Again to pass the time...

I am going to knitting in a bit. I need to call Dan at 10 to remind him he has to go to work for 11 and then I am going to grab a lift from him to save catching the bus. But I got up so early this morning. I went to bed just after 12 and was up for 7:30. I have tidied my room as it was a complete state and its strange because tidying my room usually just implies putting a few bit of clothes away and arranging my knitting projects and yarn. All done now.

I cannot stay here though. I want to move to somewhere on my own. Unfortunately, and I don't know how bad it is in other countries, it is extortionate to live alone here. A one bedroom flat - meaning not a bed/sit or studio but a place where there is a bedroom, a bathroom and a living area with kitchen will cost me around £400 a month. Then there is council tax, gas, electric, water, internet, tv licence, food, life etc and its going to cost me around £700 a month which I cannot afford, but I really don't want to live with anyone else right now.

I did join the gym last night for £33 a month but in return I am going to cancel my contact lens contract, saving £15 a month so its not too bad. I don't wear them anyway and the gym is a much healthier spend. I only did 25 minutes yesterday but 25 minutes 3 or 4 times a week is better than sitting on my arse at home watching TV and I don't even like TV.

Also, despite wanting to save money, I really want to go on holiday. The passport has cost me £90 and I have it now so I might as well use it, so if anyone has any ideas for places to go on my own, or people to visit, let me know.

Also, I am still procrastinating about this damn assignment. Stupid thing is it will be easy when I get started, I just have an aversion to writing essays.

I can explain, really I can

As of yesterday I am single. This was my decision, and it was a really tough decision to make. I have left my partner of 3 years, our log cabin, our rats and basically my life.

I can't explain why I have done that, but I hope that explains why I haven't posted in forever.

I have somewhere to live and I get the keys tonight. In the meantime I have been staying with a workmate. The final move will come on Saturday when I drive out to the cabin to pack and move everything I own. Its going to be a logistical nightmare, made worse by the fact that I dont have my driving licence with me so I am unable to hire a van.

My immediate plans are to sort out where I am moving to, and then I can relax a little and start my new life. I plan on getting a lot of things done that I have been putting off for the last few months. Laurie Ann, your package will be in the post by the end of this month, and Natalie, I am going to knit something for the baby, and I am also going to make a good start at knitting a few presents for Christmas, which I am tempted to just boycott as I will be so incredibly poor when I have paid the deposit on the new apartment.

My new apartment is shared with 4 other people (1 male, 3 females) and my room is immense. The closet, double bed, and sofa barely take up any of the space, and the best part is that it has a balcony so I can still grow plants. I am really excited about it and I hope this is a move in the right direction for me.

I am sorry for abandoning you all for so long!

PS - Sunday I went to Wingham Wool Works - its brilliant, I am going back and next time I will take orders if anyone wants any. Its only 20 minutes from my mums house!!!

Another week gone. I feel like I am wishing time away, because I just cannot wait for the weekends lately, but why? The only benefit to weekends is not being in work. This IS a huge benefit, but its not really enough. I need to do more on my weekends but I am usually too tired to contemplate anything other than laundry, cooking, and one of either spinning, knitting, gardening, making stuff.

Plans for this weekend (its gonna be a wet one) include digging out some weeds, planting my squash outside, repotting tomatoes, and then maybe looking at my jewellery stuff to see what I need. Morven is going to be out for a lot of Sunday so I will catch up on cooking.

Today is payday and im not too pleased. Its not that I didnt get paid much, I got my usual decent salary, but by the end of next week I will be in the red already, so I think I will avoid spending any money on anything this month. Since fuel is even more expensive, I will need to buy some diesel for Morven at some point, maybe £120 worth, so I cant afford to buy anything else.

Hopefully my fluffy blue singles will be dry tonight and I might put them on etsy. I got 198 meters! Woot!

My next project is going to be these mittens made from some handspun. I have some lovely brown alpaca, which I have mixed with some tussah silk to add strength, and some green none specific wool, both of which I got from Wonderwool Wales. Hopefully it will make a good contrast or I might have to rethink it.

Moneygrabbers make me thrifty.

In the midst of the 3rd day of sweltering heat*, a looming fuel strike,** and the beginnings of another recession which is very likely to affect my job***, I am trying to think of ways to get out of this country and the mess it is in.
Its not going to happen because a passport costs £72!!!! That is US$140! How is that possible? I hate that this country is in such a state and would love to move to mid New Zealand where there are much fewer people. Or maybe Germany. Or hell, its probably cooler there.

Anyhoo, I am trying to be as self sufficient as possible, and so at the weekend we bought rhubarb plants, and tomatoes and strawberries, and I made my own 'coffee' from dandelion roots. Here is a recipe, but I didn't read that until right now (doh!) So what we did was:

1. dig up dandelion roots
2. leave in sun to dry for a week or so
3. wash off dirt
4. roast in oven for about an hour (medium heat)
5. leave to cool
6. smash with mortar and pestle (or if you have any sense at all, use a coffee grinder)

We made it in the coffee machine, and it was nice, like a rich chocolatey coffee, although it was a little bitter so next time we will use less powder to water. We got about a cup full from maybe 15 roots, so we will do this again. The only downside is the lack of caffeine so its not for mornings.

Whilst I was on my hippy run, I also picked a crapload of elderflowers from one of the 9 elderflower trees in our garden and made elderflower cordial thus:

1. add 2cups sugar and 2 cups water to a pan (that has a lid)
2. take half a lemon and sort of dice it, throw that in the pan
3. bring to boil for a few mins whilst washing about 20 heads of elderflowers
4. take pan off heat, add elderflowers, put lid on and leave to steep. When cool, refridgerate
5. The next day (or 8 hours later) strain flowers and lemon, pour syrup into bottle and keep in fridge.
6. To drink, just add water to taste

This took about 20 mins to make (including picking) and tastes excellent, and has no additives, and I feel very self sufficient for making my own pop :)

I also roasted a chicken on sunday and made stock from the npnes, so very productive generally in the kitchen.

I havent unpacked my jewellery stuff yet, so not much to say about that just yet. Its now really too hot to stay here so I am going home. *its over 80F in this office and about 70-75F outside - please remember we are not used to this and therefore do not have air conditioning, or even summer clothing! ** the last one was SO.MUCH.FUN! I used to only do 30 miles a day, we now do 70-80 a day and so if this strike happens we will probably have to take some time off work next week (unpaid for me!) *** we are just about to go into contract with Barratt Homes for a small scheme here, but we are already in contract with Bovis, who are laying off staff by the dozen, Taylor Wimpey, who are closing half their offices, and some others who are not doing too well either.

The news makes me angry

There is just nothing good happening in the world/country these days. There is talk of a new car tax (on top of the £190 we pay in road tax) of £200 extra for any car made before 2001. What a load of crap. So the idea is that you want me to scrap my perfectly good 1995 car so I can buy a brand new one with a massive "carbon footprint" (HATE that term!) that is 90% wiring and as reliable as, oh I dont know, British Government? Yeah, thanks for that.

Our 1.8 litre Diesel may sound like a tractor, but its actually very economical, and when we start running it on vegetable oil (legally I might add) (hopefully we will have that set up this year) it will have ZERO emmissions.

And you know what else? I live in a forest, where the trees turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. I have about 50 trees in my garden, I think that makes us "carbon neutral" don't you?

I will not be buying a new car, and be sure that if it comes to it, I will buy the biggest, loudest, un-economical 4x4 that I can find, because thats what is causing the real problem.

You know Diesel is now £1.24 a litre? Thats over US$10 a gallon. It now costs us £50 to fill the tank, which we need to do almost twice a week. Yup, thats about £350 (US$700) a month just on fuel to get to work (I am in work from 9am to 7pm everyday because I car share, and its not fun when everyone else leaves at 5:30) Maybe we should quit our jobs and live off the government, I really feel like we would be better off!

Monday

The only problem with doing nothing on weekends, is that I feel like I have done nothing...

Take Saturday - We woke up around 10, I plied up some yarn (not much), Morven made breakfast, although he made me moldy toast, which almost made me throw up and the rest went in to the compost, then he played Guildwars ALL DAY and I made cake.

At around 3:30 I made him get up and come to Ross on Wye with me because we needed milk, sugar and eggs. So off we went, and I got some other bits (mostly stuff on my 'allowed' list but a couple of tiny quiches which were reduced for quick sale and would go well with the beans I was soaking.

Then I think the biggest mistake of the weekend was re-installing Sims2 on the PC (we have dual boot now with Linux/Windows because Guildwars (and Sims2) won't work on Linux) I played Sims 2 until 1am, and then when I got up at 8 (stupid me) I played it some more. Its so addictive - I hate when games don't tell you the real time, you can lose hours of your life to them.

I was forced off the PC in the afternoon and we did some gardening, which was not really what I wanted to do, but we made a path, moved all my bulbs, and I planted my seeds.

This year I have planted:

6 x Tomato (arctic something or other - these are outside tomatoes)
6 x Tomato (gardeners delight)
5 x Courgette(Zuchinni) (yellow F1 bush growing)
6 x Marrow (bush growing)
6 x Basil (black opal)
12 x Peas (common ones but I cant remember the name)
9 x sprouting brocolli
many many salad & herb leaves in my 'cut and come again' box

I have french beans but I will put them straight into the ground when the beds are finished (its getting late in the day!!) I was feeling kinda shitty at the cost of EVERYTHING so really forced myself to get off my arse and actually start planting these things because otherwise we will starve to death this year.

The weekend ended ok because I felt really good about the new path and my neighbour gave me some plants too, he is always giving us plants as he pulls them out of his garden :) I also made beans for dinner - butterbeans and borlotti beans soaked, boiled, then simmered in BBQ sauce and served with quiche and salad.

Now only 5 more days to the next weekend. At least the next one is 3 days.

Something new

I got paid today and I am not too happy with the outcome. Its not that I got paid less than usual, its just that I was so stupidly overdrawn before that payday has made a minimum impact on it. Luckily my overdraft only costs a couple of quid a month (maybe £10) I should check. But I do not want to live this way. Therefore I need to save/make money very quickly.

So my half-assed plan for the month of May15th-June 15th is:

Buy no food this month.

The exceptions I am allowing are:

• Fruit - apples for lunch boxes or whatever is on special
• Veg - onions, mushrooms and frozen veg if we run out (its £1 a bag and a bag lasts us 4-5 meals)
• Bread - I will make some, but I will get stuff that is on special too
• Milk (and possibly sugar and coffee if we run out, which we probably will)

Luckily I have several packs of dried beans and lentils, a ton of ramen noodles and pasta, and a huge sack of rice. I have a ton of margarine for baking, lots of flour, herbs, spices. My freezer is full, and I will go out tonight and buy some spinach and lettuce seeds

I plan on making lots of lentilly, beany goodness, baking cupcakes for lunch boxes (I have ingredients for lemon ones and coffee & walnut ones), and freezing leftovers for future meals. I think I can do this :)

I will also allow myself to buy bargain fiber as I find it (and more cheap-o dye if needs be).

I will try to sell some handspun on etsy too.

Rubbish crappy stuff

I feel a bit 'meh' today.

Some colleagues and I were just talking about the state of work and how its boring and repetitive and how we want a change but don't know what we want or how to get it, and we have all left feeling really shitty.

Well I haven't left yet because I never leave work until well after 6 but I still feel shitty.

I just feel like things can't get better. I hate the government in this country and the decisions they make, and the lack of care they seem to have for anyone that has to live here. I hate that I work hard for my crappy salary just to pay it out for gas (still $10 a gallon), food (I REALLY need to grow my own food) and well, thats all I can afford really. I buy fiber and yarn and such but not regularly. I never buy new clothes these days and live mostly on beans and lentils and I do 90% of my weekly shop on the death shelf at the supermarket (Thats the shelf with all the stuff thats supposedly gone off, although thats only if you believe in best before dates).

And ugh, I am eating way too much lately too. This last week (my monthly) I have pigged out of whatever I could find and I think I have put about 6lb on. Not ideal as I am trying to lose about 30lb this year. But there lies another problem - if I go down a dress size, I won't have any clothes that fit and I can't afford to buy new ones.

In an ideal world I would knit, spin, grow vegetables and bake, and I would make money from it.

My plan for the short term is to stick out work (mainly for the 41 days annual leave). We are merging this year so opportunities may come. When I go to my mums house next I plan to bring back my jewellery stuff and start making more things. Has everyone who reads my blog seen my website? I believe its up to date if anyone is interested in anything.

I also bought www.spun-out.co.uk earlier this year and so hopefully I will be able to sort something out there when I have enough yarn spun to sell.

Tonight I think I will dye my merino/silk fibre with the food colouring and lemon juice that I bought yesterday (Lemon juice was cheaper than vinegar and the dyes were about 20p each). I will make food consisting of leftovers, and I might soak some borlotti and butter beans to have later this week.