Progress

Just over a day to go on my commitment to make headway on clearing the blockage, so of course I'm spending time writing this blog.

Monday's chinese style duck with pancakes was delicious. A definite winner, and we will be making it again.

Tuesday: After visiting my Uncle and my dentist appontment, I made a mountain of bolognese.   I  had planned to cook lamb steaks for dinner but couldn't be bothered to cook any more, so we ate some of the bolognese.  Slow cooked bolognese is better left for a day to mature, so freshly cooked it wasn't my best work - but it was OK.  There was lots for the freezer.  

I also decided to buy a pre lit Christmas tree. That took quite some research.   We'd talked about it last year, and decided not to (I'd left it too late, and they were too expensive anyway).   I'd had an email about one from one of the suppliers, which made me look, and I saw that there were quite a few on offer (with an extra 20% off ending 30th September).     I'm not sure that it's the right thing really, but we can always put it up this year, and then sell it for next year if we don't like it.

Wednesday:  An excellent Pilates class.  I drank plenty of water, an hour beforehand,  so it was much better than usual. Afterwards, I moved a couple of bits from the problem room, and then decided to turn my attention to looking for something or the living room.  That took some time.   And then I had arranged to see my BFF to show her Hi-de-hizero.  I knew she's appreciate him, and I was right.    We tried some quite expensive ready-made Passion Fruit Martini cocktails, which were OK, but wasn't quite what I had expected.    So, I didn't get very far in my stated objective.

Today,  Thursday, the Christmas tree arrived.  I knew from the info on the website that it would be a disappointment on opening the box.  They must get complaints every year because they give quite a lot of info on how the tree will not look its best when you get it, and that it needs 45 minutes of floofing to make it into the sumptuous tree we see on the website.

We got it out of the enormous box, and connected it to make sure all was working, but we didn't do any of the floofing.  It's now in the storage bag (bought at the same time, also 20% off) in the summer house.  

I'm not convinced tha I've made a good decision.   I should have made a point of going to see a few "in the flesh" last year.  I'm sure (I'm telling myself) it will look better when we've spent some time on it.     Come back near Christmas and see.

The box it came in was quite large, and it has handles.  I offered it free on our local FB group.   DH is always surprised that I do this, and he's even more surprised when empty boxes are taken.   This was no exception, and someone requested it fairly quickly. 

I managed to clear some stuff from the guest bedroom/sewing room.  I've had two feeble forays in there, sorting a few bits out.  I made a decision to dispose of a few bits, they are even in a bagredy to go out with the recycling next week, so I'm regarding that as proper decluttering (rather than redistributing).    I need to put some stuff in the loft, I'm sure that if I can clear the landing it'll feel a lot better. I'll feel a lot better.   I think that there is something in Feng Shui as I do feel better when things are clear.

I was planning to ave a go at the tee shirt today, but it's very cold. Too cold to be disrobing to try things on.  I'm wondering about cutting and making it, and then trying it on tonight or tomorrow morning.  I might see if I can maintain momentum and do it.

 It really is chilly willy.   I don't want the heating on yet, and I'm not going to light the stove.  I put the duvet on the bed last night (we've been happily sleeping under the duvet cover up to now), so it's definitely getting chilly.

A week ago, DH mentioned testing the heating before winter; I said not before October. (When I was younger, it was Not before November).   It seems that a week is a long time in weather terms. Today I've retracted, and suggested he test it briefly today, just in case there is a problem.   I'd love to light the stove today, here's something so homely about a log fire.  But it will be October.  Fortunately that;'s only a couple of days away, lol. 

In Henopolis, the Girls are all at various stages of moulting, and are still looking a bit fed up because of it.   I've disallowed access into the "fruit cage" part of their run.  They haven't been using it very much, so I thought I'd give it a proper rest.  It also means that, if (when) Flockdown is announced, they'll have somewhere they can visit that they haven't seen for a while.  

Before Covid, we had 22 birds. 2 Boys, 20 girls.   4 Girls were stolen a couple of weeks after Lockdowan was announced.  We had to evacuate all the Girls to the garden here, and we had to cull the boys (which was so very sad,  our lovely gentle breeding boys).     16 girls was far too many for the garden.  We had 4 coops, 3 flocks.      When it became apparent that Lockdown was going to last awhile, we merged the flocks. It was painful.

We had many Golden Oldies and, since then, nature has reduced the flock.   When I got down to 12 girls, I thought that 12 was a good number, and I'd get new girls when I had some spaces from 12.   When I got to 10, I thought 10 was a better number, better for the grass, so that became my new "up to" number.     When Gloria died and I was down to 9, I thought 9 was an even better number, better than 10.  And when Katy went, I thought 8 was about perfect, and I'd cap the flock at 8 girls.

Looking at the lovely girls,  Poppy is over 10, Phyllis is 8, Fleur and Fay are 7 (I never expected Fleur to last this long!).   Even the youngsters are 4,4,4,3.  Phyllis is likely to be the next to go, she's looking her age, has lost weight, but doesn't look ill (although hens rarely do).  Poppy, my little warrior, is dropping down the pecking order,  so I guess she'll go in the next year or so.       For the first time since Covid,  it might be time to think about adding new girls to our flock.  

Maybe. 

 But I think I might buy sexed chicks, rather than hatching our own.

Probably. Maybe.

Squeezing

I used to travel (abroad) with my job, all the time.  It meant that I had to squeeze in doing stuff when I was home.  

I was expert in juggling things. The secret was to never procrastinate.   Get things done, so I could forget about them and move on to the next thing, saving my energies for the big things.

What on earth happened?

At lunchtime yesterday, we were thinking of visiting a shop in a town about 30 minutes away.    I had an appointment at 17.30,  and I found myself thinking "oh, we can go tomorrow".       It made me chuckle,  as the travelling me would have been in the car, at the sop, done my browsing, got home and would still have squeezed another excursion in if needed.

We did go. We did browse. We did buy.  We got back. Plenty of time, of course. 

Diversion

I bought some duck to make chinese style duck in hoisin sauce in pancakes.   It's meant to be marinaded overnight, and I discovered too late that I didn't have any ginger. 

This morning I went to a nearby tiny town, which has an Asian supermarket.  I had decided I'd buy the pancakes rather than make them.  I've made them from scratch before, they were fine - but no better than bought ones.  I decided to pop to the nearby big supermarket to get the ginger, and some vegetables etc to do a bit of bulk cooking.

So today I made the duck stuff.  It's been marinading for about 4 hours, and then I put it in the vacuum chamber to finish it off.  I was going to do that initially,  but I thought it would be better once all the marinade ingredients had had time to mellow and mingle.  It's now simmering on the hob, and it's a 2 hour job.

While all that was going on,  peeled and pressure cooked a 2.5kg bag of King Edwards.    I also cooked some blitzed garlic in butter so I could make aligot mash.   I should have just put the whole cloves in the pressure cooker with the potatoes, but I didn't think until it was too late.     As soon as the potatoes were done, I used Masha to mash them with pepper and I tested a bit. I'd forgotten just how fabulously delicious  King Edwards are for mashing.  I'd already got everything else ready though, so I added the garlicky butter and the cheese, gave them a quick Masha, and they were done.     I measured them out into single portion tubs, and stacked them to cool.

While I'd been waiting for the potatoes to pressure cook, I prepped the ingredients for Catherine Phipps' Chilli.    As soon as I'd potted up the mash,  I rinsed the pot (I was using the other one for the Duck) ,  and got started.  We like our chilli as strips of meat rather than mince,  and it had taken me a while to slice up all the cubes of pork and beef.   

While that was doing, I decided to prep the tomatoes that DH had brought in from the greenhouse.  I thought I'd try dehydrating them to the "sun dried" stage.... or drying them completely and making tomato powder.    I even went to the trouble of skinning them (boiling water then ice cold, skins slip off),  cutting them , and then removing the seeds etc.     I even went to the effort of straining the seeds and centres to get the "tomato stock" which will add an extra tomato zing to a sauce (probably tomato sauce on plain pasta, later in the week).

After I'd portioned up the chilli,  I thought about doing the bolognese (I had defrosted quite a lot of portk and beef mince for this) ,  but I really couldn't face it.  Plus,  I had one pressure cooker liner in the dishwasher and one on the hob.  I did consider prepping the rest of the ingredients but, frankly, I couldn't be bothered.

I've done nothing towards my stated objective, and I've only got a few days left.  But the freezer will have some fab "ready meals" in.  And I've had a productive day, so that's a fair swap. 

Hygienist tomorrow,  and Miss Teen after school (hopefully).  Can't see me making much headway tomorrow either.  Never mind.

Bumkick

I am going to break this funk.

My backache has been bad for a while, not severe but constant nagging pain.  I've started using red light therapy (I imported a device which had a good range of the right sort of light) to try and help my thyroid, and I've been using it on my back as well.   

I don't know yet if its helping my thyroid.  I do know that I've experienced quite severe hunger pangs for the first time in a long time, so it may be doing something.    I need to sort out some blood tests so I can get a benchmark.   It may also be helping with my rosacea, but that may be wishful thinking.    

My nagging backache has been getting more intrusive and was interfering with me doing things.  I went to see the Physio yesterday for a hands on treatment, and she showed me some exercises to do to help my cervical vertebrae and to help unstick my ribcage muscles    It's still uncomfortable today, a little less so,  but if I keep busy, I can block it out (which I've not been able to do for a while).

I've set myself a target of "end of the month" to break the funk and make an inroad into the whole problem of upstairs storage.   It's a rubbish objective, far too soft and open to interpretation, but it'll do for now. I'd also like to get this tee shirt business knocked o the head, so I can make a couple and then switch to making one of the jigsaws I've bought.

Today I've managed to:

• get everything easily moveable off the hard floors  (except the sewing/guest room and box room, which are gridlocked) and sweep & mop all of them
• Move anything which can be moved  off the boxroom floor (ideally not just on to the bench)
  
• Get the fabric offcuts into a bag and ready to go to the local carehome (who are looking for scraps)
• Get the booster seat into the hall, ready to go into the car and thence to the Baby Bank
• Dismantle and clean the cat hair out of Hidey
• Do two   three loads of washing
• get some duck legs out of the freezer, to marinate this evening, to make Chinese duck and pancakes tomorrow
• Empty all the bins
• Find a new home upstairs for the upright vacuum 
• Find a new home in the utility room for Hidey and hide the cabling
  
• do a Really Good Clean (but not quite bottoming out) of downstairs toilet 
• Standard domestics (scrubbing kitchen sinks until they gleam, cleaning the hob, cleaning the worktops, wiping any appliances that need wiping)

...which isn't a huge amount in relation to the mountain I have to climb, but it's something.  And it's visible, so it's making me feel better.  

I need to stop for a quick cold coffee.  I've missed out on stopping to rehydrate for the last few hours. Normally I give myself points for each domestic activity and have a drink (cup of tea, coffee, water, squash, whatever)  when I get to 25 points.  I'm obviously feeling the bumkick because I stopped counting points after the first coffee reward this morning. 

I also found myself considering some embroidery, and that hasn't happened for a while.

FOngers crossed I can keep this up

 

Hi-de-Hizero

My lovely Aircraft mop has an intermittent fault.   It's out of warranty, so I was debating whether to try and get it repaired or to buy a new one.   I faffed about for ages.

I saw them in Costco (my first visit in.... I don't know how long. So long that I hadn't renewed my membership (although I thought I had. Maybe I decided to wait until I next went in? I don't know).  I resisted the temptation.

And then an online friend, who also owned an Aircraft (and got his after me), posted about a new electric mop he'd got.  They had them at his place of work, and he'd been really impressed.     I was interested enough to investigate further, which involved watching a few videos, reading some reviews...and I decided to just buy one.

I rarely make large purchases on impulse.    I have done so before and, mostly, they've worked out. (I'm trying to think of a large impulse that was a fail, I imagine there must have been at least one, but I can't.  Maybe I've just seared it/them from my memory).  Anyway.  I did it.

It arrived the next day, Saturday, which I hadn't been expecting.    DH helped me unpack and put it together, which was a great way for him to learn how it all worked and to get vaguely interested in how it would perform.   It took aaaaages for the battery to charge, and it was evening before I could test it. 

I would describe it as working on the damp cloth dusting principle, which is how I do my dusting. .   It uses a slightly damp roller to pick up stuff from the floor, and then it washes where it has just swept.   It separates the debris into one chamber, and the dirty water into another.  The dirty water has no bits in so it can be put down the sink or in the toilet without causing any problems. 

It can be used with plain water or the proprietary cleaner (no other cleaners are permitted, it voids the warranty). 

I tried it out on the kitchen floor, just water, no advanced preparation,  and I was quite impressed with the result.   Our floor is heavily trafficked, and we are in and out of the garden all the time. I hadn't vacuumed for a few days.   I's a hard floor, so we don't require people to remove their shoes. And I'd had an accident with a bird feeder.

I'm mentioning all  this because I wasn't horrified by what it picked up, and how dirty the water was.   I know that if I manually mopped and wrung the mop out, the water would be gross.  It was.

I photographed the "bin" and the water to record it, and actually I did subsequently did that after every room, just so I could see what was going on.

This morning, I tried it in the living room, our bedroom, bathroom, and landing.  It was very quick - and I was a bit concerned about whether it would be doing any good.  I had ignored the instruction to make sure i picked up any electrical cords etc, and wished I hadn't.  Hidey had a good go at trying to swallow one.  I was more careful after that.  I'd also like to apologise to the Cats for running Hidey over one of their dangly toys. It was passed its use-by date anyway. Honestly.

It was reasonably good at lifting some stubborn marks (there is a second setting which uses more water, for this purpose).  There were some marks it couldn't remove,  and I wouldn't have been able to remove them with a manual floor mop either. 

I guess a better test would have been for me to vac and wash the floors first, and then use it.   What I did do, was send Roberto out to vacuum after I'd been through with the new mop.   In the bedroom, Roberto picked up a bit more debris and cat hair, but that was mainly because he'd gone into places that I hadn't.    

I tried again in the living room, which was a better test as both machines had the same access to the same areas.  Roberto had a little bit in his bin, but less than I anticipated - and I need to do a better quality controlled test net time (like checking Roberto's bin is completely empty first, and making sure I'm as thorough with my Hidey mopping as Roberto would be with his vacuuming. 

It did OK at edge cleaning.  Not perfect, but I've yet to find a vacuum cleaner or mop (even a hand mop) that meets my requirements in a kitchen with a lot of inside corners. 

I'm actually quite pleased with how it has gone so far. Pleased enough to (a)  not regret my decision, and (b) to move the upright vacuum cleaner upstairs! 

And pleased enough to want to take him to show my justifiably house-proud BFF to see what she thinks.

DeCider

Apple prepping for Cider today.  

Last year DH decided it was too much hassle to get the stuff down from the loft,  so we used domestic kitchen equipment to juice ad press the apples.  After a very sort space of time, we agreed that we should have got the proper tools down,  and we would do so next year.

Well, this is next year.  

DH picked apples during the week, and yesterday got the equipment down and cleaned and sterilised it.   

I was on apple cutting duty.  Actually, I only really needed to cut the mega apples in half,  but I prefer to cut them all in half so that I can check there's nothing unpleasant lurking within.

Dad: What's worse than biting into an apple and finding a maggot?
Me (Very Small Child): Urgh. I don't know.
Dad: Biting into an apple and finding half a maggot.

For the last fifty plus years, every single  time I eat an apple (or cut an apple) that joke makes me chuckle .

Anyway, I filled the sinks with water, and started the apple washing and cutting process.    There are plenty of people who don't wash the apples, because the skins have wild yeasts on them which can be used in fermenting. 

However, the wild yeasts is also why people go blind drinking moonshine , and you never know what you're going to end up with.  So, we wash the apples and then add cider yeast, so we know what we are creating.

Because I was only cutting in half (apart from the apples that needed a bit more attention), it didn't take very long.   When we use domestic machines,  they have to be cut smaller, and this takes a suprising amount of time.  At least double the time,  maybe 3 times as long.

 We only had one large crate and 3 small crates. Partly because DH didn't go so mad with the picking, but mainly because the poor trees had been so stressed from the drought that the'd lost a lot more apples earlier in the year than was usual.

DH operated the scratter (the thing which chops apple into very small pieces) and then the Hydropress (which extracts the juice from said small pieces, and it didn't take long at all

It's now on the breakfast bar, and the cider process has started.

 

Happy to help

I sold a couple of bits from the loft.  They were items I'd bought when DH fell off the shed and smashed his shoulder and upper arm.  We'd never used them,  we'd kept them in case they came in handy.   I've got so much "might come in handy" stuff in my loft, and I' decided to get rid of some of it - especially stuff that I could re-buy if needed.

We did a tip run with some electrical items I'd been keeping as spares, an old monitor (plus the table I smashed the other week when I fell on it, and some garden bits).

Anyway, while I was waiting for them to be collected, I decided to sew up the tee shirt (version D) that I cut out the other day. (I was reasonably happy with Version C, but my back was a bit of a mess.  The back is  a bit of a mess, so it wasn't the pattern's fault,  I just needed to work out how to disguise it)

The front wasn't bad at all.  The back was still not quite right.  I knew this would be the case as I did a bit of a botch job of easing in one of the sides, but I was sure I'd got something wrong in the measurements.  Or I needed to amend them to force a change.  

I looked at the measurements (Apostrophe Patterns are fab, they list all the measurements you used, right on the pattern piece) and got out my tape measure to try and match things up on the pattern.   I had an idea of which measurements were awry, and which was tweakable.

I decided to do some adjustments, so I re-measured myself in a couple of places, did some tweaks, and I've now printed version E.

At this point, it was time for the buyer to arrive.  They were prompt, and they were lovely.   I had planned to offer them a discount because they bought two of my items, but didn't.  They were due to have an op, and I could see what was being operated on.  I said I hoped it would go well, and they told me what they were having done.  It was drastic, and I was taken by surprise.  

I didn't want to offer platitudes, so I said I was sorry and that I didn't know what to say. They were amazing,  no self pity or anything. I don't think I'd be that strong if I was  in the same circumstances.      I didn't offer the discount, because I thought it would look like I was doing it out of pity, and I guessed that they probably didn't want pity.  They said if I came across anything else that might be helpful, to let them know. 

I wished I'd said about the discount before they collected the items.  I followed up later to ask what else they needed - I said my DB was amazing at finding things at Car Boot sales, and he would be able to look out for items. At my request, they sent a pic of one thing they wanted, and I shared the pic with my  amazing brother, asking him to keep an eye out if he went Booting this weekend. 

I browsed selling sites that evening, found one, which was a bargain but turned out to be  way above their budget. I joined and checked out some of the disability ad selling groups, but couldn't find anything.

This morning, my brother phoned me from a boot sale, and sent me a pic.  It looked the right sort of thing, but it's not always easy to tell.  The price was excellent, so I asked him to go ahead and get it.  If it had been a lot of money, I probably wouldn't have taken the risk -  but I'd seen enough listings to know we'd be able to sell it for what we paid.

I messaged the intended recipient and sent them a pic and the price. I explained that if it wasn't right, not to hesitate to say so, as I would easily be able to sell it for the same price on one of the disability groups. [I was acutely aware that this was probably all a bit weird from their point of view].

As it turned out, it wasn't the wrong sort of thing at all - far from it.   It was also in great condition, which was such an unexpected bonus.  I was able to retrospectively give them the discount,soit was even less than I'd originally told them,  so I was happy. 

My lovely DB delivered it to them on his way home from the Boot Sale, and they were really happy with it.     

So a good couple of days.

 

Blocked

I'm feeling stuck.

I failed at making a tee shirt, using my (normally trusty) template.   I eventually made myself try the MyFit Tee from Apostrophe Patterns, which is a pattern generator. You put in the measurements, the stretch of the fabric, the style you want, and it pops out a pattern.    This wasn't great either.  I think I got the vertical stretch wrong. Or something.

I didn't try making anything else.  I've got a list of clothes to make, I just can't seem to get started.  Even bringing the overlocker downstairs didn't help,  although I did end up with a pile of spectacle cloths (from a Koh glass cloth), and a pile of small flannelly bits from an old towel.

I also have a pile of jigsaws to do, one or two of which I might even keep to hang on the wall.  I managed to investigate the options for that, and have earmarked what I want to buy to do it.  But the jigsaws remain untouched.

The blockage is also down to not enough space upstairs, and the pile for going in to the loft getting in the way.  The loft needs a bit of a declutter, and everything has ground to a halt.  I was struggling to break the cycle.

On the plus side, I decided that I'd give up my beloved Ergotron trolley.  I bought a (new to me) adjustable arm, and decided to clamp my laptop to the cutting table in the kitchen.  Not elegant,  but a potential step forward.    DH had to source a VESA plate for me, and cut it down, and it seems OK.  IK enough for us to lug the Ergotron upstairs, where it is too big to go anywhere.

This made me try to come up with a solution.    The solution is multi part and quite extensive, and I need to ponder on it some more to see if it's really going to work.  I don't mind going to the expense and upheaval if it works,  but I don't want to do it and then find I'm not much better off. 

Part of it involves a new, higher, bed in the guest room, and I've bought some bed raisers to do a trial to test the potential solution.    I was really lucky to find a set of £80 extenders going for £7.50 on Ebay.  I can't collect them until the middle of next week, so I'm trying to play at the edges for the next few days.

As part of that, I managed to go up in the loft and bring some bits down to sell/donate/bin.  Not a huge amount,  but a reasonable block.    A box of photo frames has been offered and collected.   I've got some other bits up for sale,  and I've got a medium pile of bits to go to the Tip. 

'm pretty sure that we will shortly find one of the cat feeders breaks, or the coffee machine goes on the fritz, as it's the "keep for spares" bit of those that are part of what's being taken to the tip.  

Of course I filled up most of the space I'd created immediately, by putting things like the fans up there.    We really do need to try and get up there and go through stuff - now that it's not "too hot" and before it gets "too cold".  I'm sure we could bite the bullet and get rid of a fair bit if we tried.  I'm sure we both look at each other's bits and think that.

I am going to try and measure (again) and try the tee shirt pattern again.  Maybe tomorrow.  I nearly bought some ready to wear ones yesterday, and that seems so silly (and plain tee shirts are quite expensive now).     If I can get this right, I can make a few and that will help with the fabric stash, so it'll be a double win. . {In my defence:  have already, recently, been through my stash and donated a humungous bag, kilos of fabric, to my DGD, and I am not ready to donate any of the remainder. Yet.}

I feel better that I got the fans out of the way, even though I have more stuff in the piles on the landing  now than when I started.   I'm quite good at not letting the additions bother me, because they are all advertised for sale (or free) and will be gone, one way or another, by the end of next week.

Onward.

Old Habits

The Girls have got themselves into some lazy habits.

For a long time, it was so hot that all they could do was lie around in whatever shady spot they could find.  The grass gradually died off and went brown, and there was no foraging worth having.  Their days were interspersed with me coming out of their house to give them vegetables, or water, or frozen peas to put in their water, or whatever.

Then the weather changed and the grass regrew, really quickly.  We mowed it 10 days ago, and that should have given them tasty tips of freshly mown blades to nibble.  They did, a bit.  But not a lot.  They continue to lol around in sight of the kitchen. Except for when it was raining, when they would sit around in the covered run and watch accusingly.

They've all started to moult and are in different stages of undress, and are keeping their distances accordingly.  Fleur, the Cuckoo Marans, is furthest along.  The picture is from a few weeks ago when she had started to shed.   She's full of new feather growth now, and avoiding any contact with anyone.

In the last 10 days the grass has gone berserk, and we will be cutting it again on Saturday.   In the meantime, the weather is mostly pleasant.   The girls have been lolling around under the pampas digger huge craters as they try and dislodge some of the dead feathers (or perhaps to soothe their skin from the newly emerging ones).

They aren't doing much at all.

Mind you, I'm not either, so I guess it's a bit like the pot and the kettle.

I managed to remember to take a picture of one of the two skirts I hemmed the other day.  I used the selfie stick thing and a mirror.

That reminds me, I really must get around to doing that thing with the cats - the thing I actually bought the selfie stick for!

God bless the Queen, God save the King

I cried a little when the TV programme was interrupted and the announcement was made.  I don't mean I sobbed,  I mean I shed a few quiet tears.

I watched the related programmes that eveing.  I wondered whether I, whether people in general, would know what to do.  Most of us have not experienced this before.  The State machine, of course, knows exactly what it needs to do.

I was due to go out this evening, for the first time in a long time.    We decided to go ahead, but I did wear black (I had to hem a skirt Imade a few weeks ago) as a sign of respect.

It was good to talk, and I'm glad we went ahead.

When I got home, DH was out.  I watched Charles' (I suppose that should be "The King's")  address to the Nation,  on catchup.  He got the balance right, I thought.

We don't have a modern turn of phrase for this, so I guess it'll have to be
"God Save the King"

All change

My brother arroved to collect the sofa to take to his MIL.   Later, he collected the two chairs.  In the interim I was contacted by a lady who wanted to come and view the remaining chair immediately,  and before I knew it, that was gone too.  

We could finally try and arrange the remaining furniture.

It wasn't as easy as we expected.

In order to allow for the sofa to recline we have to have it away from the wall.   In order for one of us to not get a cric in the neck, it has to be angled..... which lead to some very strange looking arrangements.

We decided to leave it in one arrangement yesterday to see how it went.  This morning, I started to clear up, and I did a bit of tweaking....and a but ore...and a bit more.  Then I decided I'd better wash the floor befre I put stuff back.  And it needed ot be vacuumed first.

The whole layout has changed, so I needed to get Roberto to do another mapping run,  and if I was going to do that, I might as well do it properly.  So everything - apart from the table, sofa, and swivel chairs, had to come off the floor.  The entire downstairs.

He did 2 mapping runs, and got confused.  We had to delete everything (including our original map and favourites) and start again.  It took forever.  

Once we had a useable map, divided into rooms, I got him to vacuum.  Then I mopped,  although my lovely mop was playing up so I had to do a lot of it by handf

On the plus side of the wonky sofa arrangement,  Roberto can now get behind the sofa when doing a run.  Well, he could until I plugged the sifa in and put some cat bits behind there.  Fortunately he had already decided it was a separate room, so I can choose to include or not in any future session.

I cleaned loads of things and put them back.  It took hours.   I haven't had as much of a change around as i had intended, I need to think about where I keep my laptop and how I use it. 

But it looks OK.

 

People

I have been so very lucky with the childrens choice of partners.

End of the challenge - Updated

An average of 1 cupboard (or drawer) a day was my challenge.  Emptied, cleaned, reorganised,  and a harsh line on keeping anything not used.

I started on 14th July, and my target was to end on 31st August.   The last few days were a washout, so I don't know if I managed to maintain my average or not.

 18 days in July (14th-31st, inclusive,  plus 31 days in August = a target of 49.

Let me just go and count.....

 '1-2-3-4.........."

Hmm... If I count my tall larder cuboard (which has 8 shelves, all jam packed with tins, jars and dry food stuff as 3 cupboards worth,  then I've done it.  Just. 7 of the count were drawers or cupboards in other rooms, but that's been the case right since the beginning.

UPDATE: I missed out  a massive cupboard and a mobile storage unit!  Even without counting the tall larder cupboard as 3 cupboards, I've done it!

I got rid of a lot of stuff.  Donations, bin, selling. 

I didn't do all the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen.  There are 3 cupboards plus 1 drawer that really need  doing and haven't been done,  and several which don't need doing (but I haven't cheated and counted them in my "done" total). 

It's been a good challenge, which fitted my determination to clear,  and I might well employ it again in future. 

I'll need to decide my next challenge soon.

Meanwhile,..

I've agreed a sale on most of the excess furniture, and I'm hoping they weill go at the weekend.  We can then rearrange stuff and work out what to do. 

The table I broke when I did the splits is unrepairable.   DH was keen to get something taller for the hall, so we've retrieved an old table from the loft to put there for now.

The cats have decided that the new sofa is intended for them.