Cold Coffee Friday

If you're getting tired of the heading - imagine how tired I'm getting of load shedding, ha ha!

I was mewled awake very early this morning, so - I did actually have enough time to make fresh coffee ... but I can't afford to throw out a full pot.

I had lots of cuddles this morning, over coffee and several smokes.

At work really early.

So, today, I'm filling a shopping cart at Takealot. Their drivers call when they deliver, so I should be able to receive. I'm getting Whiskas, litter - again!, spot-on, coffee, chocolate ... now I'm browsing through a few 'that would be nice!' items. A replacement liner for my hanging basket. A tray for my peat pellets, fertiliser (slow releasing, the one promoted by Tanya Visser, of the Gardening magazine), a camping pillow - to sit on the ground, without getting my rear wet, when weeding. I'm using cardboard at the moment. A new Hygrometer - the one I have, the button is getting very troublesome to press. Oh, and two tables. Cheap ones. Folding ones. One for the veranda (the one I have is covered with plants already) and one for the kitchen. If it turns out to be as sturdy as advertised, I can use it to work on. If not, I can use it for the slow cooker, etc. Even though I move it as far to the edge as possible, the heat is affecting the kitchen cupboards.

I'm sure you can imagine the bill I'm running up already, ha ha! Spending big time, again! Now I'm having a look around for a decent pen. And now I'm looking at liquid chalk pens! And now I've stumbled across pipes! Remember during the bad lock down, when smoking was illegal? And I looked for a pipe? Nothing going under R1000 ... now I found something really cheap. Yes, I know, you get what you pay for - but I'm not an experience pipe enjoyer, so it'll do.

Okay, I should really stop now, ha ha!

Gone over my cart and removed a couple of items - including the litter. I've left the items currently on promotion, but anything not on promotion can wait. That's one of the tables off, the camping pillow - cardboard is good enough.

Wheee! Order placed! Delivery due 4th October - why? None of my items showed more than 5-7 days ... ah well. Whatever!

This weekend, I just need to order fruit juice and that's me done for the month.  

Aaaand, load shedding continues at Stage 4! Today, we're off 14:00 - 16:30 and again 22:00 - 00:30; and on both Saturday AND Sunday we'll be off 04:00 - 06:30 & 12:00 - 14:30 & 20:00 - 22:30. It's going to be a fun, tightly scheduled weekend! Grrrr ...

And Eishkom wants a 34% tariff increase! Well, if you don't supply what we've pre-paid, increasing the rates won't increase your income!

Just gone two. Let me plan my weekend. With load shedding every morning, I should either stay in bed until the power comes on, or make coffee the night before. I'll HAVE to get started when I get up, though - load the washing machine on Saturday morning, turn on the geyser so I can clean the kitchen; get the bread dough started on Sunday morning. Twelve to two is better than ten to twelve, though. Gives me some room to breathe.

But with two outages scheduled during my sleep time ... phone audiobook every night! And not much TV before bed ... with the power going off at eight!

Power will be off when I get home today ... I've been thinking of clearing the tall weeds growing in the driveway. Which my landlord has been watering. The ground should be relatively soft, so I might be able to really pull shit out ...

Back at home. My Peach tree is in full bloom!

Every branch is covered in blossoms!

And look at that bush under the ponytail!

The flowers have really opened up big!

And this is the area I decided to work on.

I cleared outside, first. Especially that now-dead big bush on the left, in front of the wall

I did make quite a lot of progress. I worked until it was too dark to see. As you can imagine, the ground - even with the watering - is quite hard. I can barely get the fork into the soil. I did pull out most of the tall plants in the patch on the right, under the tree. I also removed about half of the center driveway.

And I found another mouse in my bed. Body by the pillow, head in the center. Sigh ...

Well, I've had dinner, now I'll have a nice hot bath ... then a few episodes before it's time to turn off the PC for load shedding ....