So close, we can smell mortgage freedom!

themadvix

Morning all,

B&W cat woke us up at 5.55 this morning... 🙄 although I'm not sure that it's much lighter outside now than it was then! I've done a couple of small but lucrative jobs for American clients this morning (I get to charge my hourly minimum for what is a 10-minute job), have two loaves of bread on a final prove and a batch of jammy buns, as per Foxgloves/Crank's, in the oven. They look good, so I hope they taste as good!

Am waiting in again for a Dell engineer, but having visited the cat so late yesterday at least she won't be expecting me until later. I need to finish this piece for my main client - shouldn't take long - and then I'll do some Cambridge work. I don't really want to start the data entry stuff I've been doing for them though until the Dell man has been. Need to submit this week's timesheet too.

I've got some bits from my ex-Brownie friend to sell (she keeps profit, I get to convert the stamps into cash) and I may start the redcurrant/pinkcurrant jelly to free up some space in the freezer. I also need to make yoghurt and strain the kefir and make chilli for tonight (beans are soaking currently). If the Dell man comes sooner rather than later and it stays dry, I'll pop down to the allotment later as Mum brought me some garlic and onion sets - she visited a nursery that had them loose, which was great as I didn't want 50 onion sets, and it all worked out much cheaper than the bags you can buy.

We have a supermarket delivery coming this evening. Not many bits, but Dad's fiancee's birthday present is in the order, so I needed it sooner rather than later. And a few bits we regularly use were on offer, so that was helpful.

MS things:
* PA surveys
* 1P survey
* YG survey
* Clicks and HW done

Gratitudes:
* Have just had a text from Dell telling me they'll be here between 1 and 6. Much better!
* Jammy buns have now been removed from the oven, and one consumed as breakfast - yum!
* Forecast is dry for tomorrow morning - meant to be going for a cycle with Sis and Niece (Niece is learning and not keen on cycling downhill, so we're trying to get her confidence up).

Have a good day all!

themadvix

The Man from Dell has been and I have working work laptop at last. I'm afraid I'm not entirely convinced his accident yesterday wasn't his fault - he was very bull in a china shop about the repair!

Pink/redcurrant juice is straining ready to make jelly tomorrow (and I've dug out enough suitable jars), kefir has been strained, yoghurt is in the airing cupboard, work is done, time sheet submitted. I've also listed my friend's bits to sell on the FB group, but I need to go back and deal with people - they're already claiming them but brain isn't with it at the moment.

I've also received a unexpected piece of work from main client, which will set me up nicely for next week.

The sun is almost out, so I might just pop down o I need to make the chilli for dinner (and cook the soaked beans first). Then if I have time, I might pop to the allotment, before a potential pub visit (no cycling today as Mr MV has a race on Sunday and doesn't want to upset his knee beforehand).

Have a good evening all!

Suffolk_lass

Re your house being freezing, you are in good company. An article in The Times about the King's forthcoming 75th birthday celebrations (a substantial personal donation to set up 8 more hubs to share meals made from potential food waste and teach people how to avoid it in their homes) anyway, the article linked to one in May I missed, about him turning down the heating in the B-House swimming pool and going round turning off lights. There was a snippet from his previous Comms person recounting freezing fingers while in the highlands home, taking notes with a hand deadened by the cold, in a room with the windows open, in the middle of winter. He (his maj) evidently challenges why fires are proposed to be lit for anything above ambient room temperature. 

greenbee

Can you imagine the cost of heating those kind of places to temperatures suitable for a modern sedentary lifestyle?

themadvix

Morning all,

Thanks for sharing that SL, although I did have to look back to see where I'd said the house was freezing (my mother's words!). Good for him. I do love the King's eco-ethics, and it's great to see them having an influence on the running of the state. (At least the bit he has control over, anyway). Totally agree, Greenbee - it would be horrendous! That said, hazel is quick growing and he's got the space for it.

It's been a few days...Saturday I made the red currant jelly, but then the rest of the day was derailed as my Mum fell over and has broken her wrist - Sis took her to urgent care and got it seen to and plastered, but then she had plans, so I went and took mum shopping and made sure the kitchen was easy to use for the next few days. She's adamant that apart from not being able to drive, she's fine, which is good.

Sunday was Mr MV's 10k run, which was at Duxford (and an early start!). I took my porridge with me in my flask and was very glad of it - it was pretty chilly until about 10 am. We had a wander around the museum after the race, but headed home for lunch as we didn't want to spend money on something mediocre there. In the afternoon I popped to the allotment, removed the French beans, planted garlic and onions (late, but I was halfway through planting before I cottoned on to this). Harvested a couple of white cabbages too, but am really fed up and at a loss as to how to get the slugs off of them - they seem to live within the (pointed) cabbage and carp everywhere and I'll still find them in there after a week or so in the fridge. Suggestions that don't involve pesticides very gratefully received! They are planted with a nice circle of wool pellets to deter slugs from the baby plants but obviously they grow over these and I don't mind the slugs eating the outer leaves, but it's a bit much when there's only half an edible cabbage left and you can't get it clean either.

Yesterday I took Niece and Mum out for Niece's birthday. We went to Bekonscot model village and it was wonderful. We went when Sis and I were small and I remembered it being a good day out, but wasn't sure if Niece would enjoy it in this age of screens and occasional 6-going-on-16 attitude. I needn't have worried! It was relatively busy being half term, but not unpleasant and all the children were thoroughly engaged with the models and not being horrible screamy brats like you sometimes find. Whether that's the nature of the families that think it's a good place to go, or whether just being away from the screens is the answer, I don't know. In any case, it was a lovely day out and beautifully quaint. We took a picnic (Niece enjoyed hm bread and jammy bun) and there was a covered picnic area, complete with a dustpan and brush so you could tidy up after yourselves. Also a cafe that Mr Cheery would have been proud of - two teas and a juice carton for £4.20. Mum will give me her entrance fee, but otherwise costs will be covered from present fund.

I did manage a quick bit of work yesterday morning and did a little over the weekend, so I'm not too behind. Main client did know I was going to be out yesterday too. Today is about catching up with work (I've already been at my desk two hours), posting a couple of bits sold for ex-Brownie friend and returning cat sitting key. If the sun comes out, I will put a white wash on too. Dry bread ingredients are mixed though, so bread baking takes priority over the power.

A council garage has come up in our bit of the road, which we have applied for. It would be £80/month but comes with a parking space, so we'd have somewhere for visitors. It would give us some additional storage and allow us to work on a couple of projects: the other mini and a camping pod for our mini (it's a kit). I'd also be able to SORN my car immediately, which would reduce the ongoing cost. (Unfortunately selling it in the winter is unlikely to go well - it has a large removable glass roof that tends to leak slightly, leading to a very damp car in the winter months - not an appealing prospect for buyers). We'll find out on Friday (this week, I think) if we have been successful.

We have also been considering car options. The 0% on our mortgage balance doesn't expire for another 18 months (or possibly longer - it might have been 24 months at the outset), so we are thinking we may use the 'mortgage savings' and additional savings (yet to be saved) to buy a full EV in the spring. To be decided, I think, but that's where our brains are heading - it would save us money in the long term and it is important to us to eliminate as many emissions as possible. It would allow us to go out for the day without feeling guilty - we've not been to the coast for  day trip in 2+ years and this is a contributing factor. We would be buying an older Tesla Model 3 - the range/efficiency is still the best out there and we don't want an SUV (brake particulate from the increase in these sorts of vehicles outweighs the reduction in emissions from the increase in EVs on the road).

MS things:
* No additional spend at Duxford - took my breakfast and came home for lunch
* Packed lunch yesterday
* Ensured Mr MV took a packed lunch today (even if this meant I got up and made it for him 🙄)
* PA surveys - now at £25.89 cleared and another £5 pending
* YG surveys
* Timesheet submitted for Cambridge last week
* S&S all submitted with receipts on time
* Have worked out a veggie menu for our friends' visit next weekend - don't need to buy much at all

Gratitudes:
* Lovely day yesterday
* Enjoyed watching Mr MV running again - it's been a while (did I mention he's planning on running the Athens marathon next year?)
* Roast dinner on Sunday was mostly from the allotment

Have a good day all!

Suffolk_lass

Whew, plenty to consider there MV! I would definitely go for the garage! Fingers crossed for you that you are successful. If it has electricity (a light, for example) would a charger for an EV be an option or is that a council thing to provide?

I can't offer any insights on cabbage, as I never grow it. I remain to be convinced that growing my own brassicas is something I want to do. They are plentiful and cheap to buy, take up lots of space, attract things I don't want (eg your slugs), and I would rather use the space for some other things. I was very taken with a piece on GW a couple or few weeks ago about permaculture and one about perpetual veg (artichokes are an obvious one, but we are not big fans) - kale and chard are good so I grow these sometimes, but as I have a 4 crop rotation, I tend to retire them after a year of leaf-picking.

Please keep us up to date re your car deliberations. We are way behind you here and don't really understand the things to consider. A quick look at zap-map suggests a fairly limited  range of local chargers and a variety of different systems - I presume Type 2 is the way to go but it seems that locally at least, we are still in the VHS vs Betamax contest (you are probably too young to know what this was!)

themadvix

Hey SL, thanks for your thoughts on brassicas, but I am rather a fan of cabbage, so I definitely want to keep growing some of them. Not sure whether you're thinking globe or Jerusalem with the artichokes, but I would like a globe one - it's on my to-do list. We have spinach and chard too, far too much really! 

The garage doesn't have power or light (we think), but we don't need a charger there as we have one on our drive. Mr MV recently tweaked its output so that on a sunny day we can charge the current car without pulling from the grid (it was only pulling 220 W previously but now it's fully sun/battery powered - although now not likely to be possible until next year!). Our road is a long one with fingers off of it (if that makes sense) and the garage is on 'our; finger, so very walkable with trailer for working on on our drive with power tools, pond vac, etc. as well as potentially being able to store a bike trailer of some sort.

Car wise, Type 2 is what you'd charge on (relatively) slowly or at home. CCS is the high-speed option, used when you're on a long journey. If you're buying a full EV you'd mostly charge at home unless doing a long journey - with a range of 100+ miles (and the Tesla Model 3 of the age we're looking at would have a worst-case range - i.e. very cold, with heating on etc. - of 140 miles, normally 230), you wouldn't need to charge at a public charging point - they are a lot more expensive than the EV or agile tariffs you can get at home.

I am not quite so young as to not know the VHS/Betamax debate 😂 What's on offer near you then? Chademo? Or just standard granny charging? It depends where you're going, of course. A lot of the charging points in Norfolk/Suffolk are 'destination chargers' as they are places you'd be for a while (pub/restaurant/hotel), so speed in charging isn't of the essence - and again, you'd probably only be doing a top-up. I can't recommend highly enough the YT channel Fully Charged (for fans of Red Dwarf, this is produced and presented in large part by Robert Llewellyn). For 'beginners' the series by Maddie Moate is excellent, although a bit out of date now, I imagine: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzD0K2OhbVfE7MyhzFn58t1embqFoN_ZV.

I can only assume that there's vested oil interests in a lot of the misinformation that is out there at the moment - but do watch out for it. Mr MV only watched a What Car video yesterday that had him fuming - it was doing comparisons, but on a completely bonkers basis (i.e. comparing fuel costs with costs for charging based entirely on using high-speed public chargers instead of overnight tariffs - which you just wouldn't do day-to-day). Similarly, my Mum has fallen for a lot of this - often due to poor journalism (again, supported by oil interests?) by the BBC. My Uncle is similarly suspicious and yet my other Uncle and Aunt have a plug-in hybrid and a full electric (they are in the ULEZ) and just quietly get on with it and don't have any problems! I find the resistance to be both baffling and frustrating!

Anyway, that's enough of me ranting! Feel free to ask any questions - if I don't know the answer, Mr MV will (it's both a personal interest and work-related for him - hence why I've absorbed so much of it over the years!).

Baileys_Babe

I grew up on a finger of a road like you describe.

Thanks for the YT channel recommendation, I will share it with my 14 yo who is very interested in EV vehicles. I will hopefully manage to watch it as well, but I have a lot less free time than them.

Around here I am aware of some free EV chargers usually at supermarkets etc do you know anything about these?

I anticipate our next car will be an EV, but we don't have anywhere for a charger so I'm not sure how that will work except by moving house 🤨

themadvix

Hi Baileys Babe,

Your 14 yo will definitely be able to distill the info from the videos - there's a reason MM is a children's TV presenter - it's all very clear

You can charge for free at Mr T's - I think others cost. There are other occasional free charging points too. The ones at T's are run by Podpoint and are usually 7kW Type 2 chargers, so relatively slow, but if you're going to be a while, worth using - if you can get on one - because they are free, they are popular! I know people go to the ones at the WR near Mum in the middle of the night to charge (bizarre!). If you can't charge at home - assuming it's because you don't have a drive, then options are to look at what's available nearby - preferably you want somewhere you go regularly for a period of time (i.e. work, leisure facilities) as a slower charge is usually much cheaper. Alternatively, if you can park right outside, I believe (and Mr MV told me this so he must have got it from somewhere) that if you put a charging cable over the path, as long as you are sensible/make it clear to pedestrians that your car insurance will cover any liability arising from people tripping - but this is definitely something to check first! You could also ask your council to install on-street charging - it's possible to fit chargers in lampposts, so this is doable. There are a lot of people in your situation, so I think councils will have to act on this sooner, rather than later. Bear in mind that unless you are doing a huge amount of miles, you won't need to charge more than a couple of times a week, so it's not essential that you can plug in every night (whereas with a plug-in hybrid like we have at the moment, to get any benefit from the electric side, we do have to plug in every day). There's also the option of coming to an arrangement with someone with a charger and driveway - you can rent out your charger via Zapmap and Zappi if you have a Zappi charger.

For illustration purposes, the Tesla Model 3 that we're thinking of (I don't know if newer ones have bigger batteries - possibly) has a 41 kWh battery, which we'll be able to charge on our overnight tariff at 9.5p/kWh, so effectively £4.10 per 140-230 miles of range - i.e. much cheaper than fuel (especially as we'll be able to use some solar for this). In contrast, with a quick look on Zapmap and picking something at random, we could charge up the road (at the motorway services) at a CCS (i.e. very fast, done in 20 mins) charger for 79p/kWh, which would be £32 for the same range - so probably more comparable with fuel (I'm not very up on fuel costs tbh!)? A Type 2 charger at 7kW would be less than this - between 30p and 50p per kWh. Rates do vary between companies and there are discounts/loyalty schemes too, of course.

Baileys_Babe

Thank you @themadvix for such a detailed reply.

As you thought we do not have a drive and their are no paths on our lane, but you have given me some options to follow up.