Travelling On

Karmacat

Karmacat said:

- French tax form, has to be done by 1st July, it's time.
done, ridiculously easy, apart from not being able to find the right format for my phone numbers, just erased it in the end 😁

- fill in government's "driving licence share" page, so the instructor can see it.
done

- draft an email to the instructor, explaining the situation and what I want.
No.  I want to write it, not speak to them, so I'll send a text later in the week.

- start the money shuffle.
done

- delay my Asda shop from this Wednesday to next Wednesday.
done

- one of my building societies is offering the 9% p.a. savings - I was accepted over the weekend, now I need to send the money.
this is the only one left, I'm a bit adminn'd out, will start to investigate.

Just the building society thing and the practicals to do.  Plus I could temporarily see three foxes this morning 🦊🦊🦊 but the very thin one has hurt his leg the scared one is frightened of him though, so who knows what happened 😮

Karmacat

Karmacat said:

- one of my building societies is offering the 9% p.a. savings - I was accepted over the weekend, now I need to send the money.
- search for a bottle of lemon juice: recipe for rhubarb chutney needs a lemon.  
- wipe down alcove walls with vinegar.  We'll see how that works out!

The above is left over from yesterday.  I have a feeling I threw out the lemon juice 🙄 that I never used, but I will check.  As well as the above:
- carry on decluttering One Drive.  I also need to find access to my Google account thats within 2GB of being full - I seem to have about three 😮
- I cooked Frugal Brownies yesterday!  Wrong tin - they were like biscuits 🙄 but now I've cleaned the halogen oven properly, I can use that, more appropriate and cheaper too.
- did a bit of weeding yesterday after I watered the container plants (jerusalem artichokes, angelica, possible horseradish and a volunteer holly I'll replant somewhere).  If I disturb the foxes, it has to be worthwhile 🤣 there were three yesterday.

First thing: do that 9% pa savings thing.

Cheery_Daff

9% savings is very impressive! 

themadvix

Three foxes?! Now you're just being greedy! (How wonderful!)

I'd take a biscuit-like brownie about now... we only have healthy things in the house and I need some sugar!

Karmacat

It's only allowable to invest quite a small amount: £50 a month.  Still worth doing, though it was really difficult to set up a new payee at my bank 🤣  I've done it now, though, and it should be arriving at the building soc soon - I'll check.

Otherwise, the lemon juice has disappeared, so I'll use recipes entitled things like "rhubarb hummus". I certainly have enough onions left over for that - I'm not looking for more ways to eat sugar, I have quite enough as it is.

Faffed about with my Asda order again, after delaying it to next week (and saw something about, your booked slot is full, it will be fulfilled by a nearby shop?  wot?).  Anyway, I used the £9.46 Asda gift card from TCB, I do think it helps these days to use it as soon as possible.

I can't make myself go into the back garden to do stuff, the foxes are kind of bounding around, quite scared, of human potential and of each other 🤣🦊  Plus of course its not the right time of day to do anything in the garden, not in June.

Which means I have to go get my kneeler and faff about with the walls in the alcove.  Yuck.  This is the reason for my prevarication.

Karmacat

themadvix said:

Three foxes?! Now you're just being greedy! (How wonderful!)

I'd take a biscuit-like brownie about now... we only have healthy things in the house and I need some sugar!

Didn't see you there, madvix 😁  Yep, very greedy.  The third one just popped his head up, and down again right away - seemed younger than the others.  Just the two again today, in amongst the overgrown salad burnet, the seedheads are a couple of feet high, and they're just shaking with fox movements 🤣🦊🦊

I hope you find something to satisfy the need for yumminess - it can get frustrating!

I did the vinegar thing on the walls, soon changed over to mould spray, which made a proper difference.  Slowly-slowly wins the day.

I confess, I'm watching an episode of Foyle's War and simultaneously downloading French documents  

Karmacat

My attention is all over the place today, trying to help some mods on a small forum I also go to, long convo with brother, shorter but intense convo with sister, eyeing the foxes wondering whether I can get out there (short answer: to the rubbish bins and the front in general, any time you like.  To the back, wait till the sun's gone a bit).  

That 9% p.a. interest bearing account from Saffron BS?  My first monthly payment arrived safely, and was promptly sent back again!  They wanted people who'd been in the society since June, and I've only been in since November, apparently.  But they let me join on Saturday, they sent me an internal message about paying in on Monday, and still never clocked.  Neither did I, I'm afraid, but I'm not being paid to sort it.  And their internal letter was so badly worded the whole first (useless) payment took me about 3 hours to sort.

So I thought I'd be fair and just tell them I wanted £10 compensation - doesn't have to be ridiculous.  The same person said they'd call me, we'll see if he does.  I checked them on Trustpilot while I was on hold: an average of 2.8 stars, which for a properly constituted building society is terrible!  

beanielou

That's just dire.

Staffordia

I'm surprised that Saffron have such a low rating. I've been a member for years, and have always found them friendly and helpful whenever I have had to contact them either by phone or face to face. 

Unfortunately with these headline grabbing rates, there's always a catch.  I've read over on the regular saver thread that these small societies computer systems seem to automatically allow something but once a person intervenes,  the account is closed if the criteria is not met. 

Karmacat

Staffordia, I agree, its very surprising that the rate on Trustpilot is so low.  And the staff member, as you say, was very polite.  He seemed to be helpful too, but he hasn't phoned back yet as he said he would, so we'll see.

I didn't know that this phenomenon particularly affected small societies - maybe that's one reason why Saffron's rating is so low

Anyway, holidays and socialising are what's on my mind!  I bought a ticket for the local county show, it opens tomorrow and it's a 10 minute bus ride from my house (I expect it to take longer in show traffic).  I'd hoped to be going with my sister, but her health issues are making booking things pretty dodgy at the moment, so we'll see.  I hope she can do it.

It's also meant I'm looking at a quick holiday on my own and I was looking at this one: Arctic Voyage to Spitsbergen, North Cape & Land of the Midnight Sun | A12310 (ambassadorcruiseline.com) for a single berth in an ocean-view cabin - I could squeeze in for £1200 plus a few add-ons, for a 17 day cruise that goes to Svalbard, home of Iorek Byrnison and the Norwegian Global Seed Bank - but I've been making a huge effort recently to get things going socially, and I'd have to cancel a lot of things to go on it including one I already postponed.

If there's still a market for this kind of thing next year, it might be worth my while to keep June free-ish so I can leap at an opportunity 🚢

Today: I *have* to water the containers, so I have to also do some weeding, to minimise fox disruption 🦊🦊  And I might just manage to pick some rhubarb and do a "rhubarb hummus" type thing, with some onions and garlic and whatnot.