So… 2015 and that.
Think I got up to Monday.
Tuesday… ah yes, we went to the boat, as expected animal feed came off along with some amazon food orders. I know the world hates amazon and anyone with any ethics at all would never buy from them because they are worse than nestle or something. But here, they deliver free, we buy ethical stuff like suma from them and they are reliable with amazing customer service. I’m sorry they are clearly the incarnate of the devil but I think we make enough green, eco, ethical choices in our current lifestyle to be forgiven amazon shopping. So we do. Quite a lot. As in we get most of our dried goods from them on the subscribe and save arrangement whereby we sign up for regular deliveries and get discount for buying in bulk. So we get: flour (from organic direct from the mill suppliers in 16kg sacks), yeast, sugar, hot chocolate, stock cubes, pasta, rice, mixed nuts, dried fruit, gravy, coffee, chorizo, washing up liquid, cooking oil, shampoo, conditioner, hand wash, loo roll, dog food…
We got back for lunch – leek and potato soup and rolls. And then Ady and I walked down to meet Mike in the woods for some woodsman lessons. Ady felled a couple of trees, I got mostly distracted by Debs who joined us with a flask and some mince pies and chatted to me rather than me doing any practical woods stuff. Still learnt a fair bit before she arrived though. Mike is super knowledgable and very keen to share his wisdom. He is rather anal about H&S but still a very interesting person to spent time with and learn from. We left them as it was getting dark, called down to the village to drop the car back off and then brought back animal feed to the croft. Ady took 3 bags in the wheelbarrow and I rather foolishly thought I could manage a bag on my shoulder from the fork to the croft, I guess about half a mile. I did really well until the polytunnel which is only about 200 paces to the croft gate but my shoulder and upper back was really painful by then and I decided it was silly to be a hero and potentially do some damage to myself so I stopped, carried a small way hugging it to myself and then Ady came back and took it. They do weigh over 20kg so I was not being a total wuss 😉
Yesterday we went over to Dave’s cabin for a cup of tea and blether to see how he is getting on. All is well over there and we have arranged to go over tomorrow and help. We came back for lunch and that was us in for the rest of the day. We watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks which always makes me think of my friend Olivia who is Mary Norton’s granddaughter and went off on a European WWOOFing adventure just after we headed off on ours. Must catch up with her online…
We watched the last few of HIMYM. had haggis for dinner and drank fizz. Just before midnight we went outside and took photos, shouted NY greetings across the croft and looked at the aurora which were faint but present. Â I’ve been reading about the lights as I keep seeing posts on fb from local places showing displays and it turns out they are often present but not visible to the naked eye. On a dark night with no moon the brighter skies in the north are usually the aurora even if there are no colours like in the classic northern lights displays.
Bed about 130am. All very tired.
Today was obviously a later start. I have not been out as it rained solidly pretty much all day. We de-Christmassed the static, taking down the tree and decorations which always makes it feel huge. Big Dave called over to first foot, bringing fizz and a lump of firewood in the absence of coal. He was practically followed in by Mike and Debs so we briefly had a houseful for tea, coffee and a wee dram to see in the new year. They all left, Ady had chopped some firewood and I had got a roast beef dinner followed by apple pie and cream in the oven so we ate really early, watched the alternate ending to HIMYM Â (I still cried!) and everyone went off fairly early to bed. Except me. And I am planning to go pretty early too.
I am also a user of the devil’s services, although I feel I should cut down, they have made life without a car a darn sight easier, so like you I guess it’s a balancing thing.
Would you recommend HIMYM for family viewing then, having seen it all? Might be our next thing.
Happy New Year xxx
Comment by Ali — 02 January 2015 @ 11:06 am
I got told off by a relative for not using Amazon as much cheaper on there so for the price of one CD from an independent music shop, he could have had two from his Amazon wish list. He does not give a toss (he used a stronger expression!) about the brick and mortar shops or independent retailers as only ever shops through Amazon. (except found him a gift to get C that is not on Amazon but can order online so he did have to do that!).
When you price compare with High Street shops Amazon is very attractive. However, this year I found Charlies Direct in Wales was cheaper than Amazon for the things my mum wanted and had free postage (if spend over £75) so a lot of gifts came from there. They did use City Link though so delivery was a hassle whereas yes, Amazon reliable . City Link deserved to go under as always rubbish and never ring even though have our telephone number to do so.
I do however shop at Aldi and Lidl plus other big supermarket chains (avoiding Waitrose at the moment for four different reasons two of which are to do with the grumpy staff) so not using Amazon this year was my personal offsetting target, not to make anyone else feel they should avoid Amazon should they find it suits them to do so. Also wanted to see if actually possible to do Christmas without using it. Which it is but admittedly way more hassle and took a lot longer. Amazon is just so easy and people are too busy, easy options are hard to resist.
Comment by mich — 02 January 2015 @ 9:57 pm