And now we go again...

Makingabobor2

beanielou said:

Was thinking of you when I watched Top Guns: Inside the RAF. Your friend was mentioned. Such a lovely tribute. 

We watched that, such a sad episode. 

LadyWithAPlan

Hoping all ok and the paper brick making is going well 

Greying_Pilgrim

We've just watched the RAF programme off tape EH, so very, very sad.  So very glad that Mack & Cheese passed their training, in honour of the Sqn Ldr.  X

EssexHebridean

Hey all - thank you, all is well here! DFW is fairly busy at the moment and the free time ai do have in the day now I spend a fair amount of it there (and being nosy on energy/house moving boards!) - I’ve dipped into a few diaries but entirely neglected my own! 

This week’s “Inside the RAF” was indeed a tough watch - although it absolutely showed Schlongy at his best, doing what he did so well, which was fabulous. I too was very glad that Mack & Cheese passed! (And will be keeping my eye down the line for either of them ending up as a future Typhoon Display pilot!) 

So - where are we at then. MSE stuff:
- the electrician visited and we’re waiting for his quote (but he in turn is also waiting for me to tell him what outside light we want, so..!)
- the new A’s CC finally arrived - I was glad I had followed my instincts in the end and not cancelled the first one and requested a replacement! That was activated and I have now made the required spend on it to qualify for the £20 into the A’s rewards pot I think. Plan is that we will switch most spending to that now as it pays a small amount of ongoing cashback - again as A’s reward points. 

- grocery spending is still being kept down I’m pleased to say - although my “stock up list” is also starting to grow! 

- not yet managed to get freezer 2 emptied and off. The duck I bought at Christmas has made it out of freezer 1 and will be cooked tomorrow, which should have made room for this to happen, but then I bought another box of the ready to bake pretzels from Lil’s yesterday (this is entirely Redo’s fault…😉) and those filled the space! 

- some garden planning has resulted in a small spend as we have bought the two arches we’ve been discussing ready for growing climbing veg up - the idea being of course that this will free up space in beds for non climbing stuff! Those will be being built tomorrow  as we have designated that our first “garden day” of the year. £24.98 so the bank is not broken (and there is still plenty in the pot for the compost we also plan to buy tomorrow!) 
- trip to Sheffield last weekend was a nice mix of productive (our first “face to face” meeting in connection with our voluntary role for a long while - so good to see everyone and we got lots done), social (met up with a fair few other pals up there too which was good) and exploratory (had a nice wander on Sunday morning including a good poke round the Park Hill Flats which was fascinating!) All costs from personal spends - although train fares are being expensed. There is a delay/repay claim there for a small amount which MrEH will be doing and we will be pocketing as it will slightly offset the tube travel portion of the travel which is not easily expensible. (We were delayed 52 minutes on the way back - nearly missed our bus from Epping too which would have been rather more expensive!) 
- holiday planning is finally properly underway, the accommodation for the way back (if needed) is booked in the shape of a TL room at one of our usual stopping points - booked on a flexible basis for a cracking price of £31.99 so if (when?!) the ferries get messed up we may be in time to cancel it and get money back! Still got some ferries to book but that can be done this week.
- holiday pot looking “OK” I think -  cottage balance comes out next month and there is enough there for that anyway which is the main thing! 

- waiting for our pal to tell us how much we need to transfer her for Alderney adventuring as well as the balance for THAT is also due next month I think… 
- £300 car insurance excess has landed back with me and been transferred across to my pension which was where we felt we would get the most benefit from it. 

- meals planned for the week 
- Just made a mortgage OP of the odd £45.xx on the balance plus an additional £100 which would take us into the £100k numbers…exciting! 

- did a wash first thing yesterday then spent all day waiting for a dry weather window that was promised but never reliably arrived. Eventually gave up and took it to thr airer mid afternoon! 🤦🏻‍♀️

MrEH has rugby today - playing for a the first time for an Essex county charity old boys side he was asked to join a while back so he’s pleased about that, so he will be off to Saffron Walden with a pal a bit later, and I need a plan for my day! Having had a pretty busy and social weekend last week, and been out on Thursday evening too (a friend organised a tasting of some really nice and quite unusual beers at his house - which was excellent fun but also involved a good number of folk I didn’t know so it was mentally quite challenging and I feel a need to recharge!) so…
- might go out on the bike later if the roads dry out a bit 
- want to do yoga, but need to pick a new 28 or 30 day challenge first
- if the weather is good enough I’ll get a wash out on the line 
- might give the bathroom floor a scrub
- might steam-mop all the hard floors
- might get jaws round the downstairs carpets 

Got a plan for lunch which involves the balance of the veg I shredded up for coleslaw last night plus various other bits - broadly similar to the carrot, peanut etc thing I made the other week but with slightly different veg. Probably with a sachet of rice/grains as I have been capitalising on Lil’s 20% off offer. 

lucielle

Life sounds full on! You didn’t have on your list might fit down with a cuppa and a book….
L

Sunshine_girl2

Sounds like you have been very busy. Have a restful Sunday. 

EssexHebridean

Morning all - there was definitely time for a sit with a book and a cuppa! 

There is also plenty of time for that today as having woken yesterday with a rather ominous sore throat, it’s substantially worse today and I know full well that had I gone to work it would have resulted in all requests for me to keep talking to a minimum completely ignored and I would have come home with little to no voice. As I believe the offending lurgy was given to me by Madam Boss anyway, I felt no guilt at saying I wasn’t going in! I feel pretty grot, not the worst cold ever, but certainly not brilliant, and a day of doing relatively little it probably only going to help. 

I did indeed get out on the bike on Saturday - a little over 8 miles this time - and also began a new Yoga With Adriene challenge - “Yoga Camp” which I think might’ve been the second challenge she ran. So far two days in and very enjoyable, although there hadn’t better be too many days that are 51 minutes long like yesterdays as I don’t often have time for that in the week! 😁 

Did manage to get some washing done and mostly dried outside in the end over the weekend - I’m not complaining as certainly there was less moisture indoors than there otherwise would have been! That was after Friday’s laundry faff where the weather forecast spent  most of the day lying about being about to rain…! 

The main job yesterday was building and placing the two metal arches we’ve bought for the garden - the plan is that they will give us extra growing space for stuff that will grow upwards. Getting them placed then lead to a decision to take out a strip along that edge of the lawn too - we’d talked about that but hadn’t entirely expected to just crack on and do it - pleased with how it turns out though and that will definitely increase growing space even more! 

A quick trip out in the afternoon also resulted in finding that Th3 R@ng3 were selling various fruit bushes including raspberry canes at 2 for £6 - so a pair of those bought and now painted in the bit of ground we cleared out the back - we’ll see how they get on but if they don survive at least it’s not too much money lost. We’d been keeping an eye out but not found any elsewhere at a good price. 

Food is planned out for the week - I’ve been a bit slack on meal planning recently and while we’ve maintained eating from stores and working on emptying freezer 2 a bit things have been a bit more scrappy than I would have ideally liked. I was also organised enough to roast a big tray of veg when I cooked Sunday lunch yesterday so that helps with the planning for the week. 

lucielle

I’d like some raspberry canes but not sure they’d stand up to the wind. 

L

foxgloves

I do hope your cold is soon on its way out, @EssexHebridean. There are so many lergies around at the moment. Weirdly I haven't had a cold myself since the end of December 2019, which is unusual for me, so I think I must be saving up for a big one! 
F

rtandon27

Yikes - sorry to hear you are subpar - get well soon EH!