Next steps; grip-relaxing bimbling, and avoiding the temptations

peb

Oh rhubarb.  So blooming annoying when you've worked so hard.

Suffolk_lass

peb said:

Oh rhubarb.  So blooming annoying when you've worked so hard.

Thanks @peb, and welcome. I do feel a mixture of relief it is done, and irritation that I cocked it up. I could have done well with that paper!

redofromstart

Oh how annoying - much sympathy.

foxgloves

Oh that is SO annoying. The air would have been blue if it'd been me. I do hope you still pass.
F

Suffolk_lass

Thanks @redofromstart and @foxgloves - I felt a bit devastated, to be honest. I knew it (not every minute bit but I knew which two to leave (15/17 - not the 13.66 I did!). I could have got a distinction with that paper if I had not cocked up. At least I knew all 10 of the first section of 10 x 1 pointers, and I think I knew enough on the Section C 30 pointer to have got 24 or 25 out of 30 on that. I should have done the two easier 15 pointers first but I did the hardest, maybe 8/15 then a banker 15/15. I had only answered ten marks out of 15 (the three sections helpfully set out the marks) when the block screen came down. Let's say 8/10 on that. I could have got at least 12 on the last one and maybe 3/5 on that section. Having answered only 80% of the marks, I would need some pretty outstanding answers in the ones I did do to get a pass, so I am contemplating when to resit this one. The next one is Honey Bee Biology and I think that is usually accepted as the hardest, so I don't want to jeopardise that by taking the two together.

I won't think about it any more this month. I have too many things to do. I am presenting next week at a bee club thing on wax. I also need to jar up honey and take samples to a farm shop and the cafe we go to, both of whom have expressed an interest in selling some of our honey

KajiKita

What do these bee knowledge exams qualify you for? They seem both very in depth and formal! 🤞for the 60% mark being reached ….

My Dad has said that last year was dreadful for yield - he was keeping the coffee shop stocked with honey from years before! This year seems to have been better 😊 And he never covers his costs either … 😉 But I don’t think he could be without ‘his ladies’ now 😊❤️ 

Hello, by the way 😊👋 I am glad to have found your new thread. I’ve read all of this new thread, if not all of your previous one! 😉 Yet. 😊

One question that occurs to me - you have milk delivered to avoid SM temptation / uncontrolled spend - why not do the same with the groceries shop? 

KK

Lord_Mattenly

So out of interest then how much is your pension income for the both of you? How does it match with your outgoings? I assume you are saving for a particular purpose or just to have a useful back up. 

Twenty years in the TPS is a good pension, that is inflation linked. All the best with your plans.

Suffolk_lass

Welcome to you both @KajiKita and @Lord_Mattenly, everyone is welcome here.

To answer your questions, I don't think I can say for certain how our income compares to our outgoings just yet as Mr SL hasn't had a four week pension payment yet, but when he retired his occupational pension was (from memory) the mid to high £700s a month and paid into the running costs account. Mine goes into the bills account that the JL CC comes out of; and had the mortgages and car loans, when we had them, along with electric, council tax, water, my phone, joint life insurance, TV licence, and one or two other things like window cleaner and paying for hall hire. I recall I had to top up the running costs account so there was £800 a month being paid in. He was a teacher for 15 or possibly 17 years if you count instructor teacher (2 years) before he moved as a NQT (newly qualified teacher). Yes, it has index linked since then but was still comfortably under the income tax threshold until his recent birthday. Mine is more than his, and with my state pension (not full, but not far off), things feel much more comfortable now.

We stopped work conscious that savings would subsidise living costs, and to that end, big things have been funded from savings, but having learned my habits late in life on these forums, it is in my nature now to "Tilly tidy" after every payment (rounding up to the next £10 by paying in to the savings pot behind the RC account), so I do. I'm conscious we remain asset rich and cash - not poor, but not enough if someone had a health episode like a stroke and required care in a nursing home. That isn't what I save for. We have big things still to spend at some stage and I don't use things like YNAB to identify separate pots, and I'm not as methodical or book based like @foxgloves in accumulating pots and vire-ing between them. I simply put the bits and pieces away. Because at heart I am a spender; like my inability to stick to a list (it's a mental "ooh, shiny!" moment if you recall that).

As to why I don't use a SM delivery as well @KajiKita, it is a case of once bitten, twice shy. I ordered my Christmas order about 8 or 10 years ago to come on Christmas Eve and when it did, it was incomplete and all the calabrese  (broccoli) was yellow rather than green. With an hour to spare we had to split up and trawl the not very local shops to try and buy the missing and unusable items. I have occasionally used SM deliveries but to be honest, I know better than they do, what my tolerance threshold is (it changes) between damaged veg I can tolerate and that which I can't; and which substitutions I might accept versus those I would rather do without. It works well to reduce the shopping trips and just do the odd top up, to be honest, and now I don't rush off to London for my two+ hour commute each way, I actually prefer to go myself. By way of an illustration, I buy 8 packets of butter, at a time - we average more than one but under two packets a week and Mr Sl prefers to conceal the surface of bread, crumpets or malt loaf with it.  I like it on toast or in a Jacket potato, but otherwise it is in cooking. I put four in the freezer so if they are out of stock (seems to be a periodic thing) I have it covered (pun intended, sorry).

This week I was getting my act together for a presentation I was making on Thursday (that went well) and preparing jars of honey to take into the three retail leads I have (a fourth on Thursday, after the presentation) and to prepare things for my Hive products stall I have at next Saturday's Village Christmas sale and coffee morning. I need to jar up more honey and finish labelling what I have done to date, and I need to make fudge and biscuits, and cake (the latter will be a donation) for the sale. Oh yes, and make up cellophane bags of beeswax and eucalyptus firelighters!

Fewer appointments this week after getting the car MOT'd, hair cut, and the next bit of my personal body 12,000 mile service (eyes, ears, gynae, bloods, knee, shoulder, oh and the biannual "post your poop" episode) - a further blood test to come on 9th Dec to check the pain relief is not damaging my kidneys. Ho hum, the joys of getting old!

Have a good weekend everyone, and don't be tempted by pretend discounts!

in_need_of_direction

Eucalyptus firelighters sound heavenly.

Suffolk_lass

in_need_of_direction said:

Eucalyptus firelighters sound heavenly.

Thanks @in_need_of_direction, they do smell brilliant and burn furiously as they are so full of oil. They are simply broken up pieces of bark, dried thoroughly. I also use dried citrus peel but I only have a few bits from clementines so far this year. I will sprinkle a few bits in the bags as they look so pretty, with orange and yellow throughout the clear cellophane bags.

I'm up early, running the washing machine with a sachet of cleaning mix, which needs to be at 60c to clear the limescale and soap-scum that accumulates with constant cold wash cycles. I did the washing (that included a towels, tea-towels and dishcloths wash at 60c) on Thursday as the sun was shining and the solar panels were doing more than their usual winter mode of waving pathetically from the roof. It seemed a good use of a second 60c wash this week to get up early and run the cycle as it is free electricity from 07.00 to 09.00 for anything we do over and above normal usage with the 'pods supplier. Mr Sl remembered to put the DW on delay so that is running too.

Managing to keep my wallet closed, we are having a piece of brisket I bought several months ago (on offer) and froze, for our meal today. I am going to start it in a closed casserole dish with a little water and it can sit like that until mid afternoon, in the warming oven. We can have homegrown potatoes, cabbage and carrots with it for a simple roast this evening.

I need to remake some candles I cooled too quickly first, so they are in that oven at the moment and the little cups are ready with their wicks in place, awaiting the melted wax.

I want to make at least one batch of fudge today too, and have plenty of honey to use for cooking, as a 5L bucket has begun to ferment. I could still sell it as bakers' honey, if I had an outlet to use it!

A second cup of coffee and a catch up on here first, I think