22 Foxhole East

wishingthemortgaheaway

He does sound sound like a typical academic I'm afraid.

Have a lovely weekend Fox.

f0xh0les

Good Morning

Getting annoyed with all the nonsense on TV about Veganuary. The stupid questions the interviewers ask!!

--I'm not sure I have ever eaten anything vegan (embarrassed slightly defensive smile)

--- What? You have never eaten an apple?????:rotfl:

and all the mock-environmental nonsense
But then I am an old hand at this, well, after 19 yrs I should be!

Going to enjoy Marr on tv (I prefer Peston but he is not back from his hols yet)
slap a load of conditioner on my head, and start the painting of the walls. It is second/third coat, so will go on very quickly. Should all be finished well before lunchtime.

Do any of you have a child who refuses to go to the hairdresser unless you threaten dire consequences? i just have the one (the usual suspect) who fights tooth and nail about any kind of bath/ teeth brushing/ clean clothing/ hair cutting / helping out in any way. I actually plan in 'argument time' in my conversations with him as he is utterly belligerent about , well, everything, be it big, small, or irrelevant.

Then, I will make DH granola out of cheapy muesli and added cinnamon and sultanas and whatever else I find in the bottom of my baking drawer- might be a 1/4 pack of flaked almonds in there somewhere. If he's lucky:rotfl: and some kind of iced bun for lunchboxes,

Need to make sure PE kits are ready
I know the lunchboxes are clean and stacked ready to be filled, and that I have bread rolls, fruit juice cartons and crisps and fruit in the house.

Operation use up candles is going amazingly well. Only have 2 left, but no money in the budget for buying more. They are so cheerful. Roll on February when I will stock up again.

The mornings are getting lighter already. I have been taking advantage of not having to go out on the school run, by staying in my bed in the morning. I am not sure I like it, or see the point really, apart from it being warm. I am still up before 7, most days, but will return to 6am starts tomorrow. It will soon be light again when I get up. There was a fantastic frost on all the roofs this morning, before the sun got high enough to melt it all. I do not get smiley about frosty car windscreens though.

I have decided I am going to have a place to sit in my bedroom, once it is decorated. I want either a small sofa or a wingback chair or two. I have the room for it (my bedroom is quite large). So will start to check out the second hand warehouses in February to see what I can get my hands on.

Looking forward to getting the kids back into a routine,

24 days until payday

f0xh0les

Week one of school done!

No major setbacks. 2 kids have forgotten their lunchboxes so far.
All after school clubs start back this week. So I have one day where I don't have to do the pick up twice.

So far this morning I have baked 3 chocolate sponges, 6 buns for lunchboxes, sorted and folded all the laundry, and spent 25 minutes reuniting long lost sock families. Time for coffee and politics.

Pastry is defrosting as I type, and I am going to attempt a H0lland and B4rratt style steakless bake to see if it passes the kids' approval test. One more to add to the lunchbox repertoire of white sauce broccoli and corn pasties, cornish pasties, pesto pasta or sandwiches.

Chickpeas are soaking for tomorrow's falafel feast supper.

Marr and Peston are back on. I prefer Peston to Marr.

I have a surprise £50 cheque from step-gran as she rings me and asks me to get her __________ on the internet, and I just do it. She keeps a tally of how much it is and then sends a cheque or gives it to me when she sees me next. It will help this month. January is very tight. Mostly because I have paid off all kids clubs, all kids residentials and the two car insurances, and set aside the kids' savings already. So I have £150 left in the bank for the rest of the month and I still need to buy breakdown insurance for us both - £45. But the larder is stocked, the fridge is full. There are 16 days left and I need petrol. Child tax credit is paid each Friday, and it will be gratefully received this month.

So if I take myself off to the gym each morning after dropping the smalls at school, use all the wallpaper, paste and paint I have here, ready to go. And make sure there is food ready-to-go as soon as I get back from picking up the kids from after school clubs, then I will be fine. There is enough in the budget all bar disasters.

I got £23 of free money on a gift card from the postal survey I do. I just log how much post I get a day and every 2-3 months or so they top up my card and I buy candles and paint and hamster chews from Wilk0. All the Christmas candles were reduced from £1 for 2 to 25p for 2. I may have spent £2.....

I am in desperate need of cookware though, but it all seems so small in Wilko. I would quite like a new dinner service too. Wants though, not needs. When you are feeding 6 a decent sized roasting dish that can sit on a table afterwards is a godsend.

No overpayment on the mortgage this month though. Too much real life getting in the way.

f0xh0les

I got back in touch with the remortgage people on Monday as I had not been contacted by the solicitors. It turns out, that the new mortgage provider had not contacted the solicitors and so nothing had been done!!!

Wheels have been set in motion now. Should all go through for completion on 1/3.

kerri_gt

Love your diary f0xh0les though I don't post often. When you have the spare £ have you tried tk maxx / homesense for a good roasting dish that isn't offensive to the eye?

For breakdown cover I assume you're going the route of the likes of autoaid? Have a quick check on groupon, last year I got a couple of £ off via a groupon voucher for their cover.

f0xh0les

I think I did that last year, the groupon Autoaid thing. Still the cheapest for 2 people at around £45.

DH has TKM4XX vouchers from his birthday and Xmas. He is lusting after a frying pan and a pull up bar (odd shopping list I know).

I have to go into town tomorrow to pay in the kids Xmas cheques and my cheque. I can pay £1 for 1hrs parking, run to the bank, TKMaxx and the health food shop all in one go.

And God Bless Miriam Margolyes and all who sail in her for dropping the F-Bomb on Peston and calling him a pillock. I do love her. She is so fabulously awful and awfully fabulous at the same time. I watched her programme on America and Trump last week, and some of the Marigold hotel spin-off programmes. So funny.

kerri_gt

I had a TK maxx voucher for my birthday, I think I bought some oven gloves, Xmas tea towels and the balance went towards a shirt for OH. :rotfl: we have a large TK and Homesense next to each other nearby, could spend a fortune in there at times.

f0xh0les

Tea towels!! Yes, I bought 5 tea towels in Wilk0 with my free money voucher as well.

It was on my Xmas list, and DH said I am NOT buying you tea towels for Xmas. But honestly tea towels that work were near the top of my 'would improve my quality of life' list and stop me ranting on about them. Tragic huh?

I was listening to one of the Mums at the school gate talking about her family trip to America she had just booked. - 2 weeks s/c and excursions to some Universal studios and swimming with dolphins. I was jealous. It was costing her £6000.

One day I will be able to afford to take my kids off on wonderful jaunts. DS3 only has this year and next before he is off to secondary school, which will leave me with one left at primary school.

As soon as he is out of primary then I am getting a job!!
That will mean holidays!!
By that time though DS1 will be 18 and might not really fancy a holiday with his Mum and little brothers. Although he might if I am picking up the tab.

I forget sometimes that we are a one income family. And we are doing really well on one income too. It can only get better in the future. I need to keep that in my mind. We can function easily on the one income, and when there are two, then it is going to be holidays and regular over-payment time. While they are small they are perfectly happy with the Giants Causeway, Titanic Belfast, Norfolk Coast, Cheddar Gorge, Stonehenge etc. All the places I have dragged them round. DS1 keeps coming home from school surprised he has been places that his schoolmates have not been to. He does not realise even though I am on a budget, I take them to low cost YHAs and find as many educational places and NT sites or EH sites as I can.
Or if they have a project on castles, then we go visit castles - Beeston, Nottingham and Bolsover,
If they are doing the Stone Age, we did Stonehenge, Cheddar Gorge caves etc. Great Fire of London - we stayed one night in a YHA and went and did the free podcast walk from Pudding Lane, through St Pauls to The Monument.
If they are doing coastal erosion, Formby, north Norfolk coast - etc.
For the Victorians it was Coalport and Ironbridge, Blists Hill Victorian Village and a trip to the local cemetary. I do try!

This term I think it may be The Celts! and saying that, I need to go through their schoolbags and make them do their homework and see if they have any leaflets to tell me what subjects they are pretending to learn about.

apple_muncher

Y5 here are doing the Maya civilisation and rivers. Feel a trip to central America coming on...?

kerri_gt

My cousin does that with her girls, if they are doing a project on something in particular, she takes them somewhere that is relative to that project (within reason obv), it helps the abstract become more tangible for the girls.

I still remember going to the ironbridge museum when I was about 10 with the school, still one of my fav experiences learning about them dipping candles, how miners candles were a diff colour to stop them taking them home to use...oh and the old sweetshop lol.