2014? Bring it on!

The mouth of the River Dart, Devon.

Happy New Year all! I hope that your Christmas/New year was everything you hoped, and that you're looking into the New Year with enthusiasm!

We're not great fans of New Year's resolutions in this house - so many of them centre on giving things up, and that always feels a bit negative, somehow. Making grand statements about "Resolutions" also feels a bit like setting yourself up to fail - how many people start the month of January talking about them, and by February you've not heard another word about it? Instead, we've come up with a list of plans, goals, targets, challenges even, that we quite fancy tackling in the course of the next year...

- We plan to shop one week in every month without using supermarkets at all. Yes, I know others have gone for a whole year shunning them, but where we live that's not quite so simple, but starting with that week per month will let us investigate more where our local independent shops are, which farmers markets are worth visiting, and above all where we can buy Mr EH 4 pint containers of milk - he refuses on principle to buy milk in litres.

- Places to visit - including some places ticked off our "List of places to visit" - Orkney again, Farne Islands again (I plan to take my exciting new lens to see the Puffins!), Watford Metropolitan Line station - before they close it. York - perhaps for a weekend.

- Home: we will take advantage of the current absence of a four-legged furry lodger to re-do the gloss paint on the inside windowsills. We also want to re-paint our bedroom.

- Resume keeping one night a week "TV Free" - I think Mr EH will find this more of a challenge than I will!

- Cook a new recipe once a month - we got several fab new recipe books for Christmas including Rick Stein's "India" book which we're rather excited about. This should act as a great jumping off point for this one!

- We're planning an extra trip to the Hebrides for New Year next year - this will be the first time we've visited in the middle of winter, and we'll be working to make it as "money neutral" as we can - money for the fares is already saved, the next target will be to sort out accommodation I think.

Above all, we want to make 2014 our "Year of walking" - we have several different walks on our list of things we want to do, and the one that's made it to this year's aims is to walk the London section of the Thames Path. I've walked bits of this many times but never done the whole length of it - this year we aim to set that right. Walking in stages, covering as far as we feel comfortable with each time, it'll be interesting to see how long the 40 mile route takes us. We're planning on starting at Hampton Court out in the west, and you can be assured that the walks will be featuring in this blog, so watch this space!  We also decided to end 2013 as we intended to continue 2014 - so while we were down in Devon we walked the relatively short (3.75 mile) Diamond Jubilee Way - short it may be but it makes up for that with almost the entire route being up or down steep hills! Of course I took lots of photos so I'll be blogging that one in the next week or so. In the meantime the pic at the top of this post gives you some idea of the views we enjoyed!

What are you planning for the New year then? Are you resolutions people, or not?

Robyn

Walking off the turkey...

By Boxing Day afternoon I'm usually itching to get out and stretch my legs, and as we're usually with my parents, we can borrow the dog as a decent excuse for this! This year was no exception, wellies and walking boots were donned and we set off into a crisp winter afternoon.

We're lucky both where we live and where my parents are that we're an easy walk into some nice countryside. The town is punctuated with green "wedges" and once you get to the outskirts there is some nice walking. The dog certainly approves - look, this face says it all!

 Out along the lane, alongside the Nature Reserve, and then a walk up over the common gets us into the woods - like so much of our forests locally this is mixed, Beech & Oak mainly. Makes for some fabulous autumnal colour, and even at this time of year it still looks pretty good...

There are still just enough leaves hanging on close to the ground to add some interest too.

Today we were back out again - I was given rather a nifty little pedometer for christmas so am feeling the need to test it out thoroughly! Our side of town this time, and just us, no four legged person, but what fantastic weather it was for it!

Out through the woods, along what has always been a footpath and so we were slightly alarmed to find padlocked gates at the end! We presume however that this is simply to prevent our local "caravan dwellers" from gaining access as a bit of looking revealed a very user friendly pedestrian access around one side of the fence! We couldn't resist a wander around the new trendy housing development - I've blogged about this before, it's the place with the bar-code houses...

...each to their own I guess but living here wouldn't suit me at all. Middle of a Friday afternoon when most people are off work for Christmas and the place was deserted - hardly anyone out. I invariably leave the place wondering if the world has ended and nobody remembered to tell me and today was no exception.

Full of square houses...

Thankfully when we did get to the other side of it there was a rather lovely sunset just starting to remind us that there was still a world out there...

Robyn.

Frugal Friday - Guest Post!

This week I'm handing you over to Rachel of Wittgenstein's Watering Can who's dug her way out from under a mountain of soft fruit to give me a "week off"!

"It's been nine months. The first few weeks were exciting and a bit scary. The following months have been amazing, frustrating, hard work, fulfilling. There's been aches and pains, some very messy moments, doubts and minor squabbles. But it's all been worth it.

Nope, I've not had a baby. Nearly nine months ago, I got my allotment. I got an allotment because I love gardening - gardening of the 'growing things to eat' variety, that is, I'm not good with flowers. I'd done some fruit and veg growing on a minor scale but was frustrated by the small quantities I could produce in the back garden. Growing your own is often touted as a way to save money, and you can make a dent in your food budget on a small scale - pots of herbs on the windowsill instead of pricey packets in the supermarket, soft fruit growing up your garden fence. But if you're not careful it can end up costing you more than it saves. By the time you add up seeds, equipment, compost, etc, you might wonder what the point is.

The point for me was always the enjoyment of growing, the sense of achievement and knowing exactly where my food came from and how it was grown. But I've been on a tight budget for more years of my life than I'd like to admit, so I've become slightly obsessive about how much things cost and making savings where I can. And I was trying to not spend too much (all gardeners know the lure of the seed catalogue!)

I started keeping a list of produce from the allotment just out of interest. But then a debate on my allotment site's Facebook page about rising rents got me thinking. Was this a hobby that was costing me money or did it actually save me some?

So I did the sums...

Outgoings:

Allotment rent including water supply (which I've only used once when the water butts ran empty) - £100 for the year

Tools and equipment - I had most of this already, I asked for some as Christmas/ birthday presents, and I bought some using vouchers gained from doing online surveys. My main outlay has been rubber gloves as I find these much easier to work in than gardening gloves (apart from those jobs where you really do need good protection from spiky things - loganberry bushes, I'm looking at you). I'll estimate about £20 for this.

Compost - £0 - I compost fruit and veg scraps, tea bags, paper etc at home and transport this up to the allotment (yes, there probably are slugs in the car - see below). There's also two big heaps on the go on the plot.

Seeds and plants - £40(ish) - again these were mostly bought with vouchers, acquired as freebies, or kindly donated by friends. I did buy some fruit trees which were on a Groupon offer for £25 and I've bought the odd pack of seeds, garlic for growing, fruit bush along the way.

Petrol - to actually get an allotment, I had to leave the waiting list for the ones nearest to my house, and join a site further away. It would be a good hour or so walk, and not too convenient carrying a fork and a tub of compost. The car has become something of a travelling shed. I've not the faintest idea how much this costs per journey though.

So £160-ish plus petrol costs.

"Savings":

I have to say that I was lucky here - it has been a fantastic growing year, and I inherited an extremely well-cared for allotment, with great soil, and already established raspberries, rhubarb and blackberries. But it does show what can be achieved. This is (sometimes accurately, sometimes approximately) what the allotment produced:

Potatoes - 34kg
Onions - 57
Garlic - 25
Beetroot - 43
Leeks - 100
Turnips - 10
Radishes - 100
Chard - lots
Kale - endless kale
Rocket - about 1kg
Broad beans - 500g (not terribly successful)
Rhubarb - 2kg
Little Gem lettuces - 24
Carrots - 35
Fennel - 4
Swede - 10
Raspberries - 16.8kg
Blackberries - 16kg
Strawberries - 4 (yes, 4)
Sprouts - enough for Christmas dinner
Peas - some, but the mice ate them

I worked out the price of the fruit at the time - mainly because it was a huge amount of fun to pick 3kg of raspberries then go into the supermarket and realise you had about £30 worth of fruit. The rest I've estimated using mysupermarket.co.uk, and the total for produce comes out at.... £489!

In the last couple of weeks there's been some festive additions to that too - the giant evergreen tree yielded some branches which were turned into a Christmas 'tree' and a wreath (with the addition of ivy from the garden and holly from the local park). They may not be quite as picturesque as those you can buy (and that angel refuses to stand up straight) but a tree that size and a wreath would come to at least £30 I reckon, tipping the final total over £500.

Surprising, and quite impressive, although it's worth pointing out that the raspberries and blackberries alone make up £328 of that. It's also worth pointing out that I have never in my life bought that much fruit - so I certainly can't claim to have 'saved' that much on berries. But it has meant that I've not bought other things, different fruit, or puddings. I also used some of the fruit to make jam and wine. The maths gets a bit tricky here as I had to buy sugar and yeast for this, but I suspect that the end product (especially the 30-odd bottles of wine) still works out cheaper than buying it.

This looks like a fabulous advert for rushing out to get on the allotment list NOW (and I'd certainly not discourage anyone from doing that) but it's worth adding a few disclaimers. Not every year will be as good as this year. If you get a run-down, overgrown plot, it's not going to produce this lot in its first nine months. It's not just about the money - it takes work and time, and if you costed your 'man/ woman hours' the total wouldn't be anything like as high. The above was grown and harvested by two people who spent a half-day every week on the allotment, plus lots extra in July and August (and have the scruffiest plot compared to all the retired folks around us who are there every other day). But that's not really the point - even though sometimes it feels like too much work, the joy of being out there and doing it outweighs that (most of the time). You could argue that the physical activity saves you money on a gym membership (but you have to bear in mind that you will probably eat far more crumble than is really good for you).

Next year, the allotment rents go up, and I'll be paying £160 for the year. There's been lots of lessons learned this year, so I expect some crops to do better, but we're always at the mercy of the weather/ slugs/ mice/ diseases/ pigeons/ the pheasant who likes to hop around our plot nibbling stuff. It's certainly not an 'income' (we aren't allowed to sell anything we grow), but it has - to my surprise - turned out to be well worth the investment.

Oh and the messy moments? Lots of mud, blackberry-stained everything, and my other half falling - yes, actually falling - in the water butt!"

Looking back...June & July

As June started we were in the Hebrides - it's so much more than somewhere we go on holiday now - we have friends there and always seem to come back having made new ones - this year it was Stuart, Simon, Deborah & Jennifer who we enjoyed some fantastic RSPB walks with.

RSPB Balranald

The second week of our holiday also saw our 2-day trip over to Lewis/Harris. It's a lovely ferry crossing and we've found an excellent campsite with fabulous views and just a stones throw from a beach with amazing sunsets....look....

Shawbost Beach, Lewis

...so although it eats a chunk of our budget we don't mind a bit!

July started rather oddly as my lovely Dad suffered a small heart attack early in the month. Once they established the seriousness of the problems he stayed in hospital - first here in Harlow and subsequently being moved to Basildon's supposedly fantastic new cardiac unit. This is not the place  to discuss that but we were distinctly unimpressed. His triple-bypass went without a hitch thankfully and he was discharged home just 4 days later.

In between hospital visiting we did manage to squeeze in a few other bits too - not least a weekend camping in Suffolk for my birthday. We visited the wonderful RSPB Minsmere reserve, then moved on to Aldeburgh for the evening, as ever stopping to take photos of "that" sculpture...

...and lots of fabulous butterflies...

We followed that with a trip to another of our favourite spots the next day - Southwold, with it's wonderful pier and brightly coloured beach huts. A PROPER British seaside resort.

There were other bits of fun too - a beery trip to Sheffield where we met up with LOTS of lovely folk from our Great British Beer Festival Bar, and also had tea & cake with another cheery pal, Jenni. There was our usual trip to the North Norfolk Railway beer festival, and lots of fab walks in the sunshine too!

Some random stuff...

I've finally seen Milton Keynes' famous Concrete Cows! They've been moved to the comparative shelter of one of the shopping centres, and we came across them entirely by chance - I was absolutely delighted!

A Sunday breakfast at a spanking new cafe - Wings, at North Weald Airfield. The breakfast was good...

and it came with a noisy side-order of Jet Provost, too!

Lots of traffic, and lots of fog. A combination of knackered traffic lights and the weather did mean I spotted this lovely tree lurking on a roundabout waiting to be photographed, though...

A trip to the Farm Shop during Supermarket Avoidance Week - and an entreaty...

Fog causing more problems in the air above us - apparently Stansted and Gatwick were both fine, but it looks like Heathrow was having some problems.

Meant I got to play with my favourite new phone App though - the excellent Flight Radar 24 - it was recommended by Carol Vorderman on Twitter as being utterly addictive and it really is!

And finally, possibly the nicest form of "rent payable" you'll ever see. Look...

...For those of challenged eyesight, I can confirm that it says that the rent for this property is "One red rose on midsummers day in each year" - and yes this was in a real, live lease, sitting on my desk in front of me!

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

As I write, the supermarkets are full of people running around in a panic mindlessly filling trollies and baskets with all manner of fancy foods that they would never dream of buying the rest of the year. Why? Because it's Christmas, you know! The season of good profits to all retailers, or something like that! Sure, we buy bits and pieces over and above what we'd usually get - the turkey is a good example, and Mum always pays a little more for a free range locally bred one - we know what goes into it and as a result we know that the meat will taste delicious. The bird will feed us all on Christmas day, and again on Boxing day, and that will more or less be it done. There will be a few "pop them in the oven" snacky bits for Christmas day tea too - which are tasty and make life easier.

Our tradition on Boxing Day is that Mum and I don't cook - well who wants to be slaving over a stove after all the cooking the day before? So whatever people want to eat, it either gets eaten cold, or, if they want to, they can pop it in the oven. This means that by the most part leftovers have been mostly consumed by the end of the 26th - no mountains of wasted food to be thrown away. We also try to remember that actually, the shops are only closed for 2 days - and we don't need to lay in supplies for some kind of siege!

MrEH makes our Christmas cake - a huge and epic affair to his Mum's recipe - always delicious and thanks to a liberal "feeding" with rum, it keeps pretty much forever also - no throwing away manky cake come the end of January! Mince pies - I buy a 1lb jar of fairly basic mincemeat, empty it into a mixing bowl and double its quantity by adding additional fruit, brandy or calvados, maybe some chopped nuts and glace cherries, and then make exactly the number of mince pies that the jar will then stretch to - the first batch are made then the remaining mincemeat spooned back into the jar until I make the second batch a few days later. It's usually tasting even better by then! We don't buy tins of biscuits or chocolates - we wouldn't buy that sort of thing the rest of the year so it honestly doesn't occur to us to buy them at Christmas. If some get bought for us then fantastic, that's lovely!

One of Mr EH's epic Christmas cakes - decorated by me!

To follow Christmas day lunch - some people stick with tradition and go for Christmas pudding, we've always found that a bit heavy though so tend to come up with something else - again you can spend a fortune on buying a posh pre-made dessert, but fortunes can be saved by making something yourself if you're a reasonably confident cook. Last year we had Lemon Meringue Pie which went down a storm, the year before was a New York Baked cheesecake. This year we're planning on a Lemon & Lime cheesecake topped with home made lemon & lime curd. The lemons are the remainder of the net we bought when Ben needed one for the cake, and the limes were bought at £1 for a bowlful of them from the market. The base will be basic digestive biscuits crushed up, with value butter to mix. The curd will use that same value butter too - and will cost us less than the cost of a jar of "posh" lemon curd - we'll end up with probably 4 jars - several of which will go to people as Christmas presents. The zestiness and freshness of lemon works particularly well to follow a large meal like Christmas dinner.

Other great and easy things to make which might get you a better product for a cheaper price:
Pigs in Blankets: Chipolata sausages - long ones can be twisted in the middle to make two - wrapped in streaky bacon. one rasher of streaky does 2 sausages if it's well stretched using the flat of a knife.
Bread sauce - check BBC Good Food for a choice of recipes - it's absolutely simple, I promise! make in advance to the point of adding any cream then add cream with you reheat it on the big day.
Houmous - whizz cooked chickpeas (or a drained tin) with a blob of yogurt, a slug of olive oil, a blob of tahini and a squeeze of lemon juice until you get a smooth puree. Season to taste & add more lemon if needed. Posh up by sprinkling lightly toasted sesame seeds and a drizzle of olive oil on the top when you serve it.
Other dips - soured cream & chive is exactly as it sounds, as is yogurt & cucumber. Greek Yogurt with some finely chopped mint stirred in is gorgeous - leave it aside for a couple of hours once made to let the mint infuse. Salsa - easy - a well drained tin of chopped tomatoes, some very finely chopped onion, a splash of balsamic and as much chilli as suits your taste. Use smoked chilli or add a little smoked paprika if you like for a bit of extra depth of flavour. Add half a spoonful of sugar and stir through well, and add finely chopped coriander leaf just before you serve it.
Coronation chicken - equal parts Mayo & Yogurt, add a good dollop of mango chutney for sweetness, a handful of sultanas and enough curry paste to get the right colour and flavour - trial and error, and again very much subject to taste!
Sausage rolls - basic savoury shortcrust pastry rolled out quite thinly. Remove sausages from their skins and lay on the pastry (the sausages, not you) flatten slightly then roll up. You can add a bit of cheese, or caramalised chopped onion.
Cheese straws - shop bought puff pastry - roll out thinly, sprinkle with finely grated cheese and fold over. Repeat, then re-roll to nearly it's original size. Cut into thin strips, twist and "stick down" by the ends onto a baking sheets. Brush with egg/milk mix and sprinkle with smoked paprika, cayenne or toasted sesame seeds depending on your own taste. Alternately borrow my Mum* - her cheese straws/biscuits are absolutely legendary and the downfall of many a christmas day diet!

So - what are your failsafe fall-backs for home made christmas food? Do you make absolutely everything from scratch, or, like us, buy a few pre-mades in the name of an easier life?

As this is the last Frugal Friday before Christmas, I'll wish you a very happy and cosy Christmas and a healthy and frugal New Year!

Robyn

(*Not really - any cheese straws she chooses to make will be fallen upon ravenously by our household - make your own!)

HRH The Cat.

She came into our lives just a couple of months before we got married - a small furry black & white ball with razor sharp teeth & claws. Initially she spent much of her time curled around the radiator pipes in our old flat, apparently impervious to the fact that these were far too hot for us to touch! Not deterred, she proceeded to use up several more of her nine lives by - within her first few months, nearly getting flushed down the toilet (I grabbed her by the tail literally about half a second from disaster) and falling out of a first floor window. She also on one notable occasion stalked into the flat absolutely covered in diesel - naturally at a time when MrEH was out. Picture the scene - there I am with the cat in one hand, phone in the other to call the vets and say what should I do? The answer of course was "You'll need to give her a bath" which was rapidly followed up by Sharon at the vets saying "Ummm....do you think you'll be able to bath her? You might need to bring her in so we can do it - we've got more people to, well, hold onto her?!" Yes, her reputation had already spread far and wide! (That bath has NEVER been repeated either - we learn fast!)

This was a cat who learned her Green Cross Code at an early age - quite literally looking both ways before she crossed the road. The night our second cat, Muffin, died, she climbed onto my lap and refused to move, climbing back on each time I got up to make a cup of tea or do something else in the flat. When we first moved to Harlow she thought that all her Christmases had come at once - and for months we got an endless stream of mice, voles, birds, and even once a shrew. Her finest hour was the day she arrived back over the wall proudly carrying a still very much alive and flapping woodpigeon. It was a warm day and she shot straight into the front room with it before we could stop her. It took some time to clear the room of feathers, and it also took some time for HRH to stop strutting around looking smug...

Neighbours alternately considered her "sweet" or "spawn of the devil" depending on how likely she thought they were to feed her. When our lovely next door neighbours' (T & M) elderly cat died, she was triumphant over the local territory at last, but also wasted no time in taking up the empty space on T's lap, once again seemingly knowing that comfort was needed.

Sadly HRH will not be bringing home any more pigeons, and her 9 lives are now used up. We thank the person who was kind enough to - rather than just driving past the cat lying at the side of the road - take her to a vets to allow her final journey to be made in dignity. Also the wonderful friend who took the trouble to ring local vets this morning - this was how we knew what had happened.

HRH The Cat - AKA Bix - March 2000 - December 2013.

Robyn