Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Nope, wrong national park!

One or the other of my goals would do SC, I don't need both!

Goodness I have had the most STUPID day today! started when I opened the laptop to several panicked emails asking for a link to my 10am lecture. Er, what lecture??   went downhill from there really

I won't bore you with the work details, but outside of work it seems the doctors did in fact 'misplace' my prescription last week, and the specialist garage can't find anything wrong with my car woe betide them if the engine goes on the way home!!

It's just been one of those days with fiasco after fiasco, and I confess I wasn't remotely seeing the funny side til my sister rang at 9 having had a similarly ridiculous day and we did manage to end up laughing eventually.

Nothing MSE to report though...

themadvix

Oh Cheery, a less than cheery day by the sounds of it. I hope today goes better and car is indeed magically fixed.

I thought it would be the wrong National park - what’s the book you’re getting? Maybe it can go on my Christmas list too! (I have a thing for Herdwick sheep, hence the knowledge of James Rebanks’s new book)

rtandon27

Boo - how vexing yesterday was!

Fingers crossed today is much more uplifting and cheery!

Baileys_Babe

Last Wednesday was similarly wrong for me. It was if I was lost in wood and every now and then I would spot a breadcrumb but I could never find the trail.

Vexing, we don't hear or use that would enough @rtandon27 thank you for brightening my day with your use of it

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all xx I often use the word vexing and I agree it's an excellent word! 

Vix, the book is this one
https://shop.peakdistrict.gov.uk/products/the-land-that-made-us-the-peak-district-farmer-s-story
and if you're interested, the podcast I listened to was this
https://festivalofthemind.sheffield.ac.uk/2020/spiegeltent/the-land-that-made-us-christine-gregory/
All kinds of interesting podcasts as part of that festival! 

Today has been more cheerful, although not exactly productive. I did manage to retrieve my prescription, my new laptop, and my old car, so I'm counting that as a success!!  

Car isn't fixed - garage reckons they can't see anything wrong with it now (although it was showing a fault light before) - and it was fine on the way home, so maybe it just needed a rest?? Can't imagine this is the last I've heard of it. Certainly won't be taking it back to that garage though - the bloke was quite grumpy at me for paying by card rather than cash and made a massive deal out of entering the details into the computer He also told me that my car was old, and said 'you want to take that the scrappy'. What, when it passed an MOT last week and you've literally just told me you can't find anything wrong with it? Don't think so mate, give me my damn keys back and f*ck off
 
Anyway, in more cheerful news, I had an unexpectedly EXCELLENT lunch Met a friend outside a new-to-me cafe, and I was quite early so I ordered before she got there. The menu was mainly burgers and pancakes but I spotted something called 'egg and hash' - it was under the 'pancakes' menu but ALL of the other things said 'pancakes' in the description, whereas this just said eggs, home made hash brown and avocado.

Anyway, it turned up, and it was actually THREE american style pancakes with a big round home made hash brown on top, and egg and avocado on top of that, AND a little pot of maple syrup!! Not exactly the wholesome healthy lunch I was imagining, but I ate one pancake with the egg etc and had the maple syrup over the other two and it was BRILLIANT. Not super cheap - I paid £10.50 for that and three pots of tea (! - they were tiny and I was there for an hour and a half!) but an unexpected treat and I'll remember it fondly for a long time!  

Didn't get home til 5, then ended up working til 7 as I'd done literally no work the rest of the day with one thing and another. Oh well! 

Busy one tomorrow - five hours of video calls But the weather is meant to be pretty horrid so I don't mind that much... And it's the end of the month and pension payday so I've got a bit of bank fiddling to look forward to in the evening! 
 

Cheery_Daff

Should say (this is MSE after all) that the car is 17 years old, and hasn't even done 150,000 miles yet! Plenty of life left in the old girl MOT plus bribing one garage to take it to the other, plus getting this second garage to look at it, plus VAT for paying by card (an extra tenner which was worth it for the amount it annoyed the bloke having to put it through the machine) - total cost £270 so not bad. 

The other car is due an MOT in about 3 weeks - going to try out the garage not far from home which we've not been to before. Also hoping they can stop the high pitched shrieking as we drive - suspect something stuck under brake pad but whatever it is, it's mightily annoying!

themadvix

Ooh thanks Cheery, that looks like a fascinating read. Will give the podcast a go, but I don’t always get on with them (too much internal voice going constantly!).

How ridiculous of the man at the garage to say you should send the car to the scrap yard! He sounds like a right charmer - don’t blame you for not wanting to go back there. The fact you had to pay extra to pay by card says a lot though. Fingers crossed the new local one works out well - I know it’s for a different thing, but having a good garage nearby would be much more convenient I imagine.

 Your lunch sounded excellent!

South_coast

Sounds like the garage man was planning to keep the job out of the books, definitely worth a tenner to cause him that annoyance 🤣!

Cheery_Daff

He definitely was planning to keep it out of the books BB - quite explicitly said 'I'll have to charge you VAT if you pay by card'. 

Anyway, putting the whole thing out of my mind for tonight! 

End of the month, so a bit of bank-shuffling today And monthly pension payment too, so all good. YNAB fettled and all dosh allocated for October, which is good. Got plenty in the MOT account for the other car... hopefully we won't need all of it! 

Just did a £3.10 survey on prolific, which is good - but grand total on MB for September is, er, -£29 Yes, minus £29 I only do casino now, so there's always that risk - and while it balances out over time, I've not done that much this month. Doing more as the nights draw in though so let's see what happens. 

Five hours of online video stuff today But it was ok, and surprisingly I even got a few things ticked off between various sessions too. Mr Cheery made an excellent lentil and olive soup for lunch, and I used up some on the turn halloumi in my tea (after cutting the edges off...). 

Got a couple of days without ANY video calls planned and I'm going to try to keep it that way if I can... 

Cheery_Daff

Just caught another mouse - driven up to the moors and released into the wild (and before you say it, yes I KNOW they have a homing instinct, yes we are taking them over a mile away, yes I know some sources suggest they need to go 2 miles, but this is up on the moors and beyond that we start to get near other people's houses, yes, we could kill them but I'd rather not, yes I accept occasionally it might be the same mouse coming back - sorry, getting bored of people saying the same things whenever I mention mice!)

Got a couple of big traps arriving this week so we can leave them out overnight and don't have to worry about the little beasties feeling trapped. Yes, we are indeed a pair of softies! Will be very glad not to have them running around though - mostly in the attic but it's still annoying...