Good news

Hello everyone,

Well now my new journey begins because I have accepted an offer on my flat! I had some tough decisions to make because it is quite a lot below the asking price, but after negotiating and doing my sums I am content with selling at that price. When all is said and done the market is shocking and I have only had one viewer in 5 months, so holding out for a better price could take who knows how long. The lady who is buying it is nice and is so excited about it, old softy that I am it really softens the blow.

It is strange because I am looking forward to this next stage in my life so much and am ready for it, but it is certainly coupled with a bit of unexpected sadness in letting go of my home - I know this must be a normal feeling, but getting everything in motion seems a tough task now. Also a bit of fear that what I am doing is now becoming a reality.

Anyway, enough for now, I have stuff to do!

Melting moments.

Today I really fancied some biscuits! I was trying to decide if I had enough ingredients in my store to make some but was put off because I hadn't got any eggs. Anyway, I remembered my granny used to make some biscuits called Melting Moments so I had a hunt about on the internet for a recipe, turns out there are a lot of different versions, most of which use an egg. Well with a bit of perseverance I found a recipe that didn't require an egg and made 28 biscuits. Very delicious. I don't really like my biscuits too sweet so this appeals to me, but if you have more of a sweet tooth than me you may wish to add a bit more sugar.

  

Ingredients

175g s/r flour 
125g cornflour 
50g icing sugar 
225g butter 
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Put flour, cornflour and icing sugar in food processor and mix briefly. Add butter (chopped into small chunks) and vanilla and mix until it comes together into sort of dough (can take a few minutes). 

Roll mixture into small balls size of marble and place on baking tray with a little space in between. 

Dip a fork in cold water and press down on each one to flatten slightly and score. 

Bake for 10-15 mins at 160C fan/325F/gas 3. 

It's because he is a Northerner.

Do people mistake your choice of lifestyle for stinginess?
I have sometimes been judged for my choice in not spending money on things that other people spend money on and have often heard the phrase 'it's because he is from the North'. I am not entirely sure how Northerners ended up with a label of being less forthcoming with their money than others but I am proud of where I come from. Perhaps it is partly why I have never really fitted in living where I do? I have a good friend who is almost the entire opposite of me, spend, spend, spend, and not little purchases, massive ones, is there ever a reason to have more than one car when you are a single person? I respect the way he lives and he respects my choices, but we have such differing views on why we do what we do. I have taken a few years to get to the mindset I now have, but I have never knowingly wasted money in my life and it is only as I have got older that I have now much more care about the impact I, personally have on the World around us. I have wanted to get back to nature for many years and have only really felt totally comfortable and at home when I am wandering in the countryside, quietly, upsetting no-one. Now that I am finally making positive steps towards that I feel more at peace than I have felt for years. I have moments of wondering if I am crazy, moving somewhere that I know very few people, where I have only one real friend and where I am going to cause myself problems with working (a lot of my work will still be in London) but then I think about the countryside, that will be on my doorstep and I know that I am making the right choice. You may wonder why I have not done this earlier? after all, 19 years living somewhere I don't like sounds ridiculous. I always had it in my mind that perhaps it is something I would do with a partner, something we would do together. But one day I woke up and realised that this was just an excuse and if I waited until I met the right person then I could end up never doing it and another 19 years could pass living somewhere I don't like.

Anyway, as ever, my un-concentrated mind has wandered from my original subject.

The other day I listened in to a conversation between two colleagues, one of which had just spent a large amount of money on something completely unnecessary. To hear the justification in the mindset of why such a large amount of money was used was quite amusing. One said to the other that sometimes it is necessary to spend just to make yourself feel good - an all too familiar analysis. Surely if you recognise this in yourself it is easy to undo? I happen to think that it is more that people are addicted to a lifestyle, the lifestyle that they think they ought to have, based on what other people have and want. Once you break that habit everything seems to fall into place and you find other ways of filling your needs, saving becomes your addiction more than shopping.

So yes, some people may think that I am a tight-wad (I'm not), some may think that I am judgemental of the way they live their lives, I certainly am not, we all have a choice and I have chosen a way to be that is different from the crowd, but everyone is free to make their own choices and live with the decisions they make, who am I to say otherwise? I am far from perfect and still have a whole load to learn, mistakes are made every month, but it is a great personal journey and one that hopefully will end up here:

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well!

I am on a bit of a frugal overdrive this coming month as September turned out to be a rather expensive one, thanks to my trip up to Lancashire - the price of petrol sort of blew all my budget. Never mind, I will rise to the challenge of eating well and saving money, I am now just £250 off my savings goal of £10,000 to go towards the new house buy, so I feel immensely proud of myself for having saved that, even if it has left me short every month, the challenge has been a fun one in many ways, and I am sure a lot of you out there can appreciate what I mean when I talk about fun in connection with saving money. A lot of people simply wouldn't get that but I know you fellow bloggers do get it. Every month has been a challenge of making the money go a little further so that I can put it into savings, when I move house I will know that it will have been worth it.

Which brings me nicely to the subject of today's blog. I wanted to spend no more money on food until next Tuesday, partly because I am cross with supermarket shopping at the moment, and partly because I am just slightly overdrawn until Tuesday and want to go no more into the red.
So with this in mind I made a list of the stuff I had in my larder, the stuff I had in the freezer and the fridge and decided to come up with a list of food I could make out of it. Now, the freezer is surprisingly empty at the moment because I was purposefully letting it get low so that I could defrost it (it is a bit of a disgrace) but even so I managed to quite easily come up with 10 different meals I could make just out of what I had without setting foot in the supermarket. This includes such delights as spicy pumpkin soup, paella, cauliflower and potato curry, meat and potato pie, Chinese noodles, and more. Yesterday I made a lovely butternut squash and orange bake, this morning I have made the pumpkin soup and a new potato, tomato and egg salad,. The results of which are sitting in my fridge now in all looking welcoming in their Autumn colours, wholesome and bright. It made me reflect on the nutritional excess of being frugal, I have more ready to eat delicious food in my fridge than plenty of people who go to the supermarket and spend hundreds of pounds every week with little to show for it. I feel richer than these people by far because I have found a way of living in a contented fashion on less and without going hungry - far from it.

Other news from me is that my flat viewing went very well, the lady loved it and is coming for a second viewing this evening and bringing her sister to see it too. The cottage I went to see in Lancashire was perfect too and I am trying not to get too excited about it, because a lot can happen in the next couple of months, still, there is hope that it could all work out.

From the cold North

Hello everyone and welcome to my newest followers, it is nice to know that at least 30 people get something from my musings.

Update on house viewing is just annoying news, the woman didn't turn up on Saturday, but she did postpone until Monday. Now I couldn't be in on Saturday because I am away up North (more of that in a bit) but my estate agent was taking her. I am not one to lay judgement on estate agents usually (although they do make this difficult) but when I get a phone call later in the day telling me that he had 'forgotten to take the keys with him and so couldn't show her' it is hard not to think of appropriate names for him and his kind. The goodish news is that she is keen enough to still want to come (amazingly) and so will be viewing it this Saturday coming.

Now the reason I have not been at home this week is because I am in Lancashire, visiting parents and sister and brother etc. I have also taken this opportunity to view a house tomorrow. Now I know that it is silly to get over-excited about a house I have not seen yet, especially with no offers on my own flat, but this one really does tick all the boxes and is the first house details I have found that does this: large garden, not overlooked, very quiet area, nothing but countryside out to the back. Don't get me wrong, it is no mansion, tiny little 2 bed cottage (can you use the term cottage for something built in the 1980's?) although it does have a garage that can be converted somewhere down the line and coming in at a lower than you would expect price, certainly within my budget. Like I say, hard not to get excited but am trying to keep a reign on that. So that is what tomorrow will bring. Today, I am going to get out into the countryside for a walk around Rivington Pike and gardens with a friend hoping the weather holds out. It is a beautiful area and I am really looking forward to it. Will let you all know how the viewings (house and my flat) go.

At last

Finally reader, a viewing on my flat today. First one in 3 months. Now obviously I am not going to get my hopes up too much, but what about this, the name of the woman viewing the flat is Hope!

I did indeed drop the price of the flat £5000 earlier this week and I have noticed that since it first went on the market prices seem to have dropped a bit more in general. Strange how annoying estate agents are though, so happy and jolly and full of enthusiasm when you first meet them and sign on the dotted line, and then so full of gloom and doom 3 weeks later when they have your contract.

The pay off is that the price of houses in East Lancashire has also dropped, so really it will make little difference in the long run. I suppose it is just easy to get bogged down on what the flat used to be worth. Can't think like that any more or you drive yourself mad. At least I am still in profit.

So wish me luck.

Small and very nasty beasty.

Hello dear reader, today you find me nursing a blood test hole in my left arm. I am always surprised when I get to the blood test centre at 6.45 in the morning (to avoid the horrendous queues later in the day) to find 13 people already ahead of me with the same idea as myself.

So why, you may ask, a blood test? Well about 8 weeks ago a very strange rash appeared in a very strange place - my bottom, to be precise. Now the first couple of doctors threw around such foul words as ringworm or fungal infections, which always sound rather distasteful. However I was lucky enough to find myself (after a few visits and none of the creams I had been given doing anything at all for the rash) in the presence of a really wonderful doctor who thought a little outside the box and wanted to investigate more than just the most likely cause. Well to cut a long story short it turns out that the rash was a little more serious than was first thought as it seems I had been bitten by a tic and that tic had infected me with lymes disease! For someone unfortunate enough to live in inner city London, this seems unlucky indeed, but on a working trip to Devon in late July, I was aware that there were tics about and one of these little buggers obvious decided to crawl up my leg to find a dark warm spot to have his lunch and try and kill me.

Joking aside, I feel very lucky that my doctor was on the ball, because undiagnosed lymes disease can be very nasty indeed with very long term damage. Fortunately for me I have finished a 4 week course of antibiotics and hopefully the results of this mornings blood test will reveal that I am now free of it. Let's hope.

There are more dangers than I thought living in the country, I was thinking that the worst that could happen would be an occasional sting from a nettle or accidentally stepping in a cow-pat.