Holes, Holes and More Holes

Once again we are visited by the little digger, but this time it's digging holes right outside the house.  Really convenient ..... and lovely and muddy.

It looks so innocent sat there in the sunshine, but every night we have had torrential rain and apart from filling the holes with water this makes the soil that this lovely little orange machine has dug up turn into a sea of mud that is slowly and determinedly covering our layer of slate chippings around the house. 

Which means that four human feet, sixteen little doggy feet, oh and not forgetting the four dainty little pussy cat feet are all walking it into the house.

Who was it that commented the other week that my kitchen floor looked amazingly white ..... yeah right ... not any more!!

Hopefully, once they have been inspected by Building Control, the holes will be filled in with concrete, which will act as the base for the steel supports that are going in to support the new conservatory roof.  As the conservatory has minimal roof support on two of it's sides, it needs something substantial to hold up the proper slate roof that will match the house.

And did you spot something new lurking near the house too, yes we have had to buy a new oil tank as our current one is sat right where the bank of earth is to be dug out to make more space for the garage ... and it's developed a slight leak and killed all the plants we planted around it.

Three holes done ....

... and the fourth one should be done tomorrow, after the nice boiler man who is here at the moment currently syphoning all the oil from the old tank into the new one, has finished disconnecting the central heating and hot water boiler, which is handily right in the position the final hole needs to be dug.  

So mud, mud and more mud ....... and no hot water!!

It's a good job I haven't had the central heating switched on yet, at least we've not got used to that little luxury before it's temporarily taken away from us.  The boiler will be reattached once the work is done, in the meantime it will be showers for us and the muddy dogs, and water boiled in the kettle for washing the pots.

It's like one step forward and two steps back but at least hopefully in a few weeks time we will have a much cosier conservatory 

Sue xx

Stoptober Update

 

I put ten pounds into my purse on the first day of Stoptober and managed to spend none of it, so come last Wednesday when I added another crisp ten pound note I had a total of twenty pounds.  However, I couldn't go another week without spending anything and I had to shop for the above, well I didn't have to have the Kiwis, but they were such good value I couldn't resist.

I went out armed with the first ten pound note and a 70p off voucher.  Which came in really handy as it meant all the above came to just eight pounds exactly.  (Don't you always think it's weird when that happens ... or is it just me?)

Well that left enough for a bottle of milk at just £1 the next day, so Lovely Hubby could have milk in his tea and on his cereal, and if the truth be known he's a bit of a swigger from the bottle.  Which is no problem really as I don't have milk in anything now,  I do stop him if we have guests coming!!

The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted something unusual in my shopping and I hear you asking ..... why the eggs?   Surely Sue and Lovely Hubby have a flock of chickens .... yes we do but it would appear they have decided to be ornamental pets birds for a while, although they are the scruffiest ornamental pet birds you would ever have the misfortune of meeting.

It's moult time here on the hillside, and across the road as it happens, we bumped into our neighbours from the campsite while we were out the other day and yes, they too have had to go out and buy some eggs, their birds have decided to go on strike too.

You may have noticed that I've even changed the header picture of the Blog, as seeing that row of bl**dy eggs there was just infuriating when we've not had any of our own to eat for a couple of weeks now!!

Anyway at almost the end of the second week of Stoptober I now have £11 pounds in my purse and there will be another £10 added to it on Wednesday, not that I think I will need much, except maybe some more milk ... it would seem a lot of swigging went on this weekend ;-)

Sue xx

Just Dance

Life is sometimes not all it's cracked up to be, sometimes you strive to hear the music.  But when you do  ..... you should just dance.

Sue xx

Dogs Watching Cats

Mavis and Suky were glued to the television the other night, and I mean really glued.  There were no adverts so nothing to distract them, even the talking humans seemed to hold their attention for a whole hour.

The programme we were watching was all about cats, and two of our dogs were transfixed by it.

What cats got up to was caught on the little cameras around their necks, how far they roamed was monitored,  how they spoke to each other and to their owners was talked about and all their little tell tale signals with their ears, tails and body language.

Ginger ..... you have been warned,  Mavis and Suky now know your every secret!!

Sue xx

Throwing Food Away

Throwing food away is something I do not do lightly, especially during Stoptober, but the other morning while drinking my first cup of coffee of the day, the spice shelves caught my eye.  We've lived in this house for almost a year now and in that time I realised that some of the spices on the shelves had not been touched ... at all !!

Time for a sort though I thought to myself.

A couple of them smelt and looked fine, but were spices I had bought for specific recipes a long time ago, things I have never cooked since and doubt I will in the future so they were chucked, a couple smelt musty and as I had no dates written on the labels I decided to bin them too.  I always trust my nose more than I trust a date anyway :-)

It looks a lot sparser and neater for now, but with the re-organisations that we are about to make I think the whole shelf will be coming off the wall soon .... and staying off the wall.  The contents of the shelves will now fit in the cupboards, and that way stay dust free making the kitchen even easier to clean.  The things I have binned will only be replaced if it turns out they were useful, but somehow I doubt it.

While I was washing the jars out ready for re-use in the future the kitchen window sill grabbed my attention.  The egg boxes piled up in the corner when we have been getting no eggs were an annoyance, and it just seemed cluttered and grubby.

An hour later the window had been cleaned inside and out, the egg boxes had been added to the others on top of the kitchen wall cupboards where they will gather less dust, and everything had been washed and put back.  Even though a poor neglected plant has been added, brought in from the conservatory to keep Basil company, the window sill still looks less cluttered.  Basil's about to bite the dust as Pesto making is calling to me .... but shhh don't tell him ;-)

Do you spring into action noticing things that have been around you for ages that suddenly annoy, or is it just another of my foibles?

Sue xx

An Old Wives Tale ..... or Something that Works

Something I spotted the very first time I visited my lovely Mum in Law Jessie, was that in a corner of every windowsill all around her house was a conker.

Just one little conker, sitting in a corner or tucked behind an ornament.  When I asked her why, she said it was to keep the spiders away.  I didn't know how or why she thought it worked but she did, and do you know what thinking back I very rarely, if ever, saw a spider in her house.

I've tried it for myself over the course of the last couple of weeks, I had hoovered up so many spiders with my little hand held Dyson and relocated them back outside, and no matter how many times a day I did it they were always back, glaring at me from the corner.  Maybe they enjoyed the manic spinning of their Dyson ride and then the cool fresh air before they made their way back inside for another go, or maybe there really were just hundreds of the bloody little things wanting to live in our house.

But since I put a conker in just three of the rooms (I only picked up three during my doggy walk the other week), there have been NO spiders in our house.

I'm a convert.

I thought I'd let you in on this little tip while there are still conkers lying on the ground.  It's worth a go if you don't like sharing your house with spiders, if you don't mind sharing with them you could still pick up a conker or two on your travels and play conkers with bits of string and much swinging.  Something that was banned during my sons last year in school for health and safety reasons ....Huh!!

And of course while photographing the conker for this post my eyes as usual were drawn to the view.  Swirls of mist drifting around the valley and the trees turning all shades of green, amber and brown.  Just magical. 

(My eyes are getting accustomed to ignoring all the works in progress on our little hillside.)

Have a good day.

Sue xx

Sharing, Destruction and Pizzas

So what do you think these two are up to then?

Suky is sleeping through it all.

To-ing and fro-ing, tugging and sucking ..... yes, they're sharing one doggy chew.  

They each chewed an end until they met in the middle, I didn't see who got the last bit, unless of course it simply snapped in the middle and they each got to eat their own end.

Mavis and Charley are turning into partners in crime.  

Yesterdays naughties included upending the kindling basket and have a good chewing and scattering session all over the living room floor, and demolishing the old dog bed, there was foam and wadding everywhere, and as both dogs were discovered with Father Christmas-like beards the culprits were easy to spot.  But whereas a telling off will send Mavis into her bed a serious look of contrition on her face, Charley with all the confidence of always being with people that love her and treat her fairly and squarely looks at you with those big, dark puppy eyes and defies you to be cross with her for long. 

Mavis has seen too much bad treatment in her poor little life, I can never be cross with her for more than a few minutes.  She's always being cuddled and reminded that now she's home there will be no one to hurt her ...... and only people and animals that will love her.

Suky and Rosy keep themselves to themselves when the madness and mayhem kick off, but looking at Suky's tongue peeking out I think she is dreaming of a tasty snack.

Something I had last night.

After finding two homemade pizza bases in the freezer I decided that the remaining roasted vegetables would make a perfect pizza topping.  Sprinkled with the last of the grated cheese and popped in the Aga for 15 minutes.

One for my tea, and one taken out just over half cooked to go back into the freezer.

It all goes towards helping with Stoptober.

How are you doing now that we're one week in?

Sue xx