Bricks Not Books

VintageHistorian

selloptape - I must confess, I never made the potato wedges! Really should sort that out at some point and get some in the freezer XD

Lots of stuff has been dropped over the past two weeks due to some really hideous journeys home. Had to stay at work late for an event on a Monday, which was fine, but then had to be in the office for a second event on the Friday of the same week and Fridays are a nightmare for journeys, it took me over 3 hours to get home that night Then last week I had two more bad journeys where I didn't get home until after 7 (I leave work at 5), so it's been quite exhausting and I really haven't been in the best of moods.

But I did get to work from home yesterday and the small lie-in I got helped me feel a bit brighter. DH had yesterday off work as the trains were !!!!!!ed due to a landslip along our line, so he came out with me to do the food shopping. We managed to get it roughly within budget, which was positive, but he does have a tendency to dawdle, get in my way, or just not listen when we're going around the supermarket (several times I asked him to just wait at the top of the aisle rather than negotiate around multiple trolleys but he decided to follow me anyway, and then got stuck by other people's trolleys). But it was very nice to have someone help with the heavy lifting.

Task for this weekend is to work on a job application for a role that's within walking distance of the house :rotfl: I've applied for jobs with the same place in the past but they've made some changes to their online portal and it looks like they've removed all old accounts as part of it, so I have to input all my old job data again :mad: It's so time consuming and dull, but obviously essential that I do it right so I need to find the energy to focus on it for a few hours. And then write the personal statement of course.

Had a bit of an annoyance with one of my savings accounts. The £100 I was putting in to a fixed-rate ISA was bouncing. Turns out I didn't read the fine-print properly, you can only put money in during the first 30 days So it's got £200 sitting in it and I can't add anything else. Frustrating but at least it's only a few weeks until the new tax year, so I'll set up a standard ISA in April and start paying the money in to that instead, and just transfer out the £200 when the fixed-rate comes to an end. It was only a 1 year offer. Just annoying that I didn't understand what I was doing at the time.

I have a list of things I'm supposed to do in March but how much will get done is another matter entirely after the recent journeys. At the very least I need to buy some essential house bits off Argos so I'll try to remember to do that this weekend.

Little bit of snow falling here but not enough to disrupt traffic. Going to have a bacon sandwich as a late breakfast/early lunch soon. Dinner tonight is chicken and parma ham pasta, one of my favourites.

No OP news as I'm still waiting on my expenses to be paid. Also need to file a claim for delayed trains when me and DH went in to London last month, must get that done soon as you can only claim within 30 days and that's rushing ever closer!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

savingwannabe

Good luck with the job application. It will be fab time-wise if you get it. The ISA pay in details on the account were a bit strange. Hopefully next year's will be better.

VintageHistorian

Thanks SW, application submitted this afternoon so just a case of sitting and waiting now.

Checked my bank account last night and my expenses was pending for Monday! Haven't had the email from work to say it's on the way, but it was sitting there, so scheduled an OP of £30.56 - expenses were £28.35 and I did a TT of £2.21. So that's £60 done for this month, might try another TT before the end of the month if I manage some NSDs.

VintageHistorian

Last week was a bit better for car journeys, only one iffy one that got me home a few minutes after 7. Was hoping to work from home this Thursday as the state schools all finish that afternoon and the traffic is going to be Hell, but we have too many people in the office on annual leave that day Have lined up a very easy dinner of chicken goujon baguettes and DH is aware that I might be in a bad mood that evening.

Finally put my backside in gear last night and did two Delay Repay claims for my train journey to and from London back in February when it snowed. The return journey refund paid out within 10 minutes of the claim, which was nice, but the journey out hasn't. I don't think I filled that part in correctly, our train was cancelled at Colchester so we had to get off and wait on the platform. After about 15 minutes they announced that the next train to London was at a different platform, so we hurried on to it, and when we got to London they apologised for the 30 minute delay, but although I know what time the train left Colchester I can't find any information about it on Recent Train Times, just a blank space which indicates that it was cancelled too. So I submitted my claim on the basis that our first train was cancelled, which it was, but they may not accept that as I can't tell them how I managed to get to London after.

Anyway, I've got £16.60 from my return ticket (had to buy two singles as we weren't sure what time we'd return home and didn't want to pay for peak time when not using it, or pay for off peak and risk having to stand in a queue to upgrade it) which came straight to my Paypal account. I've used it to restock some sold out badges on my website.

Plus now that I can see how it works I think I'll start encouraging DH to claim when his trains are delayed or cancelled. His choice if he wants to get a voucher for the refund or put it through my Paypal account (he doesn't have one as he doesn't like having his bank details stored online). If it goes through my Paypal then I can withdraw the money and use it to OP the mortgage, if he gets a voucher it'll go towards his next month's season ticket. But it seems like it will be easy to do once we get in a habit of photographing his season ticket, and Greater Anglia are rubbish so I'd rather we start claiming back his money than let them keep it.

This week I need to phone Disney and upgrade our visit to include mealplans as I've worked out that they'll be cheaper than showing up and paying on the door. We've also discovered that our trip will be coinciding with then the Parisian schools are on their Easter holiday, so it won't be as quiet as we hoped But as my Mum has pointed out, we won't be going with children of our own so if the queue lengths are too long we can sit down somewhere with a book and a hot drink and just enjoy the atmosphere, or go back to the hotel for a nap and go back out in the evening with more energy. Plus we can get in to the park early as we're staying in a Disney hotel, so that will help things a bit first thing.

Getting quite excited about it all now. Need to start thinking about what to pack, will borrow a suitcase off my parents again. Also need to sort out buying the Euros, but want to sit down and calculate a daily budget first. With breakfast and dinner paid for in advance it'll be lunches, snacks, and a bit of shopping if anything catches my eye. So not too much, but it's so easy to overspend so I want to make sure I have a decent but not excessive budget. Also need to see if I have any Euros left over from our Rome trip a few years ago, or if my parents have any that they want to sell us.

Job I applied for last week closes today so now I have to hope that I get an interview. Applied for another one in Suffolk during the week. That didn't have a closing date but I've noticed it's no longer showing on their vacancies page so I assume that's now closed too. I'd like an interview for at least one of them, if only to help my ego :rotfl:

DH is now cleaning the house. I've already made our lunches for tomorrow. Dinner tonight is my absolute favourite - toad in the hole! I would have made the batter already as well but there's no room in the fridge for it.

Need to try and remember to do a TT by Wednesday, think I can find an extra £5 to shove at the mortgage. Have a lovely week everyone!

savingwannabe

Hello Bootiful, well done on claiming for train tickets. Gosh that's good research on Disney. Every penny helps.

I do hope you get the job and can save on the travel times. The weekend has been lovely down south. I hope you managed to pop out for a bit. Yum to toad in the hole. I'm having spag bol.

Have a great week and stay happy. You are doing great. :j:beer:

VintageHistorian

Greater Anglia came back to me about my claim for the journey to London, saying they won't process my claim until I submit a photo showing the ticket has been defaced or torn. I don't have the ticket, because it was a single and the machine swallowed it, so that'll be rejected :mad:

On the other hand I spoke to DH about reclaiming journeys for his season ticket. We've agreed that I'll file any claims, they'll go to my Paypal and then I'll transfer the money to my account to OP it. They've now paid out for DH's return journey from the museum and sent £7.60, so I've paid that tonight with a final TT of £2.87!

That means that March's total OPs were; £71.03 :T

Next month will be a very big OP with very little effort - I need to claim £30 from work, and I've got £30 pending on Quidco that I can cashout next week, so with our standard OP we're looking at £90 next month! That will give me a bit more leeway to focus on the holiday savings and bump up the car savings, I've realised it needs the 60k miles service and that includes getting the cambelt changed, which will be around £300 :eek: Don't have that much in the car savings at the moment so I'd better get that money sorted.

Had a lovely charity shop find the other day. A bright red Monsoon dress in red cotton, with a lined skirt. Was £7 and it looks fabulous when tried on. I was trying to find another new dress to wear around Disney all our holiday photos feature me wearing the same outfits, and I really wanted a nice red one as it's DH's favourite colour, so I'm very chuffed to have got one for under £10!

So focus next month on getting my holiday spending money together. Along with using some of the savings I've already set aside, I also want to try and conserve as much of my normal spending money this month to bump it up a bit. I shouldn't need to spend too much, I've deliberately kept planned house item purchases quite small for April and now I've got my charity dress I don't need to look out for any other bits of clothing, in charity shops or any other shops! I've also got plenty of books on the bookcase to be getting on with so I don't need to look for those either.

We'll see how that goes :rotfl:

VintageHistorian

Me and DH both agreed that if it wasn't a four day bank holiday this weekend then we might both have to book a random day off, especially DH as he was meant to be doing a 6 day week this week but luckily bank holiday weekend means his place his closed on the Saturday. He could barely get off the sofa yesterday evening, I could barely get out of bed to brush my teeth.

We've both just had a very busy few months, DH getting used to his new job and me being very busy at work and having a series of terrible commutes. Both looking forward to our week off in a few weeks time.

I phoned Disney and sorted out our meal plans, the cost has gone up a bit as they've released their new season pricing :mad: But still cheaper than paying on the door, and DH will certainly eat enough to get his money's worth. I've also booked us a table at Plaza Gardens for each night of our stay as it seems to be the best rated buffet restaurant in the park, and then we can sort out lunches and snacks as we walk around.

I've started off a relaxing morning with a cheese scone, several cups of tea, and reading a magazine. DH is still asleep. Once he's up and dressed we're going to go to a local gardens place. We got a voucher for BOGOF on entry tickets in a Christmas card from the tree surgeon company that cut back our field maple. It expires on 10 April so we're going to use it today. Then we'll go and do the food shopping, must remember to not get frustrated with DH when he wanders around :A

My failure to do any proper exercise other than walking in the past few months is starting to annoy me, so I looked up a beginners yoga video on Youtube. Managed to get halfway through it before I gave up because the woman's way of describing things was annoying me. "Place your heart over your centre" Do you mean 'sit up straight'?? "You should be able to feel an energy moment" Do you mean I can feel my leg muscle stretch? Maybe I'm just too sarcastic for proper yoga I tried searching for some UK-based videos as I think some of it might be me hearing an American accent tell me to "find my centre", just reminds me of all those terrible evangelical channels you get on Sky. Maybe a good solid Yorkshire accent telling me to not stick my !!!! out will help :rotfl: Or a London accent going "Keep your bloody elbows tucked in at the side!" Perhaps I should encourage someone to start a Youtube channel called "Straightforward Yoga" or "Yoga without the BS language". Except for most people the calm tone and flowery language is all part of the experience.

Right, time to go make another cup of tea. Friday night is ready meal night so a nice easy dinner! :T Have a lovely first Bank Holiday day everyone!

VintageHistorian

Yesterday's garden walk probably should have been postponed to next weekend after all. It was very muddy underfoot, bits of it were roped off due to being waterlogged, and it rained the entire time, although not heavily enough for DH to need to put up his brolly.

But we did agree that it was a nice place to stroll around so we'll go back in the summer when it's dry and in bloom, there were lots of different types of narcissi, and some very pretty blue-purple star-shaped flowers as well, with a scattering of snowdrops around the place too. Lunch in the cafe was also very nice, cheese scone and a slice of cake for me and a sandwich and slice of bread pudding for DH. Lovely DH also offered to pay for lunch so all I paid for was the reduced entry fee.

Food shopping was then done afterwards, including a load of chocolate to give to my brother as it was his birthday on Thursday. Then home to pack away the food and have a lazy evening watching Youtube.

Today I need to write a blog post on Juana of Castile. It needs to go up in May so I really must get it done soon. Started it a few weeks ago but ground to a halt as I don't understand medieval Castilian politics well enough to sum it up in a few lines But it really needs to be done so I'll try and find some brain focus this afternoon. Also need to batch cook bolognese for the freezer, and I should go for a walk but there's enormous grey clouds sitting over us as I type so I suspect today will be much like tomorrow - endless rain.

Have a lovely Saturday everyone!

VintageHistorian

Yesterday felt like a Saturday and today felt like a Sunday, which is why I have the small knot of tension in my stomach. My brain is thinking "I have to start the long commute again tomorrow", when it's actually got two more days.

Just a reminder that I need to apply for a few more jobs I guess!

Laundry is done. Bolognese is cooked, batched up and popped in the freezer (made 6 portions in the end). Gave up on Juana of Castile and swapped her out for Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. I'm doing a blog series on "Unlucky Princesses" and thankfully there were quite a lot of them to choose from! That said I'm struggling to now get my head around 17th century Danish politics, so we'll see how this progresses. The anticipated rain came in dribs and drabs all afternoon so I've stayed in.

DH has cleaned the house and we've had southern fried chicken, with curly fries and corn on the cob for dinner. Easter eggs are in the fridge ready for tomorrow, when I'm sure I shall be informed that I'm not allowed chocolate for breakfast.

Happy Easter everyone!

savingwannabe

Happy Easter. Well done on doing laundry. Your blog sounds fascinating. One of my best friends writes history books - hard work but great to research. That's her full time job so I don't know how you have time to do that after work. Gosh you do work hard.

I ate my egg within Steve and Andy giving it to me. The worst bit is I'm supposed to be on a diet. lol.

Happy Easter and enjoy the lie in tomorrow.