Strong, Please, Two Lumps. I'll Try the Other Attachments Later...

Not a lot of cord on it. Imagine how close you'd have to sit to the wall!

This has been the busiest and most stressful weekend I've had for a long time.  A bit of retail therapy was called for.

This was on sale at the antiques market in town yesterday.

Can you tell what it is?

I'm gonna tell you in a second...

I bet you can't stand the tension...

Nearly...

Oh, all right then.

Well my confuddled readers, what we have there is an Edwardian vibrator. OH spotted what it was. I'm not sure the person selling it even realised, as after we had a giggle with him about it, he started parading it round the other stall holders to show them. It was quite late in the day too. Well, let's face it, not the sexiest of toys is it? It looks more like an electric sander than a source of sublime pleasure. Mind, both sorts of implement involve a bit of DIY.

You can ooh it if you B&Q it?

Wickes: it's got our body fluids on it?

Should you be interested in purchasing your very own antique lady pleasurer (for the pleasuring of antique ladies, p'raps?), it comes with numerous attachments with different materials and textures, and has two settings of 'weak' and 'strong'. There's also 'off', but God knows why you'd need that. And given its antiquity, and that dodgy cord, I can only imagine it still has the power to shock.

We bought something else.

 

Frugalistas, please look away now, because to cheer me up, OH took me to the cinema. Full price. 3D!!! Was he mad? I can only assume the sight of a hundred-odd year old stimulator had excited him beyond sense. Anyway, we went to see Captain America 2: the Winter Soldier.

For a while, it looked like we would have the cinema to ourselves. Having chosen seats towards the back, OH was a bit dissatisfied with his choice and suggested we move forward two rows. Then, just before the film was about to start, in came another couple. 

Would you believe it? They'd only bought tickets for the seats we'd moved to.

They were fine, "No, don't worry, we'll sit here. No, tell you what, we'll move to the VIP seats, why not?"

And so they moved, and they giggled, and they chatted through the final trailer. They were funny, and we laughed with them. And then the film started. And they didn't shut up. And they were up and down, fetching more snacks, and missing crucial plot points that they had to discuss. In fact it as commentary the entire way through the film. They were very disappointed with the totally logical character development of Bucky.

And because we'd sat in their seats we didn't dare say a thing.

Talk about karma!

But then they left before the post trailer extra bit. So they missed all that.

Karma bit you back in the butt. Ha!

Best Freeby of the Month?

Got word on a sweet deal via Money Saving Expert from the Co-op. I downloaded an app and got this box of chocolates for nowt!

I annoyed a lot of people in the shop though because we couldn't get PayPoint to scan the bar code, so I tied up the staff's time for a while.  But the assistants were very kind and patient. Brilliant customer service!

Christmas - the big haul

Just been chatting to a friend about how I am doing with preparing for Christmas.  Pretty good,  considering I have already blown the £51.29 I had saved towards shopping from Sealed Pot Sunday.  I have been accumulating gifts throughout the year,  taking advantage of deals, freebies,  voucher and discount store offers.  Also the chazza and second hand shops for one or two bits.  I will also be doing a bit of crafting.  Everyone is getting onion jam  - hope you like it!

Already have £1.16 in found money towards next year's SPS. Was 16p but I found a pound on the way to work this morning. Woo!

My latest sticker/ basics shopping haul at the weekend was also quite fruitful. Here's what I got from Sainsbury's.

 

 

Also a second haul fron Tesco.

 

All that for £22. Best of that is the turkey, bought for £4!

 

I had a nice 'free' dinner on Friday,  thanks to work. This was at Brasserie Blanc. Starter of mackerel terrine with horseradish cream (yum) , main of confit duck leg, cherry sauce,  rosti and beans (very nice) and dessert of Valhrona chocolate pudding with chocolate sorbet and crumb.  Not very nice, it was just melted ice cream with hard biscuit lumps floating in it. Ah well.  They did we considering the size of our party, though I did think our waiter was rude. Menu said coffee and mince pies to finish, and initially he refused to switch to tea for me. But the meal finished so late everyone left before after dessert.  There was just me and another girl who wanted tea too who stayed for a drink.  And no one got a mince pie!  Boo!

Still I was very happy to win a voucher to go back (and get another from a colleague! ). Christmas parties are never reflective of the standard of a venue. Still a lovely feed for no outlay.

£7 Food Challenge Day 3: M R Fish... CDBDIs (Think of Two Ronnies...)

Day 3 and I thought I'd blown the bank already for a minute.

Because I'm an idiot who rounded down from £7 to £5.

Yesterday, I went through the cupboard (lots of beans), the fridge (hellooooo!!! A bit sparse...) and the chest freezer. (Lumps of probably beef. Check. Lumps of probably bacon. Check.) Then I went and made a meal plan, taking into consideration what I could make from what I've got. Meal plan was checked and approved by OH. Good.

Then I went to Aldi with a shopping list, having consulted this week's Super 6 offers (now 89p per pack. I could have sworn they were 39p a month ago?). The bus into town was half an hour late, so I thought sod making bread tonight and used all my contingency pennies in buying a loaf.

So: semi-skimmed milk, 2 pints - 79p
canned garden peas - 20p (processed were 19p, but, for the sake of a penny...)
1kg carrots - 79p
6 medium free range eggs - 95p
Conference pears (Super 6) - 89p
wholemeal bread - 45p

Total spend today: £4.15. Add that to 94p. Total spend so far £5.09 - leaving £1.91 in the kitty. That's £1.91 I didn't think I had. That's £1.91 I'm probably going to spend on spuds, as I had to cut a load of bruise out of some of the potatoes I used for tonight's tea, which would have left Sunday's chicken dinner looking a bit mean as there are now only three remaining in the bag.

My Day 3 food went like this:

Breakfast: wheat biscuits, milk and sugar
Lunch: fish paste and cucumber sandwiches; plum
Treat: More leftover party snacks in the office.
Dinner: Sprattus Sprattus. Vino Tinto (the 50p one - very nice)

Tonight's make do from what we've got meal was sprats - very cheap fish; the sort of thing most people use to catch other fish. Sprats are high in Omega 3, though. Latin for the sprat, according to the tray they came in, is Sprattus Sprattus. I don't know why I am amused by that, but I am.

Anyway, they are sweet little fish, of a convenient size for waving at cats to annoy them.

To prepare, wash the whole fish, pat dry, then add to seasoned flour and play 'hide the eyes'.

Oi - Oi've got moi eye on you.

Then they can be fried in a shallow pan, with a generous glug of oil. Cook until they go brown and crispy - about 5-8 minutes in total, 2-3 minutes each side . Season with lemon juice and parsley.

Just like whiting, they can be eaten whole. I mean, try biting them first. Don't swallow the entire fish at once, you'll choke. I mean you can eat the whole fish - bones and eyes and tails and all.

I served mine with mushy peas which had been soaking with bicarbonate of soda for 13 hours, and were then cooked for 20 minutes. Also with potato wedges seasoned with smoked paprika.

Mushy peas: so much nicer than they look

That was a huge dinner, and we have 2 very happy cats tonight who got left a fish each, and a very happy OH too. Why do cats think all the fish belong to them? It's weird.

Secret £7 Food Challenge. Challenge Within a Challenge.

Yesterday I blogged about a weekend of decadence... and here's a photo of the stash of bought and blagged books and things from Brighton and World Fantasy Convention. Unfortunately all the red velvet cupcakes are in my belly already...

...which reminds me, there was a sweet moment at the launch of Colder, Greyer Stones, when Tannith Lee asked me what my "Cake Pigeon" tee-shirt was about, and I explained it was a Sarah Millican joke. It involved me doing some cooing.

Anyway... the cupcakes are gone. Life has returned to post-convention mundanity. I have paid for a cinema treat at the end of the month, and am building savings up by making cutbacks. We've gone a bit off-plan and need to get back on track with big, scary bills of the present and future. But I want to make sure OH doesn't feel deprived. He's got to have an operation and take time off work. He has plenty of books to get through while he is recuperating, at least.

So, when I say I am taking on Stacey at Mortgage Free Journey's £7 food challenge, my challenge will not be including OH. He can wander off the plan with impunity. However, I will be budgeting his meals into the plan and hoping it's satisfactory for him. I'll be using up some of the things from our chest freezer to make the budget stretch. Bear in mind, we have lots of tins and things in, but hardly any fresh stuff left at all!

Anyway, I'm 2 days in, so here's what I've managed so far.

Day 1: Breakfast: me, wheat biscuits, maple syrup, milk - already bought. Him - nothing, he rarely eats breakfast.
Lunch: both of us, egg and salad cream sandwiches, Satsuma/plum. already bought.
Treats: me, someone brought in leftover Halloween chocolate.  OH made himself a fried egg sandwich in the afternoon.
Dinner: Smoked Salmon spaghetti. This was made with smoked salmon trimmings from the freezer, a small onion, clove of garlic, half a small tin of sweetcorn and some Elmlea single we had to use up, slightly thickened with cornflour, seasoned with nutmeg and parsley, and served with spaghetti.Yum!
Shopping: cucumber 40p and fish paste 25p

I didn't buy any bread. Made my own, nur!

I made this. Mmm. Arg.

 Day 2:

Breakfast: porridge and maple syrup. I make my porridge with water and just add a splash of milk at the end.

Lunch: fish paste and cucumber sandwiches - with homemade bread!

Treats: a handful of chilli crisps and more sweets left over from someone's party

Dinner: Pork steaks marinaded in maple syrup, lemon juice, garlic and rosemary, grilled. Served with potato and swede mash, with a bit of nutmeg, gravy made from stock/cornflour and veg juices, steamed carrots and leeks (I steam the veg above the potatoes - saves energy as well as retaining the flavour better). Sorry, the brown nature of my kitchen gives everything a sheen of the 70s. It was very tasty. However, OH wanted pudding so I made pancakes, served with homemade blackberry jam.

Shopping: Poor pickings in my local Asda. I only bought onions, 29p. Off to Aldi tomorrow.

 

 

Total spend this week: 94p.

Anyone else tempted to join in?

 

Ooh la la, le Fromage Puant!

I've been watching Le Tour this week and feeling all nostalgic for all things French... I lived in Alsace for a year for the obligatory immersion-phase of my French degree, and it has been a favourite holiday destination for my family too. I know - almost makes us middle class!

Sadly, I've not been able to go back for leisure for years, but a little taster came to Northampton yesterday with the travelling French Market.

Blackadder was right: 'Sausage' is not in the first English dictionary written by Dr Samuel Johnson... but saucisson is. Not sure about cassoulet...

Crowds loving the Gallic ambience.

Beautiful tablets of savon de Marseille

Tempting cheeses!

I needed some cheese, so I decided to get it here, as quite frankly it was a bargain. I chose 3 good-size cheeses for a fiver: some creamy blue cheese, some Pont L'Eveque and a cheeky little Munster.

Ah... and thereby hangs a tale!

Munster is one of the smelliest cheeses in the world, but it is very nice. When I lived in France as an assistant in two schools, I and my fellow assistants in the town got invited to a cheese and wine evening where we got to try beaujolais nouveau and some lovely cheeses, including Munster. In fact Hugh loved it so much, one day he went out to buy some.

Now, in our flat, my room was next to the kitchen on the east side of the building, and Hugh and Reinhard had rooms on the west side. Hugh had been a bit concerned that his purchase of Munster cheese would offend us, Reinhard having already had a go at me for grating some emmental into a bowl he liked to use, because, you know, emmental - a very mild cheese - was to him incredibly stinky and washing up the bowl seemingly would fail to redeem it to its unstinky natural state. He was, to be frank, a bit nuts.

So Hugh decided not to put his Munster in the fridge.

The first I realised was when I woke up before the alarm on what was going to be a very warm day, the sun already piercing through the shutter blinds. So was something else.

A most bizarre, sweaty-feet-like gaseous odour. I swear there was a yellow mist in the room.

What Hugh had done, to be considerate to his fellow flatmates was to put the cheese in a bag and hang it out of the kitchen window - next to my bedroom window - where the sun's rays had worked their magic on the warm and ripe cheese.

Comme dit les francais - pew.

Am I Becoming a Corporate Whore?

I'm having another creative night tonight as I'm currently making a present for someone. As it's a present, I can't say what it is - but it's looking cool as... I want it!

Part of the process has involved spraying things in the garden with plastikote... but I am feeling guilty as more should be done in the garden than just spraying things. Things got riotous during May here, and the lawn is only partially strimmed. I don't have a garden - I have a wasteland. And the shed window has fallen out. Ah well, at least I know what I'm doimg this weekend. Thanks for the DIY vouchers, wedding guest. They came in bloody useful very quickly.

I don't want to get too personal with this blog. Things could be easy and aren't. Harmony could rule... but I'm proud that I am in control, a plan is in place and my A-Z ticker now has a 2% dent in it. Woo!

I have to say, my usual favourite frugal/saving blogs and their commenters are making me feel a bit sad at the moment... changes in fortune... fallings out maybe? To me it seems some people have begun a journey with a certain set of goals, and maybe now they've achieved them and moved on to other goals,  they've adapted their principles slightly. Or haven't... Perhaps the experiences or ideas they are writing about no longer chime with the same set of people that their blog once did... but does it really matter? I don't think so.

If you want to talk about how people can change their principles, just look at me. I was a lifelong veggie until ths time last year. I just had bacon for my tea! All those Christmases my mom tried to find me something I could have instead of turkey and despaired at my fussy ethics, were they for nothing? I don't actually think so. Veggie me is still in there, somewhere...

And now I'm not only a meat-eating traitor, I'm also a corporate whore. This week I signed up to a Nectar card, even though Mark Thomas told us all to cut up our loyalty cards and I had jolly well done so. I even downloaded the toolbar to get points for searches, so the evil machine is gathering info on me as I type. It knows I was just researching glue! It doesn't know why, only that I did. But I get POINTS!

Double evil - I have subtly monetized this blog through Amazon Associates, which will probably earn me nothing at all. Caveat Clicky Browser Emptor. That is, if you go browsing Amazon after clicking a link from here and then buy something I get POINTS! (That's only the links going through to Amazon. Everything else is just a link. Hover your mouse over anything blue and underlined to see. It's up to you if you click and buy soething the other side... certainly I will not link any small press books to Amazon as I would rather encourage you to by direct so the publishers and writers can actually make some money themselves.Others I will. Message ends.)

Hopefully I've redeemed myself slightly by using a more ethical cashback site. That's ICE who work with ethical companies who try to limit their environmental impact. I use it to buy my usual bus card, and any train tickets that aren't heading in the direction of London or the South East from here. It's stuff I need to use, I get it cheap and with added POINTS!!! get money off the same in the future. It's a no-brainer.

I've just finished another book. London Falling by Paul Cornell. Loads of people seem to be reading this at the same time as me - great to see the book doing so well. I saw Paul last week at the British Science Fiction Association AGM and told him how I'd met people in the US reading this too.

I have to say, I absolutely loved this book, but... how can I put it? It's difficult when you know Paul - who is lovely, and kind, and nicely spoken - to imagine  him writing this.  I shall explain...

London Falling is a gritty police procedural, with a gritty supernatural edge to it. You've got Quill, with a bad temper and a drinking habit, in charge of a seemingly mundane undercover operation. He is looking after his UCs: Costain, who is half-in-love with a criminal lifestyle himself, poised to be the bad apple and go native, constantly coked up to the eyeballs; and Sefton, also UC, but hated by Costain and bullied by him for being gay. 

The team are trying to bring down Rob Toshack, a notorious gang lord, and Costain is on the verge of ruining the operation when he gets a sudden admission that means an arrest can take place. Toshack is taken into custody, but before evidence can be gathered by interview, Toshack suddenly dies in mysterious and violent circumstances.

Lisa Ross is added to the team; not a copper but a police analyst. On a trip to one of Toshack's houses to gather evidence, the four undergo a supernatural accident and are left vulnerable to the evil souls who think they rule London, but are now also empowered to do something about them. With wicked witches, football fixes, and child murder all thrown into the pot, a highly entertaining and well-written story is brewed. And with strong language throughout, you may raise an eyebrow like you would if you learned Hary Potter had grown up to be Danny Dyer. Very intelligent horror, and the first of a series. Good oh!

Haul!

This morning my alarm went off at 5.15. I cringed inwardly. I’d made a date with Davina, and had already half-planned to ditch her for Rosemary - a helmet-haired, no-nonsense woman, I knew I’d get a lot less grief from her. After all, she’s never made an extremely simple quiz drag on for two hours or yelled, “Tune!” at dance music while fake-skipping and pulling a Muppet-face. She’s also never told me I couldn’t eat carbs after 6pm like I’m some gullible fad-diet-believing idiot. You know where you are with Rosemary.

From her website - a lovely smiley pic of Rosemary

But even as the cat jumped on my head as if to say, “Yay – you’re awake! Breakfast time!” I knew I couldn’t be doing with either of them. Or the cat.

The thing is, I know how much exercise I am supposed to be getting just to maintain health – never mind burn extra calories in a weight-reducing effort. You need 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise, plus muscle-strengthening activities on two days, or you can swap the 150 minutes for 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or find a balance somewhere in between. Getting up at 5am to squeeze in some aerobics – yeah, easy. Just not at the expense of sleep!

The snooze button went on. If I’m going to earn these activity points, I’ve got to get creative. So today I had a leisurely lie-in until 5.58 am, got ready for work, caught my bus, then went for a stroll before work. There's not much to see round central Milton Keynes. I got as far as Lidl. Ah well, 2 easy points in the bag.

But I've had enough - I'm not going to try to get the last point in. I've earned my pamper session, dammit!

As you can gather, I'm pretty busy. I'm living the dream as I do the work I love. Books are my life and I've got big things happening this year - besides all the wedding stuff. Watch this space is all I can say for now. But, know I spend my days grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Something has had to give, though, and I'm doing less of other things for now. Many strings to my bow; no time to fiddle about.

So happy to say OH is being extremely supportive. Today he went and did the shopping. I'm so proud - look at this haul for £11!

He's the hunter of us, as you can tell. Don't worry, I'm gathering the fruit and veg in later in the week.He makes Doctor Who stew with the hearts as there's two per pack.

But tomorrow and Friday, more wedding stuff as I learn to make chocolates, and talk about cake, baby! I'm designing invitations in my spare scraps of time, too. I love it when a plan comes together!

Feeling Crafty

I've had a busy old night, writing and editing. We took a break to watch the fabulous Utopia on channel 4, during which I got on with my tea cosy...

This came in a free kit from Clipper tea, along with packs of English Breakfast and Earl Grey teabags. Looking good so far, but I need to get it finished as I have a couple of gift knitting projects that I'd like to start and finish before the end of February.

A short while ago, OH came to join me in our little office to design some photo gifts on his laptop.

Yes, spot the homemade wine... unfortunately, I don't believe it's any good, so we'll have to have another go. OH makes a particularly good dry cider - just from basic juice and champagne yeast! We got the basic recipe from Downsizer.

We've had a really good week of budgeting and planning for the wedding. We decided the shopping budget was a little tight for us, but I'm going to handle the budget as it is for all groceries, toiletries, cleaning stuff and cat food, and  OH is in charge of stockpiling bargain meat for the freezer. In fact, he went shopping today. He did quite well, within budget and stuck to multipack deals and stickered bargains, but I meanly gave him a very middly 6/10 for his efforts, because I'm a stickler about what I consider to be a bargain. For example, 2 quail for £3.45 - yes, cheaper than normal, but you could probably get better value from something else. That said, I haven't tried quail before, so I'm looking forward to that meal.