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

beanielou

Hopefully sorted by next year if the ferry building lot get on it!!
Oh wait...............

Elisheba

Have a fab holiday, @EssexHebridean. Your pod looks lovely, and hopefully you'll be able to sort something out with the ferries. 

Staffordia

RelievedSheff said:

RosaBernicia said:

savingholmes said:

It's high season or getting towards it. Why are the ferries cancelled?

Have fun

There are problems with some of the boats and not enough of them to begin with, so every time one has to go in for repairs it means changing around which does which route and how. 

I was hoping to go over in a few weeks time but am going to check in with friends how things stand.  It's even more worrying because I'm not allowed to join the standby queue in a campervan any more - which is fair enough because there should be options for locals to have priority - but it means if the bookings get messed about I could be really stuck. 

If the problems with the ferries don't get sorted this year then we are changing our holiday plans for next summer which will be a shame but we can't risk being stuck off the mainland.

We were considering heading up there this year, but the ongoing situation with the ferries put us off. 

Drawingaline

The ferry situation is awful. It was bad enough last summer, we were lucky because we weren't bumped when they changed from the large ferry to the small ferry, but I know a lot of caravans and campervans were left stuck on the island for a while. 

Shame as they are such lovely places to visit, and live. 

beanielou

The Arran ferry is due to be in sevice by the end of the year!
FAmous last words!!

Suffolk_lass

beanielou said:

The Arran ferry is due to be in sevice by the end of the year!
FAmous last words!!

Hopefully the old one keeps going until then. I need to book one for September, having booked a cottage for a week this weekend

EssexHebridean

Hey all - we are BACK! Ferry got sorted albeit via an extra night's stay and a  tortuously early start on Sunday to get ferry #1 from Eriskay > Barra then ferry #2 from Castlebay on Barra back to Oban. At least it gained us an extra day I guess, although it also added a fair chunk of cost so we'll see how we do with reclaiming that!

SH - yes, pretty much as Rosa said - although a lot of the issues that they are facing with the ferries now is down to poor maintenance in the past - ignoring when they have been told by the crew that a ferry has a particular issue for example which then proceeds to get worse as it's not nipped in the bud - meaning boats then have to be removed from service for longer in the end. It's very frustrating though! Beanie - very beyond a joke now - had you heard there is to be a protest across in Glasgow about it as well?  RS - I think you were planning to start at one end and go right through to the other over a couple of weeks? If so then aside from the possibility of weather related issues or just an unexpected serviceability issue which can affect routes anywhere of course, then you would almost certainly be OK as they rarely leave Barra without a service and Stornoway is viewed as far too politically sensitive to leave with no boat! It's disheartening to see even on here that folk are considering changing of plans as a result of all this nonsense - makes us really cross the damage Calmac are doing!  Rosa - while I think of it - had you spotted that there are changes to the way the standby system works anyway? I think there is still a system that visitors can use but I can't recall details as it's not something we've ever relied on. 

Anyway - weather was ASTONISHING, the temperatures were quite literally some of the highest they've had across there in our second week - being able to sea-swim isn't that unusual, but it being warm enough to dry off on the beach afterwards is! It's also as far as I can recall the first time I've worn shorts out and about up there too - which I did for several days on the trot this time. Amazing! Needless to say having to come back wasn't the best - especially as it has proceeded to rain rather a lot ever since we got back to the mainland as well - and I'd forgotten how flipping humid London got when the temperature is high too - ugh! Ah well - needs must - it pays the bills after all! 

I have cleared the bulk of the spends off the CC already - MrEH needs to transfer me some money and once that's sent through to the card it will be completely cleared back to zero again so all good there. I still love just having the money there and saved up ready to sort holiday spending though - it never fails to feel like some sort of miracle, and I wouldn't go back to the bad old days pre budgeting for anyone!  I shopped yesterday - used Aldi as it was easiest to do on my way back from the gym and it was mostly fruit and veg, plus a free range chicken which I roasted yesterday afternoon and which will serve as the base for our meals through the week - we had chicken salad with jersey royals yesterday evening - and spent just under £35.

My focus for the next month is going to be very much on eating well and getting in plenty of movement - we will have a pretty busy and stressful time coming up in between voluntary role stuff and getting things sorted for the house move, so looking after our physical and mental health to minimise the impact of the stress is going to be key. For me this looks like:
- Lots of fresh fruit and veg - balanced meals
- 2 resistance training sessions a week where possible
- cardio via either brisk walking or cycling
- ensure that bedtimes are kept under control - we need to be structured about stuff in the evenings to make sure that can happen
- use my House-move journal regularly to keep track of things to do and stuff we've found out/things we will need to price up, that sort of thing. 
- use my bullet-ish journal to keep track of dates and personal commitments

MSE Stuff:
Prolific is already above £12 for this month and I need to ensure that I get back into the habit of checking it when I have a spare few minutes to see what I can pick up.
Could ideally do with focusing back on the other survey sites too
Holiday spending is, as I mentioned, sorted. There is a reclaim of expenses to do from the ferry company - I need to make sure I check through how we go about that and get that sorted - MrEH has receipts where they are relevant so those will probably need scanning. 
Assuming that we can get away with one more fill-up of the car and one top-up of MrEH's Oyster this month (possible) we ought to be able to shift £700 as a minimum into the New House Fund at the end of the month. 

The NHF took a hit while we were away as the mortgage application fee and search fees, plus the cost of the seller's pack for the flat came out of there. I have transferred my £100 Fairer Share payment from N@t1onw1de over to it and that tweaked it back to just above £4k again - and we knew that there would be things like that which needed to come from there as well. We're also calling a sub-£500 mortgage fee a bit of a win as that is roughly half the best we had seen anywhere else. VERY glad we applied when we did too - as the best available from FD now for the same term/amount/LTV and fix length is a whopping great 0.85% higher than we secured. Scary stuff. (Although still cheaper than the rate we had through most of the original mortgage, for context!) 

That's about our lot I think - I'll have a bit of a catch up round everyone elses diaries over the next few days! 

rtandon27

Welcome Back EH! So nice to hear your 'voice' again

beanielou

So glad that you had a good time 

themadvix

It sounds like you had a lovely time! And another one here glad to have you back!

You sound very organised re health and money (you always do, but it's very clearly laid out there).