Category: homestEAd

work on our home and garden

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dear diary ~ Monday, Monday…

Monday is always a busy day when I stick to the routine. Sometimes routine goes out the window for many reasons chez nous, but currently, as I continue on my mission to restore and reset, I am trying to get myself into routine mode, albeit a new routine.

I usually strip and wash the bed on a Monday, it seems a good start to the week and means I should be able to get the bedding washed and dried, ironed, aired and put away by the following weekend even if we are subjected to the worst of weather.

I also put the duvet out on the line for a good blow in the fresh air. It was much colder outside to day though with the overcast sky.

Talking of duvets, I had a bad restless night last night after a few frantic calls from my mother during the evening, so I was not up early or feeling my best. She has another paranoia issue again. You may remember the saga of the ‘dead persons duvet’ that began when the carer changed mum’s duvet cover and that night mum got it into her head that the carer had switched her snuggly 180 tog duvet for a thinner one because she felt cold and the top of the duvet had lost its feathers. Of course we all know they don’t make 180tog duvets but mum was adamant hers was. From memory I think hers is a seven or eight tog. And it got worse because then she convinced herself that the carer had switched the duvet for one taken from an empty apartment down her corridor of someone that had died!

You couldn’t make it up could you?

This issue rumbled on for weeks and nothing I said would convince her that the duvet on her bed was still hers. I had to ask the carer to give the duvet a good hard shake from the bottom every day to make sure the feathers hadn’t gone thin at the top and eventually this did the trick and mum accepted the duvet (but was still reluctant to believe it was hers).

Now the latest issue is that the carers are trying to give her some green tablets and one night she felt very sick with them. Firstly, she told me they are the codeine tablets the doctor prescribed recently and then she changes her story and tells me they are paracetamol. Again, like me, you have probably never seen a green paracetamol or codeine tablet – they are usually white. I had to speak to the carer on the phone last night as she was refusing to take anything. I asked him what tablets he had there. ‘I have some codeine tablets which she is refusing, and some paracetamol…both of them are white’ He showed mum the tablets whilst I was on the phone. I told him she always refused the codeine as she says they make her feel sick but she likes to take the paracetamol before bed.

Once he had shown her the tablets as proof they were not green I asked him to put mum back on the phone.

‘ Mum the carer has just shown you the paracetamol and they are white not green’

‘I know,’ she said

Breakthrough…so I thought.

Not quite…. mum then said ‘ I am not taking these paracetamol they want to give me they are the green ones that make me ill’.

And then she added ‘I am not colour blind’

No answer is there!!

After looking through all her case notes on my app, I can only presume that the green tablets are the Doxycycline antibiotic capsules for her rodent ulcer that she has been taking in a morning and only for the previous 5 days. My mum’s head now is such a muddle, but this problem of the green tablets will no doubt continue for a few weeks.

It wears me out and hence the sleepless nights.

I spent the morning after breakfast refreshing the vases of flowers. The lovely bouquet my daughter had given me on Mothering Sunday had not lasted as long as I would have liked, I think perhaps the quality wasn’t there to start with (not her fault though – I expect a lot of these bouquets of flowers they sell for Mothering Sunday are not the best quality).

I saved as many blooms as I could and rehomed them in smaller vases. The pink tinged fluted Art Deco vase in the picture below is one of a pair that belonged to my mum and I think my grandma before her. I don’t use them often but they set off the pink alstromeria and peachy carnations perfectly.

After watering the plants (also a Monday job), I set about tidying the kitchen and wiping out both fridges – we have an undercounter intergrated one in the kitchen mainly for milk and dairy and anything we need to have handy, the other is in the utility room, a free standing taller larder fridge where we store all our vegetables. This means we only need to go to the supermarket once a week and save on petrol costs.

I thought it might be interesting to show you the remnants of the fruit and veg I found when clearing out the fridges and, with two days to go until our next shopping day, the meals I made from them. But that will be another post…hopefully I can write it tomorrow.

We are having a trip to Stalybridge today to see an old neighbour and good friend for a catch up. It will be a pleasant change to have a chat and do some socialising with someone other than my mum over the phone – only 8 calls yesterday, so a quiet day. I am hoping she doesn’t make up for it today and bombard me with calls and issues while we are trying to spend some time with my friends.

Have a good day, thank you for reading and your lovely comments.

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dear diary ~ resurfacing in February

Saying goodbye to January and a welcome to February.

After a day or two of feeling considerably yuck, and just when I thought I had shaken off the worst, the virus decided it would linger a little longer. So I had to linger a little longer with it, sometimes on the sofa and sometimes I just gave in went back to bed and slept…the clock round in one instance.

I fully expect this was a reaction to not eating properly or getting to bed at a decent hour for a number of weeks on and off. My body was not going to wait any longer and decided an enforced rest was necessary.

I was disappointed though. At the start of the week, I had planned to embrace my patiently waiting task list, and suddenly and abruptly my plans were cut short as the cold rapidly took hold. At least I managed to go for my blood tests on Friday morning, so not all was lost.

The weather is pretty dismal here; blanket grey skies with an enveloping fog that is always lurking in the background. Drizzle competing with snow, and cold – always cold, so anything bright really stands out like the little red berries on our cotoneaster horizontalis outside the window.

There are other small flashes of colour too – the pretty pale yellow petals of the primulas poking over the tops of the terracotta pots dotted about the garden.

Still I have nothing against January, or February. I welcome the slowing down after Christmas, and like a crab scurrying away into its shell (I am a Cancerian), I love to retreat into my snug, warm home for a few weeks getting ready to emerge when the brighter weather beckons.

In my more lucid moments I have been reading and watching. Reading the Persephone book DH bought me for Christmas‘They were sisters’ by Dorothy Whipple – an engaging read but never expect an absolute happy or conclusive ending with her books, they often leave you with hope that situations might improve for the characters, but nothing more. She tells a good story though.

There is a film too from (1945) I might browse the Talking Pictures channel just in case they have it listed. We are not sufficiently in this century to have a paid TV subscription like Netflix – it would not be a good use of our money. We never had a TV at the cottage in Scotland and I actually preferred not to have one. On our earlier visits we didn’t have a phone or the internet either and were sufficiently cut off from the world to just absorb the peace and quiet. But then the longest we stayed there was only 3 weeks and most often it was only a week or weekend.

I will soon be starting the epic ‘How to End a Story‘ the collected diaries of Helen Garner but not before I have a browse through some of my recent library requests, ‘Unprocess Your Life’ by Rob Hobson, ‘Just One Thing’ by Michael Mosley and ‘The Doctor’s Kitchen’ by Rupy Aujla all in preparation to begin my next project of restoring our diet and health this month.

On the watching side, we have been viewing The Great Pottery Throwdown, Landscape Artist of the Year and the Agatha Christie adaptations on BBC iPlayer. I am also a fan of Art of the Garden on the Freeview Sky channel. I suppose anything with art in the title will always catch my attention.

We are pondering another art workshop, this one being held at a cheese and wine tasting venue in a neighbouring small town of Brighouse. An odd place for a painting and craft workshop (and there is no wine or cheese included) but they are making use of their room whilst it is not been used for tasting sessions. There is a social session and an artist led session to choose from.

Our idea is to jump in the car one day soon and check the place out before committing….and I will sneak in a visit to one of my favourite places – the large independent Boyes department store for a mooch around. You can always count on them to have something that you never knew you wanted and all at affordable prices. And yes, I do keep telling myself I shouldn’t even cross the threshold to avoid any temptation.

So how did my financial review last month go?

I spent as much time as I could in January addressing our financial position and fashioning a new budget for the year using last years figures, increasing them by a 10 or 20% margin to allow for the continually rising prices.

Once all the interest payments from our ISA savings have been accounted for we will be a few pounds richer. It always feels good to see the pounds increase when normally, all we experience, is the monthly decrease of our pension income.

I received the Vinted sales report for last year – a tidy £171 acquired on clothing items sold. Most of this is actually going to my daughter for the clothes she had accumulated but didn’t have time to sell herself. It is unfortunate she has not yet regained her pre-pregnancy size and these lovely clothes were languishing unworn in her wardrobe. Not all the clothes were advertised on Vinted as I took a lot to the charity shop as well so they didn’t miss out.

But we have yet to have the boiler service (next week), a probably large dental bill (postponed for 2 weeks), and we have a holiday upon us for a week on the North Yorkshire coast. A whole week looking out over the sea…I can’t wait.

Having a quick review of the housekeeping we managed to keep it down to just over £290 for the month, so I am pleased with that. It would be amazing to keep it at that figure every month, but I have to be realistic and I was starting January with a lot of stock in the pantry. Ideally, I would prefer to keep only ‘one in hand’, or ‘replace one as I use one’ but I have to be realistic and being ill, together with the bad weather, I realise I do need to keep the pantry well stocked for the first 3 months of the year at least as it gave us something to fall back on when we couldn’t get to town.

But yes, the coffers are definitely looking good so far this year.

Not being well enough for a trip to town, I did as maybe we should all do (and I know many of you already do) shop local. But really, a tin of non-organic Heinz baked beans £1.77 from the Co-op (I had to read the price label twice), I didn’t even look at the price of the loaf, courgettes and mushrooms, just offered them up at the till and paid by card.

I desparately needed a small present for my friend’s birthday too. The present box is currently empty, so after leaving the doctor’s surgery on Friday I had to find something in the village amongst the beauty parlours, dog parlours and turkish barbers (like everywhere we are short on proper shops now).

I completely forgot about the gift shop along the main street and had decided on a cyclamen from our lovely florist. But when we got there the cyclamens were on display outside and decidedly limp from the drizzle. It is the tiniest shop but she has one or two gifts inside and I spotted just the thing, these tiny mice. I bought an extra one while I was there to keep in the present box. I know my friend will love it as it is the sort of thing she would gift to me.

I delivered it to her doorstep and declined to go inside – so as not to spread my germs.

Of course just lying down not being able to participate in real life for a few days left time for thinking and daydreaming….. and thinking and daydreaming of organising and running our home. Some readers will know that I am very much a fan of Lean and using Lean methods to run my house. It is a system developed by Toyota in Japan many moons ago, and in my mind there are many good things practiced by the Japanese and Lean is one of them. It is a system I used at work with my team to good effect, but it works just as well for running an efficient home.

There are many strands to the whole concept. I will briefly explain:

Streaming, the idea that everything is progressed as a stream that is followed through from beginning to end – cooking, laundry, shopping;

Kaizen or continuous improvement where you look for ways to be more efficient and create solutions to any problem areas;

Muda, meaning waste and this encompasses anything from money, time or ingredients and especially the environment. Reducing this waste is particularly beneficial;

Seiri and 5S; Sort, set in order, shine or clean, standardise and sustain. This speaks for itself – wouldn’t we all love a home that ran itself efficiently by just following a few simple rules;

And lastly, you manage all this with the help of a simple Kanban board a home’s central dashboard if you like.

It is a while since I have really used these principles and I am eager to get back to streaming the management of our home again. Last year and 2024 were ususual years for us with a lot of coming and going with plenty of house selling and buying within the family and, as is quite the case, things move on and my systems and streams need an overhaul.

I have a few more areas of our finances to improve on and streamline before I move onto this months topic – our diet. You cannot have missed the number of TV programs, magazine articles and books all talking about the disadvantages of eating ultra-processed foods and the many advantages of eating well. It is something I researched last year and also signed up to the Zoe programme, started a few years ago by Tim Spector (who is also running the TV programme What Not to Eat). So no doubt I might have a few posts talking about my health journey.

But that is another day another post.

Have a good week everyone, back soon x

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dear diary ~ dismantling Christmas

You will all have heard of the saying ‘it will get worse before it gets better‘ – well that is the state of my house at the moment…in the getting worse part.

So far, DH helped with removing the baubles from the Christmas tree, dismantling it and returning it to the box and bit by bit all the decorations were taken down and repacked in their boxes ready to go back into the loft. It is always a little sad….there are many memories in our decorations and we only see them for a few days a year.

I sorted through the unused rolls of wrapping paper, replaced them in the special long ‘wrapping paper box’ and this too will have to go in the loft as there isn’t another place to keep it in the house.

Why, I am wondering, did my mum never have such a box, nor my gran – were they able to estimate to the very last sheet the amount they would use so there was none left over to deal with? I am left with yards still on a roll…and there is more than one roll and it is difficult to store in a small house. I did have the bright idea this time to take a photo of what is in the box before it disappears away so I don’t buy more unecessarily next year – I can’t think why I didn’t think of this before. I took a photo of all the decorations as I repacked the boxes.

When that task was completed, I turned my attentions back to my new planner notebook – that is always a much more pleasing job. DH reckons my love for stationery and anything admin is due to having a post office set at a very early age.

I have ready made calendars and checklists for birthdays, household tasks and such like, stored on my computer that I print off and stick in the front of the book. Other lists are written in as I go along. Each month I start with a list of intentions, a note of appointments, events etc and then the list of tasks – some I have to do, others I would like to do. It is a catch-all for anything of interest or anything I need to remember as well as a place to plan for wekly menus, birthdays and parties, holidays and Christmas. I also make a note of anything I need to buy this month, gardening notes and tasks and to keep tabs on our monthly financial and administrative tasks.

Each month I try to do a review. It reminds me how much I have done and what is still to do and going forward this year I will also make a note of what worked and what didn’t. I am determined to only repeat things that enhance my life not make it more difficult.

I have for many years made notes about Christmas so that I don’t repeat mistakes the following year – so below is a review of what worked well for us and what didn’t.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to Mrs Gaskell’s house and this will certainly be on the do again list, it may not be this same house but something similar.

I also enjoyed the lino cutting workshop, the result of which I turned into our Christmas card. I would certainly enroll on one again, but next time even earlier in November would be better. I have yet to overview my Christmas card list and revise it ready for next year.

Even though I made it myself, I have loved my Advent calendar and will be sad to take it down. I have a couple of sheets of black card already cut out with the windows so I might make them up ready to send as a little gift next year with a card.

The tiny outdoor flower lights that I bought, reduced at Argos, have looked so pretty at night in the wooden planters, the batteries are still working and they were very little trouble being on a timer. I am undecided whether to keep them out for a while or remove them and pack them away.

The little desk calendars that I made as gifts for my friends took a large part of my time so if I do them again another year I must start them earlier so I am not burning the midnight oil.

The gingerbread stars were well received and I am told were very good, though I would add even more ginger to the mixture next time. They were a bit fiddly with the different chocolates, but they did look Christmassy and quite effective. I would make them again and I will add the recipe to the menu below the header.

The children loved the session we had decorating the gingerbread too and this will certainly be something we will do again, and I would buy the ready roll again for them, and maybe, I will ask them if they want to make a gingerbread house.

The Santa visit to Portland Basin at Ashton-under-Lyne (our second year there) was good too because the venue is geared up for children; it was a really lovely family day out, but whether the children might want a change next year we shall see. They do like repeating things they get to know, like our yearly holiday to Scarborough. I shall have to make a diary note though to check for the booking form early as there are very few slots available and they sell out quickly.

The gift from Santa’s Elves that we put on the doorstep on Christmas Eve is still a magical mystery to the grandchildren, so I will probably keep that going next year, the difficulty is thinking of some game they can all join in with across the age range.

I think (touch wood) I managed to bake my cake for the right length of time this year in the oven – it turned out perfect for once …not under or overcooked. So I have made a note of the times and temperatures for next year.

There are always things that don’t go well or to plan, I was disappointed to miss both the Carol singing events and the Christingle service. Every weekend was taken in December and so conflicted with the Carols and there was so much Christmas ‘stuff’ to pack into the car on Christmas Eve for our trip up north that we set off later than intended and it meant something had to give…. and it was the Christingle service.

Having to pack cookware and food to make a dinner for mum and ourselves on Boxing Day in her apartment was a big hassle, partly because we had to keep a lot of the food in a coolbag or my daughter’s fridge over two nights. It worked OK last year but we went to mum’s straight from home on Boxing Day morning. This time we were staying the two nights before in a hotel and didn’t have access to a fridge.

Luckily, the temperatures outside in our car boot were freezing which helped to keep the coolbag cool. We had to go into Yarm to Sainsbury’s on Boxing Day for vegetarian gravy granules. DH had made the gravy at home and I accidentally forgot to take it out of the fridge and put it in the coolbag! I wasn’t sure Sainsbury’s would be open on Boxing Day, but it was and looking back it would have been far easier to have bought some ready meals or something which would have been a lot less trouble.

Blogging everyday leading up to Christmas was another challenge which I may not do again, I might only be repeating myself anyway. Taking the pictures when the light is at its’ worst during December is also a trial. It was fun, but quite time consuming and I admire those bloggers that ran the course.

Tomorrow, we will put the decorations back into our loft for another year and then maybe tackle the overflowing box of Christmas items I have for crafting – ribbons, cracker parts, and embellishments and hope I get some ideas for creating a few bits and pieces for gifts next year. I doubt I will get to do anything with them immediately as we really need to make plans for the mammoth decorating bonanza…long overdue.

So if I haven’t bored you to death with my random thoughts, I will be back soon with even more random thoughts!

I hope anyone reading this who has some brilliant ideas for making Christmas an easier and super simple time, will share them in the comments!

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dear diary ~ down the bunny hole….

The weather is a little dismal here, but my spirits are high. Just managing to clear two of the three tasks I had set myself last week felt good. The sewing task is a bit of a fail as it is still waiting.

I decided not to keep adding a task to the list as one was crossed off as I know the most difficult one would just remain on the list of 3 for a good while. Instead, I will only make a fresh list of 3 tasks when all 3 are completed.

I did spend the weekend doing other jobs though – in fact I got caught down a rabbit hole – you probably know how it goes….I began before breakfast (though I breakfast late often as late as 11am as I attempt to train myself to time restricted eating) by mounting a few of the grandchildren’s lovely pictures they do at my house and then arranging some other pictures on the landing picture shelves DH has put up for me.

All good so far.

But then after breakfast I began clearing up in the kitchen and….. noticed the bin needed emptying and on the way to the back door through the laundry room….. I noticed I had a few bits and pieces to put away and that the washing had finished. So I emptied the bin and then hung out the washing and put in another load and then…. noticed the soap powder container needed refilling. Whilst doing that I also refilled the conditioner. Whilst refilling the conditioner….. I noticed that I still hadn’t got round to labelling the new container and one or two others in the cupboard (more for the benefit of DH rather than me). So I got out my labelling machine and duly labelled all the containers that needed doing including some new ones I bought when rearranging the cupboards in the garage a while ago.

Whilst in the garage labelling these new storage containers…. I noticed the pumpkins I bought over a week ago from Morrisons (a bargain at £1 each) and thought it time to put them outside by the front door…but I wanted to brush down the outside open porch area and wipe down the front door. DH gave me a hand and whilst outside….. I noticed some of the cosmos in the front garden which are still going strong and flowering away needed dead heading……

….And so my day went on!

But I enjoyed it – a kind of unscheduled pottering.

I am now out of the bunny hole and happy that many of these little tasks got done – unfortunately, once again the sewing one didn’t.

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Talking of bunnies, I loved this little surprise that the postman brought on Saturday morning. It is my vitamin order from Viridian. I have never ordered from them before as I prefer to shop in my local healthfood shop, but they were out of stock and Viridian and Solgar are my favourite brands. How lovely that they carefully package each one in this delightful printed tissue paper with flowers and frolicking rabbits and little sticky labels with messages.

I am also loving my new book Pots for all Seasons that I bought awhile ago on offer. I bought a few more bulbs on Saturday – hopefully I can get the bulbs either into a pot or one of the borders when it is dry again.

Yesterday it was back to my elder daughter’s house doing a little ‘more cleaning and clearing, I came away with 4 bags of washing that she has not had time to get to – odd things like a spare mattress cover and some throws…though the rain has set in here so some of it will have to wait until I can get it on the line outside for a good blow.

Today is shopping day and my dear friend K will be coming with us. I need to stock up with chicken, ham and fish fingers for the school holidays as the four grandchildren with be staying or coming to play for the day in a range of combinations. I don’t impose our vegetarian diet on them although Sweetie loves my nutroast.

I have also to check out a little denim style dress in Sainsbury’s for Sweetie’s upcoming birthday, and find a suitable little present that is small and flat enough to post to my 4 year old great neice with her card and then look to see if one or two grocery items are on offer this week – the ones that I never pay full price for if I can help it!

For the rest of the week DH has a visit to the dentist on Wednesday for his extraction…ouch! On Thursday we go to Leeds hopefully for a few bloodtests and then to pick up the girls at teatime at the motorway services as they have one of those school training days on the Friday (renamed inset days) and mum has to work.

So if there is a gap in my blogging you know I won’t be down a bunny hole this time but knee deep in tissue paper, glue and glitter with the children making lanterns for the lantern walk on Saturday night or baking Halloween buns and painting plaster models.

Thanks for all your lovely comments and welcome to my new subscribers.

Enjoy your week, back soon X