April Ins and Outs and Any Penny Savers?

The usual income of State Pension, interest on savings and Suffolk County Council Spouses pension - I'm worried about what happens to this when Local Government Reorganisation makes SCC vanish. I've read that pensions are protected by law so it should be OK, but you never know. Interest  on savings seem to have dropped - need to check that out.

As predicted April was an expensive month, and then I bought my new bike. The TV Licence[up by £5.50] and house insurance[down by £3] were the planned large expenses and the bill came for the March boiler repair. Council tax of course [up by £8] and charity plus broad band and phones are all direct debit. I put £71 worth of diesel in the car. Finally I read the electric meter and paid for the month. 

I was going to say I'd not needed the tumble dryer all month  but when ED and the boys were up after Easter she brought 3 loads of washing with her! - her washing machine was playing up and of course boys get very dirty very quickly. Everything needed getting dry as soon as possible so I tumbled it.

Garden spending was growbags and compost, then the vegetable plants from car boot sales and a tray of leek plants from the garden shop.

There was other spending on two birthday gifts, odd bits for the house, window cleaner, bathroom and kitchen and some sunflower hearts for the birds.

Back in March Aldi were supposed to have some metal plant pot holders that hook over a fence. I was going to get a couple for my sisters birthday but they didn't appear in Stowmarket Aldi until late April. So when I saw them I got two each for both my sister and sister in law - they are ready for Christmas.

When the weather warmed up last week I sorted through the clothes in wardrobe and drawers to see what state summer clothes were in and decided I needed new summer shoes, a second summer skirt and shorts and I really need tee shirts too but will scour charity shops first. 

image from google freepik

The only penny savers I can think of...........

• Gift of rhubarb from my sister
• Dishwasher only used every other day
• Filled car up with diesel when visiting YD - saving 6p a litre on garages near me
• Made up a tin of Lemon Home Cook Marmalade, works out at just over £1 a jar

• No alcohol bought as usual, and no lotions, potions etc
• No newspapers and magazines - except for the Puzzler
• Bread made in the bread-machine. 50/50 wholemeal/white flour
• Lights only needed for reading after 8pm now
• Reading library books and from my shelves for free
• Saving apple peels etc into the freezer for making the next batch of 'compost jelly' sometime
• A gift of flowers from my sister for my birthday lasted two weeks

May should be less spendy, as far as I know there is just the car breakdown insurance and EGS birthday. No more bikes or big expenses! [Touching wood]

St George's Church, Stowlangtoft

 This church was locked when I've visited a couple of years ago so I was pleased to see the 'Church Open' sign.

When Simon Knott [Suffolk Churches website] visited here in 2018 he was told by the lady who let him in that the church was heading for redundancy, to be taken over by the Historic Churches Trust as it wasn't being used for services . But it seems this didn't happen and the church is now open at weekends and has a once a month service.

Opposite the door into the church is the WWI War memorial

Above it is the huge remains of a Medieval wall painting of St Christopher carrying the Christ Child over the water.

Octagonal font with seven saints and Christ carved in the panels

Every window has some stained glass, mostly Victorian

A very bad photo of a  drawing showing who's who in the East window glass

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People come here specially to see the Flemish wood panels of the reredos. They were given to the church by an owner of Stowlangtoft Hall and date from the 1480s. But in 1977 they were stolen and disappeared for five years until the were found in an Amsterdam gallery. Legal proceedings to get them back failed but luckily they were bought and all costs paid by a Dutch businessman and returned to the church. Now the Sanctuary and the panels are alarmed so hopefully they won't be stolen again.

Like the last church I visited at Framsden, Stowlangtoft also has misericord seats with carvings that survived better than Framsden.

There are lots of excellent carvings on the pew ends too

There's an online church brochure HERE for more information.


Back Tomorrow

April Car Boot Sale Finds?

Apart from that mistake of the shelf unit, purchases have been virtually non existent. .

A pack of charity Christmas cards for £1 and that's  it!  [except from a few plants].

I bought a red pepper plant for £1 when none of my first sowing germinated. [Now they've eventually appeared I'm going to have plenty!] I wasn't going to bother with aubergines as my preferred way to use them is in a aubergine and tomato pasta sauce and just one aubergine makes quite a few portions but then someone had aubergine plants also for £1, I just bought one. Finally two courgette plants again for £1 each as I hadn't got around to sowing any. I have got enough cucumber and tomatoes through so won't need to buy those. Someone was selling 3 sweetcorn plants for £1 which I thought was a bit expensive but I'm sure there will be some cheaper later..... for some reason I forgot to get seeds....or peat pots to sow them in......

I'm not sure why my gardening mojo has vanished this year - maybe it's due to the years of having everything ruined by next door's cat, pigeons and slugs.

My 'fill a blog post with weird you tube things' yesterday brought several comments and Steve's comment of "how much peanut butter can a person stockpile" immediately brought to mind a vision of someone having cupboards full of jars of PNB and at the time of dire emergency opening the cupboard and being killed by getting hit on the head and buried under 100's of falling jars!! 

I think this could be a plot for Midsomer Murders!

I think I might have been reading too many crime novels!!

Back Tomorrow.......... unless..................!