And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Haha - you lot and your clocks! BC that made me chuckle too - MrEH would definitely use clock change based befuddlement to try to persuade me into an early lunch! 

Well we’ve been acquiring bargains. Needed to go to the large orange DIY store for various things that were too large to carry back yesterday on foot, new loo seat to replace the broken one in the downstairs loo, and a section of wire mesh panelling that will be used to ensure that nothing critter-like can get in through the ventilation gap down there. We also bravely ventured (it was LOBBING it down with rain) out to the garden centre bit when we saw that the clearance section was fully loaded. And as a result our garden now features a pack of cyclamen which I reckon has at least 3, probably 4 viable plants, a redcurrant bush, a decent sized geranium and a large oregano. Total spend on plants was £8.75 so we are rather pleased with ourselves. 

We did indeed also return to the charity shop - and they seem to have managed to sell pretty much all the nests of tables aside from one optimistically priced one which we looked at and said “errr, no!” We DID however find a small console style table - beautifully solid, two little drawers, and the perfect size to fit neatly in one of the gaps that required a table….£20! Entirely delighted with that. 

badmemory

My car has satnav & the time on that is correct, the time on the car has never been quite right so I ignore it.  The annoying thing is my new somewhat expensive phones which had to be corrected whilst my old phones & I am talking 2 almost 20 & 3 almost 15, were self correcting.  Modern technology at work.  They will probably go whenever Europe or America do.

beanielou

Love the table. 

beanielou

The one that annoys me is the car. 

It’s a blooming Au8i. 

badmemory

Mines even worse its a (very small) VW.

EssexHebridean

Delighted to say that in spite of being French my Clio usually behaves herself immaculately around clock change times - although having said that she probably won’t this time now I have said that! 

Well we seem to have achieved a good bit today - in spite of having to dodge various jobs around some pretty heavy rain showers. Made the most of the worst of it this morning by nipping out to do the stuff that we needed the car for anyway. Also got a good bit of cooking dine - the stew for lunch was popped in the slow cooker first thing - venison, half the pack of bacon bit’s I bought last weekend, the bottle of Hobgoblin that’s been lurking in the fridge for ages, the pack of baby chestnut mushrooms we got in the TGTG haul from Al’s, half the reduced swede, a onion, half the pack of reduced potatoes, and close to the end of the cooking a pack of chestnuts that I remembered I had lurking in a cupboard. It needed a bit more liquid, also got a good slosh of Pontac sauce, a shake of smoked chilli and a good handful each of pearl barley, red lentils and oatmeal.  Third was topped off with a suet crust and finished in the oven for lunch, and the remainder was split into two containers - 1 will be frozen and the other eaten later in the week. Also prepped the pack of broc and cauli from the TGTG bag, and one of the packs of tenderstem - those got steamed over a pan of macaroni and thrown together with a cheese sauce with the remaining bacon bits in and again, that’s made two double helpings - one for tomorrow, the other for the freezer. The other pack of tenderstem has also now been lightly steamed - we had some for lunch and the other half is open freezing and will be tipped into a bag later.  Very pleased with the meal prep there - that is another several evenings that food will be a nice easy - but still extremely tasty - option! 

This afternoon we potted up the hydrangea, that is now in pride of place out the front, also potted up a rescued campanula into a small pottery trough with a couple of the cyclamen - again that will stay at the front. The other cyclamen have been popped into the garden. The oregano is also now in one of our own nice pots and has joined the other herbs on the patio. Finally we popped out for a short walk via our local black walnut tree so we could gather the ones MrEH will put in the Christmas cake. Phew! 

Now we’re cosied up in front of the fire, with precisely no plans for the rest of the evening! 

PennysIntoPounds

Excellent meal prep and using up the Al tgtg bag. Dinner tonight is my Mum's lovely 'use it up veggie splodge' with pasta and a load of cheese. Though now it's officially 'knocking on for winter' (I believe that is the actual official meteorological term) I'm very much hankering for pies, might have to get some pastry rolls in...

You've made so much progress with the house, and all the lovely-sounding plants, blimmin well done you! Glad you're enjoying a doing nothing evening in front of the fire 

EssexHebridean

It felt really well deserved PiP - after a weekend where as MrEH put it "It really feels like we've got a lot done!" 

And now here we are at the start of a whole new week. No plans other than the usual sort of stuff (MrEH;'s rugby training tomorrow, work stuff) until the weekend now - on Saturday we are heading off to a pal's 40th birthday party (which she is very sensibly hosting at a brewery!) and on the way home on Sunday we may well go via an RSPB reserve assuming the weather is appropriate.

MSE Stuff:
- I have been paid - so I have already shuffled my contribution to the joint account
- Joint account surplus for the month ended up at £155 - which I shuffled to the OP account this morning. And that in turn meant that...
- £200 transferred to the mortgage this morning as an OP too! 
- I will probably do the remaining money shuffling - mostly just my personal stuff - later on just to get it done.
- Brief conversation with MrEH relating to what to do when our fixed rate savings mature - currently leaving them with the provider they are with but going for a 2 year fix there at 5.50% is a strong contender - I will have a look about and see what other deals are on offer with providers we already have accounts with too, I think. 
- May hold off re-homing that sum until we get our Pr1nc1pality reg savers out too, mind you. They aren't huge as they were only taking £125 a month, and we've both reduced payments to £25 for the final 2 months as well, but still, it would be another lump sum that could go to a fixed rate quite handily. One to ponder.
- My mobile bill will finally go to it's full amount this month so I need to remember that will increase what comes out of my personal account a small amount - still only just over £8 a month though! 
- Need to budget for Saturday night food/beers - that will be from personal spends of course. 
- Free heating from the fire - currently completely free in fact thanks to the logs and smokeless fuel we had left for us by our sellers! It will almost certainly continue to be just a weekend thing, but in colder weather I may well get it lit earlier on a Friday afternoon with a view to it stopping the requirement for the central heating later. It's a lovely thing to have, anyway! 

Spendiness:
The weekend WAS quite spendy - they have a habit of being at the moment - but I'm content we got good value for money.
- £6.80 on a sheet of welded mesh which between us we snipped to the right size to block in the ventilation gap under the extension - this should mean that small critters aren't able to get in there, and in turn that will reduce the risk of any damage to cabling etc. It is currently just wedged in - the idea being that if anything is already inside there we want it to be able to get out again - but we'll work out a way of fixing it permanently once we are content that the space is "vacant"! 
- £30 on the replacement loo seat - this was on the basis that we agreed that it's not the sort of thing where one wants to go for the cheapest, but similarly also, we were slightly bewildered by why anyone would pay some of the amounts being asked for them, as they didn't appear to be gold plated... 
- plants as already mentioned - if that redcurrant turns out to be as productive as our old one then it will over the years pay for not only itself, but the other plants we purchased yesterday too! 
- The £20.50 in the charity shop on the table and a picture frame too - a quite nice one which will be forming part of the group of pictures we plan to hang above the stairs. I couldn't believe my luck when he said 50p! 

Financially I would like this week to be mostly a "no spend week" I think - aside from stuff that is already planned in. I do need to start thinking about birthday presents for Mum, and Christmas presents for both her and MrEH though - so will be keeping my eyes open for various bits as I go along. Shopping will be back to Lil's this week I think - with the usual monthly aim of extracting the value from the free bakery item once I hit that spend level!  It's a straight 4 week shopping month as well which is always nice as it ought to mean that I can start bolstering the food account a little again...

One thing that we have decided on is that our annual Good Food Show trip will be a single day one this year we think. We do still want to go, but adding the cost of a hotel in just makes it a bit "step too far" on the costs right at the moment , and while we'd need to factor in parking by doing it as an "up and back" that will still work out better value.

themadvix

Your fire did look lovely. Don't forget to 'go twigging' when you're out for a walk - I've been collecting twigs and even a couple of small branches recently for our chiminea - it's amazing what you can find - and not even in the woods! (ETA: of course, you may not want to look as bonkers as I do!)

Wise move on the GFS. Cheap hotels are not easy to come by these days it seems - gone are the days of a Premier 1nn for £40 (at least when and where you want one!).

EssexHebridean

Haha TMV we are already all over the idea of twigging - although even better than that (assuming it lingers for a few more days) is the pile of cut down bushes/small trees we've found nearby - not left anywhere that it's clearly intended to stay there to rot down for wildlife habitat I hasten to add - if that is still there next weekend we will be raiding it - for kindling at least! 

Annoyingly the Sunday night of our GFS weekend would indeed have still been in line with the "good old days" - the Saturday night however would be another matter entirely - and paying £80+ for a tr@vel0dge makes me feel a bit queasy! 

The GFS tickets are booked however. I found a 20% off code, and then before I used that MrEH mentioned that he had been sent a 25% off one but it had just expired. I tried it anyway and hey presto - 25% off! That means we've paid £44.45 for the two tickets including the transaction fee rather than the nearly £57 they would have been otherwise, so I'll take that!