Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

EssexHebridean

badmemory said:

foxgloves said:

Re your fitness device. They can develop some really annoying traits. Mine (a Bit of Fit) has decided that it will power down to precisely 21% then turn itself off. It used to function at a much lower charge level than that & I see no reason for it not to, but nope! It is fine until it hits 21%, then off it goes!
F

Mine too.  I wish my charge 2 hadn't died of old age, even with a cracked screen it was better.

This could be me - also had a Charge 2, loved it. Screen cracked, replaced with a Charge 3 which was faulty, Sh1tB1t replaced it with another one - with the same fault. Asked for a refund as not fit for purpose, which was refused and was offered yet another replacement, then I got bored and took the loss and switched to Garmin! (And made sure that every time I was invited to give a review of the Charge 3 on the Big River site I was very VERY honest about it to pay back Sh1tb1t for their carp customer service). 

lucielle said:

Good luck with the new EA.  I'd love a copy of your dahl recipe, if you get chance
L

My favourite one would be the one contained in this set: https://git.macropus.org/bbc-food/www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/onionbhajistarkadhal_92047.html  - gorgeous subtle flavours from the spicing! 

Anyone want a good laugh at the irony? We have a viewing on the flat today...presumably giving notice to the EA means that they now want to try to get it sold before that notice expires...!   Could have done with more notice than "5pm last night for 2pm today" mind - thankfully MrEH is WFH today so has had time to do the last bits of sorting out this morning in screen breaks! We'll see how this one goes anyway - I'm hoping the sunshine that I have here in London is also present back at home at the moment though as it will look SO much brighter and more cheerful for a bit of sun!  In further good news, One Careful Owner is still on the market after the weekend - we wondered whether they'd have lots of viewings and get an new offer but maybe not. There are now another two that we'd go and view if they are still available when we're ready too - one with a mahoosive garden (and I mean HUUUUGE) and one in the same bit of the town we're in now just a bit further up the road really - in an area we've always rather liked. 

We'll hopefully get the new agent round at some stage next week for the new photos - the intention is that our notice expires with agent 1 and then it gets relisted with agent 2 a couple of days after - we'd rather there isn't any form of overlap as it can get confusing then re commission payable. We're also neatly timing it so the "gap" is over a weekend. 

I suddenly realised yesterday that the council still haven't told me how much the service charge instalments are for the new year - which means I can't adjust the standing order for the payment which is due to go on the 15th. If we don't get anything in the meantime then I'll leave it set as the current level then balance it out over the rest of the year, it's a pain though. I must check whether our friend upstairs has had notification of the new amounts actually - hers will be the same as ours and it could be that our letter has just gone astray. 

Other than that it's all ticking over fairly nicely on the MSE front I think. We never did get around to having our "money summit" over the weekend mind you - so that still needs doing - probably Friday evening now (yes, we know how to live! ) I do want to do some revised research on savings and mortgages before then too. 

Makingabobor2

Hope your viewing on the flat goes well tonight, fingers crossed. Our neighbour still has his house on the market, and now has it up with 2 agents. Still not seen anyone go into view. Although he does appear to have it way over priced IMHO. 

Four_Seasons

Sorry if you already do this, when I put my house on the market a couple of years ago my daughter, (who has moved a lot and had been advised by an EA friend) said ring your EA every Monday morning to check how many property enquiries there had been and property details they had forwarded to possible purchasers, she said it kept your property in their minds. Wishing you all the very best with your new EA it looks promising that your original house and a couple of others are now on the market x 

starnac

Hope the viewing went well. 

Sorry about the trouble with your Fit watch. I changed from them to Garmin a few years back and now have a pretty fancy one (birthday present) which does me very well for the races I enter. It has a fantastic battery life although my older Garmin had the ability to charge it while I was wearing it. This one doesn't. Hope you get it sorted soon 

Cheery_Daff

Oooh, fingers crossed for your viewing! Although I kind of don't want those agents to get the commission now 😂 But I suppose the ultimate aim is to get the flat sold, so... fingers crossed anyway!

beanielou

POsitive vibes.

EssexHebridean

Thanks Beanie! Haha Cheery we were sort of thinking the same way about the agents and the commission, but yes, if we can just get it sod that would override all such feelings!

Four Seasons that's a good suggestion - we're hoping to get a bit more lively communication with the new agents when we instruct them but will have to see how it goes. I'm a huge fan of making agents work for their money too - they will definitely be doing any chasing that's needed as the transaction (finally!) unfolds! MAB we have dropped price once on the flat - not because we felt it was overpriced (we know it isn't) but as much as anything because we were uncomfortable with the pricing structure the agents were wanting to use, and felt like we wanted to be a bit more transparent about what we were expecting/would be happy to accept. 

Starnac I had a feeling hour were a fellow Garminite - I did debate between Garmin and the fruit based watch but decided I couldn't be doing with the faff of daily charging so the Garmin got the nod. Mine can't be charged while I'm wearing it either but I did find out last Saturday that it still counts steps AND tracks a route while it's plugged in and in my hand rather than my wrist! 

MrEH felt that our viewer yesterday was pretty positive about it - we suspect there may need to be a second viewing if they are interested in offering though as there was obviously another party involved as apparently the chap viewing was videoing all the way round. (Question - this makes me feel slightly uncomfortable - but I'm not sure why allowing that we have photos of it up online of course? Can anyone else get what I mean?) The agent reckon they will get feedback from him today, so we'll see. It did sound like this was viewing less properties than the others we've had, and there is definitely less on the market now comparable to ours. 

MSE stuff:
Banks checked and all OK - I've made a couple of small transfers to the VSP's, and also transferred £100 from the Sant-and-Er VSP account across to the N@t1onw1de one as that has slightly better interest. 
I've opened a new Sant account for the Holiday Fund too - again for far better interest - and that now has both the money from the old Holiday Fund account AND the regular saver feeder account in it so is looking far healthier. 
I've asked for the old holiday fund AND the regular saver feeder to be closed with interest payable to the new holiday fund account.
I have dealt with all transfers to clear off the CC apart from the two biggies - the camera and the laptop. I'm intending to leave those for a bit longer yet as the money is earning interest where it is! 

I picked up two small Prolific studies yesterday evening and my balance payable there is now £6.98 with £1.47 pending. 

MrEH is rugby training this evening and so I've decided that the easiest thing to do for tea is to have couscous - this means I may as well get the rest of the leg of lamb chopped up and frozen as I'll be cutting some off it for this evening anyway. Oh - and I DID manage to get several more packs of lemongrass stalks at the weekend too - and I finely chopped all bar one pack last night and that's now been frozen too - I even remembered to give the box a shake a couple of times as it froze to keep the bits separate! the remaining pack will last well enough to get used in various things over the next couple of weeks - I'm already thinking another thai inspired fish stew for tomorrow, and almost certainly a stir fry involving minced beef one day next week (lemongrass with beef is just an incredible flavour!). 

I'm back at the opticians on Saturday to collect my expensive glasses - so we'll need to be up and about a bit promptly that morning if we want to go to the farmer's market first - which we probably do.  I was hoping that B00ts would have a price reduction on my Wild deodorant but they haven't at the moment - and I refuse to pay full price for it. I've just done a quick google though and seen that H011and and 8@rrett might  have it even cheaper than anyone else usually does at £3.75 per refill - so I've placed an order (through TCB, too) - for collection from store so should be able to grab that on Saturday after all! I'll have to remember that as somewhere to check for it as the best I've found it for anywhere else is £4 each. 

I've managed a good amount of cycling this week in spite of having my best intentions waylaid by rain on Monday - if it stays relatively nice for the rest of today then I'll aim to get at least another 5 miles done after work I think, I have a circuit in mind that would enable that although I do also want to  make sure I can get my big river parcel returned as well so will want to leave time for that. That would leave me having managed to cover more distance on the bike than last week anyway which I'd be pleased with. Next week the intention is to get back to the local-to-work gym one evening, but that in itself adds some extra cycling distance too. 

themadvix

That is a good price for Wild refills EH.... although we won't be needing any for a while as Mr MV ordered some from Wild and they seemed to randomly send us the order twice.... so we're good at the moment! Wouldn't have thought to check H&B though, so will bear that in mind for the future - we have one in town so if I can c&c and get TCB too, that's a definite winner.

EssexHebridean

I'd not thought of H&B before either TMV - they randomly came up on a google search though! I was very pleased with that though - although it remains to be seen if TCB tracks as I'd already been to the site before clicking through from there... I've no idea how often they do that offer, but I'll definitely add them to my list of places to check for it next time I'm in need. 

While in TCB earlier I also thought to check whether my laptop purchase had tracked - and annoyingly it hasn't, so I raised a ticket on that as the click to merchant is definitely there. Hopefully it'll get granted OK - it's not much as it was only a small percentage, but it's £4.xx that's better off with me than with them! 

MrEH's rugby crowd are being an absolute shower and can't be bothered* to train tonight, so I'm lumbered with him instead. It's still couscous for tea though! 

*I may be paraphrasing slightly...  

Cheery_Daff

Quite understand feeling a bit weird about someone videoing your house. Someone did that to us - we had one day with the bulk of the viewings, not an open house but people in and out all day. One guy videoed it, and it did rather annoy me that he hadn't asked first 😠 I think it's different having 10 pictures that you've chosen out there in public, to having someone videoing, especially without asking! I suppose I was letting people wander about while I stayed downstairs (after an initial tour) so they might all have been videoing my knicker drawer for all I know 😂😂 They were probably very disappointed if so 😂😂