RHS Allotment notebook giveaway

Don't forget to send me your comments on this today as we will be picking a winner at 10am Monday morning. And we will ship it anywhere, so don't worry about where you live!

Early morning start

The YFG and I are off to a gymnastics competition in Luton this morning, and we have to leave here by 7am. She is not competing this time, just coming to cheer some of her friends on! It will be a long day and I am not expecting to get home before 9pm tonight, so I'll be back tomorrow to reflect on how the day went.

The weather today is supposed to be warm, so I hope you all enjoy your Sundays.

Quick giveaway

Home Farmer magazine - I bought this one last month and then have subscribed, asking for the May issue, but got sent this one. I have rung up this morning and they are sorting it out for me - very nice people - so they said to pass this duplicate copy on to someone who would appreciate this.

First commenter who wants it, gets it!

700th post giveaway

Another milestone for me - 700 posts!

In a change from the past where I have given away cookery books and a set of talking book tapes, this time it is a gardening item.

This is a lovely little hardback RHS folder, called the "Allotment Notebook" but anyone who grows things could use it - you don't need an allotment to grow things, as we all know.

If you are not a gardener yourself, it would make a lovely present for a friend or relative.

So, comments please! 10am Monday morning, a name will be drawn from a hat and it will be posted off to the winner.

The best laugh this week

Allowing one's 14year old daughter, the EFG, to dye one's hair - hilarious!! Just got to dry it now and make sure it has come out "Chocolate Truffle" coloured, and covered up all the greys...that's frugal home hairdressing. The only more frugal thing I could do would be to let the grey show, and I'm not quite ready for that yet - although they do show for a while in between colourings!

Edit - it's dry now and it is a little darker than I thought it would be, but the greys are gone for now!

Using it all up from the stockcupboards

Inspired by Frugal Queen, we are trying to eat up some of our stores to save some money towards the laptop expense. Above here are some fruit loaves and dough buns which I made from an Big Brands For Less big bag of mixture. The dough buns rose, were baked and then iced so we ended up with home made iced buns, just like you can buy in the shop but for a fraction of the cost. The fruit loaves came from the same mixture but with the addition of mixed fruit and a teaspoon of spices.

Today the FH and UJ went out to their lunch club, so the girls and I ate our main meal at lunchtime too, since they are on school holidays - chicken and broccoli from the freezer, coleslaw from the fridge, and Smash-type instant potato which was a little left in the bottom of an old tub and really needed using up!!

This was the chicken - I made a sauce from a little golden syrup and some ketchup, garlic and finely diced red pepper - and it was delicious.

Earlier in the week - another chicken concoction - home made stew!

And using up those black bananas - a firm family favourite. One to eat and one to freeze.

Tonight I watched "Superscrimpers" on C4, I think - what a revelation. Some of the army of older ladies have some fab ideas for moneysaving, and then there was the young mum, Sarita, who was spending over £300/month on clothes, mostly for herself, although she said some were for her young children. That is a lot of money to be spending on clothes on a monthly basis - and she was doing it on the internet, and a lot of the clothes were stashed in a wardrobe, unworn. A monthly gas bill of £96 was also swiftly addressed!

I'm so lucky to have found all the blogs I know of, and I am sure that there are so many more, which can teach me so much about spending wisely and saving for what we need.

Incubator

This is our big automatic electric incubator - an Italian Corti model.

The turning motor is attached in this block on the side with an additional power supply. The turning motor is an addition, as it is possible to buy it without the turning mechanism - cheaper but more work. It means that if you use the mechanism, two sockets are needed.

This is it, empty. There is a water reservoir at each end, and that light blue toggle is the internal thing on which the rack sits which makes the rack move backwards and forwards to turn the eggs. It is very easily cleaned with some Flash.

Here is the plastic tray on which the eggs actually sit.

These dividers ensure that the eggs stay in one place and just rotate on the longest axis.

This is it, loaded up last night with the Cornish eggs at the front of the picture and my eggs behind.