Its the little things.....

It really is the little things in life that matter and mean the most. Tonight it was a sleepy little voice in the almost darkness that belonged to a just three year old who I thought had gone to sleep. 'Big hug, nana' murmured the little voice and struggled to free himself from his duvet to be scooped up in my arms, his head buried in my neck. I gently rocked him, feeling his soft breathing on my shoulder as we both listened to his almost 2 year old brother sucking on his dummy as he slept in the next bed to his big brother. I rocked and held and snuggled this precious little man who so very nearly wasn't here with us and for whom every day is a bonus. He had a good report from his 3 monthly hospital 'MOT' yesterday, buthe will need another major heart operation in about 12 months time. My heart cries at this, we all know that this has to happen and comes on the back of the 3 other major heart ops he has had in his short life, but it doesn't lessen my fears. The warm breath on my neck is so real and I don't want to put him down, don't want to let him go. We would go to the ends of the earth for this precious little man (and his brother) and very soon we may be making the biggest change in all our lives I could ever have imagined.

Garden Organic - Brilliant Day !!

I had a brilliant day today at Garden Organic at Ryton near Coventry. It was the Master Gardener and Master Composter conference and almost 200 fellow MG's and MC's from North and South London, Lincolshire, Norfolk, Leicestershire, York, Hereford and Worcester and Malvern were there. It was so good to be in the company of like minded people and we had some really good speakers, one of whom was Chris Collins, the Blue Peter gardener. He was a really nice guy and very funny. One of the best parts was that Compost Woman Sarah won the Master Composter Award, partly due to the great advice that she offers on her blog. If you havent read any of her posts before, pop over to her blog, the link is on my sidebar. I'm off to bed now - it has been a very very long few days, but today, being in the company of like minded people and spending time at my beloved Ryton Gardens has lifted my spirits which have been a little flat recently !

Changing Times

I haven't posted much recently. I haven't really felt very communicative - not the way that I usually prattly on. Truth be told, the past 6 months have been the hardest ones of my life. They have been the most sleepless, jumbled, fragmented, upside down months I think I have ever had. Changes have happened here at the Little Terraced House and more changes are still to take place, some very soon, some in a few months time. Am I comfortable with these changes? Deep breath......no I guess I'm not.....these past few days I am really struggling with all the things which are crowding my head and stopping me sleeping. And, because I'm not sleeping well, I can't think clearly during the day - it's all becoming a seemingly never ending circle. I know it will be broken soon, but much as I welcome the end of the brain swirling and utter confusion, I'm not really welcoming the big big change which is going to take place. And that's also one of the problems, I should be really really really looking forward to the future, and I am angry with my self for not being over the moon at the chance that we are being given, but I guess that in my heart of hearts, I dont like change - not to the degree that our lives are going to. I know I sound vague and probably confusing, well thats because I am confused. Confused and stressed over the changes which have already occurred and turned my little world on its head (probably not big things to other people, but big to me)and confused and scared about the change to come, and this one really will turn my life upside down. Bear with me, the next few weeks are going to be totally unlike any I have experienced before. And I am scared, unsettled, excited and terrified all in one little wobbly body. And I cant even get in the garden to make me feel better....

Some ebayers should be shot !

Recently I put on line a set of garden chairs and a small side table. I was pleased to see that 59 people were watching the items and I hoped that meant they would sell. I wasnt expecting a fortune, anything these days would be a help.

The items were listed as 'collection only' as they are quite heavy and to send them by a courier would have cost a fortune. In the end 3 people tried to out bid each other and the chairs finally sold for just under £30 - not enough to pay the mortgage off, but every little helps as Tesco's keep telling us!

The woman who won the auction came back to me after two days and asked me if she could pick them up in two weeks time as she was going on holiday that day. I replied politely and said that two weeks time would be difficult as I myself would be away. She came back to me later that night to say she would pick them up the next day. I emailed her my address and phone number and asked if she could let me know roughly when it would be just so I could make sure somebody was here to let her in.

She didnt turn up or contact me that day. The following day she emailed me to say her grandad had now got her a set and she didnt want this one, but no problem I should ask one of the other people who had bid, if they still wanted it.

I wasnt very happy. This lady had messed me about for 4 days. So I posted a Second Chance listing for the person whoc had bid the second highest, in the hope that they would still want the chairs, but 24 hours later, they hadnt bid, so obviously they had changed their minds or had made another purchase.

Then, things got more silly. I contacted ebay to cancel the transaction with the woman, so that I did not have to pay final value fees for an item which it appeared I was not going to get paid for. The response came back from ebay a few hours later, that the buyer was refusing to cancel the transaction and I would still be liable for the final value fees !!!

I emailed ebay again asking them to look at the situation which they did, and they cancelled the final value fee payment.

But then, more annoyingly, she has now posted negative feedback saying that the chairs and table were broken!!!!!! She hasnt even seen them !!! I am now having to ask ebay to remove the negative feedback. This woman is a flipping nutter !!! I really cant work out what on earth she is playing at.

All I can say is that thankfully the majority of ebay buyers are nice people and all of the previous transactions I have been party to, either as a seller or a buyer have gone through without any hitches. I hope ebay do sort this out, this is really annoying me.

Merry Christmas

I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2011 hasn't been the best one for us here at the Little Terraced House and the past few months I have been a little lost inside myself and haven't felt very communicative, but hopefully this will disapear over time.

Love and hugs, have a really great day and have a drink for me ! xxx

The Rules Have Changed........

I read Frugal Queens post this morning about Who to Trust and commented on it there, but decided to post the content of my comments on here too.

I bank with a major high street bank and have been with them for over 30 years. My current account where mine and Himself's wages are paid in is there and we have 2 credit cards with them. The cards are pretty high in debt (dont go there) but we pay a little over the required payment every month in an attempt to get the debt down as fast as possible.

We have been charged 17.9% interest on these cards for the past couple of years, the bank sneakily upped the interest rate from 14.9% and seemed to have 'forgotten' to tell us, yea right. Well now, in a time when the Bank of England Rate has been 0.5% for ages and ages, they sent me a letter telling me that as I have considereable debt (yes, I know that fact and didn't need reminding) I am considered a bad risk and as such they have decided to increase my interest rate to 27.9% !!!!!

Hello, our debt has been going DOWN for over 2 years NOT UP !!! How on earth do they decide that we need to pay more when our debt is coming down ?????

So now they have increased our debt mountain for us and are intent on keeping us tied prisoner to them for even longer, nice of them eh? They were already making a very nice profit on the 17.9% - but now they are just becoming greedier and greedier. We have never ever ever ever missed a payment !!!

I also presume that if any other company did a credit search on us, they would jump to the conclusion that we are some sort of bad risk and maybe do the same. The whole system nnow stinks. The thieves at the top who make these decision are getting richer whilst us poor phlebs at the bottom of the pile are being kept down by an increasing debt level whilst working our socks off trying to pay it off !

So in answer to Froogs Question, I dont trust anybody in Banking, Finance, large newspapers or Government, regardless of their party.

As I said at the top, the rules have changed, but nobody is bothering to tell us what they are, we just have to keep trying to work them out as they constantly move the goal posts about.

I just want a desert island, with a bit of sunshine and wind for power and a patch of ground to grow on. Then all these damn parasites can bugger off and leave me alone. I want nothing off them and they can have nothing off me !

Sissinghurst Smallholders Show

I had wanted to go to this show all week, but it was looking extremely doubtful if I would be able to go, due to family commitments, so I hadn't even bothered mentioning it to Himself. However family commitments changed slightly on Sunday morning,so I dropped it into the conversation over toast and homemade marmalade, that Hugh (Fernley Whittingstall) would be talking at the show. Appetite whetted (we have watched River Cottage over and over again) and as Himself is currently based only 40 minutes from Sissinghurst, it was a fairly easy decision to make - I am pleased to report.


Daughter in tow (who thinks her Dad and Step Mom are everso slightly mad at the best of times, we set off and managed to get there just as the site was opening. I have always wanted to see the gardens at Sissinghurst but again I didn't manage it - never mind, an excuse to go back on my own while Himself is still working in sunny Kent!

The show wasn't huge, but for me (and himself, after daughter left a couple of hours later to go and visit a friend) we had a lovely day. I managed to hear Hugh talk about his new show that is just finishing filming, and then later in the day we had front row seats to listen to Sarah Raven and Mark Diacono (River Cottage Head Gardener and smallholder himself). There were chickens, pigs, cows, sheep and alpacas - they are so cute - I just wanted to go and cuddle them!





We didn't spend much and had we been more organised would have been able to take a picnic with us. I did however manage to buy some more cheese starter bacteria (we make both soft and hard cheese) and the company I buy from were exhibiting there. Also I found a hand grain grinder that I want to save up for. We make our own bread and I want to go a step further and actually mill the grain ourselves. The company that we spent ages talking to Grains2mill, can provide us with the wheat berries in bulk as well as the grinder. For the moment I will be use up the flour I already have in stock, and maybe with some good ebay sales, I might be able to buy the grinder before Xmas.