Month 2, Day 27: A Weekend Away

A lot of ground to cover now, I’ve not blogged since Friday! On Friday, after sorting out my Cuban propaganda photos I took a walk round town, with misanthropy in mind. I started to feel a bit better about humanity when I saw the paperback bestsellers in Borders. In my memory, this is probably the least offensive set of books that have occupied the top 20 at Borders. No Coleen McLaughlin autobiographies, no “How to get rich and popular” or anything like that. Maybe we’re getting better.

An increase in affection for life and humanity then set in, which stayed with me all weekend. Friday’s spends were:

• £4.40 for coffees and teas with Jenny
• £4.24 for a range of exceptional bargains in Sainsburys, the bounty shared with Omar
• £5.20 for a couple of pints in the ever charming Deco Lounge

On Saturday, I hopped on the bike and took a ride round past Gloucester and into Wales, through the Brecon Beacons and into Snowdonia. Absolutely amazing. I’m still scared of doing long runs on the bike. When I’m sleeping the night before going out on a long run, I think about the hundreds of hazards I’m going to have to negotiate, and my untimely death seems a certainty. Once I get out though, I get on top of the fear (well, mostly) and it’s an amazing experience.

More fear conquering in Wales, as we walked into the mountains up to about 1000m in the ice, wind and snow. At night it was lots of guitar and singing and drinking on both nights, and then the run back to Bristol. Spends:

• Various petrol stops at £25.62
• Whisky and tobacco at £19.99
• Food at £8.00

The weekend was such an amazing experience, I was expecting it to be all change with the thesis progress, but unfortunately not. Still in procrastinor’s grip.

Since then it’s been:

• £5.50 that I was owed for some shopping
• £1 that my housemate Anya owed me that she used to buy me a dessert
  • These last two items happened a while back, but a change in skinto accountancy procedures means I’m setting them against the budget
• £12.92 in Lidl for supplies for a meal for Phil, Gemma and Laura who were round for dinner
• £2.20 for Latte Wednesday

Balance = £44.58 (-63.4%), about enough for a half decent weekend!

Some conflicting movements in the EAPCCI

1. Houses for sale on my street = 4 (up 1, was 2 at the start)
2. Price of petrol at the Tesco down the street = 106.9p/l (down 1p, was 103.9p at the start)
3. Price of 1kg of spaghetti in Lidl = 79p (no change, was 69p at the start)

Month 2, Day 4: Another Month Begins!

The trip to Glasgow was relatively speaking costly, but it could have been worse. During the day on Friday my only expense was 39p for a pack of chewing gum. I visited the Savoy Centre in Sauchiehall Street to avoid spending while I waited on Macca to get off work. Here’s a picture of the Savoy centre in all its glory.

The Savoy Centre

Doesn’t it look like the kind of shopping centre for a man with a hundred pounds a month? Oh but it was good though. So many gems. Gordon Ramsay luxury chocolate mis-shapes, signs entirely in Chinese, not one, but two psychic centres with queues out the door and the word baguette somehow spelt with a ‘q’ in it were the highlights. Oh, and a “delicatessen” that sold nothing more exotic than chopped pork.

The evening was the big spending event of the season. We went to Tibo in Duke Street for an absolutely brilliant meal, for total cost to me of £33. It was good stuff, but some neds snapped a wee baby tree that was out the front, and one of our fellow restaurant patrons seemingly got jumped when he was out for a cigarette, because he was bleeding when he came back in, and a little later the police came in to talk to him. Ah Glasgow, there are bits I miss and bits I don’t.

In the morning, Macca made bacon rolls. £1.20. I did live off the old parents a bit in terms of food on the weekend, but I think that’s fairly excusable, and I’m not going to count it as a breach of the rules. Mother’s day costs came to £21.99.

The other changes to the budget are £1.98 for six cans of soup and £100 monthly refresh to the budget.

Balance = £85.69 (+106.5%)

27 days to go. Oh, and I’ve started a geek blog now too. It got infinitely less hits than my main blog on its first day. An inauspicious  start.