EH - Keeping on track. (AKA focus Woman! FOCUS!)

EssexHebridean

Me too Cheery!

Just realised that as it's now the 1st December that means that our VSP pot is officially closed for the year - ended up on £302 and some odd pennies which I'm pretty chuffed with - and I will now be proceeding to spend the lot on various travel and accommodation stuff for things we have planned for the new year! :T It also means that I'll be starting off the new one by tidying up all the savings accounts, so that's a job to be done later. :T

Looks like my invoice has been paid too so I'll deal with the money-shuffling related to that at lunchtime.

EssexHebridean

Money-shuffling done yesterday so everything is straight for the month. The CC is currently looking rather :eek: but that's because the Christmas shopping from the weekend went onto it, plus nearly £200 repair to MrEH's car. Money set aside for those bits so nothing to be too worried about there.

I need to do some advance planning around meals coming up - there are some Good Food Show bits that I'd rather make sure we just ate while they are at their bet rather than freezing for later, so I'll need to incorporate those into a plan.

Not planning anything spendy today/tomorrow, Friday we're off to a beer festival which should be fun - actually I do need to book our train tickets for that, come to think of it. We're nominally working there too so will get free admission, beer and food. :T There will be a taxi back from the station to home in the evening, I'm guessing... other than that I'm planning a fairly quiet weekend.

Not much doing on OnePoll at the moment but I'm managed to increase that a bit. and cereal clicks all done for the day - got enough tokens for my next £1 off voucher now! :T

EssexHebridean

Tickets for tomorrow's travel booked - means we can get the advance price, plus means I can book online for a teeny tiny bit of cashback and a handful of Nectar points...and of course it was paid on the cashback credit card, too! So two return tickets from our local (well local ish!) station into London and back again - £13.30. Happy with that - the Two Together railcard is a wonderful thing. :T

Our bread machine pan died last night, annoyingly. Mr EH got the dough out of the machine (good job we weren't making a loaf, really) to find it gently rippled through with a generous amount of oil from the inside of the pan paddle mechanism. Hmmm. Dough in bin, new bread pan ordered online - £16.50. Lunch being bought today as didn't have much choice by that stage. Still, that £16.50 is a far better option all round than having to buy a whole new machine, not least as we still have a spare machine of the same model at home - it doesn't have a pan as that's the one we were using in the current machine! :rotfl: The spare was sitting in the charity shop with a £5 price tag on it a couple of years back,....would have been plain rude to have left it there...

Waiting to find out whether one of my best friends is now going to be heading off to Cyprus rather earlier than he anticipated as a result of this vote on the stepping up of air strikes last night. He's due to be posted over there for a 4 month tour next spring, but I have a feeling it may now be rather sooner - we'll see, he doesn't know yet I don't think.

EssexHebridean

Well no sigh of the replacement bread machine pan yet - it could arrive today though I guess and anyway, I bought posh bread on Saturday so that's done MrEH's lunch today. I've got a tuna salad using the last of the salad leaves from yesterday's lunch which also served to declutter those from the fridge.

Other meals for this week have been written on the kitchen calendar so I'll remember what they are - but of course this promptly means that I've completely forgotten what I'd planned now it's not actually in front of me. :rotfl: The slow cooker is trundling away to itself all day today with a beef stew though, and that will be enough for both of us tonight and for one other day, plus possibly enough for a single lunch too. Then there is a smoked chicken breast that we bought at the food show which I'll do with pasta in a creamy sauce, and another night will be leftover slow roast lamb from the freezer with veggies and cous cous. Friday has been designated for a takeaway as we have a "HungryHouse" code to use.

Weekend was remarkably un-spendy - mainly as I barely ventured out of the house. :rotfl: Popped to the posh bakery on Saturday morning and spent just under £6 on two loaves - half of one has made it to the freezer and the other is being finished off for lunches. Friday ended up being cost free for me other than the (pre booked) train travel as MrEH paid for food and the taxi back from the station. :T Other than that we've caught up on a LOT of house stuff, MrEH made the Christmas Cake, and I baked flapjacks for breakfasts yesterday too.

Plans for this week are mostly pretty quiet. My usual four days working and then I *might* pop up to Scampton on Friday to photograph a Red Arrows practise but need to find out what time they're likely to be packing up as it's their Christmas bash in the evening I think so they may be cutting flying very short...I'll touch base with my pal midweek to see what he knows and make my decision from there. I need to go through Christmas stuff and see where I'm at and what else needs buying, too.

Cheery_Daff

Well done! :j I've been batch cooking too - although not actually meal planning as such - does that even make sense?! :rotfl: Wondering whether I should retrieve the slow cooker from the box it's packed in...

EssexHebridean

Yes - perfect sense, you can definitely have one without the other!

At this time of year I LOVE my slow cooker and it gets used about once a week, as a rule!

Just earned myself a random £10 in the office too so that'll be going into my treats tin when I get home! :T

Cheery_Daff

Good work! :applause:

I often struggle to know what to stick in mine - don't eat meat so most things don't take that long to cook anyway! :rotfl: I did make some good marmalade in mine once But that's probably not going to do me for Wednesday night's tea :rotfl: :rotfl:

EssexHebridean

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Good work! :applause:

I often struggle to know what to stick in mine - don't eat meat so most things don't take that long to cook anyway! :rotfl: I did make some good marmalade in mine once But that's probably not going to do me for Wednesday night's tea :rotfl: :rotfl:

Oh I dunno....marmalade bread & butter pudding?!

Pippilongstocking

I love that we talk about posh bread.

I guess to some folk its just normal nice bread. But not us lot.

Our posh stash currently has sour dough and pave in it.



Not used my slowcooker much since I moved. House is substantially warmer for one (use to heat up the kitchen nicely) and I tend to batch cook when the monster stove is on and freeze like cheery with no particular plan.

Sure the hens might appreciate some warm grain in the mornings though.....might dig it out.

Have a good un. Adventures are always fun!

EssexHebridean

Posh bread is just part of life. Aside from anything else it goes so well with nice cheese...

Rather "meh" sort of day here. Bit of washing machine head, bit of just it's December and it's dark too early and light too late and currently grey, nasty and lobbing it down with rain. Meh. Gave in last night and spent all my savings on a replacement camera. My 7D I bought 2 years ago turned out to be a poor choice and will be heading for eBay soon as I have the new one and am confident I'm happy with it. Bought from Hong Kong as I did the last one - so already a £300 saving on UK prices, then they gave a 2% discount for me paying by Bank Transfer not CC.. It's already been dispatched so I'm hoping for it to be as speedy as the last delivery I had from HK which took about 36 hours. If it arrives by the end of Thursday I'll be happy mind. There WILL be obsessive checking of the DHL tracking service occurring...

Beef Stew last night was yum. Remains have been boxed up and frozen. Tonight is cheap Covent Garden soup from the Food Show and posh bread.

Right, off to do some work...!