Monday 11th September 2023: A bit cooler today and def not as muggy thank goodness because I have spent 7 hours (yes you read that correctly) cleaning the kitchen 🙄 From top to bottom, every cupboard, every drawer pulled out cleaned, stuff I didn’t need thrown out and everything put back. I don’t know about you but my cupboards just get things stuffed into them 😜 and just exactly how many paper bags do I need to keep just in case 🙄 a whole bag full of them that’s how many, now in the recycling. Tubs without lids or lids without tubs, now gone, half used food stuff that is out of date, binned, I wish the manufacturers would realised that very few people can get through a colmans mustard powder tin within the allotted date 😂 smaller tins would be appreciated. To be fair I only used to buy it for when dad came or if I needed mustard powder for a gf recipe because for some reason the jar stuff is not gf or never used to be 🤷♀️ I have found stuff I had forgotten I had such as the special cleaner for the workshops and three bottles of windowlene with the price ticket of £2.59 on them, I have no idea how much it is now but these would have been from Johns Mums house and I do use it occasionally although a cloth and a squeegee are much quicker.
After I finished and steam cleaned the floor I had a quick cuppa waiting for it to dry and then onto the paperwork pile which (and I hate to say it) has been piling up for more than six months! It is all now in its respective years ready for the accounts (which I have yet to do) and I have plonked 22/23 in the office (another room that needs a total declutter and tidy) 23/24 is in the rack on the wall that separates it into plumbing, farm, household categories, John however can’t seem to get the hang of this simple filing system as I found plumbing stuffed into farm and farm stuffed into household 🙄 despite the fact that he is not supposed to file it at all, that only happens once it has been paid or dealt with, usually 😝
I think I can see just how poorly and lacklustre I had been for months now, sometime it is only when you look in the rear view mirror you can see what has been happening. To leave things for such a long time is not me but I was beginning to think it was, it is 5.30 and I don’t feel exhausted for once in fact I then hoovered the boot room too 😊 I will probably be tired tomorrow but that’s ok because I have Oscar and that is a different kind of day.
Tuesday: Although I was supposed to have Oscar today neither he nor Charlie are every well and so she is not going in to work. That gives me a day I was not expecting to have and so I spent most of it playing with flowers, I know I should have been doing other things but it was a bonus day so I took advantage of that lol.
One of the my favourite flower arrangement I have ever done was the dried flower meadows for Sam and Luke’s wedding. I used dry foam back then as I had no idea how else I would do it but I wanted to find a way without and so that’s what I set about doing. Using chicken wire topped with dry moss I got a pretty good result although I need to use smaller gauge wire (I just used what I had which was about 1 inch, too big really and would be better with much smaller holes because of the fine stems on dried flowers. I also made a fresh flower jam jar box, i also love doing these and think I will do workshops with these next year (just need to get John to make the boxes) and I had a go at another little flower fairy, these are very fiddly and delicate but great fun to make. This one reminds me of Nurse Phylis from Call the Midwife 😂 definitely capable of getting the job done 😊
In the evening we were going to pop along to Witney Feast which is a big local fair but my brother and his wife called in and we drank tea and chatted for the evening instead.
Wednesday: It is definitely a September morning this morning, dew on the ground and a slight chill in the air first thing but the sun is shining so I think it will be a lovely day.
Just gone 11am and I have another room sorted, the office/craft room had become a dumping ground for anything that didn’t have another home. I have sorted, recycled, bagged for the charity shop and binned plenty. It is where paperwork is supposed to get done but I couldn’t even get to the filing cabinet, it is where I keep the cot for when Oscar comes and I leave it up but it was hard to get round it. Now everything is tidy there is floor space again, cobwebs have been hoovered and surfaces wiped over, dusting done and I folded up the cot so I can now move around in there. I have a cupboard with Christmas stuff in photo albums, LPs and anything else that can’t be thrown out, though why we keep it all is anyone’s guess. The ironing board lives in there as does the steam mop and the hoover plus everything for crafting or sewing and a plethora of paperwork, pens, scissor, sellotape, card, glue, you get the idea 😂 I do have all the stuff I oiked out that needs to go to its final home to put away yet though and a lot of it is for the flower room as it is mostly for flower work, amazing how much stuff you can accumulate 😜
The weather is t as great as I thought it might be rather overcast but not raining at the minute so that’s good. We had a good couple of downpours yesterday so no watering needs doing for the time being 😊
Once I had put everything where it needed to be and could get to the desk I then needed to fix an issue with the laptop, it was connected to the internet but it seems there was something preventing it from accessing it. Cue a couple of hours downloading, restarting, installing, etc etc etc 🙄 While that was happening I decided to fill in the online forms and print documents for our up coming holiday and then phone the company to link a booking. While I was on hold to them I downloaded and printed off documents for Johns day out on Sunday, he is off to Williams Racing for the day to watch the Singapore race with hospitality. Jeez in the age of technology everything takes so bloody long to sort out, currently still on hold while I am typing this up listening to the music with the frequent interruption telling me ‘my time is precious so why not do things quicker online’ um because that does not seem to be an option in this instance 😂 Talk about multitasking!
Thursday: You can definitely feel the autumn chill in the air in the mornings and evenings now. The sun is shining this morning though and so I imagine it will be very much the same as yesterday.
I sorted out some dried flowers first thing, I have flowers to cut for orders and some to deliver as well. One of the reasons I tided the office was because I needed to get to some paperwork that was at the back of everything else as always. I had an official form to fill in online which I flipping hate doing anyway, I had until the 18th and yet they still sent me two reminders including a final reminder ffs, that’s enough to send the blood pressure up on its own. I had till the 18th and I was damn well going to do it before that and I don’t need you constantly sending out letters and emails 😂 I hate officialdom in any form, it always makes me nervous, when I was in the thick of it and doing it all the time I wasn’t so bad, I got used to it, but not having done it for years I was putting it off till as late as possible. Well now I could find the right paperwork I was set to do it and logged on, my anxiety levels were high (ridiculous I know but that’s the way I am) I started the online filing, gave details requested for the first couple of pages and that was it! What 😯 I had put off doing this because it would stress me out trying to find all the info and all they wanted was basic details not even official documented proof 😂😂😂 what an idiot Dawn, all that time worrying about it for nothing 😜
So now that is done I can get on with the rest of my day in relative harmony 🙏
I got flowers arranged for delivery later and then took flowers down to the local pub, nice walk down and back today, the village was much quieter than it has been the last couple of walks. Once back I did some flower pressing and then a lunchtime sit down.
Friday: Now I can get the ironing board up in the office I did a bit of ironing, I like ironing on the whole but don’t do it very often lol. I picked the rest of the ripe tomatoes while waiting for a customer to come and collect flowers. The variety I have this year has produced literally hundreds of cherry tomatoes and while they may be small they certainly do not lack that full tomato flavour.
In the afternoon I started a full dried flower wreath, that is a lot of work and a lot of flowers but it turned out beautifully and is so much better in real,life than the photo I took.
Saturday: The forecast was for hot sunny weather today but that did not pan out, not here anyway. It was however the perfect day for me to get some gardening work done, overcast and warm enough, perfect. I started off in the big tunnel, clearing, weeding, deadheading and cutting back. Then onto potting or pricking out some of the seeds I have been growing for next year, planting out was next, cornflowers and ammi majus. Weeding next, plenty of that to do, plus cutting back some of the perennials, next year I need to cut back harder and earlier I think. Quick stop for lunch and then out to help John clear up or pick apples from the cooking apple tree which has had hundreds of apples this year. I have been giving them away for weeks and there are still a lot left on the tree, I need to do some more for the freezer but not too many or we will never use it all up before next years crop, unless we don’t get one which is possible.
It rained a little in the afternoon but nothing that gave you a soaking, in the evening we went over to my brothers for a bbq to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries.
Sunday: An early alarm set for today, John is off on a F1 hospitality day which was a birthday present from Charlie and Macca. I hope he has fun Charlie messaged, um he is being fed all day and watching the racing it’s all his dreams come true 😂
That left me home on my own so I opted for a lazy Sunday morning, not in bed because that’s not me but in my pjs lounging around drinking tea, eating toast and catching up with watching Instagram posts and reels. Well I did that until I figured I really ought to get on with something because we are off out on a birthday ramble with Samantha and family today, hope it does not rain too hard but I a, sure we will find a nice pub at the end with something warm to eat and drink.
We had a lovely walk today around Sherborne Estate and village, the rain held off until we were safely inside a local pub having something to eat, the heavens opened just after we got there 😂
John got home before I did and he also had a great day at Williams F1 in Grove, good day all round and a great end to the week 😊
frieslandfarm (flowers) 