Dusty's Frugal Fortnights

dustydigger · 28 May 2018 at 9:52AM

The shock phone call disrupted my plan to paint kitchen door last night,as we had to spend time informing family and seeing if they could get time off,very unlikely I'm afraid.:(
Will have to rethink budget,shorter stay means less food and meals,but with no cars available we will be traveling by public transport.,so while Mr Dusty and I have our bus passes we need to pay for the visitors. If we decide to go to Newcastle 20 miles away that is by bus and metro train. There is a ticket for unlimited travel on bus,metro and even the ferry!:D Its £11.50 a ticket,thats about £45 with our metro fares included for one day's travel. Ouch (it comes from my finances,not Mr Dusty:o:o)Had been hoping for excursions with the cars over the weekend,and just visiting local city other days.
Last night tried to put on the fluorescent light in the kitchen and it wouldnt light up,whole fixture was wobbling,obviously from painting the fixture.Anyway this morning climbed the ladder(yet again) and managed to sort it out so I can see once again to make supper!.:D
Today's tasks;
+shampoo bedroom carpets,if I can get Mr Dusty to move himself his rubbish and the base and mattresses now decorating 2 of the rooms.....sigh......
+clean and do the grouting on the tiles over the cooker,very grotty at the moment:eek:
+clean my pan-stand and pans,they too are grotty and greasy.This last year I have been too unwell to do more than minimum stuff. I would have got to that sooner or later,a bit at a time,but now its action stations!
There is other stuff I would like to do,but I will probably have visitors this afternoon as its a public holiday. GD4 is off school all this week,I hope I dont have much babysitting,I am much too busy!

Sayschezza · 28 May 2018 at 11:15AM

Why are you expected to pay for travel when they all know you are an oap?

dustydigger · 28 May 2018 at 11:35AM

Got the grouting done,looks a hundred times better!Looks like new:T
Shampooed one bedroom,but Mr Dusty is still doing his pools in his ''den'',and has made no attempt to pick up stuff in the other bedroom where he sleeps( since my knee op,my 3 or 4 visits to the loo, and lying awake hours,he wasnt getting sleep either so he moved into the guest room)
All his clothes, shoes,papers have infiltrated the room,plus grandkids toys,(oh and a mattress too since yesterday):eek:He promised to help,but claims he is busy,and we shouldnt do the rooms till the last minute.,so just had an argument and he's gone off to sulk in his den.I'll just get on on my own
Had to give up shampooing for 20 minutes because stepson phoned from Heathrow.where there are huge delays because of holiday Monday,the weather,and all those extra delays caused by the Stanstead mess yesterday. They are just wandering round the airport,no idea when exactly their flight will be.
Was about to resume my work when Mr Dusty asked for tea,and then I had to put the dinner on (tikka masala). I am now having a 10 min break,and trying to calm my stress levels with a rest and a cup of tea and a little post on here!:rotfl:

dustydigger · 28 May 2018 at 12:29PM

Sayschezza wrote: »

Why are you expected to pay for travel when they all know you are an oap?

African notions of hospitality,everything you have you share with visitors you dont ask for anything. Stepson is very good though,at the end of his stay he often gives us some cash. But obviously we have the outlay to do first,and being a man he doesnt realize the extent of spending. I use my ISA,save up £20 a month between visits,but this time didnt think they were coming till next year and lapsed in my savings,since we had so much expense ,running into thousands for Mr Dusty's trip to Africa,paying the lawyer etc etc etc.
So normally I am well up on the finances beforehand,its not a problem,but this year is a mess in every way:rotfl:
Imagine if I hadnt got into my MSE habits this year,putting together an emergency fund,I would have been in the humiliating position of having to ask them for money to buy their food!:eek: Embarrassing:D

dustydigger · 29 May 2018 at 10:46AM

Well,Money Savers, I finally snapped and murdered Mr Dusty this morning.I'll dig a hole in the garden and tell everyone he went home to Africa........
Only dreaming, but it was a close thing.:p
Mr Dusty never got his stuff moved yesterday we never got the other 2 bedroom carpets shampooed.From noon we had a succession of visitors,at one point there were 7 of the tribe there.They left at 7 pm. I decided to at least do one little job,put back the case of the fluorescent light. Mr Dusty insisted on ''helping'',was ramming away at the clips,which need finesse and patience,the whole thing is very wobbly. Next thing I knew,the whole unit was coming away from the ceiling,only one screw is holding it up one one end others ripped out of the ceiling,and is dangling 9 inches down from the ceiling :eek::eek:
Phoned the council this morning ,earliest repair appointment is 12th June:mad::mad: Its not classed as an emergency (even though it is dangling over my glass hob,if it falls I hope the tempered glass is strong enough) The receptionist was very starchy,saying we must have been exceptionally rough,the fitting are very strong,and basically why take off the casing.Woman,simply because the whole thing was so wobbly it was better to remove the cover to clean off the paint Mr Dusty had daubed it with!Didnt say that of course:rotfl::rotfl:

So I have visitors who live in a million dollar mansion looking at a stupid dangling light fitting which cant work,the only light is in the dining nook at far end of the 18ft long room. It is getting to be light nights,but I need light in the kitchen for cooking,so thats it,its takeaways for supper every night and damn the expense.

Mr Dusty is looking sheepish,(he knows he he should be dead),so has hurried off to pick up his rubbish and hoover the two bedrooms rooms for me to shampoo the carpets this morning.Then I have the stair carpet to do,by hand.and windows to clean,the 3 piece suite to clean.and thats the heavy stuff done.Thats Wednesday and Thursday,then after that its cleaning and tidying,shopping and cooking.
I am always amused by a comment my son made when I was angsting about preparations for their last visit,(six of them in total)he said why worry,all you need to do is put a few extra veg and potatoes in the pan and thats it.Oh yeah,you're right son,no problems.:D Even there,I have to get out my bigger size pans to cater for the huge horde. It takes a BIG pan to boil enough potatoes for roasties for a dozen people.
OK,I'm over my rant now,calm is restored,and I wont be digging a hole in the garden after all. Mr Dusty has gone off to town,I need to get the carpets done before he is back wanting dinner!:D:D

dustydigger · 29 May 2018 at 12:05PM

Where's the spade,I will be digging after all. All that time upstairs,a full hour,and he only did one room.And all he did was stack the carp on the tables and shelves. Didnt move out the mattress adorning the wall,so I had to manhandle it around to do bits of the floor.No wonder he rushed down the stairs and out the front door with a vague bye-bye! The worst room,with so much furniture,stuff the kids toys hasnt been touched at all.
So that room will be tomorrow's work. Why do I bother planning tasks etc,telling Mr Dusty about it,and he messes up every plan.:(
I've had a cup of tea,changed the water in the machine - eek,its dirty - put on the dinner and am now going back up,return the stuff I moved out back into the room,and will do the top landing carpet,its a small area.Then dinner,and I will be going to town this afternoon to do shopping for odds and ends.

Thank heavens for my MSE diary,its a great place to vent all my frustrations:rotfl::rotfl:

enthusiasticsaver · 29 May 2018 at 12:27PM

Goodness you sound busy and sorry to say your DH doesn't sound like he is much use. If you are decorating can he not cook you a meal?

I would also not be happy forking out for their travel when they live in a million pound house and you are on a minimum pension. At the very least your DH should be paying as it is his stepson and maybe sending less to his African relatives. It all sounds very stressful for you.

dustydigger · 29 May 2018 at 7:12PM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Goodness you sound busy and sorry to say your DH doesn't sound like he is much use. If you are decorating can he not cook you a meal?

I would also not be happy forking out for their travel when they live in a million pound house and you are on a minimum pension. At the very least your DH should be paying as it is his stepson and maybe sending less to his African relatives. It all sounds very stressful for you.

yeah not the most peaceful of situations. My stepson will pay for big outlays,like the taxi from the airport,(about £70 coming,around £90 going back late at night)) ,but normally if I take the girls out without their dad I pay their busfare.If the cars were available we would all chip infor the petrol,no problem.
This whole thing has been problematic simply because we were given very little warningwith a short time. If I had been a normal healthy person the house wouldnt be in such a poor state,but with all the continuing health problems nothing has been done for years,so it has all piled up at this period in time.And Mr Dusty is broke,because he had to pay his lawyer,and stay in a hotel for a whole month back in March. My stepson could hardly have chosen a more inconvenient time. By next May I would probably be almost healed from the bad knees,and an extra year cleaning the house at a normal regular pace,plus an extra year's savings on our part would have much less stressful and problem free..After all,we have been doing this at yearly or two yearly intervals for the last 15 years!
The thing about that lad(lad! he's54 now,but I remember looking after him and teaching him English way back in the 70s in Africa,he'll always be a ''lad'' to me:D) is that he suddenly decides something and carries it out,and then informs us,fait accompli:rotfl:

dustydigger · 29 May 2018 at 7:38PM

Never got out shopping,I fell asleep in the chair and woke up twice as tired after 3 pm. Outside was thick fog and cold,only 15C,and I couldnt be bothered to go out.A few days ago it was blazing sunshine and 24C:)

Did however clean and nourish the 3 piece suite,and painted the stairs woodwork and bannister rail.Not a drop split with no Mr Dusty's ''help'',he was out Now see if we can avoid getting paint all over us going up stairs!
Tomorrow its tidy and shampoo the final bedroom. In the afternoon I'll be at the family history group.Only about 5 weeks left of my subscription,I ned to print copies of as many ancestors as possible before the info disappears. Wonder if I'll manage to get any £2 coins.,there havent been any for many weeks. Even my kind friend who saves them for me hasnt had one for a month! Are there hundreds of Money Saving Experts all over the country snaffling every spare coin in sight?:rotfl:
OK,for now I'm making Mr Dusty plantain and spring greens,couldnt be bothered making the fish,and I am now going to read for a few hours,I've never read a page all day. Shocking and unheard of! But I did finish my 15th book of the month yesterday,That makes 73books for the year so far,so I am ahead of target for my 144 books over the whole year.But I have quite a few big 700 and 800 page reads ahead. And Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a whopping 1000 pages long.:eek:
I have a bit of an aversion to very long books. Ridiculous when I normally read 3-4 books a week,around1400 pages,without difficulty. Put a monster tome in my hands and I freeze.flutter around,read a dozen pages now and then,and basically take about 6-8 weeks to finish it,while reading a dozen others in between. Most illogical,as Mr Spock would say,but it seems to be a bit of a phobia with me.:oI dragged myself through the first 200 pages of Jonathan Strange nearly 2 years ago,and abandoned it. Now I only have 7 or 8 Hugo SF award winners left in my marathon challenge,its one of them and I must bite the bullet.:)