The Big Adventure

Goldiegirl

Watty1 wrote: »

I'll never get him to drive to Chatham !

There's a TSB in Maidstone, so that might be marginally better! :rotfl:


We've got friends coming for lunch tomorrow, so we went out yesterday to buy the things for the meal. Bearing in mind we bought two bottles of wine and the best skinless salmon, I wasn't expecting it to be cheap. But I was charged £37.10
:eek:


I paid up, but had a look at my receipt before we left the store and saw that we'd been charged for a random £10 item. We went to the enquiry desk and it turned out we'd been charged a deposit for a Christmas order. We got a refund - good thing I checked.




I've dipped my toe into the Amazon Subscribe and Save scheme. But I'll be withdrawing my toe immediately, as it didn't go well.


It started okay. I ordered some coffee and Mr Goldie's razor blades, with a delivery date of 20th. I had an email though to say they'd be delivered on 17th, so earlier than expected.


Nothing delivered on the 17th, although I got an email to say it'd been delayed and they'd deliver by 20th and if not they'd send another parcel.


Nothing arrived, and on 20th I got an email saying the parcel wouldn't be delivered due to unforeseen circumstances and they'd refund me. If I still wanted the items I could reorder.


A few hours later, I got an email to say the refund for the razor blades had been processed, but no mention of the coffee. In the end I had to phone them to get the refund for the coffee as well.


As far as I can see from the limited tracking info, the parcel went into the Amazon Logistics depot and never came out.


To be fair to Amazon, their callback service was efficient, and I've used Amazon for about 15 years with no problems.


But this has been inconvenient - the whole idea with the subscribe and save is that you set it up and the stuff arrives with no further effort from you. it's meant to be reliable.


When the refunds hit my account I'm going to cancel the whole subscribe and save thing.


I will use Amazon again, but I'll specify Royal Mail and pay more for delivery. I don't want to use Amazon Logistics again.


What with this and TSB, I'm wondering if I'm taking the whole MSE thing too far, and creating problems and issues for myself that I wouldn't have had otherwise.


Perhaps I need to rein back a little.

Karmacat

I think you're fine, Goldie - some problems are inevitable, and when it's meant to be a regular thing like Subscribe and Save, you can cancel it, as you *are* doing.

How much will you get because you're doing the TSB thing now its set up? Could be an interesting reminder...

Goldiegirl

Hi, KC. With the TSB thing I'll get about £96 per year in interest, and all I need to do now is pay in and transfer out again £500 each month. So not much effort needed from now on.


I'm disappointed about the Subscribe and Save. I've been wondering whether to try again but it's a case of once bitten, twice shy. I'll just carry on looking for the offers when they are available at the supermarket. I may try a supermarket own brand coffee to see if I like it.


Just been getting a blackberry and apple crumble ready for tomorrow's lunch.


It's quite difficult to think of main courses when these friends visit. She doesn't eat meat, although she will eat fish, and he doesn't like spicy food.


I prefer to do a meal that we can all eat, rather than dong one thing for one person and one for another as it gets a bit fiddly.


Most of my veggie dishes are quite spicy, such as curries and chillis. Good fishy standbys like fish pie or fish lasagne mostly need cheese - and cheese is something I have to avoid.


I've settled on salmon, coated in 'Cajun spices'. It's not too hot, so it should suit us all. It works best with skinless salmon. When I take skin off fish, I take most of the fish off as well, so I had to buy pre-skinned salmon. It wasn't cheap - it was £10 for the 4 fillets.:eek:

jodles16

Hello Goldiegirl, have spent a wet weekend reading your diary! Wow what an interesting diary it is too! You have inspired me to try understand pensions and increase my contribution!

Will be popping in to see how all the amazing holidays are going!

Jodles

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Lunch sounds FAB. I can hop in the car anytime, if your visitors fail to show :rotfl:

Have a good week.

Tilly x x x

Goldiegirl

jodles16 wrote: »

Hello Goldiegirl, have spent a wet weekend reading your diary! Wow what an interesting diary it is too! You have inspired me to try understand pensions and increase my contribution!

Will be popping in to see how all the amazing holidays are going!

Jodles

Hi there Jodles, good to 'see' you. Well done on reading the whole diary, that is some going !

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Lunch sounds FAB. I can hop in the car anytime, if your visitors fail to show :rotfl:

Have a good week.

Tilly x x x

:rotfl:


The meal turned out really well. I'm not a natural hostess, so I always breathe a sigh of relief when the cooking is done and everyone seemed to enjoy it!


We had another visitor, although not a very welcome one. Yesterday evening, I was sitting at the lap top in the study/spare bedroom, and heard a scrabbling noise above me. It's right by an outside wall, so I thought it may have been a bird. It stopped after a while, so I didn't think any more of it. Then when we went to bed, I heard it again and it had moved to the centre of the house.


It sounded like a bird, so we opened the loft hatch with the idea of enticing it out in to the light, and letting it out of the front door. But nothing happened, maybe just as well as I'd have freaked out with a bird flapping around in the house.


So, we found the mouse trap and put it up in the loft, just to see what would happen. This was all going on at 11 o'clock last night.


This morning, when we checked, a mouse had been caught. We've been out and bought a couple more traps and bait, just in case he had some friends up there.


I haven't heard anymore noise, but we'll check the traps tomorrow.


In better news, the river cruise company we travelled with last year has sent a 2016 calendar, so that's one less thing to buy


Out for a walk today we saw the first Father Christmas outside someone's house, so people are putting their decorations up already

Watty1

A firm subscriber to the "if its not December its not Christmas" here! Seems a bit early - although - I do love outside lights so those are always acceptable, for those I adopt the pagan view that they celebrate winter and the light returning so they are fine from clocks change to end Feb

Karmacat

You had a mouse trap accessible at that time of night? Respect! Hopefully that's all resolved immediately ....

Goldiegirl

Watty1 wrote: »

A firm subscriber to the "if its not December its not Christmas" here! Seems a bit early - although - I do love outside lights so those are always acceptable, for those I adopt the pagan view that they celebrate winter and the light returning so they are fine from clocks change to end Feb

Yes, I like lights too. I think Diwali (Festival of Lights)should be more widely celebrated in this country

Karmacat wrote: »

You had a mouse trap accessible at that time of night? Respect! Hopefully that's all resolved immediately ....

:rotfl: It's the beauty of de-cluttering - things can be found when you need them! :rotfl: It was in the garage, but the garage can be accessed from the house.


Unfortunately the mouse had friends. We now have three traps up there. This morning there were mice in two of them and the third had been sprung, but was empty. So someone had a lucky escape. We'll keep on going until the traps are empty. I have no idea how the mice managed to get up there - I'm just thankful I noticed the scrabbling noise when I did


This morning we called in at M&S to order our turkey, a large salmon encroute, and an expensive pack of pre-prepared vegetables. All this is being paid for by M&S vouchers we've saved over the year. The rest of the things we'll get from Sainsburys with Nectar points, so it's essentially a free Christmas foodwise.

Karmacat

Brilliant use of vouchers, Goldie, well done to both of you.

Very bad news on the mouse's relations I was told that rats and mice can climb up drainpipes, so if there's the least hole at the top, its completely easy for them to enter.

That's it. What sort do you have, Goldie, where did you get them? I've got ebay open on another tab, but there's a huge variety, and I know nothing about them. Between the rat I had in the attic a few years ago, and that one that was in my garden the other day, I'm feeling the need to take action - and take care of it myself rather than having the pest controller again, he was good, but expensive, and about to retire in any case.