Sarini wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 2:29 pm
People have mentioned poor germination this year. Mine has been bad then the seedlings just stopped growing and lots died. I've never had this before. I've bought some vermiculite to increase drainage. Anything I took a risk on and planted out into the garden early has done well because of the warm weather, anything I kept in pots to nurture...died. I think this is the first year ive bought peat free compost. I assumed it was all peat free before, I've read that this can lead to water holding so suspect that's why I lost so much due to damping off.
Repotting things and pottering in the garden as been a great help. I unfortunately have been diagnosed with breast cancer with my mastectomy booked for Friday. Keeping fingers crossed that nothing is found in the nodes and I/my family can just move on from this. It's been a bit carp! Gardening has helped, I'm supposed to be stopping spending money but I have ordered some more fruit trees from places selling them off cheap and some hardy kiwi vines. If everything arrives after the op, husband will have to dig the holes for me
I've also got the stuff ordered for raising some chicks. It's going to be a good project for the boys, our rescue hens are laying about 1 egg a day between the 4 of them and weve had a few yolkless ones. The farm are expecting to hatch some around mid July. I'm hoping it's light enough work that I can continue to do it (or instruct others) whilst having radiotherapy. Fingers crossed on not needing chemo but see what comes and deal with it then.
Also, as its half term, we bought some fishing rods and went fishing for a bit. 1 each of the boys and 1 for husband and I to share to learn to lure fish. Bith boys caught one but we lost them both when i tried to help, reading into it i think i didnt keep the line tight enough. My eldest (age 7) has always wanted to give it a go and I'm very happy for them to learn to catch their own food. Living in cornwall, it would be a shame not to. I dont eat meat but do eat fish and there has been more hoohaa in the news about provenance of fishpond in supermarkets so I would love to catch my own mackeral and bass and pollack. I suggested going to a nearby air rifle club to see if he wants to learn to shoot and possibly one day hunt, he wasn't keen and looks like he's too young for the clubs at the moment anyway.
Other prepping, we were going to aggressively pay off a personal loan we have feom getting a new kitchen but I don't know how long I'll be off work so we've decided to put it into savings. I do find it very easy to spend money. I don't get hair and nails done, don't have many clothes, but happily spend money on various hobbies and home stuff.
There are no pockets in shrouds as I was told many a time cant take it with you and if it makes you happy spending on hobbies and home no harm in that
All the best for Friday for the mastectomy .. your boys sound like they know what they're doing already take time to recover then back to it all .
Sarini wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 2:29 pm
People have mentioned poor germination this year. Mine has been bad then the seedlings just stopped growing and lots died. I've never had this before. I've bought some vermiculite to increase drainage. Anything I took a risk on and planted out into the garden early has done well because of the warm weather, anything I kept in pots to nurture...died. I think this is the first year ive bought peat free compost. I assumed it was all peat free before, I've read that this can lead to water holding so suspect that's why I lost so much due to damping off.
Repotting things and pottering in the garden as been a great help. I unfortunately have been diagnosed with breast cancer with my mastectomy booked for Friday. Keeping fingers crossed that nothing is found in the nodes and I/my family can just move on from this. It's been a bit carp! Gardening has helped, I'm supposed to be stopping spending money but I have ordered some more fruit trees from places selling them off cheap and some hardy kiwi vines. If everything arrives after the op, husband will have to dig the holes for me
I've also got the stuff ordered for raising some chicks. It's going to be a good project for the boys, our rescue hens are laying about 1 egg a day between the 4 of them and weve had a few yolkless ones. The farm are expecting to hatch some around mid July. I'm hoping it's light enough work that I can continue to do it (or instruct others) whilst having radiotherapy. Fingers crossed on not needing chemo but see what comes and deal with it then.
Also, as its half term, we bought some fishing rods and went fishing for a bit. 1 each of the boys and 1 for husband and I to share to learn to lure fish. Bith boys caught one but we lost them both when i tried to help, reading into it i think i didnt keep the line tight enough. My eldest (age 7) has always wanted to give it a go and I'm very happy for them to learn to catch their own food. Living in cornwall, it would be a shame not to. I dont eat meat but do eat fish and there has been more hoohaa in the news about provenance of fishpond in supermarkets so I would love to catch my own mackeral and bass and pollack. I suggested going to a nearby air rifle club to see if he wants to learn to shoot and possibly one day hunt, he wasn't keen and looks like he's too young for the clubs at the moment anyway.
Other prepping, we were going to aggressively pay off a personal loan we have feom getting a new kitchen but I don't know how long I'll be off work so we've decided to put it into savings. I do find it very easy to spend money. I don't get hair and nails done, don't have many clothes, but happily spend money on various hobbies and home stuff.
Sorry to hear about your health. Good luck with the op. Re loans, I still have one, but prefer not to dip into my savings to pay it off. It depends on how much the interest is. With mine, the more you pay off, the interest goes down, like a mortgage. So I paid most of it off early, and the interest is hardly anything now. Most loans are like this now I think. My average interest over the next year will be £4 a month, on about £800 outstanding. Originally it was about £10,000 and the interest was a lot more.
Yeah it's not a great deal.of money at all in terms of monthly payments or interest. We just had the nice spot where we went from living in overdrafts and carrying credit balances to only having the mortgage debt, it was nice for a while and helped us to both work part time. I'm back full time but have regained the habit of spending the money before I earned it.
we/I got into the..."well we have the income to pay it off quite quickly so it'll be fine". Debt seems to breed more debt so we were going to stop spending money unless we had the cash....then I bought some fishing rods and spent a fair bit on the garden too ...I feel like I should live in a palace.
The other garden prep stuff was grape vines and getting lots of pain relief in too
I went overdrawn today, first time for a couple of years. Took me by surprise. I don't have a big overdraft allowance, but that's by choice. Fortunately it's almost the end of the month. I say it took me by surprise, but I did blow £460 on a mattress yesterday! I had it in my head that this is next month's spending, but Argos and the bank had other ideas!
Thinking about it, seeing as I spend almost 24 hours a day on my bed, lasting 5 years is really equivalent to 15 years, so it's not so bad.
Worst bed I ever slept on was some dude's apartment in Amsterdam. They move out for new year and rent them out. It was so bad, we had to put the mattress on the floor and sleep on that. The bed just had wires under the mattress and they'd all stretched, so it was like a hammock. Then we moved to a hotel.
Arzosah wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 8:52 am
Finally bought a system to sharpen my garden tools - I realise I've bought replacements for secateurs and shears, and my lopper is also blunt now. I have manual sharpeners, but energy and joint problems mean I can't do that. So I've bought a drill attachment with a circular action (obvs ) plus a diamond coated file.
That sounds good. I’ve loads of stuff needs sharpening but I put it off because it’s such a chore! Was it very expensive?
That was the advantage - the drill attachment was only a tenner. The diamond coated file was a chunky one for £14, and of course it can be used in several contexts (though I'm not currently sure what they are ).
Finally got round to sorting one of the water butts that wasn’t refilling; filter in was totally blocked by slugs - yuk.
Ewwww good for you for investigating and sorting! Maintenance is my weak spot - that's why I need that sharpening equipment.
Got a price and date to decorate my room. Only two and a half weeks away, so need to keep decluttering in earnest. Got the prep room a lot tidier. Things will be a bit disorganised, so shtf better not happen. He was talking about putting my wardrobe in the prep room. Once it's done, I can carry on doing more de-cluttering, and get things more organised. Like, some clothes I never wear, I stuck in a bag in the prep room. I'll probably give some of them away eventually, but they aren't a priority right now. I think some of my water containters will have to be emptied, but they need changing anyway, so I can kill two birds with one stone. I might swap two of them out earlier and keep them full. I managed to fit them and an electric radiator into a small gap in the prep room and got a chair on top! I did have the chair free on Gumtree, but couldn't even give it away. Hopefully later I'm getting rid of a bulky metal fire escape ladder that's redundant, and my standing desk which I was trying to sell.
take time to recover then back to it all .
...I feel like I should live in a palace.
good for you for investigating and sorting! Maintenance is my weak spot - that's why I need that sharpening equipment.