You can tell im British...

I talk about the weather all the time,today was actually dry and i was able to get some washing dry outside.April has been the wettest month on record and in my neck of the woods there are loads of flood warnings.As you drive along you see field after field flooded where rivers have burst their banks.May doesn't look like its going to start off too great either.
DD has gone on a field trip to Somerset she sent me this picture off the road that leads to where she is staying.



Its really quite indoors,not that DD is noisy.It was strange not to do the school run and the poor dog doesn't know whats going on.
I miss her already and shes only been gone since this morning.

Until later
x

Soap making

Thank you Fostermummy for posting how to make soap.

This afternoon i followed your instructions and made a batch of soap,I didn't have anything to put it in so i use muffin cases.Its now covered in cling film for the 48 hours.

I like football but haven't been able to afford to go for many years,Today we had a victory parade through  our town as we have been promoted to the premiership and also won the championship.We stopped along the route to see them go through,all stood on top of an open topped bus soaking wet but i don't expect they care now they are back in the premiership.

Another wet weekend over,cant believe it has rained so much this month.
Hope you all had a good weekend

until later

x

Giveaway at Log Cabin

Great giveaway at the Log Cabin
http://thelogcabin25.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/amendment-to-giveaway.html

Happy Birthday lovely Mother in law

As the title says its my mother in laws birthday today, so Happy Birthday to a wonderful lady.We arranged to meet my son and his family over there and delivery all cards and presents.

She was delighted with the homemade cards from the little ones and Maddie gave her all her presents one by one.Great nan and Grandad haven't been told yet that the girls are moving away,we didn't think it was right to share such bad news on her birthday.Seeing the girls so happy and bouncing around that it made me well up knowing that these kind of occasions are going to be few and far between.All presents were very frugally purchased but she loved every one of them.We stayed for a buffet lunch which was lovely.

MIL then had a surprise for my daughter.When she was younger (DD) nanny used to buy her a Mr Blobby cake ,Sadly Mr Blobby is no longer around so nor are the cakes so MIL made her some,thought DD was going to cry when she saw them.

We all went our separate ways after lunch,i went with OH to look at a job in Marlow.We live in Berkshire which is a very narrow county so its quick and easy to get to lots of over counties.Marlow is 18 miles from home and we went from Berkshire into Oxfordshire then into Buckinghamshire.If it wasn't such a miserable day we would have stopped but its a lovely town on the River Thames.

Daddy with his little girl

 Mr Blobby

Marlow Bridge

Nice quite evening in tonight catching up with Blogs and cross stitching

Enjoy your evening
x

It must be love

because i have just taken my eldest darling daughter shopping and have spent 2 hours in Asda and i hate shopping.

She is a real browser up and down the aisles backwards and forwards.She was most grateful and it was lovely to spend that long with her even it was food shopping.

Its official Granddaughters are definitely moving to Scotland,end of June at the latest.I feel so sorry for my boy (and for myself) So many people have to be told now.

Until later
x

Ouch

Today i had an accident at work,I'm OK only my pride was hurt.I came out of a house i was cleaning to empty the bins and went ar*e over t*t.I picked myself up and scurried indoors as quick as i could.
A few bumps,scrapes and bruises but nothing broken.



As most of us already knew we are back in recession,i never knew we had come out of it.It frustrates the life out of me that the TV and radio talk about it all the time.I think this is half the problem, you talk about recession,people stop spending,business's suffer .vicious circle.It makes me even more determined to become debt free.My journey is extremely difficult at the moment with this awful weather OH obviously cant work so hes not earning ,another vicious circle.

This evening i spent a really enjoyable hour and a half sat in my daughters bedroom with her watching Calendar Girls, i had forgotten what a great film that is.She has a double aspect room so the light in there was brilliant for me to do my cross stitch.

Hope you have had a safer day than me.
until next time
x

They dont make them like they used too

On Monday at one of my customers house i was asked to polish her floor.I do this once a month.
I apply the polish by hand on my hands and knees,leave for a few hours then buff in and polish off.
I use her floor polisher which she has had for about 45 years,Its made by Hoover and i meant to take a photo of it but she was by my side and i thought i would look quite strange.
Its an amazing little machine and still going strong and her floor looks amazing when done.

Tonight my eldest daughter came for tea,it was so nice to hear both my girls chatting upstairs whilst my youngest was sorting out some old clothes for her.

I filled a bag of food from my freezer for her to take home,i may not be rich but i have food in my freezer enough to be able to share.
 Until later
x

2nd money saving tip of the day

Thought i would share another money making/saving tip with you.I have mentioned this one before but here's a recap.
McCain (the frozen chip company ) on their website have  various games and recipes which you can earn spud shillings if you play.
Click here

Its simple once a week you log in and go to fun stuff and play the 5 or so games( you don't even have to play  them ,click play or start then go to the next one) for each game you play you get awarded some spud shillings.
Next you go into recipes, click in a recipe and press print( you don't have to print it)
Next you can tweet it. I set up Twitter about a year ago for competitions i don't tweet as a norm.
All these will gradually build up your spud shillings.Once you get to 500 you can redeem them ,obviously the more you have the greater reward.They range from gift vouchers for high street clothes shops, Amazon vouchers.Eating out at places such as TGI Friday's.
Hotel breaks at the Premier Inn,Alton Towers the list goes on.Last year i saved mine for gift vouchers for Arcadia,I gave these to my daughter for Christmas and she hit the Miss Selfridge and Topshop sales.

Money saving ideas

Morning all
as you already know i do like to get something for nothing.
One way i do this is Swagbucks, i always keep the tab open and when im on the computer i click onto it,I hardly ever do the surveys on this site i mainly click through the tv bits, do the daily polls and NOSO thing. I get on average a £5  Amazon voucher every 3 to 4 weeks .This pays for the ink for my printer.You can earn more but it just depends how much time you have.

Heres a link to Swagbucks, its just a general link to the website not a referal link.

I will be back later with another money saving idea.

Until later
x


SWAGBUCKS

Thank you

Thanks you Arwedd at Stepping Out in Faith for nominating for the Liebster award.I'm extremely grateful to everyone for reading my ramblings.I find blogging therapeutic .


I found a cup and saucer on my travels at the weekend so yesterday morning i made my first candle in it,i think it looks rather cute...


Today has been a miserable day in the never too old household in more ways than the weather.

My son has found out in a cruel way( via a text from a friend) that his ex is probably taking his girls to live in Scotland in the summer..to say I'm upset is an understatement and to have your son ring you in tears is not something i hope many of you would have to experience.


Hopefully things will change and we would have had this upset for nothing.DD has just said to me why do we have so much upset in our life,it was a question i was unable to answer.


Until later
x

National Trust

Today we decided to take advantage of the free entry to National Trust properties.
We decided to go to Osterley Park
12 miles from London.We set off this morning,we took 2 bins full of cans to put in the recycling machines at Tesco Osterley

 then went to the park.Its a magnificent house with beautiful gardens.

The new Batman film was filmed at the house and if anyone watched Great Expectations at Christmas, the front of the house was used (scene where Estella sees Drummle  abusing his horse, and she runs down the steps to stop him)


It was a beautiful house and you wouldn't believe where you actually were.


Managed to drop ironing off and indoors before the heavens opened.
Chicken was put in the slow cooker this morning for tonight's dinner,before my light bulb moment we we would have had a cream tea at the house and then found a pub on the way home for a meal, now we took a snack and drink with us for a lovely frugal day.


Until later
x

My day in pictures

This afternoon OH had to go to a nearby town to look at a job.Henley On Thames is a nice little town.

We walked around looked at the cost of houses which are extremely expensive.Looked in the charity shops and had a wonder along the Thames and got back to the car just before the heavens opened.

 This view is looking across the Thames ,the marques are being put up already ready for the Henley Royal Regatta

Henley on Thames,town center

A very cheap and nice afternoon.We stopped at inlaws on way home for tea and cake so much cheaper than the £3.80 a slice in the posh cake shops in Henley.
Then quickly into Lidl for a couple of the cheap chickens they have on offer this weekend.

Now for some cross stitch...
Until later
x

Its not raining.....Yet.

Remember i while ago i posted a picture of all my unfinished cross stitches,well i have been doing a bit every night and even though its still not finished its coming along.

Before



Now



Its a free weekend at The National Trust ,so i have downloaded my voucher and we will probably go and have a look around one of the houses tomorrow,never done this before .
Ironing to do today and hopefully manage a bit of time in the garden in between showers.

Have a fantastic day whatever you do and thanks for the comments yesterday(it did make me smile)

Until later
x

Tortoise and the Hare

I feel at the moment that my ability to clear our debts is comparable to the Tortoise and The Hare.
I know the slow Tortoise won the race but im getting impatient.
I cant think of any other ways to save money...
The weather isn't helping much,its cold and wet .
My mood will improve.

until later
x

Rain rain go away

I know we need the rain but i wish it wouldn't rain during the day.OH can not work in this weather so whilst it rains hes earning no money very depressing.

Today OH whilst i was at work contacted my eldest daughter and arranged to go and see her at lunch time at work and bless him he took the left over spag bol i made last night for her to warm up for her lunch and boy was she grateful.Food isn't always a priority for her especially this close to her payday.
So i was really pleased he thought of doing this as normally he would feed it to the dog (much to my annoyance).

I'm now about £120 from getting below £7000 on the debt busting front and i cant wait to break through another barrier 6 something definitely sounds better than 7 something.should do it next week.


until later
x

OWWLRA

That's not gobbledygook that's the shortened version of the lane i live residents associations.For my sins i was elected onto the steering committee put together to get our water authority to sort out the problems with our sewerage.
Tonight i have been to a meeting and given my jobs for the next couple of weeks...

One good thing has come out of it ,it looks like we are going to have a street party  for the Jubilee my neighbour is arranging that,It will only be a small affair only 28 houses down our lane.

Hope you all had a good day

until later

x

Cinema with my daughter

Tonight i went to the cinema with my eldest daughter,nothing unusual with that i hear you say...
but this is something i haven't had the opportunity to do over the last few years.

We went to see Salmon fishing in the Yemen.Free tickets.It was a good film and the company was lovely.

until later
nto
x

Car boot sale

Today we went to a local car boot sale and boy was it cold.We wandered round for nearly an hour and came away with nothing. I wasn't looking for much only wanted 1 teacup and saucer to make a candle in and couldn't find one on any stall.
After the car boot we went to a garden centre, i wanted some plants which i have had no luck growing from seed.Cucumber and peas also picked up a lovely cherry tomato plant nice and established as mine are still quite small.

As i have said before, really hoping i do well with the veg this year as i have loads started off.
Hows your weekend going, ? Grandchildren are home from Scotland and are coming for dinner so cooking for 7 tonight.

Until later
x

Just want to say hi

Just dropping by to say hello.Fairly non eventful day.I started another new customer today so at the moment I'm doing OK for work.
Had shopping delivered this afternoon used nearly all my evouchers for bonus clubcard points an extra 200.
Im being good and trying to finish one of my pieces of cross stitch,
Picked up my new slow cooker(mine broke last week) its only a cheapy £19.99 from Curry's, reserved it through Topcashback so will get a few pence back from that.

Debt busting still ongoing I'm down to £7200 now so wont be too long now.

Hope you are all looking forward to your weekend,mines going to consist of cleaning , decluttering and cross stitch,

Until later

x

Fantastic giveaway here click here have a look

Eating out

My OH's Aunt and Uncle are visiting from bonny Scotland,they arrived at MIL's on Tuesday evening.
Last night we all met up to go up for a meal to celebrate their Golden wedding anniversary.This meal was all planned and paid for with Clubcard points.Both MIL and i redeemed £10 worth of points and received a token valid for £40 worth of food each.We had a lovely meal and it was a lovely evening.

I have since been looking at other ways to use Clubcard points and have decided it would be lovely to save them for a couple of nights away.Youngest DD will be 18 in the Autumn so it would be fantastic to be able to pay for us to go away for that.This is what i would like to do.
DD has always loved Butlins we used to take her regular.Butlins are opening another new hotel in the summer so this is where we would like to take her,2 nights incorporating her birthday.I can for every £5 of clubcard vouchers get £15 off Butlins.So i need to get saving my points.My can collecting is going well....I have done an online shop and used all my evouchers so this will give me an additional 200 points.Im so looking forward to see if i can have a break away paid for with clubcard points.So if you see a middle aged lady in Berkshire picking up aluminium cans its probably me.....

DD had another physio appointment today and shes doing really well,she can even try wearing heals again.

OH is out tonight and staying at DS house,hes off to a concert( Christmas present) so a quite evening.

Off to catch up on all your lovely blogs now.

Until later
x

A time for family

On Easter Sunday my eldest dd invited OH and i over yo hers for breakfast,we spent a lovely 2 and a bit hours with her.

In the afternoon we had the rest of the family over for dinner i cooked lamb which i think they all enjoyed,
Youngest DD got me a lovely egg as well which was eaten straight away as i was having a day off from my healthy.

Pictures speak louder than words so here is some of the day.

Happy Birthday

With an ache in my heart,
I whisper low,
Happy birthday, Mum,
I miss you so.


It would be my mums 83rd birthday today,shes now been gone nearly 24 years and i still miss her.


until later
nto
x

Easter Saturday

My day started well,spent a lovely few hours with my youngest daughter and her boyfriend.On way home eldest daughter rang me in tears.She is in a fairly new relationship which is a bit complicated,family and distance makes it difficult but they were seeing where it could go.Some people in this world always try to cause problems and she encountered this today hence the tears.She came to mine for dinner and sympathy,plenty of love and a resolve to alter a few things in her life.She currently works 2 jobs and has decided that to get away from stirrers to leave her pub job and focus on her day job,Her daytime boss has said she can increase her hours and now she wont be taxed as a 2nd job and the increase in personal allowance we are hopping she wont be too badly off.

Whilst she was here my son came to pick his car up,these 2 haven't spoke in a few years and he wouldn't come in when he knew she was here.This behaviour breaks my heart,I'm welling up just thinking about it,Its got to stop......
I'm sad tonight that my daughter is sad and on her own and sad that even though i will see her tomorrow we have the rest of the family coming around for dinner and she wont be here.....

until later
nto
x

Good Friday

and it certainly was.. My cleaning job today was lovely, such nice people.Took me 2 and a half hours to wipe down kitchen walls and steam tiles and same in bathroom.A proper Spring clean which they were very pleased with.

DS rang and asked for a lift to football then we went to pick DD up from town.Whilst OH was waiting i went into Hotel Chocolat to pick up a freebie i was entitled too from a recent promotion.This is what i picked up


£8 its about 4 inches tall.who pays that much for chocolate......
OH is now cooking tea and im going to make a cake.

Until later
nto
x

April Shower

Quite a while ago i commented that my water tank was leaking,well when i looked at it today its kind off breaking up (that's a technical term)Well it definitely doesn't look good and as my shower broke a month or so ago i was worried that we were all destined to be very smelly.
Well DD 's boyfriend came to the rescue.Hes training to be an electrician about 2 years into his course.We chose a shower very similar to what we had and whilst i went to visit a potential new customer they went to B &Q  to pick it up for me.Bless him he then fitted it for me I'm very proud and pleased we now have a working shower.The tank does need to be replaced sooner rather than later but hopefully OH will get someone he knows to give us a price.

My potential new customer has turned into a new customer and i start work for her next week,I'm one very happy lady.I'm working tomorrow a 1 off clean which i wouldn't have been able to fit in normally so that will be a bit more money to go to debt busting..

Welcome to my new followers i really appreciate you all dropping by.
Well i hope you all have a lovely evening/day

until later
nto
x

Im so naughty

I always have very good intentions when i start a project but I'm not always very good at finishing them.
I have loads of interests but in every single one of them i rarely finish them. I have started a quilt,knitting,crochet and embroidery.When i went in the loft yesterday, i pulled down a bag with my embroidery in it.Sorted through it and found lots of unfinished projects......

The shame got the better of me and i decided to sew a backing on one of the finished pieces,stuff it and i gave it to my DD the person i did it for many moons ago.

Here are a few more of my unfinished pieces of work.

Is it just me or are any of you similar.?

Until later
nto
x

Memories

DS asked me to sort some photos out of his dad for something he is doing for his dads birthday,So i have just been up in the loft going through old photos and all the memories come flooding back (and why i should stick to my diet)I have been with my OH for 29 years next month,where has that time gone..Its not all been plain sailing but lots of happy memories.I'm so glad i have always taken photos.

I met My OH when i was 16 ,he proposed when i was 19, married at 20, 1st child at 21.I wouldn't change it at all but would i want my children to do the same...i don't think so...

Until later
nto
x

Marathon....

This morning we walked down to a spot that the half marathon passes through to Cheer on DS.We missed him in the ground. 2 other family members were at 2 other viewing points and didn't see him pass.DS thought nobody had turned up to Cheer him on.We then walked the 1 &3/4 miles to near the finish line to see the runners return.luckily he saw us then,he didn't even look tired and even though no official time yet we think he did it in about 2 hours and 5 mins.Very proud of my boy .
Hope you all have had a lovely day.
Here's a couple of pictures,
1st one at first vantage point. 2nd one when he had finished and walked to car.