January Finances Round Up

 January spending and saving, or did Just-Stay-in January help finances?

Income was the usual State Pension and County Council Spouses Pension and income from the downshifting savings.

Regular outgoings are the  direct debits for Council Tax, charity, phones and broadband and the monthly electric bill. They came to £337 this month.

Other Spending: - 

The Xmas present finds bought last month but counted in this years Christmas accounts £20.75.

Kitchen stuff was Smol tabs and Rinse Aid for the dishwasher plus de-scaler for coffee machine.

Bathroom things - soap, 14 month supply of loo rolls from "Who Gives a Crap" .

Laundry tabs also from Smol. 

Postage stamps.

At Superdrug - some plaster tape, new tub of cod-liver oil capsules and cotton buds.

From Hardware shop - a new battery for the doorbell (but it still didn't work so that was money wasted!) Not going far so only one lot of fuel top-up needed for the car = £23

Gifts - I sent a some flowers to ED as a surprise thank you for hosting us all in the holiday cottage at Christmas. Plus MGS Birthday present.

Food spending was average, despite eating lots from the freezer, just showing how food prices are still going up. Some of the spending at the end of the month was for batch cooking for the freezer. Just one coffee out with a Greggs bacon roll. - Now £3.15.

My personal spending was a hair cut, exercise group and some photos printed.

Looking after the pennies..................

• Ate from the freezer for main part of  main meal  after Christmas and most of January. 
• Cancelled Radio Times after the 10 weeks for £10 offer. It worked well for December, Christmas and New Year.
• Bread from the bread-maker 50/50 wholemeal/white all month.
• Dishwasher only used every other day
• Washing machine on just twice a week
• Nothing much needing ironing in winter
• Lots of lovely library books for free
• Sent a box of books off to 'We sell Books' = £22 
• Moved savings money into ISA
• Shut curtains as soon as it's dark to keep in heat.
• Get up late enough to not need lights in the mornings! 
• In the right place to get half dozen eggs for £1 from the roadside stall once during the month
• Nothing spent on clothes, makeup etc etc

Out of the house this month has gone.... the old hoover to the tip plus the big cardboard box that the new hoover came in,  a bag of odd bits and bobs not used for ages plus some books to charity shop as well as the books to We Sell Books. 

Going forward to February............ I'll probably need some heating oil plus there is the half year water/sewer bill but there's no Council tax. I'm aiming for another low spend month again staying mostly at home. 

Books

It's less than a week until the mobile library is round again, bringing me at least seven books but I still have so many here unread.

As always ................so many books.........not enough time.

I've read 5 of the books I collected at the beginning of this month but the one below was 'A Book Too Many'

 It's the 29th in the D.I Wesley Peterson Tradmouth series and I've read all the others but just struggled to get into this one - it's just like all the others, much too much the same - details HERE. Maybe I'll come back to it sometime when I'm short of ideas.

I ought to be reading this

 as it's due back and can't be renewed. I was interested in reading it as it's about Home Schooling which we did for 6 months before moving to the smallholding.

But instead I'm reading this

the latest in this clever series about our late queen and her investigations. This time it's 1961 and an unreliable witness says that from her window on the royal train she's seen someone murdered. 

And I'm lucky to have been gifted copy of this

 by  J, my friend from exercise group. She had ordered a copy and then been given a copy and I'm the lucky recipient of the spare. Thank you J.

Imagine having nothing to read..............it never happens here!  

Woolpit

Woolpit is a large village just off the A14 not far from home and it was just a couple of miles from where I grew up and we all knew the story of "The Green Children"

The two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century and gravel extracted through much of the 20th. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...........

A page from last years Folklore Diary

 This is another story............... St Martins Land. https://www.norfolkfolkloresociety.co.uk/post/the-norfolk-entrance-to-the-magical-st-martin-s-land

It’s a legend that will delight those who believe in the little people and who dream of being able to visit Fairyland. On the road between Bawdeswell and Swanton Morley, in a field next to the thoroughfare, a hole was found – a potential portal to The Otherworld. 

In an article written by Michael Sidney Tyler-Whittle entitled ‘Witchcraft’ in the East Anglian Magazine of October 1952, it read: "I have heard it said that until quite recently there was a hole in a field beside the Swanton Morley-Bawdeswell road.

I wonder if Ang at Tracing Rainbows who lives not far away from here has come across this hole in a field!

Curry

 I didn't have many home-made batch-made meals left  in the freezer and ate the last box of curry last week so gathered up a lot of veg and a pack of quorn pieces, tins of coconut milk and korma paste and cooked up a nice big pan full.

Not sure of the total cost as the tins and korma paste had been in the cupboard a while but it's probably around £9.  Divided into 12 portions.

The hardest bit of making this was sorting the right  lids to match the freezer boxes!

Two Jumble Sales

 For the first time in a week the sun shone on Saturday and I popped 15 minutes away to a Jumble Sale. 

There was a long queue ready for door opening, as usual - but look - Blue Sky!

and it's a tiny village hall but very well used. The Jumble sale is a fundraiser for the hall.

It's a squash inside when everyone is in and requires much shuffling about. This year I only  found  one  thing to buy- a  Mason Cash pudding basin for £1 (no books sadly, last year I found a Kristin Hannah that I'd not read).. The bowl is a replacement for one that came back from BiL's after Christmas with a huge crack. He said it was OK when he washed it up!

It says 'God save the cream' with a crown! 

There was time to go home get lunch and then out again for the Scout Jumble Sale in Eye Town Hall. The queue to get in was even longer than the one at Thornham and the squash inside so big that after a while they were operating a one in one out system.

I found a book I'd not seen before  to add to my Suffolk book shelf for 50p  and spent £1on the tombola where  I won a bottle of Coffee Liqueur which sounds disgusting....I'll have to find someone to give it to!

It was nice to get out and about after several grey, wet days at home. Sadly the sun hasn't been seen again since and the forecast is just as dull. The jumble sales, exercise group and a quick dash out for a shop were the only trips out all week and I realised I'd not had any sort of proper conversation with anyone for 6 days!.

 The weather makes it difficult to get up the enthusiasm for anything..... except reading!. 

Back Tomorrow

When Life Gives You Lemons...............

..........................I didn't make lemonade.

 Early last week I had a prickly throat and thought it was a cold coming - so had a look in the freezer for lemon slices to make a hot lemon/ honey drink but there were none. The prickly throat didn't develop into anything thankfully, but I still put lemons on the shopping list. 

Aldi don't sell lemons individually - I don't think many supermarkets do nowadays - so it had to be a pack of 4 Wonky Lemons but I didn't want to slice and freeze all four so rustled up a couple of lemon drizzle loaves. 

I've just looked to see who does sell individual lemons and Tesco do for 35p each but the Aldi pack of 4 are 89p so 22p each which is quite a saving - as long as they all get used. According to ads on TV the average family wastes £1,000 worth of food each year. Selling things in large packs is probably one of the reasons.

The top wasted foods (supposedly) are potatoes, milk, bread and cheese.......Cheese? who on earth throws out cheese? ....that really should be a criminal offence!

Back Tomorrow

Sunday 25th January is St Paul's Day, Burn's Night and St Dwynwen's Day

 Tomorrow, 25th January is St Paul's day and Burn's Night and also celebrates a Welsh saint too - St Dwynwen's Day - Wales' patron saint of lovers. According to my book Everyday Folklore couples might peer into Dwynwen's Well and have a look for the fortune telling eels and if they can see them their relationship will last.

According to my Book of Saints January 25th actually commemorates The Conversion of St Paul. A man who hated and persecuted Christians. He was on his way to Damascus  to seize the Christians there and bring them to Jerusalem for punishment when the famous conversion took place.

 It's another Saint's Day with lots of weather lore attached. In the past they thought it could even affect political events.

If St. Paul's Day be fair and clear,

It doth betide a happy year;

But if by chance it then should rain,

It will make dear all kinds of grain;

And if the clouds make dark the sky,

Then neate* and fowls this year shall die;

If blustering winds do blow aloft,

Then wars shall trouble the realm full oft.

* Neate is an old word for cattle

Also                                          

St Paul fair with sunshine

Brings fertility to rye and wine

It's party night  up north of the border and in many other towns and cities here and overseas to celebrate the birthday of poet  Robert Burns in 1759. Hope everyone enjoys their Haggis, neeps and wee drams of whisky.

If things are still the same and blogger is not letting me reply to comments today or tomorrow, I'm apologising in advance! Of course it might have righted itself - who knows.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.

Stradbroke, All Saints

I ventured out last Saturday for a church visit, I've discovered Saturdays are quite a good day to find churches open in winter.

All Saints Church in Stradbroke can be seen from all around and stands in the middle of this large village in North Suffolk. 

The tower dates from the C15 and has a large stair turret on the outside.

View down through the church. It is a large church with clerestory and side aisles.

The corbels holding the roof beams all have different faces.

The vicar here in the second half of the C19 was J C Ryle and was very keen on putting bible passages everywhere as he did at Helmingham

On the chancel arch.............

and on all the cross beams.

Very early photos from the church restoration in late Victorian times show how the insides of the church including the box pews were ripped out.

A couple  in the church were doing some cleaning and the lady told me all about the US flag....

and how it was stolen and how later a new flag had to be specially made because modern flags had 50 stars and the original only had the 48 stars - pre the adding of Alaska and Hawaii.

Like so many villages in Suffolk and Norfolk Stradbroke had a USAF base just up the road at Denham/Horham during the latter years of WWII.

There is a memorial plaque in memory of the man who made the new flag. 

I've often seen The Royal Arms from centuries past in churches, at one time they had to display them by law, but apparently Stradbroke is one of the few churches to have a modern one.

The East window

More texts above the altar

The font survives from medieval times but was recut during the restoration. It still has a memorial dedication on the base.

 Back Soon

Yesterday..............

.................was a bit of a write off.

It was raining in the morning and raining in the afternoon it might have stopped now and again but it was still half dark all day.

I should have or could have done something useful but didn't. 

Instead I was reading............. A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith. The second book she's written about Gabriel Ward KC, set in 1901 in London's Inner Temple Courts. 

It's a good read.

I avoided watching any news from Davos all day. 

Back Tomorrow

January

   A January Painting

                                                                            

                                                                      Morning in January 1956

              Gerald Gardiner (1902 -1959)

A January Poem

Cold is the winter day, misty and dark:

The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent:

And patches of thin snow outlying, mark

The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:

The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,

With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;

The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill

And chatters mockingly; the new-born lambs

Within their straw-built fold beneath the hill

Answer with plaintive cry their bleating lambs.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,

Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies:

My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing,

Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold

To praise wintry works not understood,

Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,

Evil and good as one, and all is good

January by Robert Bridges(1844 - 1930)

Can you guess I'm short of things to write about?! 

A Small Book

  Winter, The Story of a Season by Val McDermid is a small book but interesting. This is a book about the joys of winter rather than just surviving it. She is the same age as me and grew up in Scotland but some of her memories of things like childhood Christmas Decorations, the winter of 1963 and  November 5th firework nights are similar to mine.

From the jacket blurb...........

"In Winter she takes us on an adventure through the season, from the icy streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Fife coast, from Bonfire night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa. She remembers winter from childhood, the thrill of whizzing over a frozen lake on skates, carving a 'neep' (swede) for Halloween and being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town centre, lights twinkling bravely in the dark night".

She writes about how she sits down to write her books each January, a winter train journey across Russia, birdwatching, Christmas lights, Hogmanay celebrations past and present and soup!

 

I came across a book blog that gives a good write-up on Winter HERE . I'd love to write book reviews like this but mine are much shorter as I'm always in a hurry to get on with reading the next book!

Winter is one of 4 books about the seasons commissioned from well known fiction authors. Spring is by Michael Morpurgo, Summer and Autumn are not yet published but will be by Bernadine Evangelista and Kate Mosse.

Back Tomorrow

January New Moon

Yesterday, the 18th we had the first new moon of 2026 and the first new moon of the year was very useful in the past for girls wanting to find out who they would marry.....

On the evening of the January new moon sit on a gate or across a stile, look at the moon and repeat:

All hail to the moon, all hail to thee, I prithee good moon reveal to me this night who my husband should be.

After that they would go home and straight to bed and their intended would be revealed in their dreams and apparently putting a sprig of oregano under the pillow would make the dreams clearer.

Did girls  really do this? 

I do wonder where some of these old sayings come from.  

How Did The Week Go So Quickly?

 ...........................I have no idea.

Five minutes ago it was the wet Friday when I abandoned a book, a jigsaw and a cross stitch and now its 8 days later.

I've been mostly at home this week apart from exercise group, taking my old hoover and some other bits to the Recycling Centre and getting a haircut. I didn't need to go food shopping but had Grandchildren photos on the memory stick to print and needed a new battery for the doorbell so had a quick trip to Diss for a change. 

(A new battery for the outdoor bit  of  the doorbell didn't make it work and I'd already tried new batteries in the indoor part, so I guess that means a new doorbell needed - bother)

As well as the short outings I finished the small cross stitch picture and got it into a card blank,

Got all my scrap book bits onto the table and filled up more pages

And read a good book 

Hope you have a good weekend - I shall return Monday if I can think of something to blog about.

 

All Sorts of Winter Books

 In 2024 I did 'Reading the Seasons' and for Winter I read  Arthur Ransome's Winter Holiday, Winter in the Air by Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Woods in Winter by Stella Gibbons and The Winter Killer by Alex Pine.

Since then I've gained two books with Winter titles for my shelves- one is the winter word dictionary mentioned yesterday and then The Nature of Winter by Jim Crumley, found at a charity book-sale in the Autumn.

 ( I also bought The Nature of Autumn at the same time and the library tells me I'd borrowed The Nature of Spring  at sometime too, but have no recollection of reading it).

 I've not got around to reading further than the prologue of The Nature of Winter yet but can already see he is a good nature writer. I've also not had a chance to properly read the two books that I got myself for Christmas as a gift from BiL.

A Year to Slow Down has a Further Reading/ Resources list at the back which includes a book written by by Emma Mitchell - A Wild Remedy; How Nature Mends Us.  In 2017 Emma Mitchell also wrote Making Winter: A Creative Guide to Surviving the Winter Months  so maybe she was the first to write about coping with winter depression. Another book in the list is  Wintering; The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. That dates from 2020 which is when I read it, although I don't remember if it helped me survive winter!

When I was looking for the date of that book I kept coming up with information of everyone else who's written similar........How to Winter; Harness your Mindset to Thrive in Difficult Times  by Kari Leibowitz. The Gifts of Winter; How to Uncover Seasonal Joy, Health and Happiness by Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald and Winter Wellbeing:Seasonal Selfcare by Cico Books(no author) and finally Self Care for Winter by Suzy Reading.  All published in 2024 or 2025. 

Even crime writer Val McDermid is joining in with a new book that I brought home from the library van. Although this is more about the things she enjoys about Winter rather than just surviving it.....

.............love the front cover - an illustration by Phillip Harris.

I've reserved the books by Kari Leibowitz and Stephanie Fitzgerald from the library - long waiting lists for both so it will be Spring before I get them!

Writing books about Winter survival is obviously a lucrative business! I wonder how we got through without them?!

Winter Blogging

 At the beginning of January I wrote about Just-stay-in- January which is my version of 'hibernating'  and had a list of things to do to get through a difficult month. It's not always easy to find things to write about in January so I'd also planned to write some blog posts with words from the book - A Winter Dictionary  - that I bought last summer from abebooks after seeing it mentioned on Mary's blog . (Apologies to Mary for stealing book and blog post ideas!) 

Mary has already written about Hibernaculum.............. a winter refuge, originally for Roman Soldiers.

This is the photo I took of the sign that introduced me to the word Hibernaculum back in 2018. It's at the NT property Ickworth House near Bury St Edmunds.

But we're now halfway through January and so far I've only mentioned gramshoch  which is a word for the clouds that foretell snow.

So here's another word................... brumation which is wintertime sluggishness- a state of torpor. (coming from the Latin bruma, 'winter' and used for animals that don't  hibernate, but are semi- dormant)

That's me on dark mornings when I don't want to get up!

Back Tomorrow

Pantomime

Last Saturday I went to Suffolk's  oldest surviving, purpose built cinema. It's in Leiston, near the Suffolk coast and has been going since 1914. 

The dance group, where 9 year old EGD has been learning ballet since she was 3, were doing a little bit of dancing in Leiston's pantomime. The guy who is Leiston's  Mr Entertainment wrote the panto - a version of Mother Goose - and starred as The Dame. He's been managing the cinema since 1994 and also does magic shows and organises all sorts of other events. He also works on a small local radio station and YD said he's just started being the Crossing Control 'Lollipop' Man at the  primary school road crossing. They've just reinstated someone there where the road is now crazy busy due to the building of Sizewell C Power Station.

Leiston would be lost without him!

 

It's been a long time since I'd been to a Panto - I'd rather go to a local one like this than the big city ones with some celebrity. Actually Wayne is a celebrity - for Leiston!

Back Tomorrow

Abandoned x 3

 Last Friday when it rained hard all day, would have been perfect for getting on with the any of the things  started during the week.........reading, cross stitching or the jigsaw puzzle.

But the cross stitch I'd started - a small bookmark kit that had been hanging around for years  - turned out to have some really odd colours that were all similar and I didn't like them - I gave up and found the threads and Aida needed for doing  a little picture I've done umpteen times before as it makes a nice little card plus I realised I only have small two-fold aperture cards left now anyway. So can't do anything bigger without buying more card blanks.

I tried to do some of the outer edge of the jigsaw puzzle but the sky edge was impossible, there seemed to be too many pieces. So gave up on that too. Now I don't even fancy doing either of the other jigsaws found during the summer. I think I'll get my scrap book things out on the table instead.

And finally I started the British Library Crime Classic Death in High Heels by Christianna Brand. I've read several of her others that BLCC have published previously and they've all been good. But this one was just silly. It turns out it was the first book she wrote and had published so she must have improved later.

And after the huge pile of books from the library van it's not as if I'm short of good reading.

Back Soon

Plough Monday

Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night was the day the agricultural year started, but before they began  their hard work, the plough men and boys took the opportunity to have a bit of fun by dressing up, disguising their faces and processing around the village to perform a plough play and hopefully be given some money.  The plough was often blessed in the church on the Sunday before, so that day was named as Plough Sunday.

Turn out for plough Monday

Up, fellows now

Buckle the horses

And follow the plough. 

Photo of picture from my book 'The English Year' by Steve Roud. It's described as 'from George Walker's - The Costume of Yorkshire 1814'

The church in the village still celebrates Plough Sunday and in the past I've walked up the road to take a photo of the decorated plough, the Morris dancers and the procession around the village.

This was 2023

This year I didn't - it was freezing out there, no sun and rain threatened, not good for hanging around waiting.

The 12th of January is also the Old New Year's Day which many people carried on celebrating after the calendar changed in the 1752.

If on the 12th January the sun shine

It foreshadows much wind.

Country folk often went on using the old calendar for years so there was also 'old twelfth night' on the 17th, which means there is still time to get Christmas decor down or to Wassail the apple trees.

Aldi Veggie Meal and Food Shopping

 This is another of the Vegetarian things Aldi have in each December for Christmas. 'Melting Centre Nut Roasts'. I've looked back in the posts labelled 'Vegetarian Taste Test' and can't find that these have been tried before but last year they had one called 'Root Vegetable and Brie Nut Roast' which sounds similar, just different veg this year.

I tried  one last Monday and I've still got a few of the  potatoes left from the pre-Christmas 5p pack so cut one into wedges and popped in with the nut roast to roast.

The nut roast looked OK but had a very weird dry texture - when I eat the second in the pack I'll make some gravy to go with it............or maybe cheese sauce - not sure either sounds appealing to make it better but I'll persevere! It's nowhere near as nice as the homemade nut roast I made (after buying these frozen things - yes I'm an idiot!). I know I've said before that potatoes are my  least favourite vegetables and Never eat mashed- ugh. These cheap potatoes weren't very good either - very floury texture (variety was Electra and will be avoided in future)

On Wednesday I finally got around to cooking the red cabbage which was the last of the 5p things from Aldi before Christmas, I meant to do it boxing day but forgot and we had plenty of other veg anyway. Then kept putting it off as it needs a long time in the oven to braise nicely (I add onion and red wine vinegar and a bit of brown sugar) it's delicious done like that,  I can't eat it raw. Good thing red cabbage keeps for ages.

The  fruit and veg. bought New Years Day from Tesco on the way to Son's had all gone, as had several other bits of store-cupboard stuff and my list was bigger than usual....I don't like to get too short of store-cupboard food in January/February as you never know what the weather will be.......... so I popped to Aldi on Thursday early and detoured via Tesco on the way home for a couple of other  things before the weather turned nasty again.........much rain was forecast.

I know everyone loves looking at other peoples shopping so here you go, a HUGE (for me) shop. 

Although I'm not enthusiastic enough to go through it one by one!

Not in the photo as they went straight into the freezer were 2 x 4 pints milk, frozen peas and 2 UPF  things - mini vegetable spring rolls and Proactive cholesterol reducing spread (although the latter is classed as a useful UPF).  2 other UPF's are the Aldi Cheese and Onion rolls and the tub of Bisto cheese sauce. Vegetables are mini potatoes, celery, leeks, carrots, onions and Cavolo Nero kale. Fruit is a dozen apples and  3 packs of Aldi dried prunes. Store cupboard items are 2 tins salmon, rapeseed cooking oil, brown sugar, plain flour, spaghetti, decaf ground coffee and tomato sauce. Things that go in the fridge were 2 packs of extra mature cheddar, Shropshire blue cheese and butter.

Total spend was £58.69 (total food spend to date for January £66.94) and now I don't need to buy anything  for ages as I have plenty of things for the main part of a meal in the freezer.

There was no snow or gales in this part of Suffolk on Friday just plenty of heavy rain.......all day . Really nasty dismal day, I went nowhere.

Have a good weekend - I'll be back Monday

 

January Library Book Photo

 Oh My Goodness - so many books! all these  lovely library books collected, all books I'd reserved on line and almost all crime of course.

From the left -the new book by Kate Ellis in her Wesley Peterson Devon series; Another new book in the series about Owen Archer in Medieval York by Candace Robb; The second by Sally Smith featuring Gabriel Ward KC in Edwardian London. Next is the first of three Val McDermid books in her Karen Pirie series. I was going to wait until they appear on TV but there are no plans for season 3. Next in the picture is 'Spring' a non fiction book by Michael Morpurgo which might just be a section of his previous book 'All Around the Year' . Then the latest in the series by Chris Nickson featuring thief taker Simon Westow and set in 1800's Leeds. Next in the photo is Winter by Val McDermid - no idea what this is or why I reserved it. And again no idea what 'Gunner' by Alan Parks is all about. I thought I'd read all the updated Campion books by Mike Ripley but this one isn't in my book-of-books-read. The Queen who came in from the Dark (Should be Cold  thank you to Kirsten) is another by S.J.Bennett in which our late queen gets involved in solving crimes. The small paperbacks are Still Waters by ECR Lorac a recent publication by British Library Crime Classics. The last two are Murder in York by J R Ellis which I think I've failed with previously and something I don't know at all The Bone Road by N E Solomon.

I've still got four here from the December van visit when there were 13 brought home. I've read seven, and abandoned two. The books I read are on the December 2025 page or January 2026 Books Read page.

I need to stop writing this blog post and start reading PDQ!!