Brighton and back

On Saturday got up at 6am to go to visit my mates in Brighton. It was their 2 years olds birthday. Anyway didnt manange to leave home till 8:30! got to Pease Pottage services at about 11am having done a slight detour to Daventry for deisel. Anyway M decides he needs a break so we stop to swap drivers. He had driven all the way till then. As we start to go down slip road off motorway the car went all jerky. Then we go to the turning into the service area and the car just stopped! There was a whole chapter of hells angels right behind us too!. Mind you they would most likely have helped us to push the car if we had needed help. Luckily car eventually started with much revving which seems to have done the engine no good but more of that later. At this point we are about 25 miles from our mates! We have not seen them in 4 years and on top of all that we went in Ms car which never breaks down! Well till now anyway. Car eventually starts and M charges and swerves into nearest empty space. Car stops. Wont start. He opens bonnet and I turn it over. Deisle squirts all over him. Must admit it was a bit funny tho he was not happy. Phoned up K in brighton who says to keep him informed and if necessary he can pick us up since just up the road. Trouble is only 2 hours free parking like all motroways service stations. Anyway we fiddle with car for next 20 minutes or so, M getting much sprayed with deisel. He tried fixing with sellotape. Not surprising didnt work. Then chopped up one of my hair ties to try to make a gasket. By now we know its an injector pipe leaking. He keeps trying to tighten and then it breaks completely. The end just sheers off! Now we are really in it! Have several options tho. 1) call AA but they might not be able to fix and we could end up on wagon taken back home. 2) call mate K but only have 2 hours. Decided to check out cost of parking. Turns out it is £8 for 24 hours. Not cheap but do-able. So we buy a ticket ( comes with token for BOBOF coffee too!) and then call mate K. Great choice. Get to spend day in Brighton. Went to beach, ate dinner, visit a pub. Catch up with good old frined we have not seen for ages. Generally a very good day. Later mate K takes us back to car. Funny tho cos he ended up doing 120 mile round trip at this point we have only done 122 miles. Well back at car finally call AA man. Go and get our BOGOF coffee. Not very nice coffee but we need it by then. WE wait an hour and a half and then AA man arrives. Wonderful man. Have been driving over 25 years. Have used AA and RAC several times ( sadly) and never before has anyone made a piece for my car to get me going. Usually they just call a wagon and stick my car on back and it takes me about 6 hours to get home. This amazing bloke only makes a replacement injector for the car from a piece of copper tubing. And it works and gets us home. Amazing! Much impressed with the AA right now. Ms car doesnt sound too healthy after all this tho so not all good. Does prove tho that you shouldnt let a small problem get in the way of you seeing your very old mates who you care for and havent seen for ages. Once you decide to go for it nothing should stop you! In the end we had a great day out.

more soap

Made some jasmine and cranberry soap yesterday. Cant look at it till about 3pm tho ( have to leave it covered for 24hours and if you cheat and look you can get "ashing"on top. It doesnt actually harm the soap bar but you have to threw a slice away cos it doesnt look very good so I dont peak. Wont be home till about 5:20 so will have a look then. I had a thought tuesday whilst walking round the art shop at central six about packaging - cant find any I like that is affordable - dont really want to use greaseproof paper tho at least its natural and better than polythene both cos it allows the soap to breath ( being a natural product with only either vitamin E or grapefuit seed oil as preservative it can just go mouldy!) Also printed fancy papers may cause leaching of nasties into the soap and having made natural soap I dont really want to cover in nasty chemicals even if on paper. I saw loads of very expensive squares of checks and gingham but I think they might be a bit too countrified. Maybe I should try a few. Tho perhaps the dyes might leach too so maybe that would be a bad idea as well. I need to learn to fold paper as well cos it was difficult wrapping some bars I recently gave away to a friend to try out. I suspect it will be easier with practice. Oh and now I have some labels. I know you can print them with WORD so have to refresh my memory about how now. Better remember to buy some ink for the printer too!

Dogs are just filthy muddy creatures

Dogs make the place filthy! My kitchen floor should never have been tiles in cream. I clean it no problem ( mop it etc) but they just go out in the garden once and thats it. And bearing in mind they like to go in and out all the time if possible till I get sick of letting them in and out and if we leave the back door open they are even worse. Wiping their paws makes no difference either. Believe me I have tried! It does stop the muck getting into the lounge to a certain extent but the kitchen never looks clean! I have covers on everything and it all gets muddy. Even the chair and they are not meant to / allowed to get on it but apparently they must do cos I can see the evidence.

Thats one good thing if you only have one dog. You know exactly who got on the furniture, who stole a cake etc. The problem with having two or even more is you have to tell them both off even tho I am pretty sure who did it. Ronnie is funny tho cos he tells tales! Still wouldnt take his word for it tho.

Took dogs a long walk. I dont think my dogs necessarily NEED a long walk they just LIKE one and in the week sometimes they dont go out if for example our work patterns go wrong. Bearing in mind neither of us can walk them both at once since they pull you over when attacking dogs we obviously walk one each. We do swap about as to who walks who but mostly I have Reg and M has Ron - Ron being bigger heavier and harder to hold and also silent with wagging tale when attacking so people/dogs just do not know. At least with Reg he is so embarassingly noisy everyone knows hes insane and stays away from him.

If you walk one then the other, besides the destruction of doors when you are out which who ever is left attacks and chews, when you get back from walking second dog first one thinks they havent been and its just a pain. It was great when M did constant earlies ( tho it sounds like he had a much harder time at work) cos the dogs went out every day near enough but now they go out for 2 out of 3 weeks on weekdays. I know they have a decent garden etc but I feel they should get a really good walk whenever possible to sort of compensate.

The house renovation seems to be taking us forever. We did know there was more to this one tho so I am not really surprised. There are all sorts of strange things like instead of putting new central heating pipes ( water) between the floor boards upstairs and ceiling downstairs they have them going along one side of the kitchen ceiling on show. They have then filled them to cover them over and painted them. The pipes have now gone green and it shows thru the paint. We either have to box them in or put up a new lower ceiling which M doesnt realy want to do for hassle reasons. No way could we wallpaper it even with my cover up with chunky paper technique so we have yet to decide exactly what we will do there. Boxing the pipes in would be easiest and if we then hang a blind to cover the window from the box it could look almost like a design feature but I have yet to convince M its the way to go. Even then we have an unflat ceiling to deal with. I think chunky wall paper may be the best thing there tho! I suppose you could tongue and groove it but we did that in the bathroom in the last house and I always thought it looked naff so not too sure about repeating that experiment.

Monday

Dont feel I had a weekend. Have asked for tomorrow off and its very short notice and they have been really nice about it. Saturday went to Ikea for the 21st aniversary sale - got there at 6am. Got out at 9:01!! Didnt have breakfast cos no time. Bought last of kitchen cupboards tho and 2 quilt covers and 2 good pillows cos ours are flat. Can only afford 1 each for now so we still have an old one each as well. Didnt realise they do different pillows for people who sleep on their back and people who sleep on their side!! Anyway have tried em out and seem very good and bigger than usual. Our old pillows do not fill the ikea pillow cases!. We waited ages for the kitchen doors cos you pick the rest yourself but the doors are full serve ones. Loads of poeple everywhere. Spent £260 but saved £63 so not too bad except used a credit card which is definitely not a good thing. Was intending to buy all of it over next 2 months tho so not end of the world. Took dogs out and that was just about the end of saturday ( I did buy 2 bottles of sherry tho!! M keeps calling me a sherry tramp now tho he also drank it).

Sunday M was in a horrible mood. Refused breakfast which was really stupid cos to put work top on had to take out the cooker! Once in place I went out and left him. Bought some food and wormer for the cockateils cos they have not been wormed since we were in this house ( should be done every 4-6 weeks). Forgot dog wormer tho so they will cross infect each other most likely, tho dogs do not get hair worms just round worms so I can hope. Also found out you can now get spot on for birds. I was considering it but dont think I can stand the pain of being bitten by hard vicious beaks while putting it onto the back of their necks and rubbing into feathers! It does do both worms and mites tho and soon they will start to get them. My fault too cos I bring flowers into the house and things like red spider mite attack birds. I usually spray them which they hate but havent tried the spot on. Not sure I am brave enough tho. Animals just cost a fortune!

Then when I got back M in better mood ( slightly). Oiled worktop, took dogs out. Made completely in oven dinner which was fine tho M had temper fit due to no worktop we can use for serving. Worked out ok in the end tho cos I served into dishes on lounge table and it was really quite civilised. Dogs cause major issues with decorating/DIY cos when they go out its at least 2 hours out of a day which is loads ( so we lose about 4 hours each weekend). I know we could take them a shorter walk but tend to take them a long way at weekends and they expect it. Its quite strange cos friday arrives and they know you are off on saturday and sunday and think its for them I am sure. They really expect to go out first thing on weekends but do not always. Partly cos I will not allow dogs to completely rule me but also cos sometimes I want eg. to go to an Ikea sale at 6am or tescos for breakfast ingredients. They get really sulky. Its always been the same tho it isnt like we have changed their routine.

Anyway about 3pm yesterday there we are having walked dogs and got them back into my car ( they go somewhere away from village on sundays- tho only up road a mile or so and in better weather we could make them walk the whole way) and M checks my tyres. Now on friday I pumped them up and the tread seems fine a bit worn but well legal. He finds out the tyres are worn down to the metal on the insides of both front wheels. Hopefully just the tracking gone out. I did hit something on motorway a couple of months ago. Piece of angle iron! Also I have thought something was not right with the steering for a while but couldnt find a reason. Now I know. Car is totally illegal and dangerous and I have been driving up and down the motorway etc. Boss has said I can have tomorrow off to sort it but it might be time for a new car depending on what it will cost! Luckilly M on nights today so I have borrowed his. Have to sort by next week else cannot get to work or one of us cant. So anyway off to sort out car tomorrow and just hope its fixable. Trouble is its about £120-150 for tyres, tho may not need new back ones so a bit less and no idea how much to fix or even what is actually wrong. If its costing more than £350 no point cos thats about what the car is now worth! I would like a new car but cannot really afford one. I will have to break into my ISA to buy one ( well do have credit cards but not what I feel is the right thing to spend on. I use them for short term spending that is paid off quickly). ISA tho is a tracker and stock market not doing well right now. Its all so much hassle. Still I must have a car else cannot get to work and also cannot run business without one!.

So really anyway my weekend was not the most productive ever.

broke again

Try as I might I just cant seem to get money under control. The fact I had to buy white shirts for work meant I went shopping and I knew I shouldnt buy anything else but it had been 5 months so I did. Now I have £43 till the end of the month. Will prpobably get thru without bank charges but I always worry at this point if I might have forgotten a bill. I got caught out about 6 months ago now by a BT bill. Waiting on the Bank court case to find out the outcome and hopefully I will get the charges back. I suppose it could go on for years tho so best not to be betting on that. It isnt like I am owed loads either just about £200 so it will make little difference in the scheme of things. Right now I am wondering whether to cash in my savings to pay off my debts. Theres almost exactly the same amount in both so the savings would really cancel out the debt. The trouble is I am making interest on the savings whilst not paying interest on teh debt due to it being on a zero% card. Difficult decision!!!. On the other hand my savings are in a stocks and shares ISA so they could in effect go down in value not up. The more I think about it the less I know what I should do.

fence down one side

well it rained all day. April showers but we did get 3/4 of one side of the garden fence up. In between running in and out of cover. We have yet to tie the the chainlink to the restraining wires tomorrow and get the rest of it up but its seriously getting there. I had to go to Buildbase to get some extra tensioning bits. They didnt have any but said they can order for tuesday. They are on an industrial estate the opposite side of Rugby to where I live and it took ages to get there due to it being 11am on saturday when I went. Normally would be only a 10 minute drive. Anyway since they didnt have any I called in at Travis perkins next door. Wow are they sexist!. Not only did the guy behind the counter tell me I wanted posts at £28 each ( we paid about £8 each and I thought that expensive!) but "Sorry love there aint no such thing as a tensioning rod you mean these posts!", B011ox!! do I!!. I have loads already at home and know exactly what I want. I may be female but I seem to know more about chain link fencing that the man a travis perkins. He just would not beleive I knew what I wanted OR that I already had some at home just not enough to finish the job. What a sexist W6nk3r!

soap

I wanted to make a shampoo soap. Started the process and realised I do not have any jojoba oil. Decided to continue and if its just normal soap what the hell. Anyway extracted some camomile flowers - or made a very strong herbal tea since apparently its a natural dye. Well I have made yellow soap but no idea what it will look like in a month or so. Its curing now and have to say looks like a good one. Time will tell once it has cured. Nearly killed my tiny pepper seeds. Put em in the shed/ greenhouse and then it had to snow. M rescued them for me when he went to feed his fish and realised they had all wilted. Not lack of water tho but cold. They are looking much better now they are back inside the bathroom. The Broad beans are doing well and look like they need bigger pots so we will have to do something with them this weekend. Work is getting me down. I realy need the money since sadly I am not yet a millionaire or even self sufficient but its just so very boring. Mind you Germany was a great experience so maybe I am just an ungrateful bitch! Dont get me wrong, the folks are all very decent etc. I get a bit sick of the vegetarian rants tho really its been over 30 years so I should cope alright with it. Should be used to it by now. I would love to live in a world where people dont have to jibe at you all the time cos you dont eat another creature flesh. I dont even try to convert them. gave all that stuff up years ago. I accept them and tolerate their veiews but it seems they are mostly unable to do me the same courtesy. On top of that I think its just difficult trying to set up your own business and holding down a fulltime job at the same time. Its getting in the way. I would like to get up early spend my morning making products and my afternoons dealing with mundane stuff like research into different packaging etc or how to deal with the Tax man! I go on an inland revenue course next month tho so at least I am getting there now! Have been non alcoholic all week too. Dont really know why. Have wine in cupboard but just do not fancy it. Does that mean I am not an alcoholic after all ???

Just not enough time in the day

I dont really know why but I just seem to be really tired this week. Keep waking up very early and going to be very late which might have a bit to do with it all. Maybe its down to British summer time. I need to buy some oil for the car too. My poor neglected old banger. Cant put any oil in despite the fact she has absolutely zero without driving for 10 miles to the nearest garage since I seem to have run out. She sounds bad too so I think its a bit desperate. I just dont manage to remember oil. I think its to do with the fact you always get covered but its really sounding bad now so I had really better buy some tomorrow. Anyway assuming I can get to the local garage without murdering my poor car I will. Years ago when I was single I was really good with cars and even did my own services. Since getting together with M he usually does it all and infact has quite often insisted I let him so I did. Now I have got into the habit of ignoring my car and its always done for me he seems to have decided to leave it to me to do. Typical I suppose. Its a pain tho. Just hope my car makes it to the garage ok!

Munich

Well went to Munich. Did two days at the Analytica trade fair to represent my company and wow was it hard work! End of the first day my legs just ached. I did get up at 2am to go to Stanstead tho and then arrived at about 10 am to go to work. Long day standing up and talking to people. Analytica is huge. Makes the exhibitions i have been to at the NEC look minute. Anyway ended a long day having been fed and watered by employer going back to my very nice room at the Holiday Inn and having a bath. Sadly I caught sight of myself in the mirror. They have a whole wall of mirrors in the bathroom which is something I am not used to. I know I am 44 this year and that gravity has set in but I have also always considered myself a good feminist woman. No way round it tho. The time has come to buy a bra. I am 44 in a couple of months and tho it goes totally against the grain my boobs just need supporting now. Maybe it will even make me look younger. Or am I being bamboozled by TV shows??