And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

rtandon27 said:

EssexHebridean said:

...managed to find the "magic eraser" sponge I was after in the Land of Pounds yesterday - goodness knows why they have suddenly become so hard to find! While I was in there a dishmatic and refills...

EH - I have a feeling that the shortage of magic erasers are due to their environmental impact - so sad as I love them! Those lovely sponges are made of melamine foam (human-made, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable substance) unlike the old fashioned cellulose sponges.

If you decide to hate your dishmatic (as frankly it is rubbish for what it was intended to do) - try a mix of dishwashing liquid and vinegar for scrubbing bathroom glass shower stalls and grout & tiles - Works a treat! - and as a bonus can be scrubbed up and washed down while you are in the shower as neither item is toxic!

That is a brilliant tip for the dishmatic - yes I can well see that it would work better for that than its intended purpose! Makes sense about the magic eraser too - I may go and buy another one at some stage to lay one in stock for their inevitable departure then. A pack lasts me forever anyway as I always cut a small piece off for what I want to do - and use it to death on all sides before disposing! 

TMV citric acid paste could work - good thinking!  And Redo - I’d spotted those sachets - they di appear to make light work of toilet cleaning but I wondered if they would be effective enough for our hard water…for the price I may be tempted to try them though! 😁 

Good garden/compost tips SL - thank you! I think we have decided that we will go for the green waste bin - as you say for the more pernicious weeds (and we are already well aware we have some of those!) at the very least it could be worth it’s weight in good. The compost bin is already set up - standing on concrete slabs which is less ideal in some ways but the only option - and should make for easy digging out when the time comes. The slope is such at any “mucky” run off from the bottom will run off the back of the slabs rather than staining the bit we can see. We had a very effective if makeshift small compost bin at the flat for our little pocket handkerchief garden area - just a plastic dustbin with the bottom cut out - and that always worked well for us. Astonishing to see how small it was though - the compost from it is just sitting in the bottom of the new one looking lost! The worms seemed to survive well though so we’re now cheerfully giving them new supplies to get stuck in to! 

Our “recycling centre” is decent but annoyingly you have to book an appointment to go now - which creates a faff out of something that used to be simple. I suspect in a matter of time they will declare that not enough people are using it and so say we have to go across to the county town (impractically distant) with anything that needs tipping. 

EssexHebridean

Good morning lovely diary-dwellers - it has the feel that it is going to be another scorching one here, although right now there is a light cool breeze so I have windows open everywhere airing the house out a bit. 

MrEH has headed off to London, and the Openreach man arrived bright and early just a few moments after 8 and was gone again inside an hour later - I’m not sure if I am still waiting for someone from V0d@fone now - the router is plugged in and waiting to sync. If they aren’t now sending anyone though I hope they will tell me as I don’t want to sit here until 1pm waiting otherwise! 

One load of washing (done last evening) already on the line and another running as we speak - that will go out as soon as dried and I might try getting MrEH’s rugby kit through later - although as he doesn’t need any of it for the game tomorrow I may delay that until Sunday. I’ve washed up the oddments that needed it, collected the rubbish from the upstairs bins, got the broken down boxes from the living room out to the office (and those are being collected tomorrow by a nice lady from Freecycle, along with our large box of bubble wrap!) to get them out of the way for now. Quick potter in the garden to get some plants in pots sorted out - I may plant my pulmonaria in a bit before it gets too warm   23 have the perfect cool, damp shady spot for it where I imagine it will be wonderfully cheerful!  Also had my second brew of the day and a piece of toast with marmite so feeling quite set up for the rest of the day now! 

I need to call Eon as I have a letter from them which suggests that they may not consider that we have been switched over to the 🐙 crowd - it may be that they just require confirmed readings for our arrival to tally up with those the sellers gave (although with smart meters?)  but it will be a phone call needed as I’m not risking doing it through their automated system and suddenly finding I am being switched back to them! Next job I think….

lucielle

Sounds like you’ve got a productive day planned. 

L

badmemory

With smart meters.  Unfortunately they are not that smart as when you move the old one completely loses all contact & if you are not careful estimates just what they feel like.  The whole thing obviously really well thought out.

themadvix

badmemory said:

With smart meters.  Unfortunately they are not that smart as when you move the old one completely loses all contact & if you are not careful estimates just what they feel like.  The whole thing obviously really well thought out.

This only applies to first generation smart meters - any since are compatible and will transfer between providers.

badmemory

Yes they transfer but 2 providers cannot access at the same time.

EssexHebridean

Ours have behaved themselves from when we first walked in the door badmemory - I have no complaints about their smart-ness so far! SMETS2 are far more trouble free than the earlier SMETS1 meters when it comes to changing suppliers - although the majority of SMETS1 meters have now been adopted and are fully smart again anyway. 🙂

it turned out that I DID only need the Openreach chap this morning - so we now have WiFi again! In the gap between the Openreach man leaving and me deciding to check with Voda whether I was waiting for someone from them too I got my second load of washing out, called Eon (all good - I suspect their letter was hoping to snare me back again but I wasn’t falling for that one!) and called the council about handing back the garage keys. More on that bit shortly. Also pulled some more nasty pernicious weed roots out from the end bed (which will be veg, in due course - I need to get a bag to shove those in to.

MSE Stuff:
- garage keys now handed back - and it turns out that we are nearly £140 in credit there, so money to come back to us apparently! Now I have no idea how this can be the case, but ultimately I decided not to question it. 

- cycled in to town and back - it was hot but definitely better than using the car. 

- bought a pack of knickers from @sda - by far my favourites and they do last well - £8.50 personal spends there
- also bought the lightbulbs we needed while I was in there - total of £20 spent there - ouch, when did they get so pricey?! (I know, when they became low energy!) 
- also nipped in to Wilko - lots of garden stuff at a very good discount, I’ve suggested to MrEH we pop back in over the weekend. I did pick up a little grey wire mesh pen pot, a watering can rose and two packs of basil seeds while I was there though - £2.80 total - what a bargain. 

Just having a cuppa in the garden now - but it is SO hot and sticky and humid out here. I think I’m going to bag up the weed roots, and get the washing in (pretty sure it will be dry!) then potter round some more odd jobs indoors where it’s actually cooler! 

badmemory

Oh I wish you hadn't mentioned Openreach.  I've been paying for Halo for years & keep upgrading.  BUT.  Despite having several, including openreach, engineers round they still can't stop my internet cutting off when I hang up the phone.  To make matters worse the mobile signal is so rubbish that a text has been known to take 12 hours to get through.  To make matters even worse I have a few friends who do not have the internet so ring up & ask me to find out stuff for them, which I don't mind doing at all, I don't even mind ringing them back as I know money can be a bit tight.  But the sitting there waiting for the internet to reconnect has me grinding my teeth.  Patience has never been my middle name.

savingholmes

You sound like you are on a roll EH. Have a lovely weekend making your house a home.

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, excellent bargains there, and lovely to have a garage refund too 😊😊 So lovely to think of you pottering about your new garden 😊😊 Green bin option sounds like a good one, especially if the tip is going to be a nuisance. Lovely to have space for your own compost too though, always amazes me how quickly everything rots down (although we make far less now we don't have the chicken bedding 😕). Ours gets fed a lot of coffee grounds which seems to help!