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

Suffolk_lass

My word, I slept well last night! Three tons of 20ml stone - delivered and deployed. We now have an increased parking area at one end of the house (three spaces, where there were two) and the path from the other end had had membrane and stone around newly deployed paving slab-stepping-stones that we collected and stashed (free) from FB marketplace. I feel very proud of our collective efforts with our gardener friend managing to tie in the other heavy duty gravel mats with the existing ones. I shovelled, wheelbarrow-ed and spread the stuff with the back of my short tine rake. Whew. All done 10-15.30 then off to collect  click and collect that included 25% off 6 bottles of wine (for Christmas and New Year) and all the desserts for the Community lunch on 5th December - both dates were ending imminently!

Today we are driving to Whitstable (nice weather for ducks) to see our friends who are there for a month while normally resident near Poitiers - back tomorrow

foxgloves

It sounds as though you need a long rest, @Suffolk_lass, not a jaunt to Whitstable! Have a lovely time.

beanielou

Is Whitstable that the cards I really like come from? Whistlefish I think. 

Suffolk_lass

beanielou said:

Is Whitstable that the cards I really like come from? Whistlefish I think. 

I think Whistlefish are based in Cornwall, so the opposite side of the south part of the country. We are back. My car was booked in for a full service and MOT and bless them, the garage completed it this afternoon. My car is however, covered in a salt rash from the storm that sandblasted us.

All steam ahead, preparing for my craft fayre now

Watty1

Love Whitstable.  Hope you had fun 

Suffolk_lass

It was lovely, but the weather was awful. I drank far too much wine, but we chatted, laughed and properly caught up. All good. Very interesting place. Very taken with it

beanielou

Glad you enjoyed your break apart from the dismal weather. 

Suffolk_lass

Back from the first of two Craft Fairs Fayres I am doing this year, doing both with one of my beekeeping pals. Much easier than involving Mr Sl, who can look after the dog without it being traumatised with separation anxiety (!). I made a triple batch of fudge on Friday and a last-minute batch of beeswax furniture polish, spending the rest of the day making up candle-rolling kits! - I had sold all the fudge in little triangular twist bags at £2 each by lunch-time (it was a 10-4 day) - so much for making enough for both days! Only 3 candle-making kits left so I shall be making more of those once more wicks arrive. My friend had made some beautiful moulded natural beeswax candles, and these, along with her honey, sold really well  (she had made soft-set, while I had not this time - lesson learned!) - so while she sold fewer items, my fudge brought them in and once there, they bought other stuff too. She also suggested a family could roll candles after Christmas dinner as a little entertainment, which sent several kits home with people.

In money news, Mr Sl is trying to sell his little car and suffered the fate of the time-waster fraternity, who arrange to view your car then fail to show up. The new truck had its service on Friday (no problems mechanically) but it has too much rust for our garage to take on so we need to find someone to do some welding (I suspect this will be sub frame, chassis, suspension arms). His car sale might just pay for most of that. Retrievable but it does suggest he was sold a bit of a pup.

We really need to get some painting done this week if the promised warmer, dryer weather returns. Fence, cart lodge, workshop. It feels a bit as though this has all ground to a standstill. Once this is out of the way we can look at where to store the pig-shed contents, in order to demolish and rebuild it (rats and rabbits have resulted in a compromised base and it is not structurally sound now). Right, I need to work out the money now as we used my sum-up for card payments and there is a modest charge for these

trix-a-belle

Great to hear the fayre was a success, £2 sounds like an utter steal for fudge and that you should really consider upping the price a bit £2.50 or £3 even would still be a bargain for homemade tasty treats. It seems that yesterday really was the Christmas fayre day everywhere, we had at least 3 within a 5 mile radius of me!
I hope you can find someone to get the welding done in a timely manner so that its solid for winter

Watty1

I'm particularly taken with the candle making kits.  What a lovely thing to find.