My £26 Coat

I wasn't going to get myself anything for Christmas, but when I saw this coat in Asda this morning for the princely sum of £26 how could I not buy it.  And that's full price, not some special offer or anything.  

An absolute bargain  😃

I'm a happy girl with a new Winter coat so I really splurged and bought Alan a Toblerone for £3 ... now we're both happy.

Sue xx

Filling the Shelves

Today, ignoring the poor little undecorated Christmas tree, I instead set too and started to fill the bookshelves, something I've been itching to get done since the house was redecorated from top to bottom over the last few weeks.

To both of us, a house doesn't feel like a home until there are shelves filled with books.

This built-in set of shelves used to be packed from top to bottom, but since our sort out earlier this year there are now some gaps, and hopefully after some more reading and sorting there will be even more gaps before we pack the books away again when we come to move house.

My ex-shop display cupboard empty and cleaned and back in place ready for filling.

Now that's better!!

But this does highlight that we have lots of sorting out to do with the books still, as when we move this will be our main bookcase.  Luckily, as you can see, there are a few gaps where the Christmas cards are and the cupboard beneath the shelves is almost empty.

Oooh, a desolate kitchen corner.

That's better ... a happy kitchen corner.

And this brings us on to the next job ... emptying the teapot.  Which now stands in for our Sealed Pot, holding all the odds and sods of change from our pockets and purses, and that gets emptied once a year usually on our wedding anniversary ... late again!!

That poor little Christmas tree will get decorated ... eventually 😉

Sue xx

From One Prize Winner to Another ...

I'm on the Abi Caravan Facebook page, as the owner of an Abi caravan it made sense to join, and every now and then they have little competitions.  In the last couple of weeks, I've won two of them.  The first prize I was sent was a plastic wet weather poncho type thing, handy to have in a Van I guess for dashing out in the rain.  This morning I received my prize for winning a caption competition ... it was a framed copy of my winning caption ... now that made me smile.

Rather handily it came in a very snazzy orange padded envelope ... which is the perfect size for passing on the magazine that I have just done the draw for. 

Now to the draw ...

I had ten comments on the last post, so I put all your names in the hat ...

... or rather the empty waste paper basket that was sat next to my desk  😁

And the name that was drawn out of the basket ... no looking I promise ... was Lee, who was the second person to comment on the last post.

lee13 December 2019 at 17:19

Hi Sue, my daughter has embraced the Vegan life and I am just starting to learn al about this way of life so would like any tips and a calendar would be great, many thanks
Lee

Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment, I'm just sorry you can't all be winners.  This issue of Vegan Life is in the shops at the moment though if I have spiked any interest.  If you don't want to splurge on a magazine, and yes they are expensive these days if you buy them from shops,. Veganuary is totally free to sign up to and you will get lots of helpful information from there even if you don't actually decide to participate in a month without meat.

I'll be back soon with a more normal blog post about getting our house back to normal ... in the meantime, I am going to get back to getting our house back to normal!!

Sue xx

Who's Doing Veganuary

So is anyone that reads my blog posts going to have a go at Veganuary this January?

  It doesn't matter if you are an omnivore, a pescatarian, a vegetarian or a vegan ... anyone who fancies a Challenge in January can sign up.

By signing up even if you are vegan it gives the Veganuary team a good indication of the number of vegans there are in the countries that take part.  After the month is over there is a short questionnaire to fill in and it really does help to compile figures of the various countries eating habits.

Trying a vegan lifestyle is soooo much easier these days and it's even easier when I first signed up in 2017, and then it wasn't that bad compared to a decade ago.  There is now so much choice of vegan ready-made food in the shops, as well as the vegan food that everyone who mocks vegans seems to forget that they eat too ... fruits, vegetables, bread, pasta, rice, biscuits, snacks, dark chocolate etc etc

If you are interested you can sign up here:  Veganuary

When you sign up you get a free downloadable celebrity cookbook full of really useful recipes.  All through January you will get a daily email with hints, tips, news and recipes and basically just lots of help and advice.  There is also a brilliant Facebook group that you can join with lots of like-minded people and vegans of all ages and experience.

One of the reasons I ask is because I have just treated myself to a new subscription to Vegan Life magazine, and they have accidentally sent me two copies of the December issue.

It also comes with a free 2020 calendar.

If you are interested in veganism or are already a vegan and would like to have one of my copies please leave a comment below and if there is more than one comment by this time tomorrow I will do a little draw and send the spare copy and it's accompanying calendar to the lucky name picked out of the hat.  I'd just like it to go to someone who would find it useful.

Sue xx

What to Buy Me, or Not Buy Me for Christmas

VeganKind Christmas Selection Box 2019

It seems that most the vloggers and bloggers that I follow on the internet are doing sustainable gift guides.  Lovely to watch even if they are getting slightly repetitive with the same products being recommended here there and everywhere. 

I was thinking about it the other day, and I thought I must be the hardest person in the world to buy a gift for … mainly because I don't want one ... but also because I only use the things I use.

 I am allergic to perfume, so therefore allergic to most things with perfume in them.  I have a couple of body creams that I'm fine with, but only one that I love so I tend to stock up on it when it's on offer three for the price of two at Boots.  When I travel I have a couple of mini sized pots that came free with magazines that I fill up from the larger one.

  I'm pretty safe with hand creams, and strangely I am okay with most bath foams, although anything lavender is a favourite, so that tends to be what people get me if they really want to buy me something … and I don't mind having a stock of those tucked away out of sight in the bathroom cupboard.

To go back to what the vloggers that I follow are suggesting as gifts ...

I don't need a thermos style travel mug or a bamboo travel cup as now own more bamboo cups than I will ever get through in my lifetime, thanks to that being a 'good present idea' in lots of peoples minds, it really was.  But no more … please!

I have a brilliant set of metal drinking straws, not that I like them that much but they are better than plastic straws.  Obviously these will last me a lifetime, unless I do a Uri Geller and bend them out of shape 😄

I have a bamboo toothbrush and absolutely love it, and I will be investing in more once I have used up all the new plastic ones I seem to have both here at the Van and back home in Wales.  Why have we got so many .... I have no idea!!   Once they have outlived being toothbrushes they go into the box under the kitchen sink to be used as little cleaning brushes for round taps etc ... really useful.

VeganKind Selection Box 2018

This year like last year I have treated myself to the VeganKind selection box.  It's good to have a little assortment of goodies in the house that are suitable for me to eat when Alan tucks into his milk chocolate covered brazils and other assorted Christmas goodies while we watch a film.

So as well as being the awkward bugger who can't be bought perfume for, I also can't be bought a box of chocolates, a cheese board or even an off the shelf hamper.  Which is drummed home to me every year when Alan's hamper arrives from the agency he works through, and out of the thirty or so items there are if I'm lucky one or two that I can eat. 

This isn't a whingy, whiney post  (or is it 🤣)  it's just me talking to myself and wittering away.  Trying to explain why I'm not the easiest person to buy presents for.  

One thing that a lot of folk are coming around to realising this year though ... and about time too ... is that why buy for buying's sake.  Why has Christmas got SO commercialised that we are swapping presents with people we hardly know, not knowing what they want or like or need.  If we all just stopped, after sorting it out with the people we used to buy for, we could draw things back to how it used to be.  Buying presents for our immediate family only, or if they are all on board pull back even further and give that most precious gift of all time.

A visit to an elderly relative or neighbour with a small bunch of flowers and time to sit and have a chat, a meet up for a coffee in the run up to Christmas with time to exchange hugs, a catch up on news and a flurry of good wishes are both surely more heart-warming than a gift set of talc and perfume arriving through the post to be put into the cupboard with last years, and the years before.

However you do Christmas is right, it's good if that is how you want to do it.  I'm just whittering, stop me now, force feed me dairy free chocolate and tell me to shut up 🤣🤣

Sue xx

(not Scrooge honest ...)

Christmas Image

Sorry for not being at the computer to answer all the questions about the little Suky and Sue image used on the last post.  It was taken from an advert for Christmas personalised mugs that I almost got tempted into buying.  

I don't 'do' Christmas china, indeed I don't do decorated china at all, virtually everything I own is now plain white with an indented stripe, no colour.  But things you have just for Christmas and then have to pack away and cannot in a realistic way use all year round are just a total no-no to me now.  So thank goodness with my sanity returning I simply clicked off the website.  Later I saw that my cousin had also picked up on these images and used her photo on her Facebook page, a bit naughty I know, but then I decided to go back on the website and rescue my images and save them onto my computer.  Later I turned the files into png images so I could use them in the future. 

They really are brilliant aren't they.  And in an effort to put the record straight and apologise to Gossby for not linking to them last time, here is a link to the website.  I don't usually do any sort of advertising on this blog but …. it's Christmas!! 

Gossby

https://gossby.com/

Sue xx

Packing Away

Bit by bit this week things have been packed away.  

Some things stored under the bed here at the Van, which is now full to capacity, and a few things to go home.  Some things have gone to the charity shop and some old and broken things into the bin.

It's not been possible to send things home to Wales with Alan each week, as the house is still in such a state of disarray that to add to Alan's discomfort there would have been unfair.  It's been good as it's made me reassess what we own here and what we actually need.

Most of the pretty 'clutter' from the mantlepiece is actually useful stuff but this week even that has been packed away.

All that's left are the few new Christmas things ready to go home with us on Sunday, the radio, the plant and the little money box, oh and our anniversary cards.  I quite like the new simple layout, it makes for a nice change even if I don't usually bother swapping things round much.

It's been a cold few days and nights here in Scorton, and evenings have been spent snuggling under throws reading or watching the television ... and the nights cuddling into hot water bottles.  Suky loves her hot water bottle and snuggles so closely into it that it's still warm in the morning, which sets my mind at rest as I know it means that she too is reasonably warm during the night.

Image - Gossby

Sue xx