right, I need a plan, or else I'm in danger of spending my whole day in my nightie on the sofa 😮

Mr Cheery got up and we had a small squabble, and he's now gone back to bed 🙄 Torn between trying to make up and just leaving him to it 🙄 

Snowing again now, big picturesque flakes! 

Anyway, a list.

* sort photos & blog post
* Get dressed 🙄
* batch cook something for the freezer (not sure what, but we have plenty of eggs)
* take compost out
* walk up the road for photos
* flute practice
* craft room - finish sorting under the desk
* get fabric back into the loft
* IPL machine
* workout

Not sure I'll get round to all those but no real reason why not. Blog post then I might go and retrieve Mr C and take it from there.

rtandon27

Hope you & Mr C found a nice middle ground after the squabble!  It's the kind of day that PJs were de rigueur - if we did not have to go out mid-day, I'd have stayed in mine!

Absolutely gorgeous view btw - I miss our farmhouse views and wildlife!

Cheery_Daff

We did make up, and I haven't stayed in PJs,  but it hasn't exactly been a productive day 🙄

✅ sort photos & blog post
✅ Get dressed 🙄
* batch cook something for the freezer (not sure what, but we have plenty of eggs)
✅ take compost out
✅ walk up the road for photos
* flute practice
* craft room - finish sorting under the desk
* get fabric back into the loft
* IPL machine
* workout

We walked round to the farm to drop off a massive box of biscuits for the farmer, and stopped for an hour for a chat (and heard a ridiculous saga of local feuding - fortunately nothing likely to affect us). Then Mr Cheery went into town and had a cuppa - I didn't fancy going out so stayed at home on the sofa. 

I nabbed one of those National Trust free day pass things, so have arranged a day out with a family member I don't see very often in a couple of weeks 😊 The place we're going costs £22 each to get in 😮 so we are making good use of our free pass! 

Er, that's it. I've got no energy at all today. Going to defrost a batch cooked dinner i think, and then get the IPL machine out while Mr C is in the bath. Then we're going to have a little drink and we've got the next episode of a programme to watch.

Tomorrow I'm meant to be visiting a friend - we were going to a festive event but that's been cancelled because of the weather. We're going out in the evening too, but that's a concert and unlikely to be cancelled. Whether I'll be able to get there is another matter - local forecast is currently predicting blizzards 🙄

Cheery_Daff

Well we did have blizzards, but at 5am when I was fast asleep. The thaw was really fast! I was sat on the sofa and could pretty much see the snow on the ivy actually melting before my eyes. Mr C came out with me and we stopped for lunch at a cafe, and in the time we were there the snow on the roof had almost gone. 

An uneventful journey though, and a lovely concert. I've not been to see an orchestra for a while, so this was quite an experience, and nice because we knew a couple of people playing in it. There were 85 of them 😮 Quite an awesome sound. Uncomfortable chairs, but actually I barely noticed after a while. Definitely a good idea to come out.

I did end up staying overnight. We didn't get back to friend's house til 10.30, and while I was planning on driving home (another hour) there were lots of flood warnings along my route, although none of the roads were actually closed. So I stayed, and we had a nice chat and a play with the cats, and I've slept well, despite an unwise late night mince pie 😂

It does mean I've missed all the free electric at home though. We did discuss it yesterday and Mr C was going to put a wash on but I forgot to remind him and I bet he forgot too. Never mind. I certainly didn't get round to making anything to go in the oven! I'm sure there'll be more sessions over the winter.

Today I've got to get home, obviously, and do a bit of flute practice before band practice later. Also want to check banks etc, and batch cook at least one thing - stash of freezer meals won't get me through the whole week.

Oh, and I tell you what I did! There's a particular work writing task I have been putting off (because it's an important-not-urgent thing and there's always something more urgent). I want it done by Christmas, so I've booked myself a space in a new co-working space that's opened fairly locally for the next three Mondays. 

Not exactly money saving - I could work at home for free, and it costs £12 a day (including free tea and coffee). However, it will hopefully give me a nice distraction-free environment to get on with this task. I won't be continuing it regularly (especially if their prices go up after this intro offer) but it might be nice for an occasional focused session. We'll see.

Right, I'd best stir myself i suppose.

Baileys_Babe

For the saver session I set both the dishwasher and washing machine with a delay, I forgot to press start on the WM so it didn't count down nor do the washing and I only noticed at 8.50 🤦