Work From Home

The 2011 Late Late Toy Show - wilb be on RTE1 on December 2nd .
The “must have” toys will be shown - and all the parents will be driven mad looking for them and the shops will be sold out of them within days .

If you want to beat the rush - this site has a good selection of the top toys for 2011.

If you want to avoid the crowds - shop online for Toys this Christmas - but order this week to be sure of delivery in time.

This year ToysRus - one of the biggest international toyshops - now deliver to Ireland.
Find out more about ToysRus deliveries to Ireland here .

Debenhams and House of Fraser both sell Toys online and they deliver to Ireland.

Hamleys Toyshop also deliver to Ireland

If you are planning on Working from Home - you will need some space to work from.
Working from the kitchen or bedroom just won’t work. You will be disturbed by noises , be tempted to do odd jobs or housework . An ideal solution is an office in the garden.

Garden offices are cheap, eco-friendly and above all – there is no commute. Could shedworking be the way forward for workers looking for an office alternative

Walton’s sell a Home Office Executive Log Cabin in three sizes – 4m x 3m, 5m x 4m and 6m x 5m.
The 6m x 5m model of the Greenacre Home Office Executive Log Cabin even has double glazing. These log cabins are clad in tongue and grooved timber panels sourced from the Baltic region for better appearances and extra durability. See full range here

Shedworking has plenty of advantages . It’s it’s easier to prevent – or at least restrict – your family and pets from invading your workspace.
There is no need to double up on spaces, leaving your bedrooms and kitchen tables free for their intended purposes.
Financially, it adds value to your property, up to 5% according to some experts, and installing an office in the garden is certainly far cheaper than buying a house with an extra room.

Take a look at some of the log cabins available here (all free delivery anywhere in Ireland)

The homemade chicken coop seemed like a good idea at the time - but it is just too small and hard to clean.
It was free (made from old pallets) - but it’s now falling apart and it’s time to invest in a proper chicken coop.

I found a website selling chicken coops in Ireland - with free delivery.
See the selection of chicken coops here

Prices start at €199 - for a coop to fit 4 chickens.

For self employed people and people who have income outside their normal PAYE earnings - October 31st is the deadline for getting in the Income Tax Returns to the Revenue.
Many people use the ROS — Revenue Online Service to do their Tax Returns. Many others still rely on paper based returns and use the services of accountants to fill out the forms for them.

There are a few online survey sites around - that ask you to complete surveys and they offer you payment in the form of vouchers or cash etc. None of these survey sites are going to enable you to give up your day job - but they are a useful and easy way of earning small amounts of cash.
Never pay any money to any survey site - as a registration fee etc. If they want money from you - then it is probably a scam.
One of the major survey companies in Ireland is My Survey (previously known as LightSpeed). When you join you are entered into a draw to win points worth €2500 .
Every survey you complete earns you points which can be redeemed for “Rewards”
For example 115 points gets you €1 (you need a Paypal account)
You can also get Amazon Vouchers, Argos Vouchers .
You are more likely to be offered more surveys if you are the main income earner in a household - and/or do most of the shopping.
Visit MySurvey - you have nothing to lose and who knows it could be better than time wasted on Facebook !

I’m not a big user of Facebook myself - but from the small amounts I’ve used it I can see how people could spend hours on it every day. My kids seem to be on it a lot - it is a one stop shop for connecting with friends. The amount of data and information it throws at you can be overwhelming and I can see how some people might get hooked or addicted to Facebook.
In my few journeys into Facebook I hace discovered this page Online Shopping Ireland . It has regular updates of bargains and discount codes for online shops that deliver to Ireland. Much better than someone telling you they’ve bought a horse on flippin Farmville or found someone on Mafia Wars! Become a fan of Online Shopping Ireland instead

Don’t forget to set your clocks forward by one hour on Sunday 28th March 2010.
The change officially takes place at 01.00 Greenwich Mean Time.

We may be losing an hour of sleep on Sunday morning but the extra hour of daylight in the evenings will be nice

Mothers Day is coming up soon - I know because I’ve seen a few ads online for flowers. I had to check what date Mother’s day was - it’s confusing beacuse in the USA it is on a different date to here. In America it falls on May 9th 2010 - but here in Ireland and the UK Mothers Day or Mothering Sunday falls on March 14th in 2010.

Our youngest (7) will probably make something at school for his mum - but the others (teenage boys) as usual won’t bother doing anything. I usually end up buying the card and present for my wife for them and they just sign the card. It will have to stop one day.. maybe this year?

For my own mother it’s usually flowers or a plant.
Flowers are always a safe bet for Mothers Day - and what could be easier than ordering flowers online?

Order Flowers Online for UK and Ireland

Marks and Spencers UK Only
EFlorist
Interflora

First the Bosch dishwasher went just over a year ago (replaced with a Beko One) - then just before Christmas the Bosch tumble dryer packed up. The melted ballpoint pen probably didn’t help much (that my wife left in a pocket ). The Bosch dryer might have been repairable - but we had already had a repair done on it a year ago that cost about €80 - so I didn’t think it was worth spending at least another €80 just to find out that something major was wrong and have to fork out more for parts.
Just like the dishwasher - I decided that the Bosch tumble drier had to be replaced. It had lasted over 5 years of fairly heavy use - in the Irish climate there isn’t much chance of drying clothes on the line.
With all the wet and cold - it was a fairly urgent requirement to get a new tumble drier. I did some research on which models had the best energy rating and was surprised to see that many newer condenser driers had a B rating and a few were even A rated. Generally - condenser driers (this is what we had to replace) seem to have got more energy efficient in the past 5 years.

The difference in energy consumption between an A rated drier and a “C” rated drier is quite significant - especially in a house like ours where the drier would be in use once or twice or more in a day.
Some C rated tumble driers use over 5kwH per drying cycle and would cost around €400 a year to run - based on 600 6kg drying cycles per year. Some of the “B” rated driers would cost about €300 a year for the same usage and an A rated one would cost about €170 a year.
The extra price of the A rated driers in Ireland would probably be worth the extra money in the long term - but there were none available in stock anywhere that I tried in Ireland.
I then started looking at B rated Siemens driers because of their 5 year parts and labour warranty - but again they were hard to find in stock and I just didn’t want to wait maybe a week or more . The 5 year warranty sounds good - but the price is higher.
I ended up getting this Zanussi Condenser Dryer (B Rated) . I arranged to pick it up in Galway (we have a people carrier) to speed things up. I even did something that I have never done before - and purchased an extra 2 year warranty on parts and labour for 99 Euro.

THis week the final Bosch appliance in the house also stopped working - the Bosch washing machine which was bought at the same time as the Bosch Tumble drier about 5 years ago. It just stopped spinning - the drum wouldn’t turn at all during washing cycles or spin. I had noticed a kind of grinding noise in the last few days when the drum was spinning - it sounded like something had got trapped somewhere and was slowing the drum. The first thing I noticed was that the washing was soaking wet when it had finished. I checked if it was the pump or a blocked pipe that was stopping it from draining. After putting it on a spin cycle I saw that the drum just wouldn’t spin. Something electrical must have gone wrong - because the circuit board trip switch went earlier in the day. Once again - the choice was repair or replace. It had already had one repair carried out outside the warranty a couple of years ago - the rubber surround had split . Is it worth spending any more on it ?
With 6 of us in the house - speed was essential. A few searches on google made me think that it could be something simple like the bushes or something worse like the whole motor. A call out would probably take 2 or 3 days to arrange and would cost about €80 plus parts. Is it worth investing more money in a 5 year old washing machine that would probably go wrong again within a year or two. A new one could cost as little as €300.
So it was down to the local electrical shop this time to buy a new one. Energy ratings on most washing machines are “A” - so the main criteria was price and size. The old one coped with a 6kg load - so this time I was looking for 7kg or 8kg. I picked a mid range priced Whirlpool washing machine €450 - and it was was in the house about 3 hours after I paid for it. It only came with a 1 year guarantee though . We’ll have to see how long this one lasts.

Batt O’Keefe has finally seen sense and reversed the order to keep all schools closed until Thursday .
The Minister for Education and Science Batt O’Keeffe has decided that schools can reopen tomorrow if local management decide it is safe to do so.
He should really be issung statements encouraging the schools to get back to work - they have had a few days now where staff have been paid - it wouldn’y have been hard to organise snow clearing and gritting of playgrounds etc.
Hopefully all the kids will be back at school tomorrow?