it's like a train wreck, only fluffier

I've been awful about posting, but bleh. I'm sick, I can barely swallow, everything aches, I have a cough and the cough sets off my nerve malfunction, so yay for that. Also my etsy shop is busy (back to school rush still) so that's a thing I need to be doing while sick. It'll be dead by the time I'm better, because that's how these things roll.

I've made decent progress so far today though. And the Rington's van has been, so we're stocked up on tea and biscuits - I'm not sure if you have these kinds of vans elsewhere? Basically they turn up on an agreed schedule and you tell them what nice things you want, and they go get them off their van and you pay for them and now you have stuff. With Rington's it's tea and biccies, and maybe some hot chocolate, coffee, jam, and cake if you're that way inclined. We used to have loads when I was a kid, because the villages couldn't sustain certain shops on their own, so there'd be a shop in a van that drove around. When we were in Roos the Rington's van came on Monday mornings, the fish and chips van turned up on Tuesday evenings, and the tuck van (the mobile sweet shop) came on a Friday just as school was kicking out. I know there are a couple of banks that still have mobile units too; sometimes a branch of NatWest putters past when you're out on the moors.

Haven't been doing much crafting because that time has been taken up by notebooks. The writing is sort of, IDK. I can't write short, so I'm not exactly happy with the stuff for the 1000 words bingo. I'm also a bit confused, because I'm sure it says in the bumf that if you took a 3 x 3 grid you needed to do black-out, but lots of people seem to be posting single line? Hrrm.

Also I've gotten weirdly hooked on watching narrowboat vids on YouTube, initially thanks to my decision that a synthetic water-deity might subconsciously be drawn to man-made waterways, but my fascination has gone beyond that. So that's a thing now.



This one is pretty cool because Jasmine's filmed it in 360 degrees, so you can move the camera view around.

 I am trying to get better at this blogging business, lol.

Have worked through some of my 'to-do's - got fertiliser down in garden, emptied out videos and moved fluff into that cupboard, and cleared out under the cherry.

The insurance continues to be a problem.  The worktop seems to have dropped a bit, and as a result the tap leaks, so the worktop is now warped from damp.  Yay.  The leak happened in November, it's now February.  We still have an only semi-usable kitchen that's decaying in front of our eyes.  Congratu-well done, AXA.

In other news I've been looking at book subscription services, and I really like the idea, but I don't think they'd work for me because what if I don't like the book that's sent?  Any money spent on books I don't want to read is less money to spend on books I want to read?  There was one that really caught my eye which sends books from different countries, plus a hot drink and a snack from that country.  I really like the idea of that one, but the trouble is I like a very limited amount of coffees and allergies and my dislike of hot spices torpedoes the hot drink and food side of it.  But!  It did give me an idea: I've sent off for a colour-in world map (I like the scratch off ones better but they're 3 times the price and I'll probably slip and take out another country and then be annoyed with myself).  I'm going to try to read a book from as many countries as I can, and then get a tea subscription to cover the 'surprise box' and 'yummies' side of the subscription.  Jobsaguddun.

I have ordered one Book and a Brew box, but they have the option to order back-issues that they still have stock of, so I know it's a copy of NOS4R2 by Joe Hill, I just don't know what the brew will be.

As far as the tea subscription goes, I was planning to wait until I had the tea situation under control (as per yearly goals), but failed at that utterly in the wee hours of this morning and signed up for one.  I had real difficulty choosing between all the options, so I've decided to do three months of each and pick whichever I liked best after I've worked through them.  tea-enthusiasts won as my first option due entirely to having a 50% off coupon for their first month.

I've done a tea subscription thing before, years ago, when there was literally only one of them in the UK, and it was a total bust: they kept putting insufficient postage on the parcels, so crippled old me had to walk a couple of miles to pick it up, and also you only got one tea, so if you didn't like it you were stuffed for the month.  Most of the newer subscriptions I've taken note of do 2-6 teas, so at least your odds of the entire box being a bust are a bit lower.

Also looked at some vintage book subscriptions, Bookishly and Prudence and the Crow, but again the problem with not knowing the book - not to mention the tea portions with both seem somewhat wanting.  With Prudence and the Crow you can at least narrow down a genre, and with Bookishly the stationery is hella pretty, but eh, idk.  I think the tea subscription and book challenge is a better option.

If anyone wants to join in you're welcome.