Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Tescodealqueen said:

Hope you are near Llandudno I love it there xx have a proper seaside day with the stuff you only have at the seaside for me fish and chips from chip shop, cockles and candy floss!

Ha, we are indeed in Llandudno 😂 Not long arrived, and Mr Cheery has misplaced his glasses... so I am admiring the view from the hotel window 😁 Hoping to leave soon in search of tea and cake 😁

earthgirl2

Oh wow have a great mini holiday!

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all 😊

We are having a lovely time. Just sneaked back to bed for a nap after breakfast 😂 Mr Cheery is still asleep so I am sat up in bed watching the sea and pondering things 😊😊

Walked over 21,000 steps yesterday 😮😮 Still didn't find anywhere we fancied eating though so we shared a takeaway on the beach 😁

Some financial things...

Payday today, and also the new pay scale for the next year has been released. We normally go up an increment, and each increment has itself been raised, and of course I have this promotion from September. My initial calculations were based on guesswork, but now we know how much the overall raise is, it looks like my overall increase will be just over £3700 a year gross, or around £192 a month in my pocket 😮

I'll need to check that when we get back - I didn't want to faff about downloading payslips so I might have got the tax code wrong (I claim married persons allowance as Mr Cheery earns under the threshold). But I think it's right. 

Anyway, I'll get a month's worth of my present incremental increase backdated to the start of August, but paid in September, and then promotion pay from September - so September wage packet should look very healthy!  

That should allow me to finish topping up the new car fund. I think the next pot to start on will be the windows. We've got several where the double glazing has blown. Mostly easy to ignore, but the one in Mr Cheery's music room will need replacing altogether as it's letting water in, and we might as well get the glass replaced in the others, although probably not the frames at this point as the rest of the glass in them is fine. Not sure of cost, so once I've got £1000 in the pot I'll get a quote from the people who did the others. 

And, of course, some of this will go towards offsetting energy bills. Hoping the kitchen ceiling will make a big difference this year, and there are other things I'm planning too - I'll be making insulated blinds etc for the kitchen (coldest room in the house, which currently has 4 windows and no curtains at all). Might also make some for the offshot bit by the back door - does at least have double glazing now but no curtains. And probably my study too. I'd love to stop using electric heaters in there when I work. I suspect a carpet would help considerably (it's tiled at the minute), but also insulated blinds, and trying (again) to sort out the radiator - furthest from the boiler and never gets as hot as the others. 

Right, the sun has come out, and we need to check out in half an hour, so it's probably time to get out of bed (again) 😂

Tescodealqueen

Oh enjoy your day! Just a teeny bit of holiday envy I just love Llandudno haven’t been since we moved back up North from Wiltshire. Might just have to start thinking about a little trip next year 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, do it if you can TDQ! 😊

Well, we are on our way home 😊 Very pleased with our little getaway, we've had a lovely time. 

Booked the hotel two days in advance, cost £104 for a double Premier room with a sea view, including breakfast. Room was lovely, and had little chairs looking out over the sea which pleased me greatly. Breakfast wasn't fancy, but I felt like a kid mixing my little sachet of alpen with a little box of crunchy nut cornflakes - I am very easily pleased 😂

Other than that, we spent a total of about £50 on lunch on the way there, two cafe trips for tea and cake, a takeaway to eat on the beach, and a couple of extra cans of cider 😂

And of course 180 miles worth of diesel - not sure what that adds up to (I think I worked out a while back it cost about £7 to get to work, which is about 50 miles, so this would be about £30, although that was before crazy price rises, and I'm not sure how accurate it was anyway). And we would have been coming most of the way anyway to collect this thing Mr Cheery bought.

So definitely a worthwhile trip for us, and this might just be the thing that gets us back into our holidaying swing. We used to have lots of weekends away, but haven't done it at all since we moved and got the chickens. Partly cost (we'd paid off the previous mortgage at that point!), partly not wanting to leave the chickens - we've just got ourselves into a bit of a rut about that. But we can leave them for a night without having to organise someone else to sit.

We're going away for a wedding in early November for two night, which is already booked and paid for, and I think we might try and squeeze in another little 24 hours at the seaside (a different seaside) before then 😊

Cheery_Daff

Poh, and another thing that happened while we were away - we FINALLY got building regs sign off for the first round of building work we had done back in 2019 😂😂

My fault it took so long! They opened up a couple of windows that had been sealed for years, and replaced the joists in the kitchen ceiling, and because we also took a chimney out and a small false wall, it meant there is now no wall or door between kitchen and stairs, meaning we needed a mains smoke alarm linked from downstairs to upstairs. 

Of course, I first had to do the insulation and plasterboarding, and then we had to get an electrician - which ended up being after all the lockdowns etc, and then they wanted a picture of the finished ceiling, complete with smoke alarm, and I only actually finished that a few weeks ago (well, there are still a few bits i need to tidy up and paint but that's not what they're interested in and you can't see that in the photo!)

Anyway, very pleased to finally have sign off. The latest work didn't need it so I can just file it away and ticket off the big list - got to love ticking things off the big list!

themadvix

Hooray to the building regs sign off!

And glad you've had a lovely little break - short breaks can be so refreshing I always think. Definitely get another one booked in!

beanielou

Glad tyhat you had a lovely wee break.
Food for the soul 

Tescodealqueen

So pleased you had a good time. Will certainly be on my wish list . And good news about  building regs

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all 😊 Very glad we didn't have to pay extra for building regs, I think we first paid the fee in 2018 so we've gone well over their 3 year limit, but I did check and they've waived it because so many things got put on hold because of covid. 

Been exhausted and grumpy this afternoon, and wasted the entire time just going down Internet rabbit holes 🙄 Might need another Internet free week or something 🙄

Anyway, going to try to get back into the swing of things tomorrow. Mr Cheery and I are going out for breakfast,then I'm meeting a friend for a walkand a pub lunch 😊 Thenthere are a few other things I'd like to do

* ring the darn pensions people!
* collect scythe from the sharpener guy
* finances
* blog post 
* get back into flylady routines
* hour or two of scything in the evening
* make progress on Mr Cheery's new hat
* spent a bit of time up the ladder communing with the ceiling - this will NOT be running into September!! 

That'll do for a list - although I can't promise how much of it will get done...