Sadly not a weekend I fancied for for a caravan outing, it promised to be a washout this weekend so I didn't bother booking anywhere. We have booked a weekend away outside of London and we are intending to commute in on each day to have a day out in London.

Have done a few jobs this week.

First we have the email we have all been waiting for - how much exactly did we save by the goverment reducing the green levy on our energy reduce my prices by?

Well - in West Midlands my Octopus Go rates were:

Octopus export price dropping :-( 12p instead of 15p

I guess it had to happen at some point since Octopus likely aren't making enough money from us. Comes with a sob story about wholesale prices settling and being lower. I'm not sure that I believe the rational but then I'm getting cynical in my older age!

Feb half term with the kids comes around pretty quickly. Nothing super exciting planned as usual but did plan to sort the car out since I can take it in. Expecting to blow a good ~£100 a day as usual when the kids are off.

• Get the car MOT done and sort out the timing belt, expensive but needed. Not exactly fun for the kids but a day wandering around in town. Abigail will like it, lots of charity shops. Going to be looking at the best part of £1300 for the MOT/timing belt/likely 4 sensors for tyre pressure sensors
• Art in nature on weds, have a look around their gallery - should see some of the art group folks
• Booked in to Camping and Caravan show in Birmingham on Friday as Amy took the day off.

I've gone and turned into my parents in a single not so small decision to get a caravan.

Last year I went camping with my sister to Wales, we all had a great time but there was a fair amount of stuff that I didn't have or didn't got well. I don't own a very good coolbox and although the dodgy old one that I brought likely 20+ years ago worked to a point it wasn't great. Then the beds didn't work out - they were hard and don't fit the tent properly, the portable toilet broke and leaked (yuk!) and we practically lived off my sister and her many bits of kit.