22 Foxhole East

Bargainhunter30

I had a lovely £900 CTC payment yesterday, bit strange when we moved to Universal Credit instead several months ago and the man on live chat said they had no knowledge of the payment 😳 instills so much confidence...

kerri_gt

I have been inspired with your DIY to tackle the badly painted office celing (if you want a job done badly, pay someone to do it) and it irks me every time i do an online class that involves lieing down, and does not make me feel very zen like) So I've spent 3 days in various stages of sanding. Evidently a 1.5kg sander feels a lot heavier when you have to hold it up and out at an angle while up a ladder, and sanding of a celing is dusty...very very very dusty. 

f0xh0les

Oooh, sanding a ceiling is a bit extreme, the most I have done is sugar soap and wallpaper scraper it until it is back to plaster.   Although the hugely cracked  lath and plaster ceilings on the middle floor here, we just had sandwiched with plasterboard and a skim.

2 hours - new ceiling.  Job done. 

I have disappeared for a week! Sorry.  The downstairs bathroom still has a clear floor.    I have 0 patty pan seedlings,  4 courgettes, 12 tomatoes, and today one pumpkin has sprung up.  The peas have shot up, the nigella is trying to flower,  and the cornflowers are now little plantlets.

Just had a mammoth 37 minute step-gran conversation - she complained about everything from parsnips, to  lack of rain, to chest pain (newly acquired) and ended with tv programmes that start half an hour before the tv page said they will.   

I am hoping that the scales will shift tomorrow, I took DS3 and 4 off to the shops this morning, them on their bikes, me on my feet, was only about 3 miles there and back, but still, further than the kitchen to the couch and back again.  Soup for lunch followed by berries and custard, and we have 2 new vegan yogurts to try - one by 4ctivia (with prunes!) and one oat based vanilla one. Good old  Her0n  usually brings up some kind of bargain - less than £3 spent.    Will try them to see if they are nice, and at 59p will pop back and fill the fridge if they are deemed suitable.   No idea what is happening for supper.  Might be biryani, might be burgers and salad.  Might be one thing for everyone else and I might hit the soup again.  I am so bored of sticking at one weight for ten days and then dropping a single lb.  Still, at least I am dropping a lb, not putting one on!  I should stop complaining!  The weight will come off as long as I keep on doing what I am doing.

We used £52 less this month in gas and electric than last month just by using the washing line instead of the dryer and because I turned the heating off of the timer and only pushing the '1hr heat' button once dh feels cold (he is the one who feels the cold most).  So with the £20 reduction in the dd per month, and the reduced usage, it should build up nicely over the summer, ready for winter high usage again.  It would be less, but with dh working from home I can't leave the poor man cold.

Right, off to go and rescue what is left of the day.....

try_harder

I love reading your diary its like reading a good book that you just cant put down , I could do with you in my home you sound very centred but great fun too

f0xh0les

KEEP AWAY FROM OAT YOGURT!!  It is the snot of Satan.

You have been warned.

f0xh0les

Ooooh, it just ate my post and closed all my tabs. It was a good one too!   Oooooh.  Fuming now.

apple_muncher

That was because OAT YOGHURT is in charge today and doesn't like you!

f0xh0les

Have you tried it apple? Honestly it was disgusting, not one kid would touch it after the first spoonful.   Wallpaper paste is less sticky.  Vile stuff. DH announced he had not seen anything so visually disgusting since the kids were in nappies (the prune one was very reminiscent),  Then he said it tastes worse than it looks! There was a definite cough mixture taste.

Anyway, dh is off for a shoulder X-ray this lunchtime,  he has done something obscene to his collarbone - apparently while sleeping.  But as he managed to pop out his ribs by coughing, who knows what a sneeze could do to a determined man's collarbone!  One side is def more jutty-out (medical term) than the other side.  We will know more tonight, but the poor love is in agony and can't really raise his arm more than 90 degrees to the side and less to the front.  Anyway, he has an appt and he is taking himself off soonish.  He has already suffered for the last 3 weeks, so he needs to get it sorted.

So far £500 shunted to savings, and with the kids £300 r/s going out at the end of the month, quite a respectable amount saved for the month.  Renovations account should be at £13k for the end of the month.  Yay!

Weight  STILL  at  12.12, it will shift soon. It will.  I am not giving up on this one.

DH has got through the first round of rejections for promotion.  It will mean me losing child benefit, but it will put him at the bottom of the next pay spine, rather than the top of the current one.  It should mean about a £1k total house income drop, but will be worth it in the long run.  I will just have to find gainful employment to speed up the house renovation fund quicker.

apple_muncher

Fortunately I can't eat oats! They contain the evil gluten poison... Well, not the same poison as normal gluten in wheat, barley and rye; but equally poisonous to us coeliacs.

So I'll never have the opportunity to try them...!!! Wot a shame, eh?

Well done to dh getting through to the next round. And hope his collarbone is mendable.

f0xh0les

Sorry apple I did not remember you were oat gluten allergic as well.  M-i-l is as well  and does quite a spectacular rant about how there is no such thing as a gluten free oat (light blue touchpaper and stand well back).

On the plus side, you are not missing out on a single thing with this poor excuse for a food stuff.