Finding the chase and cutting to it

It’s been a while since we did a deep clean of our house. I usually make the effort to do this twice a year, once at the start of winter (ready for Christmas) and again at Easter time. Occassionally, I manage to persuade those with time on their hands to join me, making it a […]

Actually, that’s not quite right: my man is home, but having started a new job, he has no leave to take for Easter if we want to make some plans later this financial year happen. But I have an opportunity to catch-up on the housework, sort my office and bedroom out, find some misplaced things, […]

Time rich, money poor is the mirror of money rich and time poor, which is the problem of our time as we return to the office at least 3 times a week. My commute at the moment takes 4 hours out of my week, and it is shattering. Before I took this role, my commute […]

It’s Sunday, in March, and I’m cooking a 1.7kg medium(!) chicken from Waitrose. Why on earth would you do that?  So much for trying to be carbon neutral! Actually, we’re going to get four meals out of this chicken. And that’s excluding the stock, which I will use for a soup tonight and pie later […]

All I want to be talking about here is how we’re doing with our heat pump. But at the end of the third week of February, we still have 25 days until the end of winter:- 20th March 2025 is our first day of spring in the UK. So, I cannot do that. What I […]

My husband and I celebrate our birthdays within a couple of days of each other, so it is always tempting to combine the celebrations. Especially as we’re down to one wage. But there’s no need if you have some skills in the kitchen, a bit of time and energy, and patience. For my husband’s day, […]

The ancient Christians (in fact most religions) understood the benefits of Having something to look forward to. Be it heaven or the next public holiday or feast, they understood the need to celebrate life. These days we call it Wellness, but that feeling that things are OK and can only get better is powerful, hope […]

A granny stoppers is a device used on a public path that is intended to discourage “grannies” or the less physically able to progress with a route. It is widely used in the UK as a means of excluding people from what other people have deemed “unsuitable paths for them”. They can be narrow stiles, […]

On paper, January looks like the end of winter, the days are getting longer, work is in full swing, all should be good. The problem is, in the UK at least, the December pay check comes a week early and, for many, the next pay check is the last working day of the month… January’s […]

It’s been three months since my husband was made redundant. We were lucky, having already paid off our mortgage, he’s been able to use the money from the redundancy to just live and not pay off any debts. We had no car loans, and no loss of a car package with his role. We have […]