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

Seasidegal58

I've finally caught up with your diary EH and send belated condolences and hugs on reading the sad news of your dad. Reading the post you wrote about his wedding ring made me well up. How lucky he was though to have such a loving and supportive family who fought for him to the end. We had problems with the hospital my mum ended her days in - my sister still hates entering it on the occasions since she has had to use it and mum passed away sixteen years ago. 

What a lovely gesture though from the Reds!
I'm so pleased you enjoyed the Queen concerts. My sister and her OH went. Her OH is a big Queen fan - sister not really not so bothered but even she said she really enjoyed it. 

Have a good day!

girlatplay

Another blanket and hot water bottle person here.  Not in the summer unless it's really cool but autumn, winter and spring, definitely.

leftatthetrafficlights

I have big throws parked on the back of my sofas - keep me nice and toasty if I need it and they are big enough to have in three layers if I'm really chilly! 😉 

I  do have a hot water bottle but that only comes out if dh puts his back out! 😂

Suffolk_lass

Even later to the party than Cheery, I am a great fan of one of these hot water bottles from John Lewis. Yes, I know they are £20 but mine is eight to ten year old and it's brilliant (the cover can be washed). Of an evening, it sits on top of my shins with a fleecy blanket over that; and then on a cold evening the dog and cat sometimes both get on my lap too (putting aside the chase for a while). I rarely need it in bed too and we usually have the bedroom window ajar (in that locked position) but when I do, stealth cat steals it after I have fallen asleep, and I find her snuggled up on top of the duvet between me and it 

EssexHebridean

Hello lovely visitors! It's such a treat clicking on my diary and seeing that people have been popping in and chatting!

The weekend felt a bit non-stop at time but actually extremely productive. Saturday we divided into 1 hour chunks which worked SO well - so an hour of house/garden stuff, then out to get the shopping (on foot to combine a bit of a walk as well) which was another hour, then some more house stuff, then lunch, then an hour of voluntary role stuff, another hour of house/garden, then some more time in the rest of the afternoon and evening on the voluntary role. Genuinely felt like we achieved a massive amount including MrEH managing to get the pallet we've had kicking about for a while cut down to use on the balcony as a plant stand for the tomatoes and herbs - it looks fine and definitely helps to make better use of the space too so I'm pleased with that. Honestly - the best thing with it is that it's been sitting there for best part of two years and of course took him all of about 5 minutes to do in the end! 

Yesterday I did house/garden bits in the morning while MrEH went out to get some bits he needed, plus a squirrel-proof feeder because much as they're cute little critters, we can't afford to subside their diet constantly, and we're losing our regular feathered visitors as a result of the feeders being empty. Then more garden stuff between us - some repotting of oddments (the rest of the mini sunflowers, a coriander plant I bought on Friday and totally forgot about when I cooked tea) and some gooseberry picking before lunch. The afternoon was spent at Mum's finishing sorting her shed of doom (it's done!) followed by another couple of hours of beer festival stuff in the evening.  That splitting up of time into chunks is a method that will be repeated next week I think as it really did work incredibly well! 

This evening will involve as much beer festival stuff as we can get done, and tomorrow will be a "night off" for us both as MrEH is going to rugby training and I need a break from the data entry stuff I think. we'll both be back to it on Wednesday evening then Thursday I'm heading off straight from London to Lincoln - staying with Claire overnight and having tea at the pub on Thursday evening - there is a Reds practise on friday which is the purpose of the trip - I might also see what's happening at Coningsby and head back past there if anything is going on depending on timings.

Shopping wise I've got a bit over £20 to spare on my budget I think with one more shop to go, but next week should be a fairly light one - and the meal plan will most definitely be heavily freezer-use based! (And possibly fairly pasta-heavy, too!) 

The (budgeted) final payment for my Airtattoo accommodation has hit the CC so I've transferred the money for that - and also for our share of the expenses for the Norfolk weekend too -to the card. MrEH has let the other parties know what they owe for that too so we should have that back and ready to transfer in a day or so. Other than that all is good on the banking front - but I definitely need to get to grips with what needs setting up in the way of transfers for regular savings payments as I know there's one missing, I can't quite track it down though until it lands, leaves us short and I remember it needs moving across!  First world problems, I know, but still! 

Oh and in other spends, we decided to join the Friends of the London Transport Museum - it's £48 for us both for a year, means we can go and do an Acton Depot visit for free if we want to, and I think go to the Museum for free as well which we want to do again, and it will also give us a tiny saving on Hidden London tours if we come to book any more of those. Evening of we did nothing aside from the Acton tour though we're happy that it's value as we've had great enjoyment from watching the Museum's "Hidden London Hangouts" podcast series over the past couple of years so it's a good way of giving something back for that. Again, that has been cleared back off the card already. 

foxgloves

We had a couple of squirrels popping in to raid our bird feeders, @EH - I haven't seen them for ages. Makes me wonder if they were warned off by the cats. Although they gobbled a prodigious amount of bird nuts, the most annoying habit of one of them was stealing pebbles. Our back courtyard has a pebble border & he'd keep racing over to choose a pebble, then take it away in his mouth to cache. I know it's normal for them to cache food for winter, this was pebbles. He came 10 times in succession on one morning. Naturally when I got back out in the garden in early Spring, I was finding random pebbles half buried in the lawn, flower borders & veg beds. It was fascinating watching him choose, too.....picking one up, then swapping it 2 or 3 times for a better one. Wish I could have filmed it for Springwatch as it was quite amusing.
F x

EssexHebridean

Foxgloves that's hilarious - I do find myself wondering whether come mid-winter you had some very perplexed Squirrels too - "Oi! Cyril! About these nuts you told us you'd buried...!"  So far so good with the new feeder at least - and the birds seem to be happy enough to use it so that may be a solution to replace others with. We'll give it a while to make sure the Squidgers don't work it out over time though! 

Nothing  much to report here today - Food last night was the planned salad - as is my lunch today, last night was with hard boiled eggs, and today I have a tin of tuna with it. I'll be prepping random veg when I get in to go with tonight's couscous - I think at the moment I'm going to cut it all up reasonably small and just stir fry it with a bit of sesame oil as that's usually tasty. The protein component will be the remaining lamb breast rings from Sunday which will just get chopped up and go into the wok with the veg to crisp up a little.  I need to remember to get out a tub of curry from the freezer for tomorrow night as well. We have actually gained a little room in there mind you as the last of the ice cream was eaten yesterday evening. 

MrEH is rugby training tonight so we'll have a slightly quieter evening on the beer festival stuff  although there will still be stuff to do. It is all coming together but it's incredibly time consuming at this stage!

Banking checked and OK - and I've made a note of the date that the Regular saver payments that nearly tripped us up last month go out - I'm now certain that I set mine as a recurring payment from the "feeder" account into the joint account  for the first few months - until August I believe - but I can check that out by logging in to the online banking website when I get a chance now. The key thing was noting the one I thought was the issue so at least that's done! Credit card is looking less painful since I did some transfers to it yesterday, and our friends have squared up what they owed us now, too. 

One spend yesterday which was the first two night's accommdation for our Hebrides trip  - back to the "Hobbit Home" camping pod at our favourite campsite - a lovely place to stay and the owners are fab! Next thing to be sorted is the ferries, and the budget hotels for way up/way back. 

savingholmes

Lovely that your next trip is coming together.

girlatplay

Talking of squirrels stealing bird food, have you seen this video?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg


You're so on it with the meal planning.  I'm in awe.

savingholmes

GAP - that was fun to watch - except the cat bit...

Very impressive engineering though