Hello everyone! 

I managed to lock myself out of my blog due to inactivity. Of course, I only discovered this when I tried to log in to tell you my latest news.

I have started a Youtube account!

I'm not going to talk on them, you don't need to hear my dulcet Brummie tones, but I've started videoing some of our lockdown walks and am revisiting old photos of places we've been in the past, and turning them into little films.

Spielberg has nothing to worry about, fortunately!  My efforts so far have been just what you would expect of a middle aged woman trying to grasp new technology!  Anyway, I just thought it would be nice to get us all in the mood for travel when lockdown is finally lifted.

In the meantime, if you use a treadmill, maybe you can walk with us?

 My Youtube channel

It would be great if you could click the subscribe button and then you will be notified of new videos as soon as I upload them.

See you over there!

It ain't over till it's over

Oops, another month and scarcely a blog post from me. 

So, I've decided to trial instagram and facebook for the time being, and try small bite sized pieces of info instead of one great long blog post with loads of boring photos for you to plough through!

This blog will still stay as I've always loved blogging, and I hope to pick up again when we go out and about to places. In the meantime here's a couple of recent jewellery bargains for you.

I found this gorgeous real silver necklace on a 50p jewellery rack in a local charity shop. I always pick up real silver if I see it, as long as it isn't broken. The scrap value is so low at present this necklace is probably worth less than 50p as scrap, but if I get bored of it I can sell it on for a couple of quid at least. 

  I do love this! It is so Spring-like I had to buy it, cost 30p so not breaking the bank. I think it's a cheap one, maybe Primark or Poundland even, let me know if you've seen it around! 

Lastly, thought I would share this photo of the hens, Lola will be nine this month, which is a really great age for a chicken, and the other two we bought last March from the Domestic Fowl Trust in Warwickshire.

From the left, they are Daphne (Hamburgh) Lola (Araucana) and Maureen (Friesian). They are all bantams and not much bigger than pigeons, albeit very feisty! Lola no longer lays regularly but we get around 12 to 13 little white eggs a week off the other two combined. 

You can find me on instagram as pennypincher66 and facebook as Diary of a penny pincher, hope to see you over there! 

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!

Witley on ice

Thought I would start this post with a few photos of our recent snowfall. Here in Worcestershire we had about a foot. We are quite elevated, there's a long hill at both ends of the village, and plenty of open countryside around us, so any weather is pretty much unhindered.

Woke to this on 8th December, (view from our bedroom window) but it wasn't deep and neither was it that cold, so we ventured out to Hanbury

  

Two days later, Sunday 10th, and this greeted us, view from the lounge this time, and look at that sky, plenty more up there! It snowed on and off all day.

The woodpecker arrived, and we only really see him in Winter (just above centre of pic and in the middle) 

11th December and a slow melt began, although you can see we have slightly more snow than yesterday morning

12th December and snow again, and a freezing fog moving in!

 For those of you in colder climates thinking "that's not much snow!", it is quite unusual for us to have as much as this and we do not have equipment etc to deal with it.  Some Winters we barely have a light dusting more than a couple of times during the season, which is why everything grinds to a halt and we all go a bit snow crazy when it happens!

Anyway, fast forward a few days to Saturday 16th, and we thought the snow had all melted so popped over to Witley Court, our nearest English Heritage property. We had the place to ourselves. 

The lake was still partly frozen, no ducks to be seen

The fountain too, thankfully it doesn't fire up in the Winter, bet the pipes were frozen solid

OH had some amusement skimming bits of frozen snow across the surface

There was even a decent amount of snow left on the ground

Just us, no-one else to be seen

On our favourite fountain there was a display of paper water lilies sitting on the frozen surface, in readiness for the first ever lantern festival at Witley.

The trees were being decorated with paper lanterns and battery operated fairy lights, you can just see little jam jars along the edge of the path, the only other person around was a man switching on all the little lights in the jars. 

Back at the shop and we treated ourselves to some Worcestershire wobble juice and fudge and ginger biscuits, for less than the cost of a cup of tea and cake.

Hope you have all had a lovely Christmas, Happy New Year to you all and see you in 2018!

Glam Christmas

On the 8th December we intended to have a long day out to the Malverns, the weather decided otherwise, here it was the start of a snowstorm lasting a couple of days.  The temperature was in the minus figures, it was biting cold and the snowflakes were horizontal in the driving wind.

Never mind, we stopped off at Hanbury Hall for a 70's and 80's themed Christmas!  The idea came about because in the 70's and 80's the hall was rented out and the occupants became fairly infamous locally for their wild parties. 

Christmas card perfect on the outside, but like an explosion in a glitter factory inside!

The huge tree in the hallway had been lovingly decorated with different colours of lametta, the front drawing room was playing Morecombe and Wise on a loop on the TV and people were relaxing with babycham and snowballs, next to a silver glitter tree. 

The dining room was stuffed with tupperware holding all manner of 70's and 80's food.  Twiglets and cheese balls, anyone?

The retro bar was taking orders for babycham and snowballs at £2 each (2017 prices!), all drunk straight from the bottle with a straw.  Just look at that pineapple ice bucket! 

In the main drawing room, vintage toys were scattered under the tree

Despite being a child in the 70's, some of these were new to me, never heard of computacar, others, like the Grandstand video game, I had heard of but didn't have myself. We did have Monopoly (much to my dad's annoyance as I always won!) and Frustration (which we still have!)  

Actually, most of these toys never crossed the threshold into our house, I feel quite deprived now!

Upstairs, more cabinets with the now rarer items displayed, all belonging to volunteers I believe

I did have a Sinclair ZX81 which was black and white, but my mother bought it off a second hand man at the rag market. I do wish I still had it as it would probably be worth a decent bit by now, but I kept it in good condition and sold it in the 90's to a young lad who was interested in computing

One bedroom upstairs was dedicated to the morning after the night before, sometime in the 80's, Katharine Hamnett Wham t shirt, denim clothing and Frankie GTH bag scattered about the room, another bedroom had a body in a sleeping bag on the floor!

Across the parterre and in the long gallery were yet more toys, we found a pair of rainbow Christmas trees and played Buckaroo for a while, both losing and both fed up of picking the bits up from where they had been thrown by the mule 

Back outside, and the snow wasn't stopping, we had a quick wander around, the house really does look picture perfect in the snow

The vegetable patch was covered with a gentle layer of Winter frosting and we spoke to the chickens, and the lady feeding them, before continuing our walk 

We found this mistletoe at arms length, I couldn't bring myself to pinch a bit!

Past the parterre, which I have once again managed to capture on a tilt (I can't blame the camera, it is user error!), we continued back to the car and home.

I managed to take this photo while we were driving back home down the lanes, and it really is one of my favourite snow pictures so far this year.

Hope you are all staying safe if you have had icy weather, and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!