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

EssexHebridean

You could probably do it with single, but it might take rather a long while! :rotfl:

Pippilongstocking

Curry sounds lush.

I am reminded I have a cauli in the fridge - full price mind, the luxury.

Thankfully the potato famine has desisted. Phew.



I saw a curlew today and thought of you. I have no idea why I thought of you - YOU don't LOOK like a curlew.

Maybe its cos they remind me of the long summer?

Have a good un!

EssexHebridean

Curlews - probably because we accused Orkney of nicking the entire Hebrides supply of them when we were up last year! :rotfl:

Ah yes, the cauliflower. What am I going to do with it then? Doesn't go well in stew OR Cannelloni really does it. Will have a think. damned impulse-buying!

Right - a small confession - on Friday morning I took the car to the garage to get that light done - yes, I KNOW taking it to the garage is not an MSE way of doing it at all, but I simply can't do it myself, it's too fiddly. (<-- hold that thought) New lady in the garage was - to say the least - negative. Initially suggested I leave the car with them all day (err, no, I live 2.5 miles away and had three bags of shopping in the boot) then tried to tell me that of course the fitter would need to put it up on the ramp....again, no it's a f*ckin' bulb for goodness sake. In the end I gave up and came away, and that was where the dangerous thoughts started. You know, the ones that say "this is ridiculous! You're a sensible female who knows her way around the underneath of a car bonnet, and it IS only a bulb, of COURSE you can do it...." All went well until the little metal spring clip - you know the sort of thing, probably costs about 37½p, but is all-important for bulb-retention and function - escaped into the engine bay. :o Naturally I couldn't find it at all...and equally Naturally when I rang Renault about getting a replacement they informed me that it was only available with a WHOLE NEW HEADLAMP UNIT. :eek: To say I was panicking slightly is an understatement. In the end the car went back to the first garage on Saturday morning when they were prepared to be a bit more helpful, and they kept it until yesterday, when they got underneath, dropped the plastic "tray" thing which is meant to stop the engine getting covered in carp, found the naughty escaping clip, took the bumper off the car (yes, really!) removed the headlamp (honestly!) and re-fitted both clip AND bulb. £108 later (and THAT was a reduced price as our normal lady there was less than impressed when she heard what had gone on when I first went in) and I now have a car with two fully functioning headlamps. The moral of this story is of course that if you're thinking that you can do a job that you know from experience, you can't, LEAVE IT TO THE DAMNED PROFESSIONALS! :mad:

Other than that, popped into the charity shop on Saturday but didn't find anything I wanted other than one small item which will form part of a birthday present for someone later in the year - 50p spent. MrEh said "is there anything else we need?" and I said "no!" so we went home. The 50p was his money too, come to think of it, so an "almost" NSD! Sunday we headed off to do the first section of the London stretch of the Thames Path, and excellent fun it was too. I was expecting we might do 5-6 miles tops, we actually did 8! :cool:

Other than that, Meal Plan is being stuck to, yesterday was going to be a NSD except I had to pay the bill for the car, so that one escaped. Today though....hopefully....! Royal Mail tried to delivery my free Sky signal booster thing yesterday but we were out so that's gone back to the sorting office.

Things to remember for Friday:
Take dinner ingredients out of freezer
Collect spare car key & paperwork
Collect parcel from sorting office.

starnac

Oh dear £108 for a new bulb I remember when my inlaws got a new car. Properly new too. They had some fancy warranty with it but it meant they had to get it services at the right times at a dealer garage. No where else, only a dealer garage. Money isn't really an issue so they didn't mind. First service came about and my FIL booked it in with the dealer. All fine. About 2hours later got a phone call saying they had a problem. Turns out, they put the car up on the ramp, someone pressed the wrong button and the garage door came down, completely denting the roof of the car! Best thing was, the damage wasn't covered by the warranty!! :eek: they did eventually fix it for free, but only after my FIL kicked up an almighty fuss (quite rightly too)

Well done on spending Mr EH's money and not your own too

EssexHebridean

I gave him back the £5 I nicked last week in case I needed bus fares though Starnac - I'm all heart, me! :rotfl:

That's atrocious about the garage damaging your FiL's car though! I should think they did fix it for free - should have been the first thing they said IMO!

More things I need to remember....we're out of dishwasher salt. cheapest place to get it is the garage (no, not that one) that sells it in 20kg bags....BUG that's a 30 mile round trip, so until the next time we're passing there I'll buy a bag in T's at the weekend too.

Dishwasher salt
Surf washing powder HOOOOOOOOGE box if they've got it. it's currently half price though so they probably won't have. :mad:
Dishwasher rinse aid. "All in one" tablets my a*se - it requires all the usual additionals or it shifts nothing!

Greying_Pilgrim

Ouch to the *gold plated* headlight bulb But absolutely YAY :j:j to doing a whopping 8 miles of the Thames Path walk.

Greying

EssexHebridean

Why thank you GP! *bows*. Yes, the headlamp was a bit ouchy, I'm consoling myself that at least I've learnt a valuable lesson that is to N(ot)DIY these things!

Popped to Westfield after work last night. I really don't like that place at all - not sure why, maybe seeing it in daylight might help? But then again I can't feel any particular urge to go back to find out. Anyway, apart from the tube fare the only spend was planned - in Lakeland. A new heavy-duty roasting tin (for their £11.99 price tag they do last at least a couple of years which is better than most) and the flan tin I've been wanting for ages too - those were on a buy one get the other half price deal so I only paid £6 for the roasting tin in the end. A WHOPPING great roll of baking parchment - which seems to be getting close to impossible to get. Wooden spoons - too many of mine are showing signs of age and too many trips through the dishwasher. Finally a bottle of rennet. Yes, I now have no excuse remaining not to make cheese - watch this space. :eek: £28 odd spent anyway - which will be raided from our household budget when the CC bill arrives.

I was also reminded last night that we'll need kitchen paper this week. I can see that shopping budget being hopelessly blown...!

Aiming for another NSD today....there is nothing we need, and I have my own car with me today rather than car-sharing with MrEH so I shouldn't be tempted to stop anywhere while I'm waiting for him as I won't BE waiting for him. We'll see...

EssexHebridean

Well NSD yesterday was comprehensively gained - that's a not very impressive 6 now this month - I'm truly a bit rubbish at this! Today is very definitely NOT a NSD - while I was in town this morning I made use of the Body Shop sale and a £10 off when you spend £25 voucher to stock up on their shower gel - which I absolutely love. Was viciously accosted by a tub of passion fruit body butter too - it clearly meant business so I gave in and bought it. £17 actual spend in there, then £3 in the pound shop on toothpaste, a mini damp-trap and a camembert cheese.

Went to T3sco and managed to remember everything I needed - a shop that included a huge box of washing powder, pack of kitchen rolls, bottle of dishwasher rinse aid and a bag of salt as well as all the food-type bits only came to £21 odd so I'm still on for the £75 budget...maybe! :rotfl:

Came home to find a voucher from T3sco (I really wish they and postman would get their timing right!) for 140 CC points when you buy any Nescafe coffee, so might wander back this afternoon and see if I can get the on-offer 300g jar for £4. :T

CC bill arrived yesterday. A teeny bit :eek: -until I remembered that a good chunk of it would be MrEH's christmas related stuff. Apparently we earnt £110.44 cashback last year - excellent! Anyway after a lot of shuffling money around this morning I've got that all sorted, and we've still got the right amount of savings in the 5% interest paying current account too. All I need to do now is spend the next week repeatedly reminding MrEH that he needs to transfer his money over to the joint account for his share of the bill, and we're sorted!

mooomin

I didn't realise you had a diary

*subscribes*

starnac

Oh dear I hope you are okay after the body butter incident??? Probably was a good idea to just give in. Who knows what might have happened if you hadn't

Doing well with your shopping budget by the sounds of it. Meal planning works so well for you I really must give it a proper go.