Simple Living Review: Augfest 2016!

A common darter dragonfly

 

We have just finished our summer staycation. Thanks to the wonderful weather, exciting Olympics, and time off together at the end of the month, August has felt like a big fun festival so we re-named it Augfest. It was also a bit of a spendfest too, but we know it’s a relatively small outlay for such a holiday season.

Spending report
Well, we didn’t save anything! But it is only the second month since we started our one-income lives that we’ve overspent, and it was all worth it:
Food and drink – £17.55 per day average! Includes ice creams, a bottle of wine, coffees, fish and chips, cheap beer from Aldi and many other goodies, but no restaurant meals – we don’t miss that at all
Clothes: The first pair of shoes for about a year: Brian bought some trainers. And some T-Shirts.
Luxuries: Music downloads, Open Garden, seaside parking, and tennis court hire!
Home and garden: Oven gloves, a wall-mounting TV stand (not yet fitted) and DIY items
Toiletries & health: This shampoo and conditioner, which smell amazing and work well which means Lucy can finally stop shopping around
Misc: Lucy would like to note that she spent 50p on a shiny colourful pencil to use at work and is delighted by it every day, possibly the best value for money material item in terms of enjoyment:

During our staycation we’ve relaxed in the hottest weather, eaten our dinners outside in the cool evenings, and had plenty of leisure time. We visited friends and enjoyed an outdoor curry cooked in a dutch oven over an open fire followed by toasted doughnuts (they go crispy on the outside), a game of frisbee, a go on a trampoline and a unicycling demonstration.

We went to the seaside twice, to the same beach, the second time was in the early evening to see the sunset over the ocean.

We’ve also been thinking about the fact that our simple lives need to be designed to suit us. There is no one right way to do it. When we started talking about thrift and de-cluttering and reading blogs about tiny houses and minimalism, we couldn’t really tell which of the many aspects of it were going to suit us, it was all exciting. There’s plenty to read and be inspired by about growing veg and fruit, making your own clothes and other crafting, baking, and going car-free and zero waste.

We’re now much more aware of what fits for us. It may change over time, but we have now embraced the fact that we don’t really want to grow too much veg and fruit, or do a lot of crafts, baking or creative thrifting  – although we still like reading about it online. Instead the things which provide us with the most fulfilment and reward are:
– Decluttering, but most of all, thinking of ways not to bring things into our lives in the first place
– Home and garden projects, such as making our seating area outside, creating real habitats for wildlife, removing all our carpets room by room, and dealing with the fabric of the house
– Appreciating our home & garden so that we don’t crave meals out or holidays or regular room make-overs for novelty
– Reading, writing, chatting, watching films and TV shows that make us happy – all very low cost hobbies!
– Being as low impact as we can, with less driving, more cycle commuting, re-using things and choosing natural products
– Taking a Photo of the Day of little special moments

Four duck bottoms in a row!

 

Our simple life is all about noticing things, and not over-committing ourselves to activities and projects (however frugal or resourceful) that take away our time to notice things.

Seedheads on a Willowherb

 

Lucy’s Record & Book Club:

August playlist:
Christine & The Queens/Perfume Genius – Jonathan
K D Lang  – Infinite and Unforeseen
Arcade Fire – Reflektor
Antony & The Johnsons – Christina’s Farm
Benjamin Clementine – London

Books read & enjoyed:
Steve Toltz – Quicksand
Emma Donoghue – Room
Matt Haig  – Reasons to Stay Alive
I started a very big book too, so that’s why there weren’t many finished this month:

Lucy’s beer and library books at the start of the staycation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simple Living Review: July

A Small Skipper butterfly enjoys our lavender

 

Last month was another minimal shopping month. We improved our daily spend on food and drink, which came out at £13.38 per day. As you can see below, we bought very little else of interest! –

Two fills of petrol
Bus season ticket
Glue stick
Nail brush
Flannel
Washing up liquid and giant laundry liquid
Toothpaste, toothbrush, floss
Sunblock and hayfever stuff
Soaps and bubble bath
Cycling trousers
Craft festival and various open garden entry tickets – this was where we spent this month, because it’s the season for leisure and fun and we enjoy nosing about in other people’s gardens! Open Gardens are ideal because the money goes to charity, there are usually some within a short distance, and you can have tea and cake too so it’s a good day out. We usually come away inspired by the colours and plants, but also proud of our own garden’s wildlife value, as often that is missing from very highly planned and horticultural gardens.

This month we had a new moth: this is a Beautiful Hooktip, and it feeds on tree lichens, so we are delighted that the garden is providing enough to attract it in.

We also had flowers on our Small-Leaved Lime (Tilia cordata) tree, which are stunningly pretty and a good source of midsummer nectar for bees and moths.

We’re lucky that as well as the trees and plants we have in the garden, there are other large trees nearby amongst the many houses. There is a big Oak tree not far away, and this Ash (below right) is a popular hang-out for rooks, jackdaws and starlings which we can see from our living room window (and this means we can easily run outside with the camera when a rainbow appears neatly beside it, like this!)

We ended the month at a wonderful and generous party with friends, with all you could wish to eat, drink, chat and laugh about, not least the fact that we got massively lost and had to be guided to the house by following a very kind supermarket delivery driver who happened to pass by.

This month we have continued to feel engaged with the world and when the negativity escalates we try to see that within our small capacity we are doing something to try and live in a sustainable way and to share the message of living simply, peacefully and kindly. We’re coming to the end of our first single-income year and will soon be deciding on our approach to Year Two, but it is unlikely we will change very much. We seem to be on the right track, spending our money and time in ways that reduce stress, aim for sustainability and focus on what really matters.

Lucy’s Music & Book Club:

Music Playlist:
Chvrches – Recover
REM – I’ve Been High
Christine & The Queens – Starshipper
Alessia Cara – Here
Perfume Genius – Queen
Paloma Faith – Just Be

Books read & enjoyed:
Jackie Kay – Reality, Reality
Belinda McKeon – Tender
Ann Patchett – This is the Story of a Happy Marriage

 

 

Heatwave

Simple living definitely helps in a heatwave. Lucy took a few days off from cycling all the way to work, and stopped to get on the Park & Ride bus instead. Brian has been avoiding doing strenuous gardening and housework in the heat of the day and pottering in the shade or in the evenings. The new gravel seating area in the garden has now hosted our first few outdoor evening dinners. There’s no need to be rushing around and overheating: better to hang out in the comfort of the shade and be grateful to be there.

Yarrow (Achillea) – a big garden success this year

 

Stunning native Purple Loosestrife in the boggy area of the garden

 

Brian’s home-made mushroom soup at the garden table…

 

…followed by home-made gooseberry & red berry jam, with the gooseberry bush itself in view

 

We’ve also been enjoying: smelling the jasmine which is now in flower, watching our tame Woodpigeon (Frank) go about his business, having a few summer days out, taking time to read the newspapers and thinking/talking about how the events of this year have given us a kick up the backside about how engaged we are with the world, and what we might do about it next. Articles such as this one about ‘hope in the dark’ are inspiring to us.

Simple Living Review: June 2016

Looking outside at the summer sky

We came to the end of June with a renewed sense of the power of living simply.  As events in the wider world continue on their course, it would be easy to feel powerless, but within the many articles we’ve read recently there have been some timely reminders of true positivity. Not going ‘la la la, everything’s fine!’ but acknowledging the reality, harnessing the inner and outer resources that we do have, and working together in the most positive way possible. Keeping our own lives simple is a way of avoiding wasting the limited time we have here on the planet on things that really do not matter. We’re always trying to live up to the title of this blog!

What did we spend and do this month?
We paid a year’s worth of insurance this month so we didn’t save anything overall, we also had an expensive month for food and drink (£15.15 per day), but considering we don’t go on holiday or to many events, having a curry night while watching Glastonbury on TV, for example, is a treat well worth having! Our food treats provide some of the most memorable and grateful times of our lives.

Other spending:
– Petunias for the garden
– A kettle (not had one since 2014)
– Music downloads
– Shoe insoles
– Moisturiser
– Some health supplies
– Some gifts
That’s it. It was a very sparse month on the Excel budget sheet!

 

Bumblebee on Cosmos

 

The garden is full of colour and creatures. We plant things which attract a lot of bees, and it’s a great year for baby birds. Recently we are also being visited every day by an energetic and very loud Song Thrush, which sits in a tree or on a rooftop singing for hours on end and is becoming less shy every day, allowing us to walk quite close.

Newly fledged blackbird

 

Its also the time of year to stand outside in the evening and enjoy the fragrance of Night Scented Stock. They are so easy to grow, and the scent is unbelievable. During the day, they smell of nothing, but after a certain point in the evening, start to release a rich and intoxicating clove-like perfume. Just as we love our flavoursome food, we love natural wonders like these as they are so simple, so accessible and are truly what matters, giving us great pleasure in our lives and inspiring us every day.

Night Scented  Stock

 

Lucy’s Books & Music Corner:

Music
Song of the month: B-52s – Breezin’
Duran Duran – Pressure Off
Patty Griffin – Standing
Christine & The Queens – Tilted / Here
Arcade Fire – Wake Up
Benjamin Clementine – I Won’t Complain
The Last Shadow Puppets – Moonage Daydream (Glastonbury)
Tame Impala – The Less I Know The Better (Glastonbury)
Coldplay – Adventure of a Lifetime / A Sky Full of Stars (Glastonbury)
Sia – Alive

Books 
Ali Smith – How to Be Both
Ann Patchett – Bel Canto
Anne Enright – The Green Road
(And we read a lot of newspapers)

Summer Solstice

Wandering in the garden at night is one of the gifts of summer. The hollows in our concrete wall (made from blocks found underground) are perfect for holding candles, and the effect is very beautiful, a simple glass ramekin from a dessert creating a lovely reflection in the light.

We had good views of the summer solstice full moon last night. It rose perfectly clear and bright, and then we watched as interesting mists and clouds swept across it. Our camera is not intended for night photography but sometimes captures nice effects anyway:

We just like to stand quietly, watch and listen: maybe hearing frogs rustling in the grass, birds shifting about in the trees where they roost, and sometimes a special treat of an owl call. The fragrances change at night too. We collected white campion seeds from a roadside especially to bring it into our garden for night-time fragrance – it’s somewhere between hyacinth and jasmine.

There is a peace and stillness in the garden at night that captures what matters to us. Trying to live a simple life is for us about taking a wider and less self-focussed view, caring about humanity and the world we live in, which is beyond politics but is essentially the most political thing we can do, by living it through positive actions on a daily basis.

 

Winter Cycling Report 2015-16

By Lucy

This winter I decided to keep a proper record of how I was travelling to work, and see how much cycle commuting I was doing. Here are the results:

It definitely has not been a hard winter so I was surprised that I didn’t cycle more. But then it was a very wet winter, and while I don’t mind cycling in the rain when I can see where I’m going, cycling in the rain and in the dark is not fun, especially when you wear glasses (someone needs to invent and produce some teeny-tiny windscreen wipers).

Once I got a feel for how I was doing my challenge was to keep it above 60%. It dropped a few times but I got it back up just in time!

It’s not the most obviously motivating season to cycle in, but there are some things you get from a winter commute that are missing from the rest of the year. Setting off to work under the pre-dawn stars is always surreal, and being able to see a sunrise and a sunset on most days becomes easy to take for granted. Also, you never get too hot, and don’t have to wear sunblock!

An inky blue pre-dawn sky with blurry crescent moon

 

This winter I have seen so many different skies including the rare rainbow coloured clouds earlier this month. I’ve also heard birds singing in the dark, felt every kind of weather on my face, smelled the first blossom of the year, sung Christmas songs to myself and seen one early-morning fox, with a big rusty orange tail, as it ran out in front of me.

I love the personal thinking time that I get on my bicycle before and after work and this can feel even more magical in the early mornings of winter. I can work through worries, use my imagination and, sometimes, just be meditative and mindful listening to the sound of my wheels.

Even on the Park and Ride days I get several miles cycling to and from the bus depot. I always appreciate the convenience of living near to this service, and on a rainy, windy or icy  day to be able to lock up my bike, head to the back of the bus and settle in with music and a novel is pure luxury. Then I get a nice 10 minutes walk to the office at the other end. However, the cost adds up and so I do always need a good reason to use the bus rather than keep going on two wheels all the way.

My bicycle has done me proud and I was going to give it a big clean up yesterday to welcome the Spring, but I’ve run out of rubber gloves so that didn’t happen. I am sure it can get me through my first week of Spring cycling as it is. And of course I’ll be tracking my stats for the next 3 months and will share how I got on. I’m aiming for 85% cycling at the least!

A Warm Christmas

Hello everyone, we hope you had a wonderful Christmas. If there was a word for ours this year it would be: warm. It was warm because we spent  two days with wonderful family eating two incredible Christmas dinners and spending time with such lovely generous people. And, warm because the climate in the UK is ridiculous right now – on Christmas morning, we saw bumblebees feeding on the winter flowering cherry!

Today we’ve been out for a walk in the rain spotting plant after plant which shouldn’t be in flower, it seems to be this way across the country as observed here and here (but we are very fortunate to be in a location not affected by the flooding.)

So it may not have been anywhere near to a white Christmas, but it was merry and bright!

We each have a Christmas cake this year. Here’s Lucy’s, she’s very attached to these 1980s Father Christmasses which belonged to her grandparents. Brian’s son kindly repainted them a few years ago! The icing and marzipan has proved a bit too much on our cakes this year and is mostly going in the bin so next year we might try something different. Santa will look just as good sleighing across some almonds, surely?

Brian’s cake is much more classy, with deer footprints:

We saved newspaper pages with pictures on during the year and these were used for some of our present wrapping. The Spock one worked particularly well! After the wrapping it was time for some yoga, with festive toes.

We still have a main present to deliver, in the form of us cooking a special meal instead of buying gifts. Everyone has been so generous and we want to make this a very special occasion.

Now we have some time off together to relax and recharge after a year full of changes in our lives. Thank you to everyone who reads our blog, it is such a wonderful way for us to share some of what inspires us and be part of the big, colourful, welcoming world of people online who are trying to do something a bit different. Lets all keep shining our unique and individual lights!

 

October 2015 Review: Simpler, slower living

Saluting an amazing sunset

October is over and having just looked back at our photos to select a few for this monthly review post, we’re amazed at how long the month seemed – in a good way! Time usually flies by so fast, but it’s slowed down noticeably since Brian left work at the start of the month.

Financial review
Here’s how we did for October:

• BILLS ETC: We had higher costs this month as we are switching to some pay-ahead utilities e.g. phone and broadband. But in the long run, it will be a big saving! Also, we didn’t use very much electricity this month at all.
• FOOD AND DRINK: Our average daily spend was £12.71. More than last month, but we did have a staycation during the month, and bought all the ingredients for Christmas cake baking along with other stock-ups.
• PETROL: Only one fill for the month – this is beyond what we expected! We will probably travel around more in the summer months.
• BUSES: Park and Ride to the cinema to see James Bond (the film was free –  we’ve had a gift card since Christmas to spend!)
• LUXURIES: £3 on printing CD covers for our seasonal mix CD
• HOME AND GARDEN: A box of assorted washers, and a fern
• DOMESTIC: A lunchbox and an umbrella
• DENTAL: Payment for one procedure
• HEALTH: A more expensive month than usual, but only slightly over budget
• TOILETRIES: Haircare and moisturiser
• CLOTHING: Lucy has been buying a cardigan for work each month – last one next month!
• GIFTS: A few Christmas spends

It’s been a really encouraging month – no real temptations for spending, as we are enjoying setting ourselves frugal challenges, celebrating no spend days, and doing no-spend hobbies – such as wood carving, see below for the spiral carved stick which Brian recently made!

At home, Brian has been working on big jobs such as removing floor tiles, tree pruning, and working out a variety of fantastic healthy dinners, along with all the other everyday jobs like bringing in firewood and coal, shopping, cleaning, and laundry. It’s so nice to be able to air the house and keep things fresh, such as our owl cushions which are seen here enjoying a bit of time outdoors during a cleaning session:

One way in which we have savoured some of our extra time is in reading many of the other fantastic simple living blogs out there, and watching inspiring videos, so that we feel really connected to a wider world of people trying to achieve a more mindful and sustainable life. We’re always so grateful for everything we find which helps motivate us and gives us the chance to share in other people’s experience and wisdom.

Happy November!

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.

Summertime is Happening…

…so we are going to make sure we enjoy it! Time can seem to go by so fast, and especially so in the summer, even though the daytimes are longer.

There are many simple pleasures to enjoy at this time of year, by slowing down and keeping plenty of time free to really experience each moment.

Some of our favourite simple summer pleasures are:

• Growing the brightest annual flowers we can find (see above!)
• Ice creams: a lot of pleasure for a small amount of cash (we never have ice cream available at home – we don’t have a freezer – so it is always a special treat and makes for a memorable day)
• The feeling of getting into the shade on a hot day
• Watching the insects pollinating our plants

Meadow Brown butterfly on Cosmos

• Reading and writing outdoors
• Having bare feet
• Catching the very last of the daylight and listening to the birds going to bed
• A cold glass of water
• Cycling in the sunshine – Brian had a spontaneous trip out today in fact
• Having a cooling wash and change of clothes on a humid day

Some more of our bright summer flowers – Livingstone Daisies in a watering can (& the blue one is Borage)

• Picking salad in the morning before work
• Being able to eat outside during lunch breaks at work
• Wearing sunglasses and sunhats…
• …or enjoying the strange sensation of warm rain!
• Watching our garden wildlife with their young, such as this spider living in a kale leaf with eggs about to hatch:

Our beautiful kale-nesting spider with her ball of eggs!

• Keeping the curtains open until almost bedtime
• More people cycling and playing sports in parks
• Fish and chips after work (we enjoyed this one day last week!)
• And of course the seaside…we haven’t been yet, but it’s now only 2 weeks until our summer staycation so we’ll be visiting soon.

We love every time of the year but it can be easy to take for granted the unique things about summer: the hours of light to start and end the day, the colours and sounds of wildlife, and the freedom to move between the indoors and outdoors in comfort most of the time. This summer we’re going to make sure that we enjoy every day and appreciate this bright and lush season.

Tricolour Chrysanthemums – Rainbow Mix