Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, lovely Maddiemay! I remember it well from our trip in the summer

We've been for a walk too, probably not half so pretty but views from the hill over the city and we got quite muddy :rotfl:

Just trying this cycling bag for size - they sent the smaller one than i was planning to buy so it might need to go back... but it might fit everything in anyway so just checking!

Gosh, i'm quite stuffed :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Well, the bike bag works fine, and is now attached to the bike :j :j

Sadly the bike has a puncture, and becase it's a folding bike it's rather complicated to take the back wheel off. But I did it - and then discovered I had neither a spare inner tube nor a puncture repair kit :rotfl:

However, i *have* just been and bought a copy of YNAB software as my free trial is up today :j Looks like it might go on sale at 75% off in the next few days but my trial has run out and I don't want to lose everything so I've bought it with 25% off - still a bargain considering how much it's saved me already :j

Happy Boxing Day all! :j

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon all

We have 7 inches of snow :j :j :j I LOVE it :j :j :j Quite a surprise - I hadn't looked at the forecast, and as friend arrived last night it started drifting down, and more, and more, and more! We went out for a walk in the woods about 8.30 last night and it was gorgeous, and this morning there's even more of it! :j

Sun's shining now though and it's melting fast. Me and friend got up to do the parkrun - I was in the top 100 finishers for the first (and probably last) time ever :j (er, there were only 85 people running...) :rotfl: :rotfl: Had a great time

Home now though - it's a 3 mile round walk to get to the parkrun, and that's another 3 miles itself, so I feel I've had quite enough exercise and outdoor time today and am quite content to be sat on the sofa with hot water bottle

Friend just set off to drive back to Inverness :eek: Had to dig him out of our road - hoping the rest of the trip is a bit easier!! :eek:

Karmacat

Top 100!!! Well done you :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Lots of pix from oop north on the online papers, it looks amazing. It was just very, very windy here - I have some plastic bins that are meant to be storage for little hand tools etc, and they were blown halfway down the garden, as they're still empty

Hot water bottle sounds good to me :beer:

Cheery_Daff

Hot water bottle is great :j :j

LOVING all the snow Although not much left in the trees now and the roads are slushy and icy and vile, but I have nowhere to go that I can't walk to, and I have those magic spikes for the bottom of my shoes, so I am a happy bunny Family visiting can wait til the snow has gone and everything else can be cancelled

Cheery_Daff

Woo hoo! :j :j :j

It's home insurance renewal time! :j :j Yeah! :j :j

(Trying to make it exciting - can you tell??) :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

So... having combined contents and buildings insurance a couple of years ago and got the total down from £800 :eek: to about £250, our current renewal quote is £289 (up from £268 last year)

Going through a couple of comparison sites it seems the cheapest we can get is £108 with Admiral. For both! :eek: Why so cheap?! I admit to being slightly suspicious :rotfl:

In other news (since insurance comparison is so VERY dull) I've just had another go at my local-soap-making project :j :j Looks a very pretty colour but having run the water into the pan I used, there doesn't appear to be much evidence of, er, soapiness... :rotfl:

rtandon27

Afternoon Cheery!

I'll join you in today's MSE 'excitment' - am doing up the January budget along with figuring out reclaimable expenses for both OH & myself!

I'm feeling very very guilty as I think I've racked up about £500 in travel & reclaimable health costs in the past quarter - yikes! - I know that in reality that's an amount I've set aside as a floater as I'm not so timely with my claims but when I see the number in red on the spreadsheet it is quite shocking!:eek:

So far my avoidance tactics have been tidying the house, doing the laundry, puttting on the dishwasher, having a bowl of broth with toast, scanning a collegue's personal blog to give her some creative critisism and washing my hair - all perfectly fruitful occupations, but not getting any closer to finishing that claim or monthly budget!!!!!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

:rotfl: Crack on young lady, what would :money: say?? :rotfl: :rotfl:

I've signed up for the £108 policy and cancelled the other :money: I think what made the difference is the option to say the house is occupied both day and night - Mr Cheery doesn't have a 9-5 job and i'm usually only in the office two days a week so between us there's usually someone in. We also had to say that if we went away for more than 5 days in one go between December and March we'd leave the house at a temperature of 12 degrees which is doable - not seen that before but seemed to be standard on all Admiral policies?

ah well, tis done now and I'm having a rest from all the excitement with Bedknobs and Broomsticks and eating yesterday's home made bread :j :j

Karmacat

Loving the fake excitement, thats very funny :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I'm with Admiral now, Cheery, never used them before, even though I'd changed insurers several times. They beat the previous one by almost £100 - they didn't have a problem that I have clients in the house.

Cheery_Daff

That's good to hear KC :j

I confess I'm now fretting about not leaving the house cold in the winter In reality we haven't been on a winter holiday for a few years now, but it's not unknown for us to go away for a fortnight over Christmas - and how would we heat the house to 12 degrees?? We could put the heating on a timer but that wouldn't guarantee it! But then we've NEVER had a problem with pies bursting before so maybe a timer would be enough??

Hmm, will mull over it in the next few days and cancel if necessary to go with the next best one... Don't want to be fretting about it if we go away!