And now we go again...

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey EH long time no hear from.

Did you do your camping trip? Have you trialled your new cold-box 'in the field' as it were? What did you think? Did you do EHU, and have it on that (rather than just in the car). I'm still pondering a purchase. Our use would primarily be to keep maybe a pint of milk (at a time) cold, and some butter or a piece of cheese so that we could "self-cater" (sort of), if we go away for a couple of days using a purple hotel or its like.

I was coming around to the thought of starting to use the paid for breakfasts, whilst at the purple hotel, as LG is getting older, and is less fussier these days, but the recent closures announcement has made me put those plans on hold. The cold box would still be useful, irrespective of whether we had breakfast in the hotel or not. And whilst I don't want a too big literage one, I know I would kick myself if I went too small. Although if we were campers (we're not, and probably won't ever be now), I would go for a bigger box, and EHU.

Greying X

EssexHebridean

So our week in Cornwall was glorious - weather was mixed, as expected, and we did find a potential tiny leak in the tent - that will need to be kept an eye on although it might be because we hadn't quite squared up the velcro on the side door flap, in which case we'll know for the future. There is a 2 year manufacturers warranty though so we've got a bit of time to make a decision.

The money we spent in advance on the 12v cold box and the King Poles in particular turned out to be very well spent indeed - the ability to prop the door up as essentially an awning was lovely and made a real difference to how happy we felt sitting in the tent for wind protection while still feeling we were enjoying the outdoors, if you know what I mean! The coldbox we went for was an 0utwe11 one in the end - it cost us £69 from the Big River - although we could have got it £5 cheaper in an independent camping shop we called into down there ironically enough. (Had to go in there as MrEH's ancient sleep mat decided it was going to completely fail to keep any air inside it - he now has a decent one which will hopefully last him a while.)

The campsite just outside Camborne was utterly lovely as always - I think that's my favourite site to stay on anywhere to be honest! We had it to ourselves for much of Thursday and the time we were packing up on Friday which was lovely - and from Tuesday onwards we were only sharing with a handful of backpacker tents at any given time. At £15 a night it's just such a bargain too - and all the more so now that they have a freezer for ice packs!

MSE Stuff:

• The costs of the week away including accommodation, most of the food and the various things we did came out at £575 - we could have trimmed that by making packed lunches (and buying less pasties!) or by taking food with us (not something we like to do - local economies need support!) but that cost feels very reasonable. There was beer from personal spends, and some other odds and ends covered in the same way, but that total has been covered from a mix of taking from the food budget, our personal spends and a little from the joint account surplus from last/this month - all as planned.
• Evening food was cooked entirely at the tent aside from fish & chips on our last night - that was the most expensive takeaway chippy tea we've ever bought but it was also seriously good, so they're forgiven!
• Being able to get Freezer 2 off before we left was a win, and shaved our electric spend while away at least a little.
• That said, since coming back we've needed the heating on almost every evening which wasn't expected for May! It's been COLD though!
• Operation make space in the freezer has recommenced, and I'm hoping to make more of an impact over the weekend as well - including perhaps using that turkey carcass for stock which will then go into a parsnip soup with the parsnips from the fridge.
• Garden spending on our return included three bags of compost and 2 growbags - all covered from the garden account - just! Hopefully that's the end of the spending for a while!
• Last week's weekly shop came in at £27 and included washing liquid - that also used a £3 off when we spent £20 coupon.
• The weekend is planned to be a quiet/low spend one - and I'll be keeping the weekly shop as low as possible.

Lil's sent me a free bakery item coupon last week (used on a loaf of bread which has somehow been fitted into the freezer!) and this week it's a free cleaning item so I will need to work out what to go for there. There are also some useful items in the app coupons for this week so I'll be shopping there.

Baileys_Babe

Our older tent has king poles so useful, the newer tent has many improvements over the older tent but the door rolls away to the side so not suitable for using king poles 😞

It is always great when you can refreeze your ice packs onsite, we camped over the BH weekend and we used a fridge in a friend's van to keep the essentials cool and cool boxes for the less essentials - drinks

Greying_Pilgrim

Agree about the usefulness of an on-site freezer, but the first (and possibly only 🤔) time we encountered the service, our ice packs got stolen 😕 They were labelled with our name, but I guess they were frozen and in the freezer, and the person who took them either hadn't got any or hadn't refrozen theirs 😕

Edit: The freezer was clearly labelled as 'use at own risk', but I was disappointed that people would steal labelled icepacks, as you never know what other folk need them for.

Greying X

EssexHebridean

We wrote various messages on our old ice packs calling out the morals ("you're a low down ratbag - buy your own f***ing ice packs you cheapskate" sort of thing) of anyone considering stealing them….strangely enough they never went missing! I suspect a lot depends on the sort of site too though - I cheerfully left my not inexpensive power bank on charge complete with a original apple charger plug at this one and never had any concerns! we've certainly camped in placed where if popping your phone on charge while doing the washing up, you'd be wary of turning your back though!

BB - the king poles are a complete game changer! Most impressed - we've never had a roll-up door before so it's a proper treat for us! I was just amazed how much bigger it made the tent feel too!

EssexHebridean

We appear to be in one of those "things going wrong" periods.

My camera - the one I spent over £1k on just 3 years ago went catastrophically wrong at the airshow I went to earlier in the month. Thankfully it was right at the end, but still annoying, and when I looked online the issue - a complete failure of the shutter mechanism - has been reported as a problem with rather a lot of this model. I was able to get the camera to Canon quite fast, but needless to say they are denying that it is a known issue, and insisting that it being a grey import makes a difference to what they ought to do with it.(I disagree - it was made by them and should therefore be expected to "last a reasonable length of time"!) I did eventually talk them into giving me a 30% discount on the original quotation, which was something. Thankfully past me had the wit to take out a third party warranty which is still in place - that has turned out to be £58 well spent as they will cover the bill. I am concerned that it will fail again in a similar amount of time though - it had only done 25% of the shutter actuations that Canon suggest is to be expected! My original gameplan - to buy a second camera of the same model and go fully to the mirrorless type - is now on hold, although I will need to do something in case it fails again.

Also on the way back from Cornwall MrEH's car threw up an engine fault warning - and our pal's diagnostics machine confirms that it is probably a partially blocked particulate filter. If it needs replacing the estimate is between £1,500 - £3000 - we're hoping it may get away with just a clean which would be far cheaper. In the meantime though all longer journeys need to be made using my car. Feels like we dodged a bullet on the repair needed to mine the other month but it's come back and got us!

Claimed the Lil's free cleaning item - in spite of us having a good supply I went for the dishwasher tablets as after all, they won't go off! They've now been added to our stash - we aren't going to need to buy any for at least a year I reckon. I'm still not entirely sure about the new points thing but if they keep giving me freebies, all good! We did nip into FFoods at the weekend and they had at least some tins of the 3 for £1 chickpeas in stock so I nabbed some of those.

Food this week is once again about creating freezer space or using things up - the parsnip soup got made albeit without the turkey carcass, although I did use the tub of turkey gravy that was in the freezer and that worked excellently. I did decide it was a good idea to buy a 15-box of eggs on Friday when I shopped though, and frankly I have NO idea what I was thinking there. However, they are bought, and so they will be used - I'll hard boil a load this evening which can go in with a pasta salad tonight and for our lunches tomorrow, and I may even find the time and inclination to bake a loaf-cake of some sort tomorrow evening - maybe a banana bread?

beanielou

Sorry about the camera.

themadvix

That's really poor from Canon on the camera, but definitely a win with the extended warranty! Hope the car doesn't need more than a filter clean.

The eggs will last, won't they? I suspect we get through quite a few more than you (judging from your concern), but I buy 24 at the beginning of the month when I do my supermarket delivery and they usually last until at least the third week - I rarely ever look at the date, but I've never yet had a dodgy one (famous last words).

EssexHebridean

They are BB end of the month - which would be fine, but we're away for half of next week and all weekend, AND out on Friday (and not in need of lunch to take with us!) - when I bought them I was thinking that the date was further away than it was, I think. I will be able to hard boil another batch next week when we're back though - I think they will get used up - it will just require a bit of thinking about! I can't recall the last time I had a properly dodgy egg either - find the occasional one that stands on end when checked, but nothing worse. I confess I am a bit paranoid though - they show any signs of lifting off the bottom of the jug of water I check them in and they head straight for the food waste bin…carefully! I once absolutely years ago cracked a properly rotten one and the smell…dear lord, never again!

Thanks Beanie - and yes Vix - Canon have lost a fair bit of goodwill there. I had my first Canon camera 35 years ago, and aside from the odd compact in different makes, I've had nothing else since. I'm now giving consideration to whether a brand change is the next step.

themadvix

I see the issue with the eggs now - but I'm sure you'll get through them 😊