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

RelievedSheff

Sounds like you have fantastic weather up there. 

We are still undecided and may well change our plans for next summer until the ferries are more reliable. Might just stick to the mainland instead.

Sunshine_girl2

Glad to hear your back , and have had a good time despite the extra day and ferries. 

EssexHebridean

Hey all - thanks for the welcome back and the lovely comments! 

I've been thinking a bit about food and grocery shopping generally - obviously right now we don't want to be increasing the levels in the storecupboard over-much - but when we do eventually move that will no doubt be an expensive month with topping things back up again. We have less of an issue relating to dealing with frozen stuff as we are buying the existing fridge freezer at the new house (a big American-style job - albeit not really my ideal layout) - and we are intending to keep Freezer 2 and stick that in a space that will neatly fit it in the new kitchen as that will still enable things like bulk purchases of meat. We do need to create some space in our existing freezer 1 though as we have some bits that need freezing that came back from holiday with us - Stornoway black pudding, mostly! 

I think our plan for the next few months is going to be to make good use of the stuff that is in the freezer, and, as I've said, also aim to eat plenty of fresh fruit & veg. I'll need to top up levels of fish at some stage, too. Ideally I will be aiming to build back some credit in the grocery account though so we have some slack in there ahead of the re-stock that will inevitably follow the move. How achievable that will be allowing for the way prices are, we'll see! 

Tonight we have - unseasonable though it is - the remaining two portions of the smoky black bean soup from the freezer - I have some part-baked rolls to go with it - which will be a quick and easy solution for our first night having faced the dreaded commute again after holiday!
Tomorrow will be another chicken salad type thing I think - probably with a pasta element to it as the remaining Jersey royals will hold off until Friday evening. I need to come up with something MrEH can have for Thursday too - it looks like I'm going to be eating elsewhere as I am heading up to Claire's that evening for some photo stuff the following day I think...
For puddings I bought us a big tub of yogurt each, but we also have a range of fresh fruit so I will probably knuckle down to prepping some of that while we're waiting for the rolls to bake tonight - my yogurt at least will hold off for use next week anyway, and I imagine that MrEH's will as well. I do find a nice big tub of prepper fruit in the fridge at this time of year makes a tasty pudding option though.  

lucielle

Welcome back EH. Glad you had the great weather!  

L

savingholmes

Welcome back - glad you had good weather while away. 

Sounds like things are coming on with your move. 

Well done on the meal planning. Very disciplined.

RelievedSheff

Do love Stornoway black pudding. We usually mail order it in bulk.

I thought we had run out but I found a piece lurking in the garage freezer at the weekend. So that will go on holiday with us I think for a day that we have a full english for breakfast.

starnac

Welcome back. Sounds like you had a lovely time. You seem very organised in prep for the move will which be very handy during the stress of actually moving. Some exciting times ahead for you. 

EssexHebridean

Morning all - and as ever the supportive comments are lovely to see, thank you! Not entirely sure that "organised" for moving is even close to be honest - or perhaps it's more that at this distance out it's relatively simple to seem organised - it may well all collapse into chaos nearer the time though!  

MSE Stuff:
Banks checked and all good - checked with MrEH this morning and we are in agreement that he will need a single Oyster top up next week, all being well. The car will probably get a top-up of the tank over the weekend I think - his car that is, I am very much hoping that I have correctly remembered that mine has enough fuel to get me to and from Lincoln tomorrow/Friday! 
We are mostly into the financial "dead zone" to the end of the month now - all DDs and standing orders are out, we've got one more lot of savings interest to land which will be in the next few days. 
I checked the claim form for the ferry compensation last night but I suspect deliberately Calmac don't make it easy to see what you need to have handy to complete it - OR whether you can start, save what you've done and return to it. I'll have a bash later and see what happens I think.
Holiday spending all now cleared off the card - in fact I think we have overpaid it slightly but that's fine - I can balance off using the food account as there is an Al's spend from Monday to take into account.

Spendiness:
Nothing yesterday - but I DO have to think about MrEH's birthday which is next week - he has a bottle of rum that we picked up on holiday for him as it was an Isle of Barra one he wanted to try, but I'll try to pick up a few odds and ends of him to have that he doesn't know about too. 
There will be some spending tomorrow/Friday I'm sure. We may go to the pub for dinner tomorrow, otherwise it'll likely be some form of takeaway, and I usually treat Claire to breakfast from our favourite local butty-wagon when I've stayed over too. I may also need something in the way of a snack for the way back too but will see how the timings work on everything else. Personal spends will cover that easily enough though. 

Move stuff: 
If I recall correctly the survey is happening today - although I may need to check that as we've not had a confirmation.
MrEH popped the mortgage paperwork back in the post yesterday - with luck that will arrive in Leeds today and allow for the offer to be formally issued pretty soon.
We're waiting for a response from the selling agent about a second viewing - if we hear nothing back from her in the next few days we'll probably just pop a note through the door of the new house with our contact details and hopefully set it up that way.
MrEH transferred his "Fairer Share" £100 over to the New House Fund yesterday, and once the end of month surplus goes over it will be just a whisker away from being back at 5k again. 
I am thinking that once my car comes out of the garage tomorrow it may well have to be left out after that to make room to shift various things to the garage as needed. Might be worth holding off on that just yet though as I would prefer to minimise the time my car is street parked ideally, once we start boxing things up though that will probably be needed. 

other stuff:
One small Prolific survey this morning - I'll probably have a look at Ipsos later to see what is there, especially allowing that Strava are putting their prices up - in fact I need to check exactly when that is happening and by how much.
We have a LOT of stuff to do around the voluntary role in the next few weeks - and I confess we did have a bit of a "this is all getting away from us" wobble last night - but that's pretty standard around this time so I'm not as worried as that might suggest. Even if it IS getting away from us, we have all the checks in place to be able to make sure everything is under control, so all good.  Tonight will be a lot of data entry stuff - hopefully between us MrEH and I can tackle firefighting on emails during the day. We sent a mass email chaser out to everyone we'd not had responses from last night - and those that we get nothing back from by close of play today will be either removed from the order and replaced, or progressed to telephone chasing by a member of our team. 

Food yesterday was as planned, tonight will be a chicken pasta salad with sundried tomatoes and the rest of the salad veggies. Yesterday's movement was  3 fairly brisk walks - at the moment it will mostly be either walking or cycling I think, and in fact I will probably get the foldy bike back into MrEH's car when we get home tonight to avoid having to juggle it with my car in the morning. I'd really love to find time to squeeze in even a short yoga session this evening too - we'll see. I'm also hoping that on the way home we can swerve round and see a friend's new house - it's a real doer-upper (as in - not even habitable right now!) and will be amazing to see it at this stage and then as they get work done. they have definitely gone for the "buy at a very reduced price and then spend money on getting it sorted" approach - but will also probably do a fair bit of the work themselves - not something we were prepared to venture too far into! I've warned her we may not make it round, but would like to if possible. 

RelievedSheff

Both of our houses that we have bought have been in walk in condition, the 30's semi had just been renovated with new kitchen and bathroom and then this one was a new build.

We are both agreed that doing loads of work to a house is not for us!!

jwil

Welcome back!  Glad you had a nice time away