And now we go again...

Cheery_Daff

PennysIntoPounds said:

Cor, as @Cheery_Daff says, you are on it like a car bonnet (though she said it far more classily and less cockney 😁). You must make sure to do any annoying forms and enter any raffles you encounter this weekend!

😂😂 not often anyone calls me classy 😂😂

LadyWithAPlan

Nice Lidl win £100 what were they buying???

I am often to be  heard singing Rien de Rien, Hymne a l'amour  (possibly my fav - she wrote it about her -died in a plane crash coming to see her -(married to someone else with kids) lover and of course La vie en Rose .. hmm maybe Piaf should be my specialist subject

Not done my form - tried and failed to do Xmas shopping

Blackcats

Well done in Lidl.  I don't understand why folks don't use the app - it's free and minimal effort so what is there to not like?

perhaps you could share your winning streak with @PennysIntoPounds who is mostly looking forward to winning .....anything at all 

PennysIntoPounds

😂 I am actually very choosy, actually @Blackcats
But if EH would like to waft some over her purple patch my way that would of course be most welcome 😁

EssexHebridean

Morning all - I gather some of you are at risk of drowning from rain again, so hoping things don't get too drastic in any of the areas with a storm warning. We had showers first thing and are now just getting blustery winds, we were mildly amused at the willow tree we walk past on the way from the car to the station (MrEH) and the office (me) which had seemingly overnight dropped a good 50% of its leaves in one big WHOOSH like a snowdrift all over the surrounding pavement, houses and cars! Funny to look at,  but I have to say I wouldn't like to be underneath it all! 

I was it must be said slightly dumbfounded at the idea of anyone being able to spend a three-figure sum in Lils, although probably a little less so than I would have been a few years back. Still, it was very definitely a win for us wasn't it! Their reasoning about why they didn't have the app was simply that they thought it was all special offers on things they wouldn't buy - they hadn't realised the benefits it carried with regard to total spend rewards etc. I do feel I did plenty to encourage them that they should look into it for themselves anyway - although of course whether they will is another question! Anyway - the free pudding we half consumer last night, and was perfectly acceptable although we both agreed it wasn't a patch on home made. Tasted fine drowned in custard though! The other half of the sourdough is now in the freezer waiting for next weekend's toast, and the dishwasher tablets will, I'm sure do a perfectly adequate job when we start using them. All in all, it was just under £9 worth of completely free stuff so well worth having, and I should now for the first time ever make the top level of the spend threshold as well!

The "on all day" heating experiment on Friday did turn out to be quite energy heavy, so we will be putting our thinking caps on and exploring other possibilities there I think. The most obvious may well be to just shift the thermostat somewhere a little cooler in a bid to keep the heating ticking over for a little longer, though. 
Saturday's heating experiment was a little different - I moved the thermostat to a warmer area to prevent the heating kicking in in the late afternoon, and then lit the fire at about 5pm. While the temperature in the living room did drop to quite a chilly level - that didn't worry me as I wasn't sitting there! Meanwhile the front room was lovely and cosy, and the rest of the house was pretty much spot on the right temperature, so that was a win. Didn't work quite so well last night, but that was partly because the fire proved to be a  bit of a devil to get going - it did eventually and once that happened everything started warming up nicely. Whichever way you look at it though, that was two heating slots which used no gas at all, so an experiment we will be repeating. 

MrEH has started a stinking cold, so I'm trying to avoid catching it, and also headed round to Mums on my own yesterday afternoon to get some of her garden stuff done. She has a mixed hedge - roses, clematis and various nasty spiky things with very pretty berries - along one side and it needed a fairly drastic haircut so I set about it armed with my trusty loppers. Also fairly heavy loppers as my shoulders are now telling me - we did a decent job though, and entirely filled her garden waste bin so that was a decent start. it will need at least one further session yet I think though.  Came back with yet more decluttered bits too - a rather lovely little bedside cabinet made by her Dad somewhere around the end of the war, we think. A couple of bits my dad brought back from a business trip to South America in 1976, which have gone straight on display in the living room, and also - and this is a lovely thing - an original 1953 Coronation mug which Mum couldn't even remember having! That's gone alongside my Silver jubilee stuff for safekeeping. I think next weekend is going to see another little session of house stuff - I've priced up a blind for the bathroom so we may see if we think that will be suitable and if so get it and fit it. 

Plans for this week include meeting a pal tomorrow evening -  it's a quick catch up between her finishing her event and catching her train home so we may well end up with just a drink I think, will be good to see her though! 

PennysIntoPounds

What lovely keepsakes, especially the bedside cabinet made by your grandad

Excellent work on the hedge based free exercise!

Enjoy your drink, hope they have some nice beers

kayannie

I was a small child in 1953 & everyone in my school was given a coronation mug at the celebration party held in the local park. This was in the Midlands area. Maybe this was something given to all school children? KA

Blackcats

How lovely to have that bedside cabinet.  I found out recently that the little cabinet in my dad's hall was made for my mum by her uncle as a place to store her knitting and sewing things.  I remember the cabinet from my childhood but had no idea it was home made.

EssexHebridean

kayannie said:

I was a small child in 1953 & everyone in my school was given a coronation mug at the celebration party held in the local park. This was in the Midlands area. Maybe this was something given to all school children? KA

That was my gut feeling with the mug - and Mum would certainly have been in a sort of age group that may well have got that sort of thing, I suspect she's just forgotten ever having had it, either way I am very glad to have it passed to me now! 

PiP - we're going to the Parcel Yard at Kings Cross so it will almost certainly end up being a half of Fullers Seafarers for me, I'll have to drive once I get back to the car so a half of something low ABV is my absolute limit, that would hit the spot nicely though! 

BC - I've got a little wooden sewing box/footstool that as I understand it was made for my Mum back in the early days of her and Dad being married. She thinks it was made to her own specification by a family friend at the time who did some joinery, but can't recall anything much more than that about it. It's a lovely thing though. I'm really liking having the little odds and ends of furniture like this that have family history with them. Nothing is worth much, but that's irrelevant, I've been taken by surprised how sort of "grounding" it has been to have things like that. It's lovely knowing the history of things isn't it!

Well our threatened stormy weather has turned up - we have just had what can quite literally only be adequately described as a torrential downpour! Unless it dries up I shall take the view that the car can perfectly well stay where it is until I get back to it this evening!

MSE Stuff then:
- Banks checked and all good
- checked my Oyster balance and it looks like I have more than enough to cover the tube into town and out again this evening so all good there. 
- MrEH meanwhile fed his yesterday and that has come off the account today. All budgeted for though. 
- Spends from the weekend have hit the credit card so I have just dealt with the money shuffle from the various pots.
- definitely agreed with the pal I am meeting this evening that we will just have a drink. Her train is just before 7pm so ordering food would be risky in case it was slow arriving! 
- Food lined up ready for this evening - it will be the usual tuesday couscous which I will throw together when I get home - I've got leftover lamb chunks out of the freezer to go with it though, and then it will be veg from the fridge as usual, so probably red pepper, courgette and mushroom - all things that can be chopped up and chucked in a frying pan! 
- Last night's freezer dive also pointed out that we are fairly healthily off for mince, so I can strike that from Saturday's Farmers market list. In fact, I'm actually questioning whether we need to go at all this week - hmmm...I happen to know there is a joint of lamb in the freezer too, which I will almost certainly pull out for Sunday. 
- Weather looks hopeful for getting washing at least mostly dry outside tomorrow so have asked MrEH to shove a load in to the machine later.
- Loving the Home Mini device from the Octopods - it really helps to enable a proper deep dive into what energy things use! At some stage I will be making use of it to track down any remaining higher energy use spotlight bulbs that may be lurking around upstairs - we haven't worried until now because mostly the lights are only on in rooms up there for a short period of time, but it's another small thing we can track down easily enough. 

Sun_Addict

What lovely keepsakes to bring back from your mum's house. Might not be worth much in monetary terms but priceless in terms of sentimental value. 

Enjoy your catch up tonight.