And now we go again...

Cheery_Daff

Nothing on PBs for us either, although my sister won £225!

We got shifted back to Flexible (which i assume is the SVR) after our Agile fix ran out and I didn't refix - the comparison app suggests Flexible has been £12 cheaper over the past 30 days. We were never as good at load shifting as you though! Although our load is naturally more spread our cos we're often both at home in the day. Anyway, one less thing to think about, especially as we're hitting keep-an-eye-on-the-lpg-tank time!

EssexHebridean

Oh well done to your sister - that was a decent win wasn't it!

I have precisely NO regrets about hopping back to flexible - and at the moment even without a full week's stats the Compare app suggests that Cosy may well be a better option for us than flexible for the moment, but we'll see - I don't want to risk creating a situation where we can't go back to Agile if that seems sensible.

Once again the Manics were fantastic on Friday night - Suede less so, I certainly wouldn't be in any hurry to see them again. I don't think I've ever been to a gig before where the frontman doesn't introduce the rest of the band - and that just added to the feeling that it was a bit of an egotistical performance. It was worth going for the Manics alone though - they rattled through so many hits plus plenty of lesser known tracks which are always good to hear.

Had a little 10 minute declutter in the living room yesterday morning which definitely made things feel tidier, then the afternoon was dedicated to tidying the garden and the shed. SUCH an impact made - the random garden stuff like cane toppers, bottle top waterers, labels and plant ties that just got thrown into tubs when we were dealing with the pots are all sorted and tidied. Pots and saucers are organised so we know where they all are, and things like the bottles for use with watering spikes, and the slug collars are organised into plastic baskets.

MSE Stuff:

• another Octopus happy hours token added to the total - we now have 5 - and we elected not to use any at the weekend as we didn't feel we could get value out of them with the timings they were at.
• Nabbed a free Gr3ggs hot drink on the scratch card this morning - I'll probably use that one day later in the week
• Realised that due to batch cooking we didn't end up using last week's meal plan so in true MSE style that has been recycled to use this week!
• Shopping is around £20 for the week at the moment, including the £6 spent on butter in F@rmf00ds as they finally had it back in stock!
• MrEH's car filled with diesel at the cheap filling station on Friday morning
• while in Bee and Emm on saturday morning we spotted reduced trays of pansies - 75p, so nabbed the healthiest looking one and that netted around 14 plants.
• MrEH made rolls yesterday, and timed it so that we could also make use of the oven to do wedges for lunch. Those were seasoned with leftover fajita seasoning and eaten with bacon cheeseburgers - mince, bacon and burger buns all from the freezer.
• We've been trying as far as possible to time electricity use to what would be the Cosy tariff cheap slots as we want to get a picture of whether that will be a good option for us - that said unless there is a substantial difference I'll be more inclined to stick on Flexible until Agile looks like a good option again. It will be quite nice to just cook tea when I want to!
• Both evenings we were in over the weekend we used the fire rather than the GCH in the evenings.

Spendiness:

• All my travel in London on Friday totalled £6 - I used buses in the morning travelling in, then stuck on foot through the day, using buses again to get to the O2 in the evening. Just a single tube journey back to where we had parked the car.
• Food on Friday didn't quite pan out as intended - Breakfast in the meteorological/cutlery pub chain was my planned breakfast muffin with a (refillable) cup of tea, but two efforts at getting TGTG bags for my lunch fell through as one vendor wasn't even in the location they advertised, and the second claimed that they couldn't honour it as it was from their (closed!) shop behind the stall I was standing at. That one I have formally reported to TGTG as it was clearly a scam. I've been refunded for both, and ended up with a meal deal which was OK but nothing special. £5.50 there, with the plus side that I ended up eating so late I didn't need more than a snack later before the gig - £1.15 on a little pack of mixed fruit and nuts from T's.
• Finally got around to getting the pots for the front garden sorted on Saturday - we had always intended to buy some new ones to go to one side of the new steps, and to buy a couple of fairly "structural" plants to go in them too. Waiting until this point in the year netted us two good sized pots heavily reduced, and we opted for a Nandina and a Choisia to go in them. Total spend £52 and we're delighted with how they look - some of the pansies were added around each plant and we'll add some bulbs as well in due course. We still want to get a couple more pots to border the edge of the steps that doesn't have a handrail too.

greenbee

Cosy is working well for me - but I charge the batteries in the three 'cheap' periods and (so far) that has kept the heating going and allowed me to do everything else I want without using anything in standard or peak periods. Like Agile, your experience without battery will be a bit different. I did notice that when changing from Agile to Cosy they backdated it, whereas moving to Agile they're doing next day - with good reason given that you could previously change in the evening on a negative day and have the whole day charged at Agile prices! I have to admit that it's also a lot less hassle - battery and hot water have just been set and forgotten about (although I did move the hot water timings when I realised that the morning slot was the point at which the heating is needed most) and I'm getting used to running appliances at the right times too.

EssexHebridean

Yes - I confess that it is quite nice to be able to just do things using electricity without having to scrutinise the timings, although at the moment as I mentioned we are trying to fit at least a bit into the "right" timeslots. Allowing that I don't want to be stuck not being able to jump back on Agile (I'm assuming that with Cosy being a smart tariff they may well enforce the 30 day thing), I rather think that experimentation might be academic. Once I have a week of data on that I'm leaning towards thinking I will screenshot the results and then have a week of dong things "whenever" and see how that pans out as a comparison. we naturally tend to avoid the evening peak anyway as often we're not home much before the end of it!

Cheery_Daff

Excellent work there! Sorry about your disappointing Suede experience. They were the first band I ever saw, at the Liverpool Empire in, er, about 1997 I think 😂 Couldn't tell you anything about the experience - we were seated right up in the clouds and it was so steep I was far too concerned about falling off the balcony to think about anything else 😂😂

EssexHebridean

Eek that sounds quite terrifying Cheery - not surprised you were a bit preoccupied!

Had been intending to go to the local CAMRA branch meeting last night, but I decided against it as I have a grotty cold, and with some older/vulnerable folk among the usual attendees I felt it better to stay clear. MrEH went and came back with all the gossip though and I had a cosy evening on the sofa with a couple of Call the Midwife episodes.

Nothing specifically MSE to report - ticking along generally. Banks checked and all OK. I've got a couple of CC shuffles to deal with - I've done the one from the garden centre already, MrEH's coat refund will be pending as soon as he sorts the return, and between those I can work out where the balance belongs.

Prolific is sitting at just over £13 payable and just over £2 pending. I'm trying to remember to keep an eye on what is on offer there. 760 points on Ipsos. 1541 points on 1Poll. I'd like to get both of those two to payout level.

I now have 7 Octopus Happy Hour tokens so there is a good chance we will use some this weekend to allow for making some more soup - just need to work out what variety! (Might get the extra ingredients for sausage and kale again though as that is SUCH a favourite!) If I do have a free hour I'll tie in getting bedding dry as well.

greenbee

Can you share the sausage and kale soup recipe please? I have sausages and kale…

EssexHebridean

Oh dear…here we go… 😂

So - this is a soup I had in a cafe on the Island of Grimsay that used to be run by a lovely lady called Emma - AKA The Scandi Bakery. The flavours are apparently quite Scandinavian as you might expect, but were new to me, and we were deeply impressed how delicious it was! Needless to say though I never asked for an actual recipe - so as per usual with my cooking it is never quite the same twice! Essentially though:

• Sausages broken into chunks and cooked until crispy edged - then removed from the pan and set aside. They don't want to be to broken down - chunks rather than a mince type texture.
• use the far from the sausages to cook whatever veg you fancy - I reckon onion or leek are a must-have, plus a good amount of red lentils for thickness, and a tin of butter beans which help to add substance. I usually lob in whatever other veg I have that needs used.
• Caraway seeds and if you have them fennel seeds are seemingly the key flavour thing here.
• veg stock to cook everything down in - then blitz - mine is usually still a fairly liquid type of soup although not watery, I can't be doing with that.
• Chuck the sausage back in, along with some small-ish pasta of some description - soup pasta is perfect, but you have to be quite careful not to overcook it, if I have macaroni that works nicely, otherwise you could use broken up tagliatelle or lasagne sheets, or to be honest whatever pasta you have and fancy.
• Once the pasta is pretty nearly there throw in well chopped kale just to wilt down really.

Emma's had cabbage rather than kale I think if I remember rightly (it was a few years ago she ran the cafe!) and there were almost certainly other differences too - mine evolved to kale because when I first cooked it at home we were growing kale so it was the obvious brassica to choose!

greenbee

Thanks! Think I have everything - including both caraway seed and fennel seed!

PennysIntoPounds

As a responsible pet owner you know that just slug collars won't do, you have to take them to the vet and get them microchipped and spayed too