Day 887 & Day 888

Today we have two days for the price of one...

Day 887...Tuesday

As Simon was back at work we resumed our shorter early morning walk and did our usual route of 1.9 miles in 37 minutes. My legs definitely felt it for some reason this morning and I was not loving the fact that this route is a tad on the hilly side.

My morning was spent catching up on a few jobs around the house, some cleaning, ironing and bits. I even managed to squeeze in a little jigsaw time before lunch.

After lunch I headed out to meet up with a friend for coffee at a local garden centre which has a lovely cafe called PipTree. It was very busy but we were able to grab a table outside and despite the very grey clouds it was lovely and warm and stayed dry. As a treat we both indulged in a cream tea which is one of my favourite guilty pleasures...although I'm not sure my stomach agrees with me one hundred percent. The effect of adopting a low carb/keto way of eating can sometimes mean that those indulgences don't always still as well digestively speaking as they perhaps once did. A combination of sugars and especially grains can sometimes make for a bit of a grumbly stomach. But we had a lovely couple of hours catching up and putting the world to rights.

Back home and it was time to have a play with our new purchase...a soda stream! Having gotten fed up of not being able to buy sparkling water we have indulged in a soda stream, not something I ever thought we would own but now we do. We won't be adding all the various syrups that are available as we don't drink any sodas of any variety, it will simply be for sparkling water with perhaps some fresh fruit added for a little extra flavour.

Then Simon gave me a quick lesson in 3D printer clean-up! Basically this is taking the printed part and snipping off any support structure and base layers...one of those weirdly addictive jobs!

I even managed another half hour with my jigsaw before I headed down the gym. Tonight it was all about kettle bell and body weight exercises targeting glutes and abs!

Day 888...Wednesday

Up and out again for another early morning walk with very grey skies but still warm and thankfully a breeze which meant it didn't feel as muggy as yesterdays walk had. But it was 1.9 miles in 37 minutes completed before 9am.

The majority of my morning was taken up with some gardening, or as I like to call it 'cleaning the outdoors' as that's what it feels like. It was a couple of hours of sweeping up leaves, cutting back plants, cleaning out grates and weeding. Not my favourite job but one that needed doing and one that I wanted to get done in case it decided to rain later on. I need to get some weedkiller sprayed around as well but that will have to wait until we have a dry weather forecast.

On a positive this morning both my brother and I have finally received an interim payment from the solicitors in respect of my dads estate. It has taken them since the beginning of the month to get this processed, their systems are so archaic. In fact my brother challenged them on why it was taking so long as he, like me, has worked in banking and, like me, knows how smoothly transactions can and should be processed. He was told because 'that's the way it's always been done' - unbelievable! They seem to be working about three decades out of whack with the rest of the world. And whilst neither myself or my brother were in need of the payment, and it wasn't a large payment either, we just felt that it belonged to us and should be with us rather than lining the accounts of the solicitors!

After lunch my task was to sort out the butchers order which had arrived late morning. I had 4.5 kg of bacon, 100 sausages, 5kg of chicken and 5kg of steak mince to split into meal sized portions and freeze.

It was late afternoon before I finally stopped and took a few minutes out to enjoy a coffee and move some jigsaw pieces about. Before I knew it Simon had finished work for the day and it was time to head down our gym in the rain. It's on days like this that having the gym in the garage only a short distance from the house is really appreciated. Tonight it was an arms workout for me.

And there we have a couple of days, see you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 756

Day 756...

We have reached the middle of the week and it has been another full day.

My first task today was to begin to get together various bits of paperwork for our solicitor. Whilst I'd made a good start on sorting things out now we have a solicitor on board they are going to take over and get everything sorted for us.

I then headed out to the hairdressers as it was time for a refresh of my colour and cut. It was a couple of hours well spent as my hairdresser and I had a good old natter; the benefit of knowing Kim for a lot of years.

I was back home just after lunch and finished gathering together all the bits and pieces that I needed for the solicitor. I was then able to drive out and drop everything off with them so that hopefully things can get moving relatively swiftly.

And once back home again it was time to sort out the butchers order that had been delivered earlier today; 100 sausages, 5kg bacon, 4kg steak mince, 5kg chicken and some steaks! By the time that was all done it was time to sit down and enjoy a coffee before starting on the next thing.

We still have some of my dads paperwork to go through and so I took an hour or so to sort it into things that I think would be worth keeping and then stuff that can probably be thrown away. We have discovered some fascinating documents; old wills, birth certificates for my grandparents, marriage certificates, an old telegram sent during the second world war, a police warning notice issued to my dad for improper use of fog lights (?) and more. But we also have old bills and invoices for accounts long closed and no longer relevant and that hold no historical or sentimental value. I have at least been able to organise what we have and now me and my brother can go through it all together and decide what to keep and what not!

And with that all done it is time for this weeks Moon Knight episode, a cup of tea and some dark chocolate.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 588

Day 588...

The middle of the week and after a slowish start to the day I soon sprang into action when I got the call from my podcast co-host, Michelle, to organise a recording session.

So armed with some Disney history facts and along with some news items Michelle and I set to recording a show ready for release this coming Sunday. We also managed to record a special show just for some of our Patreon supporters.

Recording took a little longer than planned so our lunchtime walk had to be postponed till this evening. 

After a quick bite to eat I sat down with Molly to help her with some planning for her upcoming move to Dan's. She needs to find some storage solutions for all her stuff! Thankfully there is a built in wardrobe that Molly can take over but she needs to configure the storage inside, which means Ikea to the rescue. She had found some solutions and just wanted me to help cast an eye over it all to make sure she was making the best choices. Now that she knows exactly what she wants we will have a trip to our local store tomorrow to purchase all the bits (fingers crossed) and there will, of course, be the obligatory buying of meatballs and cinnamon rolls because it's the law!

Molly then headed out a bit earlier than normal to her second kickboxing class of the week as she'd offered her help with teaching the children's classes before her class as they were short on instructors today. I then had our butcher's delivery arrive...

...about an hour (maybe more) later I had it all packaged up into meal sized portions; well there was 5kg of chicken, 24 burgers, 6 steaks, 5.5kg of steak mince, 4.5 kg bacon and about 45 sausages! Should keep us going for a few weeks! So thankful to have found Rendalls butchers online during the first lockdown last year when everywhere was going crazy with supplies. The quality and value has been outstanding and so I have continued to use them and just love the fact that I can stock up and not have to worry about buying meat each week.

Once all the meat was put away in the freezer Simon and I headed out for our postponed lunchtime walk. Because the nights are now drawing in we just kept to the main road through our village but still managed just over 2 miles in 41 minutes and although a little blustery it was dry and not too cold for a late October evening.

And that was today, see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 132

Day 132...

And the day started with our meat delivery...yep we use a butchers in Scotland and about every 6 weeks or so have a delivery of top quality meat.

It arrives in refrigerated packaging and then we have the job of splitting it in to manageable portions that can then go in the freezer. When the parcel arrived this morning I had to get it over the doorstep by rolling it and then relied on Molly being able to pick it up and get it into the kitchen...just a tad on the heavy size!

All wrapped to keep chilled

And we're in...

So we had angus beef burgers, steak mince, bacon, chicken, sausages and sirloin steaks...I think it's fair to say we are definitely a carnivore family.

It must have took me and Molly about an hour to split it all into portion sizes to then go into the freezer. We have been really pleased with the meat from this butchers (Rendalls) and having a large order delivered every month or so saves me having to worry about getting it on my weekly shop and the quality is great, plus I get to support a UK smaller business.

We took our usual walk out at lunch time and although it was very windy it was sunny and relatively warm and we managed another couple of miles.

The first part of my afternoon was actually taken up with pre-school work as I'd remembered I needed to send my team their wage slips as it was pay day. I then also had a few emails to respond to and took another phone call from a parent looking for childcare starting this September.

My next job was to tackle the bench we'd brought home yesterday as all the ironwork and wooden slats needed sanding down before we can re-paint it and breathe some new life into it. So after a quick lesson on using a mouse sander from Simon I set to and although I didn't get it all done today I am probably about two thirds of the way there. When I looked at the clock and saw it was 7pm I thought I'd better stop for the day!

And that was today...short and sweet and productive.

Take care out there, stay safe and wear a mask.

xx