- Whoop, whoop, I had an a award winning money journalist leave a comment on my last blog post! And she lives in Suffolk too. Faith Archer also has a Blog called Much More With Less which I have added to my reading list.
- We have had a caravan arrive on site for a 2 week stay and 2 more caravans together for 6 nights which adds nicely to the income so that instead of being £300 down on the same time as last year we are now £50 up!
- All of last years hay has now been sold, leaving a space in the hay shed where we plan to put all of our unwanted smallholding equipment ready for a yard/barn sale later in the year. We've got 4 x 50 metre rolls of electric poultry flexi-net for a start as well as loads of other things. When Kate-who-bought-my-goats came to collect the hay she put her name down for one of our metal waterproof feed bins. She said she bought one that is so badly designed that if you lift the lid after its rained a load of water runs down straight on top of the feed sacks - obviously designed by a man!
- We ate our first few French climbing beans on Saturday. These are in the poly-tunnel and are doing really well, unlike the first lot we planted outside which look very sad. The wind and last Fridays storm have also damaged the runner beans. We are also now eating new potatoes from the outside bed and they are delicious, much tastier than the very early ones from the tunnels.
- The sun shone on Saturday and Sunday and loads of tidying and weeding was done. The asparagus bed had been invaded by a weird and mysterious weed/plant. Seemingly growing from seed and completely covering the bed and only this one bed as if someone had sown them there. It took me ages to get it all out then I spent another age searching through all my plant books to find out what it was. I'm still not sure but the nearest thing it resembles is a Wallflower, I guess I should have left it a bit longer to see if it produced any flowers, that might have made it easier to identify.
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| Weed on the right and a bit from the perennial wallflowers on the left |
- Our local car boot sale - 10 minutes away- is now almost every Sunday instead of alternate weeks. This is both Good but Bad! I went on my own again and spent 3 x 50p, and had a good walk round in the fresh early morning air. A string holder tin, a cross stitch kit and 3 chunky tumblers, as one of ours got broken last week, were the things I splashed out on. Glasses are one of the (many) things I never buy new along with tea towels they are always around and I buy a couple of each during the summer while it's car boot season. It's no good waiting until I actually need them.
- Another sunny day and more tidying up on Monday. Col is working his way around his workshop mess dividing things into burning/keep/dump or sell. I was dashing around the house noticing things that needed cleaning before the house photographer comes. I wish there was an easy but cheap answer to window cleaning, whatever I do here our very hard water seems to leave marks and the windy weather we've been getting whips up dust from everywhere and leaves it smeared on all the windows especially at the front of the house.It seemed such a good idea to have our new kitchen extension flooded with light from 3 directions, after all I had had 19 years in a small, gloomy kitchen, but that means 4 large windows that need frequent cleaning and it always seems to be my job.
- Today, Tuesday and more rushing around putting things away. Col had to go to the dentists for a check up - nothing needed doing. The very young man ( blimey I sound like those old Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke sketches)
came with camera and took loads of photos of the house and smallholding, did the measurements for the floor plan and the details for the EPC certificate. The sun was shining so the photos should look good. We were discussing with him how some Estate Agents are very poor at photos.Having been looking on line at houses for years we've seen all sorts of odd things. Clothes still hanging on airers, towels on the floor in bathrooms, un-made beds ( OK for Tracy Emin but not good for selling a house!). We are also surprised at some we've looked at that say they have woodland but then there are no photos.
After he went we got lots of weeding done in amongst the Gooseberry bushes. They are loaded with gooseberries but all very small, we really need a lot of rain and less of this East wind. This time last year I had already started picking and selling them.
- Another library book finished.The House in South Road by Joyce Storey Not an easy read, in fact I had borrowed this before and not read it because it tells of an unhappy childhood followed by her unhappy marriage. I stuck it out this time but wouldn't want to read it again.
- The above is not the most exciting picture you will see on a blog, but I'm quite excited by it arriving as it means Col really is clearing out some junk. We plan to fit everything we want to keep from garden shed and workshop in our small horsebox trailer, so a lot of might-come-in-handy-but-never-did stuff will have to go.
- And Finally...............because my Suffolk County Council pension ( from my 8 years of library work) is so small I had the choice of having a lump sum at once instead of £25 pounds a month. I dithered a bit but decided it was probably a good idea to have an extra £5,500 now. After all I could peg out in a few years time or the Council could run out of funds. This unexpected bonus will go a way to paying for the selling expenses or to buy a caravan if we suddenly decide to do a bit of traveling!
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Sue
