Keeping the place in good repair

Apologies for my slow rate of posting lately. Since I came back from holiday my health has taken a downturn due to having a low white cell count, which would account for my headaches, fatigue and general soreness and aches. I had a short cold about a week after we came back, which I think may have triggered an immune flare. Combined with the new gym workout, busy period at work and psychological stress of starting to drive, I've triggered a storm.

So, progress has been slow and I haven't been able to do a great deal. I decided to focus my attention of repairing/maintaining some of what we already have rather than starting any new projects. I finally cleaned up the Victorian cast iron downpipe near the barns which has been annoying me since we moved in nearly three years ago. The flaky blue and green paint has been replaced with smart black paint and the huge grey rectangular cracked water butt has gone.

I have three nice green butts to take its place that I found secondhand on eBay so I just have to connect those up.

We've started giving the summerhouse a bit of a makeover. I've cleared out the Plague chairs, two old chairs that were infested with insects and who knows what else (hence the name). I left them outside for a couple of days to let the inhabitants relocate before they went onto the pile for the tip. I've painted the unfinished wood supports either side of the structure at the front with some old cream Cuprinol paint. I rescued two full tins from someone who was throwing them out because they'd gone a bit rusty in their damp garage. The contents were perfect and both had £24.99 Homebase stickers on them!

To replace the chairs, we found a two-seater wicker sofa and armchair plus a small pine side table on eBay locally for £95. The rug is a bound carpet cut off I unearthed in the attic (along with the clock), while the lamp came from my father. I remember that lamp in the house when I was growing up so it has to be a good 40 years old.

The sofa throws are actually curtains; I found them for £6 in a charity shop a while back in a William Morris Golden Lily pink and light green colourway I've not come across before. The two patchwork quilts are also secondhand finds, one from a local charity shop and the other from a car boot sale in Australia.

I now work in there during the day to get some peace and quiet from the cats and MIL's phone habit. At the moment we have to run an extension cable reel in there for electricity but there is power to the pond pump about 15 feet away so we'll sort out a more discrete arrangement for power at a later date using that. I still have to add two front pieces to top of the summerhouse so you don't see the joists, do some flower baskets for the outside and add some pictures to the inside.

Finally, I'm trying to get the back lawn to look halfway decent. The previous owners cut the lawn on a high setting and never scarified it so the grass is bent over and soft and springy underfoot, as well as uneven and full of ankle-spraining hills and valleys. Some pieces of the grass are over six inches long but about four inches of that runs along the ground with only the last two inches popping up to be cut.

So, last week I started scarifying and cut it back hard. I've extracted five full wheelbarrows of thatch and moss and I'm only a third done on it. Once complete, I'll mix up some sterilised topsoil and lawn seed and rake that over to even everything out. With any luck, by the autumn we should have a half decent looking lawn that we can cross without twisting an ankle.

I haven't posted lately about my Grow Your Own efforts as that has been dismal so far. Poor germination, dying seedlings, cold, cats, birds, mice, you name it we've had it. I'm too annoyed and tired to post about that! That could be an epic whine so I'll leave that for another day.

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Steel Kitten

Where is the money going?

As part of the 31 NSD trial, I went through our expenses over the last few months and had a closer look at what we were spending money on.

A lot of money goes out every month on smallholding feed, equipment, fencing, medication and vet bills. I can mostly plan for the things needed but not emergencies requiring vets or fencing because the sheep have executed a mistimed Fosbury Flop and hurt themselves or got their heads stuck and thrashed until a fence post snaps. It is still worth keeping livestock as the quality of the meat and eggs is much better than what we could buy in shops.

The car is always springing something on us. February was two tyres for £103, neither planned, because we noticed the sidewalls had cracked. March was a new light unit for £15. We got away lightly last month.

The cat's vet costs are just ridiculous at the moment. Georgie was diagnosed with a thyroid problem at the beginning of March, had two sets of blood tests, expensive medication and a tooth extracted plus tooth cleaning. Fleagle has a problem with a lump under her tongue, which has necessitated three vets visits and two lots of meds. She goes back next week for an examination of that lump under anaesthetic and a tooth clean plus blood tests. The insurance should cover some but not all the costs of these two - Petplan would only offer us a shared responsibility policy for two elderly cats - so that's something but vet bills are now shaping up to be a regular expense so I need to find cheaper sources of medication for them instead of shelling out full price all the time.

I have discovered that we seem to pick up the tab for things more often that we should and overspend on people's birthdays and anniversaries. £30 for a relative's birthday lunch for the two of us turned into £90 last month because we picked up the tab for everyone. I can't even pretend alcohol was involved in the decision making on that one, we were drinking lemonade. I have realised we need to be a bit meaner because I can't remember the last time someone paid for us. If I budget £30 for a gift, we'll end up spending £40 by the time we take into account a card, maybe flowers and a birthday cake.

Finally, charity shops, car boot sales, etc. I've said before that these two end up not being such a cheap hobby, especially if you don't need the stuff you buy. You just end up piling more stuff into the house. I mostly gave up regular Sunday car boot sales before we moved here, as I was spending £20-£30 a week on bags full of stuff and cluttering up the house. Done the odd one as I've come across it but nothing planned. Unfortunately, regular charity shopping took its place. Analysis of the receipts shows I'm not just buying stuff in the charity shops, I might go into Savers or Boots and buy something, then I'll find something in the library in the For Sale section, then I'll have tea and cake at a local hospice cafe to support them and finish off my 'cheap day out' looking around Sainsbury's. Breaking that habit in Feb/March was the best thing I could have done, because that was shaping up to be a £20-£30 a week habit as well plus whatever I bought in Sainsbury's 'off-list'.

In all I can see where economies need to be made and habits need to be changed, because we're spending our early retirement. If we continue like this we will miss out on retiring early together, which we will always regret.

We need to refocus our commitment to our long-term plans.

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Steel Kitten