Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, not you too BB. It really is most  vexing, and there doesn't seem to be that much they can do about it. Although the GPS did say she had another suggestion if it did keep coming back so I'd best book another appointment I suppose, yawn.

Another long day today. I was meant to be teaching face to face for the first time since February but my colleague ended up self isolating so we did it online. So tomorrow is my first face to face day - and my last it seems, as we're going all online for the next couple of weeks now.

Sigh. 

Hey ho. Nothing much financial to report, although we did nip to the supermarket and spend £91 this evening that was a full weekly shop though, plus a bit of stocking up with a month's worth of tins, loo roll, coffee, honey, lentils, frozen fruit etc, so not toooo bad. 

Prepared food for tomorrow - it's been over 7 months since I went to work for the day (!) So I'd almost forgotten about preparing lunch but I've got a salad all packed up now, and some snacks too. Mr Cheery was going to come too but can't find anyone who's around for a visit so probably won't - he can wander about for 3 or 4 hours, but I'm busy between 9.30 and 6 and that's a long time to entertain yourself, especially at the minute. 

Hey ho. Very ready for this week to end and it's only Tuesday!

Cheery_Daff

Morning MSE chums! 

Well it was quite exciting going to my office yesterday for the first time in 7 months I did take lunch, and snacks, but also ended up spending £1.20 in the cafe as I was rather peckish. Annoyingly my swipe card had stopped working, and as none of my colleagues were in, I had to rely on the cleaners to let me through the door. Didn't want to keep bothering them unnecessarily, so once I left the office at 2pm I just stayed out til it was time to go home, which meant NO TEA (I could have bought tea in the cafe as well I suppose but that's not very MSE is it??)

Cafe this morning, first time since Sunday, spent £6.75 for the two of us. 

And big excitement - work have ordered me a new monitor! I was using an ancient one of ours, but now I've got the new work laptop, it won't connect to the ancient monitor, so they had to send me a new monitor as well. Very glad it's not me paying for all this! Not unpacked it yet, that's this afternoon's excitement. Sadly the cable to connect it to the new laptop isn't arriving til tomorrow anyway. Might try a two screen set up - never done that before though and I suspect it will just confuse me

themadvix

£1.20 in a cafe is very reasonable though Cheery (as was the trip this morning). Lack of tea is shocking!  

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

...Might try a two screen set up...

Cheery - once you have multiple screens you'll never want to go back!  I long for my work desk with two extra screens!

greenbee

I have two screens AND my laptop screen and frankly would quite happily have more. My laptop obviously agrees with me as it thinks there are 4 screens in total ... It's fantastic for presenting remotely as you can have presenter view up, see what you're presenting AND have other stuff available (Teams/Skype/Slack for talking to colleagues during workshops is always good...)

Cheery_Daff

Well I have to say after an afternoon of two screens I am completely sold LOVE it, and all I was doing was putting together some lecture slides on one screen and notes/script on the other. Never going back to one screen now!

Can't wait for tomorrow when I check my emails although that's just about a big screen rather than two screens - HATE the squashed view on just the laptop screen. Managed to not check them at all today - had SO much to do and never would have done it if I'd got sidetracked down rabbit holes trying to sort out other people's problems. 

In fact I worked 9am til 8pm (aside from 10 mins drive each way to the cafe - worked while I was there, and over lunch etc) and STILL didn't get everything done. They're certainly getting their money's worth out of me at the minute

The time flew by once I'd got my massive screen though, I could have carried on for another couple of hours if I wasn't so hungry

Karmacat

Again, very interesting!  I never understood about two screens, because you can just switch between programmes at the bottom of the screen, but the advantages are very clear in what everyone's describing.  Good stuff!

Cheery_Daff

I never really understood the two screen thing either KC, just seemed like a load of faff. But having done it for a day and a half I get it now I spend a LOT of time switching between things and it just makes everything much easier! Still confusing me slightly moving the mouse between two screens mind you, my head can't quite keep up

Cafe breakfast today, and it looks like we're meeting some friends there later too  

In the meantime I need to check the banks and switch a bit from the PO savings account to be drip fed into the monthly savers.

greenbee

My laptop got confused Cheery - at one point it showed 3 screens, but I couldn't see screen 2. So I assumed it was the cable and used a different kind (for those who care, I changed from Display Port to good old-fashioned VGA) and it worked. Then yesterday it suddenly decided that I have 4 screens - so it obviously worked out the other cable (which I had to unplug). I'm seriously tempted to get another screen - but I need to sort out a standing desk where I currently have the return for my existing desk first. With all the back-to-back meetings I'm having the standing desk is becoming a priority!

Cheery_Daff

What a palaver Greenbee! Fortunately mine hasn't started adding extra screens (I have an HDMI cable, don't know if that's made a difference...)

Right, banks fettled and YNAB settled. All good. Transferred dosh from the Post Office account to drip feed into regular savers - they've got £3500 each in them now, and although I think they dropped from 3% to 1.85% interest a few months ago, it's still better than the Post Office and their measly 0.8% or whatever it is. Which is still better than nowt! 

Also checked the MB account - I'm being a bit more conscientious about withdrawing from bookies now I'm not doing it as often, so there was slightly more in there than YNAB thought, so that was good too. 

Only £3.26 in Prolific at the minute - not going to bother withdrawing that (although I might change my mind towards the end of the month - it's a reporting month for the Mortgage Free in Three challenge (which is clearly not actually going to be 'three' but still) so it'll be nice to add a bit extra. 

Still had NOTHING from Streetbees - I've checked several times a day, including first thing in the morning as recommended, but nowt. Wonder if I just don't fit their demographic in some way? Hey ho. 

Right, only got about 45 mins before we have to go to the cafe again It's a hard life We did invite friends round here for lunch, honest - they tried to wimp out because of the weather, I tried to sell our outdoor shelter (which really would have coped fine with today's weather!), then tried to say we have plenty of room in the living room for everyone to distance appropriately, but by then they'd got themselves all enthusiastic about cake in the cafe, so back we'll go Not going to complain, and saves me tidying up  

What shall I do in the meantime though?? Not really long enough to get properly stuck into anything, so maybe a bit of knitting??