I don’t know about you but I always remember the time to the minute when I wake up in the night. I seem to be stuck in an insomnia cycle - something which has happened for years and years. A lovely bloggy chum who no longer blogs suggested I take a magnesium supplement - which seems to work for me - I have run out - I can tell! I have also bought some cream with added magnesium - put some on last night - slept through until 5.30am. That's like a lie in for me! It could simply be a placebo effect, it could be working or it could be a coincidence.
Back to school this morning. It feels like a Monday so I will be pleasantly surprised by Friday! I went on a little blog hop at the weekend because my reading list seems to have very much dwindled and I do miss a lot of the blogs. I know that some people feel the same when I don't post but it seems a bit presumptuous of me to apologise for it! Maybe I should include the word 'sporadic' into my description.
So if anyone reading this knows Shelia from ironing teatowels or Pam from Wales in real life - I'd really like to know how they are etc. I have sent emails to their accounts but heard nothing. I know both of them did seem to have real bad health and would just like to wish them and their loved ones well if they are no longer well enough to blog or have taken their leave from this world. I know Suzanne from No 38 doesn't blog at the moment but I am in contact with her and she is well. I see Sadie on the gram most days - maybe she does have a blog but I don't have the latest one - I can easily message her about that. I have followed a couple more blogs and will continue to do so.
It is lovely once more to be lighter earlier thanks to the clock change and I am just about adjusted to the time change and Bluebell is more or less switched over mealtime wise haha - she knows exactly when it's 7 am and 5pm! We had epic hard massive hail last night about 4.35 - 4.45pm. It hammered it down. Bluebell was charging round the house like a lunatic - she really is a nervous wreck with the loud noises. I let her see that it was only hail by opening the back door - she skipped out and came back in straight away! I was fretting for Mr 25 who would be setting off from work on his bike in it.
He is looking to buy a car still, but the right one just hasn't materialised. Anyway, when he got home, he was wet from rain but said it hadn't hailed at all there! We had one flash of lightning and one thunder rumble but it must have just been a really localised focussed shower. It was ferocious! I did take a photo because the roads, cars and windowsills were thick with hail and it looked like we'd had a snowstorm. But the photos were all blurry. So no show.
I have made another few things for selling - if they don't sell this year - they will not go off. Some of them I can gift and some I will display in my house! Including this little Father Christmas! Looks cute in my Holly bush outside. I tried my new gluegun out and made a right mess round the back so next one i will simply attach the hat with a few stitches. I also used felt where the pattern is for jersey fabric which I didn't have any suitable ones for. The pompom was a lucky find in an old box of craft stuff which belonged to my now aged 14 year old niece who is simply far too old and cool for such things!
I’m taking it with me to work where it will be fallen upon by the children at Night Owls like a pack of hyenas on a fresh kill!
Well, I watched the new series of Bridgerton in my half term. I was hooked and did it in two mornings! I was knitting to try and finish the little cardigan I've been on with for months! It's for my if I'm lucky enough for future grandchildren stash and I want to knit a lot of things for the collection! I've enough wool to knit at least one thing from all the 100s of patterns I have in! The trouble is, the two days of knitting seemed to really affect my shoulders and the pain was noticeable at night.
A lot of the blogs I read are full of good tips to try and help eke out the £££ in the colder months. Also doing this is Jamie Oliver with his meals for £1 series. I watched the first one last night and enjoyed it. Having done this for years anyway it was a bit like teaching granny to suck eggs but I thought it should maybe included in the curriculum at school to help teach those that are not as fortunate as myself to have watched and learned from grandparents and my mum. ( Dad never cooked meals for us all - a generational thing - he would do himself beans on toast etc when he would get in late from doing extra work - )
This month I will be mainly shopping from the freezer after having just stocked up. I took a piece of flat brisket out of the freezer and we had some of it for tea last night with potatoes and veg. There's plenty of leftovers which will go in a pie for Thursday. Tonight we will have the sausages that I took out of the freezer at the same time by accident and I will chop them up into a casserole in the slow cooker! I will have the leftovers for lunches. I was going to make some soup but I have enough already to eat without making more and my freezer is literally stuffed to the gills.
'The cost of living crisis' ( TCOLC )is very much a media driven catchphrase that whilst it IS true that everything is going up and wages are not etc it isn't something new. I certainly am not arguing that it's not real. I am trying to say that everytime I put the telly on - which thanks to TCOLC - is not as often as you think haha the news type programmes are ramming it down our necks and to me the hype makes it worse. I do let myself get affected by it and probably go into my siege mentality mode by having well stocked cupboards etc It's entirely self driven and I know I should just carry on as per. Is it a crisis? It certainly is worrying times - lots of food clubs operate near myself and due to working I can't attend - not that I would 'neeeeed' to - but rather that it's all going to waste - like the yellow sticker frenzy I can get myself into! I could apply to go on the list to use it in the holidays - but I don't need to. I'd like to.I love a bargain and if it's free and surplus then great. I also can help families who are really truely struggling with foodbanks and clothesbanks etc
I have been really impressed with one blogger's goal to save a lot of money for her early retirement and she recently reached her first goal. I am inspired to not match it because she has a different income to myself, so I will try and do a percentage of what she has at first! Start little and it will grow. I will open a new savings account purely for this and will set up a direct debit straightway for what I call a wonky amount that I shouldn't miss too much. Ive £37.37 in my head for some reason! I've no time frame but think I might do a standing order for the same amount of months - so if I do do £37 I will do it for 37 months! Three and a bit years. Ill try and forget about it. I will look into this a bit more at the weekend! It's a plan. I'm just loading my EDF energy app to look see at what my latest bill from 31st October 2022 says.
So they moved my direct debits from £159.00 in May 2022 to £294.00 - outrageous but at the minute we could afford it so we let it stand.
The new bill shows the £66 added credit from the Govt on 13th October and it says I'm currently £409 in credit and I find this alarming because
Obviously we had built up credit of £1500
So that means during the Summer months of very light usage, I was billed for £1100
And now they want to change the gas and electricity bill to £362
I THINK NOT!!!!
Now it says we used 400kwh less electric this year. We did make a conscious effort to stop wasting electric. It also says we used 2000 units of gas MORE last year than this. Again we have a new energy efficient boiler and I've made the conscious effort to use less and be less wasteful. I really need to see if our use of electricity is really so much more than the average household! Maybe I will get a smart meter installed. The actual meter in the cellar does need upgarding - maybe that would have an impact? Ho hum.
TCOLC - I best get to work - the heating may not be on but I can get warmed by the body heat of 200 childers hahaha
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY QUID A MONTH - I mean - that is outrageous!
Lots of love from
Rachel * gone into shock at the live news just in from her fuel bill* Radiostar xx
I've not heard from Pam, it's a shame. Like you we always look for bargains, are careful at home with energy, so there is very little wiggle room here, luckily we had a new boiler a couple years ago, and new triple glazing 3 years ago, helps keep the house warm (no draughts)We are very lucky we change suppliers just before everything went t*ts up, so our bills are stable, but only until next spring, when we fall into the murky waters.
ReplyDeleteI also suffer with achy and painy shoulders after I've been crocheting for several days - meaning I have to do none at all for 2 or 3 days to recover. Your monthly leccy demand is certainly outrageous! Ours is less than £100 with the Gov £66, although to be fair, we're away in the caravan for several weeks/months each year. But even there the leccy monthly bill is negligible! And we're lots in credit with both leccy accounts, which I'm very grateful for. Betty's like Bluebell, gets very anxious over loud weather noises, likes to look outside but flatly refuses to go out in it!
ReplyDeleteLiving somewhere with no gas has often been seen as a bad thing in the past when gas was cheaper but at least with heating oil it's paid for up front and no direct debits to suddenly change. I pay for my electric each month by reading the meter and sending new reading on phone.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many bloggers who have slowed down or stopped in the last couple of years - I seem to read more from the US than from UK nowadays.
I know what you mean about blogs that disappear. I enjoyed reading Suzannes blog and even when she stopped blogging she would still comment on my blog, but she hasn't for a while. Also enjoyed Pam's blog and was sad to see she stopped. Another that I really enjoyed was the Quince Tree. I guess people just come and go and usually there is no way of finding out if they are okay or not. Pat-the Weaver of Grass, has a huge following and everyone is concerned for her well being. We've had a huge amount of snow here and I've told GD to stay home tomorrow instead of coming over for lunch. Don''t want anything happening on the road with our GGS in the car!!
ReplyDeleteI am fortunate that I do not suffer from regular insomnia but since my Parkinson’s diagnosis I do wake in the night for a trip to the loo and sometimes find it difficult to get back to sleep. Last night I looked at the clock and it was 2.22 were you sending vibes?
ReplyDeleteI do worry when blogs go silent. I think one feels a friendship with those who share their thoughts and ideas with you.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very worrying amount for power/fuel. Hopefully it will all settle over the next months. xx
Your energy suppliers are certainly not being fair to you for such a large credit balance to have built up. We have been with British Gas for a while and on several occasions have had to challenge their revised direct debits - they had a habit of thinking that there were only 11 months in the year when they calculated monthly payments from annual usage!
ReplyDeleteYour decorations are gorgeous, Rachel. I especially love the gingerbread people - too cute!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of Sheila myself, just the other day, even checked her page to see whether I had missed anything. I hope she is okay.
I must try some magnesium, although the middle of the night is often the only chance I get to sit a read any blogs these days :)