A series of ten-year anniversaries is now going to feature in my posts. Mum's death on 3rd February 2009 (see my last post, two days ago) was the first one in 2019 that I wanted to write about.
Now another, hot on its heels: the tenth anniversary of my starting up this blog on 5th February 2009.
Incidentally, Google have for some reason amended my start-up date to 'May 2011' (see my full profile), but I have copies of all the posts I've ever published, and they really did begin on this date ten years ago.
I admit to being a prolific (and at times verbose) blogger. Here are the stats.
Posts published in the last ten years: 2,029
Words written in the last ten years: 1,794,247
That's an awful lot of keyboard-strokes! I wonder that my PC and laptop keyboards could take it. It's also a lot of posts for anybody to produce, even though I have never confined myself to just one topic.
If you haven't been with me from the start, you may not have seen the posts I published up to 2014. I took them all down in June and July last year, and somewhat thinned-out the collection from 2015 to mid-2018. That's why, if you glance at the 'Blog Archive' on the right-hand edge of this web page, the number of posts doesn't match what I say above.
I had that purge so that posts that didn't connect with my present life, and present ways of seeing the world, were removed from view. They have historical interest of course, so are preserved in my private records. But I wanted any reader who was inclined to explore the blog to find stuff that reflected me as I am now, and not as the limited-horizon person I used to be.
At the beginning, the blog was certainly a kind of therapy - a way of coping with Mum's death and my fraught personal situation. Then it was a way of exploring the many changes in my life, and expressing a view on them. That didn't go down well with some people in the same boat as myself, who had their own very definite ideas on the Right Way for a woman to live - one or two being very forthright in correcting what they thought were my misconceptions, misunderstandings, delusions and disqualifications to exist. As if I'd insulted some holy writ on How To Live and What To Think. All rather scary.
Where are they now? What happened to them? Did they make out as well as I have? I hope they did find a way. There was never any universally 'right' or 'wrong' path to take, only the particular path that was best suited to the person concerned, the one that led to the most contentment.
Gradually the blog became a chronicle of what I did - my travels, my interests, the things that caught my attention. Some of that has been popular with readers, some less so.
The blog was most popular (and most relevant to other people) up to 2014. Since then, since I let old themes go and began writing about all kinds of general subjects, readership has been distinctly less. I don't mind. The blog is a useful outlet for an ongoing impulse to write, especially as I can illustrate the posts with my own photography. It's developed into a (selective) online personal diary as much as anything else, and I am not interested in playing a numbers game.
Nevertheless in ten years I've garnered almost 946,000 viewings, and the total is slowly but steadily heading for one million. It'll be nice to get there. Sometimes bloggers stop when that milestone is reached, having run out of things to say, or wanting to draw a line. I don't think I will. Once those car loans (to replace bits of Fiona's worn-out transmission back in 2015 and 2016) are out of the way in August this year, my caravanning (and my travelling) will go to a new level. That may mean Ireland and forays onto continental Europe. Plenty to write about if I do a fraction of what I will be able to afford.
Tuesday, 5 February 2019
Sunday, 3 February 2019
Sound and vision gone - on an important anniversary
Today was the tenth anniversary of Mum's death at midday on 3rd February 2009. I planned to take time out today to think about her.
At one point, with a West Country indoor show also in mind, I was actually considering a weekend away in the caravan. But the cold and snowy weather made me change my mind.
So instead I settled on an afternoon at Hindhead Common, where twenty-five years ago I would have accompanied Mum on long walks around the Devil's Punch Bowl. An appropriate place to ponder my relationship with her when she was alive, and what she means to me now.
It was a bright and quite mild day in my part of Sussex, and there was no reason to think it wouldn't be equally pleasant at Hindhead Common, in the south-west corner of Surrey. Of course, being a National Trust property, it was a Sunday-afternoon magnet for hoards of green-wellied Londoners and their children; but it was easy to avoid such people, and just enjoy the tranquillity, crisp air, and the views. And I expected to see a pretty good sunset there as the afternoon went on.
It was already past noon as I left home. I went first to Burgess Hill, to pick up a light lunch. Some sushi would do nicely. Back at Fiona, and still parked by Waitrose, I opened the pack of sushi and switched on the radio.
The radio display panel briefly flickered, then died. A bit odd, that!
Even odder when I'd finished my meal, and started the engine. I expected the radio (and that panel) to spring into life. It lit up, yes, but stayed resolutely blank. And no sound to be heard, not from the radio, nor from the parking sensors. Oh dear...
Normally the radio panel also told me the temperature on each side of the car interior (you can control them separately). And when the parking sensors bleeped, this panel would show me which part of the car was getting close to touching something. But I was getting none of that.
The larger panel below it, the one for the SatNav screen also stayed blank. Actually, not even lighting up. Which meant that when reversing I couldn't see whatever the rear-view camera could tell me. Another manoeuvring aid gone.
I had little doubt that there was in fact good DAB radio reception, that the parking sensors were alive and kicking, and that the camera was fixing whatever lay behind me with a basilisk-like gaze. But I'd lost sound and vision, and was now driving blind and deaf. Or at least without Fiona's indispensable visual and audio assistance. It's tricky driving a big car without the aids I've got used to over the last nine years!
The other instruments, whether analogue or digital, were working correctly. And all those buttons that lit up when switched to 'on' were shining brightly. Indeed, apart from these two central display panels, everything else seemed to be working as it should, and Fiona was completely drivable.
Still, I didn't fancy driving to Hindhead Common and back, an hour away, not without all my instrumentation!
I abandoned the afternoon's plans, and went home. Sorry, Mum.
I think I can guess what the trouble is. For some time there has been a buzzing or rattling noise coming from somewhere behind these two central console display panels. The source is hidden: there's nothing to see. I haven't yet wanted the dealer to investigate. But it sounds as if something has been working loose and vibrating against other bits. And now this. Well, I can easily imagine some wiring that had been plugged in - but gradually coming out of its socket - now finally coming adrift and making the display panels go blank. The vibration of a diesel engine when first starting up would be enough to accomplish this if the wiring was in any way loose.
If I'm right, this will be simple to correct - by plugging the wiring back in. That ought to cure the buzzing and rattling too. It's now time to let the dealer look at it.
So tomorrow I'll get Fiona booked in.
A pity that this has intruded into a day that I wanted to devote to Mum!
Sequel - same day
Even odder! I went out to the car, got in, and on impulse turned on the radio - it worked! I started the engine, and lo, both centre console panels came to life. Was it all just a temporary glitch? I'll keep an eye on this. I don't want to lose the sound and vision on those panels at some critical future moment, and would rather the dealer check it over anyway, not necessarily tomorrow, but definitely before I set off for Scotland in April!
Sequel - two days later
I dropped by at the dealer's and had a word with the Service Manager. He explained that if the ignition was off, my car would cut the radio and other equipment after a short while, to protect the charge level in the battery. This might lead to a situation where anything affected would need a reboot before it functioned again, just as a computer might. Not using the car for a while would reset the car's electrical systems, and that was why the screens and the sounds had come back later that afternoon. He really thought that was all it was, and that I could expect no further glitches. But of course, if there was a recurrence, then I should phone him and the car could then be looked at.
Well, this seemed fair enough to me. And so far, so good. Certainly, I'd discovered years ago that some sensors could malfunction without warning if forced to operate abnormally. Such as the sensor that warned me of a car in the blind spots on Fiona, which was apt to get confused at night, or if driving away from a sunset - in which case, it would flash at me in distress, and would have to be switched off until it recovered from its fit.
And yet that radio conked out almost as soon as I switched it on! Well, perhaps a lot of cold start-ups recently had been draining the battery, and there wasn't any juice spare for listening to the radio without the engine running. Maybe.
At one point, with a West Country indoor show also in mind, I was actually considering a weekend away in the caravan. But the cold and snowy weather made me change my mind.
So instead I settled on an afternoon at Hindhead Common, where twenty-five years ago I would have accompanied Mum on long walks around the Devil's Punch Bowl. An appropriate place to ponder my relationship with her when she was alive, and what she means to me now.
It was a bright and quite mild day in my part of Sussex, and there was no reason to think it wouldn't be equally pleasant at Hindhead Common, in the south-west corner of Surrey. Of course, being a National Trust property, it was a Sunday-afternoon magnet for hoards of green-wellied Londoners and their children; but it was easy to avoid such people, and just enjoy the tranquillity, crisp air, and the views. And I expected to see a pretty good sunset there as the afternoon went on.
It was already past noon as I left home. I went first to Burgess Hill, to pick up a light lunch. Some sushi would do nicely. Back at Fiona, and still parked by Waitrose, I opened the pack of sushi and switched on the radio.
The radio display panel briefly flickered, then died. A bit odd, that!
Even odder when I'd finished my meal, and started the engine. I expected the radio (and that panel) to spring into life. It lit up, yes, but stayed resolutely blank. And no sound to be heard, not from the radio, nor from the parking sensors. Oh dear...
Normally the radio panel also told me the temperature on each side of the car interior (you can control them separately). And when the parking sensors bleeped, this panel would show me which part of the car was getting close to touching something. But I was getting none of that.
The larger panel below it, the one for the SatNav screen also stayed blank. Actually, not even lighting up. Which meant that when reversing I couldn't see whatever the rear-view camera could tell me. Another manoeuvring aid gone.
I had little doubt that there was in fact good DAB radio reception, that the parking sensors were alive and kicking, and that the camera was fixing whatever lay behind me with a basilisk-like gaze. But I'd lost sound and vision, and was now driving blind and deaf. Or at least without Fiona's indispensable visual and audio assistance. It's tricky driving a big car without the aids I've got used to over the last nine years!
The other instruments, whether analogue or digital, were working correctly. And all those buttons that lit up when switched to 'on' were shining brightly. Indeed, apart from these two central display panels, everything else seemed to be working as it should, and Fiona was completely drivable.
Still, I didn't fancy driving to Hindhead Common and back, an hour away, not without all my instrumentation!
I abandoned the afternoon's plans, and went home. Sorry, Mum.
I think I can guess what the trouble is. For some time there has been a buzzing or rattling noise coming from somewhere behind these two central console display panels. The source is hidden: there's nothing to see. I haven't yet wanted the dealer to investigate. But it sounds as if something has been working loose and vibrating against other bits. And now this. Well, I can easily imagine some wiring that had been plugged in - but gradually coming out of its socket - now finally coming adrift and making the display panels go blank. The vibration of a diesel engine when first starting up would be enough to accomplish this if the wiring was in any way loose.
If I'm right, this will be simple to correct - by plugging the wiring back in. That ought to cure the buzzing and rattling too. It's now time to let the dealer look at it.
So tomorrow I'll get Fiona booked in.
A pity that this has intruded into a day that I wanted to devote to Mum!
Sequel - same day
Even odder! I went out to the car, got in, and on impulse turned on the radio - it worked! I started the engine, and lo, both centre console panels came to life. Was it all just a temporary glitch? I'll keep an eye on this. I don't want to lose the sound and vision on those panels at some critical future moment, and would rather the dealer check it over anyway, not necessarily tomorrow, but definitely before I set off for Scotland in April!
Sequel - two days later
I dropped by at the dealer's and had a word with the Service Manager. He explained that if the ignition was off, my car would cut the radio and other equipment after a short while, to protect the charge level in the battery. This might lead to a situation where anything affected would need a reboot before it functioned again, just as a computer might. Not using the car for a while would reset the car's electrical systems, and that was why the screens and the sounds had come back later that afternoon. He really thought that was all it was, and that I could expect no further glitches. But of course, if there was a recurrence, then I should phone him and the car could then be looked at.
Well, this seemed fair enough to me. And so far, so good. Certainly, I'd discovered years ago that some sensors could malfunction without warning if forced to operate abnormally. Such as the sensor that warned me of a car in the blind spots on Fiona, which was apt to get confused at night, or if driving away from a sunset - in which case, it would flash at me in distress, and would have to be switched off until it recovered from its fit.
And yet that radio conked out almost as soon as I switched it on! Well, perhaps a lot of cold start-ups recently had been draining the battery, and there wasn't any juice spare for listening to the radio without the engine running. Maybe.
Now I can have stronger bones without penalty
Since writing my last post about choosing between chicken or cheese, I've managed to confirm what I heard lately about Slimming World revising its rules on Healthy Extras. (HEs are to do with having extra calcium and fibre for good health)
These new rules were announced in November 2018, and SW members were briefed about them from 24th December. Of course, no longer belonging to SW, I didn't get the message! But my friend Jackie has now rejoined SW, and naturally she passed the news on to me. She hadn't benefitted much from the rule change, as she'd been consuming things that used to count as HEs but no longer do. But she reckoned that I, as a major milk-lover, would now have some syns freed up, to use on something else.
Indeed I do. 5 syns are now freed up every day, representing the syn value on 250ml of semi-skimmed milk.
At home - or in the caravan - my normal consumption of semi-skimmed milk has always been 500ml every day:
# 25ml in tea before breakfast, as I wake up.
# 75ml with my breakfast cereal (30g of All Bran).
# 25ml in tea, to finish breakfast with.
# 25ml in tea at lunchtime.
# 25ml in tea with my afternoon snack.
# 25ml in tea with my evening meal.
# 100ml with my late evening cereal (45g of Jordan's Natural Muesli with no added sugar).
# 200ml in a mug, to drink on its own, to finish my late evening snack with.
And semi-skimmed milk was my only calcium-orientated HE choice.
The HE rules still lay down that 250ml of semi-skimmed milk represents one syn-free 'calcium' HE. But now - with two 'calcium' HE choices to make - I can double that allowance, so that all of my regular milk consumption is syn-free, saving 5 syns.
If I exceed 500ml on any day, the excess will of course be synful. So an extra 200ml in a mug with my afternoon snack would be a 5-syn hit. But that's now perfectly manageable. Even a 30g hunk of cheddar cheese, a 6-syn blot on my daily escutcheon, will still now leave me with a good safety margin for further indulgences. (The daily syn limit is 15)
But I don't intend to relax my regular regime one bit, even though my ordinary daily syn total now goes down from 7 to 2 syns, and 35 syns are freed up weekly for treats.
It will however be good to know that, taking the week as a whole, there is more scope for the odd extra glass of wine, or the odd extra slice of cake. There will be significantly fewer days when I exceed the 15-syn limit.
Keeping my spreadsheets looking green rather than amber or red (the colours indicate the daily outcome) will be a psychological boost, an encouragement. I won't now have to anticipate a dietary shipwreck every time I have a meal out with friends, because those five spare syns will act as a very useful buffer.
That said, I won't go mad. Having more scope to eat and drink doesn't mean that I must.
But it's very pleasing to find that something I always thought was wrong and misconceived - having to restrict my milk intake, when milk is so good for me in terms of its calcium benefits - is now no longer necessary. So I might consider having an extra mug of milk in the afternoon, instead of tea. I want strong bones in my old age!
These new rules were announced in November 2018, and SW members were briefed about them from 24th December. Of course, no longer belonging to SW, I didn't get the message! But my friend Jackie has now rejoined SW, and naturally she passed the news on to me. She hadn't benefitted much from the rule change, as she'd been consuming things that used to count as HEs but no longer do. But she reckoned that I, as a major milk-lover, would now have some syns freed up, to use on something else.
Indeed I do. 5 syns are now freed up every day, representing the syn value on 250ml of semi-skimmed milk.
At home - or in the caravan - my normal consumption of semi-skimmed milk has always been 500ml every day:
# 25ml in tea before breakfast, as I wake up.
# 75ml with my breakfast cereal (30g of All Bran).
# 25ml in tea, to finish breakfast with.
# 25ml in tea at lunchtime.
# 25ml in tea with my afternoon snack.
# 25ml in tea with my evening meal.
# 100ml with my late evening cereal (45g of Jordan's Natural Muesli with no added sugar).
# 200ml in a mug, to drink on its own, to finish my late evening snack with.
And semi-skimmed milk was my only calcium-orientated HE choice.
The HE rules still lay down that 250ml of semi-skimmed milk represents one syn-free 'calcium' HE. But now - with two 'calcium' HE choices to make - I can double that allowance, so that all of my regular milk consumption is syn-free, saving 5 syns.
If I exceed 500ml on any day, the excess will of course be synful. So an extra 200ml in a mug with my afternoon snack would be a 5-syn hit. But that's now perfectly manageable. Even a 30g hunk of cheddar cheese, a 6-syn blot on my daily escutcheon, will still now leave me with a good safety margin for further indulgences. (The daily syn limit is 15)
But I don't intend to relax my regular regime one bit, even though my ordinary daily syn total now goes down from 7 to 2 syns, and 35 syns are freed up weekly for treats.
It will however be good to know that, taking the week as a whole, there is more scope for the odd extra glass of wine, or the odd extra slice of cake. There will be significantly fewer days when I exceed the 15-syn limit.
Keeping my spreadsheets looking green rather than amber or red (the colours indicate the daily outcome) will be a psychological boost, an encouragement. I won't now have to anticipate a dietary shipwreck every time I have a meal out with friends, because those five spare syns will act as a very useful buffer.
That said, I won't go mad. Having more scope to eat and drink doesn't mean that I must.
But it's very pleasing to find that something I always thought was wrong and misconceived - having to restrict my milk intake, when milk is so good for me in terms of its calcium benefits - is now no longer necessary. So I might consider having an extra mug of milk in the afternoon, instead of tea. I want strong bones in my old age!
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Chicken or cheese?
I quit Slimming World in March last year, after seventeen months with them, during which I lost very nearly two and a half stones. It's a very effective way of losing weight, increasing health, feeling more energetic, and recovering a lost size and look. I stopped going to SW only because I felt I'd slimmed-down enough, and didn't want to carry the weight loss too far: at my age, you can look scrawny if you get too thin. I also wanted my Thursday evenings back for other things I wanted to do.
The kind of eating regime recommended by SW will steer you away from fatty and sugary foodstuffs and towards truly nourishing things that fill your tummy in a satisfying way, yet are low in fat and sugar and - for their bulk - low in calories. This translates into a regime dominated by fresh meat and fish (or vegetarian substitutes), vegetables and fruit - as much as you can eat. Non-vegetable carbs and dairy are allowed, but rationed.
It's all carefully worked-out, and you are free to devise your own menus within the parameters set. You can also be personally creative with menus, and invent and use your own control mechanisms, whatever works - hence my famous spreadsheets!
I have always liked that freedom: it makes me feel that I'm adhering to good rules, but able to do my own thing. And for the most part, the Slimming World approach means I can still enjoy many of my favourite foodstuffs. An almost ideal way of staying healthy, and maintaining the right weight, through wise eating. And although I quit SW nearly a year ago, I have continued to follow its guidelines, and still use those control spreadsheets I invented for myself. I gather that recently one or two SW guidelines have been modified, but it's clear that those I took on board in 2016 will still do the trick for me.
And of course, if I ever feel that I need to up my game, or have lost that perfect resolve, I can always rejoin SW and once more go to their weekly weigh-ins and Image Therapy sessions. Those group meetings were always enjoyable, whether it was my local group, or a group elsewhere in the country that I attended while on holiday. I sort of miss them even now. They were certainly a welcome social focus when far away from home.
But I'm pretty self-motivated, and I think I'm doing OK on my own. I admit to some weight slippage in mid-2018 that I still haven't really recovered from, but all the SW constraints are still in place, and indeed they provide me with handy excuses for being strong and sensible when tempted by something naughty that I shouldn't be eating. I do allow myself the occasional treat - the odd bit of chocolate, for instance - but I never make it a regular treat.
Chocolate is easy to stay away from. Other things less so. One of them is cheese.
I've had to cut out several things I used to eat a lot of, but still miss - or even crave. Cheese is one or these. I love the tasty tang of strong cheddar cheese, or the saltiness of soft and blue-veined cheese. Before SW, I used to eat a big hunk of cheese every afternoon with bread, butter and conserve and a nice cup of tea. All that had to end, apart from the cuppa. There was no way I could have a daily cheese, bread, butter and conserve fix and hope to lose weight!
So cheese has joined the list of things that I allow myself only very occasionally, only when eating out. When sharing a cheeseboard, for instance. Still, now and then I look at ways to include it into my regular eating regime, and yet still keep within the proper SW framework.
Last week, as an experiment, I looked into replacing my afternoon cold, cooked chicken thigh with a little morsel of cheese. SW lets me eat as much chicken as I like. But chicken is bland. Cheese, though... I wondered whether a small amount of cheese (30g) would be equally satisfying as an afternoon snack, to help fill that long gap between lunch and the evening meal. Cheese would certainly give me a big flavour hit. It was an idea that had me slavering.
I considered the matter.
# SW's guidelines let me eat 30g of cheese per day as a source of calcium and protein.
# But I was already using milk for that, and since I loved milk, I'd still want to consume both.
# That could be done within SW rules, but it meant getting very, very close to my daily limit for 'naughty' foodstuffs. No room left for any other treats! And those cropped up most days.
# Waitrose sold 360g of strength 5 cheddar cheese for £3.85. 1.07p per gram. Enough for 12 afternoon snacks at 30g per snack.
# Waitrose sold 435g of cooked chicken thighs - let's say 330g of actual chicken meat (the thigh bone, skin and gristly bits wouldn't be eaten of course) - for £3.49. Meatwise then, 1.06p per gram. 6 pieces of chicken, enough for 6 afternoon snacks at 55g of chicken meat per snack.
# So for roughly the same cost, I'd get cheese to last 12 days, or chicken to last only 6 days at most. On cost, the cheese was much better value.
# And flavourwise, cheese won hands down. I'd much prefer eating cheese to chicken!
# But as for being SW-compliant, chicken won. Even if I gorged myself on chicken, I'd still lose weight. Not so with cheese - unless I gave up all the other naughty extras that I could presently consume without compromising my slimming regime.
# Both cheese and chicken were rich in protein and other things that a balanced diet required.
# But cheese contained a lot of fat, and when you looked at the unopened packet you had to say to yourself, 'You're going to stuff all that fat inside you, where perhaps it will stay.'
Well, I bought a packet of that good-value, knockout-favoured, but undeniably fat-laden cheese and ate a minute 30g morsel of it for two afternoons, instead of my usual chicken thigh.
But I'm afraid it didn't satisfy. There was just too little of it to quell my peckishness at 4.00pm. Even when combined with an apple and a banana. And, to be honest, I didn't like the cheese restricting my daily scope for having other 'naughty' things. Like gravy and mint sauce, if I were cooking lamb that evening.
So I binned it, and went back to my normal regime. Which means chicken and an apple at 4.00pm, unless I'm out of the house.
Cheese will have to stay a rare treat when eating out!
The kind of eating regime recommended by SW will steer you away from fatty and sugary foodstuffs and towards truly nourishing things that fill your tummy in a satisfying way, yet are low in fat and sugar and - for their bulk - low in calories. This translates into a regime dominated by fresh meat and fish (or vegetarian substitutes), vegetables and fruit - as much as you can eat. Non-vegetable carbs and dairy are allowed, but rationed.
It's all carefully worked-out, and you are free to devise your own menus within the parameters set. You can also be personally creative with menus, and invent and use your own control mechanisms, whatever works - hence my famous spreadsheets!
I have always liked that freedom: it makes me feel that I'm adhering to good rules, but able to do my own thing. And for the most part, the Slimming World approach means I can still enjoy many of my favourite foodstuffs. An almost ideal way of staying healthy, and maintaining the right weight, through wise eating. And although I quit SW nearly a year ago, I have continued to follow its guidelines, and still use those control spreadsheets I invented for myself. I gather that recently one or two SW guidelines have been modified, but it's clear that those I took on board in 2016 will still do the trick for me.
And of course, if I ever feel that I need to up my game, or have lost that perfect resolve, I can always rejoin SW and once more go to their weekly weigh-ins and Image Therapy sessions. Those group meetings were always enjoyable, whether it was my local group, or a group elsewhere in the country that I attended while on holiday. I sort of miss them even now. They were certainly a welcome social focus when far away from home.
But I'm pretty self-motivated, and I think I'm doing OK on my own. I admit to some weight slippage in mid-2018 that I still haven't really recovered from, but all the SW constraints are still in place, and indeed they provide me with handy excuses for being strong and sensible when tempted by something naughty that I shouldn't be eating. I do allow myself the occasional treat - the odd bit of chocolate, for instance - but I never make it a regular treat.
Chocolate is easy to stay away from. Other things less so. One of them is cheese.
I've had to cut out several things I used to eat a lot of, but still miss - or even crave. Cheese is one or these. I love the tasty tang of strong cheddar cheese, or the saltiness of soft and blue-veined cheese. Before SW, I used to eat a big hunk of cheese every afternoon with bread, butter and conserve and a nice cup of tea. All that had to end, apart from the cuppa. There was no way I could have a daily cheese, bread, butter and conserve fix and hope to lose weight!
So cheese has joined the list of things that I allow myself only very occasionally, only when eating out. When sharing a cheeseboard, for instance. Still, now and then I look at ways to include it into my regular eating regime, and yet still keep within the proper SW framework.
Last week, as an experiment, I looked into replacing my afternoon cold, cooked chicken thigh with a little morsel of cheese. SW lets me eat as much chicken as I like. But chicken is bland. Cheese, though... I wondered whether a small amount of cheese (30g) would be equally satisfying as an afternoon snack, to help fill that long gap between lunch and the evening meal. Cheese would certainly give me a big flavour hit. It was an idea that had me slavering.
I considered the matter.
# SW's guidelines let me eat 30g of cheese per day as a source of calcium and protein.
# But I was already using milk for that, and since I loved milk, I'd still want to consume both.
# That could be done within SW rules, but it meant getting very, very close to my daily limit for 'naughty' foodstuffs. No room left for any other treats! And those cropped up most days.
# Waitrose sold 360g of strength 5 cheddar cheese for £3.85. 1.07p per gram. Enough for 12 afternoon snacks at 30g per snack.
# Waitrose sold 435g of cooked chicken thighs - let's say 330g of actual chicken meat (the thigh bone, skin and gristly bits wouldn't be eaten of course) - for £3.49. Meatwise then, 1.06p per gram. 6 pieces of chicken, enough for 6 afternoon snacks at 55g of chicken meat per snack.
# So for roughly the same cost, I'd get cheese to last 12 days, or chicken to last only 6 days at most. On cost, the cheese was much better value.
# And flavourwise, cheese won hands down. I'd much prefer eating cheese to chicken!
# But as for being SW-compliant, chicken won. Even if I gorged myself on chicken, I'd still lose weight. Not so with cheese - unless I gave up all the other naughty extras that I could presently consume without compromising my slimming regime.
# Both cheese and chicken were rich in protein and other things that a balanced diet required.
# But cheese contained a lot of fat, and when you looked at the unopened packet you had to say to yourself, 'You're going to stuff all that fat inside you, where perhaps it will stay.'
Well, I bought a packet of that good-value, knockout-favoured, but undeniably fat-laden cheese and ate a minute 30g morsel of it for two afternoons, instead of my usual chicken thigh.
But I'm afraid it didn't satisfy. There was just too little of it to quell my peckishness at 4.00pm. Even when combined with an apple and a banana. And, to be honest, I didn't like the cheese restricting my daily scope for having other 'naughty' things. Like gravy and mint sauce, if I were cooking lamb that evening.
So I binned it, and went back to my normal regime. Which means chicken and an apple at 4.00pm, unless I'm out of the house.
Cheese will have to stay a rare treat when eating out!
Wednesday, 30 January 2019
And now I've made another PPI claim!
Having decided that this PPI business needed better personal investigation, I went up into the attic this morning to take a further look at my old financial records. And Dad's too. And not just mortgage loans: it was worth looking at such things as insurances paid in instalments, and whether there might be hidden PPI on my credit card account.
I was diligent. And blow me, I found another loan on which PPI had been paid. It was another mortgage, this time on my London house, owned from 1983 to 1989. The lender had been NatWest.
The circumstances were essentially the same as the Girobank-Alliance & Leicester-Santander PPI claim covered in my last post. That is, buying a house to a tight deadline, and having to accept the PPI just to get the mortgage fixed up without delay; yet at the same time earning a good salary as a middling-senior employee in an ultra-safe Government department job - for all practical purposes immune from redundancy and any bad consequences of extended sickness. I was never going to claim on the PPI policy, and NatWest knew it. But I still got saddled with the premiums.
They weren't large. £9.13 per month for 67 months, then £9.40 for the final 4 months: £649.31 altogether. Still, with simple interest at 8% running from 1983, that could easily result in a surprisingly large compensation payment.
Back to Resolver. I've now made a second claim through them.
With that job of mine, I was always (by a big margin) the main breadwinner in my relationships, and I paid the mortgage repayments, and with them all the PPI premiums. From my own bank account too. My long-divorced ex paid nothing at all. But even so, the houses were in our joint names, and it would be no surprise to find that I'm entitled to only 50% of any payout. If that were - say - £3,000, then I'd get only £1,500. Well, I'd be content. It would still be useful money that I never thought I'd get. And very nice to have something back after all this time.
What if Santander and NatWest say no? Well, I think I've got a reasonable case, and I'll escalate it to the Ombudsman. I don't see why not.
After I get a result on these two claims, would it be worth swallowing my distaste and asking a claims management company to chase up any odd bits and pieces of PPI that I may have missed? Especially in Dad's case? Would there be time?
I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Today's researches were mentally tiring, and I've certainly no stomach for any further personal effort. I think I could rely on a claims company to go after the guilty lenders with all guns blazing. If refundable PPI were there, they'd find it. And even if I could have only 60% of any yield after the claims company's fee, it would still be a decent 'win'. So, possibly.
I was diligent. And blow me, I found another loan on which PPI had been paid. It was another mortgage, this time on my London house, owned from 1983 to 1989. The lender had been NatWest.
The circumstances were essentially the same as the Girobank-Alliance & Leicester-Santander PPI claim covered in my last post. That is, buying a house to a tight deadline, and having to accept the PPI just to get the mortgage fixed up without delay; yet at the same time earning a good salary as a middling-senior employee in an ultra-safe Government department job - for all practical purposes immune from redundancy and any bad consequences of extended sickness. I was never going to claim on the PPI policy, and NatWest knew it. But I still got saddled with the premiums.
They weren't large. £9.13 per month for 67 months, then £9.40 for the final 4 months: £649.31 altogether. Still, with simple interest at 8% running from 1983, that could easily result in a surprisingly large compensation payment.
Back to Resolver. I've now made a second claim through them.
With that job of mine, I was always (by a big margin) the main breadwinner in my relationships, and I paid the mortgage repayments, and with them all the PPI premiums. From my own bank account too. My long-divorced ex paid nothing at all. But even so, the houses were in our joint names, and it would be no surprise to find that I'm entitled to only 50% of any payout. If that were - say - £3,000, then I'd get only £1,500. Well, I'd be content. It would still be useful money that I never thought I'd get. And very nice to have something back after all this time.
What if Santander and NatWest say no? Well, I think I've got a reasonable case, and I'll escalate it to the Ombudsman. I don't see why not.
After I get a result on these two claims, would it be worth swallowing my distaste and asking a claims management company to chase up any odd bits and pieces of PPI that I may have missed? Especially in Dad's case? Would there be time?
I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Today's researches were mentally tiring, and I've certainly no stomach for any further personal effort. I think I could rely on a claims company to go after the guilty lenders with all guns blazing. If refundable PPI were there, they'd find it. And even if I could have only 60% of any yield after the claims company's fee, it would still be a decent 'win'. So, possibly.
Monday, 28 January 2019
I've finally made a PPI claim
Of all the things that have irritated me when listening to commercial radio - such as LBC - the ads of those PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) claims firms get under my skin more than most. Grrrr.
And until now, I've taken a kind of pleasure in being able to say to them: 'You're not getting my custom! I know that I've never had any PPI. So there!' And to be on the safe side, I have got up into the attic and looked at some old records there, for both myself and Dad.
Dad's were on the skimpy side - he tended to throw out anything that was neither recent nor relevant - but it was quite clear that in his last years, at any rate, he'd had no PPI. I wouldn't need to go through the messy process of claiming it back on his behalf, as his executrix.
I'm quite unlike my father where records-retention is concerned. I keep the lot, weeding out only bills and instructions leaflets for things long gone. I literally have all my bank and credit card statements back to 1970, when I started work. I also have every salary payslip back to 1970. I have kept all the papers relating to my property transactions through the years, and all the papers that record my efforts from 1992 to get a divorce (finally successful in 1996).
Why have I kept all this stuff? Basically, it's 'just in case'. And now I feel justified. Having all these documents has shown me that I do in fact have a proper PPI claim.
Why didn't I think so previously? The general reason was that my former Inland Revenue job was well-paid and redundancy-proof - especially after a promotion in 1985 - and thereafter I was always able (without the slightest qualm) to refuse all forms of payment protection insurance, whether it was on a loan or on my credit card. I simply didn't need the cover - and it was surely obvious to people like mortgage lenders that I didn't need it. So I wouldn't expect it to be offered, let alone added as a matter of course.
Another reason was that for many years I was able to call on the Bank of Mum and Dad, and didn't need to go to commercial sources of short-term finance. So PPI was never usually in question.
All the same, in the last couple of years I have looked for PPI in my records, but stopping my search at the later 1990s (that's still twenty-odd years back). I should have gone back just a little further! There was some PPI, on a small mortgage taken out when I moved from London to Horsham in Sussex in 1989.
How did I find this out? Well, I was researching past fountain pen purchases, and had spent a morning wading through bank and credit card statements, working forwards from 1970, looking for notes on them that would tell me things I wanted to know. When I came to the beginning of 1992, I was amazed to see 'Mortgage Protection Insurance' written on a bank statement. What? Up I went to the attic for more records.
Hmm. I'd forgotten all about this! In August 1989, with time tight, I'd approached Girobank for a loan of £20,000. After faffing around a bit (at the time they'd been moving my account from Bootle near Liverpool to Ashford in Kent) they had said OK to that loan - but on condition that that I pay mortgage protection insurance. They knew what I did, who I worked for, and what I earned, but still wanted this extra money every month.
I remember thinking it was all most unnecessary. What, insurance against non-payment on a small mortgage, taken out by a career middle-manager with a rock-safe government job? Ridiculous. But I went along with it, never suspecting that a money-making scheme had lately been hatched by the lending sector and that I was going to be one of its earlier victims. In particular, I was juggling two house transactions: I didn't want the London house sale, and the Horsham house purchase, to fall through by introducing the slightest delay. I signed, and got that small mortgage.
So I paid £13.99 every month from September 1989 to June 1996 (when the Horsham house was sold and the mortgage - and the PPI - ended). That's £13.99 x 82 months = £1,147.18 altogether.
I'm now claiming it all back - with interest, of course - on the basis that it was mis-sold. I do feel I've got a reasonable case, and I'm hopeful of a successful outcome. But nothing hangs on being successful: I'm not relying on getting a biggish refund.
And there will probably be a long wait. Girobank were taken over by Alliance & Leicester, who handled the redemption of the mortgage and the cessation of the protection insurance payments, and in turn were swallowed by Santander. I shall be dealing with Santander, whom I understand are not the fastest-reacting bank around. And although they would have taken over Alliance & Leicester's records, would it be a quick computer retrieval, or a slow manual search in some vast storage facility for a bundle of papers?
What, anyway, were the mechanics of claiming?
As soon as I realised that I did, after all, have a claim, I resolved to bypass those awful claims management companies and attend to it personally. No way was I going to hand any of them a fat share (plus VAT) for doing something I was perfectly capable of doing myself. But what exactly did I have to do? What was the right approach?
I did the sensible thing and looked on the MoneySavingExpert website for information, and discovered that it had a link to Resolver, and on that site was a claim template. More than that; Resolver would send my completed claim as an email to Santander. One extra bullet fired them in the name of Consumer Rights, joining thousands already sent. It was immediately clear to me that a standard, well-designed approach through a consumer champion might get results faster than if I put together my own claim. I couldn't see any obvious flaw in this free service, and so I did the deed, working through Resolver's online claim form. I was able to attach copies of various relevant documents, including the original loan offer insisting on that PPI policy.
Well, it's now gone. I will await the outcome with great interest! Resolver will keep in touch, and give me prompts.
I suppose I've actually made my claim at a good moment. The cut-off date for claiming is still several months away, so I may have got in before the last-minute rush begins.
And it may go through without fuss. I suspect that every lender will be trying to process all claims on hand as fast as possible, so that no gigantic backlog develops. And perhaps every claim (like mine) that contains easy-to-check details will get looked at first - the simple-to-deal-with stuff always tends to get prior attention, doesn't it? So it's fingers crossed.
And until now, I've taken a kind of pleasure in being able to say to them: 'You're not getting my custom! I know that I've never had any PPI. So there!' And to be on the safe side, I have got up into the attic and looked at some old records there, for both myself and Dad.
Dad's were on the skimpy side - he tended to throw out anything that was neither recent nor relevant - but it was quite clear that in his last years, at any rate, he'd had no PPI. I wouldn't need to go through the messy process of claiming it back on his behalf, as his executrix.
I'm quite unlike my father where records-retention is concerned. I keep the lot, weeding out only bills and instructions leaflets for things long gone. I literally have all my bank and credit card statements back to 1970, when I started work. I also have every salary payslip back to 1970. I have kept all the papers relating to my property transactions through the years, and all the papers that record my efforts from 1992 to get a divorce (finally successful in 1996).
Why have I kept all this stuff? Basically, it's 'just in case'. And now I feel justified. Having all these documents has shown me that I do in fact have a proper PPI claim.
Why didn't I think so previously? The general reason was that my former Inland Revenue job was well-paid and redundancy-proof - especially after a promotion in 1985 - and thereafter I was always able (without the slightest qualm) to refuse all forms of payment protection insurance, whether it was on a loan or on my credit card. I simply didn't need the cover - and it was surely obvious to people like mortgage lenders that I didn't need it. So I wouldn't expect it to be offered, let alone added as a matter of course.
Another reason was that for many years I was able to call on the Bank of Mum and Dad, and didn't need to go to commercial sources of short-term finance. So PPI was never usually in question.
All the same, in the last couple of years I have looked for PPI in my records, but stopping my search at the later 1990s (that's still twenty-odd years back). I should have gone back just a little further! There was some PPI, on a small mortgage taken out when I moved from London to Horsham in Sussex in 1989.
How did I find this out? Well, I was researching past fountain pen purchases, and had spent a morning wading through bank and credit card statements, working forwards from 1970, looking for notes on them that would tell me things I wanted to know. When I came to the beginning of 1992, I was amazed to see 'Mortgage Protection Insurance' written on a bank statement. What? Up I went to the attic for more records.
Hmm. I'd forgotten all about this! In August 1989, with time tight, I'd approached Girobank for a loan of £20,000. After faffing around a bit (at the time they'd been moving my account from Bootle near Liverpool to Ashford in Kent) they had said OK to that loan - but on condition that that I pay mortgage protection insurance. They knew what I did, who I worked for, and what I earned, but still wanted this extra money every month.
I remember thinking it was all most unnecessary. What, insurance against non-payment on a small mortgage, taken out by a career middle-manager with a rock-safe government job? Ridiculous. But I went along with it, never suspecting that a money-making scheme had lately been hatched by the lending sector and that I was going to be one of its earlier victims. In particular, I was juggling two house transactions: I didn't want the London house sale, and the Horsham house purchase, to fall through by introducing the slightest delay. I signed, and got that small mortgage.
So I paid £13.99 every month from September 1989 to June 1996 (when the Horsham house was sold and the mortgage - and the PPI - ended). That's £13.99 x 82 months = £1,147.18 altogether.
I'm now claiming it all back - with interest, of course - on the basis that it was mis-sold. I do feel I've got a reasonable case, and I'm hopeful of a successful outcome. But nothing hangs on being successful: I'm not relying on getting a biggish refund.
And there will probably be a long wait. Girobank were taken over by Alliance & Leicester, who handled the redemption of the mortgage and the cessation of the protection insurance payments, and in turn were swallowed by Santander. I shall be dealing with Santander, whom I understand are not the fastest-reacting bank around. And although they would have taken over Alliance & Leicester's records, would it be a quick computer retrieval, or a slow manual search in some vast storage facility for a bundle of papers?
What, anyway, were the mechanics of claiming?
As soon as I realised that I did, after all, have a claim, I resolved to bypass those awful claims management companies and attend to it personally. No way was I going to hand any of them a fat share (plus VAT) for doing something I was perfectly capable of doing myself. But what exactly did I have to do? What was the right approach?
I did the sensible thing and looked on the MoneySavingExpert website for information, and discovered that it had a link to Resolver, and on that site was a claim template. More than that; Resolver would send my completed claim as an email to Santander. One extra bullet fired them in the name of Consumer Rights, joining thousands already sent. It was immediately clear to me that a standard, well-designed approach through a consumer champion might get results faster than if I put together my own claim. I couldn't see any obvious flaw in this free service, and so I did the deed, working through Resolver's online claim form. I was able to attach copies of various relevant documents, including the original loan offer insisting on that PPI policy.
Well, it's now gone. I will await the outcome with great interest! Resolver will keep in touch, and give me prompts.
I suppose I've actually made my claim at a good moment. The cut-off date for claiming is still several months away, so I may have got in before the last-minute rush begins.
And it may go through without fuss. I suspect that every lender will be trying to process all claims on hand as fast as possible, so that no gigantic backlog develops. And perhaps every claim (like mine) that contains easy-to-check details will get looked at first - the simple-to-deal-with stuff always tends to get prior attention, doesn't it? So it's fingers crossed.
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