And now we go again...

LadyWithAPlan

I hate to do this when you are now tackling MFW again but  Le Creuset works great on induction (had some of my pans for over 20 years, they last ... and always look great plus so many fab colours nowadays) and I have just discovered SMEG also do some lovely induction proper quality pans - there are some deals on line..

VintageHistorian

You can also find Le Creuset very heavily discounted in TK Maxx, although it's very much left to chance whether you'll find the right size/shape/colour.

Also with curtains, we got ours made to measure from Curtains2Go, they tend to do 10%-15% discounts around bank holidays and the like, if you sign up to their newsletter then you get notified when sales are on.

EssexHebridean

Hey all - loving the various bits of curtain chat - although Foxgloves - ouch to that blind, that WAS a nasty moment! Glad it got sorted! Milann I remember you talking about those curtains on your diary a while ago, they sound lush! We are looking at a sort of velour made from recycled materials for the living room in fact - the colour looks fairly perfect, and they look pretty decent, so fingers crossed! 

Cast iron pans whether posh or not are definitely not for me - there is heavy and heavy, and being short, I definitely wouldn’t fancy wielding those around a glass induction hob - I can pretty much guarantee that I’d misjudge the clearance at some stage and I can just imagine what the outcome would be!  😫

RT you will be delighted to hear that the Swedish delivery turned up - on the earlier end of its scheduled delivery sot as well which was pleasing. I managed to get the shelves inserted into the smaller of the two wardrobes in the dressing room (we’re going with that description for bedroom 3 - we had to come up with something as we were starting to feel like estate agents in our own home saying “bedroom 3!” ) this afternoon - and that is now turned into a storage cupboard for my camera kit which is most exciting - it’s so nice to actually have a proper home for it! Then once MrEH finished work we cracked into building the two bookcases - the larger of the two was slightly tricky purely because of the space required to lay all the bits out to put them together but we had both done in about an hour and a half. This evening once we’d eaten has been the delightful fun of getting books sorted out - honestly, it feels SO nice to have all our books back on shelves - and the novelty of actually having spare space on bookshelves too - although I think MrEH already has plans to fill that! We’ve also now got the shelves in the larger wardrobe in the dressing room too - and we’ve removed the handing rails from both so they are distinctly now more “cupboard” than wardrobe.

MSE Stuff:
- garage refund arrived and already transferred to the OP pot
- Nationwide 8% regular saver opened - but not yet funded
- the Octopods are dropping their prices from October as predicted - which is helpful. Less helpful is the fact that they have announced that they are increasing our monthly payment by a chunk as it’s too low. They’re right, it is, but I also have over £500 credit, and a plan for increasing the payments, so I was a bit hacked off to be told 10 days before the next payment that they are increasing it, oh, and we can change it back but it so have any effect as the next payment is 10 days away… except it’s not now, because as well as changing the payment, I’ve also slipped the payment date by a day. That’ll teach ‘em! 😆
- weekly shop done in Lil’s at under £28 - with just a few oddments still to get in T’s on Sunday. 

- small spend also in B&M for some more storage solutions, some cleaning bits, and a couple of food items. 

🙂

Cheery_Daff

Yay for more storage, and more bookshelf space!

That's naughty of the octopods! They seem to have two systems for calculating the DD amount weirdly - one is the normal link from an email,  and the other on the website,  labelled as in beta test mode, might be the other way round.  For us, there's about £10 difference - the beta mode one,  which I think is more nuanced, is lower than the other. Its odd though because the link from that one to actually change the DD takes you to the page with the other one on, which shows the higher amount🙄 It let us set the lower amount anyway though - good job as we're about £250 in credit (electric only), and only used £54 in the last month,  including standing charge,  so quite ahead of ourselves (it's set at £71)

Garbled explanation- will check at a more reasonable hour if it actually makes sense 😂😂

Cheery_Daff

Just had a quick check - it's their balance forecast tool that says lower for us. Main is £71.23 which is what tool said last time, and what we're paying, and tool, with its nifty little graph to show what will happen to balance each month at whatever rate you choose, now says £65.89 - no idea if that's at new prices, and going to try to go back to sleep before I start thinking about it too much 😂

beanielou

You have been a busy bee. 

Agree with you on the pans - for me they are just too heavy. 

Enjoy your weekend. 

EssexHebridean

I suspect a lot of the problem with the energy at the moment is that 🐙 are trying to use a combination of our own “energy demographic” - ie whether we are below average, average or over-average consumers, alongside a snapshot from our meters which of course show the previous owners data rather than ours, other than for the past three weeks (how have we only been here three weeks?!) and when you then also throw in the fact that due to the set up at the flat we will show as dramatically higher than average electricity users, but stupidly low gas ones it causes them no end of problems in their predictions! We’ll see. Right now their figures for use this month from the smart meter are looking very good - electricity hugely below the level we’d have used at the flat as you’d expect, and gas lower than I expected too, it’s genuinely astonished me quite how cheap it is to heat water by gas! 😂 I do have a very solid plan to increase the DD on a monthly basis now anyway - it’s gone from £75 to £85 for the next payment, and I’ll be upping it another £10 ahead of November, and again for December, when I’ll see how we’re going on the balance on the account and how our use is going. 

Beanie it’s annoying with the LC type pans isn’t it - I love the look of them, but I realised a long while ago that my height relative to things like hob/ over door clearance combined with their weight just made them not a good option for me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Slow start here this morning - cups of tea, some toast, I’ve drained the black beans that cooked in the SC yesterday and got a batch of chickpeas in to soak. I’ll probably make the soup with the beans tomorrow I think - I’ve found the base recipe I used before albeit I thought I’d also noted down what I did last time but can’t find that so may not have done. 

MrEH is playing in a rugby match later with his club’s “Vets” or “old boys” team - that’s an early kick-off due to both other commitments at the hosting club and the timing of the England match - they are aware that the visiting team want to get back to their own club to watch that. I’m going along to take photos - it’ll be nice to get the camera out for some use as it’s not been anywhere since Fairford! I’ll need to buy myself some food there, and there will no doubt be a beer there while I’m waiting for him to get changed post-match then some beers back at our club afterwards. The forecast suggests we’re in for a nice bright day anyway although not massively warm. 

Blackcats

I'm glad you expanded "vets" to "old boys" as I was momentarily wondering why a rugby club needed a team of vets (as in people who look after animals).  Must be time for a cup more tea to get my brain working a bit better 🤦‍♀️

Enjoy your day

badmemory

I've got monthly energy usage figures back almost 20 years.  My electricity usage has been coming down every year due to the changes in equipment.  Like flat screen TVs instead of CRTs & computer screens too.  My gas came down after the last replacement boiler.  But then the last few months have been incredible.  My heating came on for the first time last week after early May.  The longest I have ever known before was 2 months.  I suspect that may give some of the energy companies a few calculation problems going forward.

savingholmes

Glad you are staying on top of things. Sounds like it will do you good to get out with your camera again.