Friday, March 20

Friday

Yesterday our utility bill arrived and to my horror we were £131 in debt on gas, £49 in credit with electricity…..so I am sitting here writing this without the central heating on despite the sun shining outside I am freezing.
I am bored with talk of the credit crunch BUT as I am not an abuser of central heating I am finding it hard to believe my one weakness is costing so much.


Photo: Gratuitous good taste…..Farrow & Ball, cobbles in Arundel (apologies for the unrelated nature of todays photos)

While in Waitrose this morning my husband popped a big bag of sultanas - £2.65 into our trolley for the bird table….they like them apparently and not forgetting special birdy suet with insects we buy form the pet shop….I am sure they cost more then Harry to feed. And then there are the quite frankly bizarre offerings my mother cycles up for them….yesterday a shepherd’s pie. This morning it had all gone. She had made it in her latest kitchen gadget a Remoska


Photo: My favourite shop in Arundel

My husband is outside washing our car….as it is covered in bird poo. That’s the thanks we get.

12 comments:

  1. Oooh, I've heard good things about those Ramoskas .. did she get it from Lakeland?

    My utility bills weren't *too* bad - this new house we're in is more energy efficient than the last one, so even though prices have gone up, my bills didn't. If you see what I mean.

    x

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  2. Mmmm.... farrow & ball.. my whole little cottage is painted in it, including the outside...!!I love the chalky texture...

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  3. Lucky birds eating Waitrose sultanas!
    I love your felted scarves in your other post,such beautiful shades.
    M x

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  4. I'm always freezing - I think my circulation has virtually seized up (must be something to to with the amount of time I sit on my backside)
    ...but grudge the expense of the central heating.Most of the time I'm huddled up to a single bar electric heater ,with a burning sensation down one side of my leg and a draught around the other!

    Arundel looks lovely!

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  5. I think that cottage is pretty painted in its farrow & ball paint. Perhaps the bird poo is their way of saying thanks we're really full with all those lovely titbits you put out for us!
    Bills are a nightmare, takes all the fun out of the postman coming.
    Take care.
    Nickyx

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  6. If I said we got an £800 bill for LPG would it make you feel any better?
    This is why I am buying wood burners as if they were going out of production.
    I wouldn't care but the house is always cold.
    J
    x

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  7. We are F&B freaks here too. Ball green our external woodwork. I love it.
    Is the ramoska any good?
    May I suggest ...a vest?

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  8. I won't bang on about us living in the Scottish Borders and not having the central heating on. Through the winter we have a multi fuel stove going 24/7, wear two jumpers and shiver a lot. We are from Yorkshire, we expect to suffer, fortunately spring is here now and everything is getting better.

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  9. Your mum feeds the birds Shepherds Pie! I give sultanas to my blackbirds too, although a little less upmarket, from the Co-op. A seagull swooped and dropped its load down the arm of my coat the other week when walking into work! x

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  10. Thank you for the comment on my blog re the arrival of Arthur. So glad he finally managed to make his appearance; can't believe how much I'm infatuated with him already!

    Just wanted to commiserate re the whole utilities bill scenario. We're currently renting a house which uses LPG just for the heating/hot water and for that it costs us about 100-120GBP a month, which we found quite shocking!

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  11. oh how very ungrateful!.Our birds seem to be very pernickety of late.The fat balls have to be placed on a certain branch of certain tree. I park my old truck under this tree where they all seem to gather for a gossip and a snack so I drive around permanently covered in bird poo. Nice. They probably do it on purpose for a laugh.
    Sounds like you need a 'heated mono-slipper'. My mum had one ,it was hideous but mighty cozy,then again you still have to plug it in so that defeats the object really..difficult to walk in too if I remember rightly.

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  12. We are in arrears with our electricity bill, we were paying a direct debit of about £35 per month, but they have now decided that after their yearly recalculations we should now be paying £154. The meter has been read twice over the last year so why didnt they tell us sooner we were using alot more than they were billing us for each month? We dont have gas where I live so I use oil for our Aga which is on all day everyday so the oil bill is £200 every 10 weeks or thereabouts. I use a multi fuel stove so rarely using the central heating to keep costs down, I live in a 2 up 2 down SMALL cottage so where they are getting our electricity figures from I dont know??? Anyway thanks for the opportunity for a good moan LOL! On a brighter note I love the Farrow and Ball cottage X

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