Anomnomnomaly

I know that's supposed to be a joke, but depending on the construction, you might have to build a new stud wall on your side, leaving a small 25-50mm air gap and then the stud wall with the acoustic insulation in it.

I buy Aldi spreadable butter, as well as their blocks of Welsh butter and pay about £3.50 for one of each... and can't fault either one of them. If I bought the same stuff "branded" in any of the larger supermarkets, I'd be paying almost double that.

Likewise, I'm rather fond of the HP Fruity sauce... £2.50 a bottle or more... Supermarket branded variety... tastes the same, £1.10 a bottle.

I've switched from branded stuff to Aldi own brands a lot since the COL crisis a few years ago, that is still ongoing.... Not noticed a single drop in quality. But even Aldi have hiked their prices a lot. Frozen beer battered haddock used to be £3.19, is now £4.79, fresh quality sausages used to be £1.79 (6 pack, not the paste filled 8 packs) for caramelised onion/pork/apple/lincolnshire/cumberland and are now £2.49.

My avg food bill for 2, each month used to be £200-220, including food, drink and cleaning supplies... it's now £300-320, whilst cutting back on a lot of the luxury items, opting for cheaper things in some places or reducing the number of times we buy them... so steak one every 8 weeks instead of once a month. No fish and chips at home, only as a treat if we go out for a meal (not to a chippy as they're all bad here).

Getting more pissed of as it goes on.

Started fine, Went for a nice 15 mile bike ride on Sunday

Went out for a walk along the sea front on Monday and then did some DIY in the afternoon, gutting a bedroom, pulling plasterboard of 2 walls to put acoustic insulation in, and reboard a textured artex ceiling.

Tuesday, spent the morning unable to see or breathe due to the effects of the dust on Monday, struggled with some work in the morning... So went back to the sea for a walk at lunchtime to clear my head, nose and eyes, had a nice lunch and picked up some cakes for us both for supper that night.

Weds... sat around all day doing some work and waiting for a delivery... Delivery never arrived.

Thurs have spent half the morning dealing with company I ordered insulation from, that wasn't delivered for the 2nd time... they promised the 19th, then the 24th... Now say they can deliver next week... in OCTOBER!!! Told them I needed it by Friday because they're costing me time and money... the fuckers decided to cancel the order entirely and said they'd refund. Meanwhile, I needed that to finish the prep for the room as the plasterer was due to start on Monday... So now I've had to order the insulation elsewhere, who say 48hrs DPD delivery (should have go to them first) and am actually saving some money as there was a 20% off voucher available. Ordered some expanding foam, gun & cleaner to do all of the gaps around the door frame and studwork, as well as some gaps around the edges of floorboards on external walls (can feel a slight draught where joists sit in the walls and have breached the cavity a little).

So I've been getting more and more annoyed as the week went on.

So this afternoon, I went for another 15 mile bike ride to the coast and sat on a bench overlooking the estuary, listening to the birds squawking and flying around, the occasional light aircraft or helicopter from the small airfield about 15 miles away and the countless doggo's who came to say hello as their owners took them for walks down to the forest a mile down the path.

I finally started to feel a little calmer and relaxed... Which is the entire reason I moved from a city to be near the sea and mountains to begin with.... serenity now!!!

Plasterer called back, and can reschedule for next Friday to board and do the ceiling, and pop back the following Monday to skim the walls... insulation scheduled for a 29-30th delivery, which gives me two days to install it... and I can do it in a few hrs.

If it's anything like when I had to wait for security clearances, so I could actually do the job I was hired for... I got so fed up that I quit after 6 months and they still hadn't been done.

I was supposed to be doing 2nd line support for local authority, govt, CPS and police systems... I wasn't even allowed to reset some ones password until clearance was sorted.

I don;t care how good the money was... sitting around on my arse all day doing menial shit way below my pay grade and self worth just wasn't worth it... But at least I saved up enough money to see me through the next 6 months without taking too much of a hit to living expenses... I was unemployed, I could get my rent and council tax paid... all I needed was day to day expenses for car, food and utilities. :)

I got mine on sale for £2000, when it was normally £2799... the lower spec Lapierre (identical bike/frame with smaller motor and battery) was selling for £2300 at the time back in summer 2023. I've done nearly 1000 miles on it now, as I'm more of a fair weather rider and sometimes I'll go for a walk instead of a ride.

I really need a decent car I can fit a towbar bike rack on, there's decent rides nearby, but they're too far to ride too and around... I'd like to get my bike up into the mountains as they're only about 30 miles away.

Looking after my sisters elderly dog for the week, he's 13 and has some bad arthritis and pancreatitis. So he has to be monitored and fed a specific diet to try and avoid flare ups, he's on B12, steroids and pain killer meds too... and drinks a lot of water.

But a flare up we had this afternoon, he also a poop walker... literally walks and poops at the same time, which is bad enough when it's normal poop... but when it's runny yellow poop... at least it's easy to spot across the deck, the paving and lawn.

I also caught him drinking water from a dirty plant pot in the garden... which might explain the flare up... and why he refused to go out for a walk at all today. He's feeling rough.

Sadly, it also means we have to almost starve him for 18-24hrs, aside from something to take the tablets with. So this evenings meal was a spoonful of rice and boiled egg and his meds... rather than his normal special food... When he has a flare up, it's starve for 2-3 meals (he's on 3 small portions a day now) then some chicken, rice and cooked veggies for 1 day, then slowly mix in some of his normal food with the rest.

Aside from dog sitting, ripping apart a bedroom, wallpaper came off today... thursday start removing the plasterboard on 2 internal walls so I can move some electrics about and add new sockets, as well as TV/Satellite/Ethernet ports in the corner, then put some acoustic insulation in the walls before getting them boarded and skimmed ready for paint and carpet.

I also did the skirting in the hallway, so that's another DIY job down and once painted... another room finished... only 3 more to go (guest bedroom, lounge & dining rooms)

Working class implies the vast majority of people in the country... CHAV is a specific set of male violent thugs, so whilst it is a slur... it's wrong to imply it describes ALL working class people, when the majority of them aren't scummy violent thugs.

Got up Monday and started work at 8am... forgetting it was a Bank Holiday... work from home, so not a problem. Got a jump start on the week so I could skive on other days and only work about 25hrs anyway.

Went for a few bike rides out into the countryside on my ebike for some fresh air and exercise.

Finished the decorating in the hall, just waiting to fit the new skirting and architrave as joiner is away until next week and it's a complicated job around radiators and stairs... I can do simple square/rectangular rooms, but this has about 15 corners and other angles to deal with, and he's doing some oak trim around the new oak staircase to finish, as well as doing the newel post caps that were on order.

Moved my home office desk/computer into my bedroom for a while, so I can clear out the last two bedrooms ready to decorate next month. Gotta open up some walls in one to fit acoustic insulation and add some extra sockets.

Watched a few movies and some TV shows... It's been a very quiet week, hardly left the house. Today is a Sunday, about to go out for another ride as the sun came out and she's cooking up a chicken and dumpling casserole for lunch.

Aside from that, some cleaning and washing to do... a typical lazy Sunday.

Remember growing up and those tubs were 1kg... I saw one recently that was 560g, and they've been getting smaller and smaller for years.

Stopped buying them entirely... The last time we bought a tin of quality street was when we where in John Lewis xmas shopping before going away over xmas and they had a 1.5kg tin, you could choose what you wanted in it, and they had 2 new sweets you could add too as a special JL exclusive... We dumped the toffee ones obviously along with a couple of others and got lots of extra orange/strawberry/caramel ones. I think the tin was about £20 though, but only a couple of £ extra over buying 3 tubs of the others, whilst getting better ratio of the good choccies.

Used to buy the frozen large beer battered haddock from Aldi, it was £3.19, and then during the price gouging, it rose to £4.79... then they had the cheek to lower it 10p and put a big label on on it proclaiming the reduced price.

It's now back up to £4.79 and it's often missing from the freezers because I think people have stopped buying it... like we did.

Their nice sausages, used to be £1.79, now £2.59.

We used to spend around £200-220 a month on groceries for 2 people... Now we spend £300-320 a month whilst cutting back on a lot of the treaty stuff we used to buy. We've also switched where we can to local shops (butchers, bakers) for a few things which is more expensive, but the quality is 500% better.

We stopped shopping in the big supermarkets entirely because the grocery bill would be closer to £400 a month otherwise... So as much as I complain about price rises in Aldi/Lidl, they're still better than anywhere else.

Plus, if I want to go to a Tesco, it's a 15 mile round trip now, Morrisons at least a 30 mile round trip, M&S is a 50 mile round trip... we do at least have a B & M, Home Bargains, Lidl, Aldi, Farmfoods & Iceland within a few miles. Most of them less than a 3 mile round trip... The downsides to moving to a more rural location... But the upsides to being nearer to the sea and mountains are immeasurable... So I suck it up and grumble to myself about food prices, stick to the basics from the supermarkets and buy my treaty stuff from local stores... Nice dry cure bacon and the occasional bit of steak for example, sourdough loaves of bread.

If we want some nice fish and chips, there's a large number of local eateries that do great meals, all of the local chip shops are garbage, the only good one is a 30 mile round trip, same for a decent kebab shop... But almost all of the local cafes and pubs do excellent food at reasonable prices. So we treat ourselves more that way now. Moving here and going mortgage free has lead to a massive quality of life improvement as well as improving mental health and stress levels.