Travelling On

Karmacat

**waves hello after the weekend off**

I took the weekend "off" in a way - local walks, I met a neighbour and a walker from the Healthy Walks group (which tired me out completely, but was still fun).  In the house, I did a different job from what I normally do, to mark the change - I scrubbed the vinyl in the living room!  Only for 10 minutes at a time, my knees and my hands won't take any more than that.  It needs doing, desperately, and Cheery has inspired me by laying her carpet, and seeing how large the increase was in the temperature.  So, the jobs to be done for this are:
- clean everything.  It's now 11 years old, and some dirt is ingrained  but I can get it much cleaner than it is.
- 100% wool rug already in there, it used to have a big extra piece of vinyl underneath it as an early attempt at insulation, moved when I did the whole move-the-bookcase-into-the-alcove thing going on.  Reposition rug.
- find the kilim that used to hang on the wall of my therapy room in my previous house.  I'll need to buy corner supports - the corners curl, and I can't be having that.
- 100% wool underlay - mostly for the kilim, but I'm going to see if there's any very shallow underlay for the rug.  
- from the other job list - fill in the remaining holes between the skirting board and the wall, that must surely make a difference heat-wise.

Financial jobs:
- I'm now free to send the exploratory E20 from France to my currency account.
- verify my ID with the currency account people.
- check with management agency in France, they've confused me by sending me an invoice and writing on it "vous n'avez rien a regler", which as far as I can tell means a variation of "you don't have anything to pay".  Bit confusing when its printed on an invoice!
- finish off the money shuffle for my ordinary UK current account.
- maybe tomorrow: check on ISAs, check whether I have to use the one I've opened but not funded, which is a low rate now, and get going on finding a fair home for that money.

The garden is also threatening me from the background 🌼 still horrendously overgrown - I did a bit yesterday, but that was mostly freeing the drainpipe I share with a neighbour from their encroaching ivy 😠

Karmacat

Today's update:
- managed to contact bruv, he might be able to come down here to see us after all.
- I cleaned another big section of vinyl in the living room.  Did I mention I hate cleaning 🤣
- the experimental E20 arrived at the currency firm, so I hotfooted it over to the French bank, and sent £2,000 - and promptly shot myself in the foot.  I forgot to put my account reference on the transfer 👀 heaven only knows what they'll do.
- went a walk - lovely!  Ducks, cats and foxes (separately) sunbathing.
- emailed the French management agency - nope, they don't want me to pay the money they've invoiced to me.  I might wonder why they bothered to invoice me, but I'm sure that it would be in language too complex for me to understand.  Not worth the hassle.  I have it in writing that they don't want me to pay it, that's good enough.
- I kind of cooked!  Sweet potato baked in the microwave!  Stuff added to it that *wasn't* cooking, but I cooked a fresh sweet potato, so I hereby declare myself Queen of the World  

Karmacat

Morning!  Went a walk yesterday with my sister, finally - we limped around our usual quite slowly, we've been ruminating a few days in a caravan but decided against it - neither of us are really well enough to justify spending £90 a night plus assorted doodads.

Did absolutely nothing else as a consequence yesterday - and I don't dare do very much today, although there is a bit of genealogy going on.  I ordered a certificate from 1868, having a bit of fun with sorting out what my 3 x great grandfather's children did.  

Today: hmmm.
- delay phone chats with people I've emailed, I don't feel up to phone chatting.
- dishwasher
- might try to send the E2020 from the currency firm to my English bank account, that knocks a couple of birds off their perches, temporarily.
- fresh food, bought for roasting in the oven, should really be chucked in the slow cooker.
- it would be nice to do a bit more cleaning, but that's what's made me feel a bit ill, doing too much physically.  We'll see.

Oh!  Won £1 on the Happy Wheel, finally, and had a good day, transformed into £1.30 added to bank balance!  And there's a YG survey sitting in my inbox, I can do that.

themadvix

£90/night for a caravan hol? It had better be gold-plated, unless I’ve misunderstood? Ours was £64 for 4 nights - there must be similar near you. I guess it depends on what you want to do when you get there though as to how worth it it is if you don’t feel well. I’d happily take just sitting doing nothing with a change of scene at the moment! (And yes, I know I’ve just come back from that! 😂)

Karmacat

   nope, I'm afraid you haven't misunderstood - for a two-bath caravan, only an hour or so away and right by a beach, I *think* it's pretty normal, unless we stacked offers the way you do maybe, but neither of us have the oomph to do that, its a long time since I have.   Oh dear!  We just go through AirBNB - now I've rejoined tcb, I wonder if they're on there?  Oops.  I'll check how you did your stacking, madvix, I remember you describing it.

🤣 Anyway, HW done, YG done (110 points!  V Good!).  Dishwasher nearly finished.

So I thought I'd try to bring that money back to the UK.  Cue much amusement on my part: the currency firm *also* uses OTP, of course, so I need them to have my mobile number, and they want a selfie of me holding my ID.  But it's not working - did you know that print, on a selfie photo, is back to front? 🤣  I switched it the right way round, and it was still rejected.  

I'm going to have to take a lot of photos with my camera to get a decent one, with more pixels - to be fair, the print on what I've submitted so far, as well as being back to front at first 🤣 was pretty fuzzy.  I'm hoping more pixels might help 🤣 although they won't help me - bleep, I look so *old*!

themadvix

No stacking required (that was the printer), but only one bathroom, so that’s probably the issue (and bunks in the second bedroom), but you could get two caravans! Don’t know if they’d be together though… 🧐 I see the issue.

Oh and a selfie with print the right way round… tricky. Does your camera have a timer?

Karmacat

Thanks!  We *could* use one bathroom, we did on the cruise, of course, but we're both used to having our own, and it's just Niiiice.  We take it in turns to have the 2nd bedroom, but I can't have one of these 2' 6" beds any more - I'm a restless sleeper, and it wakes me up, having to be careful turning and also not throwing my duvet on the floor 😛  Wouldn't mind bunk beds, actually 😁 The caravan we would have gone to made a point of saying the beds in the 2nd bedroom are 3' wide.  Result 🌼 but we're not doing it now for other reasons - eg on the little walk yesterday, my poor sister was getting head rushes just from walking on the level and talking to me at the same time  

Photos: timer on both the phone and the camera.  I used a mini tripod on the camera, and its fine - the print has also come out the right way round - it's not a selfie setting, but I can edit the width once I put it onto the computer.  I think it's also something about holding the ID in the right place - I'd been holding it to the side, and I think it might be better directly underneath my face.  

Absolutely *not* doing the slow cooker today - I'm unloading the dehydrator for the final time this year, and also backing up the laptop, its started to freeze and play funny.  I've done a fair bit of genealogy writing that I wouldn't like to lose, so I'm backing up now.

themadvix

Your poor sister doesn't sound too good - has she seen her GP about it since she's 'recovered'?

Glad you got the photo sorted. Progress is progress.

Karmacat

themadvix said:

Your poor sister doesn't sound too good - has she seen her GP about it since she's 'recovered'?
Thanks for this, much appreciated.  She's had two hospital appointments that the GP referred her to, and she's got follow ups over the next month.  Step by step.

Glad you got the photo sorted. Progress is progress.

Thanks!  Yep, I uploaded it, it was approved, and I've sent the money, woo hoo.  I don't know what the first exchange rate was, from this morning, but I lost a couple of pounds with the delay between the two afternoon attempts.  On £2k, I'll take that and the whole transfer actually cost ten euros, which I consider very reasonable.

I might go out into the garden a bit, just a little, unless I'd disturb my fox 🦊⭐ I need a bit of fresh air - and I need to celebrate sending the money!

themadvix

That's even better progress then! Enjoy the garden - the sun is out here, hope it is with you too.