I locked the patio door last week as I went to bed only to find the next morning that I couldn’t unlock it and spent half of last week trying turn the key without success, and without a clue what was wrong I asked Dave Coe to come and take a look to see if he could give me an idea on how to get it open at least. He came around last Sunday to discover it really was stuck locked so he showed me how to drill the lock to release the barrel and let the key turn 360 degrees. Once I managed this the door finally opened again and we were relieved that we just needed a new lock not a whole new door so I purchased a lock which arrived this morning and I was so excited…yes I again know how sad that makes me sound but I thought I was going to just fix it and look great in front of my family but ooooh noooo the door gods were not on my side today

So I installed the new lock and slid the door closed and locked it, perfect and then realised it was stuck locked exactly how the old lock was yesterday and to describe how annoyed I was at spending £58 on a new lock I thought I was going to have to drill and even worse on the warmest day of the year the door was stuck shut again, when Jamie returned home Reagan just said “Mommy, Daddy has been swearing a lot!”

Anyway to cut a long story short, after a lot of faffing I got the door open worked out that the 30 year old door was just worn out and it wasn’t the lock but the deadlock mechanism that was broken so there was a decision to be made piss about with it for a while longer before admitting I am a failure or buy a new door? Well not wanting to admit failure by trying we moved straight to buying a new door which I intend to get sorted asap

New boiler day and it was pretty painless, Sean the plumber turned up on time and set about his task very efficiently and fitted the boiler and 7 thermostatic valves by 3pm, job done.

The first thing we noticed was how hot the radiators got, they were red hot and soon warmed the house up to the point where Jamie said you could smell the heat lol

Anyway peace of mind restored and it should keep the house warmer and also saving us money while it does…I guess we’ll see?

Since I moved in to this house the boiler has been OK at best and replaced with a second-hand boiler once, and I have had numerous issues with it but always been able to get the issues fixed but in both it’s carnations it has lasted 25 years in my ownership and some time pre June 1997 but we believe it’s time to replace it….with a new one, with a warranty and everything!

So at the risk of spending savings, that we have never had in the 14 years we have known each other, that we were putting aside to “go home” later in the year, on adulting stuff we felt we could not just sit here and wait until it stops before replacing it. The fan is the problem at the moment, it is making such a loud noise you can hear it outside and indoors you have to close the door while in the living room just to hear the TV.

In a couple of days (Thursday) we will have a new Worcester Combi-boiler fitted with Hive remote control and thermostatic valves (which can take Hive headers at a later stage) on all the radiators and will cost £2400 which is a huge amount but will immediately fix the issue and hopefully guarantee us heat and hot water for at least the next ten years under warranty and many years beyond that too, so if you think of it that way it isn’t that much per year for such peace of mind.

With Jamie’s new job we are lucky that we can just about afford to buy it outright and not add to our debt that we have done so well to reduce over last few months I just hope, going home remains possible? You can’t put a price on Peace of Mind Actually it’s £2400

My car is a Vauxhall Corsa 2015 ‘Limited Edition’ in Black which I have had since 2018 it has 71000+ miles on it, I like the car but it is on a PCP contract and the bank sent me a letter last week saying that I have two remaining payments of £114 and then the bubble payment of £2500 which meant I needed to think about getting a new car or handing the car back to the bank and walking (literally) away.

Car shopping is not one of my favourite things to do so I was dreading the drudgery of spending the next few weeks trawling around used car forecourts looking for my next car Jamie on the other hand was like a little puppy wagging it’s tail waiting by the door ready for a walk. She loves car shopping and was on her phone straightaway telling me what I should \ could have but I didn’t really want to change my car so I was very much in the let me just get another Corsa because I know where I am with them. I avoided all of Jamie’s enthusiasm all week but as I sat watching Lincoln at gymnastics I thought I would have a look at the Arnold Clark website and immediately was overwhelmed by shear number of cars available but I will admit that filtering the results was fun for a while and eventually I had it down to 150+ Corsa’s and on the first page a Blue 2018 Corsa SRi took my eye and it was in Winsford so I called them and booked a test drive and Whatsapp’d Jamie who enthusiastically asked if she could join me

Before we got there they rang to say the car was halfway through a service so we won’t be able to test drive it but you can still come and have a look which we did and had a mooch around but it was a little disappointing not to be able to even see it when we got there but like all good car salesman he said I could come back Monday for a test drive and take it away and I did the paperwork to that effect.

Last night I thought about it a lot and it must have been on my mind this morning because I sat having a brew looking again at the website and came across a three year old Corsa SRi VX Line with under 9000 miles on the clock. It was almost identical to the car I was already driving but an upgrade in many ways to mine and barely any miles so I thought I wanted to go look at this one as it was in Northwich and booked a test drive. It felt better straightaway not only was it sat there waiting when I got there, it was familiar I already liked the look of it because it was the same as I was driving it drove really well it was a bit “perkier” than mine which I always describe as the slowest car in the world. I have never really craved performance but I wanted a little more power if possible and this was enough although still not great which I felt OK with.

So I got them to cancel the order at Winsford and I ordered this one which felt exactly what I wanted, at the end of the day I didn’t need or want to change my car but a newer better identical car was ideal in my opinion.