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

beanielou

Really hope you are not coming down with anything.

Cheery_Daff

Me too Beanie 🙄 I feel ok in myself (so far at least) and only got rid of a rotten cold a couple of weeks ago so hopefully it really was just too much snoring 🙄😂

We have booked our little trip away 😃 Not where we were planning to go, couldn't find anywhere reasonably priced there at all. But it's the seaside, and we have a sea view from our room 😊😊 It's a hotel rather than a self catering place, but it was substantially cheaper than other places we'd seen, and the weather forecast is good so we won't need to hibernate. Paid with the credit card too, so 1% cashback. 

Still not finished work though, but the finish line is in sight! I stopped about 8.45 tonight, and will hopefully be done before lunch tomorrow 🙄 Watched a local lass in the Olympics tonight (didn't win, sadly, but did sterling work!) And we took the recycling out, which always feels like an epic adventure as it's so far away 😂

Right, off to get a decent, hopefully non-snory kip. Mr Cheery will be suffering next week as he won't have a separate room to hide in - at least if we'd got a holiday cottage he might have had a sofa... 🙈

Cheery_Daff

Premium bonds day tomorrow! My sister was looking through the prizes earlier - someone bought £25 a few weeks ago, this is their first draw, and they've won £10k! And one of the £5k winners was someone who's got £2 from 1957 - I bet that was bought as a present for a baby 😊 Hope they manage to retrieve it! Still slightly grumpy that the £5 someone bought me as a baby hadn't won anything at all when I retrieved it 40 years later 😂😂

ladyholly

Take comfort re Premium bonds. Mr LH was given £4 worth when they first started in the mid 1950s and has never won anything.

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear ladyholly! You reminded me to check - but sadly nothing this month. 

Did manage £29 on the Happy Wheel last night though so that's a good start. 

I am up and breakfasted, and ready to tackle the last few things on my to do list. One is a summary of an event which I think I have now decided not to do - I've not got time to do it justice, either in writing the blurb today or doing the actual event in the autumn. A shame, but I can't do everything.

Another I'll delegate if it's taking too long. 

Which leaves me with one substantial task which I've been putting off since May and which will probably take about 20 mins (and if it doesn't, I might leave it til September). A few emails, and two expenses claims which I'll save for last 😁

We are off out this afternoon - an excursion planned by Mr Cheery, I suspect partly to ensure I didn't drift about and end up working the whole day... We'll stop somewhere for lunch, then Mr C is seeing a friend, and I'll pop to the office to grab something I said I'd post before I finished. I won't be taking the laptop though so no work! (Although we are moving offices a few weeks after I get back so I might throw a few things away while I'm there...)

Cheery_Daff

Hooray! I am freeeeee! 😃 (from work, for now 😂).

Finally finished up at 1.30, drove to the city, then while Mr Cheery met his friend I popped to the office to collect what I'd promised to post. More of a palaver than I imagined, because I'd forgotten my swipe card and had to go hunting for someone to let me in 😂 Had to make a call while I was in there so threw some paperwork away while I did that, and someone who's left work had left a free J0hn L3wis desk lamp so I nabbed that too for the craft room 😊

Ended up doing another hour of finishing off final emails etc while Mr Cheery was in the cafe, then popped in to see a friend on the way home. 

Anyway, delightful news this evening. You may not remember there was a saga with Mr Cheery's national insurance contributions - his record showed 3 missing years during a period of continuous employment 🙄 He still had time to make up the shortfall through voluntary Class 2s, but why, when there were years he'd paid for but hadn't been registered? 

Obviously you can't sort this out on the phone 🙄 we were told to write, so we did - 6 months later they sent us a form 🙄 Filled that in, sent off documents we found in the loft from about 1996 🙄 and nothing, since about January I think.

Today a letter arrived!! 😃 Utterly unclear letter, but after some flapping from Mr C, and some detailed reading and analysis from me, and checking his forecast online, it transpires that THEY HAVE FILLED IN THE MISSING YEARS 😃

This is great - because now he only has 3 years left to contribute before 2029. He's not done 23/24 tax return yet, so that's one, next April will be another, and the year after another. 

Theoretically I think he could back pay voluntary Class 2 for last year and the year before but he's already tried that - he ticked the box on the self assessment to pay automatically for both years, but they never took it and insisted he hadn't (although the guy on the phone later relented when he realised it said he had ticked it in one place, and on another screen it said he hadn't 🙄). He also rang up one year and got a bank code to pay a missing year - I actually don't know if that was one of the last two (in which case it's missing 🙄) or the one before that... something else to check, but not tonight).

Anyway, I don't think either of us can be arsed trying to back pay at this point, so we will just ensure the next tax returns are done well in advance of the final deadline (they were done literally the last day, which is why I think they didn't take the payments - stupid glitch?) Trying to convince him to do 23/24 tax return this weekend to check it goes through.

Anyway, blah blah blah. TLDR: We fought the HMRC bureaucracy monster and won! 😃😂 

beanielou

Woohoo on the contributions. 

Happy holidays. 

themadvix

Excellent news for Mr Cheery!

rtandon27

Well done past self! Your present self is thanking you! So happy all the effort paid off Cheery.

Tescodealqueen

Great news about the contributions. And hav3 a great break from work