From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Thanks rt - at least LG has maintained the reasonably good behaviour, and they were so excited to meet up with their chum and have an hours boinging on an trampo-lee-nee.  It's not an activity that would immediately have sprung to mind for me to take LG to 'solo', but going with a chum made it a whole heap better for both parties, so I'm glad that our chum thought to text to ask if we wanted to come along.  

We then took our picnic to a little market town across the way.  We don't visit very often, but it's a nice wee place - very touristy, and there are alot of campsites/caravan parks etc etc in the vicinity.  We snagged some free parking - which I now see has been limited to 40 minutes (fair enough), so we ate our lunch with a nice view, and then went for a pootle up the main street.  It's somewhere that many, many moons ago I used to work, in an accountants over a bank.  Naturally, the bank has long since gone, but the door to the offices I worked in was still there.  LG didn't really believe I'd once worked there, I'm sure.  We bought a postcard from the newsagents and wrote and sent it off to 'Aunty'.  The 2 post boxes in the town had been 'Yarn bombed'.  I think the theme was possibly space.  We posted the card in the box outside the PO, which had still to be collected today I think. The town itself hasn't changed overly much - the chinese takeaway is still in the same location, as were the 2 Hotels, and the co-op, but it's been through cycles, of bust then regeneration.  Currently it seems to be doing quite well.  

Today's excursion has cost about £14 + fuel for the car, but that's still a 'cheap' day out - even if it does rank amongst more expensive for us.  But the feel-good factor, from being with friends, was well worth the outlay 😁

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

I totally forgot to mention, when I was in MrL today, I went for a quick look on the 'Food Jumble Aisle' - the one that has all the branded offers WIGIG, and the 'leftovers' from the country promotion events.  Stuff is rarely ever priced on this aisle in our store.  Today there were some dried beans, called 'Carioca' (I think - having researched they are brazilian beans that are pinto or pinto-like).  The bag was 1kg in weight.  Anyone got any ideas how much these cost?  I suspect I may have to wait, on the off chance they get YS'd at some point, but I just wondered if anyone else's store is better at pricing things up.  

Greying X

rtandon27

@Greying_Pilgrim - our local international store has bags of beans for between 2.50 and 5 pounds - I have no clue why they have that price range when they are all 1kg!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

rt - yeah, I sometimes used to buy beans at the international food store, although they were more likely to stock rose coco, than anything.  I just wondered if anyone's MrL had these beans in-store, with a price.  If they were reasonable, I would get a bag to give them a go in the PrC.  

Not much terribly spiffy planned today.  I need to go into Greying Town later to do some banking, move some money around, so that we have the finances for petrol top-ups and iceycreams for when DH is on hols with us.  I was slightly surprised at traffic levels yesterday tbh.  I mean, it makes sense - there are several high profile events on around Greying Town this weekend alone - for which folks, competitors, participants and visitors are moving in for.  But Fridays are always chaotic on the roads, and today will just be even worse, so I'm limiting car use to a quick pootle to the supermercado this morning and then we will swap to shank's pony.  

Tea last night was Sri Lankan Runner Bean Curry, lentil dhal and rice. I only make this curry when we've HG/gifted beans, so we don't have it that often,  LG ate it up, absolutely no complaint 😁 We had a small piece of birthday cake DH had bought home from work (not his birthday), with some yoghurt, for pud.

I think I may make a ratatouille-esque type dish with the gifted courgettes and the l/o bell peppers etc - either for tea tonight, or sometime over the weekend.  We have one clutch of runner beans left, and I want to make sure that we eat them - it's so nice to have fresh HG produce, that I want to enjoy it.  

Right, best shift a tail feather.  The sooner I get going the more I'll get done.

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Greying_Pilgrim said:

...

Right, best shift a tail feather.  The sooner I get going the more I'll get done.

Greying X

Oh that is so true! I confess I didn't even drag myself out of bed till 10.30 yesterday and the day just drifted by (since of it very nicely,  but even so!)

Greying_Pilgrim

The speaker on R2 'Pause for Thought' has just mentioned the seaside (he's in Scarborough), as being a memory bank for 'simple pleasures and togetherness' during holiday times.  From what you've said, and from what I feel, that characterises my summer hols with LG thus far - I got quite teary writing that, silly me 😢.   But the more I hear other people talking about 'simple pleasures and togetherness', the more I feel that we're at least doing our best for LG's childhood.  We don't get it right 100% of the time, but hopefully we're on the right lines.  And no - I don't always believe that the 'togetherness' has to be with your birth family - I do actually feel quite strongly about the terrific value of 'chosen' family). 

Oh, and a daft observation from yesterday at the activity centre.  It's gone more or less cashless - you pay by card/phone for admission, your coffee, a glass of squash, everything by card/contactless.  Apart from 2 of the games, that still accept cash.  The children had to wait for a time slot to boing.  LG treated their chum to a game, because they had brought their (little speck of) remaining pocket money - the kids had a great time playing a relatively simple table-top game.  Then after their bounce, there was an 'experience' that they love to do.  I stuck 2 pound coins in the machine, and it went into action - the kids loved it.  Then my chum tried to make another go, with their card.  The machine wouldn't work.  So I tried with another couple of coins - the machine ate one, and wouldn't accept the second.  A member of staff came to sort it all out and compted the kids a turn - using coins.  Had all the machines been contactless card operated, they kids would have had less turns, spent less money........ Cash came to the rescue.......... 😉  But yes, I did feel like a luddite 🤣.  

Greying X

Watty1

I am laughing. Thank goodness you carried cash.  At the weekend we went to a play in the village and on the way out there was a couple of people collecting for Mind.  I would happily have chucked a few coins in but the 3 of us looked at each other and back at the collecting lady and said so sorry, no cash.  On the way to our cars we all commented on the lack of carrying cash.

It did make me think though. It must be a lot harder to raise charity funds now, one has to mindfully give rather than just tip the small change into a pot somewhere.

Greying_Pilgrim

That's true Watty - but I can't remember where I was recently, and the (charity) collectors had card machines - it wasn't the BI seller, they have had a machine for a while.  But conversely - at last week's agricultural show, the organisers expressed a preference for cash for admission due to unreliable wi-fi, so cash still has it's place, despite what MSM says.......

Greying X

Watty1

Greying_Pilgrim said:

That's true Watty - but I can't remember where I was recently, and the (charity) collectors had card machines - it wasn't the BI seller, they have had a machine for a while.  But conversely - at last week's agricultural show, the organisers expressed a preference for cash for admission due to unreliable wi-fi, so cash still has it's place, despite what MSM says.......

Greying X

Ah yes, rural areas!  The village has dreadful wi-fi and at the last agricultural show I was at there were complaints from stall holders about the wi-fi meaning they were losing sales.

Greying_Pilgrim

👋to dearest Cheery 😁

Back from the shops.  Beer bought and cones for HM iceycreams.  £21.98 spent.  

Must amend siggie figgie and then toddle orf into town to do the banking.

Greying X