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

EssexHebridean

Tiptoes in, grabs a cuppa, slumps down in the corner..... 


Well we did indeed have a splendid time! Hard work - ludicrously so at times, and we're not quite done with this year yet - but as always absolutely great fun - and SO glad to be back working with both our bar team and the Wet Stock guys too, although we've seen a lot of folk over the past three years in various places, there's nothing like being there all together doing what we do best. The event itself looks to have been a cautious success - we need some definite figures to confirm that but from what I know about our side of things we did OK. Fingers crossed for the numbers agreeing with that. 

Spending wise - it really wasn't too bad at all. The subsidised canteen means that a decent sized main meal is £5.50 to us staff, and you also have the option of just filling a plate with salad for £2 which turned into an absolute result for me. One "main meal" and one huge salad a day plus breakfast at the hotel (A mix through the week of cooked, fruit & yogurt, toast etc) kept the nutrient levels right up for a surprisingly low cost. (And the "salad" mostly involved chunks of peppers, tomato, cucumber & beetroot plus grated carrot with feta, shaved parmesan, croutons and the most fabulous smoked almond pesto which may have become my new favourite thing). The set up days are always spendier - a meal out and some drinks in the evening with the team, plus a bit of travel, but even those were well within budget, and of course once we are open aside from the canteen and the occasional meal or snack from the festival food vendors there's no time to be spending any more anywhere else!  All good, all accounted for. Marvellous. On a further note, we also brought back a number of packets of biscuits left over from the team biscuit tin each night, a large packet of rather nice crisps (leftover stock from the crisp people who had a stall) and quite a lot of beer (left over stock from the beer subscription box people who had a stall) so that's an advantage too. Some of the beer (and probably the biscuits!) will be stashed in the car to go on holiday with us - all good! The hotel bill has been settled direct by the festival and we'll owe a bit ack against it but will also have a small expenses claim to offset. 

The transfer of electric account to GEUK has all gone through and would you believe it (I bet you would) Util5h1tty Warehouse are STILL being dic.....well, you get the idea. One letter received while we were away saying "Hey, you cancelled your direct debit so we're going to charge you a £6 admin fee as a result" - except that a) as we are leaving, and WELL in credit, there is no need for them to be even attempting to dip their sticky little fingers into our bank account again, and b) I had TOLD them as soon as I had done it that the DD was cancelled. Sigh. Does at least go to prove that I was 100% correct not to trust them with leaving the DD open, doesn't it! On a brighter note, they've now provided their evidence to the Ombudsman, and it's up to their usual incomprehensible standard, plus they actively contradict it in several places within their written statement response, which all helps. I'll get MrEH to cast an eye over my reply this evening them it will be uploaded either later on or tomorrow and then we'll wait and see. I'm not expecting any financial recompense, as we've not suffered any direct financial loss, but I would like to know that their shoddy practices are now in someone's eyeline to be watched... 

Of course, since the switch our daily energy use seems to be racking up at a scary rate - but then again we expected that really. The immersion is back off again and will just be "ticked over" for 20 minutes or so each morning again now with probably one full overnight boost  week - likely on a Sunday night as MrEH will then have the hottest possible water for his first shave of the week. Everything else electrical that can practically be switched off at the wall until needed is being, and we've seen our first bill from GE as well - the DD for that should come out on the 15th. 

Food wise I did a small Aldi shop yesterday, and a quick convenience store pop-in on the way back on Sunday for a pint of milk for each of us. Under £20 for the two trips, and I should be able to get away without shopping again this week now other than possibly popping into Aldi on Friday for some battered fish to go with chips for a fakeaway tea.  We'll have a veg box this week though, and I need to give some thought to a proper meal plan for next week too. The veg box will go against this month's grocery budget as it has been charged today, but the food will actually get used in next month's budget, so that is a head-start!  

Cheery_Daff

Sounds like you had a marvellous time! 

No surprises with utility cr@phouse of course 🙄 How very dare you cancel your direct debit! What a shower of fools.

Excellent free stuff haul though 😁

milann

Pleased you had a great time.
Hope you get somewhere with the ombudsman 🤞

girlatplay

It does sound like you've had a really fabulous time.  Great to have you back though.

I have no words for Ut!lsh!tty.  Not really a huge surprise that they got it yet more wrong at the latest hurdle.

Good to get a head start on next month's grocery budget.

Sunshine_girl2

Great to hear you had a good time , sounds a very busy time but enjoyable as well. 

savingholmes

Glad your time away went well. Sounds super busy - but like you had fun too.

No words at the energy co... Others have said it so well!

Seasidegal58

Your time away sounded fab!  Busy but fab!  I like the sound of the smoked almond pesto. Did you get the recipe?

Bah to the energy company!🤬

beanielou

Glad that you had a fantastic time.

EssexHebridean

Thanks all - SSG I didn't get the recipe but may google to see if there is anything out there that sounds right. It really was very nice and made a cracking added protein component along with a scoop of feta to a big plate of salad! 

Suddenly realised that our Hebrides trip is coming up on us rather fast now - and I have a long weekend away at Eastbourne Airshow between now and then too, so we should probably start to crack the whip on ourselves regarding "things that need doing" too. Paid the cottage balance last night - early, so Anne will be surprised - and have booked our overnight stop for the journey up this morning as well. Some deliberation needed about where we aim for on the way home - that will be a task for later today I think, in fact I've just delegated that thought process to MrEH!

Struggling with the Ombudsman site this morning as it refuses to accept my complaint comment - I've messaged them to ask, and hopefully it is to do with the "undergoing maintenance" messages I have also received this morning. I don't really want to have to break it all down against specific pieces of their evidence as it won't flow well like that. 

I'm calling the grocery budget for July done at £136.20 and will head over to the thread and update in a moment. that's £63.xx under budget but based on a very unusual month as we were away for 10 days of course - I'll still happily take it as a win though! :-) Need to shift the food money over from the food budget account too to cover what is on the card. The food account is now just a fraction short of being 2 months "in credit" which I'm pleased with - and in fact one of those months worth of budget will be being stripped out of there to add to our holiday spending money - that means we don't have to pull money from savings as the holiday account was used to pay for some of the plastering that was done earlier in the year with the idea being we'd move it back from the higher interest savings account when needed....but of course I don't want to do that now! 

Another job I realised this morning hadn't yet been done was the stripping out of the refund from AXA re the breakdown cover - that's now been pulled out and shifted into the car account - and in a reversal of some of that, the breakdown policies for this year have both been paid off the CC too - at a very reasonable £37.90 each.  in a usual year my eye always comes off the ball a little in August due to beer festival stuff - but thanks to things being done fairly routinely it's also quite easy to pull it all back o track again afterwards - and so it's proved this year handily enough. 

The next two night meals are all planned out - tonight will be a pasta salad using some more of the roast toms and peppers from last month, along with some added veggies, and some cooked shredded chicken, plus a blob of pesto. Tomorrow will be a pork shoulder steak each with some form of potatoes (possibly if I get round to cooking them tonight, it will be a potato salad, otherwise just plain boiled new ones) and some veg. Last night was the other half of the pack of shoulder steaks cut into thin strips and stir fried with various veggies and some straight -to-wok noodles. the sauce was equal quantities of our HM gooseberry ketchup and some dark soy sauce, and it got a sprinkle of black sesame seeds for a bit of crunch and nuttiness. It must be said, having seen our weather forecast for Friday, I'm not entirely sure either of us are going to want fish & chips, or indeed even having the oven on for long enough to cook such things, so that may well be getting changed to something more hot-weather friendly! 

Also need to ask MrEH to read the gas meter today... 

lucielle

All sounding fab!  I wish I was heading up north soon.
L