And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Morning all! 

We did manage to get some kindling foraged on Saturday morning in the end - it is now all cut down to sensible lengths and stacked up to dry in the shed - so that will be a help going forwards. I think we are going to have to buy some in the meantime though - I hoped there were some oddments left in the shed but sadly not. I've found a couple of local places that seem to have sensibly sized bags available at a reasonably sensible price so we may try to get to one of those over the weekend. 

The party was great fun - so lovely to see so many pals, and nice to spend time chatting with some friends that we don't all that often see too. have just discovered I got mis-charged for my final beer which is irritating - it's one of the issues with contactless payments I find - all too often you can't actually see the amount that's charging through, and unless you want to be constantly checking what is showing pending against your card it's easy to not pick up on mis-charges until it's too late to deal with it. Fortunately this isn't a massive overcharge, and the brewery's prices were generally very reasonable, so I'm not wildly enraged at them having ended up with a little more of my money than I'd expected.  

MSE Stuff:
- I remembered to turn the heating right down before we left home so it wouldn't be heating an empty house yesterday before we got home
- Thanks to a pal who was staying at the same hotel as us I ended up with breakfast for free yesterday morning - he is a shareholder in the particular establishment concerned, and this nets him a certain number of free breakfast each time he stays at one of their hotels, so I benefited from one of those! 
- thanks also to the group of us at the hotel being like-minded on the advantages of walking rather than taxis when the distance is quite short, we all agreed to a walk to/from the brewery as well - it was just under a mile and quite honestly those waiting for cabs actually took longer to get back as a result, I suspect! 
- Free entertainment on the way home yesterday as we stopped at the RSPB reserve at Rainham Marshes. Nice walk in the sunshine! Had intended to have tea and cake at the cafe before leaving but actually ended up deciding to skip that as the cake wasn't that spectacular and we were both still fairly full from breakfast.
- After much reminding from me, MrEH did eventually remember to pay the tolls for the Dartford crossing last night so has escaped idiot tax there. 
- Fire was lit last night for some free heat - the central heating is definitely using a little more gas to bring the place up to temperature in the mornings now though! 
- Also popped in to T's on the way back last night - the smaller of the two main stores in the town and the one that still does the 3 for £6 cheese offer. So three cheeses selected, plus a tub of coleslaw that I wanted to go with jackets last night, then a wander via the yellow stickered area too - a pack of posh sausages, a loaf of posh bread, some seasoned chicken thigh bites, a pack of samosas and a pair of banoffee tarts - the tarts were eaten last night and everything else has made its way to the last nooks and crannies in the freezer. 
- My Sant-And-Er ISA has transferred over to its new home so is now earning a rather more sensible rate of interest. 

So in spite of my determination to eat our way through the freezer I have of course now managed to stash more in there. Sigh. It does mean however that it will be a while before we will need more bread for toast - the one that was made for breakfast on Saturday has also been sliced by MrEH and frozen too - and the other bits will all be worked into the meal plan in the next couple of weeks. The samosas will probably supplement a curry on Friday evening I think, and the chicken might even go into said curry! I whipped the pasta bake that was made last weekend out last night to make space for the incoming bits - so that is going to get eaten this evening. Will probably do jacket tatties again for tomorrow evening I think - and if so then those will use single portions of stuff from the freezer - I need to excavate this evening and see what I can find. Wednesday evening will probably be a stir fry. 

Had an email from Ipsos this morning to say I'm now eligible to take part in product reviews so that could be useful if any of the products are any good - I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for surveys about that. 

lucielle

Sounds like you had a great weekend. Annoying about the over charge and great wins on the yellow stickers. 

L

Blackcats

I'm having the same issue with emptying the freezer - something comes out and something else goes in.  One of our freezer shelves broke so we have a complete muddle in the middle with a pile of food that is all precariously balanced.  I've recently been attacked by a frozen sourdough loaf and the ice cube tray!

EssexHebridean

'ello L & BC!  BC watch out for those vicious sourdough loaves!

We have a positively GLORIOUS day down here - bright sunshine and blue skies - it was lovely walking from the car this morning and I shall be walking back shortly to bring it closer to the office ready for a quick getaway this evening too. would have been better if it hadn't been 15 degrees in the office this morning though - for some reason Madam decided to turn the heating down to silly levels overnight - we usually set at 16 as it doesn't take that long to bring it up to daytime temperatures from there. That extra degree takes an age though.

MSE Stuff:
- Lovely bright weather means that I set a wash load to run through first thing and MrEH put it out on the line before he started work - with luck by the time he brings it in later it will be at least mostly dry. It's the bedding so will be really nice if it has line-dried. 
- Freezer dived last night and found two tubs with leftover curry which will be mixed together to go on top of jackets this evening. Once I've added a bit of cheese and split the remaining coleslaw between us that should be fine. 
- Must go back in there this evening to drag out the prawns for tomorrow to defrost ready for stir frying.
- Banks and CC checked and OK - I need to work out what I've missed from the CC shuffles though as there is a £16 balance on there currently. Not an issue as it will be current month (and if it wasn't, it would clear automatically via the "pay in full" DD anyway) but I'd like to get it showing a zero balance again.

Aim for this week shopping wise is to return to Lils for the majority of bits - that should take me over the £50 spend threshold ready for free sourdough the week after. There will be some stuff to get elsewhere but that can be done easily enough, I must factor in a trip across to Mum's this weekend as well - she has some garden stuff that needs doing to properly put it to bed ready for winter - plus a neighbour wants to change a fence panel and the stuff needs trimming back from it Mum's side to make things easier. MrEH should have rugby on Saturday although it will depend if he gets picked - in spite of meeting all the criteria for selection he and another pal who is of a similar age seem to keep getting overlooked at the moment which is making things a bit fraught. I bet they will be back wanting them to play soon enough once the cold weather kicks in and they can't get enough players without them! It's all got a bit "jobs for the boys" in the team at the moment which is a shame. If he is out though then I shall have a nice snuggly afternoon with rubbish TV!

My crochet blanket is coming along a treat. The large central squares - 9 of them - are all joined, and the smaller ones round the edges of that are in place for a single layer round 2 sides. I have a feeling that just finishing that single layer is going to make it big enough too which means I may well have some spare small squares - if so then I may well look at using them to make a cushion cover - we'll see. Even once the remaining squares are in place on the blanket there is a fair amount of tedious sewing in of ends to do - I'm glad I did finally realise that I could sew in the initial central end at least as I started the centre of each square - that helps a bit!  I'm saving all the snipped off ends to stuff into a little bauble I've also made a start on - I may well make a few more of those as they, like the little wreaths, will make nice little extra token presents for people. They are also fab for using up those last scraps of yarn, too - the bits that aren't long enough to do a proper project with, but too long to just throw away, you know?! 

beanielou

The baubles sound fab. 

lucielle

Love to see a pic when it’s done. 

L

savingholmes

Lovely sounds walk among the marshes.

EssexHebridean

Morning all - L, I'll try to remember to get a pic of the little bauble once it's sewn together and stuffed! 

It's a truly nasty, murky day here today - got distinctly damp walking from the car and it's showing no signs of improving much yet. Traffic was grim as a result too. Still, MrEH was driving today so at least I just had to sit and look at it! Also took the chance to get a small amount of financial shuffling done while in the passenger seat as well.

MSE Stuff:
- £100 sent to the mortgage this morning. The OP Pot had above that amount in it, and this is the deal we agreed on, so over it went! 
- MrEH transferred me some money for something he'd forgotten he owed me for yesterday afternoon so my personal main account is looking a little healthier now. 
- Did my planned freezer dive last night for the prawns for this evening's stir fry so those have been defrosting in the fridge. 
- Banks checked and all fine.
- CC now zeroed off - I tracked back and came to the conclusion that the balance probably related to a number of small spends for the house and garden so just moved the money from savings to cover. It was a small enough balance that it was not worth too much of my time trying to trace every penny.
- MrEH needed to switch the underfloor heating on in the office yesterday afternoon - so we now have a clearer picture of how well that works - and how much it costs. Answers so far seem to be "fairly" and "not as much as we feared" although it's still far from a cheap method of heating. He ran it yesterday for a couple of hours, which we reckon cost in the region of 50p - the next experiment will probably need to be for him to use the oil filled rad in there instead to see if that is as, more, or less efficient in terms of keeping things comfortable, and how the costs compare. He did comment yesterday that in fact when he walked back in there after having popped to the loo later in the afternoon he realised it was actually quite warm, so switched the heating back off again! 

Spendiness:
I had been intending to look at an Etsy seller that I bought some rather lovely little wooden Christmas decorations from a few years ago. The original ones were bought for Christmas 2020 - and went over to the Hebrides with us that year, so they have very happy memories attached, and we have been saying ever since that we were going to keep an eye on what she had in the future and would consider buying some more. Sourced a couple of cute little wooden hanging stars, a larger freestanding one, and a small christmas ornament for my Mum too (which will get given as part of her upcoming birthday presents). Also found a christmas present for a pal through another seller. Total spend £26.36. 
Have suggested to MrEH that we need a basket of some description to sit on the kitchen island to take anything that needs to go to the office

I am hoping that a small amount of DIY yesterday evening might have saved us a spend. We've been having issues with the thermostatic valve on the radiator in our bedroom - I had a feeling that the pin was probably stuck, but wasn't quite sure what I was looking for or how to solve the issue. As always with these things, YouTube came to the rescue with a handy video, and a short while, a small application of WD40, and some light tapping with a large allen key later (that genuinely was the recommended tool for the job!) the pin freed up and the radiator started warming up - hurrah for me! It was warm again this morning - in fact possibly rather too warm - so has now been turned down a further notch and we will find out if it will continue to work. If it does then I will probably leave it turned off overnight but make a mental note to turn it on first thing then off again at bedtime so the room gets some warmth without us needing to boil for 20 minutes before we get up! 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, excellent DIY fix there, well done! I fear I may at some point have to tackle the thorny issue of rebalanced our radiators, which are very uneven - annoyingly the newer, more insulated end of the house is also where the boiler is, and ends up much warmer than the other end. It's such a complete faff, but I think we probably must tackle before it gets much colder... 🙄

lucielle

YouTube is so handy. Had to change my printer ink and can never remember how to do it. 

L