Plan a nice birthday and then nature takes over

I have a couple of days off work and am heading to Dublin for my long-planned long weekend birthday treat. I started my birthday off in style by going out for drinks after choir yesterday evening. Okay, there's actually nothing too unusual about going out for drinks after choir but I had warned people in advance so there were a few prepared to stick around until midnight to "feier in den Geburtstag ein" (celebrate into the birthday - it's extremely bad luck in Germany to wish someone happy birthday before the day but not all that unusual to stay up until midnight to wish someone happy birthday as soon as your birthday arrives). It was a lovely evening, very quiet but full of laughter and good chat. And at midnight, the waitress turned off the background music and blasted a CD of "happy birthday to you", which was kind of amusing. We've only been there a couple of times before but it seems to be the kind of place that adopts you quickly.

Got home just after one and spent 45 minutes or so packing and tidying up a bit (despite plans to have it all done on Tuesday evening!). Slept really well and had only minimal problems getting up at seven o'clock. Funny how it's so much easier to get up for holidays than for work! Did the washing up, brought the rubbish and recycling down and gave the floor in the kitchen a quick clean and still had time to have a shower, get dressed and head for the bus to get to the airport - yes, the bus. None of my usual running out the door and hopping into a taxi because I'm late.

I have a full program of fun and lovely things planned for today. Have tickets for a lunchtime concert in the National Concert Hall at one o'clock, floating booked for four and a hairdresser appointment at six, followed by meeting my brother for dinner. And then sleeping in a really comfy bed before getting up to head to the Craft Fair tomorrow (which I just got a free ticket for, woohoo!).

I had checked in online yesterday so just had to drop my bag off, there was no queue and I only had two people ahead of me going through security and no-one at all ahead of me at passport control. It's ages since everything just ran so smoothly for me when travelling. And then I got to the gate and while reading through some happy birthday texts they announced that our flight is delayed by about 70 minutes. There's a superstorm on the way - actually, it's five small storms one directly after the other and the first arrived last night. It's mild here but apparently very windy in Dublin so the plane was delayed from there. It has just landed here though so hopefully we will get out of here before the weather gets bad. I don't think I'll make it to the concert as I'll only be arriving in Dublin at around 12.30, I think but we'll see how it goes. And hey, for whatever reason, emirates' wifi is free at the moment so things aren't all bad!

Sealed pot opening 2013 and challenge aims for 2014

So, the Sealed Pot Challenge has come to an end. I actually only found this challenge and the wonderful SFT's blog at the start of February (thanks to coming across Sue's blog at Our New Life in the Country and what an exciting year it was to come across that blog, too, what with house-hunting and all). 

My original aim was to save the change from my purse at the end of every month and to also try the 52-week challenge by adding the same number of euro as the week it was (1 euro for 1st week of the year, 2 for 2nd and so on) from my housekeeping money. Yeah, that didn't really work out as planned. I did do it for a few weeks though, so there were a few notes in my pot. Although you can't really see them here. It was nearly half-full when I opened it, which I was quite surprised at.

Still, even if it has been mostly just the spare change from my purse and even if I have sometimes regretted putting that change into the pot when I realised I actually did need it for something, not to mention even though I did on occasion leave the pot sitting for weeks and weeks without any attention, I'm pretty pleased that I have stuck to this challenge and at least not opened it during the year. Look at that pile of money!

And here it is, all neatly counted out. Brought back memories of working in the souvenir shop on Mummelsee, when we had to count the takings in our tills at the end of the day and list exactly what was in there. So I did that, too.

		No. of coins/notes	Total
€10.00	x	2	€20.00
€5.00	x	4	€20.00
€2.00	x	16	€32.00
€1.00	x	27	€27.00
€0.50	x	23	€11.50
€0.20	x	34	€6.80
€0.10	x	47	€4.70
€0.05	x	134	€6.70
€0.02	x	180	€3.60
€0.01	x	199	€1.99

Giving me a grand total of

 €134.29

How cool is that! You might not be able to tell, but I literally squee'd with excitement (I'm not sure that's actually a word but it should be!). I'll be off to the bank later to feed it into the machine that will add it to my bank account so it should be available to withdraw by Wednesday. I'm off to Dublin on Thursday and on Friday will be heading to the National Crafts and Design Fair in the RDS to see if I can find myself something gorgeous. I am otherwise broke but I am sticking to my plan of using this money for that purpose. If nothing else, it'll be good for my mental health (no, not saying shopping is the solution to problems, just that I badly need a treat and I'm the only one who's going to do that for me).

So, the pot is dead. But long live the pot. Or, in my case, the pots. Here they are, all ready and waiting to be sealed up. Well, two of them will be sealed anyway. 

Pots and aims for the Sealed Pot Challenge 2014

My flowery pot will again be used for spare change throughout the year - and again, I will be using the contents to buy myself a nice birthday present next December

My London phonebox tin will be used to collect all 50c pieces that I receive during the year - this will be the start of a moving fund as I want to be making definite plans to move to the south of the country by this time next year and even having ten euro already put aside will be a big psychological boost, I think

And finally, the silver cylindrical pot will be used to not only store five euro notes (the first 200 euro worth of fives I get this coming year) but also to impart to those notes a lovely hint of the rooiboos tea that used to be in it LOL (that's the pot I won't be sealing actually, as it's too small to allow for a hole to be added.

And now I'm going to spend an hour or so checking out how other participants of the Sealed Pot Challenge got on. And it's December, too, so the christmas CDs can come out now!

So close

I just realised how close I'm getting to being debt-free. I have a line on my budget spreadsheet to calculate my net worth. It's not really my true net worth because I do have pensions to take into consideration so it's more of a cash net worth, I suppose. I don't often look at it to be honest, it was more something I used as motivation when I was paying off my big loan and I wanted to see the minus tens of thousands figure going down every month. However, I just realised that it's almost out of negative figures, which is nice. Obviously, once my rent and all the other bills are paid next week it will go down again but today the balance of my overdraft is almost completely offset by the balance in my current account and the balance in my savings. And really, since I'm pushing things anyway, I'm hoping that my sealed pot savings will reach the 100 euro mark so if I were to add that in, I would in fact not have a negative net worth anymore. Nice feeling. I'll enjoy it for the next 24 hours anyway. You've gotta hold on to the little things!

Chipping away

Another payday and another frenzy of transferring money here, there and everywhere. I did not do well at sticking to any kind of budget in November, just can't seem to get any kind of discipline going at all. But with payday still coming a week early (I hope that continues for at least another couple of months, when they finally switch back to really paying us at the end of the month it's going to be a very long month), I'm declaring this the start of the new month.

So, I have made a large transfer to my Irish account to clear off about a third of the overdraft. The plan was to just make a smaller transfer this month but as most of my spending for this month will be during my four-day weekend in Dublin in a couple of weeks I decided to transfer more and then I can use my Irish card while I'm there. I think knowing that I'm spending out of overdraft will help keep a curb on spending rather than attempting cash. I do have some things that I already know the prices of so I can sort of estimate and hope to not spend too much more than 300 euro. I'm surprised at how expensive everything has gotten every time I go back though so I'm not sure if that's really doable.

I have a hairdresser's appointment which will cost 45 for a wash, cut and blow-dry. I have a flotation session booked which will cost 60 - a friend offered to treat me to that for my birthday so I should get that money back but for the moment am planning it in. And on my birthday I am treating my brother to dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant, which neither of us have been to since I left Dublin five years ago - I don't expect to come away with very much change from 100 but am really looking forward to it. This review tallies perfectly with my memories of the place, although it is from 2005 - I'm really hoping it hasn't changed much. Otherwise I have a few things I want to buy to bring back with me (baking soda and some cheese I can't get here) and then there is of course the cost of lunches and dinners in general. I won't be doing anything extravagant with these, will fill up with breakfast in the hotel every day and see how things pan out.

Otherwise I have, as usual, transferred some money to savings for annual expenses and some to savings for travel. The bill for the remainder of my February trip to sing in Halle will probably arrive in January so I want to have as much of that put aside as possible before then. My choir subscription will also fall due in January so that's put aside. And I've transferred money onto my mastercard so that I can pay for my ticket to travel to Frankfurt for New Year's as well as a small amount of spending money.

But other expenses are also accumulating in the background. Interest charges on my Irish account will be levied at the end of December. I just recently got a notification letter from the television licence people. I don't have a telly but at the beginning of this year they made this charge compulsory for each household so it was only a matter of time before I got the letter. Of course, despite planning to put aside the money each month I never did so now I'll have to find the 200-odd for that as well as the 200-odd for next year. Actually, I'm putting this off as long as possible but it will need to be paid in the first half of next year. I think I'll get a reminder letter soon and I'll fill that out and send it in and then it'll take them a few weeks to send the actual bill. You can choose to pay monthly, quarterly or annually but I do prefer one annual transfer rather than having a monthly direct debit set up.

Just after I come back from Dublin I have an appointment at the dentist and then I will also find out whether I do need to have  root canal and how expensive the treatment will be. Then it will be a couple of weeks waiting for all the insurance stuff to go through and I'll need to find money for that in January, too. Without any of that, I'd definitely clear my overdraft in February but I'll just have to wait and see. Not knowing how much the dentist will cost, but knowing already how expensive it can be makes everything a bit uncertain. Oh, and it just occurred to me that I'll also need to pay for the next module of my translator's course. Details haven't gone up yet but I'm pretty sure it will start by the end of January. They're fairly slow at taking the money though so I might not really need to have that available until the end of February. It's just all swimming around in my head at the moment and I don't know whether I'm coming or going. It all feels very neverending again and that's the time when I have to be extra careful to not just give up and start spending, spending, spending.

Kitchen - before

Kitchen
Again, this is all very warts and all so just pretend you can't see the dirt or the mess. One day I'll have a proper kitchen but given the price of them, this was put together piece by piece over a couple of years. I started with the sink and one of the serving trolleys along with a two-ring hotplate. At the same time I had a book shelf in here. Then I got the fridge and washing machine. At around the same time my sister gave me a mini oven she had in her cellar so I was all set for white goods for a couple of years.

Next purchases were the dresser and a round table and four chairs as well as a second trolley/butcher's block (all second-hand). So the book shelf could be returned to holding books again and I was kind of happy with all that for a while although I had great plans to reupholster the chairs and to make some kind of a curtain to hang around the trolleys in an attempt to keep the dust off everything that I never got around to. Maybe one of these days. There's a post here with photos of how it looked around then.

A couple of years after I moved in I bought a cooker. Another year or so later I got my hands on a rectangular white table on freecycle. I wanted it for my bedroom/office/hobby room (planned space for the other half of my bedroom) but once I had it in the house I thought it would actually work better in the kitchen. I had already realised that it was a bit too cramped to actually have more than one person over to eat so I moved the round table into the sitting room and set up the 'new' one in the kitchen. Instant counter space. So here's how it looks today. Along with a whole lot of mess.

Left-hand side taken from the kitchen door. The two boxes at the far end have jar lids and a few smaller jars in them. Since I ended up not really doing any preserving this year, these are still fairly full. Just need to move them back to a cupboard, once I find a space. The suitcase is full of music as I'm the librarian for our choir, we found out unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago that our normal rehearsal space was closing for renovation and I just had to clear everything out of our lockers in a hurry. So my suitcase full has just been sitting on the kitchen floor since.

Taken from the same spot at the door, view of the other side.

This is the main storage I have in the kitchen. The cupboard on the bottom is full of Tupperware. The drawers have cutlery and other utensils - although they're a tiny bit too small really. The top part has dishes on the bottom and the right side of the two upper shelves with food, spices etc. on the left.

This really needs to be painted, I think, and I'm leaning towards a blue colour for that. Or else I'll chicken out and just do a simple white. It's not a solid wood piece or anything, just a simple varnish and there are actually a few deep scratches on it (the reason it was so cheap even for second-hand) so painting would help to get that dealt with, too. I think I may get a couple of basic white cupboards from Ikea to hang high on the wall, i.e. above the dresser. That way I could move the stuff out of the tallboy, which is currently in the sitting room, back into the kitchen. Just had a look and they're on special offer at the moment with 20% off. Hmm.

And here's the view taken from the window towards the door. I have a couple of things hanging on the walls as I just didn't have anywhere to store those big things and I always liked those kitchens with rows of copper pots hanging from the walls. Even if the amount of dust that accumulates here means anything being left out is actually a really bad idea.




And finally. I bought a stripey Lars Contzen wallpaper to use in the kitchen and just have to get around to putting it up. Well, the hard part is stripping off the Raufaser that's there, I suppose. Like the bathroom, it's starting to come away in places anyway, so I really do need to replace it. And, like the bathroom, the previous tenant just used a standard paint so it's not possible to wipe it clean at all. Not the best for a kitchen area that gets used for more than just heating frozen stuff up in the oven. I plan to put that on the big wall and use a plain white everywhere else. The brown happiness picture I bought the other day will go on the big wall - it's a good colour match to one of the smaller stripes in the wallpaper. And the stuff I currently have hanging on the wall will probably go back but just moved around a bit. I'd really love to put a shelf up across the end wall, on top of the door, too. For cookbooks and the like. That's definitely a project for the future if I end up staying here longer than another couple of years though. Just to give you an idea, I held the paper up against the wall behind the copper jam pan. I think it'll be nice and bright and cheerful in the kitchen.

My very first traditional christmas cake - soaking the fruit

A month (almost to the day) after saying I was going to do it, I finally got a start on making a christmas cake today. I did have some currants and sultanas on hand, the currants already far past their best before date but when it comes to dried fruit I tend to take the view that if it smells okay and tastes okay, it's probably okay. Especially if it's going to be soaked in alcohol anyway. I also did have some almonds well past their date but I decided to give them a miss. Although I tend not to be able to really taste the difference, I know that the oils in nuts can become rancid and that some people really are able to taste that.

So I put the following into my giant Tupperware mixing bowl:
625g currants
225g raisins
225g sultanas
200g glace cherries (only supposed to be 175g but each pack was 100g and the difference was about three cherries so what the hell)
100g mixed peel (used half and half orange and lime)

Then I had a search for some brandy, I was pretty sure I had part of a bottle somewhere from a failed attempt at something else and was surprised to actually find two partly used bottles and two further small bottles. The opened smaller bottle seems to be cognac I bought in France (at least all the writing is French) but I have no idea who might have drunk some of it. Definitely wasn't me. At any rate, the last of the two opened bottles and one of the small bottles was exactly 350ml.


Although the recipe I am using doesn't call for it, soaking the fruit in advance seems to be a very popular part of the process and so I'm doing that for a couple of days before moving on to the actual baking. That leaves me with one small bottle (100ml) to use for spooning over the cake over the next few weeks.

Bathroom - before

Bathroom
There's a colour Crown paints used to make called Soft Duck Egg Blue and I would love to have that in the bathroom. But note the "used to" - it doesn't seem to be in their range anymore, in Ireland anyway. Their UK website does still have it listed but only delivers to the UK - maybe I'll see if I can arrange a trip to some cousins there next year :-) . Or perhaps I'll try to get some made up somewhere. Otherwise I'll just go with white here, too. Either way, I'll need to put up new Raufaser first, what is there is starting to come off in places and just generally looks terrible. You can usually paint it between three and five times before the weight of the paint starts to pull it away from the walls apparently.

My bathroom is pretty basic. It's long and narrow and so there is no space for any cupboards or storage really. It just has a plain white suite, which I can be thankful for I suppose. Hey, it could have been avocado plastic, I suppose. The toilet seat and lid are a horrible grey to match the terrible grey PVC tiles. The previous tenant seems to have been even worse at DIY than I am. I loathe those PVC tiles and would love to rip them out and get proper ones fitted but since (a) they seem to be stuck down with super glue and (b) I am only renting after all, I will probably just get an offcut of some basic, one-colour lino and put that down.

'Scuse the coat, it's my winter one which needs to come into use again so I washed it and this is the easiest place to hang it to dry. I should possibly also mention that I dislike the shower rail immensely here, too but I'm not likely to bother replacing it as long as it doesn't fall off the wall itself.

The cabinet/mirror is one left behind by the previous tenant (the place was not well cleaned out, I suspect she got nothing of her deposit back and probably ended up having to even pay more on top of that) - it's pretty ugly but functional so until funds allow, I'll keep using it.

Ikea LILLÅNGEN

Actually, there are a couple of fairly cheap and simple options available in Ikea so I'll probably get one soon enough. Then it'll just be a matter of trying to see if my friend of a friend handyman is available to come and put it up. There are very strict conditions in my lease about fitting anything onto the tiles so I'd rather get someone who knows what they're doing to take care of it. This one, for example, is quite nice and available either in white (always a good choice) or this dark brown.

This is just the other side. As you can see, there really isn't any space to put anything and because there is a slight 'step' in the wall higher up, I can't even just hang a cupboard up there. Still, I use very basic toiletries and since I don't use shampoo or a lot of the other stuff most people seem to find necessary I don't really need much storage space anyway. You can see the patch where the Raufaser was starting to peel off the wall so I ended up just pulling some of it off in order to try a tester of colour without having the yellow underneath affect the outcome too badly. Also, ripping the paper off walls is kind of therapeutic (until you'be been doing it for weeks on end!)

So that's the bathroom. The smallest room and the one that needs the most work. If money was no object, I'd just get the whole place tiled in white from top to bottom. Hate, hate, hate having the wallpaper in the bathroom. It just seems somehow unhygienic to me. At least when I put new stuff up and paint, I can make sure to use a paint that doesn't start running if it's touched with water!