Second-hand Book Sale

I said No Spend November wouldn't be taken very seriously!

 Instead of trekking down the A12 to Colchester for the big NSPCC  second-hand book sale on Saturday, which I've visited every year for many years,  I went just across to near the coast for the much, much smaller charity book sale at Westleton - raising money for their village hall. It's just a shame they are both the same weekend.

 I  picked out these few to look through- one perhaps for interesting bits for cutting up for my old fashioned scrapbooks. Plus another book I'll write about later in the week. It was £1 to get in and the 5 books were £4. I don't think I've seen any of them before as they are all several years old.

Had breakfast before going out so didn't need to partake of the coffee and cakes!.......sadly.

No spend (?) November so far

Direct Debits                          £242

Book Sale                               £    5 }

Church donation                    £     1 }      My accounting means these all go in the Charity part 

British Legion Poppy Appeal £    2 }        of the account book.

Back soon

Sue

No Spend November? Unlikely!

 When I started blogging in 2013 lots of people had frugal blogs and did a No Spend November challenge. I pondered on trying again this year. It's usually a fail but ....................

Here's my version of Thomas Hood's well known miserable November poem, my version sounds just as miserable and after I'd written the list I thought "Blimey, almost makes life not worth living!"

No Spend November

No books

No clothes

No pensioners Fish and Chips

No Ingredients for Christmas Cake or Puddings

No Advent calendar

No coffee and cake out

No random spending on hobbies

No food except fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and cheese and anything I don't want to run out of

No suddenly buying things I don't usually buy (make up, jewellery, magazines etc)

No Newspapers or TV schedule magazines

No flowers

No more Christmas food things for me

November

BUT I will have to order heating oil and start finding the 9 Christmas gifts needed for family.

And the spending so far?.....Direct debits for Council Tax, Charity, Phones and Broadband total £242 - without even leaving the house!

Actually I'm doomed to fail as  I'm off to a second hand book sale today  and it's the first of the season local Christmas Craft and Food Fayre tomorrow and anyway I really have no need to be as frugal as my list and definitely don't want to slip into a black hole of depression!

Finished the Gypsy Caravan puzzle - all complete. Now back in the box and labelled 'Complete November 2024' ready for the next person and the table has been cleared ready for doing some scrap booking. It's good to have lots of different  hobbies.

Back Soon

Sue

November Country Days

 

A November page from The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden

   If there's ice in November to bear a duck

The rest of the winter is just mud and muck.

  

November takes its name from the Latin novem because it was the ninth month of the Roman year. The Anglo Saxons named November "Blodmonath" meaning Blood Month, maybe because this was the month when any older livestock would have been slaughtered before winter, so as to save fodder for the younger animals.

 Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast
(Months of the year by Sara Coleridge )

 

********************

 

 I love the fitful gust that shakes

The casement all the day,

And from the mossy elm-tree takes

The faded leaf away,

Twirling it by the window pane

With thousand others down the lane.

 

I love to see the cottage smoke

Curl upwards through the trees,

The pigeons nestled round the cote

On November days like these,

The cock upon the dunghill crowing,

The mill-sails on the heath a-going.

(John Clare)

Samhain which means "summers end" was the Celtic fire festival celebrated as the day shifted from October to November. The end of the light half of the year. Celts considered sundown as the start of a day, which is why although Samhain is November 1st, it would have been celebrated at sundown on the 31st. It was their new year and fires would have been lit on the hilltops to drive out the evil of  the last year and welcome in the new. Then later came the Christian feasts of All Saints on the 1st and All Souls on November 2nd, when the dead are remembered in prayers.

Back Soon

Sue