Looking back at 2012

Been quite a year hasn't it? I thought a quick look back on what we've done, where we've been, and what I've achieved in the past 12 months might be quite fun - we seem to have packed an awful lot in....!

The year itself seems to have been quite busy for us - there was a reasonably quiet start to the year then the rugby team trip to Barcelona of course -

 great fun, and excellent to be standing in baking heat and bright sunshine watching a rugby match when it was piddling down at home! Easter was spent exploring the Lake District ...

...and then onwards for a flying visit to Edinburgh where we stayed in a wigwam. Great fun and quite a relief when we got up in the morning and found it was snowing - a tent might have been a bit chilly!  Then there was a cheery trip to Brighton of course  before whizzing off for the annual fortnight in the Hebrides - where once again we were fortunate enough to have stunning weather while the South East drowned. The poor Queen got wet celebrating her own Jubilee (and missed poor Prince Phillip, no doubt, who was taken off to hospital in the middle of it) and everyone else got wet watching her - we, meanwhile, had a fortnight of sunshine, and spent a fair bit of time without shoes & socks on...

Our long awaited return trip to the Farne Islands finally happened in July - although once again we had our plans to visit both Inner Farne and Staple Island scuppered as the wind was wrong for boat landings. We still had a great time though and MrEH even got dive-bombed by a Tern - they left me alone, thankfully! As usual these little guys stole the show....

July of course also saw the London 2012 Olympics and what a triumph it was! To all those who said London would blow it, well you can just get stuffed - it was by general acknowledgement one of the greatest Olympic Games EVER, and a time to be rightfully proud of being a Londoner!  We dashed into London on the first saturday and saw the Cycling Road Race and then during the Paralympics made a visit to the Olympic Park & Stadium which was absolutely fantastic and I wouldn't have missed for the world!

August started for us with the fantastic Great British Beer Festival returning to it's "Spiritual Home" of Olympia - quite fitting considering the Olympics were in full flow at the time! A successful festival and greatly enjoyable with our lovely hard working team as ever. They really are a fantastic bunch of guys and gals and it's a privilege to work with them each year.  Then a little later in the month I made a quick trip to Clacton Airshow to see the Red Arrows and get my eye in ready for their display  at Dartmouth Regatta - both displays were as good, and as thrilling, as ever!




Then there was a  lovely day in Sheffield meeting up with some cheery friends, visits to Ludlow, Norfolk, Devon again, Portsmouth, an unexpected weekend camping in Suffolk, some work with the local Conservation Volunteers, some falconry  and a ride on a cablecar...

In spite of all these things we have continued to overpay the mortgage, and used some "unexpected money" to repair or replace some household items which either died (PC, Television and most recently my beloved camera) or were threatening to (Laptop, kettle) or were simply so elderly that they were probably becoming a health risk (microwave!) all without having to resort to credit of any sort. We have also managed to stash some money into savings, and continued to work on driving down our costs. In terms of this blog I also started the Frugal Friday series which is now being posted in by other bloggers too - exactly what I hoped would happen! That series will continue to run for as long as I come up with ideas for it - I have no intention of it turning into one of those things that simply recycles the same old subjects and recipes on a 7 weekly basis! I have also done something that I had been thinking about for a good while now, and taken up playing the clarinet again - I wanted some form of challenge, and straight study simply isn't for me these days, I have been away from it for too long I suspect. Re-learning an instrument I have always loved though ticked several boxes - wanting something to "stretch" me mentally, wanting a new hobby, and also allowing me to at last do something that feels creative - I'm not great with knitting needles, glue or a sewing machine, but it seems I can still manage to get musical notes in roughly the right order!

So all that remains now is to thank you all for reading, and wish you all a very happy New year and 2013 to come!

Robyn

Frugal Friday..

I'm not even going to pretend that this post is being written on the day it's appearing - of course it's not - as with most of you there is such a lot going on at this time of year Blogger's helpful "Schedule post" option is coming into its own once more! I've had some help writing this one too, from some of the lovely bloggers who have joined in with the Frugal Friday spot in the last 12 months - we've talked about all sorts from Cwtch Corner's Cheri and her "Cafe at Home" (I loved that post - what a great idea, lovely coffee and delicious homemade biscuits or cakes on a budget, AND you don't have to trail out in the cold to get them!) to buying clothes and generally being a Frugalista....that one fromthe fabulous Singlegirl . I asked each of the contributors to let me have their absolute No.1 favourite frugal tip, and this is what they came up with.

Dreamer at Living a Slow & Simple Life has this to say... "My favourite frugal tip is just to take a step back whenever you are doing anything and truly look for the potential in whatever you are doing or producing. Whether it is a way to use less energy, make something stretch further, make something multi purpose, or just a way to utilise what you have to the absolute limit there are always ways to make little improvements. In the long run it is all these little steps that add up to make your money go further and help you get good value." - watch out for a Guest Post from Dreamer appearing next week - the first one I've ever featured! Very good points there too - just taking stock can be your greatest tool in the Frugal/Simple Living armoury I think! (And then there's MAKING stock, which is also good!)

Wittgenstein's Watering Can's Rachel summarises things nicely too - "My frugality is all about spending money. Being frugal for me isn’t about not spending anything, but about making my money go further. I get excited by super-cheap reductions in the supermarket and about bargain clothes (if someone says “I like your dress”, my first reaction is “thanks” followed very closely by “it was in the sale/from a charity shop/ off eBay”). I’ll also repair and recycle things, like the odd collection of growing containers in my garden – olive oil tins, colanders, old Ikea storage boxes – rather than buying new. I grow some of my own food and I cook things from scratch because it tastes better, mainly, but also because I can’t bring myself to spend money on ready meals if I can knock the same thing up myself for less. This all means I have money spare for the things I really want to do, which I wouldn’t have otherwise. If I wasn’t frugal, I wouldn’t have been able to pay the fees for the Masters course I’m doing, in a subject that utterly fascinates me. I wouldn’t be able to treat myself to nice weekends away to coincide with the study days for my course – finding bargains on hotels (having a load of frugal friends who know the best sites helps ;-)) so I can splash out on really good meals, one of my favourite things to do. However, my best frugal moment this year involved playing music – being able to save about 1/3 of my wages each month meant that when a great deal (yes another one of those) on a new instrument appeared, I was able to snap it up and replace the savings within a few months. There’s great pleasure in getting a bargain, in stretching your money, and in getting something for nothing. But it's also wonderful to be able to spend your money – not just on the things you need, but on the things that you love." I love the recycled containers idea - we use mushroom cartons from the supermarket for growing seedlings in the spring, but now have the idea of a row of tins with cheery plants in growing on our wall next spring! And yes, to me frugality is all about enabling your life, rather than DISabling it.

Meanwhile, Cheerful Living Adventure's Jenni touches on another fab idea.... "My one frugal tip would be to take a deep breath and wait. Whatever you want, whatever you need, just wait. You don't have to wait very long - half an hour will do, or even five minutes if that's all you have. While you're waiting, ask yourself 'what do I really need? What do I really want?' I often find that the thing I really want or need isn't what I'm about to buy. If I'm replacing something that's broken, often the perfect thing will catch my eye after a week or two, usually much cheaper than if I'd bought it straight away. If I'm gazing wistfully through a shop window at something so fabulous that I feel I have to have it right now, then it's more difficult, but it's still possible to wait. Sometimes I'll walk down the road and back, or go home, and if I'm still thinking about it later, then yes, I might go back and buy it. But often that intense longing passes as quickly as it arrived. Being able to wait is the key to finding treasures in charity shops. Carry a list of things to look out for, but be patient. They'll turn up eventually, or you might realise you can live perfectly well without them.

Waiting is skill, and if you can cultivate it you might find it can save you a fortune." Now THAT truly is common sense...I can see I need to work on developing a sense of patience!

Finally, Horticultural Hints from Fay at The wind And The Wellies.... "Thinking of growing your own in the coming year? Why not its rewarding and a really frugal way of enjoying food with zero miles. You can’t get more local than your own garden, windowsill or patio. Space needn’t be an issue. A simple pot of herbs on the window sill brightens up your day and can yield lots of lovely flavour enriching herbs for your table. When faced with the garden centres and their pots of prepared herbs/vegetable starter packs these can be expensive. The solution? Well those who are a bit more canny can invest in a packet of seeds or swap with friends to start things going. If you’re a bit less experienced or not so green fingered, supermarket herbs are a fantastic buy. Each pot has up to 50 small ready grown plants in it and if carefully split up can give you sufficient herbs for months.  Set a pot free today and rather than spend £1 or so on a small bag of herbs, split up a pot of herbs take good care of it and you’ll be eating herbs right into the late summer.  All the better if there’s a deal on! Enjoy."   Inspired? Then here's a link to Fay's method to get you started - I've done this myself the last few years and she's right, it really does work, and just think of all the happy little plants you're giving leg-stretching room to as well - got to be good karma in there!

Thanks so much to everyone who's joined in with the Frugal Friday posting over the past year - I do intend to continue with the series for now at least - while the ideas keep coming, I'll keep on posting them. I've had some great comments from some utterly unexpected people on these too - and it's always nice to think that others can gain something from what you write, particularly when you primarily write for your own enjoyment!

The first space in the series for 2013, as I mentioned, will be taken up by dreamer's Guest post - remember to pop by and take a look!

Robyn

(The photos on this post were all taken on a weekend away with a couple of the folk who feature within the post)

Friday frugality also from Jenni today : A Cheerful Living Adventure

The Reds & the River...

The end of August sees the annual Port Of Dartmouth Royal Regatta, in Dartmouth, Devon.  MrEH hails from those parts, and as we have family down there we usually find ourself there for "Regatta weekend" and all the fun and games it entails. This year was no exception, with lots going on - everything from the "Sea Fury" plane of the Royal Navy Historic Flight, to the newly introduced "Bungee Rowing" event (yes, it is exactly what it sounds like!). To many though, young and old, the excitement peaks on the friday afternoon at 6pm when the Red Arrows fly in.  The Reds have been heard to say that Dartmouth is one of their favourite places to display, and indeed invariably we get a super display, including one year when one of the planes suffered a mechanical failure on the fly-in from Exeter them taking the unprecedented step to delay the start of the display while the spare Hawk was collected!  The display takes place in the river-valley, which forms a natural amphitheatre and makes the whole thing feel so much more immediate. It also has the advantage that, by climbing up the hill above the town, you can get a near-unique view looking down on the planes. You will of course have guessed by now that this is precisely what I did!

45 minutes before display time I started up, stopping a few times after the steepest bits - we're talking some of the steepest roads you can imagine here - 33% gradients - fancy driving your car up there? No, me neither, but people do! Eventually I reached the end of the lane onto the middle of the hill itself, and just needed to choose my spot. This year I elected to climb almost to the top, most folk who've walked up stay roughly around where the path comes out, while those who have driven and parked their cars in the car park on the far side usually sit on the top.  I chose a spot with some nice dry-looking grass and nobody else around (to complain when I wanted to stand up through the display, not because I was being antisocial!) and settled to wait.

The views are phenomenal - you can see right down on the town, across to Kingswear at the other side of the river, out to Start Bay and the sea, and across to the Britannia Royal Naval College - although only the bits of that which they are happy for you to see, naturally! I'd have been quite happy for a good while sitting just looking at the views to be honest, but before too long the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight appeared - a Spitfire, a Hurricane, and a Lancaster bomber. I have a bit of "history" with the BBMF - rarely managing to see all three planes together, so I was most relieved to see that this time, at least, all were present and correct! The Lancaster pilot seemed to think it was quite entertaining to do low passes over the hill we were sat on, too - believe me, they are pretty noisy at point-blank range!

Then it was on to the main event - and we all waited with baited breath to see the "Reds" appear. It was easy to spot those who are "regulars" up the hill for this display as we were the ones watching out to the right - their usual pattern is to appear over the brow of the hill on that side as they can "creep up" on the town itself that way. Not this time though - instead they appeared from the top of the hill behind us, making us all jump! The display itself was phenomenal as ever - from my vantage point the close-passes from the synchro-pair look even closer and we can really appreciate the precision of the whole thing. Ironically after the difficulties of getting the timing right for the synchro-pass shots the week before at Clacton, this time almost all of them came off perfectly!

Robyn

(This post was written way back in early September, but posting was delayed due to the failure of the old PC.....and then I forgot about it - sorry!)

Frugal Friday - and Merry Christmas!

This time of year can be quite horribly painful on the bank accounts. By the time you've bought the presents, done the wrapping, sent the cards and loaded the fridge ready for Xmas dinner, you can be left with more of a feeling of dread in relation to the January credit card statement than the Christmas cheer you're meant to be feeling! It's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you have to spend a fortune to make Christmas a success for the family, but there are ways and means of reducing the pain, and now is the perfect time to get the wheels in motion ready to make next Christmas a far less painful experience....

Firstly - a budget. Set one. Working out what you need to be spending is the first and best way of a) reducing what you ACTUALLY spend, and b) reducing the mid January credit card induced heart failure. List everything you need to buy, all the people you have to get presents for, the food, everything, and put an approximate value against each item. Then add them all up. When you've stood up again and regained your breath, you're ready to start tackling the scary figures! Some things you can probably reduce by a bit of clever planning, while for those that we can't, we have set up a small transfer each month going across into a dedicated savings account - meaning that when we come to start buying presents etc, the money is there and waiting.

Presents. More and more now there is a shift towards it being acceptable to say "Do you know, I really can't afford that" - a lot of families buy for children only, and Martin Lewis proved on his "Money Show" a few weeks ago the absolute joy that is, for an under 5, a huge box filled with balloons. An Auntie or Uncle trying to do a present on a budget? Then the Pound shops are your friend for younger children - get a gift bag and fill with an assortment of odds and ends - look out for items like packs of toy cars that can be split down and wrapped individually. We visited family at the weekend and took a bag for each of the littlies filled with all manner of things we'd found through the year - Pound Shop purchases, big bags of marbles found for pennies at the charity shop, colouring pencils bought 2 packs for 99p when we saw them - back in about July! Everything was roughly wrapped in tissue paper or scraps of wrapping paper so the kids still had the "unwrapping" experience, and they were AGES unwrapping all the odds and ends, and loved every minute of it. Present of the day was undoubtedly the "Crawling Octopus" - you throw it at a window, or the wall, and being made of a rather unpleasant textured sticky substance, it proceeds to crawl down.....both children absolutely adored them, and they cost about £1 each!  With friends, if you want to buy presents, and can afford it, then brilliant, go for it, but why not consider agreeing a budget to stick to? Or even do it on a "Secret Santa" basis - a group of friends and I have done just that this year and it's been great fun!

Food. The rest of the year we've been happily cooking from scratch, meal planning, and batch cooking, so why at Christmas does that all go out of the window for so many people in a hale of pre-made processed stuff? whilst some things are great to buy ready made (Life is definitely too short to stuff a mushroom) others are so much nicer home made. Anything pastry based is a great place to start - pastry is at its best when it's really fresh so making your own almost guarantees you'll end up with something tastier than the options lurking on the supermarket shelf. Mince pies are easy, and as for sausage rolls, well, food doesn't come much simpler! And if you have a food processor, making the pastry doesn't even need to be time-consuming. Dips too - bit of yogurt, some very finely chopped caramelised onion, and some grated cheddar - cheese & onion dip. Pot of Soured cream, some snipped chives....well, you can work that out!. A perfectly acceptable thousand island style dip can be made by mixing equal quantities of yogurt & mayo, stirring in tomato ketchup until the desired colour is reached, then adding a little cayenne - easy! Houmous is a doddle to make at home too, and very popular.

Plan ahead - buy now for next year. Not foodstuffs obviously, but the post-christmas sales are a great time to buy cards, tags and wrapping paper to put aside ready for next December. Gift bags are rarely reduced, but there are a number of budget card shops out there now selling bags in varying sizes 3, 4, 6 or 8 for £1 making them increasingly affordable. Particularly for elderly relatives they are often a lot easier to manage too, and of course they are a godsend for tricky-to-wrap items. Ours go round the family for years - they don't get thrown away until they are too tatty to use, it's not at all uncommon for someone, on being given a present, to exclaim they were the original purchaser of that particular bag! The sales are also a good time to buy reduced price presents ready for particular people's birthdays or christmas presents as well - just ensure you remember where you've stored them! If your Christmas food and drink bill causes a sting, then why not buy a couple of savings stamps from your supermarket of choice each time you visit through the year - by next year you would have £100 or so to put towards your festive fare, and most of the supermarkets will give you a small bonus when you redeem a full card too.

Above all, remember that this can be a stressful time of year, and worrying about the bills around it will only increase that stress. If you have barely any time for cooking, and need to buy everything pre-made, then so be it, there are other ways you can economise. Remember though that pastry can be made ahead and frozen, so it might be possible to do things in advance? If you are happy to spend lots on Christmas, then so long as you have the money and aren't going into the red to do it, then all good - that's your choice, and nobody should call you a fool for exercising that right. Setting budgets for things can still be a good idea though - you might be happy to spend, but being in control of the spending is always good. If you HAVE overspent, and are sitting in a panic dreading the arrival of the next brown envelope, then remember that the hardest thing is facing up to the problem, Martin Lewis of www.moneysavingexpert.com always says he has never seen a debt problem without a solution, so pop over there, visit the forums, and ask for help. Within a few minutes (yes, even on christmas day) you will have folk willing to help, offer advice, and point you in the right direction.

Merry Christmas!

Robyn

How it should be...

I mentioned recently that when we visited Birmingham the other week we had a wander round the Bullring Market and were left extremely impressed. We got there at the end of the day but the market was still vibrant, with plenty of folk around looking for that last minute bargain.

Years ago this would have been a scene repeated in every town across the country, but whilst some places have held onto that tradition others seem to have let it go without so much as a whimper. Walthamstow in North East London has it's famous street market - not quite the mile long that myth would have us believe but stretching the full length of the town's High Street, it rightfully holds the title of Europe's longest street market. When we lived there we used it weekly for our fruit and veg, along with the excellent Parsons Butchers shop for meat - it was from there that we first got our taste for mutton. Having somewhere like that on the doorstep was not only useful, at times it was downright vital, as when money is tight there is no better place to shop than a market.  I remember a few occasions when faced with the task of feeding two of us for a week on under £10 I managed to do so with relative ease thanks to that market - and we ate well, too!

The first noticeable thing about a good market should be the way everything is beautifully laid out - in this case it's tidily stacked bowls, in others it might be immaculately built pyramids of fruit or veg. The signage too is now a classic style - often along with a few spelling mistakes or misplaced apostrophes which a greengrocer once told me weren't actually mistakes - but instead were designed to attract attention - clever eh?!

If you have a market locally - USE IT, otherwise you will sure as anything lose it. If your local high street has also - like ours - lost its Greengrocer, then this is all the more important. On the continent they cherish and celebrate their markets - they are fantastically laid out and people will do their entire weeks shopping there - fruit, veg, meat, fish, cheese, milk, bread.....the whole lot. Over here, shopping on a market can have a slightly shameful air to it - even somewhere like Walthamstow where for those of us who grew up there the market has always been part of life, people still sometimes look askance at you if you refer to doing your food shopping there. It's sad really - to my mind, that sort of setting for people to shop in is exactly how it should be...

Astonished but pleased...

...and very grateful indeed to all who voted for my pictures in the recent www.southuist.com photo competition. There were some stunning photos entered from some extremely talented photographers. Imagine my surprise to see earlier this evening when the winners were announced that the shot above had won first prize. Very flattering indeed - thanks so much to everyone who took the time and trouble to go, look, and click.

Robyn

December fun...

Lots of fun had around here whenever we can, as you know, and the last few weeks have been no exception  - the month started with a trip to Birmingham for the Good Food Show. We've been up for this for the past few years now - it's always a good day out, we save a pound or two each per week against the cost of the goodies we come back with and see it as a good chance to treat ourselves to some tasty goodies, and also buy a few cheeky Christmas presents.  The tickets are kept budget-friendly too as we use Clubcard Vouchers for them - getting us into the show for £8 each. As usual we booked into our favourite Travelodge not far from the NEC - the staff are lovely and as it's a "takeover" rather than a purpose built budget hotel, the rooms are far larger than usual and MUCH posher!

Having checked in, the weekend started with a trip into Birmingham -

This is the iconic and unusual Selfridges Building, one of those you either love or hate I suspect. For me it goes along with the Gherkin & the Shard in London - fantastic! Every year I try to find a new angle for a photo - I think this year might have nailed it...

...I really like both of those shots. It won't stop me trying again next year though! Then time for a wander round the excellent Bullring Market - precisely what a traditional street market should be like, this - I won't dwell too long on it as I want to do another post all about it, so I'll whet your appetite with this...

...looks tempting, doesn't it? From there we had a wander round the German Christmas market - a mix of fairly authentic and unusual odds and ends, cheap tat, and copious numbers of stalls selling the sort of fizzy beer that we generally ignore. The key thing for us is the stall selling the glorious, colourful little wooden childrens toys with the "push-up" bases - when the base is pressed upwards the toy collapses onto itself, or can be made to nod its head, sit down, etc.

I routinely got given one of these each Christmas until I was about 10 or so - in fact I still have at least one - and MrEH and I have continued the tradition with our Niece & Nephew. They're great fun and so cheery! Shopping done, and stomachs lined, it was on to the business of the evening - a meet-up with some of the members of our team from the Great British Beer festival - fantastic to see everyone again and another meet is now being planned for ahead of the Festival next summer...

The Food show itself was excellent fun as ever - we came back loaded with masses of tasty treats many of which seem to be cheese-related - the "Cheese Bartering Stall" was particularly entertaining! We also saw a theatre show with the lovely James Martin - always nice!

The back to normality with work last week, until Wednesday morning when we got up to discover this...

...yes, that's barely an inch of snow, but was still (ridiculously) enough to ensure that our normal 10 - 15 minute journey from home to the motorway took 2 hours and 25 minutes instead.  We were unimpressed, especially when it became apparent that the cause of this level of chaos was the local authority failing to make any attempt at gritting the roads the night before - my rant on this subject on Twitter made the front page of the local paper the following day, which I found quite amusing! On the plus side, the cold weather and snow did mean we saw this rather lovely sunrise on the way to work the following day...

I also had a days work for a client in the City of London which made an interesting change. Not sure I would fancy doing the rush-hour travel on public transport on a daily basis, but as an occasional thing it is fine. it also means that I get the chance to see, and point the camera at, things like this...

...on the walk back to Liverpool Street - nice, eh? Good compensation for crowded trains and grumpy commuters, that is!

Robyn