So close, we can smell mortgage freedom!

themadvix

Morning all,

EH, yes, it wasn't entirely surprising... and if I'd just had my wits about me (and knew what he was suggesting as per today's news....)...

Thanks LWAP. Comp wins are lovely, but this one maybe not entirely as lovely as it sounds. I am not in any way ungrateful for a free holiday, but the luxury bit is, I think, in the eye of the beholder... and not being a very crusty old person nor an American completely enamoured by the age of the building and the idea of 'this being so English', it's not somewhere I'd stay again.  Passive agressive 'changes to breakfast dishes will be charge [sic]' and a very limited menu (especially for vegetarians) aren't great. Nor, it seems, is their environmental policy (no notice about reusing towels, bottled mineral water not refillable water bottles etc.). The dinner issue was the worst though - as you say EH, we certainly didn't set out to be critical and I was really looking forward to it. Tbh, I think the AA need to take a long hard look at their rosette scheme - this place has 3 AA rosettes apparently, but we did not at any point get enough veg to consider it even one portion of our 5 a day, which frankly, isn't good enough. And not even any piped potato round the edge of our fancy plates. They have a small kitchen garden here and given our veg portions, the hotel is probably self-sufficient! 

Anyway, we've had a lovely, if damp, time exploring the local area - Thornbury is quite pretty and we went to Chepstow and Stroud yesterday. I had a huuuuge veggie Scotch egg in a cafe in a village between the two - chickpea, leek and cheese filling and it was delicious. I'll certainly be making that at home. We're going to head home via Bourton and Stow - we've stayed in Bourton before, so it'll be nice to visit again on the way home (albeit in the rain).

Mr MV had a not-great update about the car yesterday (we were driving so it was a voicemail). I think he'll wait and see what they say after they do more tests today (as they haven't managed to fix it).

MS things:
* I've done various bits of work while here - maybe half an hour a day, which is little enough that I haven't felt it has impinged on our break, but has kept things ticking over.
* A cat sitting booking for weekend after next 

Gratitudes:
* Lovely countryside
* Giant Scotch egg
* Waterfall shower head - I always think 'we should get one at home', but then I realise that it wouldn't be a treat when we went away/it would cost a fortune to run/it's not eco friendly/limescale.... So it's a lovely treat when we go away!

Have a good day all!

EssexHebridean

I can confirm that  waterfall shower head is a lovely thing when you're not the one who has to grit your teeth at the thought of descaling the thing. I swear the trickle from mine gets less enthusiastic by the day - while good from a water use perspective, it's less so as it's not *quite* sufficient to keep the demand from the boiler where it should be so you have to reach over and turn the hot tap on at the sink for 20 seconds or so mid shower! (Handy that the sink is in the perfect position for this - or perhaps "well planned?!")

themadvix

Morning all,

Back to a slightly sunnier reality today. The weather yesterday was just awful, wasn't it? 

Car update: we have it back, at no cost to us (so we basically had a swanky hire car for a few days for free). They ran lots of tests and couldn't find anything wrong. The warning light had gone out by the time Mr MV took it to the garage (I think it came on at one point while they had it), but it seems to be OK. Can't trust it at all now, of course, but what can we do? (Apart from increase the savings priority - I think the Christmas market excursion is off the table for this year.)

Lots of bitty bits to do now we're back. I've been to the CS this morning and got rid of a load of bits - some of ours, some from the in-laws which failed to sell on Ebay. It's good to be rid of them. Also posted an Ebay sale - also in-laws, so profit to the 'other mini' fund, but £1.85 postage stamp converted to cash for me. 

Main client has sent me through a nice piece of work, so I'm making a start on that. Have done some Cambridge bits this morning and have a meeting in half an hour with them. While the sun is out, I need to resurrect my greenhouse, which fell over in the winds yesterday (fortunately it managed to avoid the plants surrounding it). I also need to get to allotment to see the damage there (oooh, the beans!) and pick stuff. I'm popping out on my bike this afternoon to collect some bulb fibre from a Freegler - will use that for some hyacinth bulbs for Christmas presents I think. I have other gardeny bits (sow spring onions, sow cress etc.) to do, but not sure if I'll get to them today. Mr MV is away with work tonight, so I don't need to worry about his dinner - I'll probably have leftover dal from last night and may make some flatbreads to go with.

MS things:
* Have kept up longitudinal study while we were away
* YG surveys - several
* Clicks and HW done
* VB survey done

Gratitudes:
* Sunshine!
* A nice piece of work
* The freezer - a loaf and an Olio'ed soup came out last night ready for lunch today

Have a good day all!

Karmacat

Hiya I'm very impressed you met Larry, no matter how eye-contact-avoidant he was!  Larry is my hero 😺

themadvix

Just for you KC

Karmacat

Blissful!  Thank you!  Love him so much  

themadvix

Have been down to the allotment this afternoon - while the sun was out, although I still got rained on. Another hundredweight of french beans (a slight exaggeration, maybe!), more borlottis, three courgettes (! I thought they were done), strawberries, raspberries, baby corn and a tiny butternut that I managed to break the stem to. Not sure what I'll do with it, or if it's edible, but thought I'd investigate. Have about 5 growing/ripening on the plant still (and cut several smaller ones off intentionally). Not sure if it's too late for them to really grow now (none are BNS sized yet) or whether they'll ripen, but at least it's not just rampantly grown everywhere and not been productive! My first lot of cabbages are also ready to pick, but I've left them for now. I didn't even get to the spinach and chard, both of which also need picking - I had neither the bag space nor the energy to deal with them! It beats buying food from the supermarket, that's for sure!

Back at my desk now - have checked in briefly with Cambridge but now really need to concentrate on my work for main client. Mum is now coming for dinner (she was meant to be in Turkey this week, but it didn't work out, so she had cancelled her usual Thursday evening activity) - we'll have Thai prawn curry, using up some more of the very old jar of curry paste. I'll chuck some French beans and maybe a bit of baby corn in too.

themadvix

Morning all,

The sun is out again here this morning.... I should probably investigate if I have a enough to put on a load of washing...

Was lovely to see Mum last night and dinner was very economical - even managed to use the open jar of passata (they always last longer than it says, but I was expecting it to have gone mouldy by now!).

Today I have a meeting at 2pm and plan to focus on Cambridge work after that too. In the meantime, I'm cracking on with work for main client - ideally he'd like it back today, I think (he doesn't give deadlines unless it's urgent, which is nice, but sometimes hard to know what he expects!). It should be doable, but I'd also like to get to the allotment while the sun is out and harvest some spinach and chard. I need to see how things are with friend - we have a loose plan to go out tomorrow, but it's totally dependent on how her neuro-diverse daughter is getting on at uni. I don't really mind either way - it'll be lovely to see her and go out, but I have plenty I can be getting on with here (Mr MV is heading to London to see his uni friends), or Mum and I could go out, if we fancied it.

MS things:
* Lots of homegrown food - not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it all!
* Clicks and HW done
* YG survey done
* PA survey done
* Longitudinal PA survey complete - should be nearly £30 when it's all tallied up
* Fed the worms the tops of the strawbs and the bean trimmings from dinner
* Baby corn husks and bean pods onto the compost heap

Gratitudes:
* Lovely evening with mum
* Sunshine
* Worms are happy and eating well
* It's Friday - I do like a two-day week! 😂

Have a good day all!

Karmacat

You've been so successful on your allotment!  I really admire that.  Can you dehydrate some of your produce, make pickles or chutneys and whatnot?  

themadvix

It has been really good this year KC and that's set to continue as we go into the winter hopefully - planning on planting garlic, onions, spring onions and broad beans this side of winter. I'll make cabbage into sauerkraut and possibly kimchi and the borlottis are drying for use throughout the rest of the year. The French beans and spinach need freezing though, which takes time as you have to wash the spinach and then wilt it and blanch the beans. It's all doable, it just takes a bit of time (and freezer space 😬). (On that front the Olio'ed awkward shaped soup container that we had for lunch yesterday has helped a bit and it'll soon be time to take the ice cream maker out of the freezer for the winter.)

Have picked a huge pot of cherry toms this morning too - I'll turn some of them into sauce I think.

Friend has said she's not going to be able to make tomorrow - so I've asked Mum to come instead. Just need to crack on with work, Cambridge work and allotment/produce processing now (and maybe some baking?) so that I feel up to date with everything.