This Weekend

Weekends these days tend to get off to a leisurely start, which is nice. After several years of working most Saturdays, it's nice not to have to go anywhere, unless I want to that is.

OH tends to take the dog out on a Saturday morning and I get to wake up in a leisurely manner and and ease myself into the weekend. Today, I decided to do some paperwork for the new small business I am hoping to start very shortly. I'm not going to say too much about it here, but I'm hoping it will be profitable eventually. I'm taking my time and getting organised, ordering and preparing stock and packaging, etc. It's not a huge outlay in the scheme of things, but I may as well give it a good go if I'm going to bother at all.

Going forward, I'm intending to have several forms of income. I'm done with just earning a wage from a job and being reliant on one source of income, because as I found out to my cost, when that goes kaput, you are left with no income at all, which is where I find myself now.

Working in a charity shop, I wasn't allowed to sell online in my spare time, as this was considered a conflict of interest, but now I have no such restrictions on my life, so I can do what I like. It's kind of liberating in some ways.

I'm still looking for a job, part-time only, but I'm being careful and I am not jumping into anything that I might later regret. I won't be going back to Charity Shop work though. Been there, done that. Too restrictive; can't sell online, can't express opinions that don't reflect the charity's values, can't behave in ways that may reflect badly upon the charity, even in your personal life. Can't really be yourself, just a bot bound by organisational dogma. I'm happy to be free of that, not that I want to do or say anything outrageous, might I add.

Back in the free world, I can do and think and say what I like, when I like, where I like (within reason, of course) and it feels good. I'd almost forgotten what it was like.

Now that my time is my own, I can use it to seek out less expensive places to shop, go to the gym, enjoy culture and my community, not that I'm doing much of that at the moment. Still finding my feet. I've not really unfurled my wings yet and explored life outside the home, but I do intend to in my own good time.

I've discovered that there are classes for over 50's at my local gym (I'm 55) and they cost just £2 per day Apparently, you can do aerobics, pilates, go swimming, go in the sauna or use the gym, all for this sum, so I'm hoping to start doing that soon. I just need to go in and find out how it works and how I get access. 

This should dramatically cut down the expense of gym classes and I can walk or cycle there and store my bike in a locked room. I might have to re-organise my week a little, but a change is as good as a rest, as they say and I could probably do with shaking things up around here to be honest.

Anyway, stepping off my soapbox, on Saturday, I spent some of the day making a new batch of jam from the gooseberries and blackcurrants from the garden and the allotment. There are still a few gooseberries to pick on the plot, they seem endless this year, and more blackcurrants to come from there too. I currently have multiple scratches all over my arms from picking the gooseberries, I guess that is the price you pay. The fridge is slowly filling up with jars of jam and pickled beetroot. I also made some more jars of this on Saturday too. 

We've been having trouble with the fridge being too cold this week and freezing the lettuce. It transpires that we had it on too cold a setting, but it took us a week to work out what we were doing wrong, as it seemed very counterintuitive. It's back to normal again now though, but it was frustrating to have to throw good food away because it had been frosted.

Our paths at the allotment have now been weeded, so we are all set for the inspection this week. One less job to worry about. I'm up to date on washing and the ironing basket isn't too onerous for once, which leaves me with time to focus on other things, which is good.

On Sunday, I finally got around to vacuuming and mopping the kitchen floor. It was long overdue, but I just haven't been motivated to do it for a while. Later, OH and I went up the road to our local Sunday Market. We very rarely visit it, but today we went there to eat. There are lots of lovely food stalls and there are tables to sit out and eat at. We listened to a busker playing guitar in the sunshine. It was so relaxing. It felt like we could have been somewhere on the Med.

Talking of which, OH booked some accommodation for the second half of our holiday on Sunday. There was very little choice left, but we managed to find a very nice place in Portugal, with a pool, that is dog friendly. We now just need accommodation on the last two nights before we catch the ferry home from Bilbao, but we'll probably just book into a hotel or two en route to the ferry. It's very exciting. We haven't had a proper family holiday outside the UK for nearly 3 years now and without wanting to jinx it, we're really looking forward to it.

The remainder of Sunday, I divided my time between walking the dog and doing a little bit of work in my new office (i.e. the spare bedroom), on planning and research for the new business. Not sure when I'm going to officially start it, still thinking about what online platform is best to use.

On the dog walk, I had a bit of luck and found some metal drawers that had been thrown out and put near some bins. Unfortunately, it was at the beginning of the walk, so I ended up carrying them around the park with us. People must have thought I was mad taking a set of drawers for a walk, but they were just what I needed to organise some of the stock I've bought. When I got back, I cleaned it and put everything tidily away in it. Very serendipitous.