And now we go again...

rtandon27

With owning also comes the ability to control when tradespeople arrive to your home to do work!  This alone makes it worthwhile for us 😆 - not having a property manager to deal with is a strong second.

teaselMay

Absolutely on both counts. I've been very lucky here my landlord has been very hands off and happily allowed me to fix most things myself, which is my preference I like my DIY, and so it has largely felt like mine, but always with the nag of when will he sell. And then he gave me notice, at least it was a year notice  and he tried to help by speaking to local estate agent, and also tried to sell it with me as tenant too. Last time the house was sold and I was expected out in 3 weeks - I didn't know they couldn't do that at the time! That's how I ended up in this house. But all being well that can never happen again, not totally sorted but we seem to be getting there and the housing association seems very good and in my corner which is a big help.

EssexHebridean

We were fortunate when we rented that our landlord was great - and while he did go through an agent, and they were a bit of a pain, he was also very open to us going to him direct about stuff, and he then just confirmed with the agency that it was happening, and it was fine! He was very open for the last two years we were there that he was looking to sell, but that he was quite happy to wait until we wanted to move on to do so - and that was exactly how it panned out. In fact, when we left because we'd bought the flat he gave us the washer/dryer, oven and a few other bits and bobs as because he was selling, he'd just have had to clear them out and he knew it would do us a favour - they did too, both got used until they basically died! 

Well then - here we are at the beginning of another week, and I have no idea how anyone else's looks but here it's grey, chilly, drizzly and frankly a bit miserable! The weekend was a reasonable one though - a nice pottering about sort of day on Friday, then on Saturday as MrEH had no rugby we did indeed decide to head to Walthamstow and do a couple of the brewery tap-rooms. Train to Tottenham Hale then a nice if damp walk through the reservoirs/wetland centre to Hackney's taproom - we have discovered a slight short cut to get there as well - via a gate in the fence we didn't notice last time! watched the Italy -v- Wales match there (well played Italy, well played!) and the first half of the England -v- France one before heading up the road to Beerblefish and finishing watching the rest of the match on my iPad as they don't have a screen there - entirely DELIGHTED with that England win, too! Ordered pizza for tea delivered from the local excellent small independent chain as is traditional - and tried their marmite cheesey garlic bread for the first time - oh my word! YUM!  Plans are afoot to repeat this jaunt in a few weeks time with a couple of pals anyway, which we are already looking forward to! Yesterday we popped over to Mum's in the afternoon - another two black bags of stuff to be thrown away, LOTS of stuff to go to the charity shop, and some more bits that came back with us - all useful stuff though - a car cleaning kit, some reams of paper (apparently still in perfectly useable condition although we'll see when we come to use them!) and some other odds and ends.  The difference in the loft is incredible - the only big stuff still to get sorted up there now is an old plastic water tank which will have to be cut up before it can come down as it's too big for the hatch, a couple of giant carboard boxes one of which has a possibly very useable stereo system in, the other we think is empty, and the cushions from an old sofa (we think!) but even without those being done it's massively more useable for Mum already, and I'm far less worried about her falling over things! 

MSE Stuff:
- Spending on Saturday came of course from personal spends - the train and the pizza got put on the CC but the money is already transferred back over to clear that off.
- I have a meal plan for the week, and it involves getting at least some more stuff out of the freezers too. In fact, I probably need to think about reviewing how the levels in freezer 2 look, to see if it can be switched off yet. 
- Yesterday's lunch was deconstructed cottage pie - and I bulked up the mince mixture by throwing in a tin of lentils, the last of a bag of frozen sweetcorn, the last of a bag of frozen mixed veg, and some frozen peas. This means that there was double the amount of mince I needed, so a double portion has been frozen for use another time. 
- Banks checked and all good
- MrEH is switching his WFH days around this week so there will probably not be thursday evening beers - good from a money point of view though as we are away at the weekend attending a meeting (at a beer festival!), so that will be spendy! Means we'll be car sharing through until wednesday, and I will then take my own car on Thursday anyway. 
- We've started discussing properly what we plan to grow this year and where we plan to grow it. We probably need a list of the odds and ends we want to buy too - we're planning a couple of metal framework arches to grow climbing stuff up - squashes and cucumbers I think - and ideally we'd like to do first early tatties as well as our usual pink fir apple maincrops, although the earlies can probably be grown in bags we'll still need to work out where. 
- I unloaded another big sack of logs onto the storage shelf in the shed yesterday - that means we have just one still untouched plus nearly all a 25kg sack of fuel. Allowing for the point in the year we *think* that will see us through - if we needed some more fuel then we can just buy a small bag locally rather than needing to go for a bulk stock-up again.
- Once the weather warms up MrEH will start making the newspaper bricks again too - we are very nearly out of those but the stack he made have supplemented the logs and solid fuel brilliantly - so we will make roughly the same number again. 

Watty1

newspaper bricks?  We dont have newspaper so that isn't an option but we are seriously considering making poo bricks next year out of horse poop.

EssexHebridean

Watty1 said:

newspaper bricks?  We dont have newspaper so that isn't an option but we are seriously considering making poo bricks next year out of horse poop.

Ooh that sounds interesting Watty! The paper bricks are nicely simple - you tear the paper into strips and soak it thoroughly into a slurry, then it's loaded into a purpose built press thing which squeezes the water out and compresses everything down, then left to dry - we usually use the mini greenhouse shelving once that's no longer in use for seedlings. they store astonishingly well - I was concerned that they'd get damp again and disintegrate but no problem at all. also not as water-heavy as I was fearing too - and what it does take we can use from the water butt anyway so al good! 

I've just messaged our usual electrician about some odds and ends we want looked at in the house - as a reminder:
- Outside light needs replacing
- two dimmer switches to get changed over (dressing room and front room)
- replacement LED lights under the cabinets in the kitchen
(Need to have a proper think about whether there is anything else needs attention as well). 

lucielle

I used to make paper bricks, very satisfying. Envious of the veg garden plans, nothing much happening in the garden front here. 

L

PennysIntoPounds

Walk and beer and marmite cheesey garlic bread and loft sorting?! What a great weekend!

Blackcats

Marmite cheesey garlic bread sounds like a marvellous invention.  This week my aims are to drink more water and eat less snacks and I'm now desperate for a snack of the marmite, cheesey garlic bread variety!

EssexHebridean

The marmitey cheesey bready stuff was indeed delicious - sorry to all who are now craving it! PiP - this was from Yard Sale Pizza - not sure if you are familiar with them but if not, you probably should be! (And it really does go perfectly with beers too!)

We have taken the plunge to jump off Agile for the time being - this month so far has seen just one day where even with a substantial amount of load shifting we have been any cheaper than the SVR, and even that was only pennies, so I messaged them this afternoon as we have been bumped to a 16 month fix which will at least future proof us ahead the near certainty of the upcoming rise in April. it's been the higher than SVR prices around the 1900 - 2000 timeslots that have been killing us - while I'm fine to start cooking at 1900 - and in fact often that actually suits us well, holding off for an extra hour to try to get vaguely sensible prices is just a step too far when actually we do want a hot meal most days. We'll revisit it in a few months if the pricing looks better. 

themadvix

Ooh, thanks for the pizza recommendation EH - will bear them in mind should we need pizza in London in the near future.

Totally get your point about Agile and cooking at a time that suits you - it's fine if it's occasional, but not when it's all the time that you have to work around pricing slots.