22 Foxhole East

mark55man

good luck with getting through the GCSE's - just need to keep him on track, everything else can wait - as only this can make a long term difference to him, everything else is just noise (very very loud noises by the sound of it!!)

f0xh0les

Money juggle day!!
The mortgage is now down to £97,500 with my overpayment of £104.21
So the daily interest is £4.26 and the monthly interest was £132.34.


Two of us were at the dentist today, so that is out of the way for me but sadly 3 monthly for DS3 until he brushes properly. Grrrrr!
Another GCSE done and dusted today for DS1
All bills have been paid, and the energy bill account page has a note on it saying it is so far in credit that the money will be taken from that. The DD has still gone out though... will investigate on the 9th after the meter reading goes through and the account updated again. A refund would be appreciated!

The renovations fund is still sitting firmly at £6500 for me and about the same for DH, so between us we have £13,000. Not to be sniffed at for the start of renovations is it? Still only half way to what we need though.

I have bought 2 new duvet sets from Amaz0n, one for DS2 to match his stripy Everton mint wallpaper, and one in teal for me. This also necessitated a small spend on 2 teal pillow slips from W1lk0 so there will be enough for the 6 pillows on my bed (yeah I know, first world problems) so £2.50 spend.

Credit card sat firmly on £0
But I am not feeling in control -probably because I have not finished those blasted passport things yet. On my 'to do' list still. Neither have I cleaned out Mr Hamster's house, as DS1 wanted to be rescued from school after his exam, he no longer has to attend subjects he has finished the exams for, so i will have to remember to keep my phone with me, as I will be getting random 'Muuuuuuuummmm!!!' phone calls to pick him up at annoying times of the day. Hence my not getting things done today, except loads and loads of laundry, 4 loads dried on the line too. Luckily the forecast rain did not appear.

No more news on f-i-l, they can find nothing to indicate why he had his 'funny turn', so onward with his prostate ( I should think).
Ok, off to read my book and get rid of another one out of the house. All soppy romances at the minute, I am missing my werewolves and zombies and space pirates.

f0xh0les

Well that was bizarre!
DS1 just wandered down in his dressing gown and hairy legs, and asked me to paint his toenails for him. I have not done that since he was about 7. It is a particularly nice shade of blue. I suspect there is a girl involved in this somewhere....



Today I sawed up a pallet, and made a 1ft high x 5ft long x 1ft deep planter and lined it with some plastic sheeting I have been saving from a delivery that came and I could not bring myself to throw it out. So tomorrow I will fill it with compost and pot up some more tomatoes. I put some other tomatoes in two wall planters, along with some cornflowers.
I offered my 2 cukes and 2 remaining borgettes to the primary school, who have put up some planters over half term, and had some compost delivered today(why they put it on the other side of the field to the planters I cannot understand). They obviously have no idea what they are doing as this is a rubbish time to start planting things, with 5 weeks left of term, and then the long summer holiday with no-one looking after the plants.

The budget until Monday somehow has about £90 left in it, and I need no shopping, so I will have to shunt that into a saving account until the next emergency comes up. Not sure what has happened, but I am absolutely not complaining! I have quite a full pantry, will do another inventory tomorrow and make a meal plan, I seem to be getting quite good at this 'store cupboard' low cost cookery. Wait until my yard starts producing tomatoes and cukes et al.

So, tomorrow I will sort the rest of my planting, put up the KALLAX unit in the backroom, and clear the clutter in there. Hoover the ground floor, and inventorise the pantry.
I am back on the p0stal survey, so have stamps coming out of my ears. Fill up with petrol, and enjoy the slide into the weekend. It might involve watersports (nothing kinky - just canoes).

Tomorrow is 7th already, and I only have 1 NSD so far this month, but each of those involved tiny spends.

Tired now, so time for bed and a book.

Night moneysavers!

f0xh0les

It is still raining

crazy_cat_lady

Gawd, you've got a load going on...
I'm really pleased to see that you're remaining sensible and philosophical about the whole situation. Keep b&ggering on (or whatever the phrase is).
Lots of love to you missus.

f0xh0les

Finally got the updated gas and electric bill for the last calendar month, and it was less than £60, which is £15 cheaper than last month, which in turn was £30 cheaper than the month before. So it is all going downwards. I am nearly £200 in credit with them.
On the way home, I came off the big roundabout after picking up 3 kids, and the windscreen wipers suddenly stopped. Just like that. In torrential pounding rain, so I pulled over, and realised quite quickly even with hazards on, it was a dangerous place to stop, but I could not go 20m without the windscreen being completely impenetrable. So I had to wait for no traffic, hop out, move the windscreen wipers manually, hop back in and managed to drive to a place where I could pull into a carpark, luckily it was only about 50 meters, but it was terrifying. I could literally see nothing. DH came out, rescued the kids and I waited for the rescue man who could do nothing but tow me to my garage, who were lovely, stripped it all down and have told me it will cost £140 for a new linkage, and be ready for me at lunchtime tomorrow. Thank all the gods that it happened on the way back from school, not on the way to school and DS1s exams! I had driven that road 3 times today, and was just over a mile from home when it happened. As soon as we got to the garage, it stopped raining.

Anyway, I will have a working car tomorrow afternoon, DH says I can borrow his tomorrow for the school run, and he is away with his car on Thursday camping with his mates for the weekend. So really, I am glad it happened today. The £80 I saved from the budget last week is going to be eaten up, and a bit more from this week. All food will have to be from stores,

I have had to go out and pour water out of all the garden containers as they are swimming! we have had a good 10cm over the last 24 hours easily. Hence the need for windscreen wipers!

Could have been worse eh?

kerri_gt

Goodness f0xh0les you are having a time of it, as you say good job it didn't happen on the school run to school. I had a similar thing happen years ago (think it was my prev car) where I was driving down the motorway in the rain and suddently my drivers wiper just flopped off over my wing mirror. I seem to recall I was shopping for wedding things at the time so it was prob about 16yrs ago. The nice man from the AA came out to the car park I'd driven to and turned it out it was a nut that had come loose

I finished painting one side of a door earlier,,.thought of you...although you'd have had it done in half the time I did...it's all the drying time that takes...well...time.

Don't suppose you found summer in any of your pots? Wondering where the blighter has got to ...

apple_muncher

Cor, f0xh0les! Glad you're okay!

in_need_of_direction

I love how nothing ever seems to panic you

f0xh0les

Well, nobody died, and the money is in the bank to pay for it, so it is just one of those things. I was soaked, the tow truck man drove me home from the garage, as it was on his way anyway, and dropped me outside the door. DH had supper pretty much ready for me when I walked in the door. So I went to bed at 8.30 with a hot water bottle, a hot cup of tea, and a historical novel. The dishes could sod off until morning.

Got a call from the garage at 8.30 to say my car was ready and so dropped kids at school, dropped DHs car home, and went out and got mine back. All sorted by 9.15, but no slimmer for my 140 pound loss, sadly. Surely that must get slimmer of the week somewhere?
Then Child Tax muppets are now chasing me for annual declaration, I wonder if I ring them now to tell them DS1 is continuing in education, they will tell me to contact them after his GCSE results? I notice they are only guaranteeing the payment until 30th August - so they are not counting on him continuing in education. It will be one of those, 'you can't tell us in advance, you can only tell us when he has confirmed his offer' things. Like you can't tell them if you are moving until after you have moved, or that you are leaving a job on xx August, but they stick their fingers in their ears and say 'lalalalalalalalalala', until you have actually left, and then they will update your details.


Back on the stamps survey, so did my postages today. Today I have 3 separate pick up times for kids, DS1 is just back from his chemistry exam this morning. Now busily revising Geography for tomorrow's exam (hopefully, but he might be on his xbox). Last exam is Monday.

DH will shoot off early on his camping trip tomorrow, I am busy and only in the house between 9-10.30, so he can sort himself out! He will be gone by the time I get back from doing stuff and picking up kids. So I get to single parent for 4 days.