January, sick and tired you've been hanging on me

Such a long month, and yet I still couldn't find time to blog!

I'm seeing off the tail end of flu at present so, if I promise not to sneeze on you, I'll give you a whistle stop round up of the month.

After a nice quiet New Year (as always at chez pennypincher) it got considerably louder on the 2nd, when we popped over to Wolverhampton Civic for a concert. Haven't seen anyone live for ages and bought the tickets months ago so really was probably not in the mood for a gig. Especially as we soon discovered that Wolverhampton Wanderers football team were playing at home on the same evening, and the council had decided to block off a few city centre roads including the main entrance to the civic car park!  45 minutes to drive to Wolverhampton, an hour and 10 minutes stuck in traffic on the ring road, trying to read diversion signs which were flat on the pavement having been blown over by strong winds or football fans. Not fun!

Finally, we found a (read that as made a creative parking space in a council car park) place to park and arrived at the venue just a few minutes after the concert started.

Black Country Communion, well, half of, photo taken on my cheap smart phone.

Thankfully the gig was great, no-one who had parked creatively got a ticket (and there were plenty of us!)  and we got home in record time, thanks to the absence of the 20,000 or so football fans who had mostly left the city. 

Up early the following day, my birthday, for a day out in lovely old Evesham. My present was a meal at the Royal Oak, a black and white medieval building in the centre of the town. Lunch was sea bass on kale with crab and chilli balls and scallops, beautiful!

(another smart phone photo!)

At the weekend we discovered a gold post box in Alcester. These post boxes were painted gold in the home towns of Olympic gold medal winners, this one was for Equestrian Nick Skelton. Nick won a gold medal in 2012 as part of the GB team, but won an individual gold in 2016, and I'm wondering if that's why this is a double post box?!  Answers on a postcard please!

  

The following weekend, we had another cold snap. If you are not in the UK, we have had several cold snaps this month, a few decent snow flurries and lots of icy weather.

Just how icy we discovered when we visited the local arboretum. The lake was frozen. As this duck and seagull found out when they landed. The duck was not amused!

This lot were hiding in the reeds, where the water wasn't iced over, but they saw us and thought we were feeding them, so broke cover.

We haven't been on many of our cultural days out so far this year, mainly because a lot of the properties are shut until Spring, and partly because the OH is building up a new wardrobe. We are sourcing heavily from charity shops for him.  He's had some great items, way out of my price range (you know me, just too cheap!)

I'll show you my purchases though, meagre as they are. Firstly, a birthday treat from a proper shop, this wool blend snuggly snowflake jumper in pink and grey from Fat Face, reduced to £25 then to £22.50 at the till. A new jumper seems to be my annual treat now.

Secondly, I really couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted these fabulous Clark's boots in my size for £3. As you can see from the muddy bottoms, I've worn them several times already.

So comfy and warm, I love them! 

Last bargain was quite an expensive one. I saw these boots in a charity shop way before Christmas and thought they were just too dear. They were £19.99. The other week they were still there, I tried them on, they fitted me and are by Bertie, an expensive brand. I bought them!

Hardly worn, as you can see

Well, that's it for January, I need to crack on and get my blog reading up to date. 

 Hope you've all had a great start to 2018

I'm off to get some tissues and Vick, I need to breathe!