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

KajiKita

I have finished reading the savings thread and I think I will set up my own tracker for the rest of the year with the various bits of money I want to classify as ‘savings’ and then join in next year once I have a handle on it. Thank you for the inspiration 😊

KK

Suffolk_lass

Phew! A much needed session (in two parts; either side of the 27c temperature) in the garden yesterday. We harvested potatoes, garlic and I picked three good punnets of gooseberries. Blackcurrants are coming and cherries are ready (my neighbour is coming to pick any and all today), lots of little cucumbers, I picked three and tied up the tomatoes and cucs to the greenhouse roof with twine. At last, two of the five butternuts were planted, where the garlic came out, and there are three more, destined for the potato and the now clear brassicas bed. I need to plant them out today.

My bread is proving so I really must get on with other things - baking bread, treating my bees (another mite treatment) and possibly a bit of shopping (might leave that).

My car is going in for its' air con service tomorrow. They blast everything through to check for leaks and make it smell better. It doesn't smell musty (yet) but it is making me cough and it is the fourth year for this gas.

Then Wednesday we are helping DS&P to clear their garden rubbish by taking it to the tip for them (my car has a tow-bar and we have a small trailer). We need to empty our trailer first - I have booked it in for last but one slot this afternoon.

A pottering sort of day. Hopefully it doesn't get too hot. Have a good one

foxgloves

I'm hoping to be busy getting lots of catching-up done this week too. I just don't flourish in high temperatures & spend too high a proportion of the day moaning if I have to do much physical work in anything above 26 degrees. I'm probably being a bit unrealistic in terms of what I am hoping to achieve by Sunday, but it's what was always heavily sold to us at work as a 'stretching target!' I see on our village FB page that the beekeeper who lives on the next-but-one street to us has honey ready to sell. I think I will call in & buy some as I like to think his bees may visit our very floriferous garden.

Suffolk_lass

Out to my bees at 06.15 this morning, the first hive was very defensive (I blame the early wasps!) and I took a minor sting (that's one where I am partly to blame) on the inside upper arm, just above the "wings" when a guard got caught in a fold of my suit. Several kamikazi guards took one for the super-organism defending against me but on my gauntlets (think butler, polishing silver with those things that protect you from wrist to elbow). All I was doing was treating them for Varroa destructor. I had no intention to inspect today. It was cool enough to get right round and just assess the temperament of the bees. All OK except 2.

Back home by 08.15 I changed and we took my car in for the air con service. I was quizzed as to whether it had stopped working (no, just the occasional slightly musty smell suggests it needs an air con service to remove bacteria and regas) - he beamed. I am guessing it is easier as they are not going to have to look for an error. Mr Sl booked the bike he is planning to sell in for its MOT this afternoon at 4pm. If my car is ready, he can ride the bike there, bring the car back then I will take him back to collect the bike. Dull but necessary.

I have since planted one of the blackcurrant cuttings I successfully rooted, in the fruit cage and harvested the shallots. I had draped them over the rabbit fencing on the next bed to dry, and washed and hung out my beesuit and moved on to weeding the now-clear bed- naturally it started to rain. Hence I am here. Ho hum,

Oh yes, I have placed a free delivery pass order with Morries for Friday. I'm going off for a little lay down now before getting back outdoors.

Suffolk_lass

I clearly needed that lay down. Mr Sl woke me up three hours later. I wake with the birds but no longer have the energy to go all day without a sit and relax. Nothing wrong with a siesta!

Up before five this morning but yet to be really productive beyond entering the monthly credit card totals on my spreadsheet so I know we have enough to pay them all in full. A quick tally for June and our savings total has been added to the Challenge spreadsheet. It is my highest total by a long chalk, having included the £1000 PB win from June - £2367.47! It is unlikely to be anywhere near that this month!

Collectively we spent a bit more than I would like but we taxed bikes, the campervan and serviced and insured the latter, with a new timing belt fitted too. Very pleased to have that out of the way. Our bank balances are looking healthy with both our occupational pensions due this week, and before the credit card payments depart it is always tempting to spend more than we should as we feel a bit flush. We shall be mitigating this urge to spend by weeding and planting today - we have been stood down from DS&P's garden clearance, although Mr Sl popped over with three aggregate bags last night to help them (a work friend with a van has offered to help DS who is off today).

The weeding will be mostly me, as Mr Sl is going to collect his Mum's ashes from his Sis at lunchtime - they have been stored in her garage since her funeral at the start of the pandemic, and Sis reminded us she has £800 set aside for a celebration they were not able to have. With all the cousins older than us, I don't know if we will be having the sort of thing she had in mind as many are too old to travel for an old-fashioned booze-up. Perhaps sending hampers as we approach her birth date just before Christmas, might be a thing - I will suggest it to him - his sis did ask for suggestions.

He is planning to take the ashes to Devon, to combine a bike rally with a visit to his father's tree at the Donkey sanctuary - they are not permitted to bury ashes there but a bit of surreptitious scattering, so they are together, may need to happen, along with some more at dusk on a favourite beach. Not sure if any are going to their first retirement location, which was at the coast in the neighbouring county but again, he can take a view. We have no idea how big the pot is, at this point.

That is quite enough prattling on from me - and at just before 07.30 I need another coffee! Have a good and productive day everyone!

foxgloves

I've just had a huge coffee & am also hoping for a productive day. I need a good week after languishing in the heat all of last week.

The sort of 'memorial hamper' idea is an unusual one & I like it. Especially useful if your relatives are now of an age where travelling & a knees-up might be a bit much. You could enclose a card with a nice photo of the person & some memories for everyone to share. It could even be a specific hamper such as a fab cream tea or beautiful fruit cake with posh teabags so everyone could enjoy a little memorial afternoon tea wherever they are.

It's very enjoyable chatting on here.but the truth is that the last of my coffee has been downed & like you, I badly need to go & tackle some weeding. Bet you've already filled 3 trugs by the time I get this post on!

F

Suffolk_lass

Gardening - Three trugfuls yesterday, before I gave up after finishing the middle of the onion bed (due to fat tummy being squashed as I was weeding bent right forward in hyper-mobile stretch position) but I think I got most of the creeping woodsorrel. When we set up the raised beds about 15 years ago, we made them to fit the area and I told Mr Sl how wide the paths needed to be. They are just too wide for me to weed the middle comfortably but as they are made from bolted together sleepers they have stayed. In hindsight 5 foot wide if I can get to both sides is the sensible limit, but 4 foot would be better.

Anyway, onwards with the jobs. More tying of tomatoes to the roof of the greenhouse and some of the wall struts, to better keep them upright. I also cleared up one or two piles of clippings. I have still to plant the late autumn veg I want and add to the dwarf beans. I have just remembered I have some dwarf borlotti so I may yet try and plant a few to replace the mollusc munched stumps. They are great for late season harvest and storing to add to soups, or more likely to be chilli instead of kidney beans here. I am hoping Mr Sl will cut the beech hedge, although under instruction as he never takes enough off!

Bees - Mr Sl collected a very heavy super from one of our apiaries. I think they are likely to need most of what they collect now from that hive. We have a pile of 5 supers (honey boxes of shallow frames) so far to extract, with at least 2 more to come. At about 20k per super that is rather more than I want really… I have a beekeeper friend who will buy at £4/lb in bulk and it may come to that. A third of a ton in our spare room two years ago was ridiculous!

Money matters - My June Squirreling is unlikely to be matched this month. My PB win is £25 (versus £1025 in June) but I am tidying the accounts to the nearest £10 or £50 this month so the Tilly Tidies are up. The Community Garden have offered for me to put a labelled jar there for them to sell my honey - I can give them 50p a jar if that works out. And a friend's husband is coming this morning to discuss our requirements for a key peg-board - he made a lovely one for the Community Garden shed using old cricket stumps as pegs, which I admired and I'm on the list now.

My grocery order is coming tomorrow and involves a lot of groceries, store cupboard stock ups and treats, plus cat litter - 3 bags @10k each - rather them lifting than me. My shopping total looks colossal in the checkout. I will divide it up as pets and livestock, and treats and entertainment are different pots and my target for GC challenge is £300 this month (a bit higher than the £225 for the last two months). Morries gave me a free delivery pass for four weeks, until 25th July. It would be rude not to use it once. I have remembered to go in and register for the points boosters for July, as they run by calendar month (!) and lapse. They really should have a carry forward option! I have £16.27 for this year so far (3729 points away from my next fiver - probably October!).

The treats and entertainment pot will take a hammering this month as I have lunch out on 14th with my bee girlfriends and then away with my campervan pals which will include Sunday lunch.

I have cancelled several milk deliveries and will go to Coop - it is less dangerous at the moment as the bakery oven is broken (in the heat) and the freezers have stopped working properly so no ice cream. I went for milk and cream (I made gooseberry fool with some of our pink dessert gooseberries) but also no strawberries! Only £3.60

Have a good day - it is more garden stuff for me us!

foxgloves

You HAVE been busy! I know what you mean about raised beds that are not quite accessible. I am quite the short a*se in the relationship & I can't reach the centre of our raised bed from any direction. It's the last of our original ones built from 4 railway sleepers. W have replaced the other one with a much better & deeper bed which is so easy to maintain. I think we will try to keep the old one going until we relocate but if it does deteriorate, it would cut down our growing space by quite a lot as our veggie plot is only about 1/3 of our garden.

It must be so lovely having your own honey. I have learned from you that it is a lot of hard work & attention to detail though. Btw, the black russian tomatoes have set fruit. I gave one to my sister, so must ask her how it is doing.

F

Suffolk_lass

@foxgloves I am glad that the Black Russian tomatoes have set fruit - I do hope they are tasty and you like them - I mostly use them for making my passata with whichever Mediterranean field grown variety I grow (it is the French St Pierre again, as plenty of seed left) - but if you have the beefsteak version (I think they were) they are delicious sliced with good olive oil, salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper and some fresh bread and butter. With a few Sungold orange cherry tomatoes and a few sprigs of herbs, it's a lovely light meal.

My squashes are just starting to get going, after some gentle nurturing - but so late (my own fault, with bees at the association apiary distracting me). Apart from mini cucumbers, no crops yet!

In terms of productivity yesterday it was a bit more rounding down in the bank accounts, and plenty of weeding of the paths between the veg beds. Dull, but quite rewarding. I sat on four old white (plastic) stools I bought when our DS was a tot - he used to sit on them. Being over 30 years old, I sit on them in a slightly higher and stronger stack of four! Filled another trug with lots of that pernicious creeping woodsorrel (Oxalis corniculata) - lots of pink stems starting new tap roots, and lots of tiny yellow flowers trying to set seeds, ready to explode like busy-lizzies.

Mr Sl is taking some of his Mum's ashes to Devon today (I have given him a screw-top jar that is smaller than my CAKE BOX (!!!!) that he has put the rest in (that is me, biting my tongue). Guessing a 2 litre ice cream box was not smart enough, or something. After 6 years in his sister's garage though, the plastic bag they were in, inside the cardboard box had broken down, so really, anything was an improvement over the little trail she was leaving across the room… I will stop there.

rtandon27

SL, I know exactly where you are coming from - I've been holding my tongue for years with OH on the subject of ashes. His Mom & Sister are each in their own box in the spare room on top of the wardrobe. I'vve suggested urns, I've suggested donating a bush to his parents church and planting them under it - I've even suggested giving his sister's to the one daughter we know about and can locate. To no avail. OH knows that as he does not want to 'go into the ground' at our own church, his ashes will be turned into a shiny stone and worn on my finger and then one day in the ground with me. Sentimentality has it's place but having the extended family in the house with me was not in the plans!