Frightening...

A letter arrived a couple of days ago from our electricity supplier...telling us they believe(Estimate)we'll use over £1,000 of electric in the next 12 months. If I was alone I could not afford that and I suspect I would go cold or start to wear more warmer clothes and hide under the bedclothes.

What has probably increased our use of electric was the insistence that we should invest in a washing machine and tumble drier. If alone I'd probably do one wash per week or every couple of weeks. At present because of circumstances we use these appliances more often.

And the silly thing is that when you use the Gas central heating, you have to use electric to pump the water around the system. I'm sure I could cut back further on the gas.

And yet as has been said by many, no matter how many ways genuine people cut back, in theory cutting the bills, the suppliers keep increasing their prices so you still end up paying the increased prices even though you are cutting back.

The surprise though is that someone had to call(by law)to check our meter and we have had the meter read by a meter reader, we've also had estimated bills but I have always supplied an up to date accurate reading myself but after he called last Monday in this letter was the news that...

We are £204 in credit! So the next bill may or may not be paid for or have a decent amount already towards it. I still cannot see how this has happened but I'll not being complaining.

Looking at it another way as virtually everything is on electric here in reality maybe our electric usage would be higher and if we used gas more for cooking etc...electric would come down but instead its been transferred to the electric bill.
Its Sunday so I'm going to do a little tidying up, a bit of cleaning but still take it easy. May have a go at doing some kind of casserole or something similar and hope Mum may manage a small portion.

And its come around to our weekly radio fest...Mum doesn't listen to a lot of radio(even though she has a wide musical taste)To be honest I don't listen to a lot of music on radio because its much the same whatever station you listen to and the DJ's all sound much the same.

I have to look for the specialist shows dotted around the schedule and Sunday is a day that offers the best choice of music not heard so much these days and most of that is on BBC Radio so it isn't interrupted by commercials and most of the presenters play a piece of music in full rather than talking over the start and end of it. So there is at least 10 hours of entertainment.

Mum has never been one much for speech radio(not sure if that's choice or because she never got into the habit)but I listen to a quite a lot of plays, documentaries and news.

I have to say though since collecting music again and putting them on the pc and listening to what I have put on Mum's mp3 player, music has taken over a little more again and its lovely hearing such wonderful music and it being so undemanding.
I can totally understand Mum's enjoyment of relaxing and listening for hours and hours.

Much as we like pop music and there are all kinds of genres on the player there is still something about hearing instrumentals by great bands and orchestras like Billy May, Nelson Riddle, Paul Weston etc...artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Jo Stafford, Tony Bennett etc...and composers like Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter etc...Too many to mention.

In these troubled times its lovely not to be wound up or feeling miserable hearing all the terrible news in the world. Music really can make you feel good and calm you. Of course it can excite or move you, ok its patriotic but I am still affected by pieces such as Land Of Hope And Glory, Jerusalem and Nimrod.

That's not to say I bury my head in the ground and ignore what's happening. Sadly, that will still happen(world events)and some of what's coming domestically will still be a worry for many in this country economically. Few of us will be untouched. I daren't think about the future and tend to take each day as it comes.