Cherry takes the reins

NoOneAround

Hi Cherryfudge,
Just a a quick catch up , you have been so busy! Sounds like you have an amazing holiday ahead and i hope you have a fabulous time!I wish I was as determined with the excercise/and weight loss, I have not been able to persevere

Lovely that you were able to honour your mum's wishes with scattering her ashes. and Lovely that you planted something beautiful that will grow. We plant roses too, always a beautiful reminder, I can't see one without thinking of my Dad.

NOA
x

Cherryfudge

Thanks NOA.

So: work this morning, gave myself 25 minuets to chill afterwards which turned into about an hour, then went into town for the last few 'bits' - all sorted now apart from the Post Office collections office being shut so if there's time tomorrow one of us will pop in to see if by a remote chance my missing 3bay parcel is there. Failing that I must remember to contact the vendor and say no luck.

I've cleaned the fish tank and DH has taken the guinea pigs to their holiday. I'm a bit sad as the more extrovert one is aging a lot... not sure if we'll see him again though our friends who are in charge are well able to take the best care of them both.

I still have a last-minute list, which now includes 2 items for DD and 3 for DS2, who seems to have landed in one piece and as far as I know been met by those already there. No messages of panic, anyway, just some fairly cheerful stuff.

Amazingly...! The missing health card, for which I turfed out the desk a few weeks ago, turned up on my dressing table. Serves me right for dumping other junk on there. DS2's card is missing but there's nothing I can do about that right now.

Spends:
Housekeeping £2.40
Gift £3.50
Toiletries £8.13
Padlock £5.50
SD card £14.99
MS stuff:
Wombled 18p.
Used up a pizza and some spinach from the fridge for tea.
Sent the guinea pigs on holiday with celery, carrots and cucumber as well as their hay and dry food.
Finished up a cheese spread and the last of the eggs for lunch.

So tomorrow's the big day - first of two! Long term importance is DS1's UK wedding!

This is the legal bit but they are counting their Mediterranean wedding as the 'real thing' - and that's what we're all going to celebrate. For various reasons including having a far-flung family, they will only have two witnesses tomorrow - meanwhile people are gathering from an assortment of places - different countries and continents - to share the day with them on Tuesday.

Well, I didn't get much sleep last night and I still have things to do in the morning before we leave after lunch for a hotel then fly on Saturday. Hoping the kids will have got ahead of me and done a decent supermarket shop before meeting us at the airport. There are definite advantages to having grown offspring!

So it's bedtime. Now, Well, when I've done a couple more bits of things... night night.

Tomorrow we're on our way - I made sure we will get wifi where we're staying so I may get the chance to update

Honeysucklelou2

How exciting! Have a wonderful time!

Cherryfudge

Hello everyone - I'm back!

Superb holiday and wedding, stayed in budget as regards holiday spends but I don't have a blow-by-blow account (can't do exchange rates very well). I did get a couple of downloads of ebooks and bought small gifts and souvenirs but all euro spends are just going in the general 'holiday' column on my spreadsheet.

Downloads: £4.07 and I think £1.99.

Came back and spent £30ish on basic foods - my lovely semi-sane fridge space (discovered there is a back to the fridge!) is going to fill up again at this rate. I'm obviously a bit doo-lally as I forgot my purse so DH paid (out of the same budget but I will have to keep the receipt and claim loyalty points as soon as I can), then when I got home I'd forgotten a thank you gift for someone so I went back to the shops and found a lovely orchid for her.

Having said what a fantastic time we had, there was a near-crisis as one of the pets had to have an emergency trip to the vet on the morning we left. Thankfully that was resolved quickly and only cost us a fiver. Then sadly we got a text midweek to say one of our older animals was suffering. We had known this one was slowing but things seem to have turned a corner so sadly he has gone to green fields and dandelions in the sky. I know that was the only thing to do but it's still sad. It's also not the first time something like this has happened when we were on holiday: kind of makes me wary of going!

Well, I'm telling everything in the wrong order: the wedding was truly wonderful and our accommodation was lovely. We relaxed a lot and met up with various other guests for very chilled get-togethers, agreed some of us want to meet up in a similar way (maybe somewhere cheaper!) in a couple of years, and generally had the time of our lives.

I suppose I ought to do some number crunching at some point soon as I see I still have incomplete data for June in my signature. Not tonight, though, and not tomorrow. Oh, and I have at least a hundred posts to read off other people's threads!

charlies_tribe

Glad you've had a great time.
Sorry to hear about your pet x

Cherryfudge

I managed an NSD today but only just as I'm being lured off the straight and narrow by a travel kettle. It can wait till tomorrow.

Nothing financial achieved today unless you count the not-spending.

parsniphead

Welcome back cherryfudge. Im glad you had a nice. Holiday and wedding.

Sad news about the pet.:grouphug: Dodgy hug for you.

Cherryfudge

Still on my days off and will be till the end of the week, though I'm planning Wednesday to Friday as a trip to work on Mum's house.

Today I began the great catch-up on diaries, finished my holiday novel and did a couple of loads of laundry. It's lovely and hot so I'm not feeling the end of the holiday too abruptly. I did, however, go to the vet's to pay their bill then back at home made a little grave for the beastie and planted some flowers over him. Oh, and over a couple of baby birds that never got to fledging stage. I think the sparrowhawk got them.

I ordered my travel kettle - they are on clearance at 4rgos for £7.99 with lots of good reviews so I didn't take a lot of persuading. I meant to pick it up later today but spent ages getting my phone looked at so ran out of time. At least the phone seems to be working a bit better. Then I did various bits of shopping at the cheap place at the far end of town and the local supermarket, and got a can of pop to stave off dehydration. I also took the receipt from the other day for 29 loyalty points and a couple of random receipts for another 9p's worth.

Although it's too hot for jeans, I can see I'm going to struggle without a decent full-length blue pair, but I'm still losing weight and don't fit into the ones stashed in the loft, so I had a search of a few charity shops and found a nice pair for a fiver. Problem solved.

Spends:
Pets (vet bill) £19.80
Jeans £5.00
Travel kettle (holidays budget) £7.99
Stuff for Mum's house (to reclaim from estate) £2.00
Plant £0.10
Housekeeping £15.28
MS stuff:
Got the loyalty points back for last weekend's 'big' shop.
Wombled 9p
Didn't get anymore suncream (because I couldn't find what I wanted, but I'm only postponing that one).
4stonish laundry liquid for £1.99, and on previous experience it does the job as well as more expensive brands.
Bought a mint plant for all of 10p as it was getting very neglected at the shop.
N3xt jeans for £5 has to be good. (Me fitting into them is even better! :rotfl:)
Phone fix was free.
Confession time:
I could live without a travel kettle but it will make life easier on hols and might even be money saving as I'll trial it at home and will only be able to boil a couple of cups' worth at once!
I would have saved 69p if I'd organised myself to bring water with me.

parsniphead

Youve had a busy day. Thats a big list.£5 for next jeans is a bargain.

Cherryfudge

Today is mostly about DH's Dad's birthday - tea at ours for 7 or 8 this evening so I have Shepherd's Pie (his request) and cake to make.

DH and I went to chose his new glasses this morning - he found the 'right' pair within minutes. It always takes me ages and I generally regret my choice later. He pays for this so it won't appear in my costs.

DD came round to put a load in the washer (they don't have one) and went for a run: much more organised than I am: I got to lunch time and realised that the temperature is 24 degrees and a run wouldn't be a good idea. I'm hoping to start the 10K training app and am getting quite excited but heat / not enough fluids this morning / run out of sun cream is not a good start so I'm hoping for an hour free this evening.

I have collected my travel kettle and am enjoying the new toy. Small things...

There was another trip to the supermarket for ingredients: about £15 which isn't too bad to feed all of us on a birthday, but sure makes a dent in the food budget. I did get rhubarb at a reduced rate so I've cooked that and will freeze it for a crumble one Sunday. I also got lentils for a veggie Shepherd's Pie as two of us don't want lamb. The lentils will last me ages.

Other than that, I have a piano lesson later (£10) and so I shouldn't be sitting here typing. I think next part of the plan is to peel the potatoes, check for other ingredients (this morning's shop was from memory) generally get my act together.