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

EssexHebridean

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82001775#Comment_82001775

The ferry terminals in the outer isles all have charging points, and they are beginning to roll out elsewhere as well. In addition a lot of self catering properties are starting to install chargers too - we find it quite amusing when we end up staying somewhere that means we could charge more easily than we would be able to at home!

Cheery_Daff

Morning chums!

Feels like ages since I've posted here!

We had a nice weekend with chums up north (well, a couple of hours further north than us), and came home with a bag of plants from their garden.

Since then, a busy week at work, and I'm now on strike for 4 weeks 😱 except in not, as I have annual leave booked for the last two, and next week is only a 2 day week for me anyway, but still 😬 hopefully there will be some agreement in the meantime and the whole thing can be called off but I'm not holding my breath 😬

This weekend we've been to stay with some other friends, a couple of hours south this time. We went to a museum - nice to do something a bit different - then got rather hot and bothered outside a cafe. Spent on diesel plus about £50 in cafe/ snack spending between us. Came home with more plants from their garden so my flower border is filling up nicely! 😂

In MSE news - realised we've missed the nationwide fair shares payment on account of not having used the account enough in the first months of the year 😕 most vexing - we've had it every other time and it would have been £200 😕 it's the account I use for matched betting and I've just bit been doing any lately. Clearly need to get back into it!

Got stranded at work for a couple of days because the little car went in for MOT and needed more welding than they first thought 😬 so some spending on emergency pants and toothbrush but at least a friend provided a bed for the first night, and then Mr C came to get me the second night as I didn't have any prescription medication and wanted my own bed.

Car cost £465 to get through MOT 😬 and likely more next year, if it gets through at all. We talked about just ditching it, but can't be doing with just one, so we've paid up and are on the hunt for a replacement. I think we'll actually replace both within the next few months to avoid an emergency situation:

Little car - just had MOT, lots of advisories and defects which we'll ignore, 18 years old, done 175k miles.

Big car - just paid £205 to refit the exhaust, MOT due Sept, also going a bit rusty, also 18 years old, 198,800 miles 😬😂 not getting rid til we've clocked 200k 😂

Anyway, current thinking is a little diesel convertible and a tent for some summer adventures 😂 and a leased electric through the octopods.

Just need to do some calculations over the next few days re mileage etc - we do around 30k miles a year between the two cars so need to understand how much we could switch to electric and the subsequent cost. Also need to understand the octopods' unclear FAQs - paying 12 months upfront reduces monthly payment, but from their FAQs is unclear if that means 12 months upfront, no monthly payment for months 1-12, then xx monthly from 13-24 (which is what i'd assume), or something else - FAQs only say:

"The upfront payment is not a deposit. It’s a one-time contribution that reduces your monthly payments across the lease. Monthly payments are taken on the 6th of each month, beginning the month after your vehicle is delivered."

Anyway, I've I've done some more calculations I'll book a call...

Cheery_Daff

Oh, and unhelpfully I have a raging toothache 😕 had a check up at the dentist just last week, and booked in to deal with a small missing filling next week, but this is somewhere else entirely. Dosing up on painkillers and will ring first thing on Tuesday. Very tiresome!

Main focus aside from that will be the garden, which is looking wild and overgrown. Need to get the scythe on some of the dandelions now they've gone to seed, and various other bits.

I take a 'mow-saic' approach to the grass:

• Two acres have trees planted in them, they haven't been touched for 5 years now
• Eight acres have the maternity ward for the dairy farm - they're in from last week till about the end of October usually, then it gets left over the winter
• One acre is hay meadow, theoretically scythed once at the end of the summer and the arisings removed, although I've never managed to cut it all in the same year and last year didn't cut any
• Several areas of the garden get cut once at the end of summer - behind the washing line, behind the willow area
• Some areas get cut about once every 6 weeks - behind the house, the public footpath, near where we park the cars, up behind the veg patch, the verges along the drive (although the verges didn't get done at all last year and are looking very rough)
• A couple of places get a little more frequent - by the greenhouse, near the windbreak
• Then a small area gets done every week or two - right by the house, and the bit of lawn in front of the washing line - that's usually what I'm referring to when I say I'm mowing the lawn, and why I sometimes get unreasonably annoyed when since who hasn't been here tells me I should be doing No Mow May 😂

Quite unreasonable, I know, because I do approve of No Mow May and spreading the word, and technically I AM doing it, and No Mow June, July and often August, in most places 😂 but leaving everywhere to grow that long does generate a whole load of work later, because it then can't be done with the mower, especially as we are not exactly growing normal lawn grass here, but basically sturdy combinations of field grasses and assorted docks etc 😂

And actually, having a mosaic of habitats, does, in our case, lead to a wide variety of plants 😊 which i can and do choose to go round at any given point.

😂 sorry 😂 this is definitely a case of "Cheery always feels like she's doing something wrong and has to explain herself" 😂

Anyway, I will be cutting SOME of the grass today in an attempt to rescue my own sanity from feeling completely overwhelmed, which it often does, by the sheer amount of grass I'm responsible for 😂

greenbee

No Mow May really isn't aimed at people like you (or me!). It's for people who mow their grass to 2mm every other day :)

I have bits that I want to be 'lawn' which I keep short, then the 'wildflower' bit at the front which will gradually be less grass and more wildflower (the yellow rattle is getting going at last) which gets scythed in the autumn and the hay removed; the orchard, which should be scythed annually but was missed last year (needs yellow rattle and wildflower seeds, but mostly has bulbs); the veg plot which is gradually becoming more calendula and less grass; the 'bit in the middle' that is left for most of the summer and then mowed regularly - currently about the same length as the lawn, and also shrinking as I do more planting.

I need to work out where I'm going to move the washing line to, as that's important when working out mowing!

Hope the toothache calms down soon.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks @greenbee

Toothache is intermittent, but definitely getting worse 😕 Was awake in the night several times with it, and today it's being quite a plague 😕 definitely ringing the dentist in the morning, hoping they can fit me in tomorrow before it gets any worse 😕

Anyway, the sun is shining 😊 washing is on the line, and we have friends visiting tomorrow. I've been pottering outside but have finally admitted it's just TOO HOT to be doing anything practical out there. I came back in for a drink, but it's lovely & cool in the house so I might stay inside for a while and do a bit of in-house pottering.

Mr C has gone food shopping. We were in town earlier for a coffee so I declined to go back for a second coffee and a round of the supermarket 😬 I suspect he'll use it as an opportunity for a bit of a potter.

Not quite sure what to do with myself. Want to be outside, but too hot. Want to be inside in the cool, but feel like I'm missing the weather 😂 face hurts, so part of me would quite like a nap, but maybe a bath since it's so sweaty? Maybe I could do some tidying, then a bath, then a nap? Or...

Suggestions on a postcard please as I'm clearly not going to come up with a sensible plan myself today! 😂

Greying_Pilgrim

Cheery - have you not got a washtub/dolly tub/hip bath secreted somewhere outside in the shed? You could fill it up, sit in it in the garden and have your very own plunge pool experience 😁 Inside, coolside, outside, poolside - all in one! 😁

Ok, I'll shove orf….. 😁

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011230#Comment_82011230

Ha, an excellent suggestion! 😂

I've been going for loafing around inside the house messing about on the Internet, which seems to be the least satisfying of all the options 🙄 Going to get a cleaning podcast on and at least get a bit of cleaning done!

Cheery_Daff

OK, some cleaning done 😊 Washing and assorted other clothes put away, upstairs tidied, washing up put away and more done, kitchen cupboard doors and surfaces wiped, fridge cleaned, downstairs hoovered (except living room), and kitchen/dining room mopped. Feather duster waved around downstairs, bathroom cleaned, including all bottles etc off the side of the bath. Shopping done (by Mr C) and put away.

A good job jobbed I think.

Back outside now. Tis still pretty warm!

greenbee

It's still FAR too warm here. An another day of it tomorrow. And it's only May!

Cheery_Daff

Indeed!

I'm not actually trying to DO anything outside 😂 Just lying around in the willow dome (which I never actually made into a dome, so it's more of a tower 😂) looking at the view 😊