I live in a small old mill town nestled into the Pennine hills in Yorkshire with my long-suffering husband of thirty some years. I have two beautiful daughters who have flown the nest (most of the time!). I paint and draw (a little) when time allows, make and bake sometimes but not often enough and garden and grow things as much as possible. I recycle and up-cycle, hate waste and I couldnāt live without my time planner and lists.
We have been waiting for this day for quite a while, planning and plotting and at last the day finally came and when mum woke up on Monday morning she was 100…….. a whole century of living and I cannot imagine how that feels.
On Sunday, the day before, the family (the ones she hasn’t managed to outlive) gathered together for a celebration of mum’s special birthday. I had organised a private room at the Keys in Yarm near to where mum lives for a two course Sunday lunch. The organiser at the venue, Kimberley, couldn’t have been more helpful; the tables were beautifully decorated with flowers and candles – we just added banners, balloons and scattered lots of photos of mum’s life around.
My sister made the cakes, they were wonderful. One had a lovely scene of mum when she was in the Women’s Land Army during the war (a job that she was always very proud of and for which she has a badge) and the other she decorated with flowers. All the flowers and decorations on the cake were handmade by her and her little team (husband, daughter and friend) and I know they were up until the early hours getting them finished.
I made a place card for each of our guests using whatever old photos I could find of them in their younger days, so each person had to find their seat by recognising their own photo. It became a great talking point too with a lot of memories being shared.
It was all a big surprise for my mum, but a very welcome one. I think she struggled to grasp who all the family members were as we don’t see some of them very often, but as she keeps reminding us all now ‘I am 100’ so she is now officially allowed to have memory lapses. I didn’t like to point out that her memory has been ‘lapsing’ for quite a while now!!
It was a struggle to know what to buy her so we bought her a very large display clock for her bedside table that is specially designed for people with memory problems; it tells you if it is morning, afternoon or evening, (in the hope she will not keep ringing us in the early hours thinking it is the afternoon). We also made up a hamper of her favourite bits and pieces that everyone could add to.
The celebrations continued on the Monday, her actual birthday, at the retirement apartments where she lives. The residents had wanted to get together and put a little spread on for mum which was nice as her main carer could attend as a guest too.
So mum is completely wiped out now and will probably sleep away her days for the rest of this week!
Meanwhile, we have yet another celebration to turn our attention to as it is Master Freddies’s seventh birthday party on Sunday, but this time it will be mostly his little school friends attending this one.
Next Monday might see me lying down in a darkened room all partied out.
I hadn’t intended to have a blog break, but I have been busy and haven’t really wanted to stop the momentum by blogging about it. So the days have been a flurry of activity, but the long, cold evenings have been a welcome rest and snuggled under my throw I have taken to watching Bleak House and marvelling at Charles Dickens, such a wonderful story teller, inspired by real life, and in particular the names he gives to his characters – Guppy of Kenge and Carboy (you couldn’t make it up so well as Dickens did), Miss Flite, Lady Dedlock, Krook and Smallweed; all their names suit their characters.
So at present, I am thinking of myself as Miss Moneythrift as it is that time of year to overhaul the financial situation here.
Many moons ago, I decided to plan each month of the year around one aspect of my life and it went something like this – January Finances, February Health and so on…. as I remember it worked very well for the first few months but fizzled out towards the second half of the year, but the more important things were covered. A whole year is a lot to plan for at once so, after a lot of thought recently, I decided I would split the year into 4 quarters so that my plans only stretch to cover the first 3 months and I would combine this with focussing on one aspect.
The first being finances.
I have at last documented all the receipts for December that didn’t get done before Christmas, balanced the statements and paid any outstanding bills – there are few of those now as most things are on direct debit. Thankfully, I am left with a healthy balance and as the advice of Mr Micawber in Dickens David Copperfield – “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [shillings] and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”.
Once all the savings interest is updated I shall be able to run the year end reports that will tell me exactly where we spent our money and what our passive income is. I can then adjust our budget for this year, although I will probably break some of this down into 3 month periods too.
I can already see that we managed to get through Christmas without breaking the bank, but…and there is always a but, this is a heavy month for us with the cars – insurance, car tax, MOT and servicing all to be done in January. To cope with this I save a little towards it each month in our bill account throughout the previous year.
As January is also a long month for the housekeeping money I have been grocery shopping at home (rather than going for our weekly shop at the supermarket). The pantry is well stocked since before Christmas with dry, canned and packet foods, so a plentiful supply of ready cooked lentils and beans, coconut cream, passata, pasta and the like. We have been using these up together with the vegetables in the fridge. The freezer is also well stocked with bread and rolls to last us until our next shop so all we had to do this past week, to keep us going, was buy a few extra veg and some fruit for breakfast.
We were snowed in on Friday and had a treacherous walk to the village for milk, potatoes, carrots, broccoli and a courgette to top up. I also bought 2 bananas and a pack of raspberries – altogether it came to just under Ā£10 but it will keep us going until Tuesday, our usual shopping day, and it means we have saved around Ā£80 this week already.
As readers may know, we have for a long time always bought organic food and although it is much more expensive, we still prefer to do this and save money in other places.
There have been a few programs on TV last week about the food we eat. One of them comparing how much of our income is spent of food now to in the 70’s. I was quite shocked to find it is substantially less. In the seventies it would be on average 30% of our income and now only around 11%, this isn’t a reflection on the price of food either but the choice of food – low quality, highly and ultra processed with cheap ingredients, or even no recognisable ingredients like in Pot Noodles and strawberry smoothie.
I decided a long time ago that I would only buy quality food, those that have the least processing and without lethal preservatives or pesticides and grown in naturally fertilised soil – it made sense to me as it is something we are eating 3 or more times a day and should be a pleasureable part of life. So if you were reading my blog for any frugal tips around food, then it will not be about skimping on quality.
Where I do save money is by only buying groceries when on offer and stocking up with them if the dates are suitable. If there are vegetables on offer we buy extra and make soup and stews and alter the weekly menu to suit. We minimise waste by cooking only what we can eat to ensure an empty plate and keeping any of the tougher parts of a vegetable, like broccoli stalks, to add to the soups we make, so nothing is wasted.
In and amongst the adding up and balancing bank statements I have been doing a bit of house clearing whilst it has been too cold to go for any long walks, and now there is a nice little pile to leave our house – bags for the charity shop, recycle and a few items to return to friends and daughters.
I spent a whole day in our craft room cum office sorting out paper. It mounts up quickly and every so often I need to tame the pile. I think this year I have not used very many of the craft papers for cards, but aquirred more from somewhere (though I think it breeds secretly when I am in bed!). I really need to get down to some crafting and sewing, but I know it will not be this week as we have mum’s celebration party next weekend and Master Freddie’s party the weekend after. There is also the cost of mum’s celebration to take into account as well as two major presents….could be bread and jam for the rest of the month!!
Inbetween, we have hair and dental appointments (more expense) and the car is booked in today for the MOT and service…and of course it is the bigger of the two services (they alternate yearly) this year, which is always an extra Ā£100 on top – lets hope they don’t find any fault to remedy as well.
I will leave you now as I continue my hunt for a suitable birthday card with 100 on it.
You will all have heard of the saying ‘it will get worse before it gets better‘ – well that is the state of my house at the moment…in the getting worse part.
So far, DH helped with removing the baubles from the Christmas tree, dismantling it and returning it to the box and bit by bit all the decorations were taken down and repacked in their boxes ready to go back into the loft. It is always a little sad….there are many memories in our decorations and we only see them for a few days a year.
I sorted through the unused rolls of wrapping paper, replaced them in the special long ‘wrapping paper box’ and this too will have to go in the loft as there isn’t another place to keep it in the house.
Why, I am wondering, did my mum never have such a box, nor my gran – were they able to estimate to the very last sheet the amount they would use so there was none left over to deal with? I am left with yards still on a roll…and there is more than one roll and it is difficult to store in a small house. I did have the bright idea this time to take a photo of what is in the box before it disappears away so I don’t buy more unecessarily next year – I can’t think why I didn’t think of this before. I took a photo of all the decorations as I repacked the boxes.
When that task was completed, I turned my attentions back to my new planner notebook – that is always a much more pleasing job. DH reckons my love for stationery and anything admin is due to having a post office set at a very early age.
I have ready made calendars and checklists for birthdays, household tasks and such like, stored on my computer that I print off and stick in the front of the book. Other lists are written in as I go along. Each month I start with a list of intentions, a note of appointments, events etc and then the list of tasks – some I have to do, others I would like to do. It is a catch-all for anything of interest or anything I need to remember as well as a place to plan for wekly menus, birthdays and parties, holidays and Christmas. I also make a note of anything I need to buy this month, gardening notes and tasks and to keep tabs on our monthly financial and administrative tasks.
Each month I try to do a review. It reminds me how much I have done and what is still to do and going forward this year I will also make a note of what worked and what didn’t. I am determined to only repeat things that enhance my life not make it more difficult.
I have for many years made notes about Christmas so that I don’t repeat mistakes the following year – so below is a review of what worked well for us and what didn’t.
I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to Mrs Gaskell’s house and this will certainly be on the do again list, it may not be this same house but something similar.
I also enjoyed the lino cutting workshop, the result of which I turned into our Christmas card. I would certainly enroll on one again, but next time even earlier in November would be better. I have yet to overview my Christmas card list and revise it ready for next year.
Even though I made it myself, I have loved my Advent calendar and will be sad to take it down. I have a couple of sheets of black card already cut out with the windows so I might make them up ready to send as a little gift next year with a card.
The tiny outdoor flower lights that I bought, reduced at Argos, have looked so pretty at night in the wooden planters, the batteries are still working and they were very little trouble being on a timer. I am undecided whether to keep them out for a while or remove them and pack them away.
The little desk calendars that I made as gifts for my friends took a large part of my time so if I do them again another year I must start them earlier so I am not burning the midnight oil.
The gingerbread stars were well received and I am told were very good, though I would add even more ginger to the mixture next time. They were a bit fiddly with the different chocolates, but they did look Christmassy and quite effective. I would make them again and I will add the recipe to the menu below the header.
The children loved the session we had decorating the gingerbread too and this will certainly be something we will do again, and I would buy the ready roll again for them, and maybe, I will ask them if they want to make a gingerbread house.
The Santa visit to Portland Basin at Ashton-under-Lyne (our second year there) was good too because the venue is geared up for children; it was a really lovely family day out, but whether the children might want a change next year we shall see. They do like repeating things they get to know, like our yearly holiday to Scarborough. I shall have to make a diary note though to check for the booking form early as there are very few slots available and they sell out quickly.
The gift from Santa’s Elves that we put on the doorstep on Christmas Eve is still a magical mystery to the grandchildren, so I will probably keep that going next year, the difficulty is thinking of some game they can all join in with across the age range.
I think (touch wood) I managed to bake my cake for the right length of time this year in the oven – it turned out perfect for once …not under or overcooked. So I have made a note of the times and temperatures for next year.
There are always things that don’t go well or to plan, I was disappointed to miss both the Carol singing events and the Christingle service. Every weekend was taken in December and so conflicted with the Carols and there was so much Christmas ‘stuff’ to pack into the car on Christmas Eve for our trip up north that we set off later than intended and it meant something had to give…. and it was the Christingle service.
Having to pack cookware and food to make a dinner for mum and ourselves on Boxing Day in her apartment was a big hassle, partly because we had to keep a lot of the food in a coolbag or my daughter’s fridge over two nights. It worked OK last year but we went to mum’s straight from home on Boxing Day morning. This time we were staying the two nights before in a hotel and didn’t have access to a fridge.
Luckily, the temperatures outside in our car boot were freezing which helped to keep the coolbag cool. We had to go into Yarm to Sainsbury’s on Boxing Day for vegetarian gravy granules. DH had made the gravy at home and I accidentally forgot to take it out of the fridge and put it in the coolbag! I wasn’t sure Sainsbury’s would be open on Boxing Day, but it was and looking back it would have been far easier to have bought some ready meals or something which would have been a lot less trouble.
Blogging everyday leading up to Christmas was another challenge which I may not do again, I might only be repeating myself anyway. Taking the pictures when the light is at its’ worst during December is also a trial. It was fun, but quite time consuming and I admire those bloggers that ran the course.
Tomorrow, we will put the decorations back into our loft for another year and then maybe tackle the overflowing box of Christmas items I have for crafting – ribbons, cracker parts, and embellishments and hope I get some ideas for creating a few bits and pieces for gifts next year. I doubt I will get to do anything with them immediately as we really need to make plans for the mammoth decorating bonanza…long overdue.
So if I haven’t bored you to death with my random thoughts, I will be back soon with even more random thoughts!
I hope anyone reading this who has some brilliant ideas for making Christmas an easier and super simple time, will share them in the comments!
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Wishing all my readers and blog friends a Wonderful and Happy New Year.
Thank you to everyone who reads my little blog and to those who leave a comment. I always find such pleasure reading them; hearing snippets of your own lives, little words of encouragement and advice – I welcome it all, it builds connection and we certainly need more of that in today’s world.
Many of you, both bloggers and readers, will no doubt be thinking of the year stretching ahead and what it might bring, what you wish for, what changes you would like to make, places you want to go and people you want to see and not forgetting those dear to us, but sadly, not with us anymore.
I love this day, more than any other.
That marvellous feeling of ‘the blank page’ with an air of excitement and an expectation that perhaps a dream you have had for so long might come true. Or perhaps, like me, you are hoping for a year where you can get to grips with your life and if you feel like you are just bobbing about like a boat on the water, going nowhere fast, set yourself on a new course and break free from any accumulated bad habits and that feeling of being in a rut.
Of course, just as bad habits accumulate over time, inching their way into your life unintentionally, it takes time to establish new ones and often slow and steady wins the race; not being one to rush into anything, this will certainly be a year of slow change.
And hopefully change that will last.
Did you all have a good New Year’s Eve? – whether celebrating with family, friends or even your own company; staying up or going to bed at the usual time.
We spend Christmas with our family and always New Year’s Eve with friends. For us it is a good balance and another of those ‘it works for me’ moments, so this is one thing in my life that will continue.
We had a different take on our get together this year which would normally be during the evening and well past midnight, always tuning into Jools Holland for the countdown. This year our hosts decided their year had been hard and they were tired, so they hosted an afternoon get together until just after 6pm.
On the morning I asked if I could bring something and the reply came… ‘something sweet’. I hurriedly checked in the fridge and found fresh raspberries, we had nuts too from making the nutroast and cake and DH dashed down to our friendly Co-op for a tub of cream.
So out of nowhere, and after a seriously long phone call with my Sis-in -law that delayed production of my hasty effort, I managed to produce this Raspberry and Hazelnut Roulade within the hour. It is a recipe I have done so many times before, basically a swiss roll mix with ground hazelnuts and you crush a heap of raspberries into the cream (or you can use creme fraiche) then spread it onto the cake base and roll – I threw on a few festive sprinkles this time for good measure and just to glam it up a bit.
It was well received and vanished within minutes. I will put the recipe in the Menu section on my header strip and I can vouch for the fact it is relatively quick and easy – and quite an impressive dessert, though mine did crack a bit in places – nothing that a little piped cream didn’t cover and hide any flaws!
After a lovely time chatting with friends we hadn’t seen for ages and sampling the bits and pieces layed out on the table we left for home just before 7pm. It was a brisk walk with our empty cake tin in the freezing cold and we were glad to get inside and warm up. The preprepared curry DH had made yesterday may also have helped!
We started to nod off during Vera (we had seen it before) so switched over to watch Ken Dodd, the unseen footage – there is nothing like a good laugh for that well being feeling – and ended up going to bed later than intended and we were still awake at midnight listening to the local fireworks going off outside and the constant tune alerts on my phone as the Happy New Year messages started to come in from our family.
We have a very strange new year message, known only to a few in the family, which is Shimme Hips Wob. It is a standing joke from when I had my first mobile phone for Christmas a long time ago. It had predictive text, of a sort, but not very sophiticated and of course, as with most of these things, it learns over time what you want to say. I am 100% certain I typed in happy new year, however, the message was ‘predictively’ changed as the phone didn’t recognise these words I had typed and substituted some of its own. I had no idea how to change it back to what I wanted and in trying the message got sent. It read ‘Shimme Hips Wob love Mummy Nonmo and Daddy Faddidy!!
And so that sticks even today and I still get cards written by my daughters to mummy nonmo – quite an affectionate term I think.
So, today is that day when the festivities are truly at an end, well for us anyway, we have the day ahead to rest, chat, make a new batch of soup, maybe watch some TV and grab an early night. I might look to do a review tomorrow – taking stock.
Until then, this is mummy nonmo signing off and Shimme Hips Wob to you all x
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where the journey takes me 2 