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Travelling On
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Hi teapot, thanks for this
glad you're doing okay (at least, I hope you'd post on your own thread too if you weren't ... dear me, that's a bit confusing. Okay, happy to see you!)
Anyway ... found most of the French documents I needed after my last post yesterday, but also realised I needed to repeat the whole thing of VAT reclaiming, which I did last year for, I think, the first time. So:
- compose VAT letter in French, copying from last year.
- start sending over the documents, though to be honest I'm not sure about this, before I have that VAT figure.
- prepare for my sister to come here on Thursday and help me with the final stages of the bookcase: protect the floor (with offcuts of ceramic floor tiles) reinforce the bit of the shelf that's left with little internal angle thingies that can be used for most mdf products.
- get the recycling out, tidy.
- clean the shopping that's still in the porch.
- a few emails would be a good idea, particularly to Norfolk rellies.
- get the sun on my face!2023: the year I get to buy a car5 -
Finally, finally, finally, I've written the French email to request VAT figures - I have fluent help available, but to call on that, I do need to feel I've *tried* to do it myself. And I have, and I sent it, lack of accents and all
I took several long breaks to do itso now I'm going to actually get up from my chair and see to the recycling. And, y'know, walk up and down
2023: the year I get to buy a car4 -
LOL - KC, I'm pretty sure that if fluent help were available I'd make use of it 😉4 YEARS 10 MONTHS DEBT FREE!!! (24 OCT 2016)(With heartfelt thanks to those who have gone before us & their indubitable generosity.)...and now I have a mortgage! (23 AUG 2021)New projection - 14 YEARS 10 MONTHS LEFT OF 20 YEARS (reduced by 15 mths)Psst...I may have started a diary!4
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😊 I'm scared of losing my remaining French, to be honest. I've been on holiday with a fluent French speaker in France, and I stopped speaking French altogether - that's down to me, of course, but my psychology is still the same, sadly 😊
Anyway, they've written back already, attaching the documents and, ahem, reminding me that if I logged in to my account on their website, I could have downloaded them from there.
Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy 😊
I've done very little else today, just everyday domestic stuff. My info from Scottish Power is finally here, they reckon my dual fuel bill will be up by a total of £412. So my new bills might be up to a new total of £1,444. I'll definitely be working at new ways to keep the costs down.2023: the year I get to buy a car4 -
I understand the EU are going to run a campaign to suggest everyone turn their thermostat down by 1 degree. It would have a huge impact on energy requirements next winter.
Here I feel if only new industrial buildings were required to have mono-tilt roofs facing the sun with PV roofs our requirements would drop. Far better than this silly use of arable land for solar farms!Save £12k in 2025 #2 I am at £4863.32 out of £6000 after May (81.05%)
OS Grocery Challenge in 2025 I am at £1286.68/£3000 or 42.89% of my annual spend so far
I also Reverse Meal Plan on that thread and grow much of our own premium price fruit and veg, joining in on the Grow your own thread
My new diary is here7 -
Couldn’t agree more SL about new builds! I think there’s already an informal attempt to get people to turn their thermostats down for Ukraine. But ours only heats to 17 (unless we’re really chilled through) and so I think we’re already doing our bit! (If we weren’t ill and with extra Covid ventilation, it would have already gone off probably.)Mortgage free 16/06/2023! £132,500 cleared in 11 years, 3 months and 7 days
'Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.' Ernest Hemingway6 -
They could put solar panels down the sides of motorways & still let everything grow behind them providing for wildlife. Round here there are some stretches of motorway that have nothiing for miles so they could even put wind turbines. The area is already spoilt by the motorway but I bet a load would object - just because!
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We're doing our bit by turning the central heating off (we had tp, the boiler was condemned!).5
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I like the idea of mono-tilt roofs with solar panels (not even heard the phrase before, though of course I recognise the phenomenon now I've learned the word
). Also solar panels on lots of the motorway - and there are roof tiles which are also solar panels, so the whole roof could be covered! There's so much more that could be done. Like madvix, I keep my thermostat down low - I just heat downstairs, and I put it on for an hour a day, 3 times a day, maybe another hour in the evening, to go up to 19 degrees. I switch it off as soon as my feet are warm (freezing now!).
It's next winter we need to be preparing for - this one, we're almost through the worst of it. I saw a suggestion of using wall hangings on outside walls! I doubt they'd make any difference on cavity walls, but my porch is single layer, I might actually do something there! I could use the coathooks to hang something up!
Anyway, I've done my healthy walk, the official backstop is back from having covid (and she does this faux-empathy thing of reaching out and touching my sleeve or my back, and I just want to say, get off me!). Sigh ...
Right now, dishwasher is on, and I'm preparing for sister's visit tomorrow to do as much of my bookcase as possible (electric drill ready, nails ready, masks against the dust not covid, that sort of thing). Very excited to reclaim my living room/kitchen/spare bedroom/office from all the books2023: the year I get to buy a car6 -
I use my porch as a sort of pantry with a heavy curtain on the porch side of the door, it seems to stop quite a lot of the heat going out there. As the porch is about 6 foot I use a shower curtain rail which works perfectly, as I do at the back door to stop the gale blowing through the letter box. They don't need screws or drills & are a lot cheaper than fixed ones & definitely a DIY job. I've just realised that my bathroom curtain is the same. It used to be a shower curtain as that was where the shower was, but since I moved the shower it is actually a curtain, even my sister (not the least critical person on the planet) said that it looked good. Oh dear I am a shower rail junky!
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