Learning to walk before I run

edinburgher

I also get the Lidl free range chickens, not quite as cheap as they were a couple of years ago but a fair price all the same. I tend to wait until I have a couple before making stock. Like so many boys, I think I enjoy cooking in part because it's like a fun science experiment. My favourite bit of roasting a chicken is probably pouring all the pan juices into a ramekin, letting it set in the fridge and then dropping the yummy gelatinous puck into the freezer bag along with the carcasse for stock making

I am full of cheer and relaxed. Just went with Mrs E to Ox and Finch, our favourite restaurant and one of Glasgow's finest in our opinion (has a "Bib Gourmand"). We had coffee beforehand, I had 2 codes for 50% off Uber rides and a relative gave us an incredibly generous voucher that covered 80% of 8 small plates, a bottle of white rioja and a generous tip. A £150 day out for less than £40. I miss being able to do this sort of thing more often but perhaps the reduced frequency makes it even more special. 

Dinner will be a far more low key chicken stir fry with some ramen noodles.

Right, time for a quick spreadsheet and then computer games for an hour or two before picking up DD2 from the childminder.

On a slightly less cheerful note, one or more of the sodding cats has fleas again, I woke up after a couch sleep with 4-5 bites Both had a flea treatment last night and an oral treatment today, I hoovered 3 times and we nuked the living room with flea spray. Yuck!

beanielou

Eek to the cat visitors. 

Glad that you had a lovely lunch. 

Food for the weary soul. 

edinburgher

I spent some of this morning doing battle with MIL's freshly transferred Virgin Media bill. The damage? Just shy of £170/mth!!!  

savingholmes

Wow - that's huge. Utterly ridiculous.

Sorry about the fleas. My cat got rid of its fleas just in time for the move thankfully

Baileys_Babe

Ouch to MIL's bill.

Suffolk_lass

Blimey, does she live in an uninsulated 1930s 5 bedroom house with electric heating?

South_coast

Why, would that make her TV and broadband more expensive 🤔?

beanielou

Blimey. That’s a lot. 

Suffolk_lass

South_coast said:

Why, would that make her TV and broadband more expensive 🤔?

Read twice, comment once, note to self - I read it as energy. Doh!

edinburgher

£170 would be pretty good for energy in this day and age, we're at least £200 even with the solar panels. 

I taught MIL the fine art of VM negotiations, got her down to £46 before I left the house on Saturday morning, we still asked them to cancel the contract. She has since had a call back and has accepted a new contract for £39. I told her she could have held out for more but she did the one thing I asked her not to do and got into a conversation/negotiation with them about what channels she liked This is the same woman who told me that she already pays for 3 streaming services and didn't want to watch anything on VM! Ultimately it's not my decision, she's happy and I was thanked for opening her eyes to the best way to get a result out of them. She's paying under half of her old discounted price for about half the services, that seems as fair as any other VM package?

I slept on the couch last night as DD2 has been a bit of a pain in the posterior in terms of sleep. Just my luck - she pretty much slept through the night without getting into our bed and I think we haven't got all of the fleas I will need to hoover and spray with a different flea spray after DD1's swimming lesson, both cats have had oral flea medication again. A dreadful sleep, less than 6 hours and working since 06:00 this morning. It's just too much, thank goodness there's only half an hour to go. 

10.x hours of overtime done since Sunday (c. £300 before deductions), £30 cashback from TCB (insurance quote) today and also a bumper crop of Prolific surveys (£30+ since yesterday). Looks like we might actually get olden days levels of pocket money in March with this and the possibility of the TSB switch offers going through Right - back off to grind out half an hour.

Edit: but Y Live hates me at the moment - screened out of an unheard of 3/4 surveys since yesterday.