Monday 18 February 2013

Z thinks about springing into action

Today, we both slept through the alarm and I was half awake when my phone rang at ten past nine.  Better not keep that up or we'll sleep our lives away.  The Sage stayed in bed in fact, for another hour, though I got up and on with the day.

Weeza sent a text to say that Gus has a temperature and is still asleep, so she's had to take the day off work.  He's been under the weather but we hoped he was just teething.  I'm supposed to be in Norwich tomorrow, but if he's still not well I'll cancel and go and look after him instead.

Spring must be arriving because I've an urge to do some gardening.  This is quite disconcerting.  However, I might as well act on it.  In the first place, we need to consider what to do with the bantams. They've been completely free-range for the past couple of years and I've loved having them run up to the door every time I go out, but I'm afraid it's going to have to change.  They ruin the lawn: where I took out the old hedge, grass has never been able to grow because they scratch it up and they make holes in the lawn for their dust baths in the summer.  And they lay away and we hardly have any eggs at all.  So the Sage has gradually inveigled them into the big greenhouse and they're living there, nearly all of them, at present.  This can't last much longer of course, they'll be too hot as soon as the weather improves.

So, what we're talking about is maybe giving over half the kitchen garden to them.  I can't grow much, I haven't time for it all.  We've got the bungalow garden to look after now, and there's already more than we can do.  But I don't want to grow no vegetables at all, it's what I enjoy growing most of all, being greedy and fond of fresh vegetables.  So if we put some wire up, we can restrict them to some of the veg plot and they can roost in the greenhouse.  I don't need a 40 foot greenhouse at the moment, or at least I can do without the watering of it.  I'll still have the other greenhouse.  That is, we've two others, but one is derelict, I'm afraid.  We need to take a good look at it and see if we're going to resurrect it or not.  I used to have all of them full of plants and manage to find time for all the work too, but now it's not time so much as energy and determination.  I've lost interest.  And there's no point anyway, what would I do with half a dozen cucumbers, a couple of pounds of beans and far too many peas and courgettes, every day?  The picking of them would be a burden, even if I give them away.  I'm no good at the thing of sowing a pinch of everything each week, growing a sensible amount that we can cope with.  It doesn't suit me.  I do it on a bigger scale or not at all.  You've got to work with the kind of person you are, or can adapt yourself to be.

In other news...I've bought new telephones which have caller ID on them (that is, they'll be delivered within the next hour).  And from now on, the rule will be only to pick up the phone if we know who's on the other end, or at least if there's a number showing.  If someone is ex-directory, they'll have to leave a message and we'll phone them back.  There are so many cold calls, the Telephone Preference Service doesn't work any longer and I'm heartily fed up with it.  They always come at the most inconvenient times, and however terse one is in saying no thanks, it's a nuisance.  Mind you, the Sage will find it hard to resist.  He loves the telephone.

In other other news, it's car insurance renewal time again.  Oh damn.  The quote I've got from the company I use (LV) doesn't look bad, let's hope it turns out to be the best and I can simply renew.  All the trawling through different companies and price comparisons is so tedious, if necessary.  

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree that the TPS is next to useless, and completely useless with overseas calls! My solution will be to get my desk-top Wi-Fi enabled, so I can ditch BT's landline. Then only people I know can call me.

Z said...

Both internet and electricity are known to fail, can't do that here!

janerowena said...

We got a caller ID phone a few months ago, and it has saved my sanity. As I refuse to reply to any calls at all unless I know the number, the calls have become far less frequent. The sage is going to be a pest though! It's best to let them think the number is no longer in use, so that they don't just keep ringing for three weeks and then sell your number on. I look every number up that I don't recognise to see if it has been reported as a telepest. From three a day nine months ago, I'm down to maybe two a week.

allotmentqueen said...

We've had caller ID for years, ever since we used to get nuisance calls from someone we knew. We have a list (by now 2 A4 pages!) by the phone of numbers not to answer - the PPI mis-sellers, Launa Windows, Zenith Kitchens, etc, etc. We also use Caller Barring to get rid of this week's nuisance callers - that goes in cycles, they give up after a couple of weeks and start using different numbers.
We can't NOT answer withheld numbers as several customers withhold all the numbers from their switchboards, but if we don't recognise a number we don't answer it and let them leave a message if they're genuine. I can see that you could easily have the opposite problem in that you won't recognise the number of new customers. Whocallsme is a good website to find out if they're telepests - just Google the number that called you and it'll probably be the first site to come up.
I agree, it's very spring-like, although we have had an overnight frost, which I find so refreshing after months of rain, etc.

Z said...

Well, if the Sage forgets to check and automatically picks up the phone, he'll get the cold call, won't matter to me. Thanks for the tip about checking numbers, AQ.