The Talk

 We've had 'the talk', husband agreed with everything I said and has agreed to pull his weight more.  But he's said that a few times, his resolve generally lasts a week or two and then it's back to his old ways.  I should keep on top of it and make sure he doesn't slip back, but it's so wearing and frustrating to keep having to remind him all the time.  I'm very nearly at breaking point though, so something needs to change permanently.  

There's a few things I want to do/places I want to go whilst we're at the van this week, so I shall make sure we do them.  I have pointed out to husband that virtually all our van neighbours go out and about several times during their stays, whilst we do nothing unless I insist we go out - left up to him, husband would sit around doing exactly what he does at home - bugger all in other words.  There's a nice, fairly big garden centre near Cheddar that has very good plant sales at this time of year, I want to go there and pick up a few perennial plants to go in the van garden, also some bulbs for the van pots.  I also want a beach day.  And a car boot sale before they stop for the season.

Husband did say he's feeling very despondent over the fact that the Council have suspended us from bidding on any properties for 3 or 4 weeks (or however long it takes them to review our application).  I can understand that, it IS frustrating, feels like we've been penalised through no fault of our own.  However, there's nothing at all we can do about it, once again it's a case of simply having to wait. I think husband expects me to wave a magic wand and MAKE things happen, I've explained to him till I'm blue in the face that it doesn't work like that, there is literally nothing I can do to speed up the process of getting a successful bid and being offered a property.

I've decided to have an experiment for the month of September to see how little I can spend on food shopping - we've got a nearly full freezer, including plenty of frozen veg, which I will make more use of rather than buying fresh veg all the time.  And now I know I can make yogurt easily and cheaply, and we have enough homegrown apples to last us a few weeks, that'll take care of puddings for husband and breakfasts for me, when I feel like having breakfast.  I'll need to buy some dairy stuff, and probably a loaf or 2 for husband, and some dog food, but shouldn't really need much else.