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

milann

It sounds as if you have had an amazing time. I’m quite envious of your experience with The Northern Lights.
It has indeed been a sad week and is the end of an era. I bet it seems a lifetime rather than a week or so for The Royal Family 😢 

RelievedSheff

We have managed to miss the Northern Lights every time we have been up that way. Maybe next time.

Glad you had a good trip.

girlatplay

I would just like to say how beautifully written your post about The Queen was.

I'm glad you had a lovely holiday.  I have been on said steam train over said viaduct and also arrived in Mallaig to closed tearooms/chippy.

Sun_Addict

Totally agree with you about the Queen. I was completely unprepared for how emotional I felt yesterday and the day she passed. Really felt for the family having to keep a stiff upper lip, I couldn’t have marched all over after the coffin when I lost my mum and still kept my composure. 

Good to hear you had a brilliant holiday. 

EssexHebridean

Morning all - and thanks Foxgloves, milann, RS, GAP and SA for popping by and your lovely comments. 

Banks checked and all good - I did have a bit of wrangling of funds to do when we got back as the Joint Account was looking "interestingly" low - then I twigged that because we'd been away we'd both forgotten to do the manual transfers for the money that covers the Sant-and-er regular saver accounts - once that was done things looked a lot more healthy, unsurprisingly! I've done the "sweep" of oddments across to  both VSP's this morning - only pennies in each case but it all builds up as we know - and I've also opted to shift last months surplus from my spends account into my "spare" current account as it probably ought to have some use before it gets switched across to 1stDirect. 

It's really about trying to get back into a more normal routine here now - in between losing my Dad, then the beer festival, then of course the Hebrides trip, the last 4 months have all felt a bit hectic and as though I've been swimming against a fairly strong current! I'm mindful that in terms of the housework side of things thanks to being so determined to leave everything clean and relatively tidy we're in a good place there, and I want to build on that. we also need to start structuring an evening a week with beer festival work again I think - checking and responding to any emails (there shouldn't be many for a few months now) and also planning for next year - our work starts again properly in November, and we absolutely HAVE to move the timetable forwards as we'd planned for next year too else it will give us issues with next year's Hebrides trip (because yes, of course we already have that planned!) so some focus there is much needed.  I did indeed go to the gym as planned last night - I would ideally like to get into a 3 times a week routine there although I know that won't happen every week as inevitably life gets in the way. I fear I'm going to ache tomorrow though! 

Food is reasonably under control although annoyingly I missed out on booking a veg box delivery for this week. We have some Sainsbugs vouchers for money off a total spend where the total spend isn't unreasonable so may head there for this week's shop - although I'm conscious that as ideally I want things like a free-range chicken it may still work out more expensive than shopping at Al's or T's without any vouchers! I did want to check whether our local branch do the Wild deodorant refills though - I've just put my last refill in and will need to go online and buy more (hurry up 20% off code!) otherwise but if they are available cheaper from Sainsbugs I will opt to get them there, instead. Grocery spend for September currently stands at a rather lovely £12 (obviously thanks to missing the first week of our budget month due to holiday!) 

I'm doing OK on the surveys so far as well - I think I'll go back to a daily round-up of where I'm at with those I'm doing in fact:
Prolific: £2.98 paid/£0.13 pending
OnePoll: 242 points
Ipsos: 321 points
(I'll add YouGov in next time I do one...that one is still feeling super-tedious though!)
Aims are still the same - prolific and OnePoll will head off to the Gym-Neutral fund, and anything I get from Ipsos will be converted to iTunes vouchers. 

leftatthetrafficlights

Glad you had a lovely time - the northern lights sound amazing! 

savingholmes

Glad you had a good time. 

You have come through a lot this year and I imagine are still grieving. It is good that you have done lots of life affirming things too. 

EssexHebridean

Morning all - *waves at LATTL & SH*

Seriously aching this morning after the gym on Tuesday - so have left the foldy bike in the car and am making today a walking day as I think that will be easier on the sore muscles than cycling would be. Of course that meant the traffic was grotty this morning so I ended up being 10 minutes late! 

Banks checked and OK - but this morning has been rather spendy as I had accommodation to get booked for a couple of things and finally got my act together and booked some of it! A rather eye-wateringly expensive Premier Inn (serves me right for leaving it late to book!) and a rather more budget-friendly independent hotel elsewhere. The Premier Inn has been paid for from our "joint fun" fund, and the other one doesn't get charged to the card until next month so will be dealt with the same way then I suspect. Still to book is the Travelodge in Birmingham for the Food Show weekend, and we need to decide what we're doing over Christmas/New Year too - we were talking about a trip to the Lakes for a few days before heading back down to some friends for New Year's Eve but need to confirm if that's definitely the plan. The possibility of something over Christmas will come from our "random fun opportunities" pot, and we'll likely just sort Birmingham out from our own personal spends I think. 

Hoping to hear from Green Energy UK inside the next week about what they are doing re our fixed tariff cost - if they are planning to drop things as much as at least one of the other "green" providers are apparently going to then it will give us a surprisingly attractive night rate for the next year - if not then it will probably mean us attempting to get a switch across to EDF as that looks like the next best option. we've taken the view that it's definitely worth sitting tight for the sake of another week or so until they tell us what the revised tariff rates will be, though. 

Not too much planned for the weekend - I'm aiming to get to the gym tomorrow morning, and will probably go over to see Mum on Saturday at some stage as MrEH is out for most of the day in between having his hair cut, a rugby match and then a rugby team mate's party in the evening. We need to get the weekly shop done at some stage - I must also write a meal plan for next week and to an extent that will dictate where we shop I think. I also want to start making a stocking-up list for various bits from the storecupboard - I took out the last tin of sweetcorn last night and we're also down to just a single bag of pasta in there so I'll be re-stocking that - it will be the first I've needed to buy since the old 29p price went up though, and we still have several packs of 20p spaghetti left too! 

Surveys are ticking over since yesterday:
Prolific: £3.11 paid/£0.00 pending
OnePoll: 312 points
Ipsos: 430 points

foxgloves

I'm achey today too, @EH, & I haven't been anywhere near a gym. My stuff muscles are from gardening, particularly all the chard/privet/buddleja wrangling I did yesterday. ...which sounds a bit pathetic!
F

savingholmes

Dare I ask if your energy credit moved across?