Lots more Sneaky Ways to save the pennies

PipneyJane

London_1 said:

Hi chums sitting on the verandah at the front of the holiday house watching the ships go past as the sea is about 100 yards from the front door,Dd has just made me a lovely Kenco frothy coffee and the sun is shining and the sky is blue ,life just isn't any better here on the IoW.
No airport queues, or currancy exchange to worry about, and the local economy is benefittingf rom our holiday pounds. The dogs love it as they have so much freedom as the garden is bigger than their one at home .

Last night walking them on the beach at 5.00 the tempreture was 24c and the dogs just hurtled in and out of the sea, (we were at Yaverland beach which is very dog-friendly)

DD is off sea fishing this afternoon, and my son-in-law and I will walk the dogs up over Culver Downs. The air is super, and when you go to bed at night its great to just fall asleep in less than ten minutes

We only had the TV on last night to watch Novak win his round at Wimbledon We decided we weren't going to watch any news for two weeks, and just switch off from the media and just enjoy doing without the doom and gloom.

DD and I are great scrabble enthusiasts so that gets played after dinner, and I am just either walking ,sitting knitting or reading very relaxing holiday and the nice weather is helping as well. The nearest Tesco is 5 miles away so once we bought our shopping on Friday its just top-ups of odds and ends from the shop in the village. Which they obviously like as it brings them income. The local farm shop does well from the holiday makers as well.

Hope everyone is OK and the sun is shining down on you all 

JackieO xx

Sounds like you are having a lovely time @London_1.  Enjoy your break.

The weather in my corner of West London is cycling between "hot and sunny" and "dark and raining so hard it sounds like the house is being hosed down".  We had both on Saturday and yesterday morning, before it settled into sunny.

- Pip

YorksLass

elisheba - I always make my bread the day before I need it so it slices thinner and therefore goes further.  Plus, I remember my mum making bread on a Sunday and lovely as it was, still warm and smothered in butter, she always said not to as it would give you indigestion.  Not sure how true that was though - I think it might have been a bit of a porky pie!  

Glad to hear you're enjoying your holiday Jackie and couldn't agree more about not listening to the news, it's all too depressing.  Sadly, we're not enjoying your good weather here in Yorkshire.  It's a mix of sunshine and showers (some heavy) and windy too.  We're lucky if our daytime temperatures get up to 18C     and I think my summer clothes must be feeling I've deserted them!

Tonight's dinner is a tuna & mushroom pasta dish to use up the last couple of wrinkly mushrooms from the fridge, half a packet of tuna bake mix from the cupboard and a mix of peppers, peas and sweetcorn from the freezer.  There's also a couple of part baked petit pains to mop up the sauce so it's an easy and cheap use-up meal.

Elisheba

Definitely a porkie pie I think @YorksLass.  I have had bread on the day it is baked a lot, and it is very, very yummy and no indigestion ever caused  .  It does slice very thickly though as it is so soft

Toonie

Jackie, your holiday sounds absolutely perfect!

My plan to have cheaper salad over the spring and summer is working well. My salad bowl lettuce is doing well indoors (the outdoor bits got eaten) and the pea shoots have been brilliant! I'm using an old propogator we found whilst clearing out DP's Dads place and the depth is perfect for doing the pea shoots. A bit of compost and a sprinkle of pre-soaked dried peas and it only took three weeks to have shoots long enough to eat. I'm getting three crops from them before they get bitter, at which point I let them do a final grow and use them in a stir fry before composting the lot. My 80p bag of peas is a quarter empty and I've had loads of yummy salad and sitr fries. Really pleased at how cheap they are, especially when a bag in the shop costs about £1.50!

London_1

DD came home from her trip with two decent sized sea bream which is being oven baked at the moment for dinner tonight, she also caught a smoothound (rock salmon ) and a mackerel which are in the freezer for bait later on in the holiday.She actully caught three bream but one was too small so was returned to the sea to grow a bit more  

Although she adores fishing, she never eats fish,but my son-in-law and I are happy to help out She is having  a cheese omelette with salad for her dinner

Nice to have a free dinner courtesy of the ocean, its been stuffed with lemon, parsley and garlic and foil wrapped with a plash of olive oil. She passed the farm shop on the way home from the marina so we have strawberries and cream for pudding.

Just settling down to watch Nadal at Wimbledon now

JackieO xx

MrsCD

Sounds blissful, JackieO! 

Slinky

YorksLass said:

elisheba - I always make my bread the day before I need it so it slices thinner and therefore goes further.  Plus, I remember my mum making bread on a Sunday and lovely as it was, still warm and smothered in butter, she always said not to as it would give you indigestion.  Not sure how true that was though - I think it might have been a bit of a porky pie!  

My childhood friend's mother used to make us a fresh loaf of bread for taking my friend to guitar classes. It never made it home, we used to eat it warm with nothing on it in the car on the way home.

I sometimes get hiccups eating really fresh warm bread.

oldhaggis

London_1 said:

DD came home from her trip with two decent sized sea bream which is being oven baked at the moment for dinner tonight, she also caught a smoothound (rock salmon ) and a mackerel which are in the freezer for bait later on in the holiday.She actully caught three bream but one was too small so was returned to the sea to grow a bit more  

Although she adores fishing, she never eats fish,but my son-in-law and I are happy to help out She is having  a cheese omelette with salad for her dinner

Nice to have a free dinner courtesy of the ocean, its been stuffed with lemon, parsley and garlic and foil wrapped with a plash of olive oil. She passed the farm shop on the way home from the marina so we have strawberries and cream for pudding.

Just settling down to watch Nadal at Wimbledon now

JackieO xx

Well done to your DD catching sea bream. Your tale brought back happy childhood memories.

My mum worked at hotel where the owners would take guests on fishing trips from their private cove. Occasionally there would be a ring on the door bell and one the owner's young sons would appear with a large enamel bucket filled to the brim with freshly caught fish. They were mainly Mackerel and sometimes Pollock, if we were really lucky.
No one at the hotel wanted them. They weren't posh enough for them. Their loss, as far as we were concerned. Mum would gut them all and grill some with fresh parsley, lemon and garlic for our evening meal. The rest went into the freezer. Nothing was wasted. It all went back into the eco system. Mum would chuck the inedible parts onto the lawn and the local seagulls didn't waste any time in swooping down and helping themselves. 

Primrose

I love hearing these stories of simple holidays  enjoyed in times past.  How precious those times were - no queueing for hours at airports for cancelled flights etc, and no grandiose expectations.
If these current harsh economic times bring any benefits I hope it will be that many people find delights in simple pleasures again. It seems that the more wealthy a nation becomes, the further it risks straying from all the core values which keep it on the right track.

I think some of our simplest holidays were some of our happiest although I won't include one in a damp Welsh holiday cottage which had no heating where it rained every day for a fortnight and even the bed sheets were so damp that after the first half hour they had condensation rising from them and the heat of the hot water bottles we'd bought to try and dry them out!   I think half our outings were spent deep in slate mines trying to escape the downpours!

YorksLass

Slinky said:I sometimes get hiccups eating really fresh warm bread.

Me too.  And crumpets have the same effect!