Day 842

Day 842...

It was a pretty early start to our Saturday as Simon had a 7am appointment at the barbers, with me as taxi service!

Once we got back home we put on our walking shoes and headed out over the fields for our early morning walk, completing 2.5 miles in 45 minutes and we were still back home before 9am. Without really stopping we headed straight back out the door to go to my dads house so that we could load the car with items that I am going to try and sell tomorrow at a table top sale. We were limited by the amount of space in the car and so couldn't take everything I would have liked but we will see whether or not we can get anything sold and passed onto new homes.

The remainder of the morning was spent with me finding yet more paperwork to shred as well as a few bits to file away. I also discovered that I have more Disney theme park memorabilia than I realised and I am going to need to figure out a way to store it all effectively as I know I won't be able to part with it. I have stacks of park maps, hotel details, park tickets, room keys, pins, coasters, note paper...the list goes on! 

While I did that Simon made a start on getting his 3D printer up and running again and after initially making some good progress he hit a snag with the 'hot end' which means that he needs a good amount of time to try and re-configure it. He has also started looking at different printers as this one is over 5 years old and was bought as a 'test to see if it was any use'; suffice to say it has been well used and a newer, improved version is probably overdue.

After our lunch/brunch it was time to play taxi service for Ethan as he was off to a friends for a BBQ, which also involved a stop by Lidl so that he could pick up some suitable supplies.

With Ethan dropped off we headed off to a local Next store to pick-up my online order that I'd placed a couple of days ago; some new shorts. And because we were out we took advantage of the air conditioning at the nearby Starbucks and enjoyed a coffee and a cool down. It has been another lovely, hot and sunny day again today.

It has been interesting watching the mileage range on our electric vehicle today as in warmer weather the battery is supposed to perform better but we could see the miles disappearing disproportionately to the miles we knew we'd actually travelled. Then we realised with it being so warm the air conditioning was working at full blast and as a result was eating up our battery charge. We do have an 'eco' mode that we can put the car in which would scale back the heating or air conditioning in order to give a greater range but as we were only staying local it wasn't something we needed to use today but we need to keep it in mind for if and when we are travelling longer distances on hot days!

Back home again and it was time to try on the shorts I'd picked up as well as the gym shorts that had arrived earlier this morning. Thankfully they all fit beautifully. I'm always reassured when buying new clothes that my size (that I'm always critical of) hasn't actually changed, even though I may think it has. I bought UK size 8 shorts for the first time 7 years ago, the summer after I lost around two stone in weight, and today I am still buying size 8 shorts as well as size small gym shorts...so I must be doing something right.

Well that's about it for today...we still have Ethan to play taxi service for...maybe...just waiting to hear whether he needs us or not, but otherwise I will see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 754

Day 754...

After a lovely weekend away it was time to return home today.

But first we enjoyed breakfast in the hotel before stopping by to see Molly before we headed home. We took her out for 'coffee and cake' and then hit the road.

Unfortunately, we hit a little bit of traffic not long into the journey which set us back a little but we arrived at our first planned charging point and plugged in the car while we made use of the Starbucks on site. Just as we were about to head back to the car I checked the app on my phone and it said that the charge had been interrupted. We weren't too concerned as the app isn't the most accurate or reliable, but on reaching the car we could see that there had been no charge added to the car!! So we moved the car into a new spot and plugged in again...twenty minutes later and we were back on the road.

It was then a straight forward drive to our next charging station and this time we made absolutely sure the car was charging before we went in search of coffee. Another twenty minutes later and we had a car almost at full charge and ready for the last leg of our journey home.

Our approach to long car journeys has definitely changed and is now a much more relaxed affair. We now know that it will take some time and that we will need to be patient and accept that there maybe some waiting around. But also splitting a long journey into chunks makes the drive feel so much easier and way less stressful.

It was lovely to be back home and catch-up with Ethan and now it's time to catch up with this weeks RuPauls Drag Race and get ready for another busy day tomorrow.

See you then.
xx

Day 752

Day 752...

Today was road trip day as we were off to see Molly and Dan for the weekend.

So we had a relatively early start...not mega early just a purposeful getting up, packed and out on the road. And we had the exciting adventure of electric car charging ahead of us!!

Our first stop proved to be a bit of a challenge. Despite multiple chargers being on site most were in use and the one that wasn't being used was not working! We went in search of coffee in the hope that by the time we got back to the car a free space would have appeared. Although I did have to contend with the age old problem of motorway services...the stupidly long queue for the ladies toilet!! Why does that happen?

While waiting for our coffee Simon popped back to the car to see whether we could plug in yet. I found him chatting to another electric car owner who it turned out lived just a couple of miles away from us! But unfortunately there was still no free spaces. We then had a little charging station etiquette to contend with. A space came free but we let our fellow driver take the spot as it had the correct charging cable for his car as we knew the spot next to us was almost at full charge.

The couple next to us disconnected their car and motioned to us that we could have their spot...or at least that's what we thought. So we waited and nothing, no movement, no attempt to move, nothing. Thankfully Simon was able to reposition our car such that the cable would stretch (just) to our car...phew! We now decided it was time for food while the car charged.

And our quest to find a good low carb option was made possible, surprisingly, by M&S food. Picking up small packs of cooked bacon, cocktail sausages, flavoured chicken and a couple of hard boiled eggs - win! With our keto picnic consumed we headed back to the car to find that the couple who had been parked next to us had only just moved. This meant they'd sat there with a fully charged car and not moved...meaning no one could use their space which appeared to be rather rude! Anyway with an almost full charge we were able to get back on the road.

Our next charging stop was a lot smoother; four free spots and a Starbucks! Boom! In twenty minutes we were back on the road and heading towards Bournemouth.

Once checked in at our hotel we met up with Molly and Dan in the town centre and headed to a greek restaurant; The Real Greek. Another chance to have a suitably low carb meal by picking all the most appropriate, and mainly meaty, dishes! 

Afterwards we took a stroll down towards the pier and had a short walk along the seafront. We then headed over to Molls and Dans house to spend the evening over there and some time catching up.

Time for bed now and I'll see you tomorrow.

xx

Day 720

Day 720...

Today was a stay at home kind of day as today we had the flooring laid in our upstairs bedroom...the room formerly known as 'Molly's bedroom' and soon to be our study/craft room.

This gave me the opportunity to catch up with a few online based jobs; not very exciting but unfortunately needed. 

With the impending changes to energy prices I had received emails from our energy companies of choice advising of the extortionate increases that will be coming our way from April. These are horrendous jumps in prices. I think we all expect to pay a few more pounds each year but when they are quoting increases of 54% it is horrific to think about. The impact for all of us is going to be so significant and there is nothing we can do about it. So I had a look to see whether there were any better tariffs around to get ahead of the upcoming changes but unfortunately it doesn't seem that there are!

I then ventured into the world of mobile phone upgrades...ugh! It fills me with dread every time this rolls around although I hadn't realised just how long I'd been putting this off. Our contracts expired eighteen months ago and so we have been eligible for an upgrade for a bit of a while. But as our phones are working perfectly fine and enable us to do whatever we need we hadn't been in a rush to upgrade and now I remember why. Too many choices and not enough information made easily available to make decisions. The information to compare models of phones seems to be hidden with just the colour and the camera mega pixel details displayed prominently. Then we seem to have a mixture of 'plan' options from the 'ok I can live with that' to the outright ridiculous! And when prices seem to be going up left, right and centre I really don't want to be increasing any more costs. Having become bored very quickly with searching I decided that the best thing I could do was the ironing! At least with that I could actually achieve something!

Next it was another easy job to buy online a couple of tickets for the next Dr Sketchy's event in Nottingham. This is a few weeks away, taking place on Easter Sunday, but I wanted to get the tickets bought while it was in my mind.

It was then time for more research! We are wanting to attend a food festival in June called Real Food Rocks and as the tickets have just gone on sale I needed to look into hotels. Whilst the event is only about an hour and a half away we have decided to make a weekend of it and book a couple of nights away so that we are not having to contend with early morning and late night driving. But as we now have the electric car I am not only trying to find a hotel close to where we want to be but one that also has EV charging points. As this has proved to be a little difficult I also looked for charging points close to the area that we will be in.

Well after much research I have found one hotel with it's own chargers and another hotel with a retail park opposite that has a number of chargers. I have also discovered a small service station not far from the location of the festival that also has a couple of rapid charging stations. So it's now just a case of deciding which hotel we would prefer (as there is no difference in price), booking it and sorting tickets for the festival itself.

By mid-afternoon the flooring had been laid and the room looks great. We will leave it for a couple of days before we start to move things back into the room. I think our first purchase is going to be a filing cabinet so that we can start to clear our existing Welsh dresser of paperwork as ultimately we will be getting rid of the dresser. The paperwork will then be stored in the new 'study' and once the dresser is no longer needed we will be replacing it with some new cabinets to display all our Disney and Star Wars memorabilia! It's like we are playing one giant game of Tetris!

We then played host to one of our neighbours who needed somewhere to escape to while an estate agent was showing some prospective buyers around their house! And later with a little daylight left I made sure to take some time to move some more jigsaw pieces around. I'm making pretty good progress but as there is so much colour I'm finding it's just as easy to place recognisable pieces into place rather than try and out sort a particular section of the puzzle.

Throughout the day Simon has been working on a commissioned piece of video game art for a contact who produces retro games and needed some cover art producing at short notice.

And then because we had some chicken to use up (thanks to Asda providing products with a pathetic use by date!) I decided to make Keto Chicken Curry Pie - yum!

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 655 - New Years Day 2022

Day 655...

Welcome to the New Year, and welcome to 2022...I wonder what this year will bring us and whether we will be in a better place this time next year? And whether we will have anything like our previous 'normal' lives...I sure hope we do!

But today started with another hotel breakfast to set us up for the journey home. Once checked out we headed over to Molly and Dans for a coffee and a little catch-up.

We left their house around 11.30 am arriving home at 4.10pm, so a total of 4 hours and 40 minutes. The great thing about the hotel that we'd chosen to stay at was not only did they have charging points (this will now be a prerequisite of any future hotel stays!) but that the charging points were free! The charging points were of the lowest charging rate available and so the time taken to charge the car was lengthy but as we plugged it in each time we parked up we ensured that we started today with the maximum charge possible.

We had decided to make our first charging stop at one of the services that we'd used on the trip down because they were super fast chargers, easy to use and there were four available. When we arrived all four were being used but we decided to wait and see if a slot became available. We could see from the screens on the units that a couple of the cars were almost fully charged and sure enough a few minutes later a space became available. So we plugged in and walked over to Starbucks for a coffee. We enjoyed our coffee and by the time we headed back to the car we had about a 90% charge which was brilliant.

We then set off with our next charging location in mind. Simon has been watching how the charge works, how quickly the cars 'estimated mileage' drops and with a little research has now got a pretty good idea of how far we can get between charges. 

Our second stop and our second coffee saw the car get up to around an 85% charge which was more than enough to make the last leg of the journey home. We made much better time on the return journey because we weren't having to wait around too long for charging units to be available unlike on our journey down.

As this journey was around 190 miles we would have stopped once for a toilet break/coffee stop in our previous, petrol, car so the difference is now we have to have two stops instead of one. The whole driving experience is much calmer and feels less rushed and taking that little bit longer really did not bother us at all. We have said that now we have a better idea of what a long journey entails we will know to plan ahead and expect to take longer.

Interestingly we have chatted to a number of electric car drivers over the last two journeys and everyone has been happy to share their moans and groans and their successes. One driver today confirmed what we had already suspected that the colder the weather the worse the performance and consequently the warmer it is the more miles that can be done! Perhaps we will became fair weather drivers from now on!!

Arriving home it was time to unpack and put things away and for some reason I became rather emotional. I always seem to struggle emotionally at this time of year as we move from the hustle and bustle and joy of Christmas into the lull of the start of a new year. It always feels rather melancholic for me as my thoughts turn to packing away decorations and returning to the humdrum of everyday life. But I think arriving home today caught me unawares as my thoughts turned to Molly and her not being at home anymore. I am so happy that she has found Dan and is making a life for herself but I do miss her so much. She is my partner in crime and I miss having her around. I know this will pass because I am used to her living away from home for periods of time but for the moment it has hit me a little more than I'd expected.

Saturday is done, so I will see you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 653 - Road Trip

Day 653...

Today was our first time using our new electric car for a long journey as we headed south to see Molly and Dan in Bournemouth.

This meant a relatively early start to the day as we got ourselves organised and the car packed. We had made sure that the car had a full charge and we had already set a route using the Zap Map app with a few different options for recharging. In theory the full charge should be sufficient to make the journey in one go but we had already noticed that the number of miles available dropped much quicker compared to the number of miles actually travelled. We also knew from watching some YouTube videos that most cars fall significantly short of the predicted miles.

With that in mind we set off just before 11am for what would be a 3 hour 15 minute non-stop journey. Let's just say our journey took a tad longer than that!

Our first stop was about 80 miles into the journey and when we arrived at the services all the charging points were taken! Thankfully a spot opened up quite quickly but then we discovered that one of the units would only let one car charge at a time rather than the two that it was designed for. But there was a small charger available which we could use as we had our own charging cable with us (the main charging stations had their own cables as these were fast/rapid chargers). But this smaller charger meant a much, much slower charging rate but we figured anything was better than nothing.

Ethan and I went in search of coffee and by the time we got back to the car one of the fast chargers had become free and so we could swap over. This meant that what we had hoped would be a 30 minute stop turned into about an hour!

Back on the road and we started to think about whether we would need another stop for charging and where would be best to stop. We had in mind a services that was around 60 miles from our destination. But when we arrived we were confronted with just two charging stations that were both occupied and had two cars waiting...mmm...we had a quick look on Zap Map and found another option just a few miles down the road.

This turned out to be a great choice; smaller services so not as busy; four units set to the side of a petrol station forecourt; two out of the four units were available; much faster chargers and once connected we could leave the car for a toilet break and to grab a coffee. About 30 minutes later and we were at 90% charge and had more than enough capacity to get us to our destination.

The overall journey took us 5 and a half hours!! A lot longer than it would have took us ordinarily; in our petrol car days we would have had one stop for a coffee so I think this journey took about an hour and a half longer! But what we recognised was that the urgency of a normal journey wasn't there, the whole journey felt much calmer and we had set off with the mind set that this would be a different way of travelling. 

The ease and quiet of the car, coupled with being very conscious of the effect of how we drove affected the charge available,  meant a completely different approach to driving. We knew it was going to take some time so we didn't rush and consequently the whole drive felt much more relaxed and much less stressful.

This is a very different way to drive and I think will take some getting used to and travelling long distances will take planning especially if a journey is time critical. But for us long journey's are not the norm and going forward we will have to accept that more planning will be needed. We have even said that on occasion it may be more beneficial to hire a petrol car, but for now planning will be key.

Although, we have been pleasantly surprised at how easy charging on the go has been. And we have also had some great conversations with other electric car owners, all of whom seemed to be rather new to electric cars and were happy to share their experiences!

Anyway back to the point of today, getting to Bournemouth to see Molly and Dan. Luckily the hotel we have chosen has electric car charging units; they are slow charges but are free! So we parked up and plugged in and left the car to charge away!

Once checked into the hotel it was time to recharge phones before taking the 10 minute walk into the town centre in search of food. Our choice today was Five Guys, a great fast food option for those of us on low carb diet as burgers can be ordered with your own choice of toppings and without the bun!

We then met Molly and Dan at the outdoor ice skate rink that has been set up for the festive season. I am not a skater and was quite happy to watch everyone else on the ice. Dan is a very accomplished skater and Molly is now very skilled and they both make it look so easy. Simon has always loved skating but after taking me many years ago when we first started dating he realised very quickly that me and skating just did not go together! He has therefore not skated as much as he would have liked but he has never lost the skill and looks very much at home on the ice. Ethan was happy to have a go but as it was about 10 years since he last ventured onto the ice he needed a good amount of help! But all credit to him he persevered and was getting better the more circuits he did. The ice was very wet tonight as the weather has been unseasonably warm so I think everyone came away with wet feet but thankfully no-one fell over...there were plenty others who did and who came away very wet!

We then had a wander through Bournemouth's Christmas Tree Wonderland; some lovely lights in a gorgeous setting. It was then time to grab a hot drink before heading back to the hotel.

Phew and that was our day, see you tomorrow for more shenanigans!

xx

Day 652

Day 652...

One more of those days between Christmas and New Year when you keep having to ask what day is it? Well as far as I have been able to make out today was Wednesday!

One side effect of this time of year is my inability to get out of bed on a morning! I've never been a 'morning' person but now add in disturbed nights sleep due to night sweats and mornings become even more of a struggle!

But my late morning I was able to hook up online with my Disney Dream Girls podcast co-host Michelle to record a couple of shows. One was our main show which will probably get released over the coming weekend and the other was a special show for our Patreon supporters.

By the time we'd finished recording it was early afternoon and I made myself busy by getting up to date with the laundry and getting ready for our few nights away tomorrow. We then decided to take an hour out to watch the first episode of the new Star Wars series 'The Book of Boba Fett'. We were already starting to see comments appearing on social media and so decided to watch the show to avoid any potential spoilers. This is a weekly show and so it's going to be a challenge each week to stay away from any spoilers until we can get it watched. All I will say is that the first episode did not disappoint and we are now eager to see more.

Tomorrow we are driving down to Bournemouth to spend a few days there to catch up with Molly, Dan and his family. Molly has been living down with Dan since the beginning of November but this is the first time we will have visited since taking delivery of our new electric car! We have about 190 miles to travel and whilst in theory our car should manage around that on one charge we know from a little research that we will need to re-charge en-route.

So this afternoon we loaded up 'Zap-Map' and planned our route. This allows us to not only get the directions needed to get there (which we know anyway) but to plan where to stop for re-charging. We have found about four places along the route that would be sensible places to stop; all motorway services with fast-charging units and options for food and coffee. The plan is to stop at at least one of these stops or maybe two depending on how we feel and how the car is performing. We haven't yet completed a long distance drive so this will be new territory for us and so it will be interesting to see how the car actually performs...while at the same time being a little scary!!

As we would normally stop for a coffee at least once on a long car journey we are hoping that stopping to recharge shouldn't be an issue. Most fast chargers are designed to charge a car to an 80% charge in about 30 minutes so fingers crossed it shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience. We shall find out tomorrow!

And then finally late afternoon I was able to put the last few pieces in my current jigsaw...

...this took longer than I had thought it would as it was deceptively tricky! Lots of red and green that were hard to distinguish whereabouts they should live! I have two more jigsaws in the same artistic style that came with this one (one box with three jigsaws) so I think I will try one of those next to see if I can eventually complete all three. Then once all three are done I can 'recycle' them and find someone else who will enjoy them.

I have also been 'chatting' with Molly to plan the next couple of days and for tomorrow she has booked Simon and Ethan tickets for ice-skating. I shall be watching from the sidelines as no-one needs to see me attempt to skate...I am not a skater and have no desire to be one! Molly on the other hand is getting rather good at it all. Simon has always been a good skater and unfortunately for him it is my lack of skill that has over the years put paid to his skating time, but thankfully it is a skill that he has retained and I know he will enjoy himself immensely tomorrow. Ethan is willing to have a go and all kudos to him as he is way braver than me! I will report back tomorrow as to how the skating unfolds!

And while Simon grabbed a little 'gym' time this evening I prepped tonights dinner - keto chicken parmesan! Yum!

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 641

Day 641...

Well after a rubbish nights sleep (thanks night sweats!) it was a slow start to this Sunday morning.

Late morning we took one of our elderly neighbours out for a coffee. She has been very intrigued with the prospect of us having an electric car and so we had promised to take her out for a drive and a coffee once we had it.

I think she was suitably impressed and after we had enjoyed a coffee and cake we headed back home. We invited her in for more coffee and chat and to show off our Christmas decorations. 

Our neighbour very sadly lost her husband to dementia last Christmas and as her children all live abroad she has had to cope with it all on her own. She was hoping that one of her sons and his family would be spending Christmas here with her this year but the current 'pandemic' situation has put paid to that. This is the unseen, and not talked about enough, side of the restrictions that are being forced upon us; an elderly lady cannot see her family at Christmas, never mind the first anniversary of the death of her husband who she had been with since the age of 16 (she is now 84). The heartlessness that is going on is beyond belief.

But back to my day...and a very quiet rest of the day split between jigsaw time and a few mundane jobs.

Nothing much more to say for today. Time to cook dinner and then stop and disconnect for a few hours; today feels like one of those days that as rumours abound with what will be happening, and when, I need to step away from social medias and shut the world out...if for just a little while.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 635 - New Car Monday!

Day 635...

Yes the day has finally arrived when we could take delivery of our new car, our new electric car!

But as we didn't know at what point today the car would arrive we nipped out first thing to our local Lidl to collect a few things. A quick weekly shop to pick up those items that are significantly cheaper than at Asda (where I get my main shop from) along with some bits for our 'fuddle' at work. We have one more week at work before we break for Christmas so we have decided to have a 'fuddle'; this is where we all throw in together and buy some nibbles. We have everything from chips and dips to crackers and cheese to bacon and brie and cheesy-beans jacket potatoes! (although I'll be giving some of the more 'carby' options a miss!).

Back home and it was time to cancel our old car insurances which we were able to do through the power of WhatsApp! I also ordered myself a replacement driving licence as my paper version had finally bit the dust and was no longer in one piece!

Just before lunch our new car arrived! Lots to learn and lots to get used to as we move from always having driven manual, petrol cars to fully electric and therefore an automatic. I think it's the automatic format that is freaking me out more than the electric side of things as I've never driven an automatic before. When we've had hire cars in the US they have always been automatic but Simon has always done the driving so this is a complete first for me!

We had a little time with the chap from the garage to go over a few bits and pieces and we were able to connect the car to our new charging station which worked perfectly...thankfully!

So later this afternoon we took a drive over to Derby as I had an appointment and it gave us a good excuse to take the car out. Simon drove us and we were both super impressed; a very smooth and very responsive car to drive. There are lots of cool features as well but I think it may take us a while to get our heads around everything. On our way home we stopped by my dad's house to show him the car before I had my first go at driving it! 

It is very strange not having to do anything with my left foot and left arm! Although I did find it easier than I think I was expecting but I am sure over the next few days I will have up and down moments with it. I'm hoping that as I drive the car most days of the week I will pick it all up relatively quickly.

One feature I have started to play with is the ability to set the climate control of the car from an app. This means that (if I've done it right) I should be able to get into the car each morning and find it nice and warm and ready to go. No more getting into a cold car on a winter's morning.

And despite all the excitement of the new car Simon has also been able to upgrade the lighting effects on his R2D2 and we have both found the time to jump on our new exercise bike. It was the first time on the bike for me and I wasn't expecting great things...I like moving weights around but am not too fond of any exercise that gets me out of breath! But with the bike we are aiming to workout at 'Zone 2' which is supposed to be good for heart health as well as good for fat burning, and I was actually rather happy with my effort. I managed to maintain the heart rate I wanted and stuck at it for 30 minutes...it will be interesting to see how my legs and bum feel tomorrow!

Right that's it for today, see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 633

Day 633...

We had a fun filled evening yesterday attending our favourite burlesque show called La De Da Cabaret...in fact it has been two years since seeing this show. So it was great to be back if a little sad to recognise the length of time in between visits. It was also the first time I've worn in heels in about two years as well!!

The evening was filled with burlesque and cabaret acts, we had a strong man, hula hoops, fire breathing, singing, comedy and of course burlesque. Can't recommend one of these evenings enough and producer Scarlett Daggers always manages to put together shows with a breadth of performers.

We even had to contend with a false fire alarm as the smoke machines being used on stage accidentally set off the alarms - oops!

Out, out! We don't scrub up too bad!

The only sad thing was to see so many people wearing masks, seemingly defying all levels of common sense. Everyone together in the bar before hand without masks...move into the theater and the mask goes on...sit down in the auditorium with a drink in their hand and then take off the aforementioned mask!! I just don't get it...if you think that masks are helpful then surely the mask should stay on your face the whole time you are in the building and not just when you're not drinking! Or maybe this virus only goes after those of us who don't have a drink in our hands? And then watching the audience as the night moved on, and more alcohol had been drunk, and the number of masks being worn at the 'correct times' seemed to become rather haphazard!!

But a late night last night meant a very relaxed and late start to the morning today which was much needed after a rubbish nights sleep and was the slowest morning in a long while.

Just before lunch we finally received a delivery we'd been waiting for from Yodel; the delivery driver was lovely but the service from Yodel has been rubbish. The parcel was due here at the latest by 7th December and had been sitting at their 'national hub' since the 1st of December...simply ridiculous that it took that long to get to us. But at least we have it now and it then meant Simon had a job to do as it was an exercise bike which needed assembling! Another edition to our home gym set-up.

I had the fun of updating the online grocery shopping coupled with a little online car insurance research as I was also able to get in touch with the garage about taking delivery of our new electric car. All being well the car will be delivered on Monday; it's all very exciting although a little scary at the same time as I think there maybe a bit of a learning curve involved. If only for the fact that we will move from a manual gearbox to an automatic!

Then we popped out this afternoon as we had a parcel to drop at the post office and cheques to pay in at the bank. We then thought we'd nip over to our local Starbucks for a quick coffee, however the traffic had other ideas! Unfortunately for us we'd timed it to clash with football traffic, so much so that the road we wanted to take ran alongside the football ground and so was closed. A quick u-turn and we headed for a Costa instead! And happy to see the staff were not wearing masks...although most of the customers were wearing them to stand and order and then remove once they were sat down - again this virus must only operate at certain elevation levels (yes I am being sarcastic!).

It was then time to try and chill out and while I attacked the jigsaw Simon jumped on the new bike! We are both aiming to get a little fitter by taking the time on the bike by attempting to achieve a zone two workout in...apparently this is best for heart health and is good for fat burning! This means, for me, working out with a heart rate of between 100 and 120 per minute. I've yet to have a go so I will report back at a later date. I am anticipating it being uncomfortable for two reasons; first I hate anything aerobic based and second I think it may be a little sore around the bottom and thigh area!!!

And with that I will take my glass of red, grab some chocolate and settle down for the evening in front of the TV.

Take care and I'll see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 617

Day 617...

And we have a Thursday and another full day in work for me...in fact my second of three full days this week which is not my usual working pattern.

It was a straight forward sort of work day with the usual admin bits and bobs; updating the banking, responding to emails and drafting a couple of newsletters.

It's a busy old time at pre-school as we are about to start with all things Christmas. We have a concert to rehearse, festive baking activities planned and a Christmas party to round out the term and never mind our Christmas fundraising activities too! So part of my day was getting newsletters prepped to remind our parents of all the things that are happening and when.

We are also having a bit of a tidy and re-organisation at pre-school so part of my day was going through a few cupboards to get them better organised and more user friendly. We still have more work to do but we have started and are aiming to get a little more done each day.

I stopped by the post office on my way home to send off my Christmas gift exchange parcel that I am involved with as part of the Disney Dream Girls podcast family group. And as luck would have it the person I've been paired with in the US messaged me overnight to say that she too had posted her parcel to me! Let's see how long these parcels take to travel between the US and the UK...I wonder who will get theirs first?!

At home and with a freshly poured coffee I sat down at the laptop and carried on with a little more work. I had an email to write that I'd just not had chance to do earlier but wanted it to get sent today. And as it is payday tomorrow I'd got all the payslips to organise for the team. 

And on a personal front I managed to rearrange our dentist appointments as we'd had a reminder for our upcoming visit next week but we decided that we could afford to move it till after Christmas. 

But we also have a little positive news as the company who we approached about doing some electrical work for us to enable us to have a charging point for our new electric car have given us a date....Sunday!! So this Sunday will be very busy as they are coming to dig up part of our car parking area, lay some ducting and re-tarmac ready for the electrics to be installed at some point next week. Finally it looks like we will be in a position to actually take delivery of our new car...it could be an early Christmas present!

Our day was rounded out with a very chilly trip to our gym and I did remark to Simon that I may need some gloves as the weights are very cold and as I suffer a little with Raynauds I could see a couple of my fingers begin to turn white!

Well that was my day and while I've been typing Simon has been cooking up a little secret project...that may get revealed tomorrow!!

See you all then.
xx

Day 607

Day 607...

After a busy weekend we arrive at Monday and despite it being a non-work day for Simon and I it turned out to be another busy day!

First job of the day was to clear the bookcase that has been living in the hall of our remaining books. We had cleared out a lot of books earlier in the year but still had a couple of shelves full that we weren't too sure what to do with. So I found a safe place for some of my large sized Disney books and Simon boxed up his comic collection; too good to throw away but in need of a new home. But with the shelves cleared we could now disassemble the bookcase and once done it was yet another trip to our local recycling centre.

At home Simon was able to put the first coat of paint on the radiator in Molly's old room as the paint we had ordered arrived this morning. I was able to place an online butchers order ready to be delivered later this week. And then there was a small amount of sweeping up of garden rubbish off our patio; Simon had discovered weeds growing around the roof window in Molly's old room and in dislodging them they had all fallen onto our patio!

The afternoon was spent in Derby to have a little down time. We needed to buy some birthday cards as well as make a little start on some Christmas shopping. Having stopped for a coffee and a piece of cake (shared between us) we popped into Primark looking for a specific item (which they didn't have) but instead I came out with this rather big bag...

...well I just couldn't resist these two beauties...

...and then I decided to see if they had the coat I'd seen in their Sheffield store a few weeks ago and hadn't picked up when I should have. I'd previously looked in both the Derby and Nottingham stores and hadn't found it so didn't really have any hope that I'd find it today, but....I did!!

A lot deeper purple in real life, and very soft, and very fluffy!

But throughout today we have been trying to sort out getting a charging point installed for our new electric car which is waiting for us to collect. We have told the garage that we can't take delivery until we have a functioning charging point installed. 

The garage recommended Pod Point to us and initially everything seemed to be going alright if a little slow...but that was okay as we were in no particular rush and were told it would only be a couple of weeks. Everything went very quiet until I got in touch with them and was told that I'd not filled the forms out correctly. So alarm bells should have rung then...why hadn't they got in touch with me to let me know that. When I re-looked at the forms I could see my mistake which was due to a section stretching over two pages and so I'd effectively completed it twice with my second entry overriding the first which led to the 'error'. I was told 'oh don't worry it happens quite often'...so why they haven't they changed the form then?

Then because our garage, where we want the point installing, is not attached to the house we had to prove to them that the garage was actually ours. This meant digging out the deeds to the house and scanning in plans and emailing them over...all went quiet until I got in touch again. I was told they were waiting for the grant scheme to be approved; in the UK to encourage people to move over to electrical vehicles they are offering a substantial amount off the cost of your first charging point installation. 

A little while later we received an email saying that the grant had been approved and that we had an install date of 4th November...we had ordered the car on 27th September! Part of the form filling had also involved submitting a load of photos which covered where the electric meter was, the type of cabling coming into the electric meter and the route between the meter and the garage which quite clearly showed the distance involved. Neither Simon or I were hopeful that the install would go smoothly on the 4th and sure enough the engineer arrived, took one look at the situation and said 'well that won't work'!

So basically the supply we have going into the garage will not support a charging station as well as the other items we are running in there; we have lights, sockets and most importantly a freezer! Which means that we need a separate cable from the meter to the garage to run the charging point and here in lies the problem. Despite Pod Point's T&C's clearly stating that they will support non-standard installations (i.e. something like ours!) they basically emailed to say that 'groundworks' would need to be completed and for us to let them know when that had happened....err...what? How? Who?

This then left us in a quandary; what did they mean by groundworks? Whose responsibility was it? Who would do the work? Did we need a specialist in charging points? Did we need to get the power company to sort it out? I then started by contacting our local power company who were really helpful and told me that there were two solutions; one being for them to lay a new mains supply which would cost thousands and result in a separate meter and separate standing charge or we speak to an electrician.

So over the weekend we contacted a couple of electrical companies and then today I finally found a phone number for Pod Point to find out exactly what they could or could not do...as they had failed to respond to my last email asking for advise. The result of a five minute phone call was that they couldn't do the necessary work for us because the contractor in our area didn't 'do that sort of work' and that we would need to get a trench dug and a conduit laid so that they could come out and feed the cable through said conduit. At that point I decided to cancel the whole thing and get my money back! 

It was a completely ridiculous situation as they still left us with so many questions; how deep did the trench have to be? Where should it go across the property? How big would the conduit have to be? And how do we coordinate between the groundworks and the charging point being installed? All getting way too messy and complicated and at that point I was ready to ditch the whole idea of having an electric car, it was all just too much for me.

But having found a few local companies online that will do a complete charging point installation, including the point itself, we are now trying to sort it ourselves. The result as of tonight is that one company has already visited to survey the site and we have another company lined up for tomorrow. The chap that visited tonight was positive and recognised that there were a number of options for us and is going away to see what solutions they can come up with. Things are looking brighter but this isn't going to be a quick resolve! And the moral of this story is avoid Pod Point and find someone local to do the job for you.

And then just to make the day even busier we had our financial advisor visit this evening to talk all things finance...obviously!

I'll be going to work tomorrow for a rest!

See you tomorrow.
xx