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

EssexHebridean

* Could everyone speak up - I can’t quite hear you over this wind… 💨💨💨😆 *

Well in spite of the fact that our red weather warning finished quarter of an hour ago we’re still getting gusts as strong as they were at midday when it was meant to be at the peak. Feels very odd to witness weather like this over this side of the country although we’re well used to it up in the islands of course - for over here in East Anglia this is pretty severe. 

As a result today has been pretty laid back - we went for a walk this morning - just a short one for MrEH but I went a bit further as the wind hadn’t really got up massively by that time. Since then I’ve been out very briefly twice - once to take a bag of rubbish out to the bins, and the second time to pop a letter into the post box, and also as it turned out rescue a stray wheely bin at the same time. It’s definitely not much fun out there, but most people do at least seem to have heeded the “stay at home” warnings as there’s very little traffic.  I’ve done some general tidying round, done a yoga session, a bit of washing up that felt like ALL our saucepans, and that’s about it! 😄 

savingholmes

Yoga session sounds good. I'm surprised you ventured out in this weather - although I too nipped out early doors

milann

Yup it was definitely stay at home weather. Hope your fared well and stayed safe 👍

EssexHebridean

The wind didn't pick up with us until later in the morning thankfully SH & Milann - the red warning began at 10am and ended at 3pm - although as I mentioned above the wind definitely hadn't dropped much by that time, I suspect because it didn't reach the expected speeds until later than expected either. And our walk very definitely avoided any risky areas for trees etc as well!  

It's windy again here today although nothing like as bad as is being reported further north and across to the west. I did elect to not cycle though - this week will be wound back a bit on the activity front anyway so starting with a walking day works well. I'll still be doing my usual gym visits but maintaining the weights etc I've been using not aiming for any progression - give my legs a bit of a recovery week! Planning a decent amount of yoga/mobility/stretching this week too - I've been doing some hip & back focused stuff the last few days and starting to feel a difference in range of movement already. 

MrEH put a diesel fill-up on the CC again yesterday - sigh! Not a problem, just a faff to now have to muck about transferring. He did remember to stick his Oyster top-up on the joint account card this morning though. The surplus this month feels like it's taken a battering with a couple of car fills and various other bits BUT on the flip-side that will be stuff we don't have to pay next month on the card which was after all the plan. The weekend ended up a bit spendy as we also bought bird food yesterday while we were at our nearest RSPB reserve with a shop - £62 for seed and suet balls but that will keep them going for a fair amount of time - it'd be longer if the flipping squirrels would leave it alone mind!  there was also a farmers market visit on Saturday morning as planned - just over £30 spent there, some of which MrEH needs to transfer back to himself from the food account.  It's felt like an expensive month all things considered - but hey, they come along from time to time! The food spend will be a heavy one this month I think but a lot of that is down to a fair bit of storecupboard replenishment too, so all planned.  Will re-set from 1st March and see how much we can NOT spend!

Oh, and shhhh....not quite ready to go much further yet but did slightly remove my head from the sand on the subject of pensions etc. Just a little investigation so far, and an enquiry has gone in about increasing my contributions slightly. Also some stuff for MrEH to investigate. Lots of things to consider - I may revisit the subject at some stage... 

OnePoll is ticking along, Still bu66er all on Prolific, and still finding Ipsos a bit irritating.  

EssexHebridean

A grey sort of day here, but thankfully less windy. Still windy enough to make cycling this morning feel harder work than it might, in a few places though! 

Pretty standard sort of Tuesday here today. Office for me, WFH for MrEH, then I'll head straight to the gym from here tonight and he'll be off to rugby training. I've checked the banks this morning - all looking fine in the run up to the end of this lovely short month - and the stuff I transferred off the CC yesterday has all cleared through so basically all that's showing on there now is food spending, which so far for the month (starts on 10th to tie in with the statement date) is looking a bit higher than I'd like, but allowing that we've got a fair amount in and should only need fresh stuff for the next few weeks, should still stretch. 

Got the paperwork through from UW this morning to confirm the new electricity rates. Not *quite* as bad as we feared but still bad enough with the night-rate increasing by a painful 10p a unit. 6.5p additional on the day rate, and the SC increases by 13.5p too - eye watering! I've done the sums though and right now the DD will stay as it is while I see how things pan out, and we'll continue to throw £50 a month into the buffer fund which also will be sufficient to cover increases to the bills going forwards. While ouchey, I'm very conscious that it really could be a LOT worse, and indeed IS a lot worse for many. we'll try to cut back on use, absolutely, but we (thank goodness) will still be able to heat our home without undue worry - we won't like the cost but we can at least meet those costs. 

A start has been made on the organisation for our refurb of the hallway - the plasterer visited last week and we're now waiting for his quote - MrEH was very positive about him though, he sounds like a real problem-solver which was precisely what we wanted. There are a few small jobs to be done ahead of him starting, but I'm thinking we can probably just do those ourselves including a teeny bit of chasing out to recess a cable, which will subsequently mean we'll be able to use the coving we wanted as well. We'll need to get some more cable clips too - that will probably need a BandCue visit at the weekend. All being well and the quote not being TOO extortionate and we should be able to get him started inside a month. Most exciting!  

The downside of the hallway refurb being imminent is that it means we'll have to wait a little longer before our next order for a whole lamb as the second freezer will need to be found a temporary home in the garage while the works are done. At least there will be no temptation to switch it back on any time soon, I guess! 

EssexHebridean

Hurrah - just heard from MrEH that he has successfully pretended to be me for the purposes of dealing with V0daf0ne on the online chat, and they will be resetting our router so that - with any luck - the laptop AND PC might be prepared to connect to the wifi again. why on earth they would have pushed out a firmware update to the router than meant it set itself to use a channel that we don't use in the UK, goodness knows, but at least it sounds like they're being on the ball with dealing with it... 

And not hurrah - grim news coming out of Ukraine.

savingholmes

All sounds very organized. Good you were cautious around the storms too. Really pleased you are looking at pensions. They take time to grow

Cheery_Daff

Ouch to the electricity increases, and I imagine the overnight one would have a big impact for you with your storage heaters? As you say, could be a lot worse, and is for a lot of people, but still - ouch. 

Good news on the plasterer though! Hope it all goes nice and smoothly

And (ssshhhhh) well done on starting the pensions process  

boxofpaws

Of all the things we did in our house when we moved in, plastering is the one that has the biggest impact. Makes everything look fresh again.

I know what you mean about being able to absorb the cost of the fuel increases, it just pains me that we have to!

EssexHebridean

The plastering in the hallway is partly because the bottom half of the walls currently have a (fairly decently done, in fairness) layer of 1980's artex on them. we don't know for sure, but assume that this is likely to contain asbestos, so plastering straight over the top is a better solution than trying to remove it! One side was always going to have to be done because when the new archway was put in for the kitchen it left some of the framework that needed covering around it -but it's just common sense to do the whole lot. 

And yes - the night rate increase has a huge impact - it basically means that 70% of our electricity use is increasing by 150%, near enough. Makes the much discussed 54% increase feel rather less significant, that!   Hey-ho - can't be helped. 

Banks checked - all OK. Looks like a miserly £100 will be added to the PB pot from surplus this month - I think this is as a result of additional amounts getting added to savings pots early in the month before the money from MrEH's matured reg saver was transferred. It should right itself next month anyway, and we did at least add the Council tax/water rates money to the PB pot this month already. 

Food last night ended up changing shape from couscous, roast veg and chicken sausages for both of us as MrEH's rugby team's training turned into a strategy/whiteboard/pizza session. I always plan an "adapatable" tea for a tuesday anyway as it needs to be something that can be eaten at two different times, so it wasn't a problem to adapt it a bit further for just me - a sachet of mixed grains instead of couscous, the roasted veg and sausages were still fine but I have extra cooked sausages ready for another day - all good. Tonight will be risotto - using the remainder of the prepped roasted squash, and probably the remaining mushrooms. 

Gym session also done yesterday evening - Allowing that I consciously made it a slightly easier session (no progression, and less sets) I'm surprised that I'm quite sore this morning. I need to decide whether I scrap either my cardio session or my second strength session this week - but will play it by ear when I see how my regular walking and cycling impacts my intensity score on Garmin through the rest of today and tomorrow I think.  Also need to adjust my signature to reflect 10 visits done in my first month of membership.