More is not always better

The birthday presents I gave the OH went down well.
We did it a few days early as my daughter is down from Scotland so we combined Chinese take away as a birthday and welcome home meal or so I was led to believe.
As far as I am concerned, OH has had his birthday. He gets a money present from a sister, a present from me and sometimes a present from one or other of the kids.
We have a nice meal and sometimes a cake.
It is the same on my birthday except I don't want a cake.

Yesterday he announced we should buy a birthday cake (BUY!)
He likes the huge choc cake from Snailsburys so we ' looked'.
£10 for a cake !!
I didn't whip out my purse and hand him money.
We went home without one .
Later he said ,we can have pizza on my birthday!
He will still be thinking about buying a cake.....

It is hugely irritating. We HAD chinese take away.
As usual there was so much that the DS finished it off next day as Lunch.
But OH cant accept that everything has a limit .

He has always had the same attitude, he sees something and then in his minds eye, it shrinks to nothing..
So his 6 pence pocket money of the 1960's was seen as 'Not enough' ,the £20 a week he was given in the 1970's was equally sneered at and nothing has been enough ever since.

Incidentally the £20  a week is the exact amount I was paid for full time work when I was 16 so that shows how ridiculous that attitude was.

I on the other hand am from the other end of the spectrum.
The penny or 2 pennies that my father only ever gave for rewards for rare tasks, were saved until we had enough to buy sweets. We didn't get pocket money and often had second or third hand presents on birthdays and Christmas and clothing was bought new only twice that I remember in my childhood and one of those events was the school uniform.
We were expected to give presents too and these were always home made or re gifted.
It gives you a whole different mentality.

My eyes don't see things shrink ,they see them grow.
I look at my survey payments and say wow £40 in a month, that is £480 a year.
I could use £30 for buying my veg seeds and we can save £5 a week on the grocery bill which is £260 a year.
£240 will pay for some nice birthday and Christmas presents online and save digging into the bank account.
Possibly saving £250 over the year.

270 has already saved 510 looking at it like that.

We can put the rest(210) towards gadgets that save money in other ways for example battery charging, food preserving, garden equipment ,parts and equipment to mend things.

The initial amount will have grown into a much larger amount.
Therefore the surveys etc are well worth doing despite their being low enough to not even reach the tax threshold.

So I ask myself what is so different in our lives that we think in such diverse ways?
This has to be a family thing.

His roots
OH parents were both single children from professional parents.
His maternal grandfather ran a business of architects.
His paternal grandfather was another successful architect although less affluent.

Neither of his parents ever needed to think about money much in their youths.
They bought cars,jewelry,expensive knick knacks and frittered money away on nothing.
They had 5 kids and poured money on them whether they could afford it or not.
They mostly couldn't.


My roots
My maternal grandfather was a resourceful man who had saved enough from  his working life to buy land and build a cabin style house with no mortgage by the time he had married.

He was semi retired I think in that they lived on the land in a small holding capacity and he used his interest in technology to provide an unofficial service mending cars,bikes ,early televisions and radios.
They ran a car  they drove to the seaside most weekends, he taught all his children to swim They were also taught  acrobatics on the gym equipment he built in the garden as he had been a circus performer in his younger days.
His wife taught the girls to knit and make their own clothes and to cook.

Mum was one of 4

My dads parents both worked and as far as I can work out dad was one of those kids who roamed the countryside to play and make dens and generally be free in very much the style of the kids in Richmal Crompton's books.
Dad was one of at least 5.

On the trickle feed side....

The survey 'sitting' is going well.
Well ,probably not faster than usual but I have a few new threads to drip from.

One is the shop n scan which has already given me two £10 Amazon vouchers since I started it in mid october.
Then there are some sites that ask you to view videos, click links and play games.
The best so far is Swag bucks which I have been doing 17 days.
I cashed out £10 yesterday also in Amazon vouchers.

It seems quick to earn on and now I have got the hang of it,it isnt that hard to earn the points.

Im also doing Gift hulk
Superpoints and
Admimsy

Admimsy is not very fast but it is easy.
Superpoints is very 'referral dependant' so I may give this one up if it doesnt pick up without me spreading their referral link all over every possible flat surface (that seems to be their aim, it isnt mine)
Gift hulk is very like swag bucks but the video watching is much more limited and the games are all seemingly 'sign up and download (along with all the rubbish )' so we will see.

Swagbucks has a few sign up games in their offers section and I tried to download one today onto the lesser used laptop(to save it trashing my main computer), it downloaded fine,seemed to install and I clicked it to play only to find it went to the website and tried to make me sign up for offers.
When I declined them all one after the other, I found I was stuck because the last one has no 'no thanks' or 'continue' or anything.

Any subsequent 'downloading' will be done in the same fashion.
Revo uninstaller to the rescue. It wheedles out the itsy bitsy files that get installed and zaps them. 

Eating at the table

We are trying to get the dining room back into commission.
Last year it was my office and so was full of scanners and computers.
We had 3 big scanners (A3 size) and then a large A4 flat bed and 2 film scanners.
Then there were the computers.
2 Windows PC's
3 Macs and of course their keyboards, Mice and monitors.
There was hardly room to sidle.

Well that all fell through when the economy took another downturn and so we have had a room full of white elephants.
Yesterday and today was spent in moving stuff about so we can have our room back.

We put two of the big scanners under the stairs.
The other is in the corner.
The macs are put away where they will fit.
One PC is in the cupboard and the other, the better one, is on a computer trolley.

Todays dinner was the first we have had around the table in about 10 months.
It was so lovely to see the fireplace again and be able to sit upright properly to eat.
Cant wait for Christmas and now we can have Xmas dinners in the old family manner with chatting and manners instead of in the sitting room with the 'telly' butting in and everyone glowering at Mr oblivious because it is another bless'ed war film..

I have the small drawer unit that was under my desk, as a bed side table now, it is lovely and deep and there is a lock.
OH doesn't know that I found the key shhh.

Frugally wrapping pressies

I have wrapped all the presents for family now.
Earlier in the month, I took delivery of an Amazon parcel which was several things all sent together to save on postage and having to 'be in' for the postie.
They were packaged in lots of pale grey paper to keep them secure,so when I had checked them all, I put the paper aside to wrap them in.

There was enough for all the packages including OH's birthday present.
After wrapping them all, I took my sharpies (coloured felt pens) and drew little designs on the parcels to make them more christmassy.

I didn't bother with labels, I put a little letter in one corner so that I can identify which one is for which person.

I used sticky tape to secure the paper so probably that was about 10 pence worth and the paper itself cost me nothing at all.
No having to buy a roll or two in poundland this year.

OH will still buy paper and cards,whatever I do, he always does.
He cant bare to think that his 3 sisters might think we are poor.

They would be wrong anyway, we aren't poor ,we are frugal and always will be ,however much we have in the bank.

In the past, buying thin paper with gaudy designs on and ready made christmas cards would have been seen as the poor option, the rich would paint their own cards to one another and wrap things in plain paper with a pretty decoration they had added themselves.
Even Queen Victoria painted her own cards to her family.

Car expenses

We have the wretched insurance to renew on the car this month.
It is hefty because DS isnt a fully fledged license holder yet and when he is, he wont have had a lot of experience of driving.
I will pay it out of the grocery budget. That will leave me £45 a week for anything else (including food) which is almost all that we need anyway.
It wont all be from this months grocery of course, I save some every month and when there is a certain amount, it goes in the savings but that wont happen this month.

Mneh, so long as we have enough to eat, are warm and healthy and happy, it is only money when all is said and done.

Wodens Day

It's been a bit of a dull day .
I have done some more exercises just to keep warm and have something to do.

• Pistol Squats X 10 each leg
• Dips X 10
• Ropeless skipping 5 minutes
• leg raises X 10
• Pull ups X8

This morning I did some work online and then read some more of the current Terry Pratchet.

I have another one lined up for when this one is finished and then a Robert Jordan book to make a change.

It has been Icy cold in the Kitchen as usual.
We have a very small radiator in there but we only have the heating on an hour morning and again evening so the rest of the time it is froozy.

Tomorrow will be spent in wrapping the presents that are sitting in my bedroom in a box.
I have saved the packing paper from an amazon delivery to use as the wrapping.
I shall make some microwaved Flapjacks too.

squatty Tuesday

I have been neglecting the running just lately.
Today I did 140 squats to keep the old legs in shape.

It is quite cold here, our house seems badly placed to take much advantage of sun shine.
While we ate tea, the front room showed 13 degrees on the electricity monitor.

I have been playing with the mended e-reader a bit today.
I put two books and a PDF file on it and they all read fine.
The transfer was easy,I can either drag books to it just by looking at it in the windows environment or I can open it in the reader program that it installs when you first run it, and put books on it using that.
It can play MP3 too although I most likely wont bother with that as I have a few MP3 players that can play them already.

Next I will make it a cover.
I'm going to hunt around for a hardback with a cover I like and use that.
We have loads of books so I am almost guaranteed to find one in the house, that no one cares about.

DS still hasn't passed his driving test.
He has another go next week.
I am disappointed for him because he is quite careful when he drives and it is just little things that are getting in the way.
Hopefully once he has his full license, he can find a job more easily,at present everything he has applied for has asked for a full license.

Today I was able to request payment on 2 sites!
One is the shop and scan site and the other was valued opinions.
Each one gave an instant link to the £10 voucher I had requested.
I don't need to get anyone presents now so they will be saved for May most likely when my daughter has a birthday unless there is anything we particularly need and Amazon sell in which case, they would go on that.

We have just had the new amount for our insurance on the car and it is quite steep (over £500)so I might try looking for cheaper alternatives or more likely suggest it to OH.

Bookish Monday

I have been reading more from SIR Terry Pratchet.
This one is called Jingo and is in my sons definition of the word, war without the need for a logical reason.
That fits the story quite well.
There are some thought provoking parallels with the world as we know it anyway, not just about the reason for war but also concerning the way one nation will treat another regarding tradition ,food, manners etc.
I think it is his most serious that I have read.
Still plenty of fun though.


I have to admit to having thought originally that Jingo was a retort 'By Jingo' for example and maybe the two meanings are not so far apart after all.


I have been watching the 'Ice road truckers tackle the worlds most dangerous roads' on Friday night TV.
Quite often,one of the drivers will say something quite thoughtless and insulting and the locals who are their companions, are very tolerant.
If they had been in Mr Pratchets book, they would have been lying in a pool of blood with their throats cut. Not that I am giving anything away.

My hero in the TV series is Lisa the only female driver on the series thus far.
She worries and worries but she gets the job done just the same.

Making old new again!

Goodness a whole week and more has passed me by!

I have been busy with surveys,they always seem to get more frequent at this time of year.
I have had at least 3 a day for the last 6 weeks.
It all goes to help,even the very small ones.

Today I had a bit of a success with my mending en-devours.
I wanted my own e book reader and after buying one second hand for my daughter for Christmas, I thought it would be nice to have my own.

So I looked for broken ereaders on Ebay and found one to bid on.
It was a Sony ereader with a touch screen but the e-ink pad part had become corrupt but it still charged okay.
Anyway,I bought it for £15.
Then I fiddled with it for a week and decided it needed a new e-ink display, so back on Ebay and ordered one from China (Sony are from over there and the screens are only available there) £41 delivered.

It came yesterday (8 days from ordering to arriving) and I was rather horrified to find that it didn't have a back made of sticky plastic .

I would have to rip the old one off its plastic backing and the plastic backing off the metal frame behind it.

It took me 90 minutes to get it all off (it has a thin mirrored glass backing and I cut my fingers with the tiny pieces as they splintered) and then today about 2 hours to clean the plastic back to it glue-less self with WD40.

Then I got a tube of contact adhesive courtesy of poundland (we already had it in the cupboard) and glued the new,terribly fragile looking e-ink display ,onto the plastic and the plastic onto the original frame.

After all that,I had to get it all back in its case in the right place and without damaging the new display.

Well I did it. Turned it on and it worked first time.

I have been singing all afternoon while getting tea started because I am so chuffed that something I set out to do,actually worked.

The ereader has cost me £56 which is a lot for me to spend on myself I suppose but I have learned a huge lot about them in a short time.
I often find PDF's of manuals or instruction books that I would like to download but as the laptop is mains only ,it isn't worth it for the non portability.
I shall try to put some on the reader when it is charged up fully and see how they view.

Thors day

Yesterday I had to return an Ebay purchase !
It was something I was quite looking forward to using but when it came, it was faulty.
The vendor arranged to pick up through city link and they were to come in the morning.
I was fuming by the time they turned up, 3.45, because I had to say no when my son suggested we went to town together.
The courier seemed oblivious to his lateness
Then he prepared to leave with the parcel and I said
wasn't he going to give me a receipt?
Apparently they never give receipts so I had him hand write one.
I shall expect my refund to be in paypal tomorrow or there will be text flying through the ether!

I like buying through Ebay because you can pay with paypal.
A couple of times I have used their resolution center and each time it has got me my money back.
Ebay's feedback is useful too.
Once I waited 6 weeks for an expensive item and I left neutral to say good item pity about the wait,to which the vendor responded by phone refunding my post costs(£50), I  didn't think I was unreasonable to leave a neutral as I had contacted them from about week 3,every week till the item materialized, it wasn't like they didn't hear from me. It was the feedback that got the result eventually.

I bought an embroidery machine once a few years back and it came without the feet or part of the free arm. I wrote to the seller who insisted it was all there.
I think I spent about a week writing to her ,explaining that there was a free arm with it but that it had a second one which was the embroidery bit with all the feet stored in it.
She didn't realise she had forgotten to include it in the parcel until I priced up the cost of the missing feet and sent her links to where I would have to buy them and then said I would see her in the resolution center via paypal to negotiate the extra it would cost and how she could pay me!
Next day she phoned me saying she had found the other free arm complete with feet and it was in the post!
I think it was a genuine mistake but it is amazing what a little bit of help from a bigger corporation(with legal beagles) can do .

Today has been mainly spent in completing surveys and reading.

We had risotto for tea using the left over chicken from Monday,carrot,onion and the remains of a bag of Broccoli.
I thicken things with ground lentils now because it works rather like gravy powder but is less salty.

Im on the next Terry Pratchet book.
This one is called men at arms and follows straight on from 'Guards,Guards'.
That man has a fantastic sense of irony.
Seems a shame that he has Alzheimer's.

The hubs is back at work thank Gawd!

OH had an impromptu day off yesterday!
He had a cold poor thing, well more a head ache.
I blame it on the all night TV watching bonanza of the evening before.
That meant the TV was on downstairs for most of the day.
It doesn't bother me as far as 'programs being on' is concerned but it is a 50 inch Plasma screen and so the electricity it draws is disproportionate to the amount of people being entertained.
Also he does tend to drape himself everywhere.
Where ever you turn, he has been there and left something , his glasses , his phone , his keys , pens , opened letters, dirty cups....the list is long..
of course the bread which was perfectly adequate for two people's sandwiches, needed sharing by 3 people as it was so last minute that there wasn't time to get a loaf in the machine.

Today he is recovered and trundled off down the road on his motorbike,oblivious to our cheering.

I'm just off downstairs to get my Bi-weekly personal laundry in the machine.
I have enough clothes to last me round and most of the clothing changes are underwear which doesn't take up much room.
Everyone does their own laundry in this house and bedding and towels get done by whoever is thinking about it.

Garden 


The greenhouse is still managing to keep lettuce and Spinach alive.
It is unheated so I don't know how long it will struggle on.
They only need watering about every 10 days or so ,it is very low maintenance.

OH brought home an electric greenhouse heater but it would be far too expensive to run and wouldn't be worth the cost over buying veg from the supermarket.

DS has finished the compost bin and it is just waiting to get taken down to its alloted space now.
I cant carry it as it is too awkward and neither can DS ,it needs both of us and the inclination to go out into the cold.

Drip feed earning


My survey earnings are going well.
There are a few pending payments ,one for the end of December,one for about 3 weeks time and one for some random point in the next month.
I don't fret over time as it isn't going to make it happen faster and anyway the present buying is done.
I think all told it is about £80 but they were not all earned in this month. One payment ,the largest ,took 6 months to accrue. 

Bookish Monday rolls round again

I have been immersed in Terry Pratchet!
The book I have just finished was called Guards Guards and is very funny.
I especially like the Grim reaper who comes and waits for the deadies to realise they are dead !
Some hilarious Clichéd quoting too from Clint Eastward films.


If you have read and enjoyed any of the Red Dwarf books ,you will find these are at east equal in humour.
I think they are better but that is maybe just me.

Pull ups


I have been keeping up with the pull ups. I can manage about 14 in one go .



I'm afraid I have been slacking off on the running lately because it is cold and damp out and I am a wimp.


Presents



Presents are now all bought and paid for. I always buy them from my Internet survey vouchers if I possibly can.

This year I successfully managed to incorporate everything within that criteria . Just as well as the self employment was going nowhere.


OH has a couple of new things and the afformentioned vouchers and cover.
DS has something he will find handy(he mentioned how good they are and I took note without hopefully letting on that I was doing so ). 
DD has her reader dubries.
We don't go overboard on relatives.
OH has bought a few bits for his nephew and 3 nieces .
I haven't any on my side and all my aunts and uncles are dead .


For those of you who think Christmas us humbug, I don't disagree, I do think it is a great excuse though, when your kids are little and want everything.
I always used to say  'yes it is nice but that is the sort of thing you only get for Christmas or a Birthday present'.
It worked really well over the years and I still stick by it.
So for me anyway, it is an excuse to buy someone something when I avoid doing so at every other time of year.

present perfect

I bought an ereader for the daughter, on ebay.
It is for xmas of course,cant warrant that kind of spending every day.
It came today and is spiffing. LOL
I thought it was a greyscale screen but it is actually colour and can even play film files.
She is getting through a lot of books in her course at uni so it should help her keep down the costs.
I spent £39 on it and about £4 on next day delivery.

Here is the case I made for OH's phone.
Its similar to his bought one but I made it narrower so that the phone doesnt slew about .
That is my phone in it at the moment which doesn't have a camera.
The flap at the back folds either half way down or rolls and folds depending on if you want to see the back of the phone.
Folding halfway down means the rain shouldn't get in while it is in video camera mode.

Pennies from Heaven

I found a pound lying in the road on Friday.
That rarely happens.
Sometimes a Penny or a 2 pence piece.
I bought a Poppy with it from the Sea Cadets on the way home as it was Armistice day .

Then when I was at the supermarket today,the cashier insisted I had given her £30 but I didn't remember having that much in my purse.
Anyway she wouldn't accept it was £20 so I came home with £9 change in my pocket .
I still cant work out how it could have been £30 unless 2 notes were fused together when they were dispensed from the ATM on Friday.

Funnily enough,the book I was reading a while ago 'Busting Loose from the money game' states that once you aren't thinking about money all the time and chill a bit, it seems to jump up everywhere without explanation.
Well I don't know but I really don't mind if it is true :)

oops where did the week go?

Yesterday I went to the poundland shop in town and bought;

• a pack of chocolate to share with my son
• A sectioned box for small tools or screws
• A bottle of concentrated star drops.

The box is for my salvaged dremel and its little blades.
I cut two slots in it near the hinge side and fitted the dremel in.
It fits with the chuck poking out one end and the wire poking out the other.
All the blades fit in the other sections.

Today I played with the scroll saw.
I have had it years. We bought it when I wanted some Montessori puzzles and accessories for teaching the kids.
We couldn't afford to buy them so we bought the saw and wood and made them.
Last week I found that I can get new blades for it cheaply on ebay.
Now I just need a new spring for the blade assembly and it will be good as new.


Christmas

I am in my usual Xmas making mood.
I spent a day of last week making a new waterproof pouch for OH's phone.
He has one but it is quite battered so he will have another.
I used a found clear plastic umbrella which had a little tear in it, for the plastic,it has to be transparent as he uses his phone to record video of his commute via motorbike so it must let the lens work.
It must be waterproof although not immersible, so it doesn't wet the phone if it rains..
This was cut to size, folded and folded and melted with the iron using foil to stop it sticking.
Then The edge was finished all around with the umbrella edging which was purple but it is very dark once you fold it and melt it so not particularly a bad colour to use.
I will get a pic of it up tomorrow,cant at the mo as OH is downstairs and might catch me in mid camera wielding mode.

He has 2 cinema tickets stashed away for his birthday too.They need using by the last day of the year but I cant see that being a problem. People buy tickets for events as presents and they are often in 3 or 4 hour windows of one day,whilst these will be able to be used for any one of 9 days or any two if he decides to go alone to two different films.

Stiff legs

Ooch , I had stiff legs on Saturday morning.
We ran about 3 miles on Friday night ,having wimped out Thursday due to the rain.

BUT

it is Our postie who is responsible for my stiff legs!

He knocked on the door and handed me an envelope saying;
'back in a minute with a couple of parcels'.
'OK' I said and because it was cold ,pushed the door to as he had walked back up the path to the pavement.
I thought 'I will just keep warm while I am waiting' and grabbed my skipping rope.
It was more than 10 minutes before he came back with the parcels LOL

I think he must have mistakenly thought they were in his trolley only to find he had to finish the road and then get back to his van to fetch them.

Chicken thoroughly stretched this week!

• Monday we had roast with veg
• Tuesday was Chicken stew and dumplings
• Wednesday Pizza with chicken and Mushrooms ,spinach from greenhouse sprinkled on just before I melted the cheese over it all.
• Thurday Risotto and
• Friday (Today) was left over Chick stew for me and OH and a Freezer Bolognaise for my son as the chicken isn't quite THAT Elastic.

That was 14 servings from one Chicken.

The pizza does 4 when my daughter is home from Uni so the boys were well and truly stuffed as they got an extra 1/8th slice each.

That really makes it 15 portions.
33 pence a portion for the meat.
Not bad for a Fiver.

Risotto a la garcon

That's a posh way of saying, my son cooked tea :)

I had 2 chicken carcasses taking up space in the freezer so they were plonked in the slow cooker this morning ,covered with hot water from the kettle and spent the day turning into stock.
There were enough little bits of chicken still stuck to them to make the meat content for our Risotto.

The boy decided to give it his expert attention , so he put a cup of raw white rice in a big mixing bowl.
Added 3 cups of the stock and put the whole thing in a carrier bag with the two handles tied in a bow.
This went in the microwave for 13 minutes and resulted in a fluffy cooked rice and no left over water or stodge.

Meantime, he chopped an onion, added a cup of carrot slices from the freezer and a good cup of frozen broccoli and cooked them up in the rest of the stock.

Then he pulled enough bits of chicken off the now cooled carcasses and when the rice was cooked, he added the meat and the veg to the rice and mixed it all in.

The remaining stock and any of the chicken meat that was remaining on the bones, was put in the empty bowl in which the rice had been cooked after we had dished out our meal. That will make soup for two for tomorrow lunch time.

Twas a lovely flavour and also luxurious for me who didn't need to cook for once.

In the cold windy garden

The onions and Garlic are starting to surface.
I planted the onions around a month ago I think and only had to replant around 4 bulbs.
The birds pull them up if they see them poking out.
I try to plant them with nothing poking out in consequence but birds have very sharp eyes.
The garlic is surging ahead despite being the last to be planted.

These will be ready around early summer having spent the winter taking advantage of the cold ground.

You can also plant in February/March when the newer onion sets are in the shops.
Those grow until about August before needing to be harvested.

Once they are harvested, I shall chop and freeze some, dry and package some and pickle some. There wont be any for stringing as they don't keep as well as the spring planted onions do.

Trotting along as usual

We ran yesterday evening.
It was cold and I had 3 top layers on and a thin jacket plus my ronhill trackies and a beanie hat I made from a jersey that had shrunk and felted ,plus gloves.

The hat being pure wool was far more comfortable than my usual acrylic and thinsulate hat because the wool was warm and the natural fibers allow my skin to breath.
It isn't as big either so I am not pulling on the cuff to get it out of my eyes when it slumps down.

The run was okay. I haven't done any skipping for about a month and we only ran once last week so I wasn't expecting to be fast but we still managed the full run without needing to stop.

Bookishness and phones

I am still reading the hunger games.
I am now on book 3 called the Mockingjay.
So called because the heroin of the trilogy is becoming an icon for the rebellion in her own right and the Mockingjay was her symbol during the first two books as she struggled through the hunger games.
This third book has interesting parallels with Logans Run and Nineteen Eighty Four.

Phone talk

I was reading about James the ecopunk today.
He has a blog named http://www.ecopunk.org.uk/ 
In which he outlines his slavery free life and strategies for living as freely as he can.
He doesn't let anything get in his way,if he needs to relocate abroad,well he just ups and goes!
I have followed his blog for years and his previous blog before that.
An interesting read.

A recent post of his describes his use of his mobile phone.

I thought I would describe my own use of mobiles too in case anyone finds it interesting and if they don't 'meh' !

I have 4 phones. Each one having been passed along to me by my husband when he receives his latest upgrade.

Nokia 3310

The oldest is a Nokia 3310 which is a basic little phone for making calls and texts.
It has a few simple games and runs in Symbian.

The 3310 was a commonly owned phone amongst school children in the UK some years ago and so has a large supply of 'new fascia covers' which are often available for dirt cheap prices in charity shops.

My phone has a customized outer because the plain grey was too dull. I painted mine dark green and it has owls painted on it. I also have a dragons scale desktop screen and Harry Potter theme for the ring tone.

NGage
The next newest is an NGage which looks a bit like a games console.
It can play some very nice games providing you have a large enough memory card installed.
I have played Lara Crofts tomb raider on it and it was impressive.
The NGage can play games against others if you use its blue-tooth connection.

I also have used it to run Route66 gps program along with a GPS receiver which worked very well and started me on the road (literally) to not worrying about getting lost when driving to unknown places.
NGage can also be used as a word processor and there are quite a lot of applications that can be found online running under Java or Symbian to make it work as a

• mini film viewer  
• mp3 player  
• calculator 
• calender
• Radio.

I think it was too bulky for the majority of phone users, they didn't want to carry such a brick around as it wont fit into a pocket easily.

Nokia E61

Next is my very favourite phone, the Nokia E61
This is a smart phone. It can do all that the NGage does but with more style.
The screen is larger and GPS is much easier to find for this as it can run Tom Tom or Nokia Maps(free from nokia) which get updated more . No inbuilt GPS,you need a receiver.
I love the keyboard.

• It has powerpoint compatibility.
• Can watch films 
• Play games for Symbian or Java
• Word process
• Spreadsheet
• Listen to the radio
• You can hook it up to a projector
• It can act as a modem
• It connects to wifi and bluetooth.
• Runs Symbian 

X6

The newest phone I have acquired is the X6 also Nokia.

This is an awful phone because it is touch screen.
My fingers are small,almost child-sized and I have trouble in typing on it so that my finger ends hit the right letter.
My son who owned this phone before me(not OH in this case) , has much bigger hands and couldn't type anything with it.

It has a saving grace however, it can take photographs.
For me,this is its main feature, it has an excellent camera.
It has become my phone number of quote in case I have to stick a contact number in on a form anywhere and my camera when I am submitting my receipts to shop and scan.

I keep the phone alive by dialing the 'whats my balance' number once a month so I don't bother ever topping it up as the money doesn't roll over month to month on 3 pay as you go tariff which is daylight robbery.

This has inbuilt GPS but it is a piece of sh**e ,it has only once connected to the satellites and when I most needed it to do so,when we were in  a hurry , it completed copped out .

The maps are still viewable without connecting however which is handy for general use.

It can connect to wifi and that is handy for Internet and email if we are not at home but in range of a wifi spot.

I did get skype on it too but my daughter couldn't get it to work on her phone so that part is untested.

This also runs on Symbian OS.

I really like the OS as it is easy to install things to it but the newer versions have certificate signing which is a complete pain in the proverbial because it means that certificates can expire and the software you once installed no longer does..

Woman of 49 can do 13 pull ups

LOL I am such a boaster.
I can do 13 ... just ...since yesterday.

My shoulders have become much stronger looking and although I haven't been doing workouts during the day, the pull ups and pistol squats and our two evenings of running are enough to keep my weight constant and the flab away.

I noticed how much stronger my shoulders had become, today because I carried a box of groceries home and also had a back pack filled with more groceries and yet I was only just sore around my neck and forearms after about a 1 1/2 mile trek back from the shops.

1st run for a week

We finally dragged our sorry Arses out to run  last night.
We only did the short run which is about 2.2 miles I think but hillier than the longer run.
Luckily I have been keeping up with the one legged pistol squats so my legs didn't complain at all.
The boy was at Karate practice so he was excused LOL

It was a bit nippy, leggings and long sleeves and hats and jackets weather.
Thankfully the deluge was in the morning ,so while it was wet underfoot, it was dry over head.

Garmin was not invited as I had no wish to embarrass myself  by comparing the newest run, with the fastest.

Food

The boy and I decided on ' impossible quiche' for tea.
It isn't my recipe so I wont post it but if you google ' impossible quiche', it will jump out at you.

Anyway the main advantage over 'possible quiche' is that it has no pastry and so is not as heavy eating.

Tonights grub will be Pilchard Lasagna which is very rich and filling.

Spending and not spending

Last week was my first go at shop n scan.
I did a couple of little shopping trips instead of our usual supermarket visit because the car is up the spout at the moment and is sitting in the mechanics garage waiting for attention.
On Sunday morning,I collected up my receipts and discovered that I only spent about £8 this week. Later O(ld)H(ubby) gave me a receipt from his sweets shopping. It was about £3. Then even later he produced another one for a further £3 for two drawing pads and 2 more bars of choc.
That is embarrassing! £8 on food for three people and nearly £5 for chocolate for 2 and a half(I hardly eat it any more).

Yesterday he was home for a Dentist appointment and guess what he bought in the afternoon?
Um yeah, it was a big bar of chocolate !
When he dies, they wont need to preserve him like the man in the documentary that we watched on Sunday night, he will be crystallized already from sugar overload.
Here is a clip about Alan Billis the volunteer who was embalmed this year for science in the UK

No more self employement

I have officially deployed myself,as in, I am no longer employing myself .

I rang the insurance people to confess my lack of work for the last 6 months.
They took all the details then gave me another number to ring as in the words of the telephonist ,'we don't talk to the other sections of the national insurance offices so you have to do it yourself'.

Anyway at the end of the second phone call ,guess what?

I am given a third number because you guessed it, there is a third section who ought to be told but they cant tell them as they have no physical connection!

ARGH!

Anyway I haven't managed to contact them as they are constantly too busy to answer the phone and their web page is non existent.

Bookish Monday

I have been reading the Hunger Games part 2 this week.
I haven't got to the end yet.
It is called Catching Fire and is the ongoing adventures of Katniss Everdeen and her family and community.
There are twists and turns everywhere in this book.
You cant predict what will happen from one chapter to the next and I like the underlying story that is just peering through.
Of course the next one I read will be part 3 as that is also sitting on my Daughters shelf calling to me.


Pull up news

Pull ups are going well.
Lost count of how many I have done today but I am now able to do 10 wide grip pull ups which are harder than my usual hand hold.

pedal power

I have had my bike for a good number of years !
28 to be exact.
I bought it to ride to work in comfort after owning a couple of other cheaper  bikes.
It is a Claud Butler Dalesman touring cycle and works as well today as it ever did.
I have replaced the gear mechanism which finally wore the teeth down and the changer became very weedy so that all got swapped out some 15 years ago.
The bottom bracket was replaced with a sealed unit so that instead of breaking it down, greasing it and replacing ball bearings, I could just forget it.

I used to read a lot of Cycling publications but mainly the Cycle Touring Club magazine .
If you live in the UK and want a cycle orientated insurance for yourself and your machine, I recommend joining the CTC and taking advantage of their excellent insurance .

I have two bike books on my shelf from yonks ago.
One is 'Its Easy to fix your bike' which is a technical book that I found handy .
The other is Richards Bicycle Book by Richard Ballantine.
This latter is the best book I have ever read on cycling.
It gives advice on everything , road positioning  ,dealing with drivers , maintaining the bike ,commuting and is obviously written by a seasoned cyclist.

This weekend I found A new version of it in the Library.
It is called Richards 21st Century Bicycle book .
Written by the same man ,it is well updated.
He now mentions new gearing,brakes,tyres.
Recumbents.
Mountain bikes.
Helmet use .
You name it ,he has written something on it.
This book is worth having for the break down technical pictures of gears and mechanisms, alone.
I love the old victorian pictures the best.
It is powerful inspiration to get back on the dear old bikey.
I'm going to ask for this for  Christmas if anyone in my family asks what I would like.

Busy with little projects

I have been surveying like mad today.
No not for the building industry !
This is my Trickle feed income when I have no other .
That is most of the time!

I thought I would make a separate page about it and add new links as I discover where the most reliable or useful places to earn a little bit extra ,actually are.

Often the survey companies start to become busier as the season turns towards Christmas or other major Holidays .

Today I have done about 10 surveys and about 3 hours of  other stuff.

Anyway if you are interested,pop over to the new page,the link is at the top.

Still pulling on the bar

The OH went back to work today so our pull up bar made it back upstairs where it is used the most.
I managed 10 and lots of lesser amounts till I had done around 58.
I am still improving on the one legged pistol squats. Less wobbling.
The temperature is finally beginning to kick in here and it was only 17 degrees downstairs so we have been upstairs in the warmer rooms all day.

Making spare cash trickle feed style


I joined Shop and scan this week. It is a company that asks for you to scan all the bar codes on your shopping and you upload the scans( they loan you a scanning device) and a picture of your receipt (to prove you didn't just scan the contents of the shop) and send to them once a week. 

They reward in vouchers which will be so handy for Birthday present buying.


I am trying out Amazon MTurk too.
This is an american company .
You sign up and do little tasks on line for small payments in cents.
The UK participants are paid in US Amazon com vouchers only spendable on the US version of Amazon , so I thought I would have a go and see how handy they are once I have earned some.
If they are not really very spendable because of import duties making them worthless ,I will stop doing them.


I enjoy this kind of thing though, it is my trickle feed approach to life yet again.
If you stick at anything long enough, you will see rewards or at least know why you shouldn't continue.
Most of the tricklers have proved useful in one way or another .
Now the freelancing has dried up ,this is helping to fill in the time and provides a little bit of something for the very few times when I feel like parting with earnings.

Tinker ,Taylor,Soldier, Spy

We went to see the above named film today.
It was well worth it.
Full of suspicion and intrigue.
Great cast too.
The couple behind us were fairly elderly and couldn't understand why one character asks his male 'housemate' to move out after he is compromised. LOL
My son said afterwards, that ,theirs was the age of innocence.

OH stayed home as he had his exam to do.
He goes back to work tomorrow so I will get back to exercising properly .

Freecycling ,keeping it fair

We have done a fair bit of Freecycling over the years.
Last weekend we managed to donate 3 UPS units.
They all needed new batteries and that can become expensive if you don't have a cheap source of working Batteries.
Only 3 people put in requests and person number 2 actually turned up to collect them.
Had I been able to get the swollen batteries out,we might have tried to fix one of them ourselves as they are essentially a battery charger and inverter all in one.

We have been on the receiving end of Freecycling several times too.
Our dishwasher and washing machine were both from there.

I love Freecycle because it matches up the don't needs with the do needs.
Sometimes people will get greedy and request things just to sell on.
People even request anything in the list just so that they give themselves a chance to get as many free things as possible! Those people spoil it for everyone.
I really don't mind if someone wants to sell on something I donate but I do mind being taken advantage of and so do many others.

If you use Freecycle or Freegle, please think about why you are using it and keep your usage fair.

Bookish Monday

This week's book is called
The Hunger games by Suzanne Collins.
It is a book my daughter told me about and I am borrowing it to read.

What an innovative idea The Hunger games is.
It is about some young people who are the population of the future America.
Food is scarce, land has reduced in expanse due to the rising sea levels and in Quality due to the overfarming and overcrowding.
The land is divided into sections ,each with a different role and the people fulfill the roles if they dont die of Hunger in the process.
The game is a challenge in which a pair from each section must compete.
The rewards are worth the having,the consequences of losing are not to be dwelt upon....

A very absorbing book.
I might just have to read the next in the series which luckily is sitting on my daughters shelf tempting me.

Grocery shopping

The boy drove me to Asda again Today.
His driving improves weekly.
He is gaining a lot from having a qualified instructor's 2 hours a week.

I looked up the shopping on-line first using MySuperMarket.com
This lets you fill your virtual basket and see and compare prices of 3 supermarkets.
Quite handy for inspiring lists and keeping you on track.
I found I could save by leaving onion buying till another day.
The cheddar cheese price was bollocks though. It showed as £1.67 a Kilo and was nothing like that at the shop.
However,it made Asda look massively cheaper overall when comparing the shopping online .
Luckily,having been bitten by Asda's shenanigans before, I was not really expecting them to have that as a price in-store.

We haunt the reduced sections every week.

Sainsburys yesterday had nothing and when I asked the assistant where the section had gone,she looked as though I had slapped her and answered that they ONLY ever put out reduced things after 5pm.
I like Sainsburys,their goods are always good quality but sometimes, you are made to feel like a criminal just for asking about things which they should make clear. It wouldn't kill them to have a sign saying when teh reduced items are put out daily. The last time I felt like I had been fobbed off in there was when I asked why they insisted on putting the sale price per kilo rather than each piece of meats price, because that would be so much more user friendly.

 So anyway ,we are in Asda looking at the 'reduced' things.
I picked up 1 small packet of Hazlett and 1 packet of Garlic sausage.
The Hazlett was devoured in sandwiches for lunch with the remainder of yesterdays home made loaf.
The sausage will make a tasty pizza topping and was cheaper than the £1 packet of Pepperoni I was going to buy and didn't.
Fruit is so pathetically 'reduced' that we hardly glance at it now.
The tins are battered and dirty or laughable prices.

 I spent £12.80 in Asda and yesterday £7.37
So £20.17
The onions will be 90p in Sains if I end up going there so this weeks groceries will have set me back £21.07

Today is another exercise free day.

The OH has been off work on his hols for nearly 3 weeks and it is so much easier to fit in regular exercise when he isn't here.
Who knew one person could occupy so many rooms at the same time?
Thank heavens he goes back on Wednesday LOL

Tools rediscovered

I went on a little shopping expedition Saturday morning.
First stop was Hobby Craft.
It is a big warehouse type outlet selling everything hobby based.
I bought a helping hand tool for when I am soldering or gluing or painting,all of which I do every now and again.
A little pot of clear ceramic paint for adding a protective layer on top of my hand painted mugs.
A packet of Bits for the Dremel rotary tool that I salvaged a couple of days back.

Hobby craft is not always the cheapest option but often has everything you need.
Todays purchase was £3 off the paint so worked out about the same as buying the whole lot on-line would have,plus I didn't need to pay postage.

There are 60 pieces in the Bits set which was £13.99 as opposed to a 100 piece Dremel set in Wickes who wanted £29 !! When you consider that a lot of 'pieces' are actually things like a circle of sandpaper,a shaft to hold a blade, a soft circle to polish things, I think there was just as much useful stuff in the Hobbycraft set.
I wont buy lots more bits for it, some will be fabricated to incorporate the shafts that came in this set.
No idea what the thing that was stuck in the Dremel originally was, it appears to be a shaft with a nearly smooth end so possibly it was worn almost smooth over time. As it wasn't something you could remake , just having some new empty shafts is enormously advantageous.




This set will now be used to fabricate new blades for my mini bandsaw which I have rescued from certain death out of our Narnian book cupboard.

Pull ups today 40 in all,longest continuous 10
One legged Pistol squats 72=3x24 each leg

Softly softly catchee monkey

Friday saw me catching up on recovery.

Instead I tidied up the greenhouse, snipping off the weekly green harvest.
I managed a goodly amount of Lettuce and Spinach leaves, enough for Tomorrows salad to accompany our Sausage and chips .
The temperature is still comfortably warm in there.
I walked down the windy garden in a coat and hat but once behind the sliding polycarbonate door, it was like spring.

Hooray for the comic strip!
The hunt for Tony Blair was a very cheery film!
Cant help thinking Gordon Brown was shown in a worse light than T.Blair himself.

Thursdays scuttle

Thursdays Garmin induced run was faster than the plod of Tuesday.
We fair scampered along and managed a whole minute off of Tuesdays dismal time.
The boy did not accompany us.
We were spotted by my neighbour as we left the house ,it made us feel very furtive.

Pull ups have reached an all time high with  a new score of 60.
That isn't all at once but throughout the day.
10 is still the highest at once.

Keeping up with the exercise

Yesterday I did about 44 pull ups.
I do them whenever I am downstairs and remember to do it.
I think I did one 10 and the rest lesser amounts.

I also did 3 X 8 pistol squats each leg.
I go quite carefully with them because it is easy to hurt your knees if you don't get the angle of your knee right.
It can be quite stretching for the Achilles tendons too.
I can do them without holding something for balance now.

We ran yesterday evening.
2.89 miles.
It took 30 minutes which seemed quite slow but was only a little bit slower than usual once I uploaded the Garmin results.
I have been leaving my Garmin at home a few times just so it doesn't get too obsessive.
I think there was a wind blowing against us on the way back but I didn't notice it behind us on the way out.

Mending and making do

We inherited a Dremmel from a relative. Just the main unit ,no attachments.
It is one of those rotary tools where you fit little saw blades and drills and grinding ends into a shaft and then you can work on small projects.
We already have a cheap rotary tool but this is much heavier duty.

After much pulling and puffing,I managed to get the tool that was jammed in it, out.
It needed pliers and a lot of twisting and tugging.
The chuck is perfectly okay though so I will have a go at making some tools for it sometime this week.
Instructables has some interesting home made bits for them so I must do some research.

Bookish Monday

Cant help it,have rediscovered books LOL

My son lent me his copy of 'The left hand of god' by Paul Hoffman which is a fantasy novel set in an alternative reality. In this world religion has gone mad.
Things are familiar but skewed. For instance,the characters are monks living in a sanctuary that is filled with rules. Not the sort of rules you would expect to find in a monastery,more what you would expect from a penitentiary .

There is no specific icon that they follow ,their saviour who died for his beliefs is called the 'hanged redeemer'. However things overlap with the real world in that there is a Bible ,only man is not permitted to read it. Sins are punished by death.

Everything in this world is surrounded by espionage and deceit.

The characters are mainly but not entirely children.
Not children as you would think of them in our world, these children are naive and yet worldly at the same time.

Everything in this world that appears to have no direction,is in fact serving a purpose or there is one intended somewhere soon.

Place names are taken from reality and have a certain irony to them at times.

I love this book for its humour as well as it's intrigue.
Just when things are at their direst,along comes a lighter element to get you chuckling again in an almost Terry Pratchet twist.

Having devoured this book in under a week,I am now gnawing my way through the sequel .

What things pay for themselves?

I was thinking about how much we had saved by buying the battery charger I mentioned earlier.
I think we have had it about 15 years.
If I bought a packet of 4 batteries for 3.99 and used them once, they would cost £1 each.
Recharged and used again,they would cost 50 pence each.
Again would cost 33 pence each and again 25 pence.
WE would buy probably 8 sets of batteries in a year as all the cameras use Alkaline batteries and every one has an MP3 player.
8 X £4 is £32
In the first place we might buy £32 worth so that everyone has a set for a camera and a set for an MP3 player but the next time around,
1st recharging the batteries saves £16.
2nd recharge would save £21.12
3rd charge would save £24
4th charge would save £26.72
The better batteries will charge 4 times before being unchargeable.

If you did this sequence for a year you would save £87.84
The charger was £20 and also charges rechargeable batteries.
It would have paid for itself the second time it charged everyones full set.

You often see discarded batteries in the street where they have been removed from MP3 players and just thrown down. These can be recharged if they have a little bit of power remaining.
If you buy second hand electricals, they often have a set of batteries in which can be rejuvenated.

Rechargeables are cheaper now than they were 15 years ago but still run at around £5 for 4 and all depending on size.
With the non rechargeables, you can easily have 3 or 4 charged sets in your bag ready to swap out when your light dims or your camera or MP3 begins to sound tired.

Our charger can charge large sized D batteries(cycle light size) and below and so paid for itself ridiculously fast as we biked a fair bit to get to scouts or drama for the kids .
......................................................................................

We bought our breadmaker some 5 years ago.
 It was about £32
Bread at the time was about 48 pence and we went through about 5 loaves a week .
So we were spending  £2.40 on the cheapest, pappiest, stick to the roof of your mouth 'bread'.
 A bag of flour was around 48 pence and yeast was about 99p a tin.
We could get 2.10 loaves from a bag and about 17 loaves from the yeast.
About 2 pence of electricity.
So about 30 pence a loaf to make it in the machine.
The machine bread was more filling so we made 4 loaves a week to do the same job as 5 shop breads.

We were saving about £1.20 a week on bread
 The bread maker paid for itself in 6 months.
We are still using it today and bread is far more expensive while flour is now 68 pence(32,38 a loaf)  and yeast around 55p(3.23) .a loaf cost is now about 38 pence in the machine.
.......................................................................................................................................................
My Bicycle.

In 1980 I was traveling 6 miles to work and the same back in London.
The  fare was £8 a week Plus the waiting was tedious and could easily be an hour for going home.
The trip took around 35 minutes on a good day due to London traffic.
I decided to buy a Bicycle to do the trip.
I wanted a new machine. A mans frame because they are less whippy.
So I paid £315 for a machine with 12 gears and a leather saddle and added some lights and a saddle bag.

At first my trip took longer than the bus because I had to walk up the hills but soon, about a month I think, I could ride the whole way.
It wasn't long before my trip was taking me 25 minutes.
The machine had paid for itself in just commuting costs in 9 months.

In 1984 I moved jobs and worked 15 miles from home. It was a train ride costing around £50 for a months ticket or free on my bicycle. It took 58 minutes to cycle it or about 2 hours by public transport.

...................................................................................................................................................

As with all of these instances, once the original purchase money is reclaimed in savings,the purchase is actually earning you money in future savings.

I still have that bicycle. It was an expensive outlay in 1980 but is still perfectly sound today.

.......................................................................................................................................................
Sometimes it pays to sit down with a paper and pencil and do the maths!

Not exercising

Shh another non exercise day!
Well ,on Friday I did the usual pull ups and managed 10 in a row.
100 push ups and some bicycle crunches.

Saturday was walking in to town day so I often don't do a workout as well.
It was cold and wet.

Today I let my learner driver son drive me to the supermarket.
He is getting quite good.
His test is in a month.
We bought everything we need for a weeks meals ,6 bottles of malt vinegar to keep the toilet clean and it all came to £20.70.
I did already have some of the veg as I bought it last week when it was reduced,then chopped and froze it.

The vinegar gets used weekly,2 bottles at a time.
I empty the water from the toilet,replace with vinegar,tuck some paper under the rim (also vinegar sodden) and then leave it all night with the 'do not flush' sign on the seat. In the morning,it gets flushed and brushed. During the week it just gets brushed and the lid and seat get a clean every time I think of it.

This afternoon as it is dry again and a bit warmer, I shall dig my last onion bed and plant the shallots and Garlic. Then it is just a matter of keeping them weed free.
The greenhouse is shut now as it is colder and needs watering just as it always does. It has lettuce and spinach growing in containers.

I really must get my camera back into use. It needs the batteries charging so I shall take them downstairs and plug them into the universal charger.
This charger charges non rechargeable batteries as well as rechargeables so has saved us a fortune over the years.



This one that they have on Amazon does the same thing. I would recommend it for anyone who has kids with lots of battery operated devices as it is a massive money saver.
Plus once the batteries are fully depleted and useless(about the 4th use in my experience) you can still take them to poundland to be recycled.

We buy the energizer batteries as they are strong and recharge back to a good strength each time. It is a false economy to buy the cheap ones, they last a far shorter time and recharge only once or twice.

Running in the dark...

Yes we ran in the dark again.
It was much cooler this evening!
I had my wool hat,gloves.leggings and long sleeves with a light jacket .
OH had his jacket and hat over shorts and shirt.
We chatted all the way along so it wasn't the fastest ever run but at least we got out and did it!

My son decided he would stay home in the warm :P

My poor legs are aching . The pull ups work most of my body,not just arms or shoulders and I find it actually works even muscles in my stomach and hips.

Windy Autumn here at last!

It has been blowing a Gale all day.

Good thing we concreted the Greenhouse in.
I carried the battery box down to there and set up the solar panel on top of it.
The panel is not wa
It is massively heavy and took two of us to lug it over the threshold.
Later I will get the laptop plugged in down there to work in the free heat afforded by the Greenhouse and the free electricity afforded by the sun.

The pull ups have been going alright still.
Another 9 and various other lesser amounts today until I reached 40 in all.
We may run tonight if it doesn't rain.

I am reading Busting Loose from the Money Game by Robert Scheinfeld



Which is an interesting read, if a little parallel   based in its thinking.
Basically it is about not accepting the way life is presenting itself to you,especially regarding luck and money.
I find books like this fascinating because we have all been shoveled our Lot in life and told that ,'that is how it is,live with it' and here is a man saying ...actually it is all about how you react to what you are dealt that determines the path your life takes. It isn't anything to do with getting rich quick or anything, it is more about not being obsessed with money full stop.
If you like the Authors Robert  Anthony  or Fred Alan Wolfe  you will probably like this.

Still here :)

The garden has been calling me to work the last few days ,therefore the conventional exercising has been put on the back burner.
I have been keeping up with the pull ups though, cant have all that work wasted.
Yesterday I did 45 which was 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 over the course of the day.
All sets were continuous so you can see that I am still getting stronger,the top set being 9 in a row.

We ran last night for the first time in a week.
Not too bad either, about 2.6 miles without stopping.
I didn't bother to time it.

Dancing around the Bonfire!

When I was a child ,I thought the word was Bomb fire .

There is something very mesmerizing about a bonfire in the darkness.
The flames are wonderful,white and yellow and with the occasional blue or green where a gas escapes .
It is hard to understand the enormous temperature waves generated from such a random pile of old wood. You cannot see why it should get quite so hot.
When the breeze catches a flame,it bends it right over and the grass that you thought was a safe distance away,gets alarmingly near after all.

My son got the bits of shed into a pile on the cleared bit of veg plot and set it ablaze.
He needed only the lighter and a couple of bits of cardboard. (not the petrol that OH the scout always uses).
 

I was reminded of the firework nights of childhood.
Standing watching the licking,flicking flames.
The urge to dance and chant as the fire danced and crackled was enormous.


We stood and watched with a handy bucket of water in case it spread.
It didn't spread.
One of the piles of weeds was added to the heap and now there is just a pile of ashes and a few metal bits that didn't burn.
I will rake the ashes into the ground as they are potash.

7 pull ups!

LOL 7 in a row today.
We have the plumber here at the moment as one of the pipes is blocked because the water company came and 'mended ' a pipe in the road.
The mend forced gravel and sand into the system.
It means we haven't had any drinking water for about 8 hours.
Cant even offer the poor plumber a cuppa as we haven't got any water.....!

I have been reading the frugal web today and find an awful lot of it is about coupons or 'free' things or just money off 'bargains'.
Really the 'bargains' are NOT because you wouldn't buy the things normally and so why would you suddenly decide to, just because the price is reduced?


I have been listening to a new Audio book.
'The ultimate Cheapskates road to true riches by Jeff Yeager' .


He is a funny bloke but I do like his Fiscal Holiday ideas.
He advocates No Spend days but with a difference...
His idea is that you DONT SPEND ANYTHING !
Not just by not shopping, but also by not using the electricity (where even possibly avoidable).
I love this! It is far more my cup of tea than the,'I didn't go to the shop today' days that so many people congratulate themselves over.

You know how satisfying it is when you go camping and everything is condensed down into basic but comfortable living?
Well that is how this works.
The satisfaction is there but for longer.

So far a very interesting and entertaining listen, I am already collecting the ideas from it that I will use in my own life.

The link above is to the book version .


Friday rest day

No exercise today.
This week has been quite lazy for me.
We didn't run at all .
No problem, we will get back to it next week.
It's been nice to do something different even if that is just NOT running.

The plumbers were back yet again! They had to mend some more pipework outside as the leak in next doors drive had shifted .

Changing shape some more.

The pull ups are helping me to change shape !
Now,my shoulders and back area are stronger looking.
More like a female gymnast.
Okay maybe not an olympic gymnast LOL but when have you ever seen a 49 year old female olympic gymnast?
No,me neither.

However,despite not doing much in the way of exercise this week, I am not becoming a blob overnight.
This afternoon I did 6 pull ups in a row again.
Yesterday I managed a total of 32 Pull ups throughout the day!
Only a couple of weeks ago,I was elated to have managed 2.

I tried pistol squats both yesterday and today.
3 sets of eight each leg and they are not so hard to do as they were .

Heat stops play

The hot weather has stopped gardening for a few days.
The garden is in need of a good dig over and there is still some clearing to be done.
That is heavy work,much better suited to the cooler temperature and so I will wait it out.
I bought garlic in the supermarket for planting out when I plant out the onions.
It was 70 pence for 3 organic bulbs which will be plenty.

Slacking off

Have done very little exercise the last 2 days.
However I have kept up with the pull ups and this morning managed 6 in a row!
It was going to be a skipping afternoon yesterday but we ended up going into town for a new non leaking kettle.
Today was hopefully the last day of my TOTM which has been rotten this month .
There is no knowing how easy a time I am going to have each month,especially as I am 49 and even the unpredictability that I usually experience has become more unpredictable LOL.
I never have enjoyed the monthly 'gifts'. Why once you have had your kids, cant you opt out?

OH was given a huge slab of chocolate which I have had a few bits of.
Nice but not as addictive as it used to be.
I will most likely not run tonight as I am not quite back to my usual self  and don't feel like it.

Shedding the shed

Our oldest shed must be forty years old.
It stands at a slant and the door doesn't fit the hole.
A hole in the roof and a rotting side make it useless as a shed so for the last 4 or 5 years,I have been planning to dismantle it and use any good wood for building a compost bin.
Today my son painted the gate that he made a few weeks ago and then looking for another project, I suggested the shed.
Now it is in 3 piles.
The floor which hasn't been removed from situ
The good wood which will be the compost bin and remains will be burned.
The burn pile which is rotten wood and wood too soft to reuse.
Most likely the floor will be burned too as it is all holes.

My poor arms are worn out with dragging panels and throwing pieces of wood around.
I think that is plenty of a workout for one day.
Plus it is TOTM(womens problems) and as usual, I am knickered,knackered,knockered.

I have done 10 pull ups so far today.
2 X 5
The men have gone to Karate and tonights tea will be chips,sausage,bacon,tomato,egg and baked beans.

Thurs and fri in the garden

The garden was screaming for attention LOL
So for the last 2 days, I have been out there digging and hoeing for a couple of hours each.

Last evening,we ran as usual and it being a nice night,we managed a nearly 3 miler without too much gasping.

Today I walked into town to buy Onion sets and paint.
The onions will go in the garden when I have cleared sufficient weeds out of the way.
Onion sets were £2 each pack and I bought 3 packs of 50.That sounds pricey until you realise that 3 full sized onions in Asda is about  £1 . I will buy a bulb of garlic next time I am there as I'm not paying £2 for garlic if I can get it for less.
The paint is for the gate as my son wants to paint it to save it rotting away after he went to the effort of making it.
Also as it was only the worst half that was replaced, it has been a two coloured pair of gates for a few weeks which does stick out like a sore thumb.
Now it is half dark grey undercoat and half old blue paint and if it doesn't rain, it will be all blue tomorrow.

I have had to rethink my self employment.
After not really having any significant work for some months, I decided it was better to give it up than to sit on my behind and look hopefully in the direction of the company that had been sending me work last year.
With the economy up the spout just about everywhere, there isn't the demand for retouching ,especially when people are quite willing to have a go themselves or put up with a few spots and scratches on their prints.

While I am disappointed that things didn't really pan out with it, it is sort of liberating to have made the decision.

The pull ups have been going surprisingly well.
On Thursday,I didn't do even one because I am trying to be sensible and let the muscles rest between attempts.
Today I did 5 in a row twice and 4 once so far.
That is such a quick improvement.
It seems that once I got past two in a row, it is just a question of building from there because Wednesday was the first day I managed 4 and I think Monday was the first day I managed 3 .

The gardening has been quite an arm workout on its own but I am finding that using the tools is so much easier since my push ups,pull ups and dips have improved so drastically.

Tuesdays run

We ran in the dark again.
It seems to be a bit of a habit.
OH wanted to get back for a telephone call so we only did 1.75 miles.
The garmin worked perfectly this time and said we had run at 10.01 pace.
It felt reasonable but not fast which it turned out, it wasn't.

I held off on the pull ups all day so as not to over train but it is quite addictive to do pull ups once they come in multiples greater than one.

This morning Wednesday,I managed 4 in a row,then 3 chin ups in a row and 3 wide grip pull ups which I have never managed to do before.
I did that sequence twice.
Then I did weighted leg raises ,concentrating on getting a good crunch rather than numbers.
Lastly 12 assisted pull ups which seemed hard but I managed.
I have added a couple more 4 and 3 reps as I have walked past the pull up bar during the day.

In the afternoon, I did a laptop workout (virtual gym) which was Core focused.
Although I hadn't done one since last week, the core part of the workout seemed very easy.

The water board was back outside hunting for leaks as usual.
They actually discovered our stop-cock which is on a drive about 50 meters up the road. Not our drive but the drive to the house that is 4 away from us!

Good news! Our son has passed the theory part of the driving test.
We said we would buy him some lessons with a driving school once he had got that part under his belt.
He has had quite a lot of practice driving our car but needs a bit more specific advice on some aspects so a fresh pair of eyes will see what OH is missing.

Monday monday......

So Monday was spent mostly pulling up on the bar!
Well not really!
I went shopping in the car with DS.
We trudged around the supermarket and bought fruit and veg etc..not terribly interesting.
The reduced sections or whoopsied or yellow stickered as some people like to call them, is now so ridiculous as to be hardly worth the glance.
10 pence less was about the limit of the reductions.
We laughed at a rice pot thing that was smaller than a yoghurt and consisted of a handful of par cooked rice and about 2 tablespoons of some runny orange sauce..it was £1 reduced from £1.97. You could buy a whole bag of rice and a tin of something tasty to go on top for that reduced price and a whole 4 portion meal for the original price.

I can now do 4 pull ups in a row.Proper pull ups with hands facing away and legs not touching the ground at all!
I did several sets throughout the day ,some were only 3's but more than 1 set of 4.
I also fitted in the leg raises with weighted ankles and one set was with v.small dumbells hooked over my toes too.

I gave one legged squats a go again and discovered that I could do about 4 each leg and then repeat,providing I was alongside something in case I needed to grab on.
I have been reading a book called 'Never gymless' which has body weight exercises. Some are quite challenging and some I will never be able to do but interesting none the less.






Another similar book is





which is an excellent read and by a Russian Author with a lot of fitness knowledge and good advice.





There have been a lack of push ups and dips as a result of the pull up work so I fitted in 60 push ups and 50 dips just to be sure I still can do them.

Weekend of laziness

Saturday the OH was off to some police seminar thing and it bucketted down at home.
I went to town complete with backpack and came home with a nice big chicken.
I thought I would have a quick mosey in the charity shops just to see what was on offer sport wear wise at the moment.
Didn't buy anything but saw a sleeveless wet suit,reebok 3/4 trousers, La fitness full length trousers, Speedo swim suit in good nik , several mens swim shorts and one ankle weight.
All the clothes apart from the mens swim shorts, would have fit me but I didn't need anything.
I was back home in 2 hours so considered the walk a light workout.

I managed to do pull ups throughout the day as well,mostly 3's and some 2's.

Saturday night,the men decided to mention that they were off on a Karate day on Sunday.
 This was the first time I had heard about it and I was quite disappointed that they had not said anything earlier because I   do the weekly shop on Sunday and they would be taking the car.

Sunday,I thought I would go with them and watch so made some Bacon sarnies,boiled some eggs and put a bottle of water and an Apple a piece in a bag.
The camera and my camera phone went too.

Karate

The venue was a leisure centre sports hall.
There were quite a lot of people and several instructors.
Various levels of belts  were on display ,about 10 black belts,some brown and white,some brown.
There were 2 people not in belts who I think may have been from the tai chi class and one white belt(the earliest belt you can wear)
It transpired that the event was a combination of techniques.
Participants were divided into groups ,about 8 to 10 people in each.
Then they rotated around the hall, being shown the new techniques by the instructors.
I sat at the side and took photos without using the flash as the hall was brightly lit for the most part and I didn't want to be annoying by flashing throughout the day :D

One group did knife work,learning to react to a knife attack.The knives were fakes of course.
Another did self defence ,not Karate, more how to deal with unexpected street attack.
There was jui jitsu with a lot of plonking of bodies onto thick floor mats.
The group I found most impressive,was the Tai chi.
That is the flowing martial art that you often see being practiced as an early morning exercise form in Japan.
Here it was being demonstrated, practiced and then given relevance by being explained as blocks and retaliation for violence and I think it relied a lot on balance and shifting of weight but what was interesting was, the instructor was in his 60's and when showing some of the Black belt Karate people how to do it, he sent them reeling backwards with seemingly hardly any effort.

So no exercise for me on Sunday apart from the clicking of my finger on the shutter release.

Dark running

It was way past sun down by the time we ran last night.
My Garmin wasn't interested. I think it was too cloudy plus we started to run the minute we were outside which left it no time to catch the satellites.
We were bombing it .
I think it was about a 22 minute run all together.
A cup of tea and a banana refueled the fires once we were home.
OH had his dinner as well.

I was using the pull up bar on and off all day yesterday in an effort to improve my consecutive pull up count.
Sometimes I was managing 3,sometimes 2 1/2,sometimes only 1.
I realised that the challenge I have been following ,expects the counting to start from feet leaving the floor,till returning to floor which in my case has been 1,so although I have managed a maximum of 10,really it is only 10 X 1.
That isn't a bad thing because to begin with I couldn't do one and could only lower myself down off a chair.
I do want to progress now that I can do >1 though, so I need to push myself .

I have a couple of hard drives to reformat today.
They are surplus stock from OH's work but we were allowed to have them as they are just gathering dust in storage.
I will try GParted on them as that is a terrific program considering it is free. It can do pretty much everything partition magic can do and I always feel confident using it which I rarely do with P.M.

There is another crop of lettuce to harvest in the g house.
I sewed it as a cut and come again crop.
The lettuce seeds are sown in pots and then cut while quite small still. Only the largest leaves each time.
This crop is the one I first sewed a few months back.
Providing you keep harvesting,they keep producing.
Same with spinach.
You can get a good bunch of salad from the two plants every week when treated that way.

Pull ups again

The 3 rep sets are getting more frequent I think.
I did about 4 sets this morning .
Then the leg raises with weight.
4 leg raises without weight but more crunched as it is supposedly more effective.
12 assisted pull ups using the inner tube band.
A couple of chin ups.

I will get in some more pull ups during the day.
I moved the bar to my daughters bedroom after all as OH wont be using the room for a couple of weeks and it is the least in the way spot. It can go back on the living room door after that.

Core work

Managed to get in an hour long virtual gym workout this afternoon.
The ball was utilised as usual and still feels like it is doing its job on Abs.
I cant really understand the 'don't arch your back' comment the trainer gives out because it is done on a ball which is curved and so you don't really have a lot of choice.

I timed the workout so that I could gobble a banana while making dinner and then leave it to cook while I went and cleaned up and got changed.
That works well either before lunch or dinner as I don't feel like shoveling back food in addition to the meal if I haven't got long till a scheduled meal anyway and it makes it easy to just have an Apple or carrot or something later on.
Since I haven't been chocolating, I haven't felt the need to snack anyway. It's almost as though chocolate was responsible for wanting nibbles,not the boredom or extra exercise after all.

Hubs can be a bit of a nibbler. He will buy chocolate,biscuits,donuts and cake quite often at weekends and it is difficult not to join in with him. I'm sure he prefers his wife to be trim rather than blobby but the evidence would suggest otherwise.

New pull up scheme

After last times success with 3 pull ups in succession without a foot landing, I decided that I would change the routine a bit.
This morning I did 3,3,3,2,3,1,2,2
all being consecutive pull ups but smaller sets.
I think this is the way to improve because all the time I do single pull ups, I am getting more endurance overall but not very quick progress with increasing the time between foot landings.
After that,I did 6 singles,7 singles,8 singles and 2 consecutive.
Then
6 chin ups(singles)
12 leg raises
12x2 weighted leg raises
12 band assisted pull ups
My shoulders and arms feel very pumped and powerful.

I hung the pull up bar on a different door so that I could leave it there for the odd pull up throughout the day.
We really don't have a lot of doors where it will fit(3 in the whole house).
The usual door is right by the front door so the bar cant stay there else no one can get out or into the house.
The 2nd door is my daughters bedroom but also doubles as OH's study room and his exam room when the time comes, so would be a bit cheeky to hang it there , a bit too 'I'm in possession now'.
The only other door with a suitable frame, is the door of my workroom(former dining room) which has the sofa right up against it on the other side but as it wont be permanent,I have it there for now.

The usual scuttle
We ran our almost 3 miler last night. I didn't really feel like it as it was dark and cold but with a long sleeved top and track suit leggings,it was quite warm and I had my light jacket over it for visibility which left me feeling very steamy. I didn't take the garmin this time.I don't want to rely on it always .It can become a bit obsessive to always be fretting over a time when what I really got it for was the gps mapping and the heart rate .
We didn't have an audience last night and no dogs showed an interest.

new pics

New 3 quarter view. One quite noticeable thing is the looser fit of the sports bra! No bad thing in my opinion.
Also a bit less of a saddle around the lower back.

This one is taken with a less encompassing  top so I could see how the actual muscle tone was getting along. I think there are less folds around the lower back.

Although this is not really any more muscle than last times picture,I think it looks less baggy around the side and that is a good result. My arms are feeling much less saggy and bat-wing like.

I don't think I weigh any less than my last reported weigh in,maybe a bit tighter overall.
 Running is becoming easier.

progressing!

Yesterday was Sunday and quite windy out.
The boys went for a driving lesson so I got my skipping rope and bottle of water and went for a skip in the garden using the piece of board so that I could skip on the grass.
I wasn't sure the wind would let me but I thought I would give it a go and it was fine once I had found a place by the greenhouse where the wind didn't seem so strong.
I skipped 10 minutes to warm up choosing a different step for each minute.
A quick nip back in to the Loo (always a good idea before double unders ).
Then I double undered for as long as I could,giving myself very short water breaks about every 60 jumps.
I rarely manage more than 25 at a go so it was not exactly non stop but I did do 476 double unders all together.
On my second jump I did 34 at one go so that was very pleasing and then later on I did 43 which I think is equal to my best(not sure if it was 48 pb previously as I didn't write it down but I think it was 43).
Yay GO me! LOL

That was it for yesterdays exercise as I was worn out after 40 minutes of that lot.

About an hour ago I did the pull up routine again.
This time was 5 sets :
10,8,7,6 and max
The max was 10
What was especially pleasing was the 3 consecutive pull ups without my feet on the ground which I repeated three or four times in the different sets.
After the max,I did;
6 chin ups
12 unweighted leg raises
2X12 weighted leg raises
12 band assisted pull ups

HIIT and pullups combined

Friday was rest day.
Today (saturday) I needed to get back to it.
HIIT was neglected last week and so I wanted to get that in but also to do the pull ups that didn't get done yesterday.
So
I skipped 10 mins then did set 1 of pullups 7 reps
skipped 1 min set 2 ...6 reps
skipped 1 min set 3 ...7 reps
skipped 1 min set 4 ...8 reps
skipped 1 min set 5 ...9 reps
skipped 1 min set 6 ...6 chinups
skipped 1 min set 7...10 leg raises
skipped 1 min set 8...10 weighted leg raises
skipped 1 min set 9...10 weighted leg raises
skipped 1 min set 10..12 band assisted pull ups
kettle bell swings 1 min skip 5 mins to cool down.
This all took about 42 minutes and was hard work!

We walked into town earlier so I feel I have had a good exercise day today.

Cat calls en route

We ran last night.It was the almost 3 miler.
This route is the one where we run along by the river for about 1/3rd of the time.
There are often people sitting on benches at the sides ,mostly youths.
As we bounded past,they shouted Helloo in mock Queens English so OH hollered back (his accent is clipped anyway so no need to pretend).
Then on the return,they did it again so we all 3 warbled in response.
It was better than the sometime squawking  that greets us from cars,usually by young people who wish they had the bottle to get out and run themselves. This time there was a fun element and no rudeness.

The run went quite well. I had to keep speeding up to keep with the men and my glutes were feeling the ladder workout from earlier but we did it in about 29 minutes and were back in time to watch Torchwood.