Knitting to Downton Abbey

 

I wanted to finish off the jumper I started knitting last year after mum died and was searching for something to have on in the background that I could peer over my needles at. I find period dramas are great for that kind of thing. Modern programming has too much going on to wring as many dopamine hits out of the audience as possible but period drama series move nice and slowly through the story at just the right pace to match the needles. I decided to watch Downton Abbey. 

Everyone went nuts when this came out in 2010, so much so I avoided it completely. It was like mass hysteria, which I hate, so I resolved to not be drawn in but watch it one day when I felt ready. That day was last Tuesday evening eleven years later. I'm quite enjoying it and am on season 4 now but finding the whole drama with the Bates' getting a little irritating. I feel like it is really being strung out and from what I understand it continues right into series 6. There are other characters it would be nice to see more time devoted to. 

I’m not particularly happy with the fit of the jumper to be honest. The gauge swatch is spot on, and when tested my knitted piece matches the gauge but the jumper will be fractionally too small. Obviously I won’t know for sure until I wash and block the final piece but this yarn seems to have very little positive ease. I deliberately knitted the next size up so I could have some room and feel comfortable but realistically I’m unlikely to wear it if it going to be snug, especially around my middle. I cannot stand the feeling of being restricted. Still, as the wool only cost me £1.50 I'm not that much out of pocket and it's good practice for doing the pattern again with a different wool.

-oOo-

I had brother in law Staying over on Friday night, as he and Martin were going to Silverstone all weekend and it was easier to go from here then his own house early in the morning. That gave me the perfect opportunity to give the bathroom a deep clean so it was visitor ready. Being in lockdown I had let my standards slip a bit, after all, who was going to see it, but I hadn’t appreciated the psychological impact that has on me. I like seeing something tidy and clean. Starting with a bucket of hot slightly soapy water I cleaned the walls, the panelling, the door and the tiles. I descaled the taps, plug holes, shower head and toilet. I cleaned the window, windowsill (inside and out) and mirror. The cat litter trays were sanitised. The floor was scrubbed, as was the sanitary ware. It was very satisfying, and made me realise I actually don't need to repaint the paintwork, just attack it with elbow grease. It took me two hours but should take me a lot less in the future as I intend to stay on top of it. I’m setting my sights on deep cleaning one major room each weekend, with ad hoc sessions on smaller areas. 

Part of the problem with cleaning this place is clutter. Each week I’ve been sorting a box to go to the charity shop and dropping it off on the way food shopping, and trying not to replace the items with new purchases. I did buy this wine rack though, as I needed one for the pantry. We have a lot of bottles left over from Martin’s birthday party and guests also brought some as gifts. We're not big wine drinkers so we have about one bottle a month, if that. They’re currently stashed haphazardly in the pantry and every now and then I kick one one over. Luckily never broken but it's an accident waiting to happen. 

-oOo-

I'm back on the diet again as of today. Plenty of salads and vegetarian food to see if I can shed another 10lbs before the autumn.  I've managed to keep off the last 10lbs I lost so I'm quite chuffed. The salad greens are massively prolific at the moment, the tomatoes are just starting to turn red, the mange tout and green beans are coming into their own and the cucumbers are getting to a nice size so I shall have some big fresh salads in the coming weeks.

-oOo-

Had another shooting lesson on Saturday. Managed to hit 14/17 and got all excited but then the instructor tested me to see if I was any good at tracking clays above me and I managed 0/8 😂 Brought down to earth there but in his opinion I was doing incredibly well for only my second lesson. However, this time I am covered in bruises just in the crease of my arm, above my armpit, where the edge of the gun butt pushes in. I also have a big black one on my jawline, so I obviously wasn't holding the gun as firmly as I should have been to prevent it bouncing up after firing. I'm having to wear make-up to cover it up in case someone thinks Martin and I have been fighting. I'm going to make myself up a pad for my arm/shoulder and face this week to help prevent the bruising.

-oOo-

I managed to squeeze in a trip to the garden centre yesterday, which was next door to the blood donation centre. It was time for my quarterly outing to give blood and I like to have a putter beforehand. I photographed this wonderful stag that I would love to have in the garden, but I'm afraid £800 is out of my price range. 😵

To prepare for giving blood, I started taking time-release iron supplements last week and will take them for another couple of weeks to make up for the worst of the iron loss. Each donation amounts to a loss of about 200-250mg of iron, which is made up at a rate of 1-2mg per day afterwards. Supplementation can help that process go faster. I've been investigating becoming a plasma donor recently, donating every two weeks instead of 12 for whole blood, but have been declined. I do not weight enough apparently. At 5ft 3 I need to weigh more than 13 stone (182lbs) to have enough blood volume to take a pint (560ml) of plasma. Not sure why they can't take smaller quantities from women, perhaps a third to half a pint. I suspect they would see their donation levels rise considerably but perhaps the whole process is an expensive one and they need to maximise every donation.  

-oOo-

So, this week is set to be a quiet one. Work is much less busy, as my clients are on holiday, and my evenings will be full of Downton Abbey, knitting, and garden pottering as I make up my iron levels. I'm going to take a leaf out of Georgie's book and nap a bit at lunchtimes. He's an expert napper, especially on my knitting bag.

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Steel Kitten

Country pursuits and grime busting

 

Happy Monday all. Another week down, plenty achieved and feeling good.

The experiment I was doing at work has been a success. I've almost entirely caught up with everything I was behind on and I'm finding a lot of peace in my day now I've cut off the timewasters. Each morning at 8am I'm at my desk and instead of firefighting and fixing other people's issues I'm reading a personal development book or working on one of my assignments for my leadership diploma. A month ago I could not have predicted I would be doing that or feeling so positive about my work future.

It's good to have boundaries.

-oOo-

Friday was crop harvesting day in the fields around the property. Good job the weather wasn't stifling because we had to shut all the windows due to the dust and influx of thunderflies coming off the crop. The farmer had grown linseed this year for the first time since we've been here and for about a month we had the most amazing field of blue flowers. But then it turned to yellow and the farmer came along and sprayed it off so for at least a month we've been looking at dark-brown dead stuff. 

As only the linseed at the top of the plant was wanted there was a lot of chaff left over, which he piled up and set fire to, leaving big patches of scorched earth. That was a first. Normally he plows the chaff back in to function as an organic soil conditioner but there must be something amiss with the chaff from linseed. Or perhaps it was the herbicide they used?

-oOo-

On Saturday morning I did something I had been thinking about doing since 2003 - I went clay pigeon shooting. In 2003 I went on one of those corporate shooting events and while I missed just about every shot, there was a particular position that I scored 9/10. It was quite flat and the clays came straight across from the left. I've always wondered why and resolved to go back and chat to an instructor to find out. It's taken me 18 years. 

Anyway, I rocked up at the shooting range first thing Saturday so I could squeeze it in before the Sainsbury's shop. I had a great instructor and managed to hit 14/25, which both he and I were very pleased with for, effectively, a first attempt. And his opinion about why I managed to hit 9/10 before? I am left-eye dominant so I was quicker to track the clays coming from the left, and being flat and low I didn't have to move the gun much, just mostly hold still and judge when to pull the trigger. 

I'm going back next week for second lesson. My bonus is due at the end of July so for once I'm going to spend a little on myself, take some lessons and see if any aptitude I have could turn into a new hobby. I have to say, I found it surprisingly relaxing. I mooched around the supermarket in a very laid-back manner and when I got in had a nap. If it's going to be that good a stress reliever I'll be up there every Saturday morning to shake off the working week.

-oOo-

Sunday morning I was up with the lark and doing battle with the nettles in the paddock. Absolute beasts around 7ft high now. We have a petrol brush cutter but my shoulder is annoying me at the moment and I haven't got the strength to pull the cord to start it up. Instead I had to resort to an electric strimmer that my father gave to us months ago because he couldn't get it to work properly. Then Martin tried and he couldn't get it to work well either so back into the tool barn it went. Enter me who actually read the instructions and fixed it. I find strimmers don't work well if you put the line spool on incorrectly and haven't noticed that grass has wound around the main shaft and is throttling the life out of the motor. Once the line and spool were mounted correctly, and the years of fibrous material prized out it worked quite well. Shhhh...don't tell Martin. 

Then Sunday afternoon was spent cleaning the kitchen. The warm weather has given us such problems with flies this year that we have pulled out all the stops - no food left out (not even under cover), no washing up in the bowl, fly papers, fly killing clings for the windows and the usual fly traps outside on the patio. Still, I opened the food waste bin at lunchtime to find maggots around the lid. They'd got in. So everything was cleaned and sanitised around the cooker and sink within an inch of its life. Then I thought as I have the cleaning bug I might as well do the log burner side of the kitchen. It's not often I give that side a good clean. I pulled everything out or down off the shelves, got out the soapy wood wash and gave it all a thorough scrub from top to bottom, including the doors, drawers fronts and floor. Afterwards, there was a distinct echo in the room. Does dust absorb noise because the room sounded empty afterwards? Embarrassing to admit, as it might give you some idea of the scale of dust on those shelves but there you go. One day both sides of the fireplace will be boxed in with cupboards to prevent the build up of dust and grime. 

I've also made a couple of changes to try and improve things. I'm getting rid of the door blinds that you can see in the picture. They are difficult to clean and the plastic beading at the bottom is broken. I'm going to find some gingham curtain material and make up a set of curtains. Not sure what colour yet, possibly grey, blue or light green if I can find some at a good price. That way I can wash them periodically.

I've also decided to get rid of the plastic drip tray and cutlery container. I bought black to match in with the microwave and tea/coffee/sugar containers but it has been a pain from day one. Because we have such hard water, every week I have to spray vinegar and bicarb on it and scrub it down (the bottom picture is after the cleaning). Then I have to do the same to the taps and sink, which are coated in it. It was so bad on the draining board this week I used the caustic mix I usually use for descaling the kettle. 

I've decided to replace the black drip rack with a smaller white wire rack that could be put in the dishwasher once a week, and have reused a Cath Kidston hand towel to sit underneath, placing the corner up near the tap to absorb the water. It belonged to my mother but I didn't put it in general circulation because we have so many towels of our own. So it sat in the airing cupboard not being used. This way I can see it every day and it cheers up the place a bit. When it gets damp I'll hang it up to dry and put it through the wash every week. 

-oOo-

I finished a good book this week called Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd, a forensic pathologist who has spent 40 years trying to uncover the truth of how people met their end. He talks about some very high profile cases he was involved with and how pathology has changed over the years, for the better in some aspects, for the worst in others. His speciality was knife wounds, and I must confess I did laugh at his descriptions of his wife and children complaining that he had been messing with the Sunday joint again. Yes, he used whatever joint was in the fridge to evaluate the signature profiles of different knives for his studies. Often the result was not slices of roast beef on the plate but lumps. 😆

I also finished this puzzle, which I've been working on for months, not because it was very hard but because I don't tend to be downstairs any more in the evenings. As I've stopped indiscriminately watching TV the marathon puzzle sessions have stopped. Most evenings we watch Life Below Zero, which starts on one of the Freeview channels at 7pm and so coincides with dinner, but after that I'm off. I make an exception of Friday or Saturday so Martin and I can kick back together and watch a couple of films, and that's when I do my puzzles now. I probably don't get more than 50-75 pieces placed on these evenings. That would have annoyed me in the past but it doesn't any longer. 

I'm enjoying the journey, not just the destination 😁

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Steel Kitten

A satisfying week

Happy Monday all. Extra happy because I have this week off work. Shame it's going to be so grim weather-wise but still. I live in the UK and as all Brits know, this is how our summers roll. 😁

So, I succeeded in getting my airing cupboard sorted and looking much better. The rooms look clean and tidy without all the fabric piled up everywhere. I even managed to put everything in piles by size order. I have single, double and king size beds in the house so I keep bedding sets for all them. There was quite a sizeable pile of stuff to go to a charity shop.

Last Monday I also worked out how to do great crackling without drying out the joint. I've tried for years to work it out but never could quite manage it and end up with succulent joint as well. So, I actually looked it up on the internet (and I thought the internet was just for reading blogs and looking at cat memes 😁). Wash and dry the joint thoroughly then score it. Rub on sea salt, especially into the cracks. Slice an onion and pile it in the middle of a roasting tin. Put the joint on top and add 1/2 - 1 inch of water (I used boiling water) carefully to the bottom of the tin. Start off with the oven temp on high 200 - 220oC and then turn down to 160-170 after 20 minutes and cook as normal according to weight. Watch the level of the water and top up as necessary. 

To go with it, I found some rhubarb in the freezer and made a nice tart compote and fnished everything off with a plum crumble. Leftover pork went into the freezer with a few other bits of leftover roast meat, ready to be transformed into something amazing at a later date.

For the first time in quite a while I made a cake, a strawberry/raspberry, vanilla and almond one layer gluten free cake. I very rarely bake gluten-free as the results are usually pretty poor. I only did a little bit of mixture, probably about a quarter of what I would normally do for a Victoria sponge, in case it was a failure and I wasn’t sure how much the fruit would sink if I made one much bigger. It was amazing. Twenty-four hours later there's only one slice left. I should have gone bigger. 

Harvested my first pak choi, which I wilted in a pan with some rocket. I picked it because it was starting to run to seed - I could see the flower spike beginning to grow up in the middle. It was so nice I’m thinking of getting some more seeds going and see if I can have a supply through the winter. 

A few weeks ago we bought four more chickens two point-of-lay at 18 weeks and two young 8-week old cream legbars, complete with little frizzy hair-styles. 

Our existing chickens haven't been so well this winter and they no longer lay with any regularity so we invested in some new ones. The babies have only this weekend got to a size where I'm comfortable letting them out to roam a bit. Baldrick has been catching a lot of wood pigeons lately and the baby chickens were about the same size. I didn't want them ending up a cat snack. 

A few other things happened.

We went to a funeral on Thursday afternoon, which went very well. The deceased was the friend of Martin's I'd mentioned before that was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. They gave him about six months to live but in reality he only managed six weeks. He was a bit of a local character, and if something was going to happen it usually happened to him so there was a lot laughs when his wife shared some of her stories during the service. It was a very light-hearted service and what Martin's friend would have wanted. He was never one to feel sorry for himself. 

A few weeks ago I was surprised to be awarded £150 in vouchers from my firm to celebrate seven years of employment. I asked for garden vouchers and early last week we bought two new recliners for the patio. We got one out to road test and it immediately started to rain. Back into the shed it went and there it has stayed. British summers...😀

Finally, I've got back into Life Below Zero, which is probably my favourite TV series of all time (trying not to binge watch though. Don't want to fall back into the trap of hours of mind-numbing screen-time). I feel a real affinity for the life of Glenn Villeneuve and the reasons he lives out there. He has a child-like innocence and wonder about life that I wish I had. You can tell he has spent a great deal of time thinking about the values he holds dear and then adjusting his life to fit with those values. He is always learning, always willing to accept that there is more for him to learn. It’s refreshing. It's made me wonder how I would cope somewhere like that, if I could survive. Truthfully, probably not. I like a bit of adversity, I enjoy challenge but the uncertainty of the food and water supply, the continual presence of predators, I would never relax or sleep soundly. Frankly, I don't know how Glenn does! Sleep deprived I would make one false move with an axe or a chainsaw and that would be that! 

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Steel Kitten

No more dreaded Mondays

It’s the end of a long and tiring week for me. I consider Mondays my ‘end of week’ now rather than Sunday and thank goodness I have it free today. 

Last week I covered someone at work while she was on holiday as well as doing my own job. Thursday and Friday I was visiting a client in Durham so had to work on trains and in a hotel room, although I managed to squeeze a trip to Durham cathedral in so I could light a candle in memory of my mother. 

The next day, Saturday, I drove to Thame to scatter her ashes with my father and sister on her birthday (and discovered the most beautiful damask rose bush to pop her under). Sunday I went with Martin to look after his stall at a model aircraft swap meet. 

I’m shattered frankly. I’ve been awake before 6am every morning, and when I’ve eventually got to sleep I’ve tossed and turned and not stayed asleep. My sleep pattern is dreadful at the moment because I am stressed.

But thank goodness for Mondays. I had a nice lie in this morning until 8am and now I have lots of energy to get done the things I want to accomplish. I've changed MIL's bed and washed the sheets, then cooked up a batch of egg shells to grind up in the chicken feed for extra calcium. 

Shortly, I'll be tackling a job that's been annoying me - I am drowning in blankets, throws, duvets, fleeces, patchwork quilts, bedspreads, eiderdowns and curtains. There are piles in every room. I’ve taken in a lot from Martin’s aunt’s house and some of my mother’s items and now I’m inundated. I need to sort out the ones to be washed, get those done and then fold up the rest and get them away in the airing cupboard. That is in a dreadful state as well so I have to sort that out before anything can go in. I’ll hopefully end up releasing more stuff for the charity shop and making some room. 

Later on this afternoon I am potting up a load of tomato plants and cucumbers for the greenhouse. Martin found a greenhouse for £50. Bless him, he spent all week clearing the space for it, painting the wall and putting it up. It’s a bit rough and ready but as long as it protects the plants and keeps them a bit warm it doesn’t matter. 

Because I feel more rested with three days off I'm now spending the time doing more cooking, rather than throwing quick meals at people. Dinner tonight is a nice pork joint, but previous weeks I've done lamb shanks and a vegetable lasagne. 

After that I'm doing some studying for my herbal course and reading some of my new books. Last week I decided to add some vintage books on frugality/simple living to my collection. Every now and then I get a £25 voucher from work for something I’ve done well so that's been burning a hole in my pocket for a few weeks.

I was particularly pleased to find good copies of books by enthusiastic and penny-pinching cook Shirley Goode written in the 80's. Although she is no longer with us, she left behind a great legacy  - she had a blog where she talked about all sorts of ways to reduce household spending on food (among other topics). I've read it all before but will be going back through again. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I also have The Farmhouse Kitchen Cookbook after finding a couple of vintage episodes of The Farmhouse Kitchen on YouTube. It only dawned on me recently that the woman who hosted it was Scottish and not from Yorkshire at all. 

I’ve also discovered a wonderful YouTube channel, courtesy of Rhonda over at Down to Earth, featuring a lovely Turkish couple cooking outdoors in all weathers. There’s no talk, it’s just the sights and sounds of their activities, which is amazingly soothing and fascinating. Her chopping blade is something else! 

So tonight I will round off my day and relax watching an episode.

I used to dread Mondays. Now I look forward to them 😊

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Steel Kitten

Quiet days

I'm getting into a daily rhythm with the social distancing.

DH's alarm goes off at 5am, he gets up, I go back to sleep. The lighter mornings wake me up around 6:30am but I won't get up until after 7am. I like the initial morning doze in the warm. Once I'm up the cats are let out, tea for me and mother-in-law, litter trays emptied and cleaned and I check the news online. Text my mother and sister to see how it goes with them. Then shower, maybe some yoga stretches, and then I get down to the business of the day.

Work is coming in fits and starts. We no longer have face-to-face meetings with clients, so our customer service team has been re-booking teleconferences with those who are still working. This has disrupted the normal flow of things and documents have slowed down.

I like the structure of work, it helps me focus on other things besides what is going on in the world. I have been alternating editing with housework. Edit a report, hoover the landing, edit a report, wipe the door handles, edit a report, steam clean the bathroom floor, etc. Break for lunch and to read my book, 30 minute nap, and then it begins again, with the ironing done sometime mid-afternoon. Mother-in-law goes for a trot round outside. I throw a few more yoga shapes if I'm stiff, maybe weed a veg bed. No-one visits here except the occasional parcel delivery man - DH picks up our mail from our postman so he doesn't have to stop here.

DH texts to see if I want anything before he comes home (the answer is usually no). He picks up anything mother-in-law needs, or posts off something my parents need (yesterday it was latex gloves). Then he comes in, strips off and showers. I take all outdoor clothes down to be washed. We sit on the bed with tea and watch the daily update. I cook the dinner, hang up the washing, do a bit of reading/painting/watch a film, do DH's lunch and then go to bed by 10pm.

At 5am the alarm goes off and we start again.

It is a boringly normal day, every day and that's the way we're trying to keep it. Low key, unsurprising and distanced from as much of the world as possible. We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

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Steel Kitten

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

Closing the loops thanks to The Happiness Project

While I was away, I found an interesting book in a charity shop called The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin. It appears that this was quite a big thing when it came out back in 2009 but as I don't tend to read newspapers, go on social media, watch TV much or listen to the radio I completely missed it. I completely miss most things but I work on the basis that if they are important to me I will find out about them when the time is right, and that seems to work quite well.

Basically, Gretchen Rubin committed to 12 months of finding ways to be happier. Like all people she was ok, but she felt she was coasting a bit and had fallen into a rut. She could be a bit happier but wasn't sure how so she took an aspect of her life every month and made 4-5 resolutions to do better. I hadn't come across that idea before - normally everyone makes their resolutions in January and is over them by March.

Among the many, many resolutions I found interesting (and I will probably blog about later) was identifying and resolving unfinished projects. I always have a silly number of those but lately I had begun to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of 'open loops' that were occupying my brain. Every 'commitment' not completed is an open loop that is tracked and takes up a lot of mental energy being remembered. Then there is the damage to my self-esteem caused by beating myself up about not having done them. I'll admit, I'm not the greatest finisher in the world and I frequently suffer from being 'mentally drained' due to the ever-growing to-do list I hold in my head and the 'tellings off' I give myself over it all.

So, I sat down with a journal and downloaded everything in my brain that was an open loop. Then I started getting some of them off there. For example, this is the Technology list, and crossed off is what I've achieved since coming back off holiday:

Technology
Find an app for logging receipts and reporting spending categories DONE
Fix Macbook or have hard drive removed for storage DONE. FIXED
Fix Apple wireless keypad DONE. BATTERY LEAK CLEANED UP. NOW WORKING.
Fix iPod DONE. HARD RESET REQUIRED
Fix Black and Decker handheld vacuum DONE
Sell off handheld voice recorders that are no longer needed for freelance work DONE
Buy additional back up drives for photos DONE
Go through old phones, remove pictures and recycle phones
Donate/throw out any cables from items we no longer own.
Organise my photos across all devices and back up
Print out and display the ones we love the most AUSTRALIA PHOTOS DONE, NEXT IS OUR WEDDING PHOTOS (ONLY 13 YEARS AFTER THE FACT)
Convert vintage non-working clocks to battery CANNOT DO, WILL RUIN CLOCKS
Clear out work inbox (5.5k emails!)
Clear out personal inbox (3.5k emails!)
Unsubscribe to everything I don't want to receive emails for WORK IN PROGRESS
Transfer my Typepad blog into yearly ebooks to print on demand, a year per month ONE YEAR OF 13 DONE

I've got similar lists for Smallholding, Household and Health to work through this year. Some of the lists are long but relatively quick, such as tossing 'aspirational' clutter (cough...exercise equipment...cough), others are much more involved and depend on external factors, like repointing the barns where the masonry bees have done damage, which needs good weather.

The Happiness Project is worth a read if only to demonstrate that others have the same challenges as we do. I lost count of the number of times I thought "Yeh, I do that/think that/have that." We are not alone :)

You can read the first chapter here.

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Steel Kitten

More smallholding, less household chores

I used to enjoy baking and preserving, but for reasons I didn't fully understand until this weekend I haven't done them for a long time. I used to bake cakes, pies, and biscuits, and preserve all sorts of fruit and veg at our previous house but a combination of different factors has seen this drop off to almost nothing.

First, I find doing anything more complicated than a simple meal difficult with the lack of worksurface in the new house kitchen. The layout is not set up for smallholding tasks, a surprise given it used to run as a smallholding. I find pastry on any scale particularly difficult. I've had it in mind for a while now to change the layout of the kitchen to give me more dedicated space to prep more than just basic meals and store much more than the pantry will allow. That's a post for another day though. I tried to make do for a while but because it wasn't an enjoyable experience my enthusiasm petered out.

Second, I realised lately I've been spending too long on basic household tasks and less time doing what I actually enjoy, which is smallholding tasks. Should I do the hoovering or try making soap? Prep those tomatoes for drying or change the bed? Mow the lawn or bake a cake for the week? Because I work full-time it was all too easy to narrow my sights on chores and keep things ticking over. Then I thought, what about dropping the ball a bit more? Nothing stops just because the hoovering doesn't get done. The world doesn't tilt on its axis because the grass grows a fraction longer and the bed is a little more wrinkled.

So, Bank Holiday Monday I decided to do something about it.

I walked past the bed's weekly change and the lawn mowing in favour of collecting fruit from around the property and whipping up eight jars of jam with a little left over.

I also tried something new - not using cellophane and bands etc to seal the jars. I struggle with this every year as the quality of cellophane has decreased over the years; it often tears or doesn't seal properly. This time I simply washed and soaked the jars and lids in boiling water, poured in the jam and screwed down the lid tight. As the jam cooled, the central safety button on every single jar was successfully sealed as the vacuum sucked down each one. That saved me so much faffing around.

I cooked up some Bramley apples and combined them with blackberries to make some slices with puff pastry (the picture at the top of the post). I also cooked up a gingerbread tray bake, cut it into quarters and topped some with lemon icing and wrapped up the rest for later in the week.

As for the chores? I can confirm the world didn't stop.

I did the mowing yesterday evening and later today I will change the bed.

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Steel Kitten

A sad week and smallholding tasks

So it's been a bit of a bad 10 days and I decided not to blog. The sheep went to the slaughterhouse on Tuesday, and I was quite emotional about it. Unsurprisingly. I know people say you get used to it but I can't say I ever will. I wasn't a proper snotty wreck at the abattoir like I was with the pigs - I held it together until i got back in the van and then sniveled all the way home. 

I didn't bond as much with the sheep as I did with the pigs though. I kept getting hurt by their horns or headbutted which, when combined with the fact they broke Georgie's leg and were responsible for the deaths of the chickens, helped me retain some semblance of emotional detachment. Not completely though. The smallholding has no animals apart from the cats and it is very quiet and a little bit sad.

Anyway, the sheep will be returned from the slaughterhouse next week so I have to have a mega rearrange of the freezers to make space. Leading on from that job is rendering down the surplus pig fat into lard for soapmaking, which has been frozen down until I was ready for it. The amount in the picture is about a quarter of what is frozen.

This is a particularly stinky job and I have refrained from doing it during the last few months out of respect for my mother-in-law. However, I waved her and Martin off for a short break staying with my brother-in-law this morning so game on! 

It's Le Mans weekend you see, a 24hr endurance race in France that Martin and his brother get together every year to watch on TV. I don't think they have missed a year so far. Not my idea of fun - 24hrs of crisp eating and watching cars go round and round a track. Nope, I usually stay with the cats and enjoy the quiet time, putter, watch box sets, cross a few jobs off the list, etc. 

This year, in no particular order, the list of jobs to be crossed off include:

• Render and clean all the pig fat into lard using the slow cookers
• Wash the sheep fleeces in the bath and dry in the sun ready for carding
• Mow the paddock
• Spring clean the lobby and paint the skirting and wall around the front door.

Yes, I haven't stopped spring cleaning, which has now gone on so long it has become summer cleaning! We had someone to stay for a few days recently so the living room, landing and stairs were thoroughly deep cleaned as part of the preparations - apologies, I had no time to blog about that I just had to get on and get cleaning as their arrival was unexpected and imminent. Mostly a lot of dust and cobwebs with a bit of suite spot cleaning, curtain hoovering, carpet freshening and relocating objects back to their proper homes. Wasn't too bad and didn't take too long.

So, once the lobby is finished this weekend, all that will be left is the en-suite in our bedroom and I will have completed the spring clean of the whole house. Finally!

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Steel Kitten

Life on hold

Spring cleaning has had to be put on hold this week as Martin has managed to tear his calf muscle, leaving me to hold the fort. 

We've recently decided to modify the kitchen, and in an amazing stroke of luck we found a secondhand Rangemaster 90cm induction range on eBay in our town and went to pick it up in the week. 

That's when it happened. Martin lifted his end of the range, but didn't even get it off the ground before his calf muscle snapped. He had very large calf muscles and it looks like they were too tight and couldn't take the strain. Luckily the seller had some friends he could call on to help us load it into the van. 

So until further notice I've taken over all of his chores inside and outside the house, including 3-4 hours of weekly grass mowing and - a super special chore for this weekend - brush-cutting the nettles in the paddock down. 

Deep joy.

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Steel Kitten

The big reveal (not!): bathroom

As promised, pictures of the bathroom with the new floor. I laid that myself and am very chuffed with the outcome. Can't believe how much difference it makes. Much better than smelly worn out old carpet.

So, now onto spring cleaning our bedroom. 

To be honest, there isn't a lot to do in here so this should be a quick week. We have a bit too much furniture in here and sometimes the clothes and reading material can build up a bit on the chests of drawers and beside tables, but generally it is pretty clean. It's not to my taste decor-wise - that coral/peach colour was the former owner's preference - but this room won't be decorated for another couple of years and only after the en-suite has been upgraded first.

So the cleaning list:

• take anything that doesn’t belong in the bedroom and put it in the correct location
• dust ceiling, corners, and upper and lower moldings
• dust/hoover the pelmets
• dust baseboards
• dust and polish chests of drawers
• dust edges of wall hangings, mirrors, and pictures
• dust lamps
• clean light fixtures and light globes
• organise the clothes closet
• switch seasonal clothing and donate unneeded items
• clean and organise the bedside tables
• flip, rotate and hoover the top of the mattress 
• wash pillows
• clean windows and window sills
• vacuum carpet, including edges and under furniture
• clean doors and moldings
• disinfect door knobs and light switch plates
• put up mirror and pictures

I think that will do. The majority of that won't take more than a couple of hours once I crack into it, which is good as my end of financial year work is piling up so I'm running behind. The good weather this weekend saw indoors work abdicated for outdoors so all the cleaning is running a little behind my planned schedule.

The sheep gave us a little bit of a panic over the weekend when one of them squeezed themselves into a spare chicken pen and didn't seem able to get out. Of course, just as we togged up preparing to heft up the heavy pen and release him from yet another scrape, he gave us a quizzical look and squeezed back out. He wasn't stuck at all. He was just standing still wondering what we were doing.

We attacked a bush that had got overgrown and was causing an obstruction, hacking it right back to the floor. The top picture was taken last November, and you can see how much it encroached on the path. We still have to kill off the root and dig it out before we can plant anything else there but at least we can  use the pathway now.

The ivy on the side of the barns was cut off from the bottom so the top can die off and be removed easily. Unfortunately, it has done damage to the lime mortar at the top so we will have to repoint that corner of the barns before winter.

Finally, Fleagle got her annual shave - inexpertly done by me - so she can keep cool in the heat. We had to take her to the vet to have her claws clipped as well, as she created such a massive fuss when we tried that we gave up. It took two of them to do it while she was wrapped in a towel to prevent her biting and scratching. She gets worse as she gets older!

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Steel Kitten