Sun Dogs, Gloves and Cakes

This week we are on staycation, meaning that Lucy is off work, and Brian is having more leisure than on regular house-husbandry days. It’s also half term, and we’re enjoying some family time.

This week is also a good opportunity to get moving on some cost-saving ideas. We’ve already made a few changes since becoming a one-salary/one-home-maker team:
– Lucy’s mobile phone switches provider this week, saving £36 per year
– We’ve now moved nearly all our email archive into a new inbox as our internet provider will be the next switch, saving £200+ per year
– We’ve been conducting experiments on our electricity usage and whether we change supplier or just change our habits as a result, we should make savings there too.
– We’ve tested the area around our bungalow to see if damp is likely to occur and found that the concrete path is too high and in some places slopes in the wrong direction, and been discussing what to do about this
– Lucy has had her second home-haircut from Brian, definitely salon standard!

The last few days have also given us some perfect autumn weather and we took advantage of this with a long walk yesterday through woodland (also collecting free chestnuts), a community orchard (picking some free and delicious apples), a pretty village, and a church. It was the perfect day for Lucy to try out her fingerless gloves which she has just finished:

Completed fingerless gloves

And on the walk back, the sky treated us to a stunning ‘sun dog’ alongside the setting sun. There were two, but the one on the right was misted over by cloud.

Then as we emerged from the woods back to the car, the nearly full moon was hanging so low and big in the sky it was truly breath-taking (it made one of us go ‘Whoah!’ anyway).

A gibbous moon

Today the first of our gathered cooking apples were to put to good use in this spiced apple cake.

This may seem back to front, but earlier today Lucy also went to the library and got books about Christmas crafts, decorating homes with natural materials, and…giving up sugar!

However, the goal is not to give up sugar completely, but to try to half the amount she eats, and favour home-made cakes on special occasions over processed stuff as everyday treats. This is something we’ve both done before with varying degrees of success, but any way in which we can be healthier is worthwhile, even if you don’t cut something out completely (if you find this sort of thing works for you, you are a moderator – if not, you are an abstainer – try the quiz here!).

Tomorrow is our holiday treats day, as we’re going into the city to spend the cinema voucher Lucy’s parents gave us last Christmas on seeing the new James Bond movie! There’s enough on the voucher for popcorn and treats as well (but not for Lucy – she’ll do something like paint her nails instead, as opting out of cinema snacks is an easy win towards the sugar goal!)

Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back at the end of the week for a proper update on our October spends, saves and simple living goals.

Cosy Colourful Autumn

This weekend we stayed close to home with just a couple of trips out for food. This is always a colourful time of year, but this year one of the trees in our garden has given us a surprise display that we’ve never seen before:

These leaves are from our North American Hawthorn, and we’ve never seen this ‘traffic light’ effect before. We don’t know what causes it but they are stunning to look at.

At this time of year our attention turns indoors, and we’re spending more time reading and baking, but the garden is still beautiful with lots of things in flower – as you can see reflected in the window of our book cabinet!

Although we still need to clean our chimney for the year, we’ve started having fires and on a chilly evening the warmth and glow couldn’t be more cosy. One of the things we keep meaning to do is to light candles more often, but we usually forget – not tonight though, as we have been enjoying the first use of this candle holder which Brian bought years ago and has never used.

None of this costs much to enjoy, all it needs is for us to pay attention.

A Weekend With a Bit of Everything

This was our first weekend after Brian left work! We had no plans and just wanted to enjoy this moment after waiting and planning for it. The weekend then just naturally filled up with all the right things.

Lucy went to the library in the sunshine on Saturday morning and got a book about the weather and three novels (including her first ever Poirot!) After making brownies she then had a bit of time to read in the garden while they cooled.

A reading space

As we sat down to eat the brownies we discovered the first Christmas film of the year on TV and enjoyed some early festive feelings and excitement. When Christmas is separated from consumerism and shopping, it doesn’t feel too early to start looking forward to it in mid-Autumn and watching a nice cheery family film felt just right for this Saturday afternoon!

The wintery scenes inspired Lucy to start again on two unfinished knitting projects. These should be finished by the end of the month:

Current knitting projects

On the left is a pair of fingerless gloves, and on the right a sparkly scarf. The knitting continued through Strictly Come Dancing, and then started up again today after our big breakfast this morning as the sun streamed in through the windows.

This afternoon we had a long walk through the fields and lanes, with lots of gulls flying overhead, ending in a beautiful sunset. We returned home hungry, happy and tired, especially Brian who had already had one long walk today…after waking up at 3.45am too excited about the changes in our lives to carry on sleeping!

Sunset in the fields

We’ve both had colds this week and felt under the weather at times this weekend, but brownies, books, knitting, a Christmas movie, Saturday night family TV, a big breakfast and a big sunset together make a very good medicine!