Squizz's Fizzy Diary

redsquirrel80

Greetings - lovely weekend, sunny but not too hot, spent most of it in the garden. Woke up really early on Sat, went downstairs for a glass of water and was followed up by a cat who proceeded to jump on a sleeping Mr S.. :rotfl: So up at 8am, ridiculous time for the weekend.. went to Homebase to collect free seeds that we had a voucher for, bought a few plants, and then went to noodle place for lunch again. Wandered along to Waitrose and bought a huge amount of ice cream (their own make was on half price, and there was a load of Skinny Cow ones reduced to 35p a pack!)... then more pottering about in the garden etc.

Sunday.. hmm.. slept in till nearly 11am! Pottered.. read the paper.. read a bit of philosophy.. made an amazing pasta tea with homegrown broccoli, chard and salad stuff. Had a look at cheap flights online and have a few ideas for holidays, also spent a bit of money that I hadn't planned on as I came across some very bargainous underwear online!

Didn't put my clothes away and haven't sorted out what I'm packing for the weekend, but can sort that out during the week.

Currently enjoying the calm before the storm at work - quite morning before an afternoon of meetings after which I will have loads to do for the rest of the week!

Karmacat

That sounds a lovely relaxing weekend, even if you were up early on the Saturday (mind you, if I could manage to sleep in till 8am I'd be ecstatic )

redsquirrel80

It was lovely indeed. Less lovely day at work yesterday, lots of meetings and a bit aaargh!

Busy today too sending out lots of letters.

Had a :eek: then start to the day though - checked email first thing and my latest OU essay was back.. cue panic and fighting with the laptop to log on quickly.. but very pleased with the result - 85%, some good comments, especially that it was a "great improvement on last time" and "a pleasure to read".. woohoo

redsquirrel80

Nearly there - just half a day to go! Happy that I've got on top of all the work that needed to be done before I went. Just got to pack, water the garden and get an early night before early train tomorrow.

Happy Easter everyone x

redsquirrel80

Hello - I is back! Longest I've had away from the internet for ages (apart from the odd pop on Facebook on my phone, and a few other things, see below) and it's been quite good for me.. did miss you lot though

Had a lovely break- Easter weekend at my parents' doing lots of walking and catching up with family (a few photos on FB). Rest of the time has been at home, gardening, building a new fence, knocking bits of concrete off the garden wall, a few walks in the Peaks, picking wild garlic, making tons of wild garlic pesto, farmers market, some studying, quite a bit of lying on the lawn.

One major decision made while at my parents' - that we definitely want to live somewhere more rural in the future - not in the middle of nowhere, but a small town where you can walk straight into the countryside but have a city within an hour-ish's drive.. just loved the peace and quiet and the walks. Spent a bit of time drooling over houses on the internet but it's a long term plan.

Other foray onto the internet was to look at cheap flights, and we ended up booking a holiday to Estonia! £50 for 2 return flights and £210 for 5 nights in an apartment-hotel - cheap holidays do still exist!! :T

Not entirely happy about being back at work (to say the least).. just off to a training course for a couple of hours so that will put off the horror of having to deal with all the emails for a bit....

redsquirrel80

In money news... normal debt payments have come off, putting my debt below £6k - woohoo! The thought of a nice house in the country has got me thinking about how to get these stupid debts paid off....

I've also put another £200 into my savings account towards my next OU course. Sig duly updated with the new figures. Might be able to put a bit more aside for course later in the month, but do need a bit of money for our couple of days in London (which reminds me, must get checking Groupon for then).

My £100 treats budget has already been spent this month Toiletries from L'Occitane (I swapped to some cheaper stuff last month but my skin has gone all horrible ) and a bit of clothes shopping yesterday - including a pair of shoes reduced to £4 in Peacocks (plus we used Mr S's student card so they were actually £3.60 :rotfl:)

Holiday cover for second job was cut short as someone's plans changed, but I can still claim for 10 hours I think, so need to sort that out.

Karmacat

Ooh, Squizz, that sounds excellent! And actually, the kind of town you're describing is more or less what I live in - the version in the south east of England, anyway! London is 45 minutes rail journey away, Brighton is 20 minutes away, but I live in a little town of 35,000 people, with blackberry patches (plural) 5 -10 minutes away, and the nearest bit of countryside is 10 minutes away - both those times are in pedestrian walking figures Its lovely.

And I lurve the sound of HM wild garlic pesto

redsquirrel80

That does sound lovely indeed.. and not far to the sea.. sigh! Had a majorly grumpy night last night and a terrible sleep - not helped by chocolate, coffee and wine before bed I'm sure. Two of the main things with I think really helped us relax on holiday (and have really good sleeps) were while staying at my aunt & uncle's, they only had de-caff tea and coffee and we hardly drank any alcohol. Hmmm. Anyway, it's another lovely sunny day here and I so don't want to be at work. Got lots to do but it's all equally important/ urgent and don't know where to start.

Karmacat

I've noticed about coffee, and even a wine-glass sized drink of beer recently .... it doesn't seem fair, does it! Hope you're over the grumpiness now but sleep deprivation doesn't help in deciding priorities, deffo not. Good luck with it all.

redsquirrel80

Grumpiness and panic have worn off a bit now - got through some stuff, got a list for the rest. Trying to avoid too much caffeine which is giving me a bit of a headache, but will be good in the long run.

Inspired by Firewalker I decided to actually read about our pension changes - looks like I will be able to choose from a variety of levels of contribution in future, so might need to decide how to balance out money now against money then (in 34 years time.. at least!). It does seem that whatever I choose, I will be paying less per month than now (which is good at the moment) but getting less in the long run. I also have a little bit of pension from my previous job, plus of course whatever the state pension is then... gah!