Frugal Friday…

At the beginning of  the month we were able to celebrate the first big milestone in our “Clear the mortgage early” adventure this time round as we dipped under the £100k barrier. The celebration wasn’t huge, fancy or expensive - just a Chinese takeaway from our favourite place, with a toast drunk in a nice beer (that we were given free by the brewery when we placed our usual order with them for beer at Christmas - just to make it all the more frugal-Friday suitable!) 

To recap, we took our original mortgage for the flat in 2003- one of those Northern Rock offerings for those who had no deposit and needed to borrow the full value of the property or - to clear other debt - even more. In our case it was 110% - clearing some graduate debt of MrEH’s at the same time - starting at £103,500 on the then traditional 25 year term. Initially we just paid the required amount, but then a few years in thanks to a conversation with a friend the lightbulb flickered on and we started overpaying in 2007. That mortgage was cleared in 2016 - 12 years early, and those overpayments saved us in excess of £30k in interest! Because of the point we took it out, and when our product renewals occurred, we never got the benefit of the super low interest rates that were being enjoyed for a few years either - our lowest rate that time round was 4.34% - although as we both remembered the highs of 15% during our childhoods that still felt pretty low to us! 

This time round the figures aren’t altogether different - £115,000 borrowed with an interest rate of 4.03% - the term this time though is just 16 years, and we are aiming to be done with it a long time before THAT point I can tell you! The key thing I was looking for when we were searching for our mortgage product was that it allowed overpayments, at least the standard 10% of the capital amount per year, and ideally more, but still when I happened on the deal we eventually plumped for - a 5 year fix with unlimited OPs allowed - I did slightly worry it seemed too good to be true! It’s not though, and while we are a long way off the 10% OP level right now, it’s good to know we can OP without limit right to the end of the term.

Overpayments are happening much the same as before - first thing was to round the monthly payment up to a nice round figure - in this case just an odd pound and pennies, although that might yet get tweaked up a bit more. Then there is the “money we didn’t know we had” - so savings on bills we haggle down for example, or better deals being offered on things. Recent examples there are cancelling our satellite TV deal in favour of watching streamed (and currently just free) content, and a better deal being offered on broadband in return for us signing up for a new 2 year deal early. Fine by us when they are offering a £7 a month saving on what we were paying! Those bits and bobs get transferred into the overpayments pot (a savings account attached to one of the current accounts) and when that hits £100 I transfer that to the mortgage. At the end of the month I usually make an additional overpayment of the odd pounds and pence plus £100 - although that depends a little on what surplus we have in the joint account for the month. We still pay our council tax on the old 10 months payment schedule, so for the two months that’s not payable that money also gets thrown at the mortgage - a nice boost in the early part of the year. Finally there is any unexpected financial gains - so the tax rebates MrEH got last year for sorting out some stuff around his pension payments for example, and the payments our building society makes to account holders from time to time get transferred to reduce the mortgage figure too. 

So - what difference is all this making, you might ask? Well - some figures, a bit rough and ready as I don’t have the spreadsheet (well yes, of COURSE there are spreadsheets!) to hand, but monthly interest payments have already been reduced by a noticeable chunk - and of course that in itself means that the payments we make are having more effect. Had we just made our standard payments we would have roughly £106k still outstanding, and around 14 and a half years still to pay. Instead the figure stands at £99,400, give or take a few pounds, and the term has been reduced by a year - even if we stopped overpaying right now, that change is locked in. Down the line of course this also creates a big saving in interest - yes, even on a relatively small mortgage! 

If you currently have a mortgage, even if you can only spare enough per month to round your monthly payments up to the next £10, overpaying is well worth doing. Just a small amount every month can mount up - and for a lot of people now their mortgage interest rate is higher than anything that £10, £20 or £50 would be earning in savings too - so it’s a bit of a no-brainer! If you’re fortunate enough to still be on one of those super-low rates then a better approach is to stash those small amounts into a savings account earning a good rate of interest, then make a lump sum overpayment once your rate increases. If you check and your mortgage alows overpayments, then why not just make a start and see how you go?

Robyn

Hebrides Countdown…

 

Sunset at the “Kettle” rock arch - Tigharry

Oh yes - it’s time for one of these posts as we anticipate returning to our cosy little Island “home” on North Uist again! 

We’re returning to an old route up this time - using the ferry from Uig on Skye to get across to Uist. We prefer going from Mallaig to Lochboisdale - a longer sailing but far less time and distance driving on the mainland - but sadly the ferry company serving the Western Isles  (Caledonian MacBrayne or “Calmac”)  simply cannot be trusted to provide a service on that route these days, indeed, we have booked that route for our return and have already seen one change to the booked tickets, with another more tricky to manage one far from unexpected.  The compromise on the way across is to get the ferry from Mallaig across to Armadale at the bottom end of Skye, then drive up through the island to get to Uig - we still get the benefit of less  mainland driving for the relatively low cost of the short hop on the little boat.

There is something comfortable about reflecting on a return to a place you have visited so many times previously - you know the main routes, the good places to grab a coffee and a cake, the best supermarkets for yellow sticker reductions, and the times you need to be somewhere to avoid a crowd straight off a ferry or to ensure that the latest delivery has been unloaded. Even some of the people - over the years we have met a number of folk who even if we may not know them by name always greet us with recognition and “ahh - back again then!” plus others who we do know a little better and who will pause for a chat and a catch up on our respective news.  Then there is the cottage itself too - although it’s fun staying somewhere new of course, returning to somewhere we know means less time needs to be taken to work out how things will function for you there - we just unpack, shove things where we know they live, and we’re settled and ready to properly start our holiday! 

In spite of the above and the amount of time we’ve spent up there over the years, we aways seem to find new stuff - even bizarrely roads we didn’t know existed or have never explored! Sometimes it’s turnings we had assumed just went to somebody’s home, but then we see a mention of a particular bird being sighted from “X” location and realise that no, it’s just a rather less made-up bit of road, and so ripe for exploring. Other times it might be a turning that we knew was there but didn’t think went far enough to be worth looking at - but a bit of a wander proves otherwise, or throws up something interesting at the end. 

Loch Skipport

There are also the places we return to again and again - obviously the old Pier at Loch Skipport, which yes, is still just standing, or at least it was the last time we visited! Traditions like a wander on the Airport Beach on the first full day we are there, assuming the tides allow, while waiting to collect a Chinese takeaway, bizarrely! The circular walk at Loch Sandary - suited to less good weather - where you inevitably see some interesting birds and sometimes something a bit different - like an Eagle on a stick…

Yes, that IS a Golden Eagle casually minding it’s own business on a fence post, and no, I did not have my camera with me…just the phone and a pair of binoculars… 🙄 Of course there is also the walk around the headland that the cottage is situated on - that will get done at all sorts of times of day and in whatever conditions the weather gods throw at us, and is an endless source of fabulous waves and incredible sunsets… 

All in all, it’s safe to say that this year’s trip is being eagerly anticipated - who knows, I may even manage a post or two while we are there, this time! 

Robyn 

March in the Garden…

 

Spring colour in the flower bed

No doubt gardeners everywhere will be enjoying the flourishing of spring in their gardens at this stage - and we’re certainly no exception! It’s quite fascinating looking back just a few weeks to last months post and seeing how much things have come on in that short time - from crocuses then we now have daffodils, grape hyacinths and even some tulips on the brink of flowering too. My favourite Aquilegias have sprung into life and even have buds on, and to my delight the three Ranunculus that we paid £1 each for last summer have not only survived through the winter well swaddled in horticultural fleece, but also appear to be about to flower any time! 

A satisfying row of peas…

On the veg front the first things to go in were first early potatoes (“Rocket”)  and a row of peas (“Kelvedon Wonder”) in the new strip of bed we dug last month - and indeed the peas have already popped their heads up. Those are being protected from the attentions of the local cats and the pigeons by means of a complicated arrangement of canes and garden twine, efforts to protect them from slugs might be slightly more challenging. Hopefully once the potatoes appear as well, that should deter the bigger pests freeing up the canes to make a slightly more traditional pea support!  MrEH also sowed a bed with a mix of turnips and beetroot - the turnips being the small round ones we grew years ago on the allotment, and we’ve popped in a row of Kale “Scarlet” At the back of the main veg bed - this should both look attractive and help to fill the “hungry gap” from autumn into winter as well. 

Gooseberry flower buds

Mid month we decided that it was possible that the rhubarb was breaking through, and just a week later it was actually looking like rhubarb - my goodness when it grows it REALLY grows, doesn’t it! We won’t be able to take too much off it this year as it needs another season to get to full strength - we will be making a couple of small harvests though so that’s one to look forward to. Also on the fruit-front the gooseberries are covered in leaf and are even beginning to show their first flower buds, the blackcurrant also has plenty of leaf and while the redcurrant is lagging behind at the moment, it’s got plenty of buds. We’ve also gained several raspberry canes, a loganberry and a wineberry plus some strawberry plants - so if all that lot get going we will be well supplied with fruit through the summer and into autumn! 

Rhubarb!

Currently filling our front room windowsill under the propagator lids are an array of chillies - from my favoured “Hungarian Black” - those using saved seed from the single plant I managed to get to grow last year, to the distinctly more fiery “Bhut Jolokia” - MrEH uses those for concocting various mad versions of flavoured vodka, gin etc for post-rugby match shenanigans so being able to grow them would make life easier for him….however we’re not seeing any success with either of those so far sadly. More optimistic are the “Bishop’s Crown” variety - from a packet of seeds got free with our Kitchen Garden magazine - nearly all I sowed of those are now up and looking sturdy. Also on there are aubergines - with a couple of those having popped their heads up too - and some sweet peppers as well. Meanwhile in the garden the mini greenhouse is standing by ready for duty again - and already contains sowings of some soft herbs and flowers - notably mini sunflowers and calendulas, both of which will get used as companion planting  if they germinate OK. 

Coldframe with herbs

Further acquisitions this month include some more cover for bringing on tender plants while there is still any risk of the temperature dropping in the form of two small cold frame/giant cloche arrangements, plus a larger polycarbonate style cold frame which now houses herbs and will work well for more hardy sowings of other plants and hardening off. Joining our metal arches are four narrow trellis frameworks - two of those are already in place against the fence to support a couple of Clematis - the one I bought last year has been joined by a new purchase - and currently we think the other two will be placed alongside the arches to increase the spread area for beans and squashes. 

Strawberries settling into their troughs

It still feels like SUCH a novelty to actually have the privilege of this space - even though we’ve been here over a year and a half now, I’m not sure that feeling will ever wear off!

Robyn 

February in the garden…

 Well, who foresaw one of THESE posts appearing so early in the year? Not me for sure, but then we got cracking on a small project we have been discussing for a while…

You’ll recall that increasing growing space has been right at the top of our garden agenda since we moved in. We made a start by stripping various shrubs out of the raised beds along one side, and of course the addition of the new veg bed. We’ve been discussing what other options there were though - there isn’t really any more options for adding anything at ground level so the next logical move was to add scope for things to grown upwards instead. A couple of cheap metal arches were acquired from a well known online store named after a big river, and last weekend we set about building and placing them. 

Once they were in place we turned our attention to the best way of really maximising the space there - and decided that sacrificing a strip of lawn on that side was the way forwards. That would mean that we could plant stuff for climbing up on both sides, and have a narrow strip available for other planting too - and a strip which gets a reasonable amount of sun, at that! My Mum has one of those useful half-moon edging tools, and we talked about popping over to borrow that, but then it was remembered that I also have some form for being able to actually do a remarkably straight tidy line with just a digging spade… 

There - what do you think? It might ideally want a bit of tidying up at some stage, but right now it ticks the box for “good enough” which is what was needed. Of course a bit like the other side, we did encounter a LOT of concrete and rubble that needed dealing with - indeed we have a whole compost sack of rubble to go to the tip (this feels familiar!) and several bags of dug out turfs as well. I suspect as we continue digging it over there will be more rubble appearing as well - but we are expecting that! 

That’s how it looks now - oddly enough the arches have completely changed the look of the whole garden, it’s very strange! There is still some tinkering to do on that side - we want to reduce the height of those raised beds by another level ideally to give less areas for slugs and snails to hide, the wood is beginning to rot quite badly anyway - eventually they will probably come out altogether. The new strip needs an addition of plenty of compost dug in to get it ready for planting as well. 

Elsewhere our efforts at getting spring bulbs planted in have paid off - we have crocuses all over the place…

…and lots of other things appearing too, most of which we can’t quite remember what they were - quite a lot of various tulips I think? And there were also a lot of alliums of various colours and sizes - you may remember from last year that those are a real favourite of mine and something I always knew I wanted plenty of! 

Auntie D’s Pulmonaria is flowering away cheerfully there as well as you can see - the ridiculous thing seems to have no concept of seasons as it started flowering around Christmas! 

The next month will be about buying any additional seeds we think we might want, and then making a start of getting things sown that can be I reckon, once again the front room windowsill will be pressed into action with the cheap and cheerful propagator lids we bought for seed trays to encourage things along.  We’re already starting to plan our growing for the year - with several different types of tomato in the mix and definitely some different squash as well - I have a fancy for having a go at some proper winter squash this year as it’s something we buy fairly regularly so that could be an excellent money saver!

Robyn

Looking back...

 Well that is 2024 done and dusted - an odd year, not having the beer festival in August (cancelled due to problems with the venue and too short notice to find a replacement in time) took a lot of structure out of the year for us, while also freeing up extra holiday time which is always going to be useful! Lots of the "regular" sort of things still happened of course, and a lot of the start of the year was settling in to the new house. The garden was, as we know from previous posts, a massive focus for us - and having the time freed up from not doing beer festival related stuff was a help on that side of things. 

January: The year began with a lot of rain, the discovery that yes, we did have a roof leak, the discovery of a Pied Wagtail roost in a nearby supermarket car park, and a meet up with pals for excellent pizza and equally excellent beer during a wander around the Hackney area. 

February: Our first Hidden London tour of the year was to Baker Street - and it was a superb one, SO much history as you might expect, and definitely one of the most interesting we've done in terms of drawing our eye to features we might not have noticed otherwise, and really getting into the bones of the station!  We also incorporated a ride on the new bit of Northern Line down to Battersea, and a look at the fantastically refurbished Battersea Power Station too. Later in the month was a weekend spent in Derby meeting pals and exploring more brilliant pubs!

March: A bit of a quiet one according to my phone camera roll. We did some work in the front garden - planting up some pots kindly given to us by a neighbour and also digging over a section of the ground and planting directly in. We had a walk at Tring Reservoirs including a look at the rather fascinating rebuilding of the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal - an astonishing project! Another walk at Aldeburgh including lovely light for viewing the stunning scallop shell sculpture on the beach. The month ended with a massive change to the back garden as the new veg bed was dug out! That turned out to be a far more involved job than we were hoping it would too - with a deep bed of concrete below the slabs, and somewhere approaching a foot depth of rubble below that. 

April: The 1st of the month we did indeed feel like April Fools as we spent the day completing the  digging out of the veg bed, breaking out more huge chunks of concrete and bagging up rubble ready for numerous trips to the tip through that month! We took a break from that on the 2nd though for a brilliant opportunity - to tour the old London Transport HQ at 55 Broadway. This is somewhere that we'd wanted to visit for AGES having missed out on doing the Hidden London tour of it when it ran through our own stupidity! (It's also one I've already blogged about so if you want to know more, scroll on back!).  By the end of the second weekend in April we had made good progress on planting up the new bed - a rhubarb and a redcurrant had found their new homes, and some herbs too. The following weekend was reserved for a trip down to Devon where we had a walk about Totnes and found some fabulous edible planting...also already blogged about! In the other extreme, towards the end of the month we travelled to the other end of the country for a weekend in Dundee for the Campaign for Real Ale AGM & Members weekend, making time for a stop in Edinburgh on the way too. We had a lovely time exploring pubs, managed to spent some time with one of my very best friends, and then had a rather grotty trip back which did at least see us getting a full "delay repay" refund on the tickets! 

May: Began with another visit to Hackney with a different pal this time, and more excellent pizza and beer. Airshow season kicked in for me this month too - it felt great to be back camera in hand again, and also to catch up with some pals from that side of things! In the garden the potatoes we'd planted started showing signs of life, and the first fruits started forming on our courgettes too. Then later in the month it was time to pack the car and head north for our annual Hebrides trip - back to gorgeous little Kettle Cottage this year for a rather chilly, windy fortnight. Always a joy regardless of the weather mind you!  We stopped on the way up at The Kelpies too which was wildly exciting and every bit as impressive as we could have hoped! The start of the holiday was rather overshadowed for me by the news of the Spitfire crash at Coningsby, and the subsequently confirmed death of Squadron Leader Mark Long - a real tragedy, and one which had a profound effect on the whole air show community. 

June: Home to a garden absolutely flourishing, both in terms of flowers and veggies! First proper harvests too - this was the month where the garden really began to earn its keep. Airshow-wise, Sywell held their first (and as it stands, likely to be only) full airshow - two days of wonderful weather, fabulous warbirds and great fun with friends. I ended the month with another visit to Shuttleworth - more warbirds! 

July: The big news was of course the General Election, but that day stood out more for me for a bit of time spent with the lovely Strikemaster Display team at North Weald. We made a visit to the London Transport Museum depot at Acton which was a fascinating day - and we'll certainly be booking to go back! A day at Ealing Beer Festival with a group of CAMRA pals was a great day out, and then it was "the biggie" of the airshow season with the Royal International Air tattoo at RAF Fairford. This took a rather different form for me than before with a group of 5 of us sharing a house for the duration - but my goodness me WHAT a fun few days! We have a plan in place to repeat it all again this year too - can't wait! While there I also had an incredible opportunity to sit in on a Red Arrows post display debrief which was amazing - the way they pick the display apart picking up on even the tiniest flaws is just incredible. It was certainly not anything I ever expected and I couldn't be more grateful to the team's PR Manager Andy and Red 1, Bondy for giving me the chance! 

August: Lots more homegrown stuff, with perhaps the highlight being cucumbers! Also some foraging - plums to turn into plum sauce (and MrEH also made some jam around this time too) which was delicious! We had a weekend in the North West to catch up with lovely friends and for me to make a visit to the Blackpool Air Show - not a show I can usually do as there is usually a clash with the beer festival! We also made a trip down to MrEH's hometown for the annual Regatta, and I walked out to a local landmark I've wanted to see close up for the last 20+ years - The Daymark!

September: The garden was by now providing most of our vegetable needs which was excellent - we were even at the stage of being able to do some batch cooking of produce to fill the freezer as well. Our second bit of LT Museum adventuring of the year happened too - with a Hidden London tour at Holborn one day followed by a ride on the 1938 tube stock the next. Both excellent and Holborn might have my favourite tiling to date! There was a camping weekend in Ludlow with friends for the food festival too - first time back at one of our favourite campsites in a few years!

October: The highlight of the month was unquestionably the stunning Northern Lights display we saw from our very own back garden all the way down in Essex. Having missed the aurora when it showed well "down south" earlier in the year we were thoroughly pleased to have seen this one! The garden was still feeding us too with the last of the courgettes and tomatoes still appearing and our first potatoes as well!

November: Final major garden harvest in the shape of the remaining tatties being dug and stashed away in the shed, and then it was just a case of generally getting the beds tidied and ready for winter. There is still chard producing a little, although by the time of writing it was mostly beaten by the frost. There was a small local beer festival to attend which was fun! Sadly the month closed off with the news of the death of a very dear friend of ours - although he had been in poor health for a while it was totally unexpected at that point, and left us all very shaken.

December: Christmas month, and of course as always it kicked off with a trip to the wonderful Pigs Ear Beer festival in London. I tried to do "something nice" each day specifically through the month too - anything from wearing a piece of jewellery I might not normally have put on, to a little foody treat or going out somewhere different. Nothing massively "full on" but just a nod to a nice if quite dark and cold, month. Our friend's funeral gave the opportunity to spend time with a lot of other good friends over some beers - which he would absolutely have appreciated.We took time to head up to Suffolk to visit one of our favourite RSPB reserves and have fish & chips in Aldeburgh while we were off work over Christmas, too. 

And there you go - our 2024 summed up in a few paragraphs and some photos! 

Robyn

 

Frugal Friday…

Remember I said a while ago that I would pop up every now and again with one of these posts when something notable occurred to me to write about? Well, here we are - and it’s going to be another one on the subject of energy! 

After writing in my recent post about a year in the house on the subject of having to get used to not needing to load-shift electricity use to make the best use of a time-of-use tariff,  we promptly upped and jumped straight back onto one again! Not Economy 7 this time - with gas for our heating and hot water these days that would not be good for us at all, but instead one of the smart tariffs that our supplier (Octopus) offers. It’s called Agile - and we’ve really thrown ourselves in at the deep end here  as on Agile the unit price of your electricity changes literally every 30 minutes! 

The idea of Agile is that it directly ties your electricity prices to the wholesale rates - so when energy is at its cheapest to the suppliers it is also cheapest for the customer. This encourages those on the tariff to use more energy when the grid is greenest, and as little as possible when the draw from the grid is at its heaviest - usually 4pm - 7pm. On occasions when more energy is being generated than can be consumed, we can even be paid to use electricity, not something  you get on too many tariffs these days!  

The 30 minute changes are a lot to get your head around - you need to be prepared to plan use of things like the dishwasher and washing machine to make the best use of the tariff.  It’s worth it though - I got a full load of bedding washed and tumble dried the other night for pretty much nothing! It can also be a bit “roundabouts and swings” - while Sunday’s use averaged at around  16p/kWh, Mondays was very slightly above the current capped rate for our area thanks to an apparently rare day with relatively high rates all day. Meanwhile we woke on Wednesday morning to 3.5kWh used for a grand cost of 8p -  towels washed and tumble dried and the dishwasher run as well - but low and negative pricing meaning the lot cost us less than our usual overnight base load. 

Snapshot showing the prices in the early hours of 16/10/24

Looking at the average prices is the way to go for sure - that and working out minor changes that will have a decent result. On Tuesday evening for example had I cooked my tea at 6.45pm I would have been using electricity at 35p/kWh - holding off just 20 minutes dropped that unit price to under 20p, AND meant I was using energy when the grid was under less pressure, too. There will undoubtedly be times when we do opt to use the energy at the higher price, but there will be a lot more when we don’t I suspect! 

So you might be thinking “this sounds great - where do I sign?”  by now - but beware, it really isn’t as simple as that! For a start there is always a possibility that rates can shoot up - there is a cap but it is set at £1/kWh - and while it looks unlikely to happen, it’s important to accept that it could happen.  The mitigation on the concerns about that is that if there did look like being a point where it seemed the tariff was going to suddenly get very expensive for more than a short period, jumping back to the standard variable tariff should be easy and quick.  As said before, this is not a “set and forget” tariff either - you really need to be willing to get stuck in, plan use of appliances etc. on that note, having appliances that you can set on timers is also useful. On my experience so far if you could just shift use to the “standard” off peak times you would make a small saving. If you did that and avoided use during the peak time slot almost completely that saving would be slightly larger, but the best gains are to be made by really choosing to run as much as possible when prices are at their lowest. In short you need to be wiling to adapt your lifestyle a bit - and probably also be someone who likes a bit of a challenge! It’s not one to jump in to on a whim - I’ve been keeping my eye on the Agile prices for about the last 6 months, and MrEH has been in on the act for the past couple of months prior to us making the decision, too.  I have also been following the chat about it on the MSE Forum, as well. Only when we felt we had sufficient information to make a solid decision did we decide to take the plunge. We will now be keeping a super-close eye on our costs, in fact MrEH is planning to work on a bit of  spreadsheet to help with this! 

If you did decide that a switch to Octopus with a view to considering Agile might be for you (or even just a switch to one of their other tariffs) then what I can offer you is a referral code which would gain you as an incoming customer £50 energy credit, and as the referring customer I get £50 too, so win/win there. This post is in no way an advert for Octopus by the way, but we have been with them for a while, including making use of their “move home” service to carry our energy account straight to the new house last year - that went so smoothly we never had to even register with the deemed supplier here - the switch had happened by the time we got the keys! Overall we have been really pleased with them - when we have had cause to contact their customer services problems have been dealt with swiftly and efficiently, usually a good test of an energy supplier. If you did want to join Octopus using my code then clicking on this link will take you to their website and share the code too: https://share.octopus.energy/topaz-macaw-702 

I’ll report back when we have a few months of solid Agile use under our belts and let you know what we think at that stage, and any more pros and cons I have found. 

Robyn

One year on….

 Astonishing to think we have been in our house for an entire year now. I’m sure MrEH would not admit to any such thing, but I certainly still find myself wandering round it thinking “how on EARTH do we get to live somewhere like this?!”

Northern lights from the garden - 10-10-24

There have been differences large and small to get used to - a water meter and smart meters for energy (all excellent). Having to deal with things like getting a boiler serviced (long term readers may recall that our flat was all-electric, with a mix of types of storage heaters which only need attention when they go wrong, so central heating is still a novelty!) and even more outlandish, needing a chimney sweep! One of the biggest day to day changes relates back to the change in energy types - having spent the previous 20 years load-shifting to use as much overnight as possible due to our Economy 7 electricity set-up, it still feels extremely odd to notice after tea that the dishwasher is full, and just put it on there and then, or to make good use of a nice sunny Friday by getting all the washing done! 

Washing is another area where the house is such an advantage over the flat too - of course there we did have some outside drying space  by way of a lovely old wooden pulley rack on the balcony - extra useful because it was both under cover and open to the air, so useable at almost all times of year! Here though we have a whole whirligig line to fill - meaning I can do several washes on a “good drying day” and get the whole lot dry and ready to put away by that same evening. It also of course reduces the amount of damp washing hanging around the house when the weather is good, although we still have our trusty airer and dehumidifier for periods of less favourable conditions! That also gives an advantage on energy use too - and I’m certainly making less use of the “dryer” part of our washer-dryer. 

It’s tricky to really compare energy use as obviously going from a set-up which had only a teeny amount of gas use (just for the cooker) to one where gas is our primary energy source - providing room heating and hot water.  Also having only had one winter in this house - and a relative warm one at that - it’s been a steep learning curve not only around the best use of the thermostat and radiators, correct settings and timings etc, but also just how the house behaves in terms of heat retention, how fast it warms up etc. 

It will come as no real surprise I imagine that the biggest change of all is having the garden - something which we have wanted for so long, and yet gives us more joy than we could really have even begun to imagine. I’ve documented our efforts and results through the summer in the “in the garden” posts - with one more of those to come for this year I suspect. Small things though - like being able to simply wander outside with my first brew of the morning on a warmer summer weekend and sit in our very own quiet peaceful space. Of course we used to do that on the balcony too, but the garden is different somehow. Knowing that the things we grow, nobody will come along and weed killer them just because they can (that was a spectacular low point of having our outdoor space at the mercy of our local council!) or indeed just dig the up and steal them! (a former neighbour!) Hearing tales from our old neighbours of life in the flats certainly underlines to us what a good move we made, too. 

Possibly the final small joy is the simple thing of being just slightly further along the road from where we were before. We now occasionally head out when MrEH finishes work on a Friday evening to pop to one of our local pubs - not impossible before, but the 10 minute longer walk certainly made it a less attractive option. Being just that fraction over to the station as well for trips out and about.  Of course the flip side of that is being a little further from other things, but handily the advantages far outweigh the negatives! 

Robyn