The 9 year plan...hold onto your hats and here we go!

taxi73

Ahh..missed you...hope you have a good time x

EssexHebridean

Woooo! I'm back! Did try to log in here from the hotel to say hello to you all but couldn't remember my login - Doh!

Excellent weekend, and not actually too expensive as that sort of weekend goes, either. The flights and speedway ticket were already paid obviously, and I took £160 in Zloty with me - then took out another £22 worth from a machine while I was over there. Lesson one learnt from that was that next time, take the money from the cashpoint don't get it in advance - I got 4 Zloty to the £ from the Post office, and closer to 5 from the cashpoint! Good old Nationwide debit cards! I've brought back £15 worth with me unused. Discounting the hotel cost, I spent about £57 in total which included the stuff I bought at the speedway (a Polska scarf, flags - one each for myself and my friend - and the programme), cabs (dirt cheap - the 7k from the airport cost £6.50) and food (also dirt cheap - three scoop ice-cream sundaes £2, a massive pizza and a pepsi £5, delicious bread rolls about 20p each!) The drinks in the hotel bar were a bit steep, but everything else was so cheap we didn't mind! The atmosphere at the speedway was incredible - we were stood with all the Polish fans rather than with the majority of the foreign fans, and once they realise that you are English, but are supporting one of their riders (and their speedway hero, at that!) they make such a fuss of you! Only slightly scary moment was when that same hero got bashed into by one of the Danish riders in the semi-final and things turned a bit nasty - we ended up with about 20 security guards in front of us all tooled up with Lead pipe, riot shields and CS gas! :eek: Thankfully everything calmed down without incident, but it was a bit hairy for a while.

All in all, I definately want to go again next year - probably with MrEH this time I think.

As for MSE-type news, not a huge amount really. I will probably hang on to my remaining 60 zloty on the basis that I do intend to return. Might as well keep them than lose the money on changing them back. I have this evening transferred £100 surplus from my own account to the savings, although the Tesco CC interest free period is up next month so that account will be cleaned out when that is paid off. The first monthly payment has gone across into the new car depreciation account too which feels quite positive. Surprisingly considering MrEH went in without a list, the shopping this week was ludicrously cheap - all he bought was milk! We did have a veg box last week though so along with the freezer and a couple of free rabbits gained from a rugby chum of MrEH's we'll be just fine.

yukkibear

Glad you had a great time.

Lemon_Tree

my OH got a car today so i've had to sit and sort out his new monthly savings amount. I don't mind doing it but sometimes it would be nice if it wasn't always me. I've been sorting out my standing orders, DD's and payments on my accounts. changing some around, cancelling lots of others, it's amazing how many you end up with over time. Unfortunately doesn't save me any money but does mean savings towards bills will go into a slightly higher paying savings account with instant transfers not 3 day ones.

taxi73

Sounds like a fab time and the polish are so friendly.

hellnearth

Hi, just popping on quickly to say hello. It was the 'EssexHebridean' that caught my eye, as I am living your dream................sort of! I'm from Ayrshire, but I wandered the world as a TEFL teacher for over 20 years before washing up in the Western Isles. Been here 2 years now and am pretty sure my nomadic days are over.
Have to confess to only reading a few posts at the beginning of the thread because it's late, but all the very best with your plans. All the chat about Tescos etc was making me a bit nostalgic for the mainland.............but only a bit! Won't you miss all that? Tis a good place for curbing impulse buying - unless you become a serial Internet shopper, of course :-)

EssexHebridean

hellnearth wrote: »

Hi, just popping on quickly to say hello. It was the 'EssexHebridean' that caught my eye, as I am living your dream................sort of! I'm from Ayrshire, but I wandered the world as a TEFL teacher for over 20 years before washing up in the Western Isles. Been here 2 years now and am pretty sure my nomadic days are over.
Have to confess to only reading a few posts at the beginning of the thread because it's late, but all the very best with your plans. All the chat about Tescos etc was making me a bit nostalgic for the mainland.............but only a bit! Won't you miss all that? Tis a good place for curbing impulse buying - unless you become a serial Internet shopper, of course :-)

Ooh - whereabouts are you then? In answer to your question about missing stuff, I honestly don't know. Our feeling is not - but I think you probably don't really know until you take the plunge and live with it all the time. We're planning on settling on North Uist so the nearest "big" supermarkets would be at Stornoway. So long as the RET stays in place trips to the mainland are a lot more manageable though at least and there would be trips to visit family & friends which could be used to fill the car with stuff which would otherwise be expensive to buy......

LT - I sympathise - always me who has to drive things forward here too - I would ask how on earth they would cope without us to do this stuff for them, but I think we both already know the answer to that one, don't we!

Got confirmation at work yesterday that my expenses will be paid tomorrow :j and will now have another mileage claim for about £67 to go in following another couple of trips to places to continue with the systems testing we've been doing. Last speedway meeting of the season is tomorrow night so that will reduce both the mileage and the diesel costs for my car between now and March when it all starts off again.

hellnearth

I'm in South Uist. To be honest, I don't really like going back to the mainland - too much traffic, too many people and I it takes me ages to go round the supermarkets a) because I can't find anything and b) there's just so much choice :-) Mind you, I have a meter reading job and they send me to Stornoway every three months. A visit to Tesco and the Indian restaurant are among the highlights of my trips!

taxi73

The hebrides sounds idyllic..nice quiet peaceful life...lot to be said for that I guess.I wouldn't miss shopping as I hate it..lol

EssexHebridean

taxi73 wrote: »

The hebrides sounds idyllic..nice quiet peaceful life...lot to be said for that I guess.I wouldn't miss shopping as I hate it..lol

Like everywhere I guess, it has its good and its bad. For us the massive positive and the reason we want to be there permanently is the fantastic reduction in the pace of life. Also the ability to "hear silence" something which Hellnearth will know exactly what I mean I know - and which we so rarely get the chance to do living in a town. There are still a lot of the same problems over there that we get here - although on a different scale entirely in some respects - it's not so easy to steal a car, for example, when to get it off the island you have to take it on a ferry.......and if it stays on the island it's going to get found pretty fast and everyone knows who it belongs to! Things like teenage drinking etc are pretty much similar, although in our experience there seems to be less of the "Yeah, whatever!" mentality from the kids we see there which is refreshing. A quick scan of the Hebrides news website reveals much the same things as can be found in local newspapers/sites on the mainland though - drink driving, speeding etc.

Hellnearth - South Uist is lovely - one of our favourite walks is out over the machair at Kilpheder and along the beach - fabulous. We stay at Sidinish on North Uist over Easter each year - simply marvellous place.

Day off today so have been and dealt with the shopping already - £21 which included some tinned stuff and some frozen veg. Spuds on a BOGOF ought to see us through next week as well, my favourite Jazz apples were half price, and the finest pate which we like for lunches has been well reduced too so I have stocked up! The cowboy contractors have been banging and crashing about this morning but seem to have gone quiet now so I suspect they have decided to adopt "POETS day" and have gone home! :rolleyes: We have our speedway end of season dinner & dance tomorrow night so I must make sure I'm all sorted for that - I plan a long soak in the bath this evening, facemask, body scrub etc. Daftly I have managed to do the basecoat on my fingernails without remembering to remove the existing polish on my toenails so I must come up with an inventive way of removing that without taking the basecoat off as well. Hmm. The hotel cost has dropped this year which is nice - a double room in a nice hotel for £57 isn't too bad. I get my ticket to the event itself FOC as well as a thanks from the supporters club for doing their photos all year which is nice. The meal is always good and I don't even have to do photos on the night this year so can wear girly shoes and take a girly bag rather than a hulking great camera bag! Our table is apparently near the bar too! :D

Right - I'm going to pop into town I think. Will update finances once I've had a look at the account later.