Baby got back (from town)

Weeeeel

I like free stuff and I cannot lie

Those other shoppers can't deny

When I go shopping with an empty purse

I wave my vouchers in the air

Yeah

Uh huh

Apologies to Sir Mix a Lot, and I think I'll stop there as I'm finding it hard to rap!  

One of the things that constantly amuses OH is that I will pop out shopping and usually come back with a full bag of some charity shop bargains or shopping freebies and most if not all of the money I left the house with.  I can't deny that I find it amusing and get a rather smug feeling from spending little or nothing for things, let's face it, if I had spent hundreds I would still look the same, so why part with the money? 

So on Saturday morning I took myself off into Birmingham hoping to spend over £60 worth of vouchers I had accrued through various (legitimate!) sources.  I had seriously had enough of the shops after one hour but fortunately in that time I managed to spend £18 in M&S.  Surprisingly on a pair of jeans which were not reduced but at their normal price and under the Ozone label.  I actually liked the shape that much that when I got home I took off the old bootcut jeans I had been wearing and copied the shape, using these as a template. 

The daftest thing about these jeans is the size though.  They are a 10. I am not. They are actually a little generous on me too, so if I had the patience to try them on I may have opted for the size 8. This is vanity sizing gone a little mad.  I actually managed to purchase a vintage M&S skirt a while back and the same measurements then were a 16.  Daft, just plain daft!

On over to BHS, where I had even more vouchers to make a dent in.  Here I managed two purchases, this nice (I can't really think of a nicer word, the other word I was thinking of was boring!) ditsy print top, half price at just a fiver in the current sale.  Again, the sizing is a bit odd, it is a 14, so must be quite a skinny fit 14!  No matter, I like my tops generous so it isn't a problem, and it was honestly the only top I could find in the shop that I liked before I began to lose my temper and want to go!

Lastly, and I'm quite pleased with these and am hoping to get plenty of wear out of them this summer, these lovely and surprisingly comfy sandals, with cushioned insoles, were again reduced, from £25 to £20.  This time I was able to stick with my actual foot size and they are a size 4.

 These sandals are also available in a really nice faux nubuck finish nude colour and lots of bright jewel colours too.  

So there you go, again I come back home with all my money and plenty of vouchers still to spend, but I do have an outfit to show for it, so can't be bad! 

There have been very thin pickings for me this week on the charity shopping front, not that I'm feeling the need to buy loads of stuff, now I've found time to do a bit of altering of clothes I've already got, the need for something new or even new-to-me is seriously diminished.

I did manage to grab this orange vest top for just a pound, from the same shop as I bought the orange crocheted top the other week.  It was actually there on the rail when I purchased the crocheted top, but it only dawned on me when I got home that I would need something to wear underneath to make it decent!  It is also H&M, the same brand as the crocheted top too.

On the home front, I managed to make an orange and almond cake the other day. 

 I am trying to make a cake or two each Thursday for weekend consumption and to use the eggs up that we get from the girls.  Last week I made a lemon sponge with lemon drizzle on the top, sliced some of the leftover lemons (job lot for a pound from the market) and stuck them in the freezer for use in drinkies.  This week it was of course, Eurovision, so we were able to try out the frozen lemon slices in the gin and tonics we drank during the show. 

 Unfortunately it didn't make the songs sound any better.  Neither did using my 1998 Eurovision mug.

We haven't had any trips out this week, just a few walks around the village again.  Everything is now so green and after the heavy rain we had the other day, everything is around two feet taller than last week!

See what I mean?

As we have had some fairly decent weather intervals, we also managed to finish the wood shed, and split some of the logs that the tree surgeon left us when he felled the three trees in the garden in February .

  

A bit Heath Robinson, but serves the purpose.  The gap you can see on the far side is because I miscalculated the size of the roof off the old metal shed, that we have re-used here, against the size of the old fence panels we have also re-used, oops!  It just needs filling in and then it is watertight, almost.  We have also used the back of the old metal shed as flooring, just to stop the water coming up from below and rotting the wood.  Ivy and other plants have been planted to grow up and disguise it and also help with the weatherproofing.

Freshly split wood, really hard work!

They do say wood warms you twice, once when you cut it and again when you burn it, I can vouch for that!

I am hoping this cool but dry weather continues for the rest of the week so that we can get a few more outdoor jobs done, and am also hoping that we can start the garage conversion soon, these things do drag on!!