Garden supplies ordered, new neighbour, baking

 We went to our little local garden centre this morning, so I could order the compost we need and have a look at their bags of gravel and mini slate, I chose gravel in the end and also ordered a bag of grit to mix with the soil for the new rockery we'll be constructing soon.  The garden centre deliver to us, the next day usually, and whilst their goods are a little more expensive than some places, it's worth it to me in terms of saving time getting everything in the one place.  Plus I like to support small local businesses.  Husband though kept wittering on all the time about how we could get things cheaper in some of the other big stores on the trading estate.  I expect we could, but we're only talking a couple of pounds, it would mean going into several different stores, and they're all big national firms, not little local ones that need the money and support more than the big firms do.  He wouldn't let up until I asked him to stop.  The thing is.....it's my money, I'm paying for all this myself so it's up to me what and how much I spend.  It's coming out of my legacy money, when I first received it I gave husband a share and told him he was free to spend it on whatever he wished, as was I.  I reminded him of that, so he shut up.  Everything I've spent or bought out of that legacy has been a carefully considered purchase, I haven't (nor would I) frittered any of it away on frivolous things.

The further down the line husband gets with his steadily declining cognitive stuff, the more petty and money-grabbing he becomes.  He's always been a bit of a miser and always goes for the cheapest of anything - cheap is the first, well the only thing he considers.  And we all know that cheap is not necessarily the best value....as evidenced by most of the very cheap tools he's bought in the past that break on the 2nd or 3rd use.  😒  It seems that some of husband's worst, shall we say, traits are becoming exaggerated as his cognitive decline goes on.

Our new neighbour is moving in within the next couple of weeks, it's a single lady, I've only seen her from a distance.  Our Housing Officer told us her name (she apparently knows her from also being the H/O at the estate where she currently lives) and said she's very nice indeed.  Now that I know her name I'll put a Welcome card through her door.  We got a warm welcome from 2 or 3 of our neighbours when we moved in, so I'd like to do the same for her.

Mixture of sunshine and showers today, with a strong bitterly cold wind so no garden work today.  It's meant to be bright sunshine (and no rain!) Tuesday and Thursday this week, so hopefully we'll be able to get on with more garden stuff then.

I've made another double quantity of oil pastry this morning, half has gone in the freezer.  I've used the first half to make a butternut squash, leek, cheese and sage flan, half of which we'll have for dinner tonight with beans and homemade coleslaw, the remaining half to have cold for lunch with salad tomorrow.  I'm now about to mix up another half white/half wholemeal seeded loaf dough, it'll have an overnight prove and I'll bake it tomorrow.