Cozy toes allotments and a giveaway..

I am realy pleased to say that I have finally got my much desired allotment. I have wanted one for ages and have grown disheartened about the small (read miniscule) patch we have been using in the garden. I am not sure of exactly how big it is so will have to get it measured but it is HUGE, more that big enough for us so we are going to share it with a friend. We are allowed to keep live stock on there and there are alreadu alot of people keeping chickens and geese so I think that once it is sorted then I may look at getting some chickens.



It is very overgrown and will need alot of work done to it before we can even think about what we are going to grow, however the main point it that it is now mine, ALL MINE !!!!!!



Autumn is well and truly on the way, you can smell it in the air. This next week I intend to get the beds sorted with their extra blankets and sheets, I may even sneak a hot water bottle in their also. I love to snuggle up with a hot water bottle to keep me warm, I actually have an old stone hot water bottle that I used until quite recently. The stone gets incredibly hot so it needs to be wrapped up in a towel or something otherwise it is far too hot to handle.

I have been adding little touches of autumn into the house this last week. I know there is no real need to decorate for the seasons but I love the warm colours and the only thing I have actually bought are three gourds from a flower shop today, everything else was found in the house (its amazing what you can find). Thank you to Periwinkle for helping me to find them.

I cant wait to get some pictures of the allotment and I will show you some of my autumn decorations soon.





I have also recently received an award from the lovely Pixiedust , but shamefully never got it posted on here. Thank you Pixiedust and sorry about the delay.

I am supposed to nominate 7 blogs for the same award, I will be thinking and posting them soon.

I have nearky written my 200th post, so to celebrate I will be having a giveaway very soon.

Make, Mend and Do...

I am finding it hard to post everyday at the moment. First it is difficult to think of something everyday and secondly finding the time is hard.

I wanted to post about this for a while so here goes.

When I was a child we used to snuggle up under the warmest sheets ever and they were a brushed cotton (i think this is what you call them). Now you dont find these type of sheets here anymore and they are just the normal type. I am lucky enough to own afew sheets that were handed down to me by my Mum and were actually my Grandmothers. Imagine my devistation when I found this

Yes, my dear children have worn them into a hole right in the middle of the sheets where their little bodies snuggle up just as their Mamma did. I have used them for about seven years and they belonged to my grandmother who dies nearly ten years ago, so really they have been well used.

Well after a chat with my Mum, I have cut them in half, sewn the two hemmed sides together and re hemmed what was the middle to form an edge. Now I have perfectly useable, warm and snuggly sheets for the childrens bed and it has cost me nothing. My Mum informed me that she can remember her mother doing this and also her Grandmother. This would be done until the sheet was well used and could not be sewn back together to get further useage and then it was used for something like a rag or the decent bits of fabric would be used to be sewn into something different.

Years ago I would have probably thrown them away and ran to the shops to buy brandnew bedding and thought nothing of it. I am not the Queen of Green and must confess that I did this mainly for the financial benefit of not having to buy new bedding but it also means that there is less thrown away for landfill.

For more inspiration on Greener living have a look at this blog,

Our Green Year

Reduce, reuse, Recycle

This is something that I have been thinking about today. Our wheelie bin was collected and as I watched the bin men take it away it got me thinking about what we all throw away and just how much. When taking the children to school there are rows and rows of bins outside houses waiting for them to be collected and some are overflowing. I am not judging people on what they should be doing but I do hold myself accountable for my own actions and what I can do to make my wheelie bin a little less full. I dont think that we do badly for a family of four, we usually only fill the bin to half way. HOWEVER there is room for improvement.

Packaging has to be the worst thing, you go to the supermarket and perhaps buy some yogurt. You have just paid for 4 little pots with lids and then most of them have a cardboard container supposidly holding them together. There are other itmes which are over packaged and not only is this making waste but we are actually paying for this packaging and then we throw it away. You may as well just throw some money in the bin, I bet people would never dream of doing that. Here are some intersting links that you may like to have a look at,

http://www.rubbishfreeyear.co.nz/

http://ourgreenyear.blogspot.com/

I shall get off my soap box now, normal service shall resume.

Strawberrys and Tomatos

When you come in or out of our house you have to go through a porch and this is the greeting that meets you every day, fresh home grown soon to be strawberrys and tomato plants. i love strawberrys but just for the record hate nasty horrible fresh tomato.. I love sun dried tomato or sauces with tomato but cant bear fresh tomato YUK !!!

No Spend Month

Back in January I posted about the challenge of No Impulse Buying, well the month was a great success and I was very concious of the money that we had to spend. I dont nomally make large purchases, however if you think about the few pounds here for a magazine and a few pounds there they will soon add up. Did anyone join in with this?
The challenge for this month is No Spend Month, so like it says you cant spend any money. Mwaaaaaa How can I do this with a childs 9th Birthday looming? Well she has decided that for her birthday she would like to have her bedroom decorated so all we have to buy is the wallpaper (we use lining paper) and some lilac coloured paint so the actual amount spent should be very little I HOPE... Seriously though, I do agree that spending should be cut down but I am still going to make sure that my daughter has a wonderful birthday. Afterall you are only nine once.
If you want to have a look at the challenge follow the link .

Friday 4th

The end of the week, normally I would be full of joy in the knowledge that we have the weekend. However this means that I must return to work on monday. I shouldnt really complain as I only work 13 hours a week spread over 4 days so it is not exactly much but working in a school with children age 5 and 6 is enough to "DRIVE YOU MAD"... mmmmmwwwaaaahhhhh !!!

I am still doing well on the no impulse buying, yesterday I had to get a couple of things for the children to go back to school and we did have lunch out but I dont really think that this counts as I had planned to take them out for lunch when the schools broke up but as we have all been unwell over the holidays we were unable to get there until yesterday. It is ineresting however as I would have normally bought a magazine without thinking about it (and probably paid £3.50 for it) but I didnt even miss not buying it and know that it is money saved and less paper products been used by us.

News on the Motorbike is that it has been recovered by the police but it is completely trashed and will probably be wrtitten off by the insurance company. They have smashed the ignition open and pulled out loads of wires to try and start it, the police think that they were disturbed and so pushed the bike down a steep hill itnto a woodland area below where it smashed into bits when it hit the trees. I really dont want to write on here what I think of these people as it is not nice, but I am sure you can guess. We not only enjoy using the bike but it is also an essential mode of transport for my poor hubby as he uses it for work which allows me the car to get to work and do the school runs. There is no way i can get to work and drop the children off at two different schools on time without it, so I am not sure what we will do when the schools go back nest week. These idiots dont care about such trivial things though do they? We are going to have a look at it over the weekend, should be ineresting.PAH !!!!!!!!!!

Ponderings

Well another year has ended and a new one comes to greet us. What plans have you for 2008?. I dont really like the idea of New Years resolutions but I do think that there may be changes happening in this household. Nothing too exciting but small changes that will effect the way we choose to live and the impact that we will be having on the world around us. As many people will know we have tried to reduce our impact on this world recently and we intend to take this further and educate our children (perhaps we will learn things from them) that we have to look after our planet as it is the only one we have and the choices that we make during our lives will not only effect us but our families for generations to come.

What did we do in 2007?

* planted our own (small) vegetable patch in the garden
* Received the kind pressie of a composter (yet to be set up and working)
* Used soapnuts (not sure on this one but will have to try again I think)
* Gas fire gone, nasty thing never to be used again
* Energy efficient bulbs installed when old one has blown
* Heavy curtains as the dor to stop you from being blown off the chair by the draught

Err I am sure that there are more things but that is all that I can think of for now. I do have more ideas but will introduce them to the family as and when to lessen the blow ( If it were up to me the TV would be OUT, but alas that idea didnt go down very well..LOL)
I think that rather than going out and making HUGE changes all in one go it is better to take little steps, afew at a time and make new routines for the family as you are more likely to stick with them. Things that are certainly on the plan fr 2008 are,

* Installation of a water but
* Hopefully we will get an allotment so we can expand the home grown veggies
* We have found a wonderful supplier of local meats from a farm shop, although we will have to
go and collect, it has to be better than the supermarkets.
* Veg bag delivered weekly ( we have done this before but need to set it back up again)

Oh I am sure that there will be more. I think that I will have to keep a record of what I am doing otherwise I am sure to forget. Do you want to join me in this? Go on, I could use all the encouragement I can get.