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

girlatplay

LMG sometimes puts the heating on in the morning when she's on an early (gets up at 3.30am!) but only if it's really cold. Must have been cold this morning.  She forgot to put it off before she went out and I was like a cooked chicken when I got up 😆  I'm not one to complain about the heat but had it been Friday I might have cried a little.

savingholmes

I think the networks may fry too with everyone inputting their readings!!

I know what you mean about the difference in fuel costs. It can be enormous currently.

EssexHebridean

I'm fully expecting people to have issues submitting readings today to be honest SH - I'm also fully expecting some people with smart meters to find that their supplier has had a "communication" issue with their meter and so an estimate has been made instead - but that may just be me being a mardy old cynic! GAP I reckon if LMG forgets to turn the heating off from tomorrow onwards she ought to be in fear of her life!  

Well good morning diaryland - and a nice bright but oh-my-goodness FREEZING cold one it is here too. There was ice on the car windscreen - thankfully just softened enough by the time I went out to not need scraping - and my fingers felt frozen solid by the time I'd cycled from the car to the office too. I tweaked the front room storage heater up a little this morning so it would charge up slightly more on the very last vaguely sensibly priced night-rate - the same amount of charging tomorrow night will cost anything up to an extra 30p an hour (it's currently 21p an hour at full input) so a significant increase and I thought we may as well make the most of the last of it. I'll amend the rates on the monitor this evening so we stay up to date, and once I've done and submitted the meter readings I'll do a rate amendment on the Meters app I use as well. MrEH is under instruction to read the gas meter today at some stage. I pre-roasted the veg for tonight's dinner last night as planned so the rest of it this evening will just be a single ring in use for 5 minutes. 

Must admit to feeling a bit on the knackered side today - I decided to see through  my idea of heading to the Olympic Park last night for a bit of a trundle around on the bike - oh my word it was LOVELY! I'd forgotten how stunning it was there, and it's wonderful to see how much of the legacy planting has survived in the garden-y bits. I started at the Velodrome, went past the media centre (as was - now commercial units I think), on to do a full circuit round the Olympic Stadium (Now the "London Stadium" and home of W3st H@m FC), a look at the "Orbit", a loop past the Aquatics Centre and then back to the velodrome via a bit of the path alongside the river (that bit wasn't planned - I got lost!) Finally got back to the car having clocked up over TEN miles - I was shattered! It will definitely be on my list of places to go back for a ride round though - so nice, and it'll be lovely to see all the stuff that springs up to mark the 10 year anniversary too, there are already a few bits. 

I did a little bit of extra distance cycling in this morning but not much although a lot of that was to do with the temperature. Tonight will be a straight back to the car I think - probably not quite by the very shortest route, but fairly close. that should give me my highest mileage week yet for cycling too - and I still plan to get out on the new-to-me bike for a ride over the weekend too. 

The meeting last night went well - as I suspected it was uncomfortable, but nonetheless we reached a resolution we all agreed with that was as kind as it could possibly be to those involved. Once that was done MrEH and I continued with an additional hour of work on our side of things - we now have the bones of a list of breweries we intend ordering from, and have made a start on working out how many breweries we are intending to go with for each UK county - this side of things is a LOT of work. The next job once we know that will be working out how the counties split across the festival bars - also a lot of work! I'd like to hope we could get both of those aspects finished over the weekend. I may do a bit of work on things myself tonight - MrEH is expecting to be out - but if I do at the most it will  be amalgamating the two spreadsheets with beers/breweries we currently have together and starting to add further information about those breweries. 

Banking checked today - MrEH has been paid, I will hopefully also be later today. The surplus from the joint account is now transferred to savings - I'll work out what to do with mine once my pay lands but some of it will be heading to the local Hospice as a thank you donation for the bike I was given. Our neighbour refused point blank to take any money for it saying I was doing him a favour by taking it, so that seems fair. I think a bit of financial life-admin should be on my list of things to do tomorrow, in fact, I can feel a list coming on so expect another post imminently. 

EssexHebridean

Friday/weekend list (not done one of THESE in a while!)

- Steve-the-Handyman coming to review/quote (9am ish)
- Gym
- Ride on new-to-me bike to check all OK
- Check through financials - review budget for fuel/diesel/MrEH travel
- Donation to St Clare - £30 in memory of Auntie D, £30 for bike
- Donation to Red Cross re Ukraine
- Proper clean of kitchen
- clean kitchen and bathroom floors
- decide on what's for friday tea, might be a takeaway night?
- 15 minute general tidy
- Get garage sorted so my Car will fit back in
- Sort out what seeds we want to buy for this year 
- 15 minute tidy of spare room/MrEH's office
- sort through recipe books again - find 5 to go to charity shop?
- Charity shop run with stuff to go (try not to come back with anything extra!)
- Do final jigsaw that is to go back to our friend as we'll be seeing her next weekend? 

Might need to add some more bits yet - I'll be keen to cross as much off tomorrow as possible though! 

MrsPorridge

I'm a great believer in lists!

EssexHebridean

Haha - I LOVE a list Mrs P! 

Right - I have been paid, and have taken the chance to do the money shuffle as well. I've transferred the surplus out of my personal "budget" account into my "personal EF", but I think I'll leave the balance of last month's money in my "spends" account - in spite of doing that last month I've still come in well under budget on spends this month even though socially it was very much a busier one. I've also still got £20 cash in my purse. I've now got very nearly a full month's spends money "in hand" which shows how far under budget I've been each month so far. Looking forward to seeing the savings pots top up over the next few days now - it's odd that this still feels really reassuring somehow even after all this time. That knowledge that we're pretty well equipped to deal with the "stuff" that comes up in life. 

*edit* I have just splurged a whole £3.45 on a set of assorted size crochet hooks in bright cheerful colours. The bag of oddments of yarn and hooks I bought from a CS a few years ago and which has been kicking around ever since only had 3 different sizes of hooks, and the patterns I keep seeing and considering making all use differing ones, so this felt like a good buy. Isn't it funny though - such a small amount, yet I still followed the DFW'ers way of checking to make sure there were no better options, stopping to think whether I thought there was a realistic chance of finding a mix of sizes in another CS any time soon, etc! I will be visiting a CS at some stage to try to hunt down some chunky yarn in a colour I like for a hat, though! (I might also scour Al's treasure island middle section come to think of it - I have a vague memory that they sometimes do wool?) 

savingholmes

Love that you still scour everywhere to get the best deal. Lovely to have a month spends in hand. The bike route sounds gorgeous. I think I did a charity fun run up there once (well I walked, DS ran...) 

Cheery_Daff

I've seen yrn in Mr A fairly recently I think. Our charity shops are usually full of the stuff (mind you, so is my yarn stash so I do try to restrain myself 🙄😂) Someone bought me what sounds like a similar set of multicoloured crochet hooks for a present a few years go and I have used quite a lot of them so definitely a good buy!

starnac

I love my multicoloured crochet hooks. They were cheap and I didn't hold out much hope when I bought them but they've lasted well. Great buy EH

girlatplay

I got multicoloured crochet hooks when I did a crochet magazine subscription a few years ago.  Probably cost me way more that I should have paid but there are instructions for different stitches and there are hundreds of patterns.  I've not picked them up in a while but I do love having them.  Yes, great buy of yours.