Champagne Lifestyle on a Lemonade Budget - 2021

sugarbaby125

Phoebe, what a fantastic bargain. 

I love eBay personally. I have got some great bargains over the years from eBay and I also get cashback and nectar points on all of my purchases. 

I received my £326 cost of living payment. 

liberty_lily

I know...it feels like we were meant to have it 😃

I love ebay too - we've been buying on there for twenty years (and used to sell as a business from 2006 till 2016) and I'm known as the ebay queen amongst friends/family as it's always my first port of call when shopping, lol! 

All our current sofas were ebay purchases (a mix of old/antique and new) as well as our bertazzoni range and massive vintage kitchen larder, our rolltop bath and gothic style upstairs toilet plus our Land Rover Defender....not to mention loads of little items 😉

Today's champagne moment - getting the revised quote for the oak to build our replacement extension frontage....and it actually came in at £150 less than previously 😄 So it's ordered and deposit paid 🙂

sugarbaby125

My Champagne moment today:

I got a ticket for only £4 to watch the play Favour at The Bush Theatre. The cheapest ticket I would of bought would have been £12, so I saved myself £8. 

Favour is a play about 3 Asian women and  an Asian teenager. 

There was lots of dramatic moments and great dialogue. There was a grandmother who had been raising her teenage granddaughter. Her daughter (the granddaughter's mother) comes out of prison after serving 2 years for fraud with regards to a mortgage. 

The 3 generations interacted so well. The other mature Asian woman was the best friend of the grandmother. 

I really loved this all female play. For me it was a 9.5/10. 

I bought myself a copy of the book of the play.   

Siebrie

I spent the weekend at my parents', with dds and a friend of eldest dd.

-The car we drove is a company car with a tank card. We stopped for a snack halfway through, and shared 1 toastie and 1 portion of fries between us. It was all really tasty. We had brought snacks and water for the ride, but I needed a break after driving 2.5 hours with 2.5 hours to go.

- Friday evening after dinner (my Mum's cheapo yet tasty spag bol recipe) we went to a small but fun playground 2 streets from my parents' and spent about an hour there.

- Saturday morning eldest and friend went with me to a small mall. Friend had never been to a mall and enjoyed spending her change (mostly to buy sweets). DD was really good, kept an eye on her pocket money and bought just 1 small bag of sweets that she wanted to try.

- Saturday afternoon we went swimming in a subtropical pool. I bought 12-times tickets, so it came to €4 per child, and €5,50 for me.

- Saturday evening my parents ordered pizza (4 to share between the 6 of us - it was plenty).

- Saturday night dds and friend watched a movie on friend's Disney+ account

- Sunday morning we went to the city park, which has a petting zoo/city farm (with the cutest kids!) and a large playground

- Sunday afternoon we went swimming again, this time in the open air swimming pool 2 streets from my parents. The tickets were valid there, too. I bought them an ice cream after they'd been swimming for an hour.

- my father had made a vegetable soup to fill up a bit before we left.

- we went through McD drive-in on our way back. 2 happy meals and 1 burger meal didn't break the bank, and was part of the 'Groningen' experience dds wanted friend to have

So, a whole weekend full of fun for 4, for just €60!

sugarbaby125

Siebrie, you, your daughters and your daughter's friend had such a fun filled weekend, on a budget.    Your parents must have enjoyed having you all as their guests 

Wednesday2000

We slept in the other bedroom last night as it is north facing. I think I am going to sleep in there the rest of the summer and then move back to the bigger room when it gets colder. It is much quieter in there, even though it feels small compared to the other room, but I would prefer to be a comfortable temperature.

Today I have hosed down the decking and hung up my laundry on the line, but that will be all for the day in this heat. It is going to be 33° C here but where my husband is working in London it is meant to be 37° C.

I have just put my feet in my foot spa with cold water and it did cool me down a lot. I am about to have a cucumber sandwich and then some berries with vanilla ice cream.:)

I hope everyone else is doing okay in this weather.

liberty_lily

Sounds like you, your daughters and their friend had a great weekend staying with your family, Siebrie...and it was budget friendly too😃

It's 33° here too. Sleeping in your north-facing bedroom for the duration of the summer seems sensible, Wednesday 😉 I think we're going to camp out downstairs tonight as it was only just bearable in our east-facing room last night and tbh everywhere upstairs is just as hot. 

I'm staying cool in the kitchen today (awaiting deliveries), whilst DH decided to take the day off to crack on with building the stud walls for our cloakroom and lobby. The plasterboard is going up already so he's making fantastic progress! I've been doing a little more to my artwork but feeling quite lethargic so haven't achieved much. Funnily enough I had a cucumber sandwich for lunch too and am just about to have a few cherries, lol 😆

helensbiggestfan

Hello everyone 

yes I'm awake at this unearthly hour.  😂🤣.   I know I shouldn't say it, but I'm hating this heat.  I definitely don't have the same tolerance to heat that I did when I was younger.  But then In six months time I'll be moaning about the cold......lol.  

But here's a cause for champagne.....at least for me, although I am not  touching alcohol during the heatwave,  

As I have got older I have struggled from time to time with swollen ankles, especially when it gets hot, when flying etc. Not only do they look unsightly but they can be very painful.  

A couple of years ago I bought a foot massager thingy (The one  Ian Botham and Eamon Holmes advertise) used it a couple of times and then forgot about it when it didn't give instant results.  Well a couple of weeks ago I dug it out and have been using it a couple of times a day, usually morning and evening.  Normally in weather like this my feet would be really swollen and sore,  they are not, they are just fine, no swelling or puffiness.  

Haven't had a cucumber sandwich in ages.  Love them. Sadly I'm not supposed to eat bread although I do treat myself now and again.....usually my treat is cheese on toast.  

Siebre......your weekend away sounds fab.....just goes to show what we can do with a bit of foreword planning.  .and SUgarbaby is amazing with her theatre trip bargains.  

Wednesday switching bedrooms is a great idea.  When we had our apartment in Spain my husband and I used to do the same.  We had a summer bedroom and a winter bedroom.  Most of our Spanish neighbours did the same.  In fact my coping strategy in this heat is to live how we did in Spain, especially having a siesta after lunch.  

My garden is suffering, especially some of my saplings. I need to water them more but Severn Trent have asked us not to use hose pipes.  I do have a rain barrel but it's empty. I am not too concerned about the lawn, grass seems to recover when it rains but I don't want to lose the trees. Not sure how resilient they are yet, how established their root systems are because  some of them are only a couple of years old.  Hey ho, it could be a lot worse,  at least they aren't burning like they are in Europe. 

Going to try and go back to sleep now.....😉

One thing I have noticed is how quiet it is.....haven't heard any birdsong for couple of days. I suppose they are conserving their energy, going into survival mode.  I don't have a water feature in this garden. In my old house we had a little mini stream, the birds loved it.  Definitely will have some water in the garden in the next house.  

Wednesday2000

I've been craving cucumber sandwiches ever since I went to a local tea room the other week and the couple next to us had an individual afternoon tea each. I'm going to go back there at some point to have one. I did buy a cake stand and some store bought little cakes so I might attempt to make us one at home.

I was up very early as well today as I wanted to get the housework out of the way before it heated up. I'm now sitting watching TV drinking cold water with lemon and the fan right in front of me.

Helen - I have problems with my feet too, I always find a lot of shoes very uncomfortable. I am trying to break in some sandals I bought from Tu today, in fact. They don't get swollen, they just hurt. The chiropodists have said there is nothing wrong with them at all from my appointments so I'm not sure what the issue is.

Sleeping in the other room does make a difference. I did wake up a few times in the night, but I think it is because the room feels unfamiliar. Did you sleep downstairs in the end Liberty Lily? My online friend in the south of France said some people she knows sleep outside in the garden on a camp bed when it is very hot there.

On the Chris Moyles radio show today they were talking about heat here and saying if they were on holiday they would just be by the pool so the heat doesn't seem as bad. I suppose I could buy a paddling pool!

I was going to get some quotes on turning our window downstairs into French/garden doors instead as I think that would let more air in as it seems like these extreme temperatures are going to become a regular thing every summer. When I looked online it didn't cost as much as I would have thought so there is no harm in getting some quotes.

liberty_lily

Wednesday, no we didn't in the end although I thought I might have to, it was so hot despite having the curtains closed all day then opening the windows to let some air through once it was dark out/a little cooler 🙄 Before bed I had a cold bath, removed the duvet so we just had a linen sheet over us, but was still on the verge of decamping downstairs. 

Then I recalled seeing a pretty carved fan in my mementoes box recently (DS brought it back from a school trip to China and it was still in its little box - I was so glad I'd kept it 🙂). I dug it out and made good use of it whilst reading in bed...it was the simple but effective answer to my prayers, lol and we both got a fairly good night's sleep 😇😆

This morning it's already 31°, although there's a breeze and we do potentially have a bit of rain forecast later which would be lovely for the garden. We've been hosing like mad here - fortunately having our own borehole means hosepipe bans don't effect us 😉

My champagne moment today is that thanks to my amazing DH we have the cloakroom and lobby walls up which gives us a great idea of how the spaces will be used. Carving this slice off has actually made very little difference to the living room 😀

Also, both the Liberty and Voysey wallpapers arrived yesterday - they're stunning and altogether cost just £262 for 17 rolls 😁