Weeknotes 2025-12

Oh dear, nearly a week late. As long as I hit publish before Sunday, so it’s not a whole week!

I had the week off, and did manage to accomplish some things, albeit not as many as I should have. A year after taking down the chicken run to make room for the greenhouse (which I’ve had in pieces in the carport since 2022) I finally took a chainsaw to the giant laurel hedge (and to a section of trellis that had almost completely fallen over) to actually clear a space. Now all I have to do is prepare a base for the slabs, then hope I can remember how the greenhouse goes back together.

While doing that, I came across a mystery egg. I initially thought it must have somehow survived since I had chickens, then realised it had a face on it. I assume it’s hard-boiled (I certainly wasn’t going to crack it to check) – maybe it got stolen from someone’s Easter egg hunt by a fox?

Of course I’ve now got an even bigger collection of garden waste to get rid of. Ipswich council have just introduced charges for brown bin collection, and I splashed out for two permits (I’ve still got a spare bin from when I used to pay for a second one, but since stopping that I could only put one out at a time). I figure even with two bins a fortnight it’s going to take a while to clear everything (there’s still lots of other overgrown stuff to sort out too).

I also did a bit of fettling on my bike. The rear wheel was a bit wobbly, so I cleaned, regreased and adjusted the bearings. Now it doesn’t wobble, but also doesn’t turn quite as smoothly as it should. Not sure whether that’s the bearings, the brake pads binding, or the chain. I guess a little extra resistance is good exercise anyway!

After getting some free financial planning advice through work last year (which was also a thinly-veiled selling attempt, but I resisted that side of it) I finally acted like some kind of grown-up and put some money into a stocks and shares Isa instead of keeping everything in a variety of Nationwide savings accounts and cash Isas. So if the stock market crashes, you’ll know who to blame. although I think we all know who to actually blame.

In an attempt at healthy snacking, I bought some carrots and apples, then accidentally baked some ginger nuts and ended up snacking on them instead (or at least as well). Oops.