Hobby

So this week I am practising the art of cat herding.
It is not for the faint of heart!

My son and his gf have gone on holiday for a week and asked me if I would feed their cats for them.

They have three, a blue point Korat called Ellie, a huge and very nervous ginger tom called Koshka and the newest member a Bengal called Polly. They are all rescue cats, all very friendly without a scrap of malice between them.

The only problem is that the newest family member, the Bengal is terribly greedy, probably because she has been hungry in the past.

The first morning I went round Polly was waiting at the door for me despite it being just after 6am.

I put three bowls of food down on the kitchen floor but by the time the other two cats had made it into the kitchen Polly had cleared all three bowls of food.

I have now worked out a system where I feed Polly first, then let her out in the garden and then put food down for the other two cats.

Once they leave their food all bets are off and Polly clears the other bowls.

There is a large bowl of dry food available but Polly seems disinterested in this.

Once they have all eaten they all come for cuddles, apart from Koshka, he stands on the stairs with his back to me mewing pitifully until I go to him and stroke him.

A low spend week ahead.

Thanks for all the reassurance and suggestions, I'm sure it will be fine, I'm just getting panicky as retirement draws near.

I won't be getting a lie in though in the mornings as I will still be taking CHS to work.

I've checked the freezer and made a meal plan for next week. We have roast chicken tomorrow then in no particular order spaghetti Bolognese, chicken curry, pork steak, sausage and mash and then steak and chips on Friday. I have all this in the fridge and freezer so I don't need much shopping. I shall make double portions of the spaghetti, curry and sausage and mash and they will do for our lunches, we will have cheese sarnies a couple of times as I have bread and cheese in too.

I need to make some sausage rolls and chocolate brownies for our Macmillan fund raiser at work so I'll need to buy some ingredients for those.

Once it gets really cold and we have the stove on all the time I'm planning on using the top to cook my morning porridge over night and cooking some one pot meals on it to save on gas. I already keep the kettle on it so it shortens the boil time for our morning cuppa.

What am I going to do?

This time next month I'll be a lady of leisure.
I'm really not sure how I will fill my days.
I have a few hours paid work each week, but only a few.
I shall not be able to afford to be a lady wot lunches.
I'm not a fan of TV and even if I was the signal is sporadic, sometimes BBC 2 is the only watchable channel.
I've arranged to have Dgd 3 on a Thursday morning for a couple of hours and once a fortnight I shall go to the laundrette to wash the bedding and big towels. 
I change the bedding weekly but it will take 2 weeks worth to fill a machine.
I will still wash and dry clothing on the boat.
So what else will I do, I will have to wait and see what turns up.

More spending

The new shower has finally been fitted in the house, much to my tenants joy. £320 for shower and fitting.
£80 to have the boiler serviced.

We have received our new bus passes, they last until 2021 so that is a small saving.

Spending money

Despite stocking up last week when we finally got a working fridgefreezer, I still spent nearly £40 today on food for next week, much more than I should for just the two of us, but less than I've been spending whilst shopping every other day.

I bought a small piece of lamb for Sunday lunch, I shall turn the leftovers into a casserole.

I also bought some 2 chicken pieces, 2  burgers, 4 potatoes, broccoli, and cabbage, I have mushrooms and onions left from last week. I forgot to buy carrots but I'll get them on Monday. We ate the burgers today in soft rolls.

The plan is to make some portions of lamb casserole and chicken curry for CHS to take to work next week. He's working until 10pm each night so he'd prefer to eat at work.

I will make a vegetarian curry for my lunches next week and use up some of the tins from the cupboard.

More downs than ups

It's been a week of ups and downs.

Work is busy, I knew it would be, some people are really worried about me leaving, they are not sure how they will cope.

We have the usual intake of new students and staff, one brand new year 7 managed to get sanctioned on his very first day! It doesn't bode well for the rest of his time at school.

Some of the new staff are nice, one even commented on how nice and calm it was in my department as his previous experiences had left him expecting chaos and bad temper. Some are less so, especially the trainees who think the term 'support staff' means servant.

CHS was told on Thursday that he was expected to extend his shift today, he refused, we have plans.

We are expected to change our plans at the drop of a hat even though those higher up the food chain have known about this for almost 3 weeks.

We are both annoyed at the lack of notice, a colleague suggested it was just an oversight that more notice was not given.

I replied that once, maybe twice could be seen as an oversight, but that as no reasonable notice is ever provided, it is an insult. The support staff are not seen as being valuable enough to have their plans and arrangements taken into consideration.

Bashed and battered, shaken and rattled.

Not a peaceful night last night, the wind blew mightily for most of the night.

We boinged against the jetty a few times and got generally bounced and rocked around throughout the night. CHS got up at one point to close the windows as they were rattling so.

We lost our chimney top, but we have lost a few over time, 3 or 4 at least, I'll order a new one tomorrow.

We fared better than some people on the marina, a lot if satellite dishes were hanging over the edges of the boats. We don't have a dish so we didn't have that problem.

There was also a tree down but it didn't do any damage fortunately.

There may be trouble ahead

There is at least one grumpy boater on the Marina. This boater has complained about everyone and everything on the marina.

Eventually, in desperation he was moved to the end of an otherwise empty jetty.

It seem to work and there were no more complaints.

But now there is a problem looming, there are 12 new boats arriving, there will be no more spaces free, hey ho, if he complains about me he'll get short shrift.

Peeling fingers and a blocked wee pole

I'm a bit tired at the moment, I'm doing two jobs.
I'm still doing my school job and I'm boat cleaning when I get home each day.
Because I'm tired the old grey cells aren't working to capacity, so when I noticed that the skin was peeling off that's of my fingers I was a little disconcerted. Eventually I realised it was the fingers that I scalded a while ago, the skin had been dry and rough and eventually peeled off.

When Captain Hot Stuff announced yesterday morning that his wee poles were blocked I immediately assumed a trip to the Dr's was on the cards and offered to make him an appointment. After a few minutes of confused and confusing conversation I ascertained that what he actually said was ' The weep holes are blocked'.
Weep holes are small holes in the window fittings, they get filled with moss and need cleaning out occasionally. Much less painful than blocked wee poles I'm sure.

Making money, spending money

I'm now have some 'one off' boat cleans booked for next week on top of my regular bookings, so there is a trickle of money coming in.
Next month will be my final pay packet and it will be only about £300 so I need to keep building my customer base.

We have ordered a new fridge/freezer £169. We finally found somewhere that had one in stock that we could look at and measure.
We've also bought a new gangplank that doubles as a rescue ladder and a brollymate.
It fits on the tiller and will hold a brolly or a small whirly washing line.

We lit the stove today as it's rained all day and was pretty chilly. The cost of having the stove lit was slightly  offset by using it to make lunch. I opened 2 tins of soup and stood them on top of the stove. I had pea and ham, CHS had mushroom. The soups  were piping hot in about 20 minutes, this also cut down on the washing up as there were no pans to wash.

I've got a rash

I was reading on the MSE  forum recently that to get a good night's sleep it's best to sleep naked.
Someone said she'd tried it but got very little sleep because her husband thought it was an invitation and was all over her like a rash.
I always sleep naked!

Cleaning the boat means I spend a lot of time on my knees, CHS always sees this as an invitation!

Yesterday we went to a colleagues 60th birthday party, I wore a dress for the first time in 6 weeks, as I was wearing heels I also wore sheer black hold ups, CHS love's hold ups.
We were a little late to the party, like I said I have a rash, but I like it!