A bimble round Burton on Trent.

I had a trip down memory lane yesterday. Apart from three years of living in Blackpool, and two in Birmingham, and an attempt to live in Majorca which lasted two months, I spent the first 46 years of my life in Burton upon Trent. I moved up north because I had a job in North Lincolnshire. 

It's interesting to go back to your roots now and again, usually when I visit Burton it's just to see family, I don't bother to have a look round. Driving through it I have noticed a lot of changes, most of them are not particularly pleasing to the eye. Maybe I think that way because my mature years tell me anything that alters the history and architecture of the place is tacky and a carbuncle on the landscape. If I was looking at it through teenage eyes, I would probably think it is pretty darn cool. Age changes how you look at things. 

Funnily enough, it is not these massive brewery tanks that make me cringe, I think they are quite handsome, stacked in neat rows with their stainless steel overcoats glistening in the sun. They have a sense of orderliness about them, they have been placed with great precision.     

I feel drawn towards their magnificence, standing tall and proud, like masters of the town looking down on their subjects.

I see that the old grain warehouse at the corner of Derby Street and the station Bridge has been turned into a Travelodge. I like the way they have kept the old features. 

These buildings at the top end of Station Street have been here a long time. Some of the shops are empty, but they still look in good order.

And look at this magnificent building. It looks so strong and robust that nothing would ever knock it down. It is an old brewery building right at the very end of Station Street, tucked away in a dead end near the bridge. It doesn't appear to be occupied, such a shame. It looks like it has been used for industrial units, I hope they find another use for it.

Just along from it, further down Station Street is this building. It looks well maintained and smart with fairly fresh paintwork. Nice to see it looking clean and in use. 

If you go round the back of the old Odeon Cinema in Guild Street, you find yourself in George Street, where there are more examples of old architecture.

 The old County Court in Station Street.

This is St Modwen's Church, overlooking the market place. 

The market hall is undergoing a modernisation programme. I remember trawling round the stalls in here when I was a teenager, trying to get the best for my money.

This is a pub I frequented, it's opposite the market place near the Technical College. I see it's 'to let' now.

The Abbey Arcade goes through from the High Street to the market place. It is home to small specialist shops.

I've been trying to think of the name of this pub, not sure if it is a pub any more. It's in High Street.

 This tall building is in the car park next to the Library. Can't find out much about it.

Here is a piece of modern art, I'm not sure I like it. It stands on the corner of New Street and High Street. You can walk through the bottle shaped arch at the bottom.

This is the old fire station in New Street, now a car showroom. I've just been reading up about it, it was built in 1903 by a company called R. Kershaw. They put a bid in for the job of �6,150 and won the contract. The archways with the glass fronts used to be big red doors where the fire engines went in and out of.

This is the Town Hall, located in King Edwards Square at the top of Station Street. It is over 100 years old. A proud and magnificent building.

I gave myself an hour to look round, before I headed off back home. When I lived there I never really took much notice of the buildings, but looking at them now and reading up on the internet, it is a very interesting place. Here is a good site to look at if you want to find out more.

There has been a lot of new build apartment blocks in the town, it seems a bit strange to see brand new buildings where the brewery and car parks used to be. A lot of the terraced houses have also been knocked down to make way for new modern terraces. It all looks a bit of a mixed bag, with no thought as to what would look best where. They find a space and stick anything in it these days. I suppose it's the same all over though, that's progress. I do wish they would design the new buildings with the same grandness and class of the old ones. Modern architecture seems so cheap and tacky to me. Or maybe I'm just not keeping up with the times.
Toodle pip.

Read More »

Happy families

Hello. The wanderer returns I got back at 6pm tonight, after a delightful couple of days with my family. Sis is happy in her new home, it looks lovely. They downsized because they didn't want to have to tidy their massive garden every time they came back from a holiday. The new smaller bungalow is not far from the old one as they like the area, and they have enough hard standing for the caravan instead of paying for it to go into storage. Everything had to be ripped out, and refitted from scratch. She has a lovely modern kitchen and bathroom, new everything in fact. Today work is starting on taking down the old fashioned lean to conservatory and a brand new one is being built which will give them an extra room.  They made the right decision to move, even though it took them five years to sell. Well worth the wait until the buyers with the right offer came along, and they found just what they wanted in the new house.

Sis had planned a meal out with friends and family last night. to celebrate her birthday. I went to the pub for an hour and had a drink with them before they moved onto the restaurant. It was very noisy, there was a duo on, singing and playing guitars. I am not very good with noisy places, I struggle to join in conversations because I can't hear what people are saying to me, then I get fed up of shouting and give up. I didn't join them for the meal, not a fan of Indian food, so I went on to Uncle Stan's house and stayed there for the night.

This morning we went to the library to see his paintings in the exhibition. He sold five last week, all the money is going to the Air Ambulance. Here he is chatting to someone who is interested in learning how to paint. Stan is always keen to encourage people to take it up, and likes to help with advice.

It was difficult to take good photo's, because of the reflections in the glass. It didn't help that they were displayed in the foyer of the library opposite the big windows overlooking the car park. I had to take some of them at an angle to try and minimise the reflections. This one with the red dot  in the bottom corner has sold.

This portrait is amazing, such an uncanny likeness. I think John Hurt himself should buy it.

 Another colourful abstract has sold. I like this one.

Stan stands beside his self portrait. Pretty good eh!

The exhibition runs till Saturday so if you are near Burton on Trent, pop and have a look. You might catch Stan there, as he likes to sit and have a coffee and watch people's reactions to his work. He would love it if you speak to him. He is amazing, I hope I am still on the go when I am 90. 

I've had a smashing day today. After a lovely lunch cooked by Pat, I went back to the town for an hour before I set off back home. I wanted to have a look round, and see how it has changed in the seventeen years since I left there. I'll post the pics tomorrow. Toodle pip

Read More »

Carrots are good for your eyesight.........

because you don't see rabbits wearing glasses, boom boom :o))

What a grotty day it's been today, rain and more chuffin rain. I managed to get a short walk in when it eased off for an hour, other than that I've been keeping myself busy indoors. Two bags of carrots needed peeling and turning into soupy stew. I wouldn't normally peel them but the skins were a bit rough. I kept six back to eat in the next few days. 

I usually chop veg up with a knife, but I thought I would get the Kenwood out and blitz them in that. I can't remember the last time I used it.

And here we have a large pan full to the top, with a couple of onions added for flavour. Then I chuck in any spices I have. Curry powder, turmeric, wholegrain mustard, two veg stock cubes, mixed spice, and Mexican Taco spice mix.

I kept adding water until it was the right consistency, not too wet and not too dry, and simmered it for 15 minutes. Before I put it in the pots I tasted it, yum, very nice. A slight curry flavour. These are now in the freezer, and will be used to add flavour and bulk out stews, or microwaved and eaten as soup with bread. A lot of food for 22p, plus two onions.

I made a green lunch today. Chopped mangetout peas, bean salad, lettuce, and rocket. Zap it with the stick blender, add some water, and eat it straight from the jug with a long handled spoon. It was quite refreshing. I need to think of more ways to eat my greens, especially with all those sprouts and peas I have to get through, ha ha.

It's my sisters birthday tomorrow and I'm off down to the Midlands to see her. This is the card I have made her. The colours have not come out very well with the flash, I couldn't be bothered to put the scanner and the big computer on upstairs. The card is a pale lilac colour and the stitching is in pink and purple. Guess where I got the Happy 60th and the Sister bits from. Yes, I cut them from the card she gave me four and a half years ago. Good bit of recycling eh!

Right, let's see who has won the crafty giveaway. There are 83 names, I hate drawing just one out, so there will be a runner up.

And the winner is Sue G.

The runner up is Granny G.

That's a coincidence, are you related, ha ha. So sorry you can't all win. Please send me your postal address, email or in a comment which I won't publish. Well done both. Not sure what you will be getting, a surprise. I'll go and sort it now. I won't be around tomorrow, Catch you Monday. Toodle pip.

Read More »

Start as I mean to go on.

Woweeee. Wot a lot of comments on yesterdays post. I thank you all from the bottom of my big toe, all the way up to the top of my bit of hair sticking up from my uneven butchered fringe. Ha ha, I'll tell you about that later. Well last night it just had to be done, the supermarket sweep. I arrived at 8pm, hmmm, not much reduced in the chiller cabinet, went to the veg section, oh no, hardly any yellow stickers there. A load of mangetout peas marked down to 14p, oh well, looks like I will be eating those for the rest of the week. I wouldn't normally buy fresh produce that's been flown half way round the world, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at a bargain. A wave of disappointment came over me as I made my way to the bread department, maybe this was not going to be my lucky night. 

I picked up one small brown loaf, could have had more, but I already have enough in my freezer. I happened to glance back at the end of the veg aisle and saw my favourite assistant. Worth an ask I thought. She saw me coming towards her, 'Want any sprouts and carrots, I'm bringing some loose ones out, they will need to be weighed up,' she said. 'Brilliant' I said, as I helped her to weigh and label them. 

Then I nipped up to the cereals and got a box of bran flakes. They have gone up from 88p to 92p, lucky I had a 25p off voucher for those. I picked up a tub of plain yogurt on the way back to the veg for another look, still 45p, that's good. 

Big grin, they have brought some more out. In the end I got a good selection. Potatoes, I finished the last few of mine out of the garden last week, mushrooms, pineapple pieces, salad leaves, bananas, and bean salad. Fanchuffintastic.

A good haul eh! The sprouts are priced at 47p, there is nearly 2kg of them, ha ha, I love sprouts. Checking the till receipt I have been charged 87p, an error at the till. Lucky I am passing there on Sunday, I will go and get a refund. Why not, they have overcharged me :o)

I zapped the two pots of pineapple, 20p, with the blender and added some plain yogurt to it. Very nice fruity yogurt at a fraction of the price of buying it ready flavoured. Even if you can't get reduced fruit you can do this with cheap tinned fruit.  

Today I have been to the hairdressers, my cut and colour cost �1. My hair was looking pretty ropey, I was hoping I wouldn't need to cut it until after the cold weather has gone. But it was all different shades of brown where the last colour has faded and grown out, so something had to be done with it. I attacked it with a pair of dressmaking scissors, hence the sticking up fringe, no, I jest, ha ha, it looks ok.

I thought I might get away with using only half of the �1 colour, I have done this before and it has worked fine. But after applying it and waiting twenty minutes, nothing was happening, so I mixed the second half and rubbed that into my bonce as well. Bingo, it hasn't gone as blonde as I thought it would, but it's a nice shade of rich tea biscuit with an all over even colour. If anyone has short hair you could get two applications out of one box.

I had to laugh at Woman's Hour the other day. I don't usually listen to this, but I just caught a bit of it. A woman was demonstrating a recipe for a meal for one person. Throw this and that into the pan, cook over a low heat, etc. Then the presenter said it will look delicious on a plate. With that she answered, 'No, just eat it out of the saucepan'. YAY,  ha ha, common sense at last.  Here is my lunch for today, on a plate because I did a spud in the microwave, 10p for a packet of 4. The topping is some left overs from last night warmed in a pan, with a couple of mushrooms and some mangetout peas. The easy way to chop the peas into small pieces is with scissors. Very tasty.

Well that's all for now. I've got a load of carrots and peas to make into soup for the freezer. The courgette and bean soup which I made from a glut from the garden is all gone now. It is very handy to have pots of frozen soup and stew, when you can't be bothered to cook.
Have a nice weekend. Toodle pip.

Read More »

The first five years

Hi, today is special. Take a look at the date, the 2nd of January 2014. Today is the fifth anniversary of my blog. Five years of blogging, and this is post number 1858. I am chuffed with myself, a good achievement I think. It's a diary of the last five years of my life. Five years of sticking at it and not giving in. I didn't know if people would read it, but they do, so that's a bonus, and I am pleased. I would still write it if nobody read it, because it's a record for me to look back on, and I enjoy writing. So thank you people for coming along with me on my journey, I am secretly chuffed that you do read it.

Let's go back to the beginning, the very first post. My words are still relevant today, nothing has changed. I am still paying my way, I am still making ends meet, and I am still not worrying about having just enough money to live on. Best of all, I still wake up each morning looking forward to the day ahead.    

Hi there, thanks for taking a look at my blog, this is my first attempt at blogging, so I hope you find something of interest. The main theme for the blog will be frugal living, because that is what I have been aspiring to for the last ten years. I decided to reduce my time at work, so reducing my income, and creating a whole new challenge, I now work at how to make ends meet. That may sound daunting to some people but it's easy, as long as you can differentiate between what you need and what you want. Making ends meet gives the impression that you are scrimping and saving worrying about where your next meal will come from, that is not true. For me it means making the most out of the money I have, getting the best value, the most food from the supermarket, and the challenge of surviving by my own means. I have never been in debt, always paying my way, so perhaps I am used to living within my means, luckily my mother taught me all about it.

I have been a lorry driver for 32 years, something I am immensely proud of, in total I have worked for 44 years, and now it is time to slow down. All my hard work has almost paid for a house, still a bit to go so not completely debt free, but I am working on it. I am now looking forward to a fabulous retirement, but of course I will never fully retire because I like work. But from now on, any work I do will be on my terms, it will be something I want to do, and I will do it when I want to do it. There, a bit bolshie maybe but that's how I am, I know my own mind. Life is too short to be a slave, and by that I mean a slave to money. I have realised that I am perfectly happy with just enough, a simple life for me means less worries. Do I worry about money, of course not because I haven't got any.

Please join me on my frugal journey, I am going to record how I live my life on very little money. I'm not setting any targets, or making any rash statements like living on a �1 a day, it will be a true story of how it really is. Don't expect me to be complaining about how expensive the cost of living is, or how fed up I am of having no money, that won't happen. Instead I want to open your eyes to the pleasures of a simple life, the enjoyment you can have out of life's free gifts, and how I wake up each day looking forward to the day ahead. See you later. Ilona

My blog is a bit like a magazine, it doesn't follow one theme, there are lots of different topics to dip in and out of. Variety has always been the spice of my life, things become stale so I move on. I like surprise, I embrace change, and I enjoy moving forward. 

I have picked out some photo's from the archives, which give a flavour of what my blog is about. A little bit of nostalgia for me, reflecting on the last five years, and a short tour for you. Have a look, come with me on this whistlestop tour of Life After Money. 

There are lots of reports about walking, on my blog. I love walking for hours and hours. I love the countryside, and I love finding my way with a map. I have done six long distance walks, the longest being 162 miles over nine days. Add them all together and I have walked 807 miles in 43 days, averaging 18.76 miles a day. I also have shorter walking trips staying overnight at Youth Hostels. 

I like to take holidays and days out when finances allow. I budget for this by cutting down on my day to day living expenses. I usually drive on these holidays, my car gives me the freedom to go where I like.

There are examples of my artwork on my blog. I like to use recycled materials, and believe you can always make something with rubbish that might otherwise be thrown away. It just takes a bit of imagination.  

You don't need to spend a lot of money on craft work, if any at all. I use recycled materials. There are lots of hand made bags on my blog. 

Plastic bags can be fused together and made into pictures, and sewn onto a plain linen bag.

I am a contributing guest on Radio Humberside. Here I am in the studio at Hull with David Burns.  

My voluntary work includes helping with a cat rescue in my village. Here are Mayze and her four kittens, they stayed with me for a few weeks because our pens were full. They were found living underneath a shed. We found the kittens nice homes, and Mayze seemed settled here so I kept her.

This is me and Janet, fundraising for the rescue cats. We collect items that are donated and sell them on a stall at events. This was at the Summer Fair at the junior school in our village.

Our village is quite busy with community events. I like to write about village life. This is the refreshment tent on the Green at the Spring Fair. I am lucky to live in a nice place.  

I like to look back occasionally at my life as a lorry driver. They were good times. The best thing I ever did was to pass my HGV driving test. I am proud that I did a really useful job, without lorry drivers this country would grind to a halt. Just about everything we own is transported on a lorry at some point. B & Q was my last job before I retired. I was there for seven years.

My health and fitness is always at the top of my agenda. Here I did a half marathon, raising funds for Lindsey Lodge Hospice. It was supposed to be a night walk starting at 10pm, but I managed to run some of the course. We started off at the football ground.  

Holidays are quite high on my priority list. I save up so I can afford them. This photo is taken from an eight seater aircraft coming into land at St Mary's, one of the Scilly Isles. It was so exciting. A lovely place to explore. I had two boat trips to other islands.

I have a big garden, so I put it to good use and grow some vegetables. It all helps to keep the cost of living down, and the produce is organic, no chemicals. The greenhouse and raised beds I built from pallets and reclaimed timber, all free. The idea of growing veg is that it gives you cheap food, it is daft to spend money if you can get free materials and build things yourself. 

Photography is a hobby I am interested in, though I am not familiar with complicated cameras. I have a simple compact point and shoot, which gives me good results. I like to compose my pictures and experiment with different angles.  

I have a few friends who own dogs, and I love to take them for a walk. This is Lady, we passed a field of sugar beet and I got her to sit amongst it for this photo. I love walking my doggy friends, it keeps me active and out in the open air. A win win situation. 

In my blog you will find pictures of my yellow sticker shopping. I go to The supermarket at 8pm at night, and buy the fresh food at knock down prices, which is going to go out of date on that day. I can get really cheap food by shopping this way, 90% off sometimes. I would find it very difficult to be able to go on holiday and keep my car, if I had to pay full price for food. 

Those that know me, know I am a bit of a joker. I like a laff, and don't take life too seriously. Me and Julie dressed up for a party, I took a step ladder with me, it was a hoot. 

Cats feature heavily in my blog, I have three of them. This is my best boy, Bugsy has been with me for 17 years. He came here as a kitten, he was wandering the streets because his owner kept going away and leaving him. She agreed to rehome him. I adore him.  

Happy food. There are lots of examples of my meals. I haven't eaten meat for over twenty years, and gave up fish a year ago. I eat masses of vegetables, salad, and fruit. I still eat dairy, so I am not vegan. I do believe that my healthy diet, and the fact that I spend a lot of time outdoors, has a lot to do with why I am very rarely  ill. 

Well that's the first five years, let's see what the next five years have to offer. Lead on MacDuff, are you coming with me or what? You are? That would be nice. 

GIVEAWAY  GIVEAWAY  GIVEAWAY  GIVEAWAY  GIVEAWAY

I told you I like surprises, well here's one for you. I will put together a parcel of bits and bobs of crafty stuff, and will post it anywhere in the world. Not saying what will be in it, but there will be something ready made, and something you have to make yourself. To win it all you have to do is comment here. Closing deadline is Saturday the 4th at 6pm. Good luck
Catch you tomorrow. Toodle pip

Read More »

Fresh start,yipeeeee

The first day of a brand spanking new year, isn't it exciting. I love a fresh new start, every morning I wake up full of enthusiasm for the day ahead, wondering what will happen, what has life got in store for me. Sometimes I make things happen, sometimes they just do. Whatever life throws at me, I just get on with it.

Today I have been preparing my post for tomorrow, because tomorrow is a special day, and I am writing a special post. So please forgive me if this is a tad short, there will be double measures tomorrow. Oooh, I'm so excited, can't wait to show.

Thank you for your New Year wishes, I hope all your good dreams come true in 2014, and your bad dreams are few and far between. I'll catch you tomorrow.
Toodle pip.

Read More »