Finding Enough

This may be a briefer than usual update, as September has brought with it a dose of shingles. It is not an experience I would recommend and has rather reduced my stamina for typing, as well as everything else…….. I am hoping that the anti-virals I have been prescribed will reduce my likeness to Worf from Star Trek very soon 🤒

A big chunk of August was spent visiting family. It was my nephew’s first birthday and we decided to make to most of our time south of the border, catching up with other friends and family before heading home. As all my family is now in the South West, and Mr Wombat’s family are in the South East, we ended up circumnavigating England, heading down the M6 and back up the A1. This was our first long-distance trip in the EV, so we were interested to see how we would fare with public charger availability and cost.

It wasn’t difficult to find chargers, but we did have to contend with 2 broken ones on the trip, which were not obviously so. The first charged the car before failing to stop charging and disconnect. A call to the provider allowed them to reset it remotely, and off we went with only 10 mins delay. The second was a bit more problematic in that it started charging, but then immediately stopped. We went through the process several times before calling the provider, who could see it was tripping out due to a voltage error. It might have been helpful if we could see this on the interface. This left us travelling a few miles off route to find another, which was working absolutely fine. All in all, about an hour and a half delay.

The whole trip cost us about £120 in electricity at fast chargers. This is probably slightly less than it would have cost in diesel in the van, but we did get a free charge at a friend’s house, who wouldn’t let us contribute. It is probably about the same cost electric vs diesel, when charging away from home.

Just before we set off on our trip, we paid a visit to the local agricultural show. Growing up in the rural area that I did, this was a very nostalgic way to spend the day. Our local show is not huge, but still has all the traditional livestock and horse classes I remember – with the exception of pigs. This area is dominated by sheep and cattle farming, so I guess there just aren’t enough pigs in the area to make it worth it.

It seems there would normally be poultry classes too (not something the shows of my childhood included). Presumably due to bird flu, this year it was eggs and photos of poultry that were judged. There are plans to re-introduce live poultry classes next year, so that should be fun.

Something else that was new on me was the ‘champion of champions’ competition. All the animals that won their class, and went on to win the best in breed / section, were all lined up against each other for the best in show grand finale. This year that meant 2 horses, 5 cows, 10 sheep and a goat. It was a very serious business, with the guest judge making a speech first about what an honour it was to be chosen for the task. I made a little video for you to enjoy 😉

I’m sure the suspense is killing you…………it was the tan and white cow and calf in the middle of the line up (or at the very end of the film) that won the crown this year.

On the way back from our travels, we collected 8 tubs of pre-mixed lime mortar from Eden Hot Lime in Cumbria (where we did the lime pointing and plastering course in April). It was a bit of a squeeze to get it all in the car – and the weight reasonably evenly distributed, but it was definitely better than the delivery charge would have been.

Armed with mortar, rubber buckets, trowel and pointing tools I was ready to have a go at re-pointing the end wall that I have spent so many hours hacking cement and plastic paint off (well the bottom 1.5m anyway). As with most things, I am slowly getting faster with practice, but it is definitely a marathon not a sprint. I am pleased with the way it is turning out and covering it with damp hessian – mostly naturally dampened by the great Scottish summer weather – seems to be preventing it from drying out too quickly and cracking.

I have made it about a third of the way across, but as you can’t cure lime outdoors when it’s too cold (or it’ll crumble), I am rapidly running out of warm nights to get it done. I think I may have to prioritise the bigger holes rather than just working my way across, and do the rest in the spring. I am told that traditionally lime season is marked by swallows – it starts when they arrive and stops when they leave. They haven’t left yet, but they are definitely gathering and getting ready to migrate…….

We also finally managed to replace the cracked and leaking basin in the tiny upstairs loo. We are expecting to have to strip out the main downstairs bathroom at some point, to replace plasterboard with lime plaster. This means we really need a functioning basin in the toilet upstairs. We bought a second hand one on Facebook marketplace, but it has been a tortuous tale of lack of compatibility with old plumbing and restricted access, to finally get it connected. When everything was finally in place, we discovered that the tap that came with the basin didn’t work (it slowed flow slightly rather than stopping it when you turned it off), so we had to take it all apart again and buy a new tap – going round the compatibility loop again for the tails of the new tap.

It is finally up and running and although not a huge job, represents a personal victory for us. The tiles were also re-used – and free, as they were found in the barn!

Financial Update:

Freedom fund value – £1,307,949 (down £7K on last month)

Expenditure – £17,149 (or a 15.7% withdrawal rate) including home renovation costs, or £3,099 (or a 2.8% withdrawal rate) excluding renovation costs

Earned income – £0

As expected, the freedom fund value dropped back a little this month, but it has recovered a bit since the falls at the start of the month.

Also expected was a big jump in expenses this month. The main reason for this was paying the bill for the new garage / workshop building at £14,050. We also bought scaffold boards for the borrowed scaffold tower (£111) and and spent £239 on the first order of lime mortar and associated tools to get us started on re-pointing. There was also £85 replacing expired CO2 alarms and replacing the kitchen smoke alarm with a heat activated one that doesn’t go off at the first hint of cooking.

Even without the renovation expenditure, costs were up a little due to the electric lawnmower finally admitting defeat faced with the large rocky lawn areas of our new home. We knew we would need to replace it with something more robust eventually, and after many running repairs, that turned out to be this month. After diligent research and shopping around, a larger Hyundai petrol model cost us £396. The only other thing really out of the ordinary was the renewal of our Trusted Housesitters membership at £99 for the year. There was also £85 replacing expired CO2 alarms and changing the kitchen smoke alarm for a heat activated one that doesn’t go off at the first hint of cooking.

Non-Financial Goals:

Forage something every month – More mushrooms!

I am sticking very much with ‘mushrooms for beginners’ for now, and managed to find some penny buns (ceps / porchini) and very similar bay boletes in a local woodland to go with the ongoing supply of chantarelles in August. Delicious.

Wild swim at least once a month in as many different places as possible

I started August with a swim in a new spot – Portpatrick harbour as part of RNLI week. We even had an RNLI safety boat, who were apparently very keen to get involved as they hardly ever get called out. It seems there is a larger boat just along the coast which gets all the calls. It was absolutely pouring with rain. Not a problem for swimming, but it makes getting changed afterwards a bit miserable.

The dog looked pissed off because the photographer stopped throwing a stick – nothing to do with the weather!

Despite no swims during our 10 days south of the border, I still managed to fit in 5 other swims in August in 3 other places.

My sport relief big swim plans have rather been put on hold due to illness. I still plan to do the full 10k outdoors, but I think I may need to swap a week or 2 in September for ones in October instead.

The fund raising page closes at the end of October, so I don’t think this will cause an issue. Water temperature will not drop that fast, but wind may become more of an issue – it’s much harder to swim breaststroke around a loch with large waves slapping you in the face!

Document our home renovation journey in a journal

I am continuing to do this, but it’s not really a great goal to update on each month as there’s not a lot to say. Most renovation tasks take a long time to do, but much less time to write about.

I hope you managed a summer break, and hopefully found a little more sunshine than we have had in SW Scotland this year. Roll on autumn……..