EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

Rest of the weekend passed in a similar vein. Did get some decluttering done ahead of the kitchen being sorted yesterday which lead to a full bag of assorted toot going to the bin, and a carrier bag full of assorted lightbulbs that we no longer have fittings to suit set aside to take to Mum's/Auntie D's. Some of the stuff that was in the space we cleared out had literally been shoved up there when we moved in so it feels quite refreshing to have sorted things out in that area - and of course in a lot of cases it was as simple as "we've not needed/wanted it for the past 13 years, no need to hang onto it now, then!"

Cooked a rather delicious lamb breast for dinner last night - kept washing up to a minimum by lobbing veggies in to roast around it for the last hour of its cooking - parsnip, swede, onion. mushrooms and chantenay carrots. Yes there was indeed a healthy (literally) dose of Super 6 in there! A good deal of the REST of the S6 stuff went into a casserole dish with a chunk of beef shin and a handful each of red lentils and pearl barley and that got cooked in the oven with the lamb and came out smelling lovely. The last bit of oven space was used for the remaining stuffing from the other week that I felt would go well enough with the lamb - it needed something at least a bit "carbey" and I'd lobbed the last tatties in the stew! :rotfl:

I think I'm going to chop the rest of the lamb up and freeze for next week, and the stew will go for tomorrow - tonight will be a nice easy to sort out spag bol - already got the sauce out of the freezer for that. :T

Plans for this week aside from getting used to a UK > USA 8 hour time difference and trying NOT to text my pal at a time which will wake him up are kick kitchen things a bit further forwards and hopefully make it to Scampton on Friday for some photographic action. Not so much as seen a LittleRedJet in well over a month and frankly at this time of year that is just not good enough! :eek: Might go up Thursday night but not sure yet - I'll touch base with my friend and see what she's got planned - can't remember whether her first rest day is Thursday or Friday.

Car shared with MrEH today so crammed in a quick walk this morning and a slightly longer but slower one at lunchtime. I'll shove in another one when I come to leave here before picking him up too. According to my app I walked 53 miles of logged walking last month - it would be nice to see if I could up that to 60 in March. :T

Yay - couple of short OnePoll surveys this morning have taken me past the £10 level. :T

MrEH got up yesterday morning to discover that the washing machine had pumped out onto the kitchen floor - drain had blocked up again. :eek: So a chunk of last night was spent using ever more potent drain cleaners in order to try to clear it. Did get a bit concerned when the sulphuric acid based one wouldn't shift it, but in the end a plentiful application of bicarb and boiling white vinegar did the trick thank goodness. No water on the floor this morning so fingers crossed it will last this time until it's all ripped out when the kitchen is done.

Liver & onions for dinner tonight - yum! we'll have it with couscous rather than mash as I've not got any tatties but I have got plenty of couscous.

Holiday spending money is building up nicely in the CC+ account - and we counted up the roadkill and random change pigs last week and have a touch over £220 from those two which will also form part of our "buying nice stuff to eat while we're away" fund!

On the negative financial side, my car will need booking in sooner rather than later for it;'s belt-change - I won't be seeing any change from £500 for that job being done but it definitely has to be so need to get it sorted.

Oh bless you Paws - what a lovely post! (Not sure about the wisdom of reading through the old diaries though - you do realise that is time you will never get back, right?! :rotfl:). My subscriptions are for all sorts really - newbies who need the support, through to people I've known on here for yonks, and right through to "real life" friends too. Variety being the spice of life and all that, that suits me, and also gives me a selection to dip into depending on what flavour I fancy on any given day!

Need a list of jobs for the week I think - I'll update my journal at lunchtime and need to make sure that includes working out when the car can get booked in. Must also remember to write my Dad's birthday card tonight so that can go through the door first thing tomorrow.

Friday was spent photographing those lovely Little Red Jets up at Scampton in FAR better weather than was technically forecast. SO nice to be back to doing what I do on that front again - it's been way too long! Chinese takeaway Friday night paid for by MrEH as he has a budget for one of those a month. :T
Saturday we sorted out the shopping in the morning - Al's for S6 leeks, carrots, and onions, and then T's for the rest of the odds and ends. Total came to a bit under £25 I think which I'm perfectly happy with for a weeks shop. Wa fancied a walk i the afternoon and for a change there was neither rugby training OR a match for MrEH so we jumped in the car to Ware, found somewhere to park, and walked along the canal to the head of the navigation at Hertford - stopping there for a rather nice pint in a pub before walking back. That now leaves us just a single stretch of Lea Navigation to walk - hopefully we might manage that in the next little while then that can be fully ticked off. :T That 5.5 miles along with other walking during the day took my step count to over 20k for the day so I quite happy with that.
Yesterday I braced myself for the fact that I needed to go clothes shopping so we trundled to Lakeside. Once again I'm reminded how much I dislike the place. Did manage to find a new pair of jeans that fitted though, plus three new tops which will do for work and enable me to get rid of some of my less respectable looking ones. Sadly didn't manage to find any new work trousers though - MandS had some but they were entirely the wrong cut for me and I lost the will to go into Matalan after that. We did treat ourself to lunch at Gourmet Burger Kitchen which was a) from our "fun" budget, b) absolutely freaking delicious and c) the only meal I needed all day - I was stuffed! :rotfl:


This week will all be about getting various little jobs and odds and ends done and starting to chase things forward on the kitchen too. We've now got an electrician on board as well as our builder, and fingers crossed should be getting started sooner rather than later. :T I'll also continue with the healthy eating thing, drink lots of water, carry on cramming in walks wherever I can, and if the weather is decent enough will be making another trip to Scampton on Friday. Currently the forecast says "cloudy" though and I think I *may* need a little more than that...

angelpye wrote: »

Hi EH, sounds like you are super busy as usual. Great you got an electrician on board - finding the pros for those types of jobs can be tricky with schedules etc. I was just wondering how you monitor your steps? I see a few people on hear talking about walking and wondered what you use?

I'm currently using a combination of a normal pedometer - I was using the one on the iPhone but the SE one is seemingly not as accurate as the one on my old 5S was (I do still manually add the steps into that though as it's a great way of keeping track of weekly/monthly and annual average counts.) - and the MapMyWalk app which is excellent - gives you distances covered and average pace as well which makes interesting reading. That app also links in with MyFitnessPal which I'm finding quite good for tracking food etc. It needs to be easy and straightforward, for me, or I'll very quickly get bored with faffing about with it!