Calendars and Coffees

 

Contentment by Lucy Almey-Bird

This is my November calendar page, oh it's a long time since we had four dogs and a cat sprawled out all over a cosy living room.

I do love turning the calendar over to a fresh new month, no scribbles of dates for workmen, solicitors or appointments to do with Mum, it's like a new start and always a very welcome one.  There are just two things already written on the month, the date the cleaners are coming in and the date we are moving.  These are set in stone and we are working hard to meet both deadlines.

Talking of calendars, Alan bought me the Emma Bridgewater Advent calendar when we spotted it in Booths last week, they always sell out so quickly.  Online I also purchased my yearly Jacquie Lawson calendar at the weekend.  It's always well worth the £8 cost, I'm still playing the games from last years and I have all the previous years saved on my computer.  

This year it's set in the Lake District, with The Bridge House being just one of the very recognisable features on the main page.

The end of October snuck up on us so quickly, and we just about managed to go and grab our free coffees at Burnside garden centre on Saturday morning.  Drunk alongside a very nice cooked breakfast, it was a very civilised way to see out one month, and get ourselves ready to welcome the next one in.

Sue xx

Catching up on Shopping Posts, and Back to Riverford

The final shopping of September which with one thing and another slipped under the radar, leaving the photo trapped in my camera, it cost me £19.54.  My shopping seems slightly different at the moment while I am making Alan a packed lunch every day, and cooking an evening meal for us both to eat together.  He supplies the meatier parts of his meals and I do everything else.   As you can see from this photo, this is the last of my shopping photos that will include Ginger's little treats, he needed these for me to be able to put his medicine on.  He was very good at taking it twice a day.

Unfortunately, we had stocked up on all his treats, his favourite foods and two giant bags of his favourite 'posh' cat litter in the days before his sudden death.  This has all now been donated to our local animal rescue centre in Lancaster.  They were very grateful, as they were when we took all the dogs items last year.  It's nice to think of everything being put to good use.

Here's the receipt for the shopping for future perusal.  😄

My first shopping of October was a simple loaf of bread from Booths, after we had stopped in there for a coffee.  Then I picked up two boxes of paracetamol from Aldi while I walked around with Alan, I didn't need anything else.

I didn't buy that much more on my next trip to Aldi on 2nd October, spending just £10.56.

I did add two tins of peach slices to the trolley after taking that photo, it was taking the photo that reminded me I hadn't picked them up.  

The receipt.

I won't be needing much, or even any, shopping from the supermarket this week either as we have just started with our Riverford veg boxes again, after taking the Summer off to enjoy our homegrown crops.

I was tempted to start again this week for two reasons.  Firstly without Ginger's diet to be catered for we suddenly have an extra £25 a week in the housekeeping kitty, and there is currently an offer of a free chopping board that's worth £22.50, and mine is looking a bit dodgy at the moment.  So I jumped at the chance.

This cauliflower is HUGE.

 I don't know how they managed to cram it into the small box that I ordered for this week, I know I couldn't get it back in after getting it out to check things over ... and it won't fit into the fridge at all.  I have now persuaded Alan to share some some cauliflower cheese with me for our tea to use half of it up and so that I can make the rest of fit onto a fridge shelf. 😁

The new chopping board is lovely, and once it is oiled it will be ready for action.  Just wiping it over with a damp cloth as was suggested, showed off the lovely grain of the wood.

My instructions.  💚

To bring my spend up to the required amount to get the chopping board I completed the rest of my shopping for this week.  So Aldi is going to miss me completely for a week.  I needed some milk, so I thought I would try this Oat milk, it's been a while since I've had oat milk.  I used to make my own, but there's something so beautifully creamy about carefully made professional oat milk, so I thought a treat was in order.  I also chose some eggs and hummus as my choices and Alan asked for a pack of Pork and Apple sausages.  They look so like the ones we used to produce, it was a real blast from the past when I pulled them out of their cool box.

As the delivery was first thing in the morning I was even hungrier by the time that I had unpacked everything so, I used  one of the Cavolo Nero leaves in my lovely buttery scrambled eggs ... it just had to be done.  

If you would like to take advantage of the chopping board offer while it is still on you can use this LINK and enter the code CHOPTOIT at the checkout, hopefully my referral link and the code will work together, if not this will at least give you £15 off your second order with Riverford.

Now I'm off to start prepping a cauliflower cheese.  

Sue xx

Shopping ... and Blogger Comment Problems

 

3rd September - Sainsbury's - £42.77

This shopping is looking very different from my usual photos as I broke all the shopping rules.  I went shopping hungry, I had forgotten to make a list and I just wandered around trying to remember what I actually needed ... cheese, bread and deodorant.  So there were far too many treats, and my main excuse is that I was hungry by the time I got to the supermarket after delivering Alan his lunch at the bungalow, hence all the little treats for me, but hey ... I will most definitely enjoy them over the course of the coming week.  

I also got Alan's chocolate bars for his lunchtime puddings for next week and some chocolate cream eclairs as a treat for last night.  My man is feeling very tired and in need of treats at the moment.  The chicken is for Ginger, he has a little fresh chicken with every meal now, he's worth it. 😸

  I did manage to stay inside my current £50 a week budget, but there's not a lot of actual meals there is there.  Thank goodness for the freezer and cupboard stocks which I need to work through anyway.

A lot of what I bought was on offer in one way or another, so it was a good shop really.  I also treated myself to the Radio Times as there is usually a lot of the dramas that suddenly appear on the television at this time of year and I wanted to see what was going to be available to either watch or record.

Another convincer to buy it was this card.  

So I immediately scanned the QR code when I got home to see if I could get the offer, the small print had said I couldn't as a former subscriber, but it all went though straight away.  So instead of paying the cover price which is currently £5.75 ... gulp!!  I will get ten issues for just £1 each and then I can cancel it if I want to.

 Scan it from here if you want to make use of it too.

I apologise for not being able to leave any comments on all the blogs that I read daily, and I understand if you too are unable to leave comments on my blog.  But Blogger in it's wisdom is playing up yet again.  I have reported the problem ... we'll see what happens.

Sue xx

Rounding Off August - Freebies and Shopping

 

4th  Barton Grange Garden Centre

We ate or just drank out more than either of us thought we had during August.  But almost every time I managed to bring something home with us to add to the 'freebie stash'.  We only bring home things that we have picked up thinking that we will use them with our drink or meal, and never ever take from the 'help yourself' pots on café or restaurant tables.

The things that I bring home would be swept into the bin by the person clearing the table after we have left if I didn't take them.  I have seen it done far too often for my liking.  I do not believe in waste.

8th  Burnside Garden Centre

We get two free coffees a month at this garden centre.

14th  Dobbie's Garden Centre

We also get two free coffees at this one.

14th Also Dobbie's Garden Centre

Alan did not get the meal that I thought he was getting, so we didn't need the mayonnaise that he would normally have used.

15th  Ralphy's Café in Morecambe

We went for breakfast here, you always get a little biscuit with your coffee which is really nice, a lot of cafés have stopped doing this now, but we did not want to spoil our appetite for the food before it arrived.

16th  Rivington Services

I got a free coffee on my Greggs app, you buy nine and get your tenth cup free.  These add up quite quickly as we stop here on our way home from visiting Mum, so we're usually there twice a week ... it's our 'decompression zone'.

26th  Barton Grange Garden Centre

We went for lunch here, the salad came drenched in a very tangy dressing ... far too much dressing in both our opinions ... so the mayonnaise wasn't actually needed.

29th  Booths Café

A tasty pit stop for a bacon bun for Alan and a coffee for me.

30th  Rivington Services

There were no napkins at Greggs, so Alan walked over to the Burger King outlet and picked some up, also getting some salt and ketchup for his chicken nibbles and sausage roll.

30th  Rivington Services

However, there were doughnuts at Greggs so I picked up the free one that I was owed.  😁

31st Booths

And finally, this morning we had a very early lunch.  Alan didn't buy the coffee that I thought he was getting so the sugars were superfluous.

Barton Grange - 26th - £3.29

The only shopping that I have done this week was to buy some bread rolls from the garden centre.  We go to Barton Grange regularly as rather strangely, it is the cheapest place to buy Ginger's preferred cat food.

We are both trying not to shop too much as we want to whittle our food supplies down a bit ready for moving in a couple of months.  Which is a bit opposite to what a lot of people are currently doing after the Government has seemingly issued instructions that every household in England should hold more supplies for 'emergencies'.  Maybe once the kitchen has been fully installed we can start moving some food over and see exactly what we have.  I'm sure two more weeks won't make too much of a difference.

Well, I hope two weeks won't make too much of a difference!!

Sue xx

A Shopping Catch Up Post - and a Warning

 

Just a catch up post of the shopping that I have bought since my last shopping post.  Time seems to be running away with us at the moment and I have fallen a bit behind.

19th  Sainsbury's - £43 exact

I spent quite a bit on this shopping trip last week, but I treated myself to a new travelling coffee cup while they were on offer, and some hair dye, also on offer ... which I have still not round to using yet.  The Linda McCartney meat free products were all on special offer '3 for the price of 2' so I was careful to choose three products that were all the same price.  I'm not falling for that get the cheapest one free malarky!! 😄

And ... as you will notice my favourite toilet rolls were back on a reduced price offer, it was good timing as my last rolls were just about to run out so I bought a pack of those as well. 

As well as buying my things I got a couple of things for Alan which are also on that receipt.  I've been picking up a few things for him each time I go out while he's been so busy at the bungalow.

The receipt for posterity. 

Aldi - 22nd - £13.83

Going to the shops twice in a few days meant that I really didn't need much at weekend when Alan was going for his main shop.  So I just got the things that I had run out of and a little treat of a bunch of simple flowers.

The receipt.

The 'warning' that I mention in the title of this post is about the blogs listed on my, and many other people's sidebars.  Blogger in it's annoyingness is more often than not failing to update when a new post is published.  So you may see the name of a blog that you follow on my sidebar and see from the title that it's a post that you have already read the previous day or earlier.  BUT ... .if you click on the blog name rather than the post title it will more often than not take you to a brand new post that hasn't yet been updated by blogger.

It's a frustrating thing if you just quickly scan the list and think that you have nothing new to read, when in fact there are lots of available posts just waiting to be discovered.

If you read my, or anyone else's blog on your phone, you can get to see the blog list by scrolling to the bottom of any post and clicking on 'View Web Version', then you will be able to view blogs as though you are on your laptop or main computer.

I hope this helps.

Sue xx

Shopping and Shopping Bags

 

My little black fold-up bag is probably one of the hardest working things I have owned for years.  

I bought it way back in 2013 when we first moved to North Wales and I shopped regularly in Marks and Spencer in Llandudno.  I had simply forgotten my shopping bag one day and didn't want to buy a plastic carrier bag, so a reusable bag that was actually made from recycled plastic and sold at the checkouts seemed like a very good idea.  It used to tell me all this information on the bag, but after thirteen years of constant use the words have faded as has the logo for M&S.

Anyway it came with me yesterday, as it always does, to Aldi and held all this shopping with ease.

14th - Aldi - £16.97

Once again my shopping included some things I don't usually buy, as some of them were for Alan's lunches ... not the Tasty Licks I hasten to add, they are most definitely for Ginger.🐱

Once the bag was unpacked, my bag was refolded and is now happily living in my handbag until next time.

11th - Booths - £52.96

A couple of days earlier I had shopped at Booths for some things we needed and some treats. The shopping was away and in the cupboard and fridge before I even though of taking a photo, so once again there is just a photo of the receipt for posterity. It's proving to be much more expensive to shop for both of us for two meals a day ... especially when there is a hard working man begging for treats.  

 But it's not a problem, he deserves them all.  😄

Sue xx

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

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