A BIG shop and Advent photo 2

Those of you who have been reading a while might remember when Col had the first heart problems back in 2013 and was stuck for a fortnight in Ipswich hospital waiting to go to Papworth for stents. Do you remember  how terrified I was driving the 25 miles up to hospital? I'd done very little driving since moving here because I either biked everywhere locally or got a lift to Ipswich when Col was at work. Well .... things have changed a bit since then. He's been in hospital several times and I've been forced to get behind the wheel more often, I still don't enjoy driving and I've still never had the chance of driving on a motorway but yesterday I nipped up to the big Tescos on the outside of Ipswich - All By Myself! I know that sounds pretty pathetic to everyone who is used to driving all the time and practically  everyone else under the age of 80!, but when I learned to drive in 1973 Suffolk there were no by-passes, no duel-carriageways, very few roundabouts and about half as much traffic.......not quite the time when men walked in front of cars waving a flag......but almost!

Anyway - I did the BIG shop for December for  8 of us here mid month, 6 Christmas day and 2 the rest of the time. I got all the things that they don't have in our local Tesco and went to Poundland  where I bought a 2016 diary and some things for Father-in-laws hamper. I'm always astonished at the prices of diaries in other places, because if you just want somewhere to write down dentist appointments and birthdays then £1 will do the job perfectly adequately.


I found some comments back on old posts that I'd not read  so I need to explain that although we are living on savings we do have a good amount of savings thanks to an inheritance several years ago. We also have this smallholding that we've  accepted an offer on of £495,000( not bad considering we bought it as a wreck for £85,000 back in 1992)  We can buy something for less than half that, either to rent out or to live in, so we will be OK until pension time. We had many, many years living on a low income when Col was a council road-man and we had 3 small children. That was when we started growing food to stretch the housekeeping. We've never been extravagant, never had debts except the mortgage and have always been ingenious at earning a little extra and stretching what we had. I've always kept my eye on what we spend and know what we can afford, if we needed to cut back further then we could and would.


Thank you for comments about the advent calendar, I was pleased to find it as I don't like chocolate ones or branded  ones ...... when the children were small I was the mean mother who refused to let them have chocolate advent calendars!

So here's advent photo 2

My Christmas cup and saucer. I bought this from a charity shop a few years back to fill with chocolate things to make a gift. But I liked it so much I decided to keep it. I use it all through December.


Welcome to mchild  a new follower over there on the right.


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Sue