Tedium

 I think ive got to that time of the year where the urge to kill himself gets really strong ..lol He has his disability van back and hes bouncing around wanting to go out and theres nowhere to go unless your a Xmas Head , its all very craft fair and Christmas Fayre every shop is a sea of xmas stock that you never knew you needed and you dont need it at all . What next on the xmas food front, vol-a-vents with sparkly reindeers tears? perhaps Snowman meringues with Influencer packaging ? The god awful perfume adverts are back in force , but as someone pointed out the other day does anyone wear perfume anymore ?  Mind you its nearly December so those of a xmas persuasion are excused for putting the decorations up now or at least  dragging them out of the attic, finding the lights dont work and you somehow packed the cat along with the tree last year. Your local Facebook seems to be rammed with photos of front doors with a parcel on the step and folks asking is this your front door or are you so and so cos i have your parcel , its as if theyre going past on a sleigh and just sprinkling the area with parcels . Well what else can you expect after all its a Happy Commercial Xmas !!

Progress

 Oh no it would seem i must try the new super duper blogger features, did we ask for them ? do we need them? the big gap in the market for all these wonderful ideas is a sort of Windows basic or  Google Oldie . where there is an absolute basic package that you then bolt addons onto IF you need them. Its all gone a bit far they all think they need to think up a new gimmick every five minutes or maybe the younger generation can only cope that way? Something where if the cat walks over the keyboard nothing much changes would be nice or is that asking to much . I suppose im a bit of a problem because i still see the internet as a tool rather than a necessity , i still use reference books and dont rely on image search for the things i purchase , i was reared to do research and books were what i learned from , you try that online and its welcome to the world of AI deceit, plus it all seems to be pushing a very narrow view of everything that if youve lived a life is very obviously lies . 

Himself keeps asking what i want for xmas ..lol..ive bought him a metal workshop chair because he breaks all the wooden ones . I suggested to him, could i have a bookcase of books from one of the local auctions , they sell whole bookcases full with really bad pictures and a vague description and i would really enjoy going through them and seeing what i want to read or keep , good project for the dead space of the xmas period. Then i could carboot what ive read in the Spring . Well at least he didnt flinch , why am i not surprised he said. But i notice he didnt say no 

Shoe B Careful

Heres a weird one for you , has anybody else had their shoes disintegrate while wearing them of late?  I had a pair of couple of year old Evans boots worn maybe a dozen times and put them on Saturday, went to take them off and most of the surface of the boots disintegrated in my hands , they weren't expensive by most peoples standards but to me they were, not repairable so into the bin they went . Now strangely enough a couple of weeks ago i bought a nice Joules handbag at the jumble and much the same happened to that . So it being cold and because im bored i looked it up on line and found hundreds of people online having the same problem a lot have contacted retailers and been told that its not their fault so go away . I kept trawling and found some answers , hydrolysis is when the souls disintegrate and it would seem that the vinyl covering of pleather as they call it now has to be biodegradable so quite literally they are designed to rot in landfill. You have no idea when buying shoes how long theyve been made surely they should come with a sell by date ?   

Shoppin

 I must have had a premonition , his part for his van has finally turned up !!!  Now the garage just has to find the time to fix it ..lol at least it will mean i can have my kitchen and living room back , i currently have his disabled wheels stuck in the kitchen and his hoist and other disabled gubbins in the living room , they had to be removed due to the value of them before the wretched vehicle could go to the garage so ive been walking round a track for months .

On the shoppin front i'd seen on line that Tesco had half price beef joints , so i thought Xmas . popped in yesterday and was stood at the side of the chiller of beef with three other folks shaking our heads the aforementioned Clubcard special offer , was shrink wrapped vivid red and looked like the end bits off proper joints , i picked up a small you know it will shrink to the size of a beefburger on cooking lump, £25 and this is half price? There is retail piss taking everywhere but thats one of the worse ive seen . Half price shoulder of lamb £18 bugger all on it just a bone. Well i needed bread and eggs and they took some finding, theyve just revamped little Tesco and theres no logic to it . Everywhere were folks wandering round muttering , one women was in the stock cubes muttering about how they had gone up by over £1 in a week,  I guess we are paying for the revamp !! with their billions of pounds profit they are taking the piss .. 

Eternal Autumn

 I look out the window and it seems that we are having the longest autumn in living memory , its either very grey or very sunny . The heatings been on for an hour just to bleed the radiators , im still having to sleep with the window open and a single sheet . But then there was some cheerful chap online the other night pointing out that the worst winter in 20 years started this way !!! The level of birds this year is amazing a lot have managed two batches of young , we are absolutely infested with wrens and tits , so i cant tidy the back garden because they like to pick all the seeds off the weeds . We have a huge ivy that covers and hides the oil tank its now in flower and is covered with bees and wasps daily . Theres hundreds of ladybirds whever the sun comes out . The bald patches in the lawn have filled in i sprinkled them with wildlife friendly seed,  different clovers and grasses so it might be a tad alternative this year and will doubtless upset the neighbours as always . The hedgehogs are still up and feeding every night . in fact its positivly brimming with life out there , which is how i like it .

Meanwhile in the real world the disabled adapted van has now been sat in the garage for 3 months waiting for a part that you can only get from America , which with all the dumb tariff fiddling about is sat in a depot somewhere ?  Even himself who always buys Ford says never again ..ho hum I will stick to watching the wildlife and trying to motivate myself into Facebook Marketplace listing a ton of accidental auction lot Denby tableware , I wanted a doll and two big boxes of pots turned up as a bonus ...lol..i dont want to store it overwinter and tableware usually goes before xmas .

Learning Curve

 I ventured to the Community Pantry last week on my own , due to Himself doing something with his brother that didnt require me . It did cause a bit of an argument because he insisted how would he cope with nobody to make tea and lunch . There are times hes very clingy toddler but BIL was there so i didnt see any problem . Friday is a day i rarely venture into town but it was as dead as a doornail , so i was enjoying having a bit of a gossip with one of the volunteers , an elderly lady of a very great vintage , who like me doesnt tolerate fools and idiots . They were trying to wrap her in cotton wool and she wasnt having it ..lol..The pastor was fussing round her and he was getting told in no uncertain terms . Anyway she was telling me they are now holding cooking classes using fresh foods , they get mountains of fruit and veg donated . They had social services there that day , they had bought a minibus of coming up to 18 care leavers . the plan was that they would learn to make potato wedges or sweet potato wedges a nice simple idea you would think . Anyway there was a major problem , they are not allowed to use knives or own them . In fact they didnt even know how to use a knife . So quite how they are teaching them any measure of independence was beyond both of us . She had suggested that they teach them to peel potatoes in a sarcastic manner . The pastor had promptly scuttled off to buy safety peelers .  The world is going to die if nobody even knows how to peel a potato isnt it? I can see that a lady in her 90s can see that and im sure you can 

Happy Shopper

Oh my did i have a good day at the jumbles , a little church one that was fill a bag for £6 and i was determined to get my moneys worth , rammed it with large size clothing a large book and a pyrex sauce dish that matches my everyday snowflake pyrex then finally i spotted some gorgeous fabric and shovelled that in as well . then on to the next where i also got a huge bag of big sized clothing and of all things for 50p , a veg slicer never used  , that was on the little list in my head having broken mine and using it a lot for the dehydrator. I washed everything when i got home and the line was full its been out a couple of days in the wind and rain trying to get rid of the fabric conditioner smell ..lol There seems to be tons of large size clothing at the jumbles at the moment . Is it because every ones on the skinny jabs?  

My daughter then turned up with a couple of boxes i won at an auction weeks ago , they got forgotten in her garage , i'd only paid a couple of quid for them because id spotted a Tiny Tears arm sticking out ..lol turns out ive two Tiny Tears and a huge Woolworths pram doll , plus a whole box of weird 70s  electrical goods and clean baking tins , so i guess i will be doing a car boot in the Spring . On her way out my daughter  spotted the fabric id bought , says you do know what that is? nice fabric to cut up for patchwork ?  it would seem its an expensive bed set by Joules who knew , its meaningless to me . ive been told that once its dry shes selling it on vinted ..lol

Im Back

 Now mobile , still a wee bit wobbly , usual nerve problems . But hey ive a double jumble out in the wilderness near Spilsby for Saturday to aim for  . Ive being playing kitchen catch up , finally got my apple pie filling canned , doing pears tomorrow . trotted down and finished harvesting squash , more than i realised because they had been hiding under the corn and tomatoes , strangely the outdoor tomatoes are having a second flush theyve gone lush and green again and have set on loads of the small tomatoes , which every time we have a sunny day ripen, its nearly november, im sure the first frost will finish them, but hey theyre getting used . Maize corn are a bit sparse but they have a myriad of different colours so i will save seed for next year . I was planning to harvest the dried beans but its rained so they will have to wait again .

I thought that having barely bothered with the internet i would get up to tons of news and goings on , I was wrong , seems i missed the Rapture and all those folks who got left behind are whinging . It doesnt seem to have crossed their minds that the godly might have actually been scooped up and it was a minibus full Maybe they arent quite as godly as they think they are?

Just sat here watching a pair of kites being harassed by the crows over the back garden , thats it life goes on and nothing thats happening in the world makes any difference. 

Unclean

 Here i am ringing my leper bell yet again, buggerin shingles and its a bad batch not sure whats triggered it, though himself has been a bit rough and been to the hospital so it could be any viral plague hes picked up , 3 days wiped out in bed now staggering about nuked on painkillers , just for a change it figured it would wrap right round my thigh , no point visiting the doctors once its hatched antivirals do jack nothing. they did there usual aka nothing , so got up and threatened them with murder , now Sarcastic son has some bug , hoping its the same one or my life could get interesting. lol

Anyway daughter rang this morning and said they were taking me to the cat jumble , im not infectious just crippled , a jumble sale on painkillers was fun, tons of stuff i neither needed or wanted ..lol.. so for a change i came home laden with studio pottery and West German pottery. i was watching the resellers nearly scrapping over onyx table lamps  guess theyre having a moment on Vinted ? Surprisingly they had an awful lot of really good woodturned stuff that nobody bothered with all labelled as to what wood it was , i did tell one of the resellers to get it but i didnt stop long due to being crippled and a wee bit away with the fairies , first time ive been on my feet for long in over a week , now im feeling it . So it could be build a pillow nest with a good book kind of weekend 

Plus sized

 Amid the dull and draining time of year...you know winter is coming and all that , its the little things that cheer you up , went to pick up my solitary win at the auction and the porter had saved me a whole bucket full of plants that some other bidder had turfed out of the planters they had bought , they have been admitted to my plant hospital and will be ready for sale in the spring ..lol  waste not want not , and all that , and ive gained two large planters and a big strawberry pot as well from my little bid , its always a good time of year to start buying garden stuff , just because you can store it outside till Spring . Ive always been of the view that if youve £5 in your purse you should try to turn it into £10 by whatever means you can . 

Popped into Lidl to do as ordered by the government stock up on water and toilet rolls for the big storms at the weekend . Managed to spot a unicorn veg box at the checkouts £1.50 worth of goodness , 3 huge bags of sprouts , bag of onions that i cant figure how they are out of date , bag of bananas that arent even ripe , 2 grapefruits  , net of tangerines , pack of nectarines , half a dozen decent apples to add to the mountain and a solitary sweet potato , i think the sprouts may have put people off ..lol.. doesnt work for me, we love sprouts . Usually in the rare event you spot a veg box its all wilting lettuce .

Ive a whole weekend of veg processing to face , so im being prepared and dragged the gas camping stove in case the weather is suitably grim and my huge collection of jars and pans are ready to roll , i will stick an extra £20 on the electric and can myself into a coma 

Season

Season of mists and mellow chainsaws , got to love this time of year , wet cats trying to climb into bed with you , xmas tat everywhere and endless crappy perfume adverts on the TV , i was so fed up and bored yesterday that i leapt into action when daughter suggested lets go to Torksey, .havent been in over a year and nothing has changed theres still tons of blokes with huge Ikea bags waiting to run in , now theres hoardes dragging fishing trolleys piled high , meanwhile we had a casual wander i bought A David Essex autobiography  and an odd couple of quid bit of Sylvac, may manage to photograph it , daughter informs me she has fixed that problem but cant fix my facebook problem ..lol such is life 

Now lets get to the bit where i rant ...bloody charity shops . Have you tried to donate to one lately ?  Himself was at the hospital the other day so i went for a wander round the top end of Lincoln , Hospice superstore in a row of units in an industrial estate , you must now book an appointment to donate ! and they then sort through everything you take and hand most of it back , i watched a poor bewildered bloke going through the ritual and he was totally bemused when she refused to take a couple of boxes of books because they appeared to have been read . Then handed most of the clothes back because they wernt tagged in fact unless it was new she didnt want any of it . i wandered into the shop theres hardly anything in it except overpriced tat . They now have designer rails .  Ive been to some of the other shops they have locally and theyre much the same , You can only donate on certain days or the right phase of the moon guess they have new management with even higher salaries as that is the way it usually goes .  Su Ryder have a large store just up the road and they seem to be much more reasonable  , guess they are getting more donations . I know they need to make money but they have lost the plot .

Cycle

The busiest time of the year is upon us , harvest the garden time  , the heavy rain means i can get the potatoes up finally , lots of them but very small but thats what a drought does , ive squash to bring in and a bean row drying up nicely , still no cauliflowers just tons of leaves..lol , dozens of tomatoes waiting for some inspiration on that one, we eat tons fresh but we dont use hardly any in the winter , im the only one who eats chutney so four jars is enough for me ,i may dry a load and see what i can hide them in over the winter ..lol, maize corn to dry for popcorn, plus himself will use a load for fishing , it breaks my heart really i just use a small patch these days but once upon a time every inch was productive and it saved a fortune with a big family . Living in the countryside you can barely give produce away , everybody i know gardens or they shop at the posh farmers markets , though i did laugh the other day when The Riverford Organic delivery van broke down out on the lane.

It would seem the newbuild over the road has sold , well it has a sold sign , i noticed someone had drawn a bullet hole on the forehead of the gurning estate agent photo , at least i think its drawn on , hes so well loved in the village he is ruining . its all a bit strange as nobody has seen a single viewer and in a small village full of the neighbourhood watch that is dog walking pensioners  thats odd . I expect its an investment buyer from away. theres a big market for posh rentals for the RAF officers and the other nationalities based here its easy money the rent is astronomical the military pays it and usually you dont see them much these days as they are always at work, but we have to watch out for Americans driving on the wrong side of the road and the Saudis suffering from culture shock. at the moment we have lots of Japanese air force here for war games. We have the jets screaming out at all hours as Putin plays silly buggers in the Baltic States so sleep is optional.

PS the roof is still leaking , not a thing have we heard in over a weak , i will chase it up later and doubtless they will have tried to contact us or have called and nobody is home   

Mess

 Well yet again my descent into gibbering madness continues !! the first proper rain of the season , the big cracks in the ground are showing signs of closing and a whole crippling day of potato lifting to face. Life was looking promising for a moment there , plus i made the first chicken stew of the season, but no something has to go wrong yet again . Sarcastic son potters in to tell me there water dripping through the ceiling in his bedroom . This was Saturday night , i rang the emergency repair number only to find it was dead !! so i had to wait till Monday morning when the call centre opened , they seemed very unconcerned when i pointed out that the chimney stack looks to have moved and they are going to have a contractor get in touch for which im still waiting and with another big storm forecast for tomorrow it could be interesting . Sarcastic son has resolved the matter by sleeping with decorator plastic sheets over his bed and a line of buckets where the worst of it is , star that he is he pointed out that if hes killed in a collapse think of the compensation !!! hes such a cheerful soul

Drawing In

 Its getting dark earlier every night , the squirrels have totally decimated the hazel bushes , mainly the fattest squirrel ever , hes huge and likes to throw stuff at you and swears a lot ..lol . Little hedgehog has grown so fast im not sure what was in the posh cat kibble , hes living in the hedge bottom under the big tree , his brothers and sisters have moved on , but this little one seems to be about most of the time , he has white spots on his bum so hes easy to spot , he will easily make his target weight before winter .

Im very technologically challenged at the moment , im currently locked out of facebook because my computer doesnt have a camera?  it seems i must send a 3d picture to be authenticated , i dont have internet on my phone either , so we will see how this pans out but its no great loss . Then theres the computer telling me its to outdated to be supported , so if i vanish im not dead its merely me being eradicated by technology .  It would seem that at the moment this is my only contact with the outside world..lol  Doubtless one of the kids will get annoyed enough with me to sort it all out .

Grandson is currently sort of in residence at the moment , having miserably failed his exams , being unable to go to college because of this , told he must go back into 6th form but the school wont have him. Hes after going into the building trade , so hes working on that . Daughter has had a wee bit of a breakdown over it all , hence ive ended up with him here pottering around with grandad and endlessly chasing girls ..lol.. ive had enough boys not to be phased by much of anything , they all have the gormless know it all phase , he will knuckle down eventually hes to intelligent not to, his epic level of sarcasm is why the school dont want him back ..lol 

Rantin

 Now i know nobody listens to my political rants but here i go again .....

Taxation . why do they have to make it so complicated ?  most just have PAYE to contend with . The rest seem to have to employ endless scheming tax avoidance schemes to make ends meet . Lets just simplify the whole scheme , no offshore accounts , no uncles next door neighbours dog , no climate claptrap.  Nothing but PAYE across the board , every penny profit made by you is paid by you to HMRC . Then they decide how much they give you back . Big companies Amazon and the like , still have to give up their profit to HMRC . There would be squealing from up the food chain . The accountancy industry would take a kicking but there would be plenty of new jobs at HMRC. All you would have to do is convince HMRC that your  expenses etc are legitimate. It removes all these mistakes that the rich make in one fell swoop . Your guilty till you prove otherwise . The government would be solvent in months . 

Too simple to ever get anyone elected , but wouldnt it be hilarious  

Goat

 im having a very grumpy phase at the moment , lack of sleep and hobbling about arent helping . Im finding everything is getting my goat . More problems with the van , hes now spent more on repairs than the bleedin thing cost , he cant go out anywhere that involves walking and its all my fault because i cant manually lift his buggy even in pieces . And of course if he cant go anywhere he thinks i shouldnt either , bollocks .

 I did a car boot on Sunday with daughter and her friend , sold tons of stuff for pennies just to clear my dining room out for the winter, made a quite respectable amount of money , saw a couple of the vloggers i follow online , even flogged a load of cross stitch kits to one of them, people seemed to be buying loads of craft stuff because winter is coming. Made another contact with someone whos opening a little shop in their barn .

Garden wise its all gone a bit mental, still cant get the spuds up the ground is basically cement , the tomato's have taken over i keep tripping over squash , but the pumpkins are tiny . Tons of the speckly italian beans for drying , caulis are huge but not a flower on them , so i will keep plodding on . then ive the pear mountain to tackle , i dug all the canning stuff out so thats going to be next weeks project . Plus i started a garden project that im already regretting..lol    

Bin There

 Its been a funny old week the bathroom renovation via the council contractors turned into the usual farce one lad turned up , sucked his teeth and announced that it cant  be relined because the internal walls are too thin ??? he then said all he could do was spray the whole room with mould retardant and scrape the loose paint off before undercoating over it the next day  but he needed to consult his manager . Well he sprayed it left it turned up the next day and his manager said they cant even fill the holes because they are our responsibility !!!!  their  soddin contractors made the damned holes fitting the new fan and light fittings. So he just slapped undercoat everywhere and left , its already flaking off and its not even been a week . I took photos and emailed it to the council , who say its a decoration problem and its up to us to resolve it . I just give up 

Heres another gripe , bleedin you tubers filming everywhere i go , we are totally infested with them . I know we are a holiday destination but its intrusive . My fat arse has appeared 3 times this week, that i have found , im a private person and it makes me really uncomfortable . Im supposed to be doing a car boot with daughter next week . Theres one in particular who shall remain nameless who likes to buy electronics and games then brag on how stupid everyone but him is and how he makes thousands from stupid people . Someone did point out that they only bother you if you have something to hide , i have nothing to hide but there are maybe a dozen photos taken of me in the last 40 years , i just hate it . My gran used to say that every photo eats a bit of your soul  

One of Those Days

 From getting up this morning its been one of those days , everything petty and annoying has just happened today , from a huge bill for mothers care , that yet again has gone up by £100 a week now over £1800 a week , the printer not working when i needed to urgently print something off , the cat  doing a flying take off and slashing me to bits and its still dripping blood everywhere . Picking tomatoes in a pale pink top and turned into tomato tits with green stains everywhere and it hasnt washed out . Went to the garden centre with himself moaning and groaning , they only had big bags of the gravel i needed and there was nobody to help AAARRRGGHHH  managed to manhandle it into the boot and sarcastic son split the bag getting it out of the boot and just left it .  Himself has been telling me how useless i am all day and i could cheerfully murder him . Ive a huge chine bone to process for the freezer , 10000 plums to do something with , finally found cooking apples so need to get on with apple time and the house is a shit tip and the builders are going to be in this week to reline the bathroom . 

TOMMOROW HAS TO BE A BETTER DAY

Scorchio

 Well once again its reached the level of Bedouin in Tescos , its a tad warm, at least we have a bit of a breeze today to make it a little more normal summer. ive a ton of half turned tomatoes which will doubtless glut all at once , i cant see down the garden for the maize corn , squash and pumpkins  and for a change i cant get the potatoes up due to the concrete soil !!! The plums have gone mental but they are tiny this year . Not tons of apples but enough and a scary amount of pears , the dehydrator is flat out , but i can never have too many apple chips and this year its going to be a ton of pear chips as well . Its to hot to be canning , so it can wait for cooler days, i need to be stocktaking whats left from last year before i make more . i did nothing with the gooseberries this year because i had a lot from last year left and im not one who cans for the sake of it and theres only two of us that eat it. Electric costs alone make it not so economical in the UK.

  Ive been buying at auction again , currently parting out loads of craft stuff, daughter ran off with loads of stuff i didnt recognise so i presume its for card making, yet more gorgeous linens lace and doilies all spotless , wool , knotting needles , crochet patterns the box of bags turned out to be vintage 80s good makes so have gone off to my daughters friend who sells shoes and bags, theres a huge expensive leather camera bag  so my camera gear will get an upgrade , strangely there was also 2 Sony Walkman CD players in leather bags as well . Im quite enjoying them , back in the day we never got named brand anything it was always knock off copies or came from Tandy , does anyone remember Tandy on the high street? With commission it came to a whole £7.50 and the reason it was so cheap , right at the front of the tiny photo was a huge brand new car headlight, i sent useful son the photo , he identified its make and model straight away and a new one is £400 Mr Bah Humbug is getting it listed as we speak , its going to pay for this weeks grocery haul and fuel...lol  im walking through a track in the dining room and theres another big sale tomorrow...AAARRRRRGGGHHH 

Babies

 Its official im now the foster mum of 3 or 4 tiny hedgehogs , theyre the size of tennis balls and kept setting off the camera last night but you couldnt see anything there , on going out to investigate theres a little one on the doorstep struggling to eat the giant cat kibble i put out for the big hogs , totally un bothered by me , i managed to find some kitten kibble and the feeding frenzy began , ive been out on a mission this morning for more kitten food, ive put more rocks in the water trays so they can get out  , second litter of the year these need to be well fed and up to weight by october or when the weather turns . Theyre the youngest ive ever seen in the garden , i saw 3 together last night and something was rustling under the trailer so i think there may be four . I already have half a dozen regulars so it looks like a good year for hedgehogs .  Though i havent seen a single snake this year .

Now its go play in the garden day , bye for now