And now we go again...

redofromstart

I bought spare filters for both my jaws (pets and building works) for not that much from the n1nja website. Quite like that delivery is included. 

lucielle

I have a spare set of filters for mine, it just makes it easier. 

L

EssexHebridean

Good info about the Jaws filters being reasonably priced - thanks for that Redo & L, I can certainly see I’d be more inclined to clean them more often if I had a second set so that may well be a sensible purchase. 

PiP - I was reminded with our pizza last night that generally speaking we actually prefer home made to takeaway as well - I like a thin crisp base - the sort that the Express🔁Pizza people do very well - albeit at a high price - and I can get that on HM whereas all too often takeaway ones are thicker and more doughy.  And Joedenise - I too made a cuppa at just before saving session time! 😁

hope everyone is having a lovely Saturday so far - although if you have sunshine I shall be quite jealous - we’ve had rain veering between torrential and nasty and drizzly all day so far. It makes little odds, I have no intention of going anywhere else today now! 

This morning we finally managed to get to our local “everything shop” - a veritable Aladdin’s cave of a place. Bought the picture hooks we went in for - yes, the big river site would have been a whole world cheaper but this was definitely a shop local choice as we value the shop in question a great deal. (Where else, should you wish, could you buy anything from a tin of furniture polish to a teeny galvanised  garden incinerator bin, I ask you?) Also impulse-bought a radiator key at the till. We don’t have one, although I’m sure we would have something that would do the job, but this was £1.29 and will save trying to find the thing we have which would otherwise do the job. It can also be added to the key ring with the gas meter box key so we will always know where to find it. Cheap at the price. (And, I never thought it would be something I would find myself impulse buying!) also whizzed round Lil’s to get the majority of the weekly shop and drive myself over the final level of the spend threshold on the card - that will net me 10% off next week, so I need a proper list and to account for some stocking up then I think. Still grateful to the lovely couple who’s spend I added to my own on the card! 

I need a plan for this afternoon now. MrEH has headed off to a rugby match for a lovely team he has played for a few times before - sadly his own local team are now going very much in the direction of “if your face doesn’t fit, you’re out” for him and a couple of others, he’s been getting increasingly unhappy about this as he’s been meeting all the criteria for selection for the team for matches and just never getting picked. I pointed out yesterday morning that if he wanted things to change, he might have to do something about it (and a few more choice phrases too - not least that even I was  getting fed up with the several days worth of grumpiness each week) so he messaged someone he knows from the other team, who came back within minutes to say that they would LOVE him to go and play for them today. They are a lovely side too - who play out of a great pub in the next town across to us to the west. I have just had a delicious ‘use up” lunch with the last Middle Eastern flatbread from the freezer willed with the remaining bacon, a couple of sliced mushrooms and some cheese - thoroughly satisfying and I was very glad I’d resisted the temptation to just buy something for lunch this morning. 

I think I am going to throw together a spicy ragu - which I may well try in the multi cooker I think - it will be the first time I have used the sauté and slow cook functions if so, so experimentation ahoy! Might also throw together a batch of muffins as I mused this morning that I “might” bake this afternoon and it was met with great enthusiasm! I should also bring in a new batch of logs later as we burned through most of yesterday’s lot last night! MrEH filled the coal scuttle this morning mind, so we won’t run short of fuel.

PennysIntoPounds

Glad Mr EH made that connection with a good outcome (due to your choice words wisdom), it's horrible enough at school when there are little cliques but really nasty when adults conduct themselves like that 

Blackcats

We went out for the energy saving hour so we switched off as much as we could apart from the outside light.  We actually always go to my dad's at that time on a Thursday so it was no hardship at all. Dad's house is heated to almost greenhouse temperature and we drink plenty of cups of tea so whilst my house was saving energy we were happily elsewhere.

lucielle

Glad Mr EH has found a new team, could be interesting if he plays against his old one. 

L

foxgloves

I must have a proper look at the requirements of the energy-saving hour (I've had a couple of emails mentioning it) & see if we could be participating too......though first, I'm thinking the Cephalopods would need to sort out our non-communicative smart meter issue, which they still have not done.....or if they have, they haven't informed me. Shall soon find out, as if it is fixed, should receive a statement on Tuesday. If not, then they will be receiving a different sort of statement from me!
F

Cheery_Daff

I'd not properly clocked the energy saving hour stuff - have now switched to half hourly meter readings though, so once that's been up and running for a couple of weeks we might be able to take part next time 😊

Glad Mr EH has found a new team 😊

EssexHebridean

Morning all - thanks for popping in and all your lovely comments!

Start of another week then - and at least it's started out dry here, if a bit chilly too. 

Accomplished a few little missions yesterday -
- New blind acquired for the bathroom window and after several attempts we also got it all cut to size and fitted. MrEH was originally saying that he wanted to trim it for length too as he was sure it would be too bulky, but oddly enough after the swearing that occurred during the trimming for width side of things, he's now gone very quiet on that aspect, and as I have no intention of poking that particular bear I suspect it will stay at its current length! I think it has made a notable difference to the overall warmth in there though - certainly felt like it had this morning. The only issue was that we couldn't get the moisture resistant one we had intended to buy - so if the existing one proves to be not suitable for a bathroom we will order the moisture resistant version online and at least only the blind itself will need cutting as the rest of the bits will just be able to be swapped over.
- Shed sorted (yes, again!).
We now have room for a good amount of logs on one of the shelves in there where they will hopefully dry - then stay drier - better than in the slightly rubbish log-store. We will now give some thought to what we can do to replace/rebuild/improve the log store. 
Lots more existing wood we had stashed sawn down ready to use for kindling - one bucketful already brought indoors, and another couple standing by in the shed ready for use. There is more to cut as yet too. 
One of the three remaining packing boxes opened and stuff from it sorted - some has gone indoors as it needs storing inside, and the remaining stuff is back in the box.
Better use made of the space we have in there, which will also make it easier to get the garden waste bin through when needed as well. 
- We have investigated what we need to do/buy to replace the cord in the front room curtain which has begun to fail - I need to make a Big River purchase to get that, and we are then going to try binding the new cord to the old one to see if we can draw the new one through that way. The hope is that worse case scenario is that if the cord breaks altogether we can then just open/close the curtains manually, but we'd like to try replacing the cord first. We did try to buy the cord from various stores locally yesterday but nowhere seems to stock it. 
-The last of our moving boxes have been relocated to friends who will be moving shortly so they are finally out of the office! 


Spendiness:
- Opted to buy the new clock radio that was needed - it came from Ahhh-gos but I did remember to go via TCB so some cashback at least. Proved to be nice and easy to set up yesterday, it gets the radio stations we want (so hurrah to no more Heart Essex in the morning - I can't be doing with Amanda Holden at 0645 hrs!) and seems to work perfectly well if this morning is anything to go by. £49.99 well spent - and that will be shuffled from the VSP I think. 
- Food spending this week was slightly higher than a "standard" week but did include some stocking up stuff. Next week will probably be likewise as I will be making use of the Lil's 10% off. 
- I have a black friday code from Zipvit so will do an order there this week I think - it not only gives a site-wide discount but also free delivery without a maximum spend. I definitely need vitamin D - I'm currently working through a pack that Mum didn't get on with, but there aren't many left there. 
- Another BF deal which reduced the cost of the makeup I wanted to try to a price I was happy to pay. First impressions yesterday weren't the greatest, but I tried it again this morning directly over my usual moisturiser and it was a different story - just the level of barely there coverage I like, no cakeiness and feels lovely on my skin, so I think that's a hit. £28.18 total including the brush to apply it as it's a different type to my previous options. A rare (for me) example of social media advertising doing what it's meant to! 

We have no hard and fast meal plan yet this week, but plenty of stuff in to eat so I'm not concerned. This evening will be spicy ragu with pasta, tomorrow most likely couscous with roast veg and halloumi, and I've got a portion of the lamb tagine style stew  made yesterday for another day. The other day might be omelettes/frittata or perhaps jacket potatoes with beans and cheese if I want a really quick lazy option! 

Oh - and I finally finished sewing in the ends on my granny-square blanket over the weekend too - I'm really pleased with how well it turned out too - the decision to make the centre entirely from large squares worked well! I'm now on the look-out for further Christmas project ideas - I've now made three of the little baubles which are both very cute and great for using up scraps, and I made a rather cute little star last night. I'm tempted to make enough of the baubles to make a garland from them - but will need to come up with something more to stuff them with if I do, and probably some more charms to embellish them with too. If anyone else has a go-to place for fairly easy crochet christmassy stuff then please shout up! 

PennysIntoPounds

What lovely productive things. If the thing you want from Big River site is 'sold and dispatched by amzn' check the MSE amzn page for codes to see if any apply to you, there's a few up there