Just a simple girl.

Bramleys

 I'm relatively new to gardening and I'm still enthralled by the magic of it all. Buy a scruffy little plant, or a few seeds, dig around in the earth and a few months later, you have food. I've spent a lovely hour in the garden. I've earthed up potatoes, weeded, potted the Lupins on, planted carrot seeds, watered, dead headed and cleared away rubbish.

Victoria plum

 The rain has caused the potatoes to have a growing spurt and then are 'leggy' and needed protecting from day light. The spuds and I had a lovely chat...........they're such good listeners!

 Almost all of the tiny bulbs, that I bought for £1 in Poundland have sprung to life, I'll have loads to plant into the borders soon.

 My cheapy poly tunnel is the best fun ever! Foster Mummy's sweetcorn loves it in there. I have courgettes, butternut squash and cucumber and I'll put the tomatoes in at the weekend. Either Foster Mummy (she generously gave me lots of plants) or I have grown everything from seed and I am constantly amazed at the way a few pennies turn into meal after meal.

 My Aldi plants, that I bought for £1.79 a tray, are flourishing. All four of my hanging baskets unsuccessfully grew tomatoes last year. This year they are doing what they are intended to do and are full of flowers. Again, bought for pennies but giving me the most incredible pleasure. It's a grey and overcast evening, yet I can find so much colour and life out there. I worry sometimes that I spend too much money in the garden as all the little bits add up and when I look in the 'home accounts book' and see what I have spent over the last few years, I also think of the awe and wonder I feel every time I'm out there.

Some one asked about me staying in a 'caravan' and cleaning 'caravans'. I work in the school summer holiday on a local campsite and clean the caravans on a Saturday through the summer break. It's very well paid for a summer job at £8.50 an hour and after six caravans, it's an incredible workout. I also profit, like a Womble, from the every day items that folks leave behind. If they leave clothing or toys, then all those items are handed in; the owners are informed and posted to them at the owner's expense. If they don't claim them, then the campsite gives them to the local charity shop. However, minor items such as unopened food, cleaning materials and toiletries are to be thrown away, or in my case, taken home and made good use of. I would often come home with unopened food after clearing out the fridge, boxes of tea, trays of eggs, bottles of washing up liquid, shower gel, shampoo and a host of other peripherals, some of which kept me supplied for months.

I'm also renting a caravan when I go on holiday. They are just about the cheapest form of holiday accommodation next to taking your own tent. As we are only going for a five day break, then we've decided to leave the tent at home and have the luxury of a caravan.

Admiration of enterprise

Our daughter is still at home but much better today. Her lifestyle choices have left her very run down but she is picking up and eating anything and everything I cook for her. I left her with Dearly Beloved and went to Lidl as I'm running low on everything. As I'm on a water meter, I daren't get the Karcher out of the garage and usually pay to get my car cleaned once in a while as it's no cheaper to run the water myself at home. I really admire the boys who clean the car next to the Lidl car park in Saltash. They are always there and a team of them clean the car to showroom condition in minutes. (The photo above is not the aforementioned car wash service, but I didn't have my camera with me).

The youngs guys who clean  the cars are teenagers or in their very early twenties, and any one of them could double up as a young Omar Sharif (not that I noticed, of course!) and scrub wheel trims with toothbrushes whilst on their hands and knees in puddles. Their enterprise and industry really impresses me. I'm sure they are economic migrants and as there was no car wash service in the town before they started up, no one's losing out. It does make me wonder how many young, local unemployed young men just wouldn't do that work. They are there seven days a week and for ten hours a day and they charge £5 a car, including waxing it so they must have to wash a lot of cars to make any money. They are pleasant, happy, polite, speak impeccable English and my car was gleaming and waiting for me when I finished the shopping. It makes me wonder why so many young people would rather claim benefits than do something enterprising and it must be possible if two young men, from a far away land can come here and make a successful living with a bucket, soap, toothbrushes and a pressure washer.

Managing change on a budget

 Another busy weekend at Frugal Towers! DB and I have helped our son move into his first home. If any of you know Devonport in Plymouth, then you will know it has a friendly and welcoming side. The man in the flat above my son couldn't do enough to help us move in today. The key we had, wouldn't work, so he gave us a spare key to the shared front door. The flat and the state it is in and the fact that my son is prepared to do it up on the little money he has (he is incredibly rich in skills and skilled friends) is testament to his upbringing where nothing was handed to him on a plate and he learnt to make do. His dad has 'bought' the flat on a buy to let mortgage and sonny boy is actually paying the mortgage and renovating the property. My word! It is in a state and the neighbourhood, although friendly, is in the same state. It's all he can afford and we will do all we can to help him fix it up. Dearly Beloved has pledged to be there every weekend as our boy's labourer.

I've been 'in harness' all weekend as I mark GCSE papers (no confidentiality broken, I have enlarged this and nothing is readable). I have 250 scripts to mark by the end of the first week of December and it's slow work but as I need the money to help my son, then it's not a chore at all. Every two scripts is a couple of metres of fabric for curtains, in all, the sum of money I earn will be enable them to clean the flat up and make it liveable. We want it 'nice' so Shelley can move in when she's ready, for now, grief has overcome her and she wants to stay 'home'. I'll plod on with the marking, to help Rik manage the change to living in his own home and for Shelley to have somewhere nice to live and it will be a joy to be able to help them.

5 jobs and counting!

I'm really proud of the fact that I have 5 jobs !!! (my freddin' tax bill is bigger than most people's wages!) 1. Head of English in a Secondary School 2. One to one tutor for literacy. 3 Landlady of Roger the Lodger. 4 Exam marker for AQA exam board and 5. Home boarding for dogs.

Making himself at home on my lap is Scamp the westie! He's settled in immediately and he really wouldn't suit kennels as he loves company, I love dogs and I get paid! Everyone is a winner. Below is his friend, Hollie the Golden Retriever, also totally unstressed, relaxed and at home. Last year, I cleaned six caravans every Saturday and although it was fun, it was badly paid so this year, my life carries on as normal, with a few doggies in my house and I get paid. It's not much, but it will pay for the paint and bits and pieces I need to carry out some house maintenance this summer. No one should moan ever if they have a job in the current job climate and I consider myself really lucky that I've been able to increase my income this year and slay a few debts. 5 jobs and counting my blessings.

Bit busy so a mini-message!

The marking continues, nowadays we have to upload the grades onto the e-marker website and it's good to see the numbers decreasing and the totals in my head increasing. I've earned £180 so far this morning and I'll double that by lunch. It's really mind numbingly boring but I need to do justice to these students incredible efforts.............so back to work! (I deleted the photo as I realised, if I enlarged or if anyone enlarged, then candidate confidentiality could be breached, so no photo today.)

Locked away from the world

I'll be back soon............school work and planning has shut me away for a while. I'm surviving on toast, Marmite, low fat spread, strong coffee and gritted teeth. It's going to be a long weekend and I may have nothing to show for it at the end; but a teacher's job is never done. Normal service will resume shortly; plus Dearly Beloved is very ill so I'm attending to him.

Summer season for car boot sales!

There are two very good car boot sales in the Liskeard area in the summer months. Both a run by the local Lions clubs. The Liskeard car boot sale is held from 4 - 7 pm on Friday, at the Cricket Club and we arrived at 4 and it was in full swing. There were all sorts of useful things for sale, from furniture to clothes but I was most impressed at the amount of children's clothes, toys and equipment for sale.
There were a lot of mums there buying useful things for their children and lots of useful things for their homes. We found a stall where some one had lots of bedding. I bought a double blanket for a pound and it's in perfect condition. We put them under the sheets on the beds as it keeps us warmer. This, although it smells freshly laundered, will go in with my next wash ready for us to put on one of our beds. The other carboot sale is held every Saturday at Westwayland Farm, on the way to Looe and Polperro. We've never been to that one as I cleaned caravans every Saturday last year. I hope to get to one or two of them this year. We just had fun ambling around and having a good look. I can certainly recommend the Liskeard car boot sale and if you have anything to sell and live locally then it's buzzing with customers looking for bargains.

And it's not even Christmas!

Look what the lovely people at AQA sent me! 400 exam scripts! I'm off to mark some now! There's going to be some llllllooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnggggggg nights!

Non paying lodger is about as good as no lodger at all!

I've just signed up with a couple of rent a room websites. There are people looking for somewhere short term to rent in my area and I may get some one who wants my spare room. I discovered the tax loophole, which allows the income from renting a room to be untaxed!!

I've got a lodger at the moment but his rent has built up and I've not been paid. I've been direct....texted, emailed and asked and I know he's short of money but aren't we all? So if he doesn't pay me this pay day then I'm going to ask him to leave as I'm sure I can rent the room out. He is the ideal lodger as he complains when the heating is ON! and all he wants from us is the wireless broadband! So in many ways he's perfect and he'll let the dogs out but he's no use if he doesn't pay his rent. (He only stays for 3 nights in the week and pays - or doesn't! £10 a night and now owes £300!) Bless him, he even had the nerve to go on holiday in the school break when he owed me money! Anyway, I'm either going to be better off or better educated by pay day!!! In future, I want the rent in advance!!!

Here's the quote from the HM website! so it's official! "Under the Government's Rent a Room scheme, you can rent out one or several rooms in your home, to one or more tenants. The rooms must be furnished, but you cannot modify your home to make the rented area self-contained with its own front door.

Rent a Room allows you to receive up to £4,250 a year tax-free. If you get more than that, you must nominate to pay tax on either the overall profit after utility bills and wearand-tear costs are taken into account, or on the rental income above £4,250."

Earning extra money.

It's Easter holiday and I'll be working through it! I have four private students to tutor this term and I had seven last term, which was really twice as many as I could cope with. This is a new venture for me and brings in valuable extra income. Due to the economical down turn dearly beloved's industry (housing benefit!!) is booming and he's having to work an extra day a week to keep up with demand so we're both 'working two jobs' as our own scales of economy demand.
In the summer term I will become the proud owner of 500 GCSE exam scripts which I will mark (sigh in disbelief and even groan at too) over 20 days!!! I almost go blind marking 25 full scripts a day and I spend about three hours a night marking those scripts! It's a killer as most examiners are retired and haven't usually worked a normal week at school. So many people are having to step outside the parameters of their usual working hours to take on more just to keep up with life and I know this short term pain will have a long term gain as we march, head down into life's prevailing gusts of bills, debt repayments and the rising cost of living. I do count my blessings too as I not only have a job but the means to diversify in other ways. Roll on debt freedom and a day off!