Bricks Not Books

ruby_eskimo

So sorry to hear your news VH, sounds like you have a good support network which can get you both through this difficult time.

South_coast

So sorry to hear your news x

VintageHistorian

Thank you everyone for your kind words. After a week back at work, in which I got some lovely messages from my team and also got to speak to a lovely colleague who had been through something similar, I am now on annual leave. The sadness is less sharp, and tears tend to be set off by random things rather than by my brain dwelling on what-might-have-beens. 

So, on to positives. The November overpaying has been kicked off with the standard £37.70, plus a TT of £3.46, and I will keep a better eye on my account this month. I have £6 sitting in Prolific at the moment so would like to get that up to £10. 

Car went in for an MOT today and just needed a bulb replacing, which they did then and there for me. So a very modest £45 to keep the aging little thing on the road for another year. I suspect it will tick over 80k miles next year so I'll treat it to a service when it does. It was my grandfather's car and I'm very attached to it, so I'll keep investing in the care it needs to keep going, and in the mean time I can pay in to a new car fund for the future. My teeth are getting an MOT tomorrow, I hope they do as well as the car!

I've got a lot done today, including bits of tidying up. I've managed to give away two small bedside lamps using the Olio app, and an extremely large box on Facebook to someone who is moving house. I've listed some books and DVDs on Olio too so we'll see if anyone wants them, they were in a bag of things to go to a charity shop, I doubt they'll be going until the New Year now so might as well see if anyone else wants them for a lockdown distraction.

As mentioned, our holiday for next week had to be delayed. We were due to go to Centre Parcs for 5 days. We've now moved it to our wedding anniversary in late April, and along with our new dates being confirmed we've also been told we'll get a refund of £130! £30 is because the week in April is currently cheaper than the week in November we originally booked, and £100 as a thank you for moving dates rather than cancelling altogether. Once it arrives in my account I'll put it to one side and we can use it for meals out when we're there. Assuming we actually get to go in April and aren't under lockdown again!

And it's my birthday at the end of the week so I'm revisiting our last wedding anniversary, which was also in April, and putting on an afternoon tea for me and Mr VH. The Christmas shoeboxes that I'm an area collector for will be picked up on the same day, also in the afternoon. So I'm going to enjoy a day with Mr VH in which we shall get a lie-in, breakfast in bed with fresh baked croissants (I have canned dough in the fridge), gifts from my parents sent via a large online retailer, shoeboxes being collected for another year, and then an afternoon tea. What more can a girl ask for for her birthday?

Just got to get through the dentist appointment first...

ruby_eskimo

Sounds like some lovely plans for your time off - apart from the dentist, best of luck with that!  Also that's really nice of Centre Parks to give you the extra money, fingers crossed things are a little easier in April!

VintageHistorian

Total OP for November was £82.61, which I'm very happy with! Included £35 from Quidco from my car insurance.

Random updates:
- Enjoyed the rest of my week off work. Got a lovely pile of books for my birthday, I'm currently working my way through a very large one on King Edward III. It's not as engaging as I hoped it would be, but nevermind.
- Car ended up going back in the garage as a suspension coil snapped one evening as I was reversing out of my parking space! Just over £100 to replace, it had been making a noise for a while but I hadn't got round to taking it in. Even if I had mentioned it the same repair would have been needed, so I haven't really lost anything.
- Mood is a bit up and down. Last week was a very down week, lots of guilt and blame going on in my own head. Mr VH was lovely, but only really managed to settle some of it after talking to the bereavement midwife. I needed to hear it from a medical person, Mr VH has to tell me I didn't do anything wrong, he's married to me! We'll get a post-mortem report in February (bereveament midwife was very apologetic as it would normally be 6 weeks, Covid has led to a lot of delays) and then we can see if there are answers. We know there may not be though, so I need to start accepting that that's a possibility, and that sometimes having no answer can be a different kind of blessing (such as knowing that there's no hereditary condition from me or Mr VH).
- I have done some Christmas shopping, but it's very piecemeal and hit and miss. I normally like to try and get a mix of small and medium items for people, I'm now realising I should have just done one or two medium or largers ones per person so it would all be done and dusted! It doesn't help that I'm trying to not use Ama*on again this year, it was so much easier last year when I could go to Christmas markets! But I know the people I'm buying for will be happy with anything I get them, so trying not to put myself under pressure.
- I have got £12.40 sitting in Prolific, with another 60-odd pence still pending. Not sure yet if I want to cash out in December to end the month nicely, or hold it until January and kick off 2021 with a larger OP. Might see how the rest of this month fares.

I've been enjoying seeing all the Christmas lights over the past 2 weeks. It feels like more people than usual have Christmas lights up outside their houses this year, don't know if anyone else has felt that way? Mr VH is being very bah-humbug about it all as he doesn't do Christmas, but he still sorted out my Christmas tree so it would fit in the base! 

Have a good week everyone!

ruby_eskimo

Sorry to hear that you have to wait so long to possibly get some answers, but it sounds like the support of the midwives is helping.  Well done on starting the Christmas shopping, you've made me realise that I also managed to avoid the big online box company this year for presents - everything came from small businesses apart from DH's main present which is some theatre tickets booked for October next year *fingers crossed*.  Hope the rest of the books are a bit more engaging!

VintageHistorian

I hope you manage to get to the theatre for next year Ruby! You'd certainly think that October 2021 would be a safe bet! I shall cross my fingers for you.

Well, after a lot of stress about whether I would be taking Covid to my parents house if we visited them over Christmas, then booking a Covid test at work to reassure myself, my parents county was placed in Tier 4 on Saturday. My corner of Essex is technically in Tier 2, but infections are rising rapidly so I suspect Tier 4 is going to be declared here sooner rather than later. We've all been careful but ultimately it's not worth the risk, so we're no longer visiting them or staying over night. Had a little cry on Mr VH as I desperately wanted a night away from the house, just to get away from the sad memories. But it's far better than I continue to learn to cope here than go and risk giving Covid to my parents or one of my siblings.

Luckily I bought a ready to roast turkey breast joint from M&S a few months ago and stuck it in the freezer, and there's two Yorkshire puddings in there too, along with some sausages. I bought pancetta the other week (very middle class pigs in blankets for me) so all I needed was potatoes and veggies, and dessert! All the stories about people panic buying were stressing me out so I got up early yesterday morning and went to Tesco then Waitrose. Managed to get everything we needed, plus some extra store cupboard bits and some additional treat items, so we're now all set until next Monday, when I'll need to pop out briefly for some fresh bits (mainly milk, bread and some meat). 

Despite not seeing my family I still went to get my Covid test at work. Despite having an appointment there was a long queue, and then my phone died while trying to scan a barcode. I'd also forgotten to take a book so the queue was very boring. But I've tested negative, so that's a nice thing to know. 

Plan for tomorrow is to prep for Christmas lunch. Peel the spuds and leave them in water, same for the carrots, and make the pigs in blankets then keep them in the fridge over night. There's croissant dough so I can make fresh croissants for breakfast, and profiteroles for pudding. Mr VH doesn't really celebrate Christmas but he has bought me a few things that I've asked for, they're currently sitting in their Amazon packaging as I'm reluctant to ask him to wrap them for me XD His gifts from me are under the tree.

Mostly just looking forward to having over a week off work, even if it's once again stuck in the house I now work in!

Dinner tonight is fresh bolognese with spaghetti. There's absolutely no space in the freezer for the rest of the batch so it will have to be squeezed in to the fridge until I take the turkey out of the freezer to defrost!

Moneyfordreams

Sorry to read your earlier news VH. Recovery takes time, emotionally and physically. It good to read you have the little things to look forward too. Lots of gentleness to filter the sadness. 
On another note .. take the turkey from the freezer and put it in the fridge

Fortune_Smiles

Your Christmas lunch sounds lovely @VintageHistorian.  Mr F disappeared for an hour earlier and I thought he must be in the barn wrapping my presents and was taking so long because there were so many of them.   Nope.  He was creosoting fence posts.  He hasn't done any wrapping yet.

Take care and have a relaxing, restorative Christmas.

Fortune x

VintageHistorian

Happy New Year everyone!

I finished off December with a total OP of £86.94 (primarily by looking at my bank account and going "eh, I don't need to spend any more money before the 1st, might as well chuck £40 at it"). Total for 2020 was £867.15, which I'm very happy with given that I ended up mentally writing off the end of October and most of November.

We had a quiet Christmas at home. It was different, but I'd rather have a noisy one with my big family next year. At some point we'll need to meet up to exchange gifts. My parents are moving to be closer to us and are hoping to complete before 31st March, because of the stamp duty deadline, so I'm sure they'd prefer to not lug our Christmas gifts to their new house! I've got 5 days of annual leave to use up before 31st March, I've decided to reserve one to be booked when they've exchanged contracts so I can drive over and help pack things up. We've also offered our garage as a storage space, so my Dad will probably be popping over to drop things off (depending on the Tiers of course).

I have spent today doing a bit of work and a bit of leisure. I've been playing Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch, and went through the vintage postcards I've been meaning to add to my online shop and got some more of those uploaded. Did pan fried duck breast for dinner, with Tesco finest chips, and a chocolate and salted caramel pot for dessert, so the first day of the year as involved delicious food as well. 

As for plans for the year? Continue to overpay the mortgage. Continue to build up my maternity leave funds. Continue to save for a new car. Try to find ways to save a bit more in my Lifetime ISA. And build up the house moving fund! Our new neighbours on one side are rather loud, and their living room shares a wall with ours, so we can hear them frequently throughout the day. Our mortgage deal ends at the end of the year, and while I don't think we'll be ready to move by the summer, we might go for a much shorter deal (if we can get one) with the knowledge that we'll need to move before it finishes. Unless our ideal house comes up for sale in the summer, then that might all go out the window.

I've gone through the Homebase website and bookmarked some paint for the new doors, wall paint for the kitchen, and I need to sort out curtain poles as well. We've got new curtains for the front and back doors but haven't put them up yet, the back door doesn't have a curtain pole, and the one for the front door is too long. I've bought also a new blind for the kitchen from Blinds2Go this evening as they're having a sale, so that should arrive by the end of the month. The kitchen isn't going to get a full refurb as my brother reckoned it wouldn't be worth it, so to freshen it up we're going to paint one wall as a feature wall, put up the new blind, repaint the other walls that never got done when we moved in (just in white) and maybe change the door knobs on the cabinets and replace some of the moudly mastic around the sink. So once I've done the money shuffle on Monday I'll look at buying all the bits we need, then they'll be ready when we can be bothered to start work on things.

I do like New Year as a mental cut off from things. The last two and a bit months have been very hard, but I can now look back and see them as "last year". This is a new year, and while I know the old sadness will come to the surface again as it progresses, especially around what would have been my due date in April, I can at least hope that it's not a sadness that will repeat. As for Covid...who knows. I suspect we're looking at another 12 months of restrictions, but hopefully they will not need to be as strict as total lockdown, especially by the end of the year when more vaccinations have been carried out.

Happy New Year everyone, may your 2021 be a decent one, even if it can't be a good one! x