Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon all,

Where has this week gone?! MSE was on a go slow for a while, I lost a couple of long posts and got bored of trying 🙄

Third and final day of work this week and I am very ready for another weekend! 

Money wise...

* new house insurance hasn't cancelled itself yet 🙄 Old one has refunded us minus £22, which covers the nearly 4 weeks we had cover with them, so that's fine. 

* actually, I don't think there is anything else to report 😂

Work is getting on my wick a bit at the minute. Too many overlapping projects at different stages and with lots of different people who want different things 🙄 Going to have a bit of a planning session this afternoon to try and sort things out 🙄

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, another 🐙 saving session at 6! We didn't save anything last time although we weren't even in the house 🙄😂 I think we're quite often not in at tea time so it just doesn't show enough of a difference! 

In today though - Mr Cheery is heading into a candlelit bath, and I've charged up the tablet and will either do a bit of sewing (not by candlelight!) or some flute playing 😊

joedenise

The 6-6.30 one isn't a lot of use to us either as we don't use a lot of electric at that time.  I like the 5-6 ones best as we can save some power then as that's when I usually cook dinner so we either have our main meal at lunchtime and then just have a sandwich or something on toast in the evening or we eat a later than usual dinner.

beanielou

How did you know about the saving session? I thought I had signed up to be notified.

Cheery_Daff

The really short notice ones only come through their WhatsApp channel, not the app. Did you sign up for that? If so, do you have WhatsApp notifications turned on?

Cheery_Daff

This is the WhatsApp channel link I think!

Follow the Saving Sessions alerts - Octopus Energy channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va8CjKsL2ATuaORPZ80I

greenbee

I'm currently with EDF not Octopus, but I think I've saved about 6p in total as I don't use much at peak time as I'm still working and not cooking/doing laundry/having lights on all over the house etc. So even following Mr Cheery's example of a candlelit bath doesn't make much difference. While it's annoying not making savings, I think it's a good sign that we're not all wasting energy on a regular basis, or contributing to the peak hours usage. 

Cheery_Daff

greenbee said:

I'm currently with EDF not Octopus, but I think I've saved about 6p in total as I don't use much at peak time as I'm still working and not cooking/doing laundry/having lights on all over the house etc. So even following Mr Cheery's example of a candlelit bath doesn't make much difference. While it's annoying not making savings, I think it's a good sign that we're not all wasting energy on a regular basis, or contributing to the peak hours usage. 

Yep, that's how I'm viewing it 😊 We're slowly building up points - I think we've got 4784 now. Can swap for a 2 person national trust day pass once we get to 6000, hopefully before the summer 😊

Cheery_Daff

Evening MSE chums 😊

We have had some sunshine today! And in a bid to put this path to fulfilment business into practice I have been practicing some good habits and activities today 😊

* Nice long lazy evening with Mr Cheery last night, in the same room, without us both working on separate projects

* woke naturally this morning, and did a strength workout

* did my morning pages writing

* An hour with the IPL machine while watching All Creatures Great and Small 😂

* attempted rescue of a little wall outside the front door - it's dry stone except for the top, which is mortared - often a recipe for disaster as (from what I understand from my dry stone wall training), the weight and friction is what contributes to the structural integrity of a dry stone wall, and by mortaring the top row you essentially take away both, I think. Anyway, not going to dismantle it at this point, so I've bashed the stones back into place and wedged in a few extras. Not pretty, and I wouldn't do it with something that was holding the house up, but hopefully it'll stave off collapse for another couple of years.

* we had a little trip to Bakewell and a wander along the river, and a sit in a cafe watching the rain for a while.

* bizarrely, the hospital rang about my dad 😮 He's not in there, they're just trying to make an appointment and he hadn't answered the phone 🙄 At least I know I'm down as next of kin. All sorted now - although it seems the infection has spread from his foot ulcer and started a new one, and they want to operate and get it all out before it spreads to the bone 🙄 (this isn't remotely "fulfilling", of course, but did reaffirm my decision not to get involved in his medical complaints until it becomes absolutely necessary!)

* I pulled some more ivy - I'm trying to rescue a patch of grass and the little terrace outside the front door and want to do it quickly before anything starts nesting in it. Going to do what I can this weekend then probably leave it.

* Mr Cheery made a nice but slightly unusual lentil and avocado soup - don't even bother asking for the recipe, he is an outright soup experimenter and would never be able to tell you what he threw in it anyway 😂 It was tasty though! 

* New LPG contract is signed and sorted - 48p per litre (plus VAT and standing charge, of course), fixed for 2 years. New supplier for the first time since we moved - this is cheaper than our last 2 year fix, and the old supplier wouldn't match it, so we'll try the new one. Need to check how much is left so we don't end up missing a delivery in the transition. 

* after all my hard labour, I've run myself a lovely bath and fully intend to have a nice relaxing soak.

So there we are - contributions to body, mind, and practicalities 😊 

Been feeling rather anxious and grumpy lately, so I'm trying to focus on this type of thing more - getting things ticked off rather than leaving them dragging, and acknowledging when I've had a nice time or done something useful 😊

SuperSecretSquirrel

If there's anything else you like the look of it might be worth skipping the NT day passes Cheery. The last couple of years they've been falling over themselves to offer free entry. We (family of four) went at least four times last year - once totally free on a heritage open day, once for the price of a lottery ticket as a player reward, and at least twice for the price of a newspaper each time. Saved us at least £150 in all!

We theorised that they'd rather get visitors in and spending at the cafes and gift shops than not have the footfall in the first place, it's the only thing that seemed to make sense when the freebies were so frequent. I do remember saying I'd be extremely aggrieved if we had paid for annual passes, so I suppose it could eventually backfire 😬 We did end up spending on coffee and cake, gift shop toys and chutneys etc, so they still profited from our visits, but we had nicer/cheaper days out too, everybody wins 😁

Just thought the hard earned points might be better spent on something else if you can get the NT day passes for practically free anyway. Feel free to disregard 🙂