Halfway Through June

 Well, the weather didn't warm up much for the weekend, which was the promise earlier in the week, there was  a really cold wind on Saturday. Maybe by the end of the this week it will be better.

 I hoped for a fairly low spend June and at  half way through, how's it going?. 

The garden waste bin had gone up £2 for the year but thankfully the Car Tax was still £20 - I had visions of them moving more goalposts from it being free two years ago to anything they fancied charging!

So all the main expenses have been paid and the total spend including charity donations, dentist, garden waste bin, phones and broadband, car tax, one lot of diesel for the car, incidentals including multi surface cleaner for floors, sunflower hearts for the birds and a new stool for the hallway (for sitting on for all ages to put on shoes) plus the one big food shop (and the two fancy cheeses and taking YD and EGD out for our regular Sunday lunch).And that totals just over £600. There will be more odds and ends of course and Electric bill at the end of the month.

Then I did  the second food shop of the month at Aldi on Saturday after a quick tour round the car boot sale where all I found were some Maltesers. (There are some Eastern European guys who somehow seem to have a stock of cheap chocolate every week!?)

After the big shop at the start of June I didn't need much. From left to right...........Salad Leaves 65p; Strawberries £1.99; 4 Nectarines £1.39; Bunch Beetroot £1.39; Cucumber 99p; Pack 6 Mini Apples 59p; Pack Fruit and Nut mix 59p; 2 x  Peanuts @ 59p = £1.18; 1 Kg Onions 99p; 6 Eggs £1.49; Tin Peach Slices  45p; 4 Pints milk £1.65.

Total £13.35

During the rainy weather last week I got around to looking at some of the 'Frugal' youtubers again. I really can't understand why some people go food shopping every couple of days - and it's not because they don't have a car to use. It's mid month and I've only food shopped twice - apart from buying the special cheese last week.

And some people picked up on one frugal blogger who seemed to have a real muddle in the kitchen cupboards so had no idea of what was there, but reckoned she was a 'prepper'! The comments recommending she sort her cupboards and write a list were soon deleted. 

Of course I have no right to criticise - as I haven't the patience to be a you tuber myself! Better shut-up!

At least the weather was fine for the women's tennis final at Queens Club yesterday. Emma Raducanu played well - but only in the second set, but she still lost out. I've looked at the weather forecast for the week ahead and there shouldn't be rain which is good as I'd really like a few afternoons of watching the Men's matches. There will definitely be one Brit in the second round because Arthur Fery  has drawn fellow Brit Toby Samuel for the first round. Cam Norrie has the hardest first round match against the  4th seed.

Back Tomorrow.

Saturday 13th

It's been week of dreary weather, the heating clicked on most  mornings - which means it was very chilly. It soon went off again and wasn't needed for evenings - thank goodness.  I turned on the Queens Club Tennis on Monday but it was raining down in London so no play and a fair bit of rain there and here too on and off for much of the week. The water butts are all full and everything has had a good watering. Yesterday afternoon the sun came out at last and things warmed up to a proper June temperature.

BiL kindly came over to refix one of the curtain pole fixings that was pulling out of the wall. Glad to get that done - it was a two person job. If it had pulled right out it would have landed on my head while I was sitting in my armchair...........I might not have been found for weeks!

I finished reading this book of short crime stories - over 20 authors of crime fiction wrote new short stories in honour of Simon Brett's 80th birthday. He was president of The Detection Club between 2000 and 2015.

 The cold and wet weather means that as well as the baby Blue Tits on the header photo, who are now feeding themselves- I've seen Great Tits feeding their young and there are Goldfinches on the feeders almost all the time. I couldn't be bothered to go into Stowmarket  for market day to get sunflower hearts to refill so just popped to Debenham for the hardware shop (won't do that again - the sunflower hearts were a lot more expensive) and  returned the five library books I'd  finished as some had waiting lists. I also went in the Co-op and got another of the cheeses from the  Croome cheese company to taste test too. (They didn't have the Charcoal flavour........ maybe rural  Suffolk isn't ready for something that weird yet!) 

Hope to get to one or the other of the car boot sales at the weekend - it should be dryer and warmer.

With luck  I'll find something to write about for Monday.

Nothing to Write About

 Sometimes finding something to write about is easy, but today I can't think of anything! 

Yesterday was wet and cold nearly all day - not conducive for anything interesting.

Tennis was rained off most of the week  so I'm now watching my way through 'Elementary' - quite an old US series now, back to 2012 - it's a bit odd.

Next week is looking rather empty for excitement too.

But I will come back tomorrow and round up the week, I'll probably talk about the weather!