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

Cheery_Daff

Ha, well we've done our share of cafe trips (a free coffee in one place, and free refill in another so some MSE points - admittedly cancelled out by 2 cafes in one day 😬)

Car is filled up. I did at least get supermarket points even if I didn't use my n3ctar vouchers. Hey ho.

I got vouchers for incontinence pads and pants through the post the other day. I'm clearly on a list somewhere as I've had these before, but they've ended up in the recycling. Today I remembered to use them in the supermarket, got a free pack of each, and put them in the foodbank collection. It was about £12 worth so well worth doing!

Home now, and it's blowing a gale out there and intermittently raining so I think the grass will have to wait. Mr C has some musical stuff to finish, so I'm going to hang out at the other end of the house. Bit of light tidying and pottering, some banking, a blog post and other quiet occupations, and then once he's finished we can finish tidying and run the hoover round and get some food on. Friends arriving about 6.30 - less than 5 hours to go...

Baileys_Babe

@Cheery_Daff said:

I got vouchers for incontinence pads and pants through the post the other day. I'm clearly on a list somewhere as I've had these before, but they've ended up in the recycling. Today I remembered to use them in the supermarket, got a free pack of each, and put them in the foodbank collection. It was about £12 worth so well worth doing!

I do the same when I get those vouchers.

Cheery_Daff

Right, finally rounding up March's finances

Amounts spent in March:

Food & household: £258.19/£350

Diesel: £408.40/£300

Joint treats: £239.88/£200

My spends: £102.61/£150

Mr C spends: £70.54/£150

Which means miraculously, for the first time in forever, we came in £70.38 UNDER budget for the month 😯 I've transferred that to the long-term savings pot.

Savings pots all updated and various things transferred in and out. Standing totals as of today:

Holidays: £961.15

Home & garden: £698.94

Dentist & medical: £304.93

Presents: £145.46

Annual bills pots as of today:

Cars: £639.60 (next MOT due May)

LPG: £26.74 (likely won't need another tank now til the autumn)

Web hosting: £80 (STILL not sorted this out!)

House insurance: £90 (due Feb)

TV licence: £60.50 (due Jan)

All starts to feel slightly healthier once the winter insurance/LPG fest is over and done with!

Cheery_Daff

Grr, tried to log in to the building society savings account, but they've clearly updated their online system, and it won't let me create a new login. I've had an email with detailed instructions but they don't work, and the phone line is closed (after some puzzlement I remembered it's Good Friday so they're clearly having a bank holiday). Will have to remember to sort it out on Tuesday.

LPG company keep sending me automatic emails about signing their contract renewal notice. I've signed one through the comparison site thing, but clearly nobody's stopped the automatic emails. Double checked that the new contract appears on the site - it does, fortunately.

They do keep creating these annoying little jobs for us, don't they??

Cheery_Daff

Had a lovely time with friends 😊 Roasted a load of the waste diversion scheme veg, and made a lovely curry, then had a nice evening of drinking (tea for me 😂)

I got up to do yoga this morning then sneaked off to slimming world before they all woke up - lost 1lb (still trying to lose the 3lbs i put on the other week!) Heading in the right direction at least. Didnt stay, popped to Mr L on the way home - picked up some 4p parsnips and carrots, I'll make soup later I think.

Mr C and one friend set about doing some musical stuff after a leisurely breakfast, while the other friend and I took the dog on a stroll into the village and back. Very jolly. It's not even that far, only about half a mile 😂 but I never go, because there's nowt there and it's a big hill on the way back 😂

Mr C's having a nap now and I'm out in the garden, hiding in the greenhouse from the wind (not entirely sure a glass greenhouse is the perfect place to be but still…)

And much excitement! I have almost exhausted the easily accessible stash of hay mulch (after 12 barrows worth), so i thought I'd cut down a patch of long grass near the veg patch and use that as mulch instead. Went to get the scythe out of the outbuilding, and realised that we'd stashed hay in there too, probably the first year we did it (,7years ago??) Daft really, but there was nothing else in there at that point 😂 Now of course there is all manner of machinery, wood, boxes of CDs, a bath, etc etc. I managed to get one pile out - it was remarkably dry (although I did note a hole appearing in the roof. . 😬).

That's now on the veg patch - and again I'm not sure of the wisdom of this given the wind 😂 there was a large trug of weeds I'd left there last summer that had filled with rain, so I've emptied some of that in all its smelly glory over the hay, and hopefully it'll all rot down beautifully 😂

Might go and see what I can retrieve of the rest of the hay while I'm on a roll. Still haven't even covered a third of the veg patch 🙈😂

Cheery_Daff

Right, pretty much half of the veg patch done now, and I found a big pile of cardboard in the greenhouse that clearly I'd intended to use as mulch - won't do on its own, but will be fine under hay. In view of the wind I sploged the contents of yet another water-filled trug of weeds on top too.

Most satisfying, and plenty of hay left in the shed for the other half.

Did today's 30 mins cleaning podcast - dismantled the spare bed after visitors, sorted bedding, swapped back to the single quilt, stashed the double in a vacuum bag, put some clothes away, restored order in the kitchen & dining room, and even tackled a bag of stuff that had been sitting in the craft room since... goodness knows when, well before Christmas, waiting to be distributed back round the house - a bizarre assortment of spray glue, nail varnish remover, tissue paper, vapour rub, magazines for the charity shop etc.

And now I'm going to have a nice bath 😊

Baileys_Babe

That is great progress you are making on the mulching

Cheery_Daff

Thanks @Baileys_Babe about 50% now 😂 Hoping to finish today with my new found batch of easier access mulch 😂 although I haven't even got out into the garden yet and we keep having intermittent bouts of hailstones so perhaps not!

Leisurely morning here, with a little cafe trip. Home now, and Mr C's not feeling well. I've put some parsnip and chick peas soup in the hay box (using the posh parsnips from the waste scheme and the 4p bag from Mr L) and am just about to head outside to see if I can dodge hailstones for long enough to get the mulch finished. Might even see if I can plant the potatoes!

Cheery_Daff

Getting tired now 😬 all the hay and rotted down stuff under it is now out of the outbuilding and on the veg patch. There's an annoying bit of the veg patch left - I got the scythe out to cut down the bit of long grass in the garden. Sadly I found half a baby hare in the garden 😕 or rabbit I suppose, but I've never seen a rabbit up here, but we see hares a lot. There wasn't enough of it left for proper identification 😕 Anyway, I've given it a proper burial in the memorial windbreak, and finally remembered to retrieve the bat from the cellar and buried that too (there was even less of that left, but I've been meaning to retrieve it for months).

Hey ho. This week I've rescued a butterfly and a millipede from the living room. Life goes round I suppose.

Right, should get this little bit of scything done before I get too cold and stiff 😬

Cheery_Daff

All done! 😃 Cut down the grass and there was still a tiny bit of veg patch left, so I confess I shuffled all the mulch around to fill it 😁