Decedantly damcing towards December - frugaleering Christmas ahoy!

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Sea That is so touching. I hope his name wasn’t aethelfled though.

Love I’d report it anyway. People are stubborn and lose objectivity.

Fluffy

Love so would it. Having a proper accident would be very bad indeed, and people would want to know why you hadn't done anything. People are always asking me why I haven't got my relatives under control, and I'm gradually getting more and more hard-ass with them all. It seems to be one of the jobs of the women in a family to tell everybody else where to get off.

Sugar soaping DS :o well you can get body scrubs with salt or sugar, it can’t be that different right? Although the luminous yellow is a bit alarming.

My dad couldn’t get insurance a few years ago due to some scrapes. So that forced his hand with the not driving. I was relieved.

I slept till 10 😳

£2.20 in cafe across the road on a full day red coke and a dirty greasy sausage roll. Feel loads better.

Luckily colleague is in a worse state than me. He went to some do at the rugby club last night and met frank bruno. He sounds like him today...#teamhangover

I could do with a red cola m'self Em. Sounds fabulous.

Thanks for the lovely comments re DDad. He was lovely, and fortunately wasn’t called Aethelfled 😂. (He was Frank, baby girl is Frankie ❤️)

Now, I actually have a frugal-related thing to report. For all of you people who have a wallet full of loyalty cards, have you come across an app called Stocard? You download it to your phone and then scan the bar codes of all your loyalty cards into it. Then you can leave them at home and just wave your phone at the scanner in shops

The weight of my wallet has practically halved. I mean. O.M.G. What a time to be alive.

Frankie is easier to spell. I need that app! Thanks.

That sounds brilliant Christmas. I'm increasingly behind the times for not having a smartphone. Ooops.

That app sounds great, I've mine on a different keyring to my car keys so they only come out of the car for shopping instead of going everywhere with me. Boots & Debenhams need to introduce a keyfob

quite I've been hear a long time.

sea great news about work too
Love Frankie for a girl, there's one in dd's class named after her dad. She's a gorgeous girl

girlie take care, admitting defeat isn't easy in your profession but it's for everyone's benefit.

Ds is gone back to school, I'm medicating with night nurse at night and trying to manage without anything by day

love lol at your dm & only email her don't phone, is this because her hearing is not great or because she doesn't have time to formulate a response whereas with email she can take her time?

£4.50 lunch. Chicken Piri piri cheese toasted wrap. Bacon crisps.

I am Le hanging.

I have a smart phone but it's so shit I only have enough storage for 3 apps on it 😑

We are having a very slow day, I went back to bed and slept till 10.40 😮 then watched telly till midday! Have now had a bath, put some washing on and cleared the kitchen up so am back on the sofa. Dd keeps saying she feels sick and won't eat anything 😕

Love Frankie for a girl and Frank for a boy, great name.

Thanks autumn neither of us have a clue what to expect, Dd is the first one in the family to do a music exam!!

€7 eyebrows
€8.50 on chicken & stuffing sandwich, pack of Doritos(want has passed so I'll put them in Christmas stash) and 5 glenisk greek yogurts for next weeks 10am breaks-reduced to 63 cent each

I know happier 🙄 She can hear fine. This is the same DM who emailed me to tell me my dad had cancer. She has no filter or sense of others feelings anymore and I dread her emails. And I suspect she is rather enjoying the attention from all her church friends praying for her and whatnot, whilst she makes this difficult decision (her words not mine).

So off I went to Smyths and did some emotional spending and spent £40 on more (unnecessary) Christmas presents for the DDs.

£55 in Tesco
£3 Poundland

christmas I lol'd at how one app has changed your life

In good news today, I have a fully working oven again (sorry seacow)

I have the app! It’s brilliant. I just hope the screen resolution is good enough for the supermarket scanners to read.

I emailed John Lewis to moan about my 3yo espresso machine breaking down and I’ve recieved £30 store credit so I bought a Moka pot for induction hobs which was £30. Less moving parts = less to break down. 3% cashback on KidStart.

Nsd.

Sorry to hear things are tricky there Girlie.

Here's what I learned about music exams in case it helps.

The most useful thing that that I found for understanding the exam was this set of videos:
gb.abrsm.org/en/exam-support/practice-tools-and-applications/on-your-marks/grade-1-oboe

It's for a grade 1 oboe exam, which is basically the same thing.

The things I learned from other people were these:

1. If the clarinet goes bonkers and starts squeaking like a goose half way through a song, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you manage to get it under control again and keep playing, so that you reach the finish line still playing.

I think the idea is that if you were an orchestra, it's okay to screw up as long as you get going again. If you just stop and give up then that's not okay.

On one of my pieces my clarinet went loopy halfway through and I only just got going again for the final note, but my accompanist said it was okay because I had played the first half with a nice tone and loud and soft bits in the right places, and sounding lovely, and that I started again after screwing up. I got a distinction for that song.

2. There was one tune where I played it without goose noises from start to finish, but I played it a bit slowly and tentatively because I knew it would go very very wrong if I went fast. That was a merit grade for that one.

Oooo! dParents are here. Will continue later.

I should also add: the app is free and if you log into your various reward accounts it will tell you how many points you have.

Love i’d be biting my tongue too! But if all else failed I’d report my parent as I can’t imagine living with the guilt if something awful happened to an innocent person. How is your dad doing, btw? Am I right in thinking he’s not having active treatment?

Am mighty irritated. I went to open a business bank account (second try, this time I had an advance appointment) but when the guy ran the Experian credit check on the company the report came up with incomplete details (it just had my surname and no first name under shareholder so they can’t verify my identity against the report). I am really cross. It’s correct on Companies House so now I need to contact Experian and get them to put their report right. Then (after about 5 business days) I can go back to the bank for another 2 hour appointment and try again. Grrr. And in the meantime I can’t invouce for the work I’ve done.

I have a sore throat and a banging headache. Gah.

Hi Girlie back again now. I think that (above) is the main thing but the rest is on those videos. Please do ask if I can help though. Nobody in my family has done a music exam before either, so it was pretty exciting stuff.

Slow cooked meatballs for dinner!

How did you do that Sneaky? That sounds nice.

I put them in the slow cooker dish the night before and leave them to marinate - then slow cook them on low for eight hours and they come out SUPER tender.

Gosh! How do you make the meatballs? Do you have to put water over them in the slow cooker? (I'm a rubbish cook.)

Just a tomato pasta sauce is what I use these ones I made from mince a while back which have been in the freezer but I usually use shop bought ones

Ah! Good plan. I like your thinking.

No water to pay for months!

That's £24.77 I can use to pay towards my Argos Card and I can get some extra electric on the meter!!