Sunny interludes...

 

We seem to have had more than our fair share of grey, drizzly days this winter - and worse, patches of time when we've had proper heavy solid rain for several days on the trot. Drizzle is one thing, but a downpour, regardless of what precautions one takes in terms of umbrellas and waterproof coats is just dispiriting. 

I try to make sure I get out for a walk at lunchtimes on working days - I started this some years ago when I realised that there were some days during the winter when I left home in  the dark in the morning and got back there again in the dark later, and barely saw any daylight all day. Having been struggling with low mood in the winter months it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps some extra light might help - and sure enough, the first year I consistently added a daily walk of a mile or so during my lunchbreak, I noticed a huge difference during the months of shorter days and limited daylight. generally speaking I've kept it up since, and it has to be quite a wet day before I will decline to get out for some fresh air.

My favourite workplace to walk from was when I worked at an industrial estate on the banks of the Thames in East London. and could get a short distance alongside the water, or even on occasion a quick trip across the river and back on the Woolwich Ferry - that always came with an edge of risk though as the old boats that were in service then were somewhat prone to breaking down, and the risk of getting stranded was an ever-present! 

Today's walk was just around the streets, taking in the edge of a local patch of heathland and the fringes of the forest, but the sky was blue and the sun was shining, and it was a delight to be out there! 

Robyn

Frugal Friday

 

Unrelated Alderney Sunset - May 2025

Well here we are at the end of week one - and so far we do seem to have been sticking to the plan!

In the spirit of using what we have, I decided to have a little review of various reward card points we might be able to use for things that are needed this month. As I mentioned last week we had a £6.75 balance on an Aldi gift card which got used against last week’s “main” shop. A good start to the month! We do have £10 in claimable vouchers on the Morrisons card - but we are saving those to assist with the shopping we always do ahead of getting our ferry to the Hebrides - when we call in to Fort William Morrisons and stock up on some bottles of beer and odd and ends for the first couple of days, so those will continue to amass until they are needed.  I do have Tesco club card vouchers - but generally prefer to use those for rewards rather than against shopping- that said, if I reach a point where any are expiring better by far to just spend them! I have a £2 voucher in my Asda rewards wallet at the moment, and £2.50 ready to spend on my Nectar card as well. The real winner here though is an £11 balance on my Boots advantage card - I must remember that should any toiletries be required! I try and remember to review the offers on the Lidl & Co-op apps weekly as well to see if there are any that would be foolish to let go - this week for example the Co-op app offered us 25p off MrEH’s daily paper and 20p off milk - as he has a subscriber voucher for the paper (so pre-paid) that meant the full 45p of savings came off the price of the milk, taking a 4 pint bottle down to £1.20

We had agreed that if we spotted any real bargains in terms of stuff we would definitely use, we’d buy them, and so when a large chunk of Stilton - one of MrEH’s favourite cheeses - appeared in front of us in Tesco for £2.47 we agreed it was worth a purchase. We also bought bananas - 55p for 3.

I had to make use of the supermarket car park local to work during the week, and that did require me to be a customer (not unreasonably) so a packet of noodles got added to stores for 85p.

Total cash spends for groceries this week then - £8.61. We have used various bits up - scraps of pastry from the Christmas baking made into tartlet cases and filled with a potato, onion, ham, cheese and cream mixture (so tasty!) The last of the Christmas sprouts, chestnuts and bacon (chucked in the freezer on Boxing Day to avoid them being wasted) were used with couscous, toasted seeds and some bargain priced mushrooms I’d bought on New Year’s Eve and promptly forgotten about. The last of the Christmas ham formed a nice sauce for pasta with home grown tomatoes from the freezer, some of the 5p shallots from the Christmas veg wars, some more of those mushrooms and a blob of crème fraiche, and the last of the Christmas sausage rolls were reheated and teamed with mash and beans for a tasty tea. I've been adopting an approach of "what catches my eye first" when I open the freezer this week - but intend to revert to proper meal planning for the remainder of the month as I know that works best for us. 

And today we start the weekly cycle again with a visit to the shop, so I had best get my list written! 

Robyn

A gentle start to the year...

 

Over the past few years we've got into the habit of heading out for a walk on New Year's Day - usually to one of our local-ish RSPB reserves - with a view to getting our annual bird list off to a (wait for it) flying start (sorry). This year was no exception, and as neither of us felt like going far, the most local option of Rye Meads got the nod. The RSPB have been muttering for a while now about various "options" for Rye Meads, and sadly it does seem as though in the longer term they are probably not going to retain it on their books which is a shame, although we'll have to wait and see how it plays out. For now at least its lovely little out-and-back trails with the possibility of a longer loop onto the neighbouring Wildlife Trust area remains open to us, and we will make the most of it. 

On this occasion we weren't there long - but it was a beautiful day for a wander with stunning light as the daylight faded away as you can see from the picture above. Bird wise the usual suspects were present, plenty of ducks from one hide, the little family of Long Tailed Tits in the trees alongside and overhanging the path, and a large collection of Lapwings from another hide,  but we also saw a Water Rail which was a nice little highlight , as far as I can think we didn't see one at all last year in spite of knowing all the "right" places to look for them. Secretive little birds, far shyer than their near relatives the Moorhens and way less thuggish than Coots! (Pretty much everything in the bird world is less thuggish than a Coot, mind you!)

It's nice to start the year with a gentle wander, and time taken out to take in nature is always good. It's a budget friendly way of spending an afternoon for us, too - as our membership means we get reserve admittance/parking for free just by showing our membership cards. Rye Meads doesn't have a shop, or a fancy-pants cafe, but it's close enough to home for us that it doesn't need to. It does however sell local-ish ice cream so in the summer months that frequently proves a temptation!  now that we have regained some of our free time which previously went to Beer festival related activities hopefully we'll be able to spend more time there this year too - as long, of course, as it stays accessible! 

Robyn

2025 - a look back

 So, what did 2025 look like? I always think a review of the year will be a fun thing, but frequently never get around to writing it - or get part way through, having made it too complex, realise it’s going to be crazy-long, and just scrap the post. Will this be a year it actually makes it as a published post?

January -  a chilly, frosty month. Several meetings with pals - our regular January date with Colin & Aileen saw us at our usual haunt of the Pembury Arms for excellent 5 Points Brewery beer and tasty pizzas - and a lot of catching up with the CAMRA gossip. Then a short mid week pub crawl with Adam in the east end visiting favourite pubs from years ago. Ending with the usual marmalade making session. 

February saw mainly beery activities it seems - A pleasant Saturday of tap room visits combined with watching six nations matches on the big screens at the Hackney brewery taprooms and via my iPad at Beerblefish. A trip to Sheffield for the National Winter Ales festival - seemingly the last time for that, although we didn’t know that at the time.  A wander around the fascinating Park Hill Estate in Sheffield…

Part derelict, part restored. Also a fun evening tasting various vintages of Fullers Golden Pride at Adam & Lou’s with a group of pals of theirs. Also first signs of spring in our little garden.

March- final visits to both the Beerblefish and as it turned out the Hackney brewery taprooms in Walthamstow. Beerblefish was a planned closure, and sadly with them gone, and a dispute ongoing with their council landlords, Hackney called it a day and shut up shop soon after. We miss these too - a nice walk there through the reservoirs from Tottenham Hale then good beer, plus the excellent Yard Sale pizzas. There are replacement establishments now it seems, but we haven’t yet visited.

The thriving Pulmonaria we replanted from the flat

April - The garden started to flourish - rhubarb, sorrel, and buds and flower aplenty on the fruit bushes. Then to the Hebrides for our annual fortnight - Kettle Cottage and the windy headland again. 

 The usual two weeks of peace and quiet, catching up with Elisabeth & Alastair for the final time in the islands as they have now moved back to the mainland, a boat trip with Nye & Rosie on the Lady Anne, lots of lovely cafe visits, and my phone tells me a lot of cake! 

May - beginning in the Hebrides, the trip ended with a disrupted journey back and our planned sailing from Lochboisdale being cancelled - thankfully our first experience of the standby queue worked out just fine and we got on the mid morning sailing from Lochmaddy instead. 

Home to a bountiful garden - with masses of growth everywhere and the promise of gooseberries to come! Not for long through as later in the month we were off to another island with Laura’s 50th birthday trip staying in a fort on Alderney in the Channel Islands. What a glorious place - we definitely want to return as do several others in the group who went. So much to explore - including a short railway using old Tube carriages, and many other forts and wartime sites too. 

Glorious sunsets, great walks, lots of beach time, some nice pubs, beers at the fort, games - LOTS of games - blue post boxes, riding round the island on e-bikes, and some wonderful memories made!  The month ended with Adam’s birthday pub crawl round South London.

June - and the start of airshow season for me, with a trip to the lovely Shuttleworth, followed by a weekend st Midlands Air Festival with Tim & Alysha. A cracking show, with the first evenings hot air balloon night glow being something a bit different. 

July - and the “main event” of the airshow season in the shape of the Royal International Air Tattoo - RIAT. Once again it was the full six days sharing a house with Marc, Tim, Alysha & Byron. Great air displays and LOTS of laughs. The garden excitement this month was definitely the fruit forming on our chilli plants, along with some really pretty flowers. We were also now harvesting various bits - cucumbers, courgettes and the first of what turned out to be a very prolific runner bean harvest! 

We marked my birthday with an afternoon at the Epping Ongar  railway beer festival - good beer, trains and vintage buses too, thoroughly enjoyable! 

August - the Great British Beer Festival of course, although sadly the last one ever as it has just proved impossible to reverse the financial slide since Covid affected everything so badly. We tried our best, but nothing has proved effective, and as we feared, the move to the NEC was the final straw. Back at home and we finally got around to rebuilding our log store, before heading down to Devon for Dartmouth Regatta - which included this stunning rainbow! 

September - Ludlow Food Festival and our usual favourite campsite at Monstay Farm. A great weekend even if we did discover in the middle of the second night that our trusty tent had reached its final trip! 

The month was wrapped up with a trip to Lincoln to see Claire and attend the BBMF members day  - and I was lucky enough to get a private visit to the beautiful “On Freedom’s Wings” sculpture - just breathtaking even without the surrounding site being completely finished. 

October saw us replacing the tent thanks to an excellent end of season deal, and we christened it with a chilly but enjoyable weekend in Cambridgeshire. The garden was still producing, including some very fine pointy red peppers…

…and yes, more runner beans! There was another trip to Dartmouth for the food festival, and time catching up with family, before I wrapped the month up with a free Hidden London tour thanks to taking part in a marketing photo shoot - rather excellent getting to explore the tunnels at Euston again.

November opened with another trip into London for me - we were booked for the Hidden London Hangout Live at the LT Museum in the evening, so as we would have travel costs anyway MrEH elected to work in the office and I had a day to myself which I filled with a visit to a fascinating photographic exhibition in Bethnal Green, lunch from the wonderful Sud Italia at Spitalfields, then a visit to the Science Museum, a long while since I had been there! 

The second half of the month featured one sad trip - a visit to the Wirral for the funeral of a dear friend who died way too soon, a CAMRA friend who we had both known for the best part of 30 years. The funeral was slightly odd as it was organised by her family with relatively little input from her partner - thankfully a proper wake has been organised for her in London so she will get the CAMRA send off she deserves. 

It was lovely to visit somewhere which was new to me - Mr EH knew it more as his family originate from that area so he spent time up there as a child with his Gran, aunties and cousins. He had to do some work before we left the hotel the following morning so I went out for a walk along the Mersey towards a Liverpool and was delighted with this distant view of the Liver Building!

Then a happier visit - Wolverhampton this time for a 60th birthday party. Bruce knew the party was happening, but did not know that an invitation had been extended to our entire GBBF bar team - we met up and arrived together and he was utterly delighted! 

Bruce’s wife Deb presenting him with his cake!

December - which of course always starts with Pigs Ear Beer Festival! As always a great chance to catch up with folk - Adam and his extended group of friends, Catherine, Andy and Kirsten who had made the journey down from up north and Adrian and Cherry across from Northern Ireland. Good beer, good chat! 

The local charity tractor run and a chance to look at the lights at the heritage Railway made a great entry into the festive season proper…

Yes, the hearth mat is a hideous lime green, we know!

And then it was Christmas itself of course, with us hosting my Mum here this year. We just managed to get the main part of redecorating the front room done before the big day too, with the rather blousy wallpaper now gone and the heritage green I’ve been envisaging for the fireplace wall in place, and the addition of a fabulous (and bargainous!) mirrored clock and sone framed black & white prints and photographs, it feels like a different room! Straight after Christmas a trip to round off the year - to Norfolk, meeting up with some of our favourite folk for the last couple of days of their Christmas stay in the area. Beach walks, toasting marshmallows round the fire pit, then a couple of days to ourselves which included seeing Firecrests and a Tawny Owl at RSPB Titchwell, and a visit to lovely Sheringham which of course included  fish and chips then ice cream! 

So there we are - another year done. Of course it wasn’t all highlights - MrEH spent nearly a week in hospital just when we should have been heading to start setting up GBBF which was a drama we could both have done without. Several losses of people dear to us as well, including my lovely Auntie Sue at the end of the year. Overall though life is pretty good - we still adore the house, and all the more so as we make it more our own. As much as we love being away and exploring other places, it’s awesome to live somewhere that quite honestly you are just happy to be in, pottering around and enjoying the lovely feel of the place!

Robyn

Frugal Friday

A frosty morning view!

The time feels right for a bit of a challenge to start the year - December was unsurprisingly a spendy sort of month - in between various Christmas foods, presents to be bought, and a few trips out, and ending with a long weekend in Norfolk just after Christmas. January will also have a few (planned!) trips out, but we can certainly do a lot better on the food spending front!

We have two full freezers, and a well stocked store cupboard thanks to making use of vouchers for money off a set spend in Lidl a couple of times during December. We also made excellent use of the cheap Christmas veg - and we’ll be aiming to use every scrap of that.  Christmas left us with plenty of leftovers as well - the turkey got carved up and divided out into portions  - sliced with gravy to make future roast dinners,  chunks for pies, pasta or curries, and “gribbly bits” perfect for risotto and similar. I also purposely over bought on a few bits, and did my usual thing of buying two large gammon joints while they were on special offer - once cooked they were each cut into two with one feeding us over Christmas and new year, and the remaining three bits stashed in the freezer. 

As we were away between Christmas and new year we didn’t have too much chance to pounce on any Christmas bargains, but we did happen upon a big pack of chicken breasts in Waitrose for a bargain price - those were cooked immediately with three being turned into a big pan of chicken orzo bake with plenty of 5p Christmas sprouts, a jar of sundried tomatoes and half a pot of cream left over from making cheesecake. Very tasty, and fed us both for two main meals with a final single portion being set aside and squeezed into the freezer for a lunch one day when one of is on our own on a Saturday. 

Money wise - the aim is simply “as little as possible”. To assist with this I’ll be meal-planning. Asked around items we have in already - so the shopping list should consist of pretty much entirely fresh stuff. I also started out with a small balance left on an Aldi gift card acquired when we did an insurance renewal last year. 

We are always pretty hot on avoiding food waste round here, and we’ll be keeping the focus there. This morning I’ve taken the final scraps of some pastry and turned that into a couple of little tartlet cases - the pastry scraps were a mix of sweet and savoury so I need to have a little taste of the cooked edges I trim off to decide if a I can get away with a savoury filling or not! MrEH had the oven on anyway as he was making a batch of rolls for lunches next week - so it made sense to pop the pastry in at the same time. Lunch used up the last of a focaccia I made for Christmas Day tea - we ate very little of it on the day as we were all still stuffed from lunch, so it had been in the freezer! Slices of the Christmas ham, and pickle (me) or chutney (him) turned that into a delicious sandwich. 

One of the main things for me to focus on with this challenge will be avoiding the temptation to shop for bargains - remembering that it’s only a bargain if you actually needed it in the first place! If we are in a shop anyway we’ll check for reductions, but there will be a proper thought process employed about the purchases. If my list for a week’s main shop is short enough that I can just walk round to Aldi that is what I will do - as that in itself is money-saving too, of course, saving on fuel for the car to go elsewhere. That is what I did this morning in fact - with a list consisting of just fresh fruit, some tomatoes and yogurts.  Total spend for that first shop was £10.28, with a cash spend of £3.54 once the voucher was employed. Well still need to pop somewhere else over the weekend for milk and bananas. 

So that sums up what the plan is - I know we are far from alone doing this sort of challenge this month too, on all counts a focus on “using what we have” is a solid start to the year, after all. I intend to try to make weekly Frugal Friday posts during the month updating how we are doing - so a proper old school blog challenge! 

Robyn

Into 2026 we go!

 

A seat with a view - Sheringham

Happy new year  - I wonder what 2026 has in store for us all? 

As usual, no New Year’s resolutions here - the closest I will get will be some planning in my notebook and some intentions set out. There won’t be umpteen new habits, a diet that smells of sadness, or a “New Year, New Me!” plan that’s guaranteed to make me feel like I’ve failed by February 1st! 

There are some odds and ends I would like to do - for a start to work on my fitness a bit more - firstly by getting back to some regular yoga again. My lovely pal Jenni over at Not Really A Farm did a fantastic challenge during December of starting her day with Yoga - often by candlelight - and I’m in awe! The only thing I can usually manage to consistently do first thing in the morning is to have a cup of tea, so I certainly won’t be making any plans to copy her, but I would like to get back to doing some regular stretching and flexibility work again, and for me, structured plans often work best, so I will have a look for a suitable monthly programme to start me off - very possibly something from Yoga With Adriene on YouTube.

Later today we will be sitting down to revisit our financial goals for the year, something we always do at this point in the year. Talking things through means we can ensure we are both on the same page with our plans, and that we are both happy with the money that goes into our various savings pots each month as well. That in turn streamlines things through the year - and means we can make the best possible use of our funds. 

We’ve got various plans already for this year - with more time available to us now that the Great British Beer Festival is no more, we want to get back to doing more regular camping trips, I’m hoping to squeeze in a few more air shows, and we already have some fun stuff planned with friends too including a trip to York to help a close friend celebrate a milestone birthday. As usual we’ll be heading off to the Hebrides later in the year, and we intend  to get back to a Cornwall for the first time in a few years too.

We also have plans to get at least one major job done on the house this year - hopefully this will be replacing the rather perilous front steps, although depending on how things go through the timer it could turn out to need to be the roof - we’ll have to wait and see on that one! Like so many of these sorts of tasks the biggest step will be in deciding exactly what is to be done, and by who - we need to take a deep breath and get started I think, and once we have started I suspect it will become far less scary! 

I’m intending to start the year with a bit of a financial reset and challenge - prompted by the two groaningly full freezers and an expensive month on the food front in December - I’m going to get things planned out in my head (and very possibly that notebook!) and will get a blog post sorted on it once that’s happened though - as we all know, writing it here = accountability! 

Robyn

December Reading...

I wonder if this format of monthly posts will stick? I ought to have additional time for reading this month with Christmas and its associated down-time to come at the end of it, plus I'm going to make a conscious effort to ensure that I do try to pick up a book rather than scrolling on my phone or tablet too - social media has its place, but I'd really like to absorb at least a little less of it...!

I've always been a reader - as a child I was constantly being referred to as "having her nose in a book - AGAIN", and would - as I think I have mentioned here before - read literally anything that was in front of me. As an adult I'm someone who always has a book with me, and preferably in paper form, too. That said, I'm not a fan of hardbacks - it's soft covers all the way for me through choice, other than for things like recipe books.

This month began with the book I started at the very end of November - Peter May's Extraordinary People, part of his Enzo McLeod series. As soon as I started reading this one I had a feeling I'd read it before, and so it turned out. That said, it was a while ago and I didn't recall the detail too closely, so was content to carry on with it. I originally got hooked on this author via his Chessmen trilogy - set on the Isle of Lewis - and in fact that reminds me that it really is time I re-read those! This one is set in France and the storyline takes the main character all around the country as it unfolds, ending with a nail biting final chapter in Paris. The format of clues taking them from one place to the next is clever - and there is plenty to keep the reader griped even without being familiar with the setting. This copy will head back to the charity shop and the original one I have will stay on the shelf.

Next up, a lucky Tesco charity bookshelf find in the shape of John Nichol’s The Red Line. MrEH spotted it and asked whether I already had it - nope, although I do have several others by the same author. Many will recall that John was half of one of the Tornado crews shot down in the first Gulf war, and was subsequently taken hostage alongside his pilot John Peters and several other allied crews. They brought home the nature of the opposition in that conflict when they appeared in propaganda broadcasts having clearly been treated brutally by their captors. He writes factual accounts without being in any way dry or dull - his aim is always to write about the individuals involved in the events, and so you get a truly personal account told from many different perspectives. This book, dealing with the historic Nuremberg raid of WW2, is no easy read - unsurprisingly some of the accounts from the crews involved are nothing short of harrowing.it does provide a fascinating insight into the decision making both on the ground and in the air though, including an honest take on the mistakes made. 10/10 - this will join the others of it’s genre on the shelf.

Next up, a charity shop impulse buy from an Author I don’t believe I have come across before, “A Bird in Winter” by Louise Doughty. The main character here is Heather - aka  Bird - and begins with her leaving her place of employment in the security service - something which becomes very relevant on all levels - and going on the run. The story then retraces its steps over her life to fill in and explain the background to this dramatic opening. A good story, with added interest through featuring a number of places I know reasonably well, but one of those books that doesn’t quite seem to have an ending - or at least not one conclusive enough for me. Still a good read, and was passed to my Mum to read. 

On to a book I was delighted to find in a charity shop recently - and on a three books for £1 basis too - Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a copy of this for a while, so as you can imagine, I pounced! A great read with a good balance of suspense and comedy - with the comedic aspects being provided cleverly by the main character’s personalities. I’m often dubious about books written by celebrities but fair play to Osman - he’s definitely proved himself to be a good author here! 

I finished the month with a favourite author and character - Lee Child and another book in the Reacher series of course - The Hard Way. I’ll do a summary of that next month though. 

Robyn