Get on yer bike!

Ever since I was little I've always had a bike, I prefer cycling to walking any day.
 In one place we lived I cycled with two children on the bike. The little 2 year old fella on a seat on the back and the 4 year old daughter on an adapted crossbar seat between me and the handle bars. Often M would fall asleep and I'd be biking one handed with a hand behind me propping him up. This was done 2 miles to playschool and back simply because we couldn't afford the petrol for the car - Happy Days!
 For many years here we had just one vehicle which Him Outside used for work everyday, so it was either cycle the 2 and a half miles to Saxmundham or Leiston or stay at home. Since he packed up full time work  I've not been biking so regularly because he was often going to the builders merchants, garage etc I would go along with him and get the shopping. This summer it's been his endless trips to doctors that have made cycling to town unnecessary and my bike has only been used for the once a month trip to the library van. I've really missed getting on my bike.

So as things in the garden and campsite are slowing down and I had a bit more time I dusted it down and cycled  to Leiston for the bank, building society and to get some milk. The weather was lovely and I saw all the things that you don't spot when driving.Now I'm back on my bike I hope to carry on all through the Autumn.
(Though  it will be a while before I catch up to my friend A in a village in Essex. When they took on an allotment 6 miles away from their house they started cycling there everyday and reckon to have cycle 1000 miles in less than a year. Wow!)

And while I was in town look what a bargain I found in the Hospice charity shop

Crocs - the smallholders best friend apart from wellies. Proper Crocs not the cheap thin imitations that let thorns through. My size and only £3 you won't believe how quick I was into the shop after spotting them in the window!

Look over there on the right- I'm now up to 66 followers ( not counting bloglovin followers), I'd love to reach 100 by Christmas so click on and follow. Welcome to new followers and lovely to see new folk leaving a comment. I don't always get around to replying individually for which I apologise, it's because I'm always in a rush to get on with the new days blog. So much to tell you!
Back tomorrow with lots of news about the Suffolk Smallholders Society.

The problem with Pink Plums

Thank you to both the Pams, Retro Wren,Gill, Judy Y and Buttercup for yesterdays comments and thank you for knowing that everything I say shouldn't be taken too seriously.

The dire warnings by the weathermen about the first gale of the Autumn season meant that we rushed around this morning( bright sunshine and no wind) to get everything done outside. Including picking some of our delicious eating plums to put out for sale and into the freezer. The problem with these plums - and after 20 years, I'm still not entirely sure what variety they are - is that they don't keep once picked for more than a day or two and they fall off the tree really easily once they are ripe. So it may be that come tomorrow there will be lots on the ground. That will please the chickens as I will pick up as many as I can and throw them into the chicken run. IF we get some good sunny days the orchard floor will be a mass of butterflies feasting on the fallen plums - a wonderful sight.

This was the photo from a few weeks back before they were ripe

I now have the official status of the other plums, they are NOT Damsons. According to our neighbour, Damson stones are round ( like the stones of greengages) which means our Damsons are plums! Cooking plums most definitely as they are horribly sharp. It's many years since we had a decent crop and I had forgotten that she had told us this before and I've labelled them as "cooking plums" in the past. We sold several bags of them on the stall and then a caravanner who was here last week asked if we would save about 10lb for them to take home with them for chutney and plum gin! So they went home on Thursday with a couple of bags full and it sounds as if they will have a VERY Merry Christmas!

I'm with Marie at Go Milk The Cow blog when she says that everything is slowing down which makes for a quieter more relaxed time on a smallholding. Although I don't really look forward to the coldness of winter I quite like the preparations, the storing away of food, the sorting out of gloves and  wooly hats, knowing there will be more time for reading and crafting. I also like knowing that I won't have to join in that mad crazy world which is the commercialisation of Christmas and knowing that we will be warmed by free wood - even if I do get driven to despair by the dust.
So if later today we do have gales and heavy rain. I'm ready.

September Saturday

Lots of rain during the night, more than we have had for three and a half months and still raining through the early part of the morning. So we decided it was just right for getting in the poly tunnels and having a good sort out. Weeds were removed and tipped in the chicken run, loads of dead leaves from tomato plants were put on the trailer for burning and all sorts of other bits were added to the compost bin. A bucket full of squishy or damaged tomatoes will be fed to the new chickens over the next few days. So a really good mornings work.

I had a cancellation from people due on the campsite - put off by the weather forecast and a campervan booked in for three nights decided just to pay for one and then go home - again due to the weather. There is a caravan due to arrive tomorrow for a week, I'm now wondering if they too will cancel.

Looking through new posts on my regular blog reading list I saw Frugal Queen had one titled" What have you done financially lately?". She has suggested that everyone takes a look at 10 areas of spending and tries to reduce them.
 It  made me smile when I realised that there was really nothing in her list that had any relevance to us at all. Her ideas were
1. Check you mobile phone contract.  WE HAVE PAY AS YOU GO = £10  now and again
2.Paying for watching dozens of TV channels? NO
3.Make sure you get points for petrol. THIS IS ONLY RELEVANT IF YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU HAVE THAT CHOICE.
4.Don't spend supermarket rewards on food, swap them for other things. THIS IS ONLY RELEVANT IF YOU HAVE LOTS AND ACTUALLY NEED CLOTHES, AIR MILES ETC
5.Share transport to work. WE WORK AT HOME
6.Sell surplus stuff on ebay. TRY NOT TO BUY SURPLUS STUFF IN THE FIRST PLACE
7. Cut car costs by finding a reliable garage.TRY TO DO REPAIRS AND SERVICING AT HOME
8.Swap Energy companies.FEW ARE INTERESTED IF YOU ARE NOT DUEL FUEL. FREE WOOD ANYWAY!
9.Pay off credit card debts. WE DON'T HAVE ANY DEBT.
10.Stock-take food cupboards.I ALREADY  KNOW WHAT'S THERE.

Just confirms what I thought. We ARE frugal! I'm a  Smug B****r too!
   
WE DON'T GO OUT TO WORK

What a pong!

Welcome to two new followers - Meg and The Squirrel family.

It's been a smelly day here today as they have been spreading chicken muck on the field all around us. I've mentioned before that we have a big farming company farming all the fields near us after the man who used to farm them retired  last year. They have different ways of doing things and MUCH bigger machinery. I don't remember the other bloke doing muck spreading anywhere. I guess he just relied on chemicals.

I was picking tomatoes ready for putting out for sale this morning when I realised that if I didn't do green tomato chutney soon there wouldn't be any green tomatoes left to use. Green tomato chutney is so much easier than any chutney using red tomatoes as you don't have to remove the skins. So 5lb of green tomatoes have been chopped, along with a pound of onions and both have been put in a big bowl and sprinkled with a couple of tablespoons of salt. The bowl has been covered and then tomorrow I shall get on and finish it.

A while back I said we had a pointy pepper disaster as what should have been sweet peppers seemed to be really hot - more like giant chillies. Well, I tried the odd one off some of the plants and they were as sweet as they should be, so we were really confused. I didn't dare sell them as sweet red peppers in case they were hot and I couldn't sell them as hot peppers if they weren't. So there they have been sitting getting redder with me wondering what to do. Today I decided I had to sort things out and brought in  one ripe red pepper from each plant - one at a time, cut it, taste a tiny bit and if it was sweet I  would cut it into slices and pop them in a bag and put in the freezer and if they were hot chilli type I would at least be able to know which plants were which. I tried one pepper from the first 7 plants and they are all normal sweet delicious pointy red peppers.So now I have 4 large bags of sliced pepper in the freezer and I'm nearly as confused as I was before. I still have to try one pepper from the last 5 plants - will one of them be really hot or are we going mad? Were they hot early on and have now turned sweet?  Another mystery.

Talking about mysteries. Do you remember The Mystery of The Missing Postbox, the one at the end of our road which " got demolished". Well, according to a bit in the freebie paper I picked up the other day we are not the only ones to lose our postbox. Two more have been stolen from other villages around us. What a weird world we live in! Our MP has been roped in to try to get the one that was nicked in the village of Blaxhall replaced. So I might have to contact her and see what she can do for us.

And finally here it is - this months heap of borrowed books collected from the library van today.

I'm a bit puzzled as I've had some of them before, so not sure why they got themselves re-ordered and have turned up again. The mobile library only stops for 15 minutes in Friston so there is not a lot of time to sort out any problems and it isn't long enough for the driver to get the satellite dish up and running  to check the computer for any queries. So I just brought the whole lot home. Most of these I had pre-ordered via t'internet and a few came from the library van shelves. I also collected a bag full almost as big as this for Him Outside. Good job the wind blew my bike up the hill on the way home!

 After all the discussion about Jamie Olivers' programmes on "cheap" cooking I thought I ought to borrow the book and see what all the fuss is about as I have no intention of watching it.
Very few fiction there to read so I may have to resort to my bookshelves here  which shouldn't be a problem.
What would this lot cost if I had bought them? about £220!! Thank goodness for the library van and the free ordering system we have here in Suffolk. Borrowing books from the library is one of our best ways of being frugal.

When I'm cleaning windows

Anyone over forty-five will remember Windowlene. A thick pink stuff that was rubbed onto windows and then rubbed off again to get them clean. I think it was the only thing available at the time. I hate cleaning windows and I'm sure it was because my Mum, who was extremely houseproud, was often window cleaning and we would be inside the house telling her where the smeary bits were and then she would spend ages going in and out trying to get rid of all the Windowlene marks. So boring!
Cleaning the house windows has always been my job and I would have started out with Windowlene, and  moved onto a spray stuff when that became available. I've tried all sorts of things over the years but now I just use hot water and white vinegar and lots of old rags.
Anyway, I'd put off doing them as long as possible so got on with it after doing other jobs this morning. Him Outside came home after finishing the field rolling job and volunteered to do the insides while I was outside- he can reach across the kitchen worktops easier than I can. As I had help I carried on all around the downstairs outside, so he had to as well! He reckoned it was the hardest physical work he had done since he came home from hospital - poor old thing! As for the upstairs windows, they will have to wait a while longer.

First thing this morning I got on with some more preserving. This time I made 4 jars of Marrow and Ginger jam, and also made 2 loaves of bread. Home made bread and jam what could be better. At lunchtime I had a look at the blogs I read and there was Karen at Chelmarsh Chunterings also making bread and jam yesterday, strange coincidence.

My way of making Marrow and ginger jam differs from any recipe I've seen, putting bits of two recipes together- I do that a lot with jam and chutney making.

Marrow and Ginger Jam
3lb Marrow flesh cubed. ( Chickens will love the middle seedy bit and the skin)
Ginger. - Can be a piece of root ginger grated, 2 tsp ground ginger or some stem ginger preserved in syrup whichever you want.
2lb Gran sugar
Either the juice of a lemon or few tablespoons of bottled lemon juice.
1 sachet of pectin

Cover the marrow cubes with water, bring to boil  and then cook gently until they are starting to go soft and translucent. About 10 - 15 minutes.
Tip into a colander and leave to drain well for several minutes.
Into a preserving pan put 3/4 pint water, lemon juice and the sugar and heat gently until sugar is dissolving.
Add the strained marrow and cook until thickened. Keep stirring frequently as there is not much liquid.
I usually mash the marrow cubes up a bit as I'm cooking it rather than leave cubes.
Add sachet of pectin and boil for 4 more minutes.
Pot into sterilised jars and cover.

There are variations to this. Like using preserving sugar, grated zest of lemon and rest of lemon cooked in a muslin bag in the jam, instead of a sachet of pectin. Also one recipe where you use more water, the cubes are left quite big and then strained out into the jars with a slotted spoon. Then the remaining liquid is boiled hard to reduce and poured over the cubes in the jars.
I've had years when this has gone a bit mouldy.  It needs keeping in the fridge once opened.
Just realised that as this only makes 4 jars there is half a pound of sugar in each jar!

  This afternoon we sat out catching the lovely sunshine for half an hour but I got driven nuts by the noise of a loud whining tractor ploughing over the road. He then went off to pick up chicken feed before going to the first farm sale of the Autumn. It's unusual to have a sale starting at 4.30pm, I don't think there was anything we wanted up for sale but he will look for smallholder stuff going cheap which we can sell on via the Suffolk Smallholders Newsletter.

It's supposed to be very hot tomorrow and we've just heard that there might be muck spreading on the field all around us. That should be nice and smelly- we may have to go out!

 

How we budget on the Simple Suffolk Smallholding.

This is the post that escaped onto the blog before it was finished. Apologies to anyone who read it, commented and then found it gone. Now it is finally finished and allowed out!

This is NOT a HOW TO DO IT budget, it is how WE budget.

 It is the way we do things now that we are both self employed, have paid off the mortgage, have no debts and only ourselves to worry about.
When Him Outside had a salary and when we had a mortgage and  3 children at home we did things differently.
Everybody is different! 

Budgeting is easy. All you have to do is spend less than you earn!

 Some people do, perhaps in the minority nowadays. The others end up juggling credit cards or living with  debt.

But what about when you can't be sure what you will earn each month . It means you have to be even more canny with your money when you have a good month.
Our theory is that each month we have to earn enough to cover the next months expenditure. In a good month( usually in summer) money can be saved to use in the bad months of winter.

Everything  is divided by 12 to work out how much we need each month, some are set up as monthly direct debits.

The items marked * are the things that can be reduced, checked, altered so that we don't have to go without all the things in the last list.

The first part of the  budget is to have enough for the things that are most important, things that involve bailiffs or fines or being cut off if you don't pay them.
These are

• Council Tax 
• Water Bill
• Electricity Bill*
• TV License

( Until we paid off the mortgage it would have been top of this list)

Then there are things that we are required to have to be able to do things legally

• Public Liability and Business Insurance for campsite and smallholding
• Jeep Insurance*
• Jeep MOT 
• Jeep Tax
• Campsite  electric test and inspection

The things we need to pay for to be able to earn an income

• Chicken Feed
• Buying new Point of lay hens
• Buying egg boxes
• Phone and computer*
• Diesel for the jeep*
• Diesel for the tractor
• Petrol for the mower and chainsaw
• Campsite requisites*
• Seeds for growing vegetables*
• Replacing smallholding equipment *
• Rent for the hay fields

Things we need for a normal everyday life

• Food and drink*
• Clothes and shoes*
• Personal Hygiene etc *
• Cleaning and Laundry *
• Pre-payment prescription cards 
• Saving for dentist and opticians

• Bottled gas for the hob* 
• Coal to keep the Rayburn in overnight*
• Birthday and Christmas gifts for family*

 Things that could be gone without but we choose not to

• House and contents insurance

If there is enough for all the above then we put into savings

• Money for the winter months
• Money for occasional expenses like septic tank pump out.
• Money to cover replacement household appliances etc
• Savings for the unexpected

And finally the  things that make life enjoyable but which could be managed without  if things get tough. This last list is, in a way, the most important. Because we want to be able to do these things, we look for ways to keep all the other amounts that need spending down to a minimum

• Things for the garden but not for growing food
• Bird feeding
• Craft materials and hobbies
• Days out and holidays and Christmas treats
• Books 
• Charity donations

This is what we save on to afford that last list

Council Tax is fixed and paid by direct debit.

Water for the house is fixed based on old rates so not too expensive and paid by direct debit.. We have no sewer charges. ( septic tank drainage)
Water for smallholding and campsite are metered and we get 2 bills a year. We catch as much rainwater as we can for garden but we can't restrict what the campers use. So part of the campsite pitch fees must cover water.
Electric. With the Hook-ups and shower on the campsite plus normal household electric, this is a big bill twice a year but we can keep it lower when the campsite is closed by doing all the usual stuff like turning things off  etc. So a smaller bill in the other 2 quarters. We also installed solar thermal for heating water to stop us needing the immersion in summer when the Rayburn is not lit. Part of the campsite pitch fees must cover electric.
TV licence is fixed so needs saving for each month.


Public Liability and Business Insurance We have to have this for the campsite and smallholding. Not many companies do it for our small scale so we use the NFU. We do this by monthly Direct Debit.
Jeep. I've mentioned before about this blinkin' expensive annoying thing. At the moment we are stuck with it so it has to be budgeted for. We shop around for insurance, it's cheap now we are old!
Campsite Electrical Test and Inspection. This is a once a year check and we can't run the campsite without the certificate.

Chicken feed, buying new Point of lay hens and egg boxes. Egg sales are one of our best sources of income so the price that we sell eggs for has to cover all these things and make a profit. We do get some egg boxes returned but some are too yucky to use again. so we bulk buy egg boxes.
Phone and Computer Some campsite bookings come via email and many bargains found on internet. We try to keep phone costs down by using email. We just have cheap pay as you go mobiles.
Diesel and Petrol. Money needs saving for fuel for jeep, ( we try to do several errands at the same time when we are out, to save diesel) for the mower to keep campsite cut and for the  chainsaw that provides our winter fuel.
Campsite requisites are things like toilet roll, paper towels, cleaning stuff. I bulk buy paper towels from Viking when they are on offer.
Seeds and plants for vegetables I save money on seeds by checking prices and number  of seeds  in packets from catalogues and searching out any special offers. We grow things we like and things that sell easily.
Replacing smallholding equipment Him Outside goes to farm sales and looks on ebay for things we need for the smallholding, he repairs and rebuilds whenever he can.
Rent for the hayfields doesn't have to be paid until after we have sold some hay.


Food and Drink We hardly ever eat out and only have an occasional take-away. I bake and make from scratch most of the time, but we don't go without things we like.
Clothes and shoes I avoid going anywhere that requires good clothes! Lots of things come from charity shops. Shoe spending is high for me because of foot problems.
Personal Stuff. We cut each others hair, use cheap soap etc. I don't bother with makeup.
Cleaning and Laundry I use Ecover liquids in very small amounts for washing machine ( with soda crystals added) and washing up. Vinegar, washing up liquid and bicarb  for most cleaning. Old tea towels  etc for cleaning cloths and dusters. Open windows for fresh air, line dry washing or over the Rayburn. Our VERY hard water here means that some cleaning needs something stronger like Harpic for the loo.
Health we use a prepayment prescription card to save money and save up for dentist and optician visits.
Bottled gas for the hob and coal We found a cheaper place to get the gas and only use coal when the weather is very cold to keep the Rayburn in overnight. Other heating is by wood, almost always free.
Christmas and birthday gifts. I save all year for birthday and Christmas presents for our children and their partners. We've stopped doing birthday gifts for other family members. Christmas presents for extended family are bought all year around when I see things that might be good. I try really hard to think of things people will find useful, I hate to waste money on useless stuff. I make chutneys to give as gifts.
House Insurance . I wouldn't want to be without this.

Savings. Life is much easier with some money saved. Savings earn interest which is even better.
As we never know what will happen next month, let alone next year we rely on these savings for the
expected bills and the unexpected.

By being frugal on some things we can afford to feed the birds, buy an occasional magazine or a cheap book from  Amazon, have some special food at Christmas, buy some craft things for card making, buy a shrub or tree for the garden, have a holiday every other year, have afternoons doing nothing in the summer, have trips out to visit car boot sales, do a tour of charity shops in a different town or to visit charity book sales. And to make a couple of small regular charity donations.

Our way of life would be much too boring for many people but it suits us.

Is Buying from Approved Food Cost Effective?

I expect this has been talked about before on frugal blogs, but being new to both blogging and Approved Foods I would have  missed out on any conclusions that anyone else has come to.
So my tuppence worth- for discussion!

 Today, as I was doing Septembers Tesco shop, 4 days early so as to use a £6 off £40 voucher, I looked at their prices of some of the things I had got from my very first order with Approved foods. My main reason from ordering from them was the Hovis Bread Flour 3kg bags at just 50p each. A proper bargain. The flour was limited to 4 bags per person and as the minimum order is £15 I obviously had to find more things I wanted to buy.
Delivery is £5.25 so buying £20 worth of stuff means that for each £1 worth bought you need to add 26p ( Hope I've got my maths right otherwise I'll look a right plonker!)  Obviously if you buy £40 worth of things then you only need to add 13p to each £1 worth bought.
 So two Blue Dragon Stir-fry Mixes which were 2 for £1 are really £1.26. In Tesco they are 65p each, so £1.30. Saving just 4p. But then you have to think about the costs of getting to Tesco. Getting complicated.

I usually make biscuits, we like one with our afternoon cuppa, but don't always get time to bake them so I've often got a packet of shop ones in the cupboard, just in case. We've tried value packs from various places, mostly pretty disgusting - very dusty tasting. When we go to Ipswich I usually get some Foxes brand from Poundland, but we haven't been to Ipswich for months. So as AF had Elkes triple packs of malted milk,custard cream and Nice for £1.50.( £1.89 with the delivery) Total of 550g in the 3 packs, and I happened to know that Elkes is a brand name of Foxes or vice-verse, thought they would be good quality, and they are very tasty. Can I make 550g of biscuits for £1.89? Yes I should think so. Maybe not a good buy then.

Then the carrot cake mix that I mentioned in yesterdays blog at 4 for £1. So that's 4 boxes for £1.26 or 32p a box. Add an egg ( free eggs here as we eat the ones we can't sell), 3oz butter and a squirt of lemon juice = total of about 66p a box which if baked in square tins and cut into 12 cakes means the cakes are 5 and a half p each not counting the cooking. Can I make a cake for that from scratch ? - doubtful. Of course it would have been a different thing entirely had the mixes tasted nasty!

Tins of mandarins were 8 for £1. Or 8 for £1.26 if you add delivery. So that's a fraction under 16p each, which is still cheaper than the 19p I paid at Tesco when I last noted the price down in April.      ( AF reckoned the RRP was £1 tin which is way above the price any sane person would pay for a small tin of broken mandarin segments).

Mayonnaise was on my shopping list and AF had 2 Hellmanns Light 400g for £1.20 or £1.31 I think with the delivery ratio bit added. (Yes I know making my own would be MUCH cheaper and that is something I did when we had 3 children at home). We only use Mayo for potato salad and egg sarnies, Him Outside preferring salad cream, so home made wouldn't get eaten quickly enough. I checked the price of the value mayo, which is what I probably would have bought. Oooops made a boob there. Value is 42p! although Hellmanns is better quality.

Last and by no means least, what about the Thorntons Premium Collection Chocolates at 60p a bag. They are £1.50 in the Thorntons shop in Ipswich and occasionally £1 a bag in Poundland. Really I shouldn't have bought them at all, but who could resist cheap Thorntons chocs - NOT ME!

So is shopping at AF cost effective? I think it depends on what and how much you buy. Same as everywhere else I suppose.

A mini spree at Craft Creations

In the post this morning a £10 gift voucher from CRAFT CREATIONS and the return of my card that I had sent in for a competition ( didn't win a prize) but because it was featured on the Readers Gallery pages I get the voucher. Brilliant.

As you can see it is just a very simple card and that's the really good thing about Craft Creations they cater for people making very complicated paper crafted cards and for un-adventurous  people like me who just do basic stuff.
 I shall use my voucher to get some of their new 3D decoupage sheets and creative papers of birds to use for card making for men - always the hardest to find ideas for. I haven't done any card making for months but will get going on cross stitch and paper crafted cards in the Autumn.

After a  weekend which was full of visitors and too much eating and lots of nattering we are back to normal today. My first job was to skin and then put 6lb of the huge Andine tomatoes into the freezer ready to make chutney or tomato sauces later.

 Next job was to start getting half of the hay shed for some new young pullets we will get at the end of the month. This involved using some shed sections ( which we didn't use for the new campsite shower as it has a concrete floor and a part perspex roof) to divide the empty bit off from the bit where hay is still stored. Some netting has been fixed to the top, just in case a fox decides to climb the bales and drop down into the chicken bit.In the corner of the shed was the remainder of a pile of old pallets that had been stored there ready for  cutting up before we built the other farm building and decided to use that for cutting wood. I suggested moving them to the new shed but Him Outside thought it would be easier to cut them where they were, so for the first time time since last winter out comes the electric chainsaw. Which, because it hasn't been used for 5 months, doesn't want to work. After taking apart, cleaning and putting back together again we are off. He does some cutting and I do the barrowing. It really is a sign of the changing seasons when we start adding to the wood heap ready for the Rayburn and the woodburner. So glad he is feeling well enough too!
The campsite is beginning to get busier as we head towards Bank Holiday weekend. It's been surprising how many people have rung in the last week wanting to come and when I've said " sorry we are already full ( 5 caravans) because it's Bank Holiday" they hadn't realised, as Bank Hol seems earlier than normal. We've also got bookings for the week after too which is good, sometimes things go very quiet then.
Easy meals today mainly featuring leftovers from yesterday.

How the day goes by on a simple Suffolk Smallholding

 A beautiful sunny morning and we were up and outside by 7am  so that by 8am we had picked, packed and put out on the stall  

 10 boxes of eggs

3 cucumbers

4 bags of good tomatoes

1 bag of cooking tomatoes

2 bunches of beetroot

2 bunches of carrots

2 bags of onions

1 bag of courgettes

4 bags of potatoes

3 large bags of runner beans

1 small bag of runner beans

1 bag of chilli peppers

2 aubergines
And 1 large courgette masquerading as a marrow ( or vice versa)

(By 11 am the whole lot had gone!)

A couple more jobs indoors, washing hung out and we were ready for a cup of coffee by 9am. Bread started, lots of weeding done and  we had another coffee at 10.45!
2 cheques in the post for campsite deposits and new cartridges for the printer. So cheques put away, printer sorted, more campsite welcome leaflets photocopied, potatoes prepared for dinner,bread finished, campsite loos cleaned, some things shifted with the tractor bucket and we were hungry and ready for lunch( lots of home grown salad with some blue cheese, then raspberries) by just after midday.
An hour sitting down, then washing up and wiping up and tidying up. Checking chickens water and collecting and sorting eggs(me) bashing the old hay mower with a hammer to see why it stopped working(Him) and by 2.30 it is time for a proper rest ( Him) and I'm ready for a shower.( No early showers here as we have to wait for the sun to heat the solar water thingy on the roof).
Then a cuppa and a biscuit and some brain work as He watches  Rachel Riley Countdown and I half watch while pinning up the hem on a pair of too long shorts that I'm shortening.
More weeding ( Him) and sewing up the shorts  hem ( me).
Then it's outside to check the chickens water and to pick up any late eggs (me) while he checks emails, then goes out to the poly tunnel to prepare an empty bit for seed sowing.
 Next I pick and prepare some french beans for dinner and we get dinner sorted. ( The other half of yesterdays cheese and tomato quiche,fried potatoes and the gorgeous french beans.) A few more of the last raspberries for dessert. Local news on TV, more washing  and wiping up, watering polytunnels, a shave and shower for Him,  an evening reading and watching TV (and blog reading for me) and that's another day gone!

Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday, the whole of blogland has now got men peeing on compost heaps! and Bridgets comment made me smile.

Eating my words

Before I forget I must say welcome to a new follower lisamaywalters, now up to 52 followers, may be a while until I catch up to Ilona and Frugal Queen!

Yesterday I finished by saying I was off to check Approved Foods to see if I could find the sort of bargains other people blogged about. And what did I find straight away? Bread Flour! which I had also mentioned on my blog yesterday. AF had Hovis 3kg  ( i.e. double normal size) for 50p a bag - now that IS a bargain. I also found some other things which were on my shopping list for this month or next month, the cheapy tins of mandarins at 8 for £1 which they always seem to have in stock(  for winter stores) and a couple of things for next weekend when the family are coming to visit to check their Dad really is  OK! Total just a fraction over £16, with a saving of over £30. I'm semi converted. Although it was the bread flour that persuaded me and I probably won't buy from them again for many months.

Him Outside is beginning to get some energy back so we finally got around to doing some much needed weeding in poly tunnels and veg beds, which I hadn't had time for in the last fortnight. There is still a lot to do but we are taking it steady. He now has a date for the second visit to Papworth - Mid September, so not too long to wait.

We also had a look to see what our main crop potatoes are like - Oh Dear! Not good at all due to  signs of blight and lack of rain. The squash plants are also suffering from the prolonged dry spell. He then held the bottom of the step ladder and used a hoe to hook down the branches of the Morello cherry so that I could climb up and pick some from higher. Normally it would be me on the ground and him up the ladder!

Anyone else take Craft Creations Magazine? Its the only one I like as it is produced by the Craft Creations card making supplies company so there are discounts available for subscribers. Plus it is only 4 times a year for £12, so not wildly expensive like most of the crafting magazines at the newsagents. I had a card featured in the Readers Gallery in the latest edition and was expecting a voucher - I think it was £10  I had last time, but nothing has arrived. Maybe they don't do that  anymore. I shall email to find out.

It was hair cutting day today. No trips to expensive hairdressers for us. We have the cutters so he does mine - a 6 all over, and I do his - a 3 all over with a 2 round the edges. Simple, cheap, tidy. What more do you need from a haircut! How much does your hair cut cost? In the interests of frugality would you ever DIY?

Odds and Ends

How are some people able to buy 4 pints of milk for £1? I've read this on a couple of blogs lately. Around here CO-OP and Tesco have just both put their semi skimmed up by 10p to £1.39. Waitrose are the only other shop locally, I expect they are the same. I know some people have swapped to powdered but too many years of Scout Camps with horrible powdered milk - with lumps- has somewhat put me off, although I expect it is better quality nowadays.

We had even more stuff out on the stall-at-the-gate this morning as the runner beans have finally got going. They were covered in flowers which set then seemed to go slow. I was only able to give them a good watering two or three times over the last couple of weeks but with rain a day or so ago and another good downpour last night they are now  growing quickly.

Sara at Afrugalwife has been blogging about ways of cutting  laundry costs, this made me look at at my laundry costs over the last year. (I know there are only 2 of us , so with Sara's two tots a lot more washing would be done! and she has done really well.) My laundry costs - not counting electric - for the last 15 months have been about £22 ! I bought an Ecover Non-Bio Bag in a Box 5L laundry liquid. This is decanted into an old 5L container and then again into a smaller bottle as needed. I have a plastic thing once used to fill an iron with water and into this I put about 2 Tablespoons of the liquid and then top up with hot water and add about a tablespoonful of Washing Soda Crystals (99p kg). This goes into the machine. I don't use fabric softener and keep a bar of Vanish soap in the cupboard for stains. I guess we do about 4 or 5 loads of washing a week. Bath Towels are hung over the banister at the top of the stairs to dry after one use and only put in the wash after the second or even third use. When we go out and are forced to wear 'good clothes',  I change out of them the minute I come in the door and then hang them up at the end of the rail to wear again. Old work clothes are worn until they are dirty. I don't think we smell!! We do have a tumble dryer as we rescued it from my Dad's house after he died, but it is out in the shed and doesn't get used much. Clothes are dried outside whenever possible, over the airer above the Rayburn to finish them off  in winter. We have the advantage of living in the dryest part of the country so I can usually guarantee enough dry days in a week to get the washing at least partly dry outside. To save electric on days when I know the washing will dry outside, I turn the spin speed down. All washing is done at 40 degrees with an occasional hot wash to help clean the washing machine( We use Ecover as it is better for the septic tank and also because we  LOATHE the smell of both the cheap and the posh soap powders.)

It was bread baking day today. I'm very puzzled at the price of bread flour which seems to be going up and down at random. Allinsons was still £1 last time we went to Aldi so I stocked up with 4 bags and Tesco own brand was also £1 after going up and then down again. If I didn't have to cut costs I would buy Marriages flour from the CO-OP as they are an Essex Company using wheat from East Anglia. They do a lovely Malted Grain flour which, many years ago when there were 5 of us at home, I would buy by the sackful from a wholefood warehouse in Norwich.

GRRRRRRR - another cancellation for the campsite today from a family who were due to be here all next week. I suppose I should be used to it after all these years.But I still hate doing the crossing out in the bookings diary.

I'm now going to have another look at the Approved Foods site. Everyone keeps raving about their bargain buys yet every time I look I can't seem to find anything I would normally buy and is a bargain really a bargain if it is something that would normally not be bought?