And now we go again...

Baileys_Babe

Our external doors are painted with an F&B colour mixed at our local decorators shop 😉

Humdinger1

Mixing up paint in F &B shades? How very dare you! Don't you know that they have a monopoly on certain shades and their description. ..onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

EssexHebridean

Haha - seemingly their approach to the orange DIY people was every inch along those lines!

I will mention though - if anyone else has an eye on the F&B shade "Calke Green" - Valpsar (US)'s "Northern Glen" is exceptionally close to it! 

MrEH is out at rugby on saturday afternoon so I think I'm planning to get the white paint 1st coat onto the windowsill  at that stage - there is a section each side of the bay that also needs painting (although it's wall rather than wood) - I'll see if we still have any PBW emulsion in the shed and if so I'll use that as I'm not convinced the satinwood will look right there. Otherwise I bet Mum's got a can of it kicking about. 

EssexHebridean

Morning all - and BRRR, HOW chilly? At least it's warmed up a bit since last week - which really WAS freezing wasn't it. Our Nasturtiums have finally admitted defeat - I've pulled them fully over the veg bed as they may as well rot into the soil there as be added to the (very full) compost bin.  There is still one remaining grow bag which will be used as mulch on that bed too - it's got the chilli plants in it so I'll just split the whole thing open and upend it in chunks, I think. 

Funeral on Thursday went smoothly - a glorious if cold day but the sort of blue skies and sunshine we might all hope for on such a day. A very small contingent of her pals from the beer festival were in attendance - but we saw her off royally, AND ensured we were last to leave the wake - she would have expected nothing different! MrEH and I stayed overnight the night before on the outskirts of Birmingham, and had the planned T0by breakfast using a 20% off voucher. The Thursday night was a Tr@ve10dge a mile from the wake venue, and breakfast ended up being a rather lovely little local cafe which seemed like a far better bet than M's cafe. MrEH had some work to do first thing so I went for a walk along the waterfront at New Brighton - heading towards Liverpool, thoroughly enjoyable. Stopped in at a pal's place on the way home too - he fed us tea and cake and despatched us off again with a dozen eggs from their hens! 

MSE Stuff:
- Free eggs!
- Grocery shopping was done between M's on the way home (that one included some beer for christmas as they have some decent 0% stuff, and also some nice non-0% seasonals) and then Als and T's over the weekend. - Mealplan has been rejigged to take account of the eggs.
- Took advantage of the USw1tch 5 hours of free electric on Saturday to batch cook a curry, do two loads of washing and run the dishwasher.
- Used a portion of soup from the freezer for my lunch on Saturday as MrEH was out - must remember that I need to make more soup at some stage. 
- First two eggs got thrown into some baking yesterday as the oven was going to be on anyway. 8 deep cupcake style fairy cakes made - filled with home made lemon curd and topped with a modest swirl of lemon buttercream and some sprinkles bought for 25p in Als last year. Two of went to Mum and the rest are being eaten between MrEH and myself. 
- Lunch yesterday used up the final two tatties from the drawer, and some of the (many) frozen home grown runner beans. 
- Mum did indeed still have some white emulsion left and in fact wanted rid of it, so we've taken that. Needless to say we've now found our own can of it too! 
- An OP sent to the mortgage this morning means we are now sitting at £93,100 - and there may yet be enough to do another OP before end of month. 

The first section of wall in the front room got painted yesterday - and I absolutely LOVE the colour! We managed to get the two coats on - and it looks like that will be enough too. We're going to have WAY more of the paint than we need but hey ho, better too much than too little! 

Plans for this week - not much until the weekend I'm pleased to say, when we have a pal's birthday bash. That will necessitate an overnight stay, which is already booked somewhere budget friendly, and our plan is to pretty much head straight up on Saturday, check in to the hotel, go to the party, then on Sunday it will be breakfast and head pretty much straight back. I spotted this morning that the C0-0p app had both a 50p off milk AND a £1 off your shop coupon, so I will be making use of those to obtain MrEH some pretty much free milk on Friday. 

themadvix

Glad you sent your friend off in the style she would have wanted/expected.

Free eggs always feels like an enormous win, doesn't it?! Enjoy!

We also have more paint than we need after I bought a small(ish - bigger than I wanted) tin of BWE last weekend , only to discover plenty in the existing tin and can't remember why I thought we'd need more... (and ended up using a tiny amount of the kitchen/bathroom stuff anyway for what I did need it for...) I suppose I could take the tin back if I can find the receipt (so many DIY shop trips lately though...).

I do love it when the Coop vouchers can be stacked like that - they are pretty useful, I find.

EssexHebridean

This is definitely a full win on the C0-0p vouchers as by the time the two are combined the milk will be pennies at most I think. 

As for the paint - I'm absolutely CERTAIN that I checked the state of play with emulsion in the shed before I asked Mum about hers - so why on earth I didn't see it then goodness knows! MrEH reckons that our tin is about half full though so it will stay where it is for now - Mum's is less than a quarter full I reckon, so we'll do what we need to do with that and then probably send the balance to the tip.

One task I want to do at some stage is head back to the Orange DIY place's paint mixing desk and find the possible matching cards for the colour in our hallway as there are various bits that need touching up - we won't need more than a sample pot of it though, just depends on finding the right colour! 

PennysIntoPounds

Glad the funeral went well and your friend was celebrated appropriately 🍻

What a win on the eggs and the coop combo

beanielou

Lovely to send your friend of in style. 

EssexHebridean

Well all plans to continue with the household project of getting pictures and a large mirror hung last night had to go by the wayside when it became apparent that our postbox on the outside wall had worked its way so loose it actually came off when I opened it to get post out! Initially it seemed that re-fixing it was going to be a problem, as fresh rawl-plugs refused to "bite" in the existing holes - until I recalled Dad's old trick of sticking a matchstick into the hole alongside the rawl-plug - thankfully that worked a treat and it's now back in place. 

MSE Stuff:
- The delivery we'd ordered of rapeseed oil and (expensive but delicious) mayo from one of our favourite small companies arrived at the second attempt. They ALWAYS surprise us with the speed of their dispatch. That was ordered at 25% off with a code I got last week - of course, annoyingly, the company concerned have sent a 30% off code THIS week - they never go that high! Ah well - one to remember for next year!
- I requested a move to the Octopods then current fixed V2 yesterday afternoon for the gas, as it was going to leave us better off across the year in spite of an increased standing charge. In similarly "that's annoying" form to the above, they issued a V3 of the tariff late afternoon which was appreciably better, so another email has been sent requesting that, and in fact they have already responded this morning, although I've not been able to make their quote acceptance page work as yet.
- the butternut squash that was roasted on cheap electric the other evening fed us last night and will do so again tonight - being used in the usual tuesday couscous yesterday, and will be added to some also pre-cooked mushrooms this evening in a risotto. 
- added some additional lines to the ongoing meal plan last night

I'm intending to pop along to the Land of £s later to grab some cheap christmas decorations for my desk in the office but that will just be a few £s spent. I'll also need to nip in to Als to buy something to make sure I'm in the clear for using the car park as the traffic was grim enough today to lead us to park nearer the office than usual. 
Other spending today is that I need to place an order for moisturiser etc - that will be direct with Cl1n1qu3 using their BF deals. 
Also still keeping an eye for suitably keen prices from reputable outfits for replacing my iP@d. 

EssexHebridean

Gas tariff change all sorted - that takes our unit rate down from 5.77p to 5.06p per kWh, although adds 4p to the SC. 

Ventured to the Land of £s at lunchtime but frankly they should now be called the Land of nothing for £1 these days - I'm going for a nosy in T's after work to see what they have as I'm pretty sure their cheapest sets of lights are both better and cheaper than what I saw at lunchtime! 

Spendiness - our Transport Museum friends membership has been renewed - £48 for the year but quite honestly we're very content to pay that. 

Had a quick look at the Cl1n1qu3 site but one item I'd want is out of stock so I'll look again in a couple of days. BF offers are in place til after the weekend so I've got time.