Steamy Sundays!

Froogs on the Miss Marplemobile!

 That caught your attention, didn't it? I'm starting to feel more energetic and I can only assume that moving around is easier now that I've lost a few pounds and I know it will get easier. Just being 30lbs over weight is like spending every minute, of every day with a toddler in my arms and carrying them about. Today, we got the bikes out. We are really spoilt by our local surroundings; there are plenty of places to walk, to swim, to bike ride, virtually for free although we do have to get there. Today we drove to Bodmin and rode our bikes on the Camel Trail to Wadebridge. It's 7 miles each way, mostly flat but through woodland, farm land and by the river. We often drive to Wadebridge and ride to Padstow, but as it was so windy, we chose a more sheltered route.

 We passed the Camel Valley Vineyard and the Bodmin and Wenford Steam Railway. No wine for me anymore but it was a delight to see the little steam train. I was fascinated and watched the guard get off the train, change the points manually, watched the driver and the stoker getting up a head of steam, watched them shunt the train down the track and onto the front of the train to take it back to the centre of Bodmin. It was a delight.

 My day out was free, energetic and certainly left me feeling energised from the fresh air and exertion. I'm now feeding Dearly Beloved exactly what I eat, but he has carbs with his meal, whilst I don't. We had dry fried mushrooms, they sizzle and release their water if you add the tiniest amount of salt and a spray of one cal oil.

 I also made courgette chips in exactly the same way. This blog will soon be called a million things you can do with vegetables with no/very low carbs and no/very few calories.

 The meal here is why I could never go back to calorie counting, this is simple, there is a list of food I can eat and a list of food I can't. Eat what you like from one list! Simple. Lunch was steak at an unfrugal £1.75 a portion!, green beans, mangetout, mushrooms, courgettes, fat free/carb free bearnaise sauce and 1% fat cream cheese. This is not a frugal diet and I'm spending on average £2 an evening meal, which is double my usual expenditure.

We don't eat this expensively every day, however, after 14 miles on my bike, I felt like I had earnt it!

(added as a response to the question, the bike basket had warm clothes and waterproofs as you can't trust the weather and bottled tap water......I'm not eating snacks between meals)

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxx

Moorland walk and a culinary invention.

 Happy Sunday everyone!

This morning, we went for a brisk walk around Siblyback Lake (click on the link to see more about the place; if you're ever in this part of the world on holiday, it's a great place for an active day out). It was perfect walking weather, a fresh breeze and warm enough not to need a coat. The lake is in the middle of Bodmin Moor and I know I keep boasting about it, but it's ten minutes from my home. It's in a natural dip in the moor and so the perfect place to create a resevoir. The lake is surrounded with farms and woodland.

 The shaggy long horned cattle were very photogenic. The signpost.....well, direct and to the point.

 The woods themselves had a lovely eeriness to them. The trunks, the ground and the stacked logs were all covered in a deep green lichen or moss and it was spongy underfoot. It provided welcome respite from the wind............I'm glad I didn't wear a hat..........I would have lost it.

 The lake itself is used for water sports and I was really impressed with some very small children hauling windsurfer sails out of the water, in what looked like beginners lessons. It looked really difficult to learn to do. Experts wizzed past us at phenomenal speed and I can imagine why it's so popular as they bounced over the choppy water.

Half way round, you cross a dam and the views into the valley below are delightful with the light bouncing off the sparkling yellow gorse blossom and the smell was heady and powerful. The walk itself is three and a half miles long but it seemed longer as we walked into the wind.

Oh, I must tell you about my culinary invention. Lunch was salad, just Romaine lettuce (2 for £1) a sliced yellow pepper and some cherry tomatoes. I'm also trying a range of fat free, almost carb free dressings from Asda and can recommend the mint and yoghurt dressing. Today, I tossed a bag of diced Quorn in two tablespoons of Pesto, I did so because I didn't have any oil and I wanted to 'flash fry' the Quorn. The end result of cooking the Pesto covered Quorn in a dry frying pan is a garlicky/herby Quorn Crouton. We sprinkled those over our salad and it was fantastic! There you are, Quorn Croutons; remember, you heard of them here first.

Thanks to all the diet advice everybody; I am sticking to a low fat, high protein and minimal carbohydrate diet. I've ordered the Dukan Diet book from the library and will have a read of the advice and I've also read everything that's available online. I'm walking every day, at least twenty minutes and up to an hour if I can fit it in, but it's very brisk, almost to the point of puffing. Don't suggest running what ever you do, the only jogging I like is horizontal. Tomorrow, there's another car boot sale and I shall keep my eyes open for an interesting piece of exercise equipment so I can wobble my fat bits round in private.

Until tomorrow,

Froogs xxxxx

An almost free lunch.

 The cheapest place to buy diesel is at the supermarket and the most convenient to my journey is run by Tesco. I save their points with the clubcard and about once every month or so, they send me £5 in Clubcard vouchers. I then save them until I have £10 of voucher. If you then log onto the Tesco clubcard website, you can treble the value of these by exchanging them for rewards voucher. I changed my £10 of vouchers, that could be spend on £10 of goods in Tesco for £30 of Cafe Rouge vouchers.

 I can't actually remember the last time Dearly Beloved and I went out to a restaurant, it certainly wasn't this year, and it wasn't any time last year so it was probably 2009! It was lovely! I had a salad with chicken, bacon and egg and DB had a steak. It cost us £3.25 for a litre bottle of sparkling water and the diesel to get there!

Not free, not entirely frugal but what a treat to sit down, have some one else do the cooking and more importantly......someone else do the washing up! I noticed other people paying with their Tesco reward vouchers and I will go back when I've saved some more.

Did you miss me?

 After my last blog about being happy, I have spent the last few days busily being happy but unable to get to my computer. On Thursday night, we had a parents' evening, one of the five we have a year and, by the time I got home, and ate, it was time for bed. Friday was another extremely late night at work and after coming home and eating, again, I just went to bed. Saturday was a lovely day. We had friends over for supper so we shopped for some lovely food (at shockingly lovely prices too!) and I made fish pie, with salmon, smoked haddock and prawns in a cheese sauce covered with mashed potatoes. I made Tarte Tatin for dessert with Cornish ice cream, I don't have an ice cream machine so I just bought it. We bought wine, beer and non-alcoholic drinks and treated our friends, hopefully, to what they thought was a good night. Most of Saturday was taken up with cleaning the house, and oh joy of joy, getting the laundry dry in the crisp breeze. It was a late night; we just chatted and enjoyed each others' company. I have no idea of the cost of a night like that, if we had gone out to eat.

It's a beautiful day here today and we did one of the things I just really love to do. We loaded the dogs into the car and went off to the Forestry Commission land to walk through the 'forest'. Well, it was a forest. It has been cleared of a lot of trees and the light poured into the lanes.

 The enormous log piles were every where and smelt wonderful. It's only a couple of miles, but all up hill on the way back, so our lungs, and the dogs' legs had a good work out. Both dogs were covered in mud and Dearly Beloved is bathing them as I type.

 Where the forest has been cleared, the views over the Glyn Valley are wonderful. I loves the rolling contours of the countryside around us. It's such a joy to be able to get out, without being frozen or soaked.

 I thought I would share our dining room with you all. Everything on my table is either from a car boot sale, flea market, charity shop or, in the case of the dining room suite, from eBay. None of it cost much and yet, it is around this dining table that we have so many good times with family and friends.

My apologies for my absence, sometimes life just catches up with us and we have to do what we have to do, just to keep up with the flow.

A night on the town

 Tonight, Liskeard had its 'Lighting up' ceremony. It's one of the many community events that happen in our little Cornish town. All of the schools, youth groups and local clubs such as the 'Royal Naval Association' (a club for retired members of the Royal Navy) make lanterns from withies, covered in tissue paper, then coated with PVA to make them water proof and they have little lights inside them. My photos just don't do the parade justice. A huge amount of work must have been made and I take my hat off to the volunteer youth workers who coordinated Brownies, St. John's Ambulance cadets, the Liskerret youth club and a multitude of other organisations who helped children to make their lanterns.

 I was really impressed with the way that some of the lanterns are articulated to move and people manipulate them like puppeteers.

 The procession wove its way through the little streets preceded by the local brass band and followed by the Samba band. Traditional Christmas carols drifted away as the cheers of local people lifted to the sounds of samba.

 The streets were closed and the town was thick with participants and spectators; it was a wonderful evening's entertainment.

 The procession ended on the parade, the count down began and the lights of the town were switched on as fireworks light up the night sky. It was just delightful

There was a real buzz of excitement tonight. I love a night on the town. A huge thank you to the local Rotary Club for organising, for the incredible efforts of all the people who made the lanterns, put on the firework display, played in the Brass band or Samba band, who directed traffic, kept their shops open late, rang bells, stood in the cold to cheer for making my night just so lovely! Thanks Liskeard xxxxx

Saving myself a whole pile of money.

 We went to the local pet superstore today to buy another month's supply of dog food, which is again, on very special offer. I say a month's supply, it actually lasted us for six weeks. Whilst there, I couldn't help but notice the local out of town eatery's car park was packed with people who are there for Sunday lunch. I'm not decrying these places, people can spend their money as they please and the people who work there need the money. But! The sign out side 'proudly' proclaimed that Sunday lunch was £14.99 for three courses and £4.99 for children (in small print......under 10 years old) so a family of mum, dad and three teenagers would cost £75.95!!! I wouldn't part with that much money to eat if Gordon Ramsay had cooked it. My Sunday two course roast dinner was £1.37 each! A lot more reasonable and affordable. There is just the two of us so we had two lean pork loin chops which cost us 55p each, as we just can't eat a roasting joint.

 I always start by part cooking the parsnips, which we prefer with our Sunday lunch instead of potatoes and then place them in our mini-oven. I even make sure I don't waste the goodness or the water and pour the water from one veg pot into the other.

 I place the parsnips and the stuffing balls into a hot oven, set the timer for 20 minutes and go away and knit a few more rows of the scarf  I'm knitting as a Christmas present.

Twenty minutes and a ring, ring from the timer later, I come back and turn over the parsnips and stuffing balls, put them back in the oven and get on with the huge task of making the dessert! I used to adore a dessert topping called 'Tip Top' when I was a child and we would get it on tinned fruit as a treat once in a while. I still love tinned fruit, but haven't had 'tip top' in years.

 If you look in the tinned fruit aisle, you will notice that fruit in juice is often more expensive that the fruit in 'light syrup'. I won't pay more, so buy the cheaper, pour it into a sieve, get rid of the syrup and give the fruit a quick rinse under the tap and that works well for pineapple and peaches. I tap the sieve to make sure there is no water left before serving it with a long life UHT pudding. The Alpro was on offer for 2 four packs for £2, so only 25p each and a pot will easily make two puddings that extra bit special and the shelf life is months and months.

 The dessert is just delicious, a healthier version of peaches and cream (we don't like cream so eat a soya alternative)..........I don't think you can get 'Tip Top' any more!

 By now, I start to cook the veggies and put the chops onto the tray and back in the oven, set the timer again and go back to some more knitting............it's a hard life.

 The finished result. Sunday roast of parsnips, stuffing balls, pork loin, green bean, carrots, gravy and fruit and 'cream £2.47 for the pair of us. The 'home economics' are below.

Carrots 12p + Green Beans 59p + Stuffing 30p + gravy 3p + pork loin £1.11 + parsnips 13p + Alpro 25P + tinned peaches 24p - total £2.74. We never did eat out very much and now we never do which meant I was glad we save ourselves £17.24 today and if we ate out just once a week, every week, and because we don't , we have saved £896.48 this year! Unless you are a rich as Lord Alan Sugar, there is very little justification for eating out as no body I know has a spare £896 to just spend eating nothing better than they could cook at home!

I saved a fortune today

 We went to see DB's mum in Bristol today. Everyone else had the same idea. A38 was nose to bumper, so the was the M5, M4 and M32! We had to stop at those dreadful service stations, you know, the places that want £3.50 for an expresso. Today, I saved a fortune!

 We make left at a reasonable time and made sure we had a good breakfast. We took a snack to eat on the way, a flask of coffee and a packed lunch of a homemade pasty.

We did stop at the services to use the loos. I am amazed at the stupidity of people who use them!Whole families buying burgers, sweets, drinks and being totally ripped off. I cheer when I see the 'tupperware' families eating their packed lunches and pouring drinks from their flasks! Good on them!

Let's work out what we saved! We didn't buy a Burger King lunch each. Saving! £10. We didn't have a cost a lot of money coffee each for £3.50, there and back. Total saving? £24!?

It is so easy to let money drip out of our fingers. Take sandwiches, a pack of cheapy biscuits, a flask of tea a bottle of diluted squash for the kids, a bag of supermarket own brand mixed sweets for the kids and you will save your selves so much money.

We had lunch of the homemade pasties with mum in law in Bristol and I knitted there and back whilst chatting to Dearly Beloved. I got to spend all day as close to him as possible and he has a new scarf and I have also knitted half a blanket. A lovely day out, we'd saved money for the diesel there and back and of course, it's always lovely to see mum. 

No money means saying "No" to friends and family.

Pay day on Friday, £5.37 in my bank account and £3.78 in my purse and a three quarter of a tank of diesel to take us to mum in law's (Bristol) and back on Friday. It's like this every month. I have just enough. There is plenty of food in the house and everything is paid by direct debit. The lodger pays me on Friday and that will cover my water bill. I reassure myself that it's all OK.

Yesterday with mum has left me feeling 'out of sorts'. I don't usually go in 'normal' shops and therefore don't have many reminders of how some people live. As you all know, I deal with the mess I've made for myself in a positive way and walk on the sunny side of the street. Today though, is not so good.

 What I saw yesterday, in Fowey, were people escaping from their reality. They were away from home, on a break and I know that's what we all need once in a while. My own mum, who doesn't have a car, dropped lots of hints yesterday that it would be nice to go out for the day; to somewhere like Tavistock and go round the shops and go for lunch. I don't have the heart to tell her "Mum, I could afford the diesel to come and see you today and I can afford the Diesel to go and see DB's mum on Friday, but that's it." Our (with Dearly Beloved) days out are lovely. We go somewhere, find somewhere free to park, go for a walk and usually sit in the car with a flask and a bit of homemade cake, we chat and enjoy each other's company. We've no money, but for that moment, in our moneyless world, it doesn't matter.

I look positively at having what is truly necessary and no more. I have food, clothing, enough heat not to be chilly, the library, nice places to walk, a decent home. I also think that a social life, hobbies and life enhancing experiences are also truly necessary; they all make us who we are. Today, I feel like the last miser in the village who can't afford to take my mum out for the day and although I don't feel 'down' about it, it doesn't make me feel good either.

Frugal day out

We always try and have a 'treat' once in a while and today we went to Tavistock. Unfortunately, so did everyone else! It was packed. We visited the pannier market and I bought some string and grease proof paper to wrap my soap, which I will give as gifts. We looked for somewhere to eat and have a cup of tea and I got what I can only describe as the 'jitters' about spending any money! I know a cup of tea and a piece of cake can blow our budget. We ended up having a pasty and a cup of tea each, which cost the incredible amount of £8 for the pair of us! That just seems so much money to me and could provide the pair of us with three meals a day for the weekend.

Tavistock is such a lovely old market town, full of expensive shops........don't worry! I didn't go in those. Lovely craft stalls in the pannier market with delightful fabrics and I didn't buy those either. As usual, I browsed around the charity shops, which had nothing I fancied today but charity shops are like that; some days full of treasures and some days full of things you just don't want. I also visited Odds and Suds and took a look at their handmade soaps. They were impressively priced but don't let my miserly ways stop you from buying a product that brings a well needed income to the local economy.

We saw some amazing shops selling locally produced food and the farmer's market was in town as well. I didn't buy anything today; I didn't go with the intention of doing so. After the shock of 'eating out' I couldn't bring myself to spend any money.

This evening I made 'Rose geranium and lavender' soap and had my first soap disaster. It reached trace very quickly and then proceeded to cook even more when I poured it into moulds and ended up expanding out of the moulds. It cracked and split! I researched this and it implied that it may have had too little water, so I added some until I was able to re blend it and get it back to a gel like substance. Consequently my arm nearly fell off stirring the gloopy soap. I can't bear to throw it away and I will attempt my first 're-batching' as it is still grainy and unpleasant to the eye. It smells so divine that I just can't waste it, especially as I have used coconut oil and shea in the recipe. If it all goes wrong, then I shall have the world's most luxurious laundry soap!

Soap disaster or not, we've had the loveliest day together.

Owl be seeing you!

A day out to be cheered up by Foster Mummy and Man Wonderful today. I've been totally spoilt! FM cooked the most delicious Dal and flat bread for lunch and then we went for a spot of charity shop shopping in the little nearby town of Plympton.

I read recently about a local man, who has pet owls and takes them for a walk every day. People talk to him about his owls and he and his owls are delightful I was mesmerised by them. I love birds, they always lift my spirits, even the finches all over the blackberry bushes are delightful. Here is the news article about Mr Russell....I feel as if I've met someone really special today! Another part of my spoilt rotten day!! Well I met the owl man and his owls today.

Owl Man: I feel famous

WALKING AGAIN: Russell Burt and a feathered friend

PLYMPTON'S "Owl Man" Russell Burt says the support he received during his dispute with Plymouth City Council has made him feel famous, writes Gayle McDonald.

The 74-year-old pensioner was banned from walking with his owls in Plympton after the council said they posed a health and safety risk to the public.

Readers of The Herald rallied behind Mr Burt, who has been walking his owls for nine years. The council has now said Mr Burt is allowed to walk with his owls in public.

Since the dispute, Mr Burt has received media attention from national papers, radio stations and magazines. He even heard about it when he was on holiday in Italy.

He says: "I feel famous. I didn't realise how liked I was.

"I would like to thank The Herald and everyone who showed their support."

Family friend Zoe Forsyth said all the attention had been quite a shock.

She added: "He's just a little old man who likes to walk his owls."

Mr Burt shows his owls at local care homes and events. He does not charge but accepts donations to Woodside Animal Welfare Trust.

He has seven owls including Ben, a Bengal eagle owl, and Spot, an African spotted eagle owl. FROM 'THIS IS DEVON' 24/08/10

Here I am with one of Mr Russell's owls. I love English eccentricity, I knew a man in Fowey, when I lived there, who used to take half a dozen ferrets for a walk on leads to the British Legion for his pint every day! Long live individuality!!!
Plympton was a fabulous place to shop, with plenty of independent local retailers. I bought a couple of bags of local tomatoes.
I bought three tee shirts for £1 each and a long tunic style jumper for £2.95 from the Hospice shop and Woodside Animal Shelter shop. We also went to the local craft shop and I bought three balls of wool for £1.50. FM and I had a really good root around and we managed to buy everything we wanted off the sale rails in the charity shops. So my shopping splurge cost £7.50 and I think it was worth that to have lunch and be taken out by wonderful friends and meeting the owl man was just magic.