22 Foxhole East

I have been quite a busy little Fox this past week or so.

The bedroom doors are all painted and the handles and fingerplates back on, they look good, even if I do say so myself.:beer:
The shelving in the chimney alcove in the back room has moved loads of books and cds out of the way and it is looking quite smart. So have half the room very orderly, and half that looks like a car crash.:( I need a smaller table/desk than the old dining table I am currently using to sit the computer and printer on. It is just accumulating tat on it, and kids' drinks glasses, and crisp packets, and sleeping bags (?) and just utter flotsam. I have children who cannot use a wastepaper basket.

I think I have found the right level of buildings and contents insurance that should cover us, but need to wait for a week or else I will have to play jiggery-pokery and take money from the savings to pay for it. Next week the kids savings accounts mature and they skim the interest and I get the capital back to drip feed back in.


Also have been looking at another energy swap. I got on to a 12 month fixed price deal with EDF that ends at the end of April. Even the absolute cheapest new deal is going to be £20 a month more than I am paying now. But then I am on a ridiculously good deal. :money:Sometimes prices have to go up I suppose!
In other news....
We have been living with the smell of cannabis for a while now, we thought the neighbours must just be stoners for the first week or so. But then the smell was there all day, every day and night, on the middle floor. All the other fireplaces in the house have been bricked up, but the middle floor ones are not, and then I spotted the tell tale black mould starting to grow on the inside of the windows and that is how we knew we had a cannabis farm next door. The police raided and found them busily harvesting and ready to bag up. Caught red handed. Apparently they have completely gutted the house, there is not an internal door and every room was being used for cultivation except the front room where two young lads had made camp – we saw them move in in January with their backpacks. Nobody seems to know who owns the house, but they bypassed the electricity meter and have made a real mess of the place. So we are in the market for new neighbours! The police removed all the plastic sheeting and opened all the windows and the whole street stank of weed for a good 24 hours!
Felt so sorry for the police having to be in the building, they all looked the worse for wear after having been in there for any amount of time.
Rozzers 1 : Scumbags 0.
So that was our excitement for the week. Was very funny to see all the curtain twitchers (from behind our own non-twitchy curtains:rotfl:)


DS3 has steamed through The Hobbit (3 days) and has embarked on book one of The Lord of the Rings and is loving it.


After all the extra car repair costs (nearly £500), and the extra £120 for getting the kids to Ireland, and the new washing machine, I am feeling quite poor right now and it is only half way through the month. But the Easter holidays are paid for so that is something. Just need to juggle money for a week and I will be fine again, just need to keep a lid on spending until payday.



I still have £2k in the savings account for emergencies, but I wish I had enough to just double glaze the house, fix the shower, and have the roof done. Then I could say I had 2/3rds of the house finished. The only way that is going to happen is if someone dies (!:eek:) or I take out a loan, and I don't want to take out a loan or I stop making mortgage overpayments, and I don't want to do that either.



Last option – get a job, which would make saving easier, but would stress out DH as he would feel he had know what he was supposed to be doing and where he was supposed to be. He has become accustomed to being well looked after and fed – amazing how quickly he forgets how to fend for himself when I am around, he copes when I take the kids away, but I fear he relies on takeaways in the evenings, like he does for his lunches at work (although I managed to 'accidently' cook too much this week and he took lunch from home twice – minor miracle).


So today was just a cheap hour in the park with DS3 and 4 and a frisbee and the play area.
No spends, doing very badly this month with only 4 NSDs to my name.


The Easter bunny has arrived! Two parcels came with a total of 8 Easter eggs, 4 bunnies and 4 packs of vegan equivalent to Rolos. Am I supposed to make them wait until Easter? I usually do, but if we are away.... we would have to take them with us...... or should I make them wait until we return. :EasterBun


I should have enough food after my inventory + menu planning + shopping on Friday to last us for all main meals, but I will need to get some lunchbox tat (crisps and small cartons of fruit juice) after Tuesday.


I feel like all I am doing is making lists. I need to win the lottery. A friend of mine managed to win a lot of money on a scratch card. Enough to walk into a garage and buy a brand new electric car outright.


I do not know what I am going to do, but when I do, I shall tell you.

Bobs, I would not get a food hygiene cert for our kitchen! It is purely state of the Ark. I am definitely a family baker.

One of the mums at the school gate is a cake maker. She seems quite stressed most of the time. At Christmas she was always complaining about how many christmas cakes she had left to do, and how many chocolate orange cakes there were. I could understand the complaining if she were doing it for friends and family, but you know she charges a lot. She does all the fancy icing flowers, the cakes look really beautiful, but still, it would have to be a major occasion before I would think of charging that amount for basically flour, sugar, oil and cocoa. I think I would be embarrassed to ask for that amount. See what a carp businessperson I would be?
I also do not understand cupcakes. 1/3rd cake 2/3rds icing. What is the point of that? I would rather have a layer cake if I was going to mainline those calories. And £2.50 a pop?? Are you insane? I am now speaking as feeder of 4 kids. Coffee and cake out somewhere is £30 before your bum hits the seat. And don't even start me on Buddhist cafes or this will turn into a half hour rant and you will all back away nodding and smiling at the crazy lady whispering 'oh my god, who can be angry with Buddhists??' Yeah, well, Karma Buddhists, Karma mate.

I would love to go on a cake decorating course though, I doubt the boys would appreciate it, but with a cake being decimated in a day, I doubt the effort would be worth it. I would however be able to write obscene slogans.
There is a gap in the market for obscenity baking.