Gardening in the community...

 

In an area that I regularly walk through on my way from where we park the car, to the office, can be found a series of small garden areas looked after by a group called Wanstead Community Gardeners. A quick internet search finds their website too - a delightful, whimsical space where they go into more detail about their organisation (a group essentially for anyone who wants to join) and the areas they look after (far more plentiful than I had imagined - ranging from tree pits to surprisingly substantial garden spaces) and it was one of the latter that caught my attention this morning. 

An area of formerly neglected ground hugging the wall dividing George Green from the busy A12 has been transformed by the group - they use whatever they can get their hands on to form their garden spaces as well as digging flower beds and planting directly into the soil. This one incorporates an old metal water tank as well as a wheelbarrow. They also use reclaimed items to create their signs for the various planting areas - while walking around the area I've seen old childrens slate-boards, upturned spades, and on their website there is a picture of an old edging tool being used in this way! Probably the most commonly used ttem I have spotted is old roofing slates - you can see one of those in the top image. 

As well as the flowers there are also herbs scattered throughout - a good example being the lush sage in the foreground of the second photo, and by way of other edibles are what look to be fruit trees - I may stop for a better look at some stage as I pass by but what do we think (photo above) - apples? Cherries perhaps? 

The planting used to continue along the wall where the fenced are you can see in the background of the last photo there is - it appears though that since that area has been fenced off, the community gardeners no longer have access, which is a shame - that space looked far better with their input! 

If you want to know more about the Community Gardeners, have a look at their website HERE - sadly the blog doesn't seem to have been updated in recent years, but there is some nice info about what they've got up to previously, at least! 

Robyn

A very Good Friday!

 Although we do have an absolute mass of garden jobs to be getting on with this weekend, we had decided early on that we also wanted to fit in a day out - and had decided that one of our favourite RSPB reserves at Minsmere in Suffolk was where we wanted to head. Minsmere has been a favourite for years now - lots of different trails, a range of habitats from coastal and wetland through to heathland and wooded areas means there is always a likelihood of seeing a brilliant range of birds, and it’s a fabulous place to walk.

We headed off fairly early - treating the day like a normal Friday in that respect and leaving the house at the sort of time we would usually be going out for a walk from home before MrEH starts work. Traffic was fairly light, and we arrived at the reserve as planned at around 10.30am. Our RSPB membership means we get free admission, so we headed straight to the cafe to grab breakfast - which was a fantastic ciabatta style roll absolutely STUFFED with bacon and sausages, not cheap at £7.80 each but we both agreed actually really good value.

After polishing those off - MrEH had coffee and I had a generous pot of tea to wash them down - we definitely felt like a walk was needed! Our regular route sees us heading off towards the coast, then looping back towards the visitor centre before heading off through the woodland and out onto Whin Hill and back towards the centre that way. We call in at the various hides as we go to see what can be seen on the scrapes, and always linger a bit around the coastal section too. At this time of year you can’t walk up and over the hill, so we retraced our steps around the edge. A lovely walk - and the addition of some stuff to our birding year list too, Mediterranean Gull, Barnacle Geese, a lovely juvenile Kittiwake, Sand Martins and probably the sighting of the day, a Bittern.Sandwich Terns were also nice to see - we usually get Common Terns locally, and the Hebrides generally provides Arctic and Little Terns, but the Sandwich variant is one we see far less often.

There is a long-standing tradition that a trip to Aldeburgh follows a visit to Minsmere, and far be it for us to break with tradition, so back in the car we hopped for the short drive through. Ice creams first - from Ives - barely recognisable since the last time we were there as they’ve had a full modernisation. It used to be a classic ice cream shop - a long counter with the queue gently winding past so you had ample time to survey the flavours on offer that day and make your decision. Now the shop is - strangely - far smaller, and people queuing ahead of you block your view, making the choice feel a bit more rushed and last minute. We both agreed that we didn’t like it as much - and it feels like a negative rather than a positive step, although I imagine it works better for the staff. A walk along the coast to the marina, then on a new-to-us path between the River Alde and the creeks was a nice change - although in the blustery conditions also fairly hard going! 

Then a stroll in the other direction - towards although not actually as far as the Scallop Shell sculpture on this occasion - I absolutely love it but it appeared to be very busy with lots of folk using it for shelter from the wind! 

All even slightly regular visits to Aldeburgh know that a look at “Snooks” to see how he is attired is a must - we assume that local knitters take care of ensuring that he is dressed appropriately for the occasion, just look how pleased he looks with his Easter bonnet, bunny and chicks! 

Finally- and it’s another “must do” is of course Fish and Chips. We’ve never tested the theory but we think it’s actually illegal to go to Aldeburgh and NOT have F&C! Sadly far too windy this time to sit on the sea wall and eat them as we usually would, but a good compromise was found by driving the car along to the coastal car park and sitting in the car with them there instead. Delicious haddock - super fresh and always cooked to order, with lashings of salt and vinegar, SUCH a treat!  

The local gulls don’t miss a trick though - this Herring Gull kept his beady eye on MrEH throughout in spite of the fact that we were literally sitting IN the car, and was clearly MOST put-out that no discarded chips headed his way! 

Finally time to head home - via a quick stop in Ipswich to grab some diesel for my car at a price a fair bit cheaper than we would have got at home, right now shopping around and saving even a few pence per litre is all the more important isn’t it with the way prices have escalated - we are now paying over 30p a litre more than we were just a handful of weeks ago. Worth the diversion, and all in all, it was indeed a very Good Friday! 

Robyn

March in the garden…

 

We suspect the rhubarb is trying to take over the world… above you can see how it looked at the start of the month, and when you reach the end of the post you will be able to see quite how much it’s grown in just those few weeks. We’re looking likely to have a LOT of rhubarb to enjoy this year, and we suspect we will have to divide the crown in the autumn. 

Anemones in the front garden

Sowing has started this month too - the peas straight into the soil (naughtily in the same place as last year as they do work rather well there) and various other things in pots. First to pop their heads up after an early in the month sowing were the sunflowers - we’re on a mission to get some good tall ones this year after next door grew some absolute MONSTERS in 2025! We’ve got several varieties to try so we’re planning to do a second sowing in a few weeks to try and prolong their season a bit too. We’ve also now got a selection of tomatoes sown, plus sweet peas, some radishes and the first lots of herbs - sage,  chives and parsley. 

We’ve made a few purchases this month - the first batch of compost of the year, a bag of vermiculite ready for the main seed sowing, some seeds for varieties of things we needed to top levels up on (my favourite Minibel tomatoes, the Burpless Tasty Green cucumbers we have found good, and the Tromboncino squash I have been wanting to try, plus some other odds and ends that appealed including Black Cumin which will be interesting). Also one of the Potting tables on special offer in the middle of Lidl - £19.99 with the Plus app, we felt we had nothing to lose to give it a try. There were a few minor glitches in the building of it, but nothing insurmountable, and once constructed it feels surprisingly sturdy. It’s the perfect height for seed sowing as well - I’m already finding it really useful. Also from Lidl was a couple of metal trellis pieces - yet to find a home. 

Towards the end of the month there was more work done on the repainting of the office and shed - we’ve had to put that on hold through the winter as it’s been so damp we couldn’t sand the areas that need prepping for painting, we need to get through as much as possible now though so the mini greenhouse can be set up ready for the seedlings. 

The other useful thing we have discovered is that our local branch of a well known DIY chain known for it’s orange branding have a box in their entrance for recycling of plastic plant pots - and it’s surprising how often something which someone else has viewed as rubbish proves to be treasure as far as we’re concerned! We’ve gained several pots which will be perfect for tomato plants, and a whole load of useful module trays too which are already coming in handy. A donation dropped into the charity box means that everyone wins!   

There - rhubarb with ideas of world domination, see! Apparently a lot of people are reporting prolific early growth this year, so it’s not just us. I reckon by the time I write next month’s post, we’ll have had our first harvest from it! 

Robyn

March Reading...

 

Having finished the previous book on the final day of February, March has started with a completely fresh one - but a rather familiar author! This is the point that some of my reading this month might actually get to be done outdoors - one of my chief joys as the weather warms up is being able to sit in the garden at weekends, or in the park near to work at lunchtime on working days, and enjoy the sunshine and a few chapters of whatever I'm reading at the time - an unseasonably warm day in February did give me one opportunity to enjoy the park, but I'm hopefully this month will allow plenty more of that!

The familiar author then...? Well if you guessed Lee Child, you would be spot on - TheMidnight Line being the book this time. Another classic Reacher adventure - with the usual amount of retribution delivered to the bad guys while our hero marches on turning bad into good. This was another find in my favourite local charity shop - the main reason it is my favourite is that their paperbacks are still 50p each and they always have masses of them! 

Relatively unusually for me my paper reading was augmented with a book on my tablet this month. I always have a few books lined up on there ready for reading when a real book isn’t practical, and the tube journey back from meeting my pal Max at the RAF Museum in Hendon at the start of the month was one of those occasions as the bag I wanted to take wasn’t big enough for my physical book. I generally prefer non fiction if I’m reading on a screen, and at the moment I’m working my way through Ben Carpenter’s Fat Loss Habits - which aims to debunk many of the various myths surrounding diets and diet culture, as well as addressing (as the title suggests) the habits which can actually help with intentional weight loss. Ben’s writing is good - I follow him on social media and he writes in much the same way as he speaks -  a dry wit, very matter of fact and with a fair spattering of Fs! It will probably take me a lot longer to finish this one than any of the paperbacks I more often read

Back to paper format and Paula Hawkins with Into The Water. She is the author of “The Girl on the Train” which I read years ago and enjoyed enough to keep even with our then “one in one out” policy on books thanks to the limited space in the flat. This was a little slower to get started, but by the time I was a few chapters in I’d got to grips with both characters and subject matter. Quite dark, quite intense, and a storyline that twisted and turned right to the final pages. A really good read but very much a book that once you know the story it probably isn’t one to read again, so this one will be heading back to the charity shop. 

Next up - another return to an old favourite author and lead character in the shape of the Rebus series from Ian Rankin, the book this time being A Heart Full of Headstones. Set immediately post-Covid and after Rebus' retirement from the Police, the book opens with him in court, accused of, well, that we are yet to find out! The book tells us the background to the court case, and is written with Rankin's usual pace and thoughtful linking together of aspects of the plot - weaving characters and plotlines throughout is his speciality. Absolutely no spoilers from me - but this didn't disappoint and will be joining the others on the shelf! 

Final book of the month was another from Richard Osman - We Solve Murders is another wittily written tale. Entertaining characters and a good, if rather far-fetched, storyline made this an easy read, although the short chapters mean that the oft-repeated phrase in my house "I'll just read a chapter then do X" has lead to less reading and more "doing"! Very similar to the Thursday Murder Club that I read a few months ago - a great fun, low effort read. I'll cheerfully seek out his books again! This one was devoured in a matter of days and will now wing its way back to the charity shop. 

Robyn 

Just another Manic(s)...Thursday!

 

There are a few bands or artists that I occasionally do a quick search to see if they are doing any live gigs that we might be able to get to - and for a long time one of those bands has been the brilliant Manic Street Preachers. We both love their music and have seen them live before - albeit not for a number of years as the planets just haven't aligned - either the dates were wrong, or the location was wrong, or they were playing as part of a festival and the cost was wrong. Sometimes none of those things were wrong but I just found out about the dates too late to get tickets. Imagine my delight then if you will when I searched a few weeks ago and spotted an upcoming gig at the end of this month, in London, with seats available from just £40, AND with those particular tickets still available too! Needless to say, I pounced!

Support act The Joy Formidable 

That is why on Thursday evening after we both finished work, we met in a favourite pub in Hammersmith for a quick beer before making our way to the Royal Albert Hall for a concert in the Teenage Cancer Trust series - as it turned out, the 150th such concert to have been held at the venue - indeed we were given a cute little badge confirming this! The Albert Hall is fabulous, and the chosen tickets were in the rather unique "choir seats" up behind the stage, and flanking the pipes of the venue's magnificent organ. Ours were in the very back row too - a great location for the sort of gig where you feel you might want to stand up and have a bit of a dance! 

We arrived and found our way to the seats shortly ahead of the support act coming on - after navigating the venue's  rather idiosyncratic signage which lead to us entering the row from the wrong end...I got the impression that everyone else at our end of the row had also done the same thing too! Support was a Welsh 3-piece called the Joy Formidable who were extremely good - although they would have been better with their backing tracks toned down just a little for my money - musically they were superb but at times it was slightly tricky to actually hear how good! 

A short interval gave the opportunity to visit the loo, and there was a short film about the charity shown to those who had seats they could see the screen from (not us!) as well as the chance to applaud some of those that the charity have helped - they were being given a backstage experience to remember judging by the smiles as they walked onto the stage! And then it was time for the main part of the evening as the Manics took the stage! 

They didn’t disappoint -a mix of plenty of hits, some older less often heard stuff, and some covers, including The Cure’s Close to Me (dedicated to concert series curator Robert Smith). You Love Us was dedicated to Richey Edwards - the band’s former lyricist and rhythm guitarist who went missing in 1995, they have never replaced him and still clearly consider him to be part of the band, which is rather lovely. Inevitability from where we were sitting you get a mix of sound which isn’t quite what the rest of the auditorium hears - but it still sounded great, we certainly wouldn’t hesitate to get tickets for those seats again. James Dean Bradfield made sure that he remembered there were people sitting up there too - with a hands up salute to the seats on his first guitar change after coming onto the stage, and turning to play towards us at regular intervals through the gig too - Bassist Nicky Wire did similarly on the other side.  

All in all  brilliant gig for a very reasonable price indeed. We will now revert to occasional checks for more live stuff -and the hope that the date/location/price factors all align again soon! We’ve also agreed that we fancy going to see more stuff at the Albert Hall, and will definitely be keeping an eye for the Teenage Cancer Trust series again next year. 

Robyn

Small things...

 

Discovering that the big supermarket close to the office had a whole load of flowers reduced dramatically down in price after work on Wednesday - presumably leftovers from mothers day. I treated myself to two bunches of tulips for a bargain price of £1.63, not "frugal" as such, but a little burst of brightly coloured joy in the window for a very reasonable cost! I adore tulips - we had an array of yellow and red ones in the garden at the flat, and they were one of the first things I got planted in our garden at the house, too!

The beautiful weather this week - chilly first thing (indeed, we have had a frost several mornings) but the most glorious clear blue skies and sunshine making the world just feel a brighter, more cheerful place! 

Having finally taken the plunge and ordered myself a new bike. The current one has done me proud for several years, having been given to me by a former neighbour, but it's not a style I particularly like, it's heavy and it also needs substantial amounts of work to get it to a reliably functioning state. Given the choice of spending a fair amount on a bike that honestly I don't find really suits my needs that well, and spending a little more to buy something which hopefully well, I jumped onto the final days of a sale to save  myself over £100 on a nice sports hybrid which with luck will enable me to get further afield faster and more comfortably!

Starting to feel the benefit of regular yoga practice. I often tend to start the year with unrealistic plans to "do yoga every day" and that then falters a couple of months into the year. This year's plan was to "do some yoga most days" - and so far, I'm sticking to generally 4 - 6 times a week depending on what else is occurring. That said, at time of writing I'm struggling with a trapped nerve in my back thanks to a bit too much stretching last night, I suspect - so it's not all good! 

Future plans: Bargain priced tickets to a gig for a band we both love. Free admission to the London Transport Museum's Acton Depot open weekend because of our Friends of the Museum membership. Several planned camping trips, plus a day trip up to one of our favourite areas on the Suffolk coast during the upcoming easter weekend...nothing there that will cost us a vast sum of money, but little things to look forward to. As before when we were clearing the mortgage, we're taking the view that a balance of frugality and fun is the way to go - it's a long haul, and making life miserable to get the mortgage gone sooner is not in the plan! 

Robyn

Has it Sprung?!

 

Well hasn’t it been lovely starting to see the sights and hear the sounds of spring over the last few weeks? All of a sudden there is birdsong everywhere - our local Blackbirds are shouting from the trees, the Wrens are posturing all over the place, and the Blue, Great and Long Tailed Tits are chasing round in circles! Possibly my favourite of all at this time of year though are the Dunnocks. Generally shy, skulking little birds - drab in appearance with their grey heads and brown bodies - you barely see them until suddenly in spring - there they are right out in the open singing the most beautiful fluting song. Once paired up, they return to the undergrowth until the following Spring. We fairly often get one down in the garden - and in spite of their usual shyness it’s astonishingly trusting, happy to hop around even when it clearly knows we’re here, and watching,

Things are flowering beautifully all over too - although it’s to be hoped not too early allowing for the sudden cold snap and frosts this weekend. The blackthorn (above) seems to have lots of blossom again this year which promises a good haul of sloes for  the birds - and gin of course! We’ve had fairly significant frost here, although not reaching to the ground with any force, thankfully. Out and about the Magnolias are stunning this year - I’ve heard lots of people commenting on it too so that’s clearly not just down here!

Camellia too - I love the way these get so utterly covered in beautiful vibrantly coloured flowers. It’s definitely something  I would have if possible, although we definitely don’t have space here. No option for a Magnolia here either - there is a long running family joke about the space THOSE need after Auntie D planted on in their front garden years ago. My Nan tried to tell her it would grow too big and not be practical in the location she had chosen, but she was adamant that she wanted one... “They’ll be removing that again - you mark my words!” was Nan’s prophecy. Sure enough there followed a number of years of the Magnolia getting larger and larger, and of course promptly dropping its petals all over the driveway AND the parked car…and LOTS of gritted teeth from D but an utter refusal to give in and remove the offending plant. Strangely enough within a few months of Nan’s death, the tree was gone..! 

Another beautiful plant making an appearance at this time of year is the pretty blue Periwinkle - often found climbing through railings in parks - this one is a local authority gardeners favourite it seems. The pictured one is at the little gardens I often sit and eat my lunch in during the summer months - a sudden but intense splash of colour as you walk past. 

There is plenty of spring colour and life in our own garden too of course, but I’ll leave that for an “In the garden” post I think! 

Robyn

Looking back...

 

Looking all the way back to 2007 for this one, yet still a day I remember really clearly, as does MrEH.

We were in the Hebrides, and hopped on the ferry across to Barra for a day trip. If I remember rightly on leaving Uist the weather was fine, and indeed, on arrival at Ardmhor where the little ferry from Eriskay arrives, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. As we made our way around the island it began to get a little more overcast, although still fairly bright...and then we arrived at Castlebay, the main settlement on the island, to find the entire place cloaked in mist! we followed through with our intention to drive a little way up the road above the Village - the plan being that it would give us a good view across that part of the island without having to physically climb a hill that we didn't really have time to tackle, but by that stage we could really see very little at all. We parked in a convenient place and got out regardless - it was quiet, that almost eerie quiet you get in really misty conditions sometimes. Suddenly with no warning whatsoever, a gap blew in the mist and we got a view across the bay with Kisimul Castle making an appearance. I had the camera handy and so fired off a couple of shots before the mist closed in again. 

For the entire day, one half of the island stayed bright and sunny while the other was stayed foggy, cold and damp - very strange indeed, and allowing for the island only being so small, it really highlighted how localised weather can be up there!

Robyn

Looking back...

 

This handsome little chap is of course a Puffin - so many people's favourite bird it seems, I suspect mostly because of their quirky and striking appearance. This one was pictured on our second trip to the Farne Islands in July 2012, and I stumbled across the photo when looking through some older stuff on the computer I use for work. I think this is actually the third time I've used this particular photo on here - but I suspect not too many folk remember the other occasions! 

Although we've been across to Farne twice, on neither occasion have we managed to have the trip we actually expected. The first time in 2008 we landed on Staple Island but then had to leave again after a few hours because poor weather was closing in more rapidly than expected. The second time was the opposite issue - we made it to Inner Farne but an unexpected level of swell meant that we couldn't do the transfer to Staple island for the second part of the trip - we did however get an extended amount of time where we were though!

We've very much decided that we fancy a further trip to the Islands - and although it is unlikely to be this year, we might perhaps manage something in the next couple of years instead. While the loss of the Great British Beer Festival is sad, it has at least opened up holiday time for us to get back to doing all sorts of other things w enjoy! 

Frugal February…

 So there we are then - the end of the month. Were we frugal? Reasonably I think - it was after all far more about intentional spending than “spending nothing” - and it does feel as though we’ve used the month well in terms of refocusing.

The final main food shop of the month is the one above - Lidl again, and that shop earned my next level of the threshold spend coupons too - a free pack of biscuits this time! I made use of some special prices through the app again too - apples at a very advantageous price, and 15% off our favourite butter, plus pate and salad. The bakery item was the freebie from last week’s bakery spin to win thing -  I don’t make a special trip to claim those but if I am in there anyway, then I may as well grab them. 

Total shopping for the month came in at just over £200 so a long way above the previous month’s tally. I expected that though with stocking up various bits and the farmers market trip too, and it still leaves us with a bit of credit left from the months budget, so that is a win. 

Planned spending:

- The electrical works we had anticipated having done have been pushed back a little which is fine, the money is still set aside for those and they will happen early in March.

- my car needed two new tyres ahead of its upcoming MoT Test -  this isn’t a surprise though and again money is budgeted for that. As usual I shopped around, although happily our local independent place turned out to be cheapest.

- both cars needed their tax renewed in February -  both have now increased from the previous zero band to £20 per year, it will be interesting to see how long it stays at that level now! 

- we booked a well priced hotel room for an overnight stop ahead of our planned camping trip in a couple of months. It will give us a free breakfast on the way down which means we’ll be able to just head straight for the campsite and get set up rather than needing to find food when we arrive in Cornwall.

Elsewhere, we had a couple of Thursday evening beers, a Chinese takeaway with visiting friends, and I had a lovely day out in London with another pal, just beers in some cracking pubs and a lunch in Wetherspoons, the company and conversation was the most important thing! A good chunk of my personal spending money for the month remains intact, which is very useful!

Blogging about stuff like a Frugal month certainly keeps you accountable - I’d forgotten quite how much! I don’t intend to continue with a full-on frugal month through March, but I will definitely still be keeping an eye on spends, and the meal plan will be made up from the fridge, cupboards and freezer again. I will continue with keeping an eye on Olio as well as that’s proved a nice bonus. 

Robyn

February reading…

 

I confess I’m rather enjoying documenting the books I’m reading - it’s making me think more about not only the story or subject matter of the books themselves, but also about what I’m picking up to read next. I mostly read fiction - crime/mystery are favourite subjects, I particularly enjoy series that follow a central character from book to book - Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie novels, and Mark Bellingham’s Tom Thorne, those possibly appeal because they are often set in areas I know reasonably well, Edinburgh and London. I also like a novel which although fiction, has a basis in true events as well, which brings us on to the first book of this month…

Fern Britton is a name many will know from her TV work- but she is also a prolific novelist. The Good Servant takes the late Queen Elizabeth II’s governess Marion “Crawfie” Crawford as it’s central character, and deals with her story from her appointment to the Royal Household when the young princesses were just 6 & 2 years old, following her life through until her departure from the household once the Princesses had come of age, and her fall-from-grace following the publication of a book "The Little Princesses" for which she appeared to have knowingly sold personal stories against the wishes of the then Queen. The story is fiction based on fact, and extrapolates out what is known into a story of misplaced love and broken trust - and who knows how close to the real story that is? A good read anyway - I'll set this one aside to make its way to my Mum who also enjoys Britton's books. 

A change of pace and genre next - back to old favourite Lee Child's Reacher series and Echo Burning - found in a charity shop for 50p a few weeks back. It's harder and harder to find books from this series that we haven't read previously, on this trip we actually found two, the other is still on the shelf to be read in due course. I found this a little slower to get going than some - the first third of the book felt a little disjointed somehow - but once the story started playing out it turned into the usual good read with all the classic a child hallmarks - the good guys won the day, the bad guys mostly ended up dead, exactly what you expect from a Reacher book! 

Full non-fiction for my third book of the month - Spitfire Kids by Alasdair Cross deals with those remarkably young people involved with the building, flying and maintaining the poster-boy aircraft of World War II.  An absolutely fascinating read - in good part because it deals with the stories you rarely hear, about the people who are so often forgotten. From the young employees at the Supermarine factory in Southampton, to the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary via plotters and pilots, it is at times a tough read, but for anyone who enjoys learning more about the “behind the headlines” side of World War 2  history I would highly recommend it. This one has gone onto the shelf with the other books of a similar genre. 

Elly Griffiths’  “The Woman in Blue” was next off the shelf, set in the North Norfolk area so I was back to a book where I knew the basic geography of the area if not the specific location. I’ve read at least one of Griffiths books before although she isn’t an author I know well. She writes a good story though, balancing the plot with the personal lives of the characters nicely, and including just the right amount of suspense. Thoroughly enjoyable, and I will be setting this one aside to pass to Mum. 

Finally for the month another favourite author - Val McDermid - with 1979. Picked up in a charity shop, this one was set in Glasgow in 1979, and although rather different from the other works of McDermid’s I’ve read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Lead character Allie is a Junior reporter on one of the Scottish nationals, and her determination to see success along with a chance meeting on a train leads her to hook up with colleague Danny Sullivan to work on several stories with increasing levels of danger. When the worst happens, Allie finds herself first a suspect, then turning detective in a bid to track down the culprit and see justice done. A fast paced, easy read with the added interest of looking back on how things were quite so different so relatively recently (homosexuality still being illegal in Scotland, for example!). This one will make its way to the shelf with the others! 

I managed to avoid too many additional book purchases this month but did cave in to a charity shop visit on Saturday using £2 of my personal spends for 4 additions to the To Be Read pile - including 2 Lee Child’s we didn’t already have - one of those will become my first book of March. 

Robyn

February in the Garden…

 

Well here we are again - with the garden just waking up from its winters slumber. Bulbs are popping up all over the place - our work the first two winters we were here is paying off now with daffodils, tulips, muscari and of course these gorgeous crocuses too, it's just a shame that we've seen so little sunshine to really encourage them to fully open and show their faces! 

Auntie Daphne's Pulmonaria is still flowering away cheerfully - it’s always the first colour in the garden each year and never fails to make us smile with its little pink and purple flowers and spotty white leaves. In that bed is also some of the other bulbs I mentioned, the very enthusiastic lavender which I give a truly brutal haircut to once a year and yet it always forgives me and rewards me with plentiful flowers, and over the the right there is the blackcurrant bush - still quite new but obviously settling in nicely - just take a look at the buds breaking…

Such a sign of spring! Elsewhere on the fruit-front, as it were, the redcurrant and the gooseberries are looking happy enough, although no signs of buds yet. The rhubarb though has no such reservations and as last year, showing its intentions via a lovely bright patch of pink…

Before we know it that will be taking over the garden again - and providing us with plenty of crumbles, compotes and maybe even some jam this year perhaps!   

Currently keeping us fed through the “hungry gap” is the kale we planted last year, although annoyingly it has gone through the entire winter with cabbage whitefly! Nothing that a bit of a shake and a good wash won’t cure though, and it’s been ever so nice to have some fresh home grown veg all winter. 

All in all, it’s starting to feel like we’re not a million miles away from being able to get the new growing season underway, so it’s probably time to start getting the seed list finalised. Our plans are as usual to so far as possible use the free seeds we’ve got via our magazine subscription, but as always that will be topped up with purchases of any specific varieties of things we want. Time to make a list! 

Robyn

Frugal February…

 

Food spending was budgeted to be up quite a bit this week as it was our favourite local farmers market, and having not gone last month there were some bits we were low on. 

First up was Peter for lamb - £1.75 for a bag of “bones for stock”, but these as usual have plenty of meat left on them and will make a fantastic stew. Also sausages, a pack of meatballs (I do have some in the freezer still but those are already featured on the meal plan) and his final pack of liver - always popular and it makes a delicious liver, bacon and onion tea!  We had our usual treat of a sourdough loaf from lovely Adrian, then popped back outside to see Catherine on the other meat stall. I made the decision to buy the big 2kg pack of beef mince, plus a smaller pack of pork mince for a change - those have been portioned up before freezing. A piece of haslet for lunches - our weekday rolls frequently feature yellow stickered bargains so this is significantly more spendy than usual but it’s something we absolutely love so we’re very happy to buy it! I grabbed a minute steak too - so good for stir fries. Total spend at the market was £53.10 - and for great quality food, and especially meat where we are happy with the provenance, I’m very happy with that. One of the reasons I can squeeze a lot of meals out of a relatively small amount of meat is that meat this good has so much flavour- so you actually need less of it in a dish. Of course we are aware that we’re fortunate to be able to afford to buy like this, and certainly that’s a privilege that not everyone has, but often simply because you do end up using less, it really isn’t that much more expensive than a standard supermarket budget option.

Elsewhere the main weekly shop cost £24.69 - in Lidl again this week, and I claimed a free bakery item from the spin to win and chose a big punnet of mushrooms as my coupon plus threshold spend reward. Not the best value thing I could have had, I usually opt for the 7.5kg sack of potatoes but we still have enough of those from the Christmas veg wars so the mushrooms were chosen as something which I was going to buy anyway. A separate trip to Aldi for tomatoes saw a spend of £1.38 - and the rarity of having literally just bought the thing I went in there for! 

Spending elsewhere has been mostly guided by necessity- we have both been hit by the nasty lurgy that’s doing the rounds - and various over the counter medications have been purchased as a result. We’ve plans for a project in the garden which will require a fair bit of sanding - so a pack of basic face masks are winging their way to us, and my car has had a tank of fuel - although both MrEH’s diesel and oyster credit have been stretched by him sensibly electing to work from home for much of the week to avoid infecting his colleagues! Well, at least there is some benefit! 

Robyn 

Looking back…

In 2006 I joined in with an interesting photographic project called “26 Things” - essentially, you were given a list of prompts for 26 themes, and you produced a photo relating to each of them - the idea being that it promoted thinking creatively and taking a different look at what might otherwise be a pretty straightforward subject. Looking back now I produced some stuff I am still really proud of around that time, particularly around candid and street photography, something which I’ve never done that much of, but when I did, always enjoyed. 

The stairwell in question here is I believe the one at Canary Wharf tube station - and like the majority of the infrastructure for the Jubilee Line Extension it is stunningly beautifully designed. The symmetry, the way the light falls and the way the lighting on the escalators themselves more even than the perspective draws your eyes upwards are all key players for me on this one - I imagine that I still have the original file somewhere and it’s one I may search out at some stage and reprocess. Sadly at the time I tended to upload files in fairly low resolution and size - which fitted with the speed of internet available then but stacks up less well now with devices tending to be larger! 

No reprocessing right now though - as I have kit to sort out ahead of some rugby photography later on - MrEH’s original team he joined not long after we had moved to the town we live in now are reforming  for a final hurrah - and as I was their photographer for several years back in the day, I’m resuming that role today. Should be fun - although I bet some of the players concerned won’t use that word when they get up tomorrow barely able to move! 

Robyn. 
 

Frugal February…

"Story Telling" - Devon. 

Why when the idea of this couple of months of keeping purchases low, are our freezers currently pretty full again? Batch cooking and free food - that’s why! Batch cooking saves on both time and whatever energy source you use for cooking - even making sufficient for a second meal of a dish you enjoy and popping the spare portion in the freezer works - and the time savings are at both ends too, as it gives you an “easy win” meal for a night when just popping something in the microwave or air fryer to reheat is an absolute bonus! 

How does this translate into reality for us then? Well first up was a big batch of dried chickpeas - the well priced tinned chickpeas I often purchase weren’t available, and they’re something we eat a lot, so I turned to the large bag of dried in the cupboard, half filled the slow cooker with them, soaked for 12 hours or so then slow cooked overnight - this turned into about 8 tubs for the freezer (I freeze them in roughly the same drained weight you get in a standard tin), plus a portion that I turned into humous. The last of the Christmas “veg wars” 5p parsnips and shallots were turned into a batch of soup - 4 portions there. I planned to make cottage pie for an evening in the week, so made double, using lentils and finely chopped mushrooms to make the mince stretch further - and while I was at it cooked sufficient lentils to give 5 tubs of those for the freezer too! 

Free food has come from two different sources. First off, the Olio app - an anti food-waste organisation that takes end of life food from various supermarkets and aims to distribute that to those who will use it, in this area Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-op all get involved. A couple of Saturdays ago I spotted some bread going begging just half a mile away so requested it, got the nod and walked up and back - 4 loaves of various sorts stashed away in the freezer saving us from needing to make rolls for lunches for a while, and providing several weekends worth of breakfast toast to boot. Earlier this week we gained some potted supermarket herbs, a couple of sticks of lemongrass, and a pack of Lebanese flatbreads - again, all free, and will all get used!  Then my Mum offered us a couple of packs of “beige buffet” type bits she had bought for Christmas and not used, and now didn’t fancy - so those too got stashed away in the freezer! We’re quite happy to take food other people won’t eat - as long as we know the origin and it’s things we will actually use ourselves it seems to make sense to avoid it going to landfill after all. We’re also not shy about using food past its “best before” date - “use by” is of course a different matter, but best before are ultimately advisory, and if you’re confident to trust your eyes, nose and taste, you soon find out that most things last a lot longer than you expect that they will! We have a local friend who isn't as brave on this front, but she's quite happy to give us a shout and say "can you use..." - and generally, yes we can! 

If you’re interested in saving yourself some pennies and preventing some food waste, then have a look at a couple of apps - Olio I’ve already mentioned, and there is also Too Good To Go -  not free, but much reduced “surprise bags” of reduced food from supermarkets, coffee shops, bakeries and even restaurants. It works particularly well to grab food on the go sometimes - especially around stations or in town centres. You never quite know what you might get, particularly with the supermarket bags, but if you are content to be inventive in the kitchen there are bargains to be had.

Robyn 

ps - I've been really enjoying just using relatively random photos that catch my eye for blog posts, rather than taking something "for the sake of it" - and it's made me think that I may well start a "looking back" series of posts too, with the story behind particular shots that I find in my archives and think deserve an airing! 

It all adds up…

Windows - Manchester

 Trying to refocus on the finances this month has looked a bit like this…

- Opting to terminate a regular saver account a month early in order to re-open the same issue of the account right at the end of its release- this means losing a months interest on the one as closed, but then keeping the 7.5% rate on the reopened one for the 6 months of it’s term AND being able to open the new issue account once that was released.

- Remembering that I was due a £25 Amazon voucher from a bank account switch I did at the end of last year, tracking down the email and claiming it while I remembered!

- Doing the quarterly review of our savings so we can keep track of where we are in relation to our savings goals - we’re fortunate to be able to save and so try to ensure that those savings work hard for us.

- Emailing to cancel a magazine subscription I took a trial on - 5 issues for £5 was a good deal, the main subscription is more than I’m willing to pay though. 

- Renewing my car tax as soon as the reminder came through - my car now costs me £20 a year in tax, but forgetting to renew could work out a lot more expensive! I write a quick note on the reminder confirming when I renewed too in case I need to check it later.

- Remembering to check my loyalty apps for shopping coupons and offers - the 20p off milk at the co-op is always useful, I made use of reduced prices for a couple of bits in Lidl and will claim a free vegetable item next week. I don't generally specifically plan my shopping around making use of offers, but once I know what I need, I will look to see if there are offers I can use.

- Ensuring I have a reminder set for cancelling a free trial of Apple TV before I get charged for it. We’ve had a 3 month run to enjoy watching some different bits and bobs, and may pay for a month here and there in the future, but right now it’s not a priority.

- Free seeds with a magazine subscription - 10 packs this month, and almost all things we’ll use. There will be some seeds we will buy for the season, but the freebies shape what we choose to grow. Yes, we pay for the subscription, but £35 a year for 12 magazines and lots of seeds is a decent deal.

- Free kindling for the fire - we save almost all our cardboard, and use a combination of that and MrEH’s newspapers (that he would buy anyway) for the base of our fire. On top of that we use twigs and short lengths of stick (always gathered from places to where the council would otherwise clear them up, never from woodland) or pieces of broken down pallet.

- Free fuel for the fire - MrEH’s newspapers again, pulped up then squeezed into a brick shape in a former - they then get placed on metal racking to dry out. We make a big stack of these through the summer, and use 1 or 2 each night the fire is lit - they give off stacks of heat and help to make the logs we pay for last longer. It also means we're re-using the newspaper rather than recycling it. 

- Sorting out a return for the new toaster we had to buy which turned out to be absolutely DREADFUL! Think toast on one side, plain slightly warm bread on the other, then burned edges within a few moments when you try to re-toast to even things up. Were we keeping it? Absolutely not - it will be winging its way back and we're searching for a better option! 

- More goodies from Olio- flatbreads and herbs, this time. 

All these on their own are small things, but it’s those small things, and doing them consistently that makes the difference. A few pounds saved here, finding a way to do something for a bit less cost there, and before you know it that’s money freed up to improve your quality of life in other ways. 

Robyn

Frugal February…

 

A 3-tube day at Leytonstone…

A Friday with no other plans generally means I opt to get the shopping done, freeing up weekend time for far more interesting uses. This week was no exception, as we combined our usual Friday morning walk with a trip to Tesco to top up stocks of our preferred wholewheat couscous and also some branded orzo on offer at £1 a box. I don’t usually buy branded pasta but this price was very competitive indeed - and in the absence of the discount supermarkets stocking it at present it made sense to pounce. 3 packs of each = £6.90 spent, and were stocked up on two staple items that get well used in this house. 2nd stop of the day was the main shop - Lidl this week. An impulse spend of £2.99 of personal money for one of their beautiful miniature roses - a bright yellow one. We have a red one of these bought several years ago and it’s thrived, so I’m hoping this one will do the same. I made use of 2 coupons for free bakery items - one from a Moneysupermarket email gave us a free croissant, and the other was my free item from last week’s shop being over the first spend threshold on the app. That sorts out a nice treat after tea today! £25.75 spend on the shopping, with just a couple of items still to get over the weekend and a fair few bits and bobs stocked up on too. Finally for grocery shopping was Farmfoods - somewhere we visit occasionally mainly to stock up on a few particular items - this time round two big jars of MrEH’s coffee, 12 tins of tuna, 4 bags of sugar (at 2 for £1.60 this is by a long way the cheapest place to buy it, and this will stock us up ready for any preserving we decide to do) and a couple of tins of sweetcorn too, total spend £23.18 there thanks to another voucher for £2 off a £25 spend.

A planned general spend on Friday was a couple of frames needed for various pictures - some more black & white prints of my photos, and a mounted railway poster print from York last weekend (we wanted a souvenir of the weekend and this seemed perfect, and at £10, very reasonably priced too). The frames totalled £9.98. Final spend for the weekend was another £5.12 for the yogurts and tomatoes I didn’t get on Friday, plus a box of seeded oatcakes.

Part of the reason meal planning works for us is that we treat it flexibly. For various reasons the original rough plan for Sunday lunch didn’t work this week - instead I opted to get some turkey chunks and bacon bits out of the freezer along with a lurking roll of puff pastry and made pasties - two of which were eaten on Sunday, with the others getting popped into the fridge for swapping in to the plan on Wednesday evening. A flexible plan - albeit one that takes account of ensuring that food that needs using gets eaten - is far more pleasant and practical than one that is so rigid it’s difficult to stick to.

We did end up with one unplanned spend this week as our poor old toaster finally toasted its last - can’t complain, it was a wedding present nearly 26 years ago so it’s given good service! We’re replacing with a “long slot” version, better to cope with different sizes of bread - our old one dated from a time when bread came in a fairly standard square-ish size, and we’ve often found ourselves having to repeatedly turn slices round to get them evenly toasted. If the replacement lasts as long as the old one we will be very pleased! 

Robyn

Frugal February?

Stunning rainbow over the river - Dartmouth, 2025

Shall we? I've debated about this the past few years but the month has always come along and had lots of plans in it, which involved (budgeted for, and so acceptable) spending, but that in turn feels like it slightly defeats the object of a frugal month! This year there ARE some plans - but nothing particularly major, and  so it feels like a good time to give it another go.

Aims this time are as much about being mindful around spending as around "not spending" as such - there might be beers on a Thursday evening after work, or a trip to the pub on a Friday, but that will be thought through and we'll ensure that we'll get value from it. We've got friends visiting mid month - and that will probably mean a takeaway. I may make a trip to Waddington later in the month to see the Reds training - hoping for more success on ALL counts than the last trip up! As usual the challenge will cover the food spending, general household spending, and my personal spending, but not anything that relates specifically to MrEH only. 

We still have plentiful food stocks, so are aiming to continue the good work of last month's careful shopping and detailed planning. I'm intending to turn my attention to the cupboards as well now - there are lots of odds and ends of things, and bits that have been hanging around for a while and that we either need to use or just to acknowledge that we're not GOING to use them, and to get rid. If it came with us when we moved house, and hasn't yet been used, then we will be taking a hard line! First step on this is going to be a bit of an inventory I think, and from there I'll start planning how we can incorporate various ingredients. The fridge is already looking a little barer than it was, and freezer 1 in particular now has very obvious space in it, maybe by the end of a month we can aim to get freezer 2 empty and turned off - that would be a win! 

Food wise then:

• Use what we have
• Audit cupboards and fridge and target lingering contents for use 
• Aim to get working through last year's home grown fruit and veg from freezer 1
• Remember that we still have kale in the garden to use
• Start gradually moving over stuff from freezer 2 as room appears!
• Continue to be considered and mindful about special offers and bargains
• Make sure that meal planning continues - it's not only cheaper, it's also easier!

If nothing else, I'm aiming to treat this as a bit of a re-set, and a good chance to stop and think before spending. A return to the "money mantra" of "Do we need it, do we have anything else we can use instead, have we checked whether that's a good price". The food account in particular is looking lovely and healthy at the start of this month and it would be nice to continue to build on that. 

Food spending this month has started off with a £20.97 spend in Lidl on Sunday - we opted to stop in and shop on our way home from the weekend in York which was slightly risky as I had no access to the meal plan - I took the approach that I could if needed modify things later though, and it was better to get the shop done rather than having to squeeze it in after work on Monday. It included the purchase of 3 packs of the Deluxe branded West Country butter which is a favourite, and I had the offer of 15% off, making it several pennies a pack less than the regular (not so nice) one - win! Also a pack of an interesting looking Polish (I think) cheese for £1.99, everything else was our standard sort of weekly purchases.  Awful traffic necessitated parking near my office on Monday so a purchase was needed to allow using the supermarket car park - that was one of my usual "defaults" - an 85p pack of noodles. 

Anyone else fancy making this a Frugal kinda February then?

Robyn

Happy Birthday Tony!

 

St Martins Lane

Last Friday we hopped in the car first thing and headed up to York to join our great friend Tony for his 60th birthday celebrations. He's among the first of our close circle to hit that age and we were never going to miss his weekend of celebrations! 

The drive up was through torrential rain - and that continued although at a slightly eased off level once we arrived in York itself. Original plan had been to park at a station a couple of stops out and get the train, until we realised that we were JUST going to miss the hourly train by minutes. I turned my attention to google streetview and we quickly identified a few spots further in to the city where it appeared we may be able to street park - and so it proved, leaving us just a mile or so to walk to the hotel to drop our bag off. Our original plan for the afternoon had been to explore the city a bit, but the weather really wasn't lending itself to that plan, so after a stroll round the Shambles and its market and a bit of lunch from a street-food vendor we decided to seek shelter, by which obviously I mean we went to the pub, yes! 

Shambles Market from the Market Cat pub.

Another good pal Sarah joined us in the Market Cat and we had a good catch up before wandering back towards the hotel to check in - Sarah and I decided that MrEH could cope with that bit just fine, we'd just pop into this nice little pub and wait for him... ;-) A short while later once check-in was completed and MrEH had joined us we were joined by Ian and his Dad Ken, and then Catherine...the clan was assembling! Time then to head to the station and the excellent York Tap to meet Tony and a good many of the other attendees - lots of people we hadn't seen in an age too so that was good! The night ended back in the second pub I'd headed to with Sarah, before MrEH and I headed back to our hotel.

“Mallard” at the National Railway Museum

Saturday dawned far brighter and more cheerfully than the forecast had suggested which was a bonus. We were heading for the National Railway Museum, and decided to walk part way there around the City walls which turned out to be a great decision even if it did take slightly longer than we'd expected, with photos to be taken etc! The Museum was as good as ever - and we passed a pleasant couple of hours looking at trains before needing to head back to the station to get on one, as the afternoon was to be spent in the Taproom of the Brass Castle brewery at Malton. A nice train ride out, good company and some very tasty beer! The main event of the weekend followed that back in York itself as Tony had booked a room at the rather brilliant Brew York taproom! Somewhere I've wanted to go for a long while - their innovative brews are a bit legendary in the craft beer world - and it didn't disappoint! The beer was excellent - a big range of both cask & keg offerings - and the food from the in-house street-food people included some of the best loaded fries I've ever eaten! (Hoisin Duck, in case you were wondering!). As much as anything else it was great to have a group of people that included SO many good friends all together in one place - great fun!

The Minster from the City Wall

Sunday again started bright and sunny - another nice surprise for any of us who actually believed the Met Office! Once again MrEH and I made the most of the free unlimited breakfast at our hotel before leaving the bag with them and setting out - around the walls in the other direction this time, to complete the bit that we hadn't done the day before. We stopped back in at the museum again too - as there was an entire hall we'd failed to get to on Saturday - before the final pub of the weekend where some of the others had met for lunch. Just soft drinks for us this time as we were driving back of course, but good to have the opportunity for further farewells.

A very full river Ouse! 

An excellent weekend - not the cheapest, but we’d budgeted for it in advance and employed small but impactful money saving approaches like filling up at breakfast, making use of free parking, using our insulated mugs to take tea/coffee from home for the journey up, and utilising a free drink code from our energy supplier for one for the way home - the other was just a cup of tea for £1.50. We also grabbed a Too Good To Go bag from the station for an on-the-go tea on Friday evening. The bonus was being able to fill the car with diesel at a full 10p a litre cheaper than at home- bargain! 

Robyn