EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

EssexHebridean

Well the baking continued at the weekend too - I was looking for a nice recipe for fairy cake type things, and dragged out my "Cherry Cake & Ginger Beer" recipe bok which has lots of recipes from, or inspired by, childrens books. Ended up making the Coco(a)nut cakes from Mary Poppins although we went off piste with the icing as the recipe used buttercream which was richer than I wanted - I made up some glace icing using some redcurrant puree from the freezer and that worked perfectly with some coconut added too, just enough sharpness to offset the sweet! They were very lovely, and unsurprisingly have all now gone! Might bake earlier this week as want to do something that I can take some to Mum & Dad. Possibly the raspberry and chocolate traybake again, in fact, although I'm going to try reducing the fat used in that a little as it felt like rather too high a proportion last time.

Our annoying neighbours are upstairs - and have always been annoying largely because of the amount of noise they make - as well as obviously when they keep on flooding us...the noise thing is proving a little intrusive at the moment - I'm trying to remember that yes, it IS difficult to have two small children in a 2 bedroom flat when they can't go out very much, but equally, I don't care how difficult it is, they should NOT be up and running about the place at 11pm and later every night. Desperately trying to hold off going up and knocking on the door for a "socially distanced chat" about it, but also not wanting to leave it to the point where we are absolutely driven to distraction by it! 

Checking the bank yesterday confirmed that our £98 refund for some train tickets for a cancelled trip had landed back onto the credit card, so I have transferred that out of the joint account so we can keep track. It feels really odd to see such a low CC balance at this stage in a month (it's only 3 days until this statement period ends) and really goes to show how much usually goes on standard commuting costs etc. Guessing that next month will be even more noticeable, too!  Was rather cross yesterday to find that my settings on my Hussle App that I use for gym passes had obviously been changed - I ALWAYS set it to pause as soon as I have used a monthly pass, so I know that was how it was set, yet I got the email yesterday telling me that my payment was being taken. Hussle are claiming that they haven't changed any settings but I know they have because their entire "pause options" section has changed - mine will now restart when the gyms are allowed to open again - which will almost certainly not be when the one I use reopens as it's in a school!  Grrr! Thankfully I'm on a special offer at the moment so it was only £22 rather that £33 and it will just sit there effectively as a credit - I'll need to remember to re-pause it once the official "gyms can reopen" notification gets put out though. 

£10.79 has also hit the bank from TCB - I've fed that across to the rebuilding of the EF as that's not going to be getting much extra for the next little while, beyond the odd scraps of surplus which after this month will be pennies, I think.Also still feeding my odd pennies across to the VSP account. 

Going to remember to reopen Prolific in a bit I think - got a few oddments from that, last week, so may as well carry on with it while there are still plentiful studies to do.

rtandon27

EssexHebridean said:

...It feels really odd to see such a low CC balance at this stage in a month ...rebuilding of the EF ...

EH - I'm also amazed at my low CC at this point of the month, but similarly with no commute to pay for and no working lunches happening, I'm quids & quids up, so have shoved it all into our EF.  I'm on full pay until May, but after that who knows!

HairyHandofDartmoor

That's very annoying about the gym money being taken EH 😡.

What will you do with the money you've saved by not doing your normal travel/activities? Will you need it offset any loss of earning during the lockdown, or will you find another purpose for it? For example topping up the EF?

I never mind children being noisy as I know they can't help it, but I do think that children should be in bed before 11pm 😱. How old are they? Would noise cancelling headphones help? The parents probably can't cope 🙄.

savingholmes

Sorry about the neighbours - my sis put a note through hers asking them to use headphones
Some good money saving from the sound of it. I must admit I've always been a 'house' person and don't think I would cope well in a flat. 

EssexHebridean

rtandon27 said:

EH - I'm also amazed at my low CC at this point of the month, but similarly with no commute to pay for and no working lunches happening, I'm quids & quids up, so have shoved it all into our EF.  I'm on full pay until May, but after that who knows!

Good news that you have been guaranteed full pay until May at least - fingers crossed for after that. My lot haven't really discussed it beyond an initial absolute assertion that they would keep me on - I'm conscious that if this proves to be long term though they will probably not be able to. 

HairyHandofDartmoor said:

That's very annoying about the gym money being taken EH 😡.

What will you do with the money you've saved by not doing your normal travel/activities? Will you need it offset any loss of earning during the lockdown, or will you find another purpose for it? For example topping up the EF?

I never mind children being noisy as I know they can't help it, but I do think that children should be in bed before 11pm 😱. How old are they? Would noise cancelling headphones help? The parents probably can't cope 🙄.

This month it will probably go between the long term savings and the EF top up as usual, but after that it's going to be offsetting the loss of income from MrEH's three day weeks - not though it will offset much of it! Still, we're in a better position than many, at the moment at least. 

As for upstairs, yes, I agree about the timing for bed - these are both small as well - the oldest is about 6 or 7, the youngest only a toddler - this also happens in normal times so lord knows how the oldest one is ever awake enough for school. Noise cancelling headphones probably would help but I think I'd find us both being in our own little bubbles like that pretty horrible as well so while on the face of it is would be a solution for some I'm not sure it's really for us. 

savingholmes said:

Sorry about the neighbours - my sis put a note through hers asking them to use headphones
Some good money saving from the sound of it. I must admit I've always been a 'house' person and don't think I would cope well in a flat. 

This is "running about" noise - I think we will have to stick a note through if it carries on though as this has been every night this week - to the extent that I ended up in bed an hour late last night because there was no point in me going through any sooner. We'll give them one more night, and if it happens tonight I think I'd write something and go and stick it through asking them to make sure the kids are quiet after 10pm at the latest as we still are both working from home and do need our sleep!
With hindsight I wish we had bought a house, but at the point when we bought I was still very nervous about the idea of owning a "whole house" with all the potential for big bills for roof repairs and similar - of course as it turned out the major works bill that we had to dispute was the equivalent anyway! 

EssexHebridean

Another few bits from Prolific today - there seems to be quite a bit on there at the moment that is just small payments but also small amounts of time needed - although having said that I did just do a really tedious one that seemed to go on forever and I'm sure longer than the 13 - 15 minutes it said! Also logged in to OnePoll for the first time in ages - and will try to remember to do that daily for now - it might only be pennies each time but it's better than nothing. 

Starting to feel as though a bit of a routine is settling in here now I think. one of the oddest things to get used to has been shopping completely differently to usual strangely enough - I'm so used to me pretty much once a week pattern, that it feels strange now to do anything else. I'm following my usual pattern of keeping a running shopping list for the stuff we think of that we're running low on, and then when we reach the point of "needing" something in particular we head to one or other shop to get it. Seems to be working OK, will probably be even better when we start to get a clearer idea what the "better" times to shop are. I'm also still meal planning but mostly only a few days ahead - which I'm finding helps to keep an even closer eye on fresh stuff that needs using. Sunday's roast chicken has done two meals so far and will do at least one more, possibly two more, I'm going to pick the carcass in a moment so will find out then how much it's going to yield. Three meals off it will be fine though - it was an Aldi FR bird, and tasted lovely - we'll be getting one of those again. 

I'm getting slightly concerned about there STILL being no bread flour in the shops - in fact, flour of any sort. I've got a first thing in the morning shopping trip in mind for tomorrow so we'll see if there is any in at that time of the day. I want to get a sourdough starter on the go, but I'm wary of doing it at a time when I can't be sure of getting more flour. Failing that the artisan bakery is getting deliveries I think - so I can get a bag from there, but that will work out substantially more expensive. I've got a fair bit of ordinary SR and plain in - in fact I have a complete bag of plain in the storecupboard - it's just the pesky bread flour that is the real problem. 

I gave MrEH the choice of what baking to do for the weekend and he chose the chocolate brownies from the other week again - I can't say I blame him. I'll probably do those early-ish on Friday then I can take a couple of pieces across to Mum & Dad with their shopping. I might see if I can find a suitable savoury recipe as well though - possibly oatcakes as we really enjoy them but I always struggle to make them so they don't fall apart - maybe that should be my "lockdown mission!" 

savingholmes

There was an article about how to make things despite missing ingredients - in the Guard***
Hope the noise settles down. I think I have a little flour but don't have a lot of eggs - so need to solve that first. We are trying not to go shopping as much as possible so relying on deliveries but not everything comes... and hard to book more

lostmyusername

Hi EH, we had a similar problem with flour and ended up buying a 25kg sack of flour from an Italian wholesaler in Enfield for £20. We're storing it in a pet food tub so that it's airtight and safe from weevils. It's not bread flour but I've been using it in my sourdough with excellent results. Is there a similar option nearby you? 

We also got a tray of tomatoes and have been eating very well!

EssexHebridean

Hi both - thanks for popping in! SH eggs seem to be fairly constantly back in stock round here now thankfully - that makes life easier as we use them a fair bit - egg mayo sarnies are a lunchtime staple here! 

lostmyusername Ironically we're only a few miles from Enfield! However we don't (as in REALLY don't!) have anywhere to store such an amount of flour at one time - which is a shame as that would be a decent solution. MrEH has just reported back that L's still have none, and the last few times we have been into a T's they have had no flour at all! 

We have just ordered some beer online for delivery from a (very!) local small brewery who are offering free delivery in the area. Some Stout, and an Apricot Pale Ale which sounds nice - so looking forward to hearing when we should get those, wouldn't surprise me if it's today though to be honest. We've plenty in for the weekend, but a bit more variation is always welcome! 🍺🍺😁 

Tomorrow's plans are currently fairly loose - I've got to do Mum & Dad's shopping at some stage, and we have a nice long list of things that we'd quite like to do - everything from fixing a bit of fence on our balcony to doing a jigsaw. Might also have to add watching the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost films to the list as I spotted Run Fat Boy Run on the shelf earlier and that reminded we we'd not watched that for ages! 

lostmyusername

EH - how funny! We could be neighbours! 

Hope you have a lovely sunny Easter weekend!