Shopping and Tidying

 

4th - Aldi - £24.13

It's been a bit of a manic end to the week.

We had seven viewings over the week, culminating in a second viewing on Saturday morning, one more first viewing at lunchtime and then three offers being put on the table all in the space of a couple of hours during Saturday afternoon.  Two of the offers are for the full asking price and one £5k lower.  Because all this was happening as the agents were getting ready to close for the weekend, we will find out tomorrow whether the one offer that we have accepted can move forward as quickly as the potential purchaser has said he could.

Anyway with all the comings and goings, last weeks shopping posts are slightly different.  I have the receipt for an Aldi shop that cost me £24.13, but no photo of the shopping.  It was all put away or taken around to Alan's before I realised, and I just did not have the will or the energy to get it all back out again.  So just the receipt for posterity.

7th  Booths £20.43

Then there is the Booths shopping from Friday which has no receipt, as I turned down the paper copy at the till and then accidentally deleted the email version off my phone.  I did this shopping after we had a coffee in the café there while we were out of the house for a viewing to go ahead.  It's just a few treaty bits which were all on offer with my Booths card.  I only actually needed bread and milk.  

At least I remembered both of them. 😄

It will be really good news if one of the full price offers works out, it means there will be no more tidying up every time we want to go out just in case there is a last minute viewing required.  No more wondering where I have hidden certain things to make everywhere looks super tidy and spacious when I get back, and now the things that usually live on the bench behind my front door, that have been living in the boot of my car can return to their rightful places.

Back to normal would be very good.

Sue xx

Quadruple Cooked Chips

It should imagine you've all heard of Triple Cooked Chips, available for quite a cost at lots of cafés and restaurants these days.  

Well, I had some a few weeks back when we went out for lunch to a local garden centre.  Alan was having a sandwich and side salad, he's a real salad man and always has been, and as I wasn't terribly hungry I decided to just have the side of chips to share with Alan along with some mayonnaise for dunking purposes.

The side of Triple Cooked Chips was £5.

Admittedly you did get a good sized portion, so much so that even with Alan having a few and me dunking away to my hearts desire, I couldn't finish them off.  Alan laughed when I fished a small poly bag out of my handbag and put the remaining 7 chips into it, I told him for that price ... for any price for that matter ... they were coming home with me.

They were popped straight into the freezer when we got home.

 

Then the other day I found a box in the freezer with just two fish fingers in it, not really enough for a fishfinger butty but then when I spied the chips in the same freezer drawer, my lunch idea materialised quickly.

My simple lunch a Quadruple Cooked Chip and Fish Finger Butty ... and very nice it was too.

Gosh those chips were really nice!! 😄

Sue xx

A Week of Breakfasts

 

Breakfast  1 - Yoghurt, Fruit and Granola

To lots of you this will probably be the most boring post you have ever looked at, but I did it with a purpose.  I wanted to photograph my breakfasts each day as a visual aid to remind me at a quick glance the variations that I am having in my current diet ... and by diet I mean way of eating ... I am not on a diet. I dislike that the word has been hijacked over the years to mean a weight-loss type way of eating.

It's not strictly chronological as I forgot on a couple of mornings to photograph what I ate, or remembered halfway though and realised that no one really wants to see a half eaten bowl of scrambled eggs, or a slice of toast and jam with two huge bites out of it.  But the things I forgot to photograph were not the end of the world, so as soon as I reached the magic seven days of photographed breakfasts I called it a day.

Breakfast  2 - Stewed Apple and Weetabix

Breakfast  3 - Strawberries and Weetabix 

Breakfast 4 -  Cheesy Scrambled Eggs on Toast

Breakfast 5 - Weetabix with Strawberries and Homegrown Blueberries

Breakfast 6 - Tomatoes and Red Onion on Toast

Breakfast 7 - Cheesy Scrambled Eggs with a Buttered Crust of Bread

I do eat other things occasionally and not always what is considered to be 'breakfast' food.  I have been known for instance to have dahl and rice, or soup and toast.  Breakfast doesn't have to mean cereals, fruits or something on toast.  In Winter porridge makes a regular appearance, but the weather has been far too warm for porridge this last few weeks.

Of course all these breakfasts were served with the obligatory cup of black coffee. I like at least two cups to start each and every day.  First I have just a cup of coffee, and then an hour later coffee and breakfast.  It's the civilised way to do things. 😄

Now I am in the process of doing the same thing for my lunches, but in the meantime ... what's your favourite breakfast?

Sue xx

Whiter Than White

 

Ginger snapped while getting ready to drink out of one of his drinking stations around the garden.

Caught mid-drink.

Just three of his choices of dish at this end of the garden, he also has the dish I have out for bees and insects ... which the little birds also seem to love ... the larger bird drinking pot and when he's in the mood the watering can, which is really funny to watch when there's only an inch of water in the bottom of it.

It's not that any of the water is fresher in one pot than any other container, as I fill them all up at the same time.  Maybe the different containers offer up a slightly different flavour or drinking experience, anyway it's funny to watch him going from place one to the other, and occasionally repeating it all over again.

https://youtu.be/dUI9DIXBCKc?si=Knk0_0mlYI0UutEL

Here is our latest bungalow walk-through for anyone that is interested in a bit of Whiter Than White. 😁

Sue xx

Reading BIG Books

For one reason and another I have not done a booky post for ages, so I thought it was about time to recitfy this and get back to my Monthly Reading lists. 

My reading mojo left me completely for a while, then it returned in a slow motion fashion and I took ages to plough my way through the books that I was reading. It didn't help that for some reason I was determined to read books that I didn't think I really wanted to keep, purely in a bid to reduce numbers by the time we move home.

Now as any reasonably normal person will tell you, reading books that you don't think you are going to like reading is not a sure-fire way of encouraging any sort of reading mojo to return, so she hid away and my reading almost came to a standstill ... although it did mean that numerous books were donated to the charity book table in Booths mostly half read and not worth writing about.

So, in a bid to keep me on track I have switched to a new way to choose my reading material.  I am now having a few weeks of reading mostly fiction books and BIG books.  If they are fiction and BIG then even better.  I rarely keep fiction books once I have read them, it's easy for me to part with them as usually they have cost less than a pound to buy and they have to be really special to warrant a second reading.

And if they are BIG books they will take up more space in the boxes when I come to pack away all my treasured books, so they will really have to earn their keep.

So here are the books that I read in July.

One Good Thing by Alexandra Potter

I really enjoyed this book, a good story line that all made perfect sense and not too formulaic. 

  Fiction - Donated

 The Mysterious Bakery on the Rue de Paris

I took this book on our weekend away in July and enjoyed every page, it was a really good story.

 Fiction - Donated

Going Dutch by Katie Fforde

I really enjoyed this one, living right beside the canal as we do reading about boats, both narrow, wide-beam or Dutch barges is nearly always going to be interesting.  I'll miss the canal when we move.

 Fiction and Big - Donated

Simplicious Flow by Sarah Wilson

This was a really good book, but one that I read thoroughly when I bought it in 2019 and then again this month, but one that I really don't need to keep going forward.

Big - Donated

Now I know who to blame for making me take all my extra napkins home every time that we eat out.  😄

That's it for last month, lets see what August brings for my reading mojo, and I will definitely be concentrating on BIG books.  

Sue xx

I would like to point out, that although I provide links to Amazon for the books that I read each month, not all my books are bought from Amazon.  If they are, some of them were bought from the Used section rather than at full price.  You do not need to spend a fortune to read good books. 💖

I share the links so that you can learn more about the books that I write about for yourself, or read reviews from others that have read them.  Of course most of the books I talk about would also be available from your local library, and if you are very lucky you might even find them in charity or thrift shops. 

There are so many ways to bring books into your home if you love reading. 📚

My Second Shopping Trip of July

28th Aldi - £30.19

I guess with the holiday in the middle of the month and lots of being out and about, I've just not needed to replenish supplies until now.  So my shopping this month has been relatively cheap.  Just two trips up to now and both times to Aldi.

At the moment Alan is working hard at the bungalow each and every day. He's currently halfway through painting the whole place with two coats of brilliant white, and then he will be on to two coats of a lovely creamy colour in the main room and mine.  So while he is this busy I am making tea each night for the pair of us, and taking him a sandwich halfway through the day to keep his energy levels up.  Hopefully, this will start eating into the freezer stock in both our freezers and start to make a dent in the cupboard stock in mine ready for moving.

These things are what I would deem as my choices, although they are being used for both of us.

These are purely Alan's as I have really gone off seeded loaves, I can't eat cheese or chocolate and  I absolutely hate cherries ... or any fruit with a stone for that matter.  😬

We share a four pack of sparkling water once a month.

And here's the receipt for posterity. 😀

Sue xx

I'm Not a People Person

 

I do all of the above, and it makes me happy.  😀

I couldn't even tell you what the newest trends are, fashion-wise, home-wise, or reading-wise.  I love to get things second-hand, although for the past year or so, I've been selling not buying ... well apart from a few £1 books of course.

I don't know how old my phone is.  I know our contracts are up for renewal every couple of years and we nearly always say no to a new phone, and reiterate that we will stay on our SIM only contract.  Alan got a new phone a couple of years ago, but bought it outright rather than on a monthly payment scheme.  I've had mine for much longer than him, it works, I'm used to it, it does what I want it to do, and it's all that I need.

I bought my car new in 2017, it had high mileage for it's age when I used to drive backwards and forwards to Manchester from Wales every single week, or to Berkshire from Wales once a month.  But since we've lived here and I can't drive as far, the mileage has gone right down in comparison to it's age.  So ... it's staying with me until it's wheels drop off ... or something equally dramatic.  😄

And as you have seen, we are most definitely downsizing our home in the very near future.

We had another viewing last night, and once again because it was at 7pm we had to handle it ourselves.  We were expecting just one man, but he brought his family with him, his wife and two grown-up children, perfectly acceptable when they were viewing what could be a future family home, but it reinforced to me how much I am not that happy about having lots of people in the house ... especially ones that ask a million questions.

I think I am going to refuse to do any more viewings, it's about time the agents started earning their money.

Are you a real people person, or like me do you value your own company and just that of those closest to you?

Sue xx

 

The Biggest 'Snippet of Home' Ever on My Blog

 

Valuation done on Wednesday 22nd, photos, video and 360 degree imaging done on 23rd, paperwork signed off on 24th and our first viewing on 25th.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind, and much faster than we were expecting.

Grab a coffee and then click here to see  The actual agents details of our house.

I've added this extra link to Rightmove in case you need it.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/91304274?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

Now we have to crack on with the bungalow so that we will actually have somewhere to live if things carry on at this pace.

Sue xx

Added - Saturday 3pm.  I was just setting this post up for going live on Sunday ... and we have just had a full asking price offer from a family that needed the annexe for a very genuine reason, and we've accepted it!!

So our house will be off the market less than 24 hours after it went on.

Memories ... and Blog Posts

 

Isn't it nice when you are sorting through things, to find something that you haven't seen for ages that brings back happy memories. Clearing the decks ready for the photos of the house and annexe meant that I was going through some of my box files in a bid to make a bit of space in my few cupboards ... and I came across these two photos.

The top one is us not long after we got married taken outside my tiny little shop in Ulverston, Cumbria.  It would have been sometime early 2008, probably when I was just setting things up as I was still working for the Hospice when we got married in December 2007.  Yes, my neighbour was the Laurel and Hardy Museum when it was in it's old location, and next to them on the corner was The Chippy Bank, the best chip shop in Ulverston.

Don't ask me how many times I had a 'chip barm' for my dinner while I had the shop.  😁

 

Luckily this photo is clearly dated, or I wouldn't have had a clue.  

My Dad with the rest of his class in 1938.  He would have been seven years old then as his birthday was right at the end of the year ... he was born in 1930 ... so I don't know how their class numbering system worked.  It obviously had changed by the time I went to the same school in 1965 as I was in Class I at five.  I'm guessing it's something to do with school leaving ages, Dad left school at 14 and I left at 16.

Mum must have had trouble recognising him on the photo as she wrote his name under him.  💖

I'm getting really annoyed with Blogger again at the moment.  

Instead of updating the blogs in my sidebar, and on lots of other people's sidebars, and showing the title of the newest post that I, or they have written, it seems to be lagging far, far behind.  I am trying to get into the habit of clicking on the blog title and not the 'latest post', which is now frequently found not to be the latest post at all.  I am having to do a numerous day catch up every now and then as I just hadn't realised they had published a newer post.

Don't mess with my coffee or my blog reading.  😠

Sue xx

Hiding the Everyday

 

Seemingly these days when you are having photos taken for a house sale, you don't just hide the clutter, you have to hide the everyday!!

The house was valued yesterday, I'll tell you the result when I share the estate agents details with you, but don't worry you won't have to wait long, things are moving at the speed of a hungry leopard.  

As soon as the estate agent left our phones started pinging with forms to fill in, instructions of what paperwork we needed and instructions from the photographer, videographer and social media wizard on what we should do to prepare for the photos being taken later on today.

You are advised to put away anything but the main component parts of each room, so that any viewers can imagine their things and themselves in your space.  I am now of the opinion that some people have very little imagination. 😄

We got up early and started almost immediately, now I can't find anything!!

Happily you are 'allowed' to leave a kettle out.

It did spur me on to finally remove the two Winter jackets that were still hanging by the front door though. 😁

Pet food bowls and all traces of animals are to be removed, but we won't do that until ten minutes before they are due to arrive ... we don't want to upset Ginger.  Cars have to be off the driveway or off-road parking area, but we won't do that until just before they come ... we don't want to annoy the neighbours.

  All the paraphernalia off my desk and from the bathroom is in the boot of my car along with a myriad of other things.  Happily I know where my glasses and my current book are, but I am not sure what to have for my lunch, it will have to be something very simple, as all the bits and bobs from the kitchen have been stashed away into the drawers, so no pans are accessible.

It will be nice to get back to normal, still tidy ready for viewings but just more normal.

Have you moved home recently and were you instructed to do all this?

Sue xx

How Much Are We Worth?

 

It's been a bit chaotic here over the last few days.

Ever since we got back off our little weekend away we have been sorting out, cleaning up and generally getting our current house ready to go on the market.  Some corners like this one at my front door were an easy clean and an easy fix.  Alan pulled my big SMEG fridge freezer away from the wall, and I cleaned behind it and quickly put it back in place, the rest of this area just needed a little clean, so it was a satisfying job to do.

At the opposite side a bit more was needed as my little 'desk' area will be shown as more of a breakfast bar for the estate agents photos.  It's been satisfying to do, but bitty and tiring.

We have managed to find quite a few things to add to Facebook Market place, including my printer as we will only need one when we move, and Alan's large Vax carpet cleaner ... once he had finished cleaning all his carpets of course.  😄

Of course as is usually the way with things, Alan's middle floor toilet decided to start leaking and he needed a washer. Only these days you can't generally buy just a washer, you have to buy a whole new set of innards for the toilet.  So what used to be a 20p fix turns into a £16 set of new component parts. 

 That's just one of the reasons I tried so hard to keep the original toilet from the bungalow. 😒

The estate agent is coming round tomorrow to look everything over and give us a valuation, that should be very interesting ... I wonder how much we are worth?

Sue xx

A Slow Cool Sunday Start

 

I'm just into a lovely cool, slow Sunday morning start.  

It's currently 8.45am as I am typing this, the first load of washing is out on the line and the machine is just finishing the second.  The doors are all open and a lovely cool breeze is gently taking the heat of the night out of the annexe.

It's easy to understand the oft repeated phrase 'deliciously cool' when it's like this.

After pegging out the first bit of washing, I took time to look at the garden.  It's a bit rag taggle at the moment.  Nothing perfect or Instagram worthy, but then it doesn't need to be.

We have enough vegetables to add to our meals, there are so many Spring Onions in this little bed, a few Romaine lettuces, some chives and some thyme.  Everything else went to seed during the hot dry spell and while we were away.

We have two cucumbers that are crying out to be picked, and two of the courgette plants are finally starting to produce sweet little courgettes,

We seem to be in our 'shades of yellow' period in the garden at the moment.

The Crocosmia are really overcrowded this year, so I will be putting some in a pot to take with us.

A little Aldi purchase that is waiting to go into the raised bed to fill a gap.

The water for the birds ... and Ginger ... is so clear after Alan spent half a day pressure washing everything that you can't even tell it's there. 😊

Well the machine has finished so it's time to fill up the washing line, have my second breakfast and then we will be hitting the road to go and visit Mum.

I hope you are having a gloriously warm, or deliciously cool day wherever you are.

Happy Sunday. 

Sue xx

A Much Needed Break - Part Two

I took two books away with me, but just about managed to get through this one, it was a really good read and I really enjoyed it. 

It was the perfect holiday book in fact.

While I read my book Alan sat and soaked up the rays, or read through the three newspapers he bought.  It's funny, but the only time he buys newspapers is when we are on holiday.

Sundays afternoon entertainment was a Westlife tribute act.  Although I was never really that into Westlife, they did sing the songs really well and sounded very authentic.

After a little bit more outside time it was time to go and get changed for the evening meal and the evening entertainment.

On Sunday night it was a Spice Girls tribute act.  They weren't bad, but they were possibly the worst of all the tribute acts we saw over the weekend.

Then it was time to retire, and have a final night in our lovely spacious, air-conditioned room.

Now that we are home, it's time to get our current house tidied, sorted and all ready to be photographed for going on the market at the start of next month.  We have managed to get through virtually all of our savings doing the work that we have done already on the bungalow, so it's imperative that we try and get a quick sale and replenish the coffers.

As always after a holiday of any length, I am so glad to be back home, in my own bed, with my own things all around me ... even if I do have to cook and wash pots.  😄

Sue xx