A Long Weekend in Yorkshire - Week Ending 31st August 2026

The second half of this week was busy.  OH and I travelled up to Yorkshire on Wednesday afternoon, for the first time since his brother's funeral in June. Luckily, we had a good journey and arrived at OH's mum's house at about 5pm. She had very kindly cooked us a roast dinner, which was nice and we spent the evening catching up on family news.

On Thursday morning, OH went for a run and I met him in a nearby village, where I'd gone to do a bit of last minute shopping. We then went back and picked up his mum and took her for lunch in her local village at a nice little cafe. The food was very nice.

We had to be at our wedding accommodation for around 4pm which was situated out in one of the villages to the east of Hull. We met my sister there, who was busy waiting for the bridesmaids to arrive. The accommodation was lovely, with a swimming pool and steam room, which we took advantage of almost straight away. It felt very relaxing to go for a swim and use the steam room. We then went back to our room, got showered and got ready, before heading out to a nearby village pub for some supper. We left the bride, bridesmaids and mother of the bride to have a relaxing girly evening before the big day.

The day of the wedding, we woke up to heavy rain. Fortunately, the rain subsided by the time we got on the minibus to the wedding venue, which was located in the middle of the local countryside. Here, we had pre-wedding drinks and chatted to other family members before we were ushered into the ceremony itself. 

It was a lovely small wedding, and the bride looked beautiful. (Don't they always) The weather just held off for the main photos to be taken and then when the rain resumed, we were all ushered into the main lodge for the speeches, food and the evening disco. The food was a Greek theme, which was a nice surprise, and very tasty, the bride and groom having holidayed in Greece many times. 

It was a lovely day, long, but relaxed and very enjoyable. I think everyone had a good time. We, along with my sister, left a little early, as we needed to get another minibus back with some guests who didn't want to stay late until the end, but we were all pretty tired by the time we left at around 10pm, leaving the youngsters to dance the rest of the night away.

After a nice breakfast the next day, we said our goodbyes and packed up and made our way to Beverley for a walk around the town and the weekly market. It was a very busy Saturday morning in the town. We bought a few plants from one of the market stalls and then made our way back to OH's mum's house.

Later that evening, we headed out with OH's mum, to his niece's 21st birthday party at his sisters house near Malton, North Yorkshire. It was a lovely party, with a marquee in the garden. Once again the weather was kind to us all. We left around 11pm and again left the youngsters to dance and party into the early hours.

On Sunday, we were up and out again, this time heading up the East Yorkshire coast to Withernsea. On the way, we stopped off at OH's cousin's house, who has a nursery business and he gave us a grand tour. He is a specialist breeder of birds and other animals, so it was very interesting to see them all and then stop for a cup of tea. They were very hospitable. 

Eventually, we journeyed on to Withernsea, where OH's father has a bench dedicated to him at the lighthouse in the town. OH's mum wanted to give it a good clean before it was put away at the end of the season. It was also the first time we'd got to visit it since OH's father had passed away a couple of years earlier, but unfortunately for us, there was a garden party going on with lots of people in attendance and live music, so we'll probably have to visit again next year to get a proper look at it. We stayed for a while and visited some of the charitable stalls, before heading into the town to get fish and chips for lunch and have a little walk around before returning home. It was a nice day out.

OH and I decided to return to London that evening, to avoid Bank Holiday traffic and have a chill Bank Holiday Monday at home. It had been a lovely social weekend away, but to be honest our social batteries had worn right down and we were ready to head home. The journey back was a good one and we got home by 8pm. It felt so lovely to get back, relax, watch a bit of TV and head to bed early. It was lovely to see LB too and see that the garden had received some rain in our absence, at long last.

We now need to plan our summer holiday. I think we are going to stay in the UK and possibly visit Cornwall, although the weather isn't forecast to be that great. More about that in another post.

A Clean Up and Travelling North

This week has been another week of two halves.  The first part of the week, I needed to clean the house, as LB has some friends staying later in the week. It's been a good few weeks since I gave it a good clean, so it was starting to look a bit grubby in places.

On Monday, I didn't get any cleaning done, as I was out doing the weekly shop. We didn't need a whole lot this week as OH and I were heading up north to visit family and attend a family wedding. LB came with me and bought lots of stuff for her and her friend, who had quite specific food requirements. I spent less than a normal week, which is always good.

Tuesday morning, I headed to the gym for my Zumba class which was good. When I got home, I had some lunch and then started cleaning the kitchen. It was the worst room that I needed to clean, so I thought I'd start with the worst room first. It took me about 4 hours in total to clean the kitchen. I just took my time and worked my way around from one side to the other, cleaning the cupboard fronts, removing everything from the worktops, cleaning them and then putting everything back. It's always very satisfying when it's done, but I can't say I enjoy it.

I then worked my way through the rest of the house, cleaning the vestibule and downstairs toilet, then up the stairs and into the living rooms and hallway. All surfaces got dusted and the floors vacuumed and mopped. I thinned things out as much as possible as I went, and rehomed things that needed it. There was a lot of dog hair on the sofa from our recent canine visitor, who had gone home to the care of a petsitter. It took ages for me to vacuum it off.

Eventually, once the cleaning was finished for the day, I made us tacos for supper, which we hadn't had in a long time, then washed up before finally calling it a day.

On Wednesday, I was up early as we needed to do a tip run and I still had the bathroom to clean. When I got back from the tip, I got straight on with cleaning the bathroom. It wasn't too bad, but needed to be clean for guests. I then had a shower and got changed and packed ready to head off. It was a bit of a busy morning, but by lunchtime we were ready to go. I was looking forward to getting out of London for the Bank Holiday weekend.

The remainder of the week I'll post separately.

A Year of Early Retirement

This week marks a year since I left my last job. It's been a strange year, getting used to not working and earning any money, but equally it's been a relaxed one, without the stress of work. I haven't had to put up with anyone shouting at me in front of customers, micro managing me, requiring me to do stupid marketing tasks that I hate and generally dumping work onto me so they can take it easy. Seems like a fair swap when I think about it.

I have applied for the odd job, but with no success, and in all honesty, I'm not really interested in going back into the workplace, especially not one in which they don't value older workers and view/treat them as a liability. 

Don't get me wrong, I miss earning money and have had to really curtail my spending in order to get by each month, but this is probably a good thing, as I think when I do have spare money, I spend it on stupid things that I don't really need. Being on a limited budget does focus your mind and help you identify what is actually necessary and important for a happy life.

I've managed okay financially in the last year, which is a good thing, but I've had to be very disciplined and organised in terms of putting money aside every month for Xmas/birthdays, my niece's wedding present in a this week and another niece's 21st the same week.  This has left me with very little cash, over and above what I need for groceries, gym membership, insurance and charitable donations, etc. I've had to very much live within my means, which can be a challenge, but once you get into the swing of it, the desire to spend money does actually dissipate and you realise that much of the spending you once did was actually just habitual or out of boredom.

Going forward, a couple of small pensions should hopefully start to be paid to me in the next couple of months, plus I will be applying for a free 60+ travel card here in London, which should make it cheaper to get out and about. I won't say that I'll never work again, as who can see what the future holds, but if I do manage to get a job or find a way to earn money, I don't want to find myself in the same toxic situations that I found myself in in my last few employments.

If I'm going to continue not to work, I do need to rearrange my finances a little and create a slush fund for expenses, such as occasional one off necessary purchases, dental/optical costs, days out, etc. but this is easy enough to do using some of my savings, so that I don't have to put certain things off or not be able to enjoy doing things with LB or OH when I have the chance. I don't have any more expensive gifts to save for from here on in, so that will free up a bit of cash each month from the end of the year.

I guess, I could be described as having 'retired early' and as such, you are supposed to start spending your savings, that is the whole point of saving up for retirement. None of us know how long we've got and I want to enjoy however much time I do have. I learned early in life, when my mum passed away, two years after taking voluntary redundancy at the age of 57 and was unable to enjoy her retirement and spend her long service payment, that nothing is guaranteed. I intend to enjoy my freedom while I can, even if it just means bumbling about at home, going to the gym and gardening, as it certainly beats being subjected to other peoples rules and toxic behaviour in the workplace.

If circumstances merit me getting a job, I will, of course, try to do so, but if I can manage I will probably continue in the same vein.  One good thing about having this time, is that I am slowly getting around to sorting through lots of old paperwork and destroying that which I no longer need, thus freeing up space in the house. It is also ridding my home of the toxic habits and memories from the past. I enjoyed some jobs I did, whilst they were going well, but sadly by the time I left most of them, my enjoyment of them was deteriorating.

It wasn't really my life plan to retire early, but I seem to have slipped into it, and with AI, heavier and heavier workloads and the corporate push for profit above everything, including staff welfare, I don't regret exiting the workforce a little early. In fact, it does make me realise that I wasn't really very suited to most workplaces, nor good at fitting into and conforming to workplace cultures. I didn't really ever find a job that I continued to enjoy over the long term, as I think the longest I stayed at any job was 5 years. It does make me feel like a bit of a failure in some respects, but I can live with it.  At least I've have quite a bit of variety, both in terms of work and experience in my working life, which is character building stuff.

I'll keep you posted if anything changes in this regard.

A Chill Week - W/E 23rd August 2023

This week got off to a slow start. I was tired on Monday morning, after the Car Boot on Sunday and so had a lie in before getting up and ready. I unpacked a few items of clothing left over from the car boot and put them into a donation bag. I also put all my hangers back in the wardrobe. There was more unpacking to do, but I needed to go out and do the weekly shop, so it had to wait.

LB came with me to do the shopping this week. It was nice to have the company and an extra pair of hands. We went to my usual out of town location. I had a £3 voucher to spend at Tesco and another £4.50 voucher off a £30 spend at Sainsburys this week and used both of these.

LB wanted to visit the charity shop, so, of course, I joined her in there and ended up buying one top for £3 and a set of three small preserve jars for £1, which will come in very useful for jam making. I have lots of very big jars, but few smaller ones, which are a more practical size. I'm not doing any jam making until the weather really cools down though.  Eventually, we got all the shopping done and headed home to chill for the evening.

On Tuesday, I went to Zumba as normal. When I got back, I did a bit of blog reading, as I'd got a bit behind over the past week. I then did some financial reckoning and paid a bill online, as we were now more than half way through the month. OH fixed the handle on the shredder, so it will hopefully keep on being usable for many more months. I also printed off the form to apply for one of my pensions and started filling it out. There's a few bits of information I need to find to complete it and I need to get my signature witnessed, which is a bit annoying, but I realise that it is a security thing.

In the afternoon, I watched the final available episode of Clarkson's farm, which was good, if a little sad. I then watched a couple of documentaries. I was tired and just wanted some down time.

I had a long lie in on Wednesday morning after waking from a deep sleep and feeling groggy. I then got showered and ready for the day. I had a few household tasks to do in the kitchen and some laundry that needed doing and hanging out.

I spent the afternoon, cutting out some paper pattern pieces for some clothing items I'd like to make. At least this takes me a small step closer to actually doing some dressmaking. I also took a look for some potential holiday accommodation for September. We're either going to drive to France or possibly stay in the UK, dependent on the wildfire situation. We'll probably book last minute.

Later, OH and I went to the allotment to harvest and water. The nights are starting to draw in now and I can't wait for the autumn.

On Thursday morning, my Aerobics class was cancelled as the teacher wasn't available. I wasn't too bothered. Sometimes it's good to have a break from routine so that it doesn't get too boring.

I spent most of Thursday dealing with some financial stuff. I'm trying to apply for one of my pensions, but I came across and issue with a question on the form I had to fill out, so I ended up querying this on the website and am waiting for a reply. I also ended up shredding lots of old paperwork connected to a job I held 35 years ago. I still had all my appraisal paperwork and reading through it was interesting, and not in a positive way. It just makes me feel glad that I'm not subjected to all that nonsense any more. Shredding them was the most positive thing I could do with them. Of course, the shredder handle broke again, but in a different place. I can still use it though.

I also rang up about a small private pension that was due to mature and was talked through the process of cashing it in. I'll probably use it to give myself a small income between now and when I hopefully get my state pension. There was lots of excess paperwork in relation to this too, so that all got shredded. You can tell I'm on a mission to get rid of anything no longer relevant.

I did a bit of deadheading and pruning in the garden today. We did have a bit of rain, but again not a big downfall.  Still waiting for that one.

Friday morning, I got up early for a change and took Bruce, the dog we're looking after, out for a long walk, which was nice. It was a bit of a prickly one, as his ball got stuck in brambles and I had to dig it out, scratching myself in the process, then he did a poo amongst some rose bushes and I got caught up trying to pick that up and then the ball went into some thistles. At this point, I put it away. Apart from this we had a nice walk. Several people admired him and someone even asked if I was selling him! I told them he was not mine to sell. (He's a French Bulldog)

When I got back, I did a few household tasks and then a bit of blogging. I'm really liking the cooler weather. Such a relief.  

Saturday was another chill day. I walked Bruce again in the morning and then when I got back, I did a few chores. We didn't really do much at all today, just potter around at home. We did visit the allotment and it was nice to see one of the other plot holders and have a good chat. We'd not seen her for months.

We started watching a series called Ludwig on BBC iPlayer in the evening. It was quite entertaining. A little different from most crime dramas.

On Sunday, I spent the day cleaning. OH and I are heading off next week up to Yorkshire, to visit family and attend a wedding. LB isn't able to go, as she's going to a music festival here in London and is having friends to stay over with her, so I needed to get the bedrooms into a fit state for visitors. This meant a deep clean and a lot of thinning out, to make space and declutter. It took the whole day, but looked a lot better for it. I've still got the downstairs to clean, but that will be a job for the beginning of next week.

A Garden and Allotment Update - August 2026

I thought I'd do another allotment and garden update after the scorching summer we've had. It's been a tough season for growing anything and we've had to do a lot of watering using mainly grey water at home and watering cans at the allotment. Inspite of the heat, the garden and the allotment are doing okay. Here's a few pictures of the allotment:

There's not an awful lot left growing, but there's still lots of tomatoes to ripen, and a few cucumbers growing.There's some beetroot still to harvest, when it gets a bit bigger, lots of lettuce and kale still to harvest and raspberries, but everything else has ground to a halt.

Happily for me, there are now quite a few flowers growing. It's definitely dahlia and sunflower season.

I grew two types of sunflower, yellow and red. Neither are very tall though, but they're beautiful all the same.

At home in the garden, the hanging basket is hanging on:

although parts of it look a little unwieldy.

The verbena bonariensis have just kept flowering and keeping the bees and butterflies happy. I do really like this plant, it's a keeper, especially with the hotter summers we're getting.

I've got some sedum that are starting to flower and there are pelargoniums adding a bit of colour.

There are yet more sunflowers, just starting to flower

and plenty more lettuce for successional sowing. Oh has done a great job with these this year.

Finally, we've got some hazelnuts ripening on the two bushes I have in the garden. I'm hoping to beat the squirrels to them this year, but we'll have to wait and see.

In all, despite the hot weather, the garden is looking okay, with not too many losses, but we're still waiting for a decent downfall of rain. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long.

A Day Out Selling at the Car Boot

This Sunday, was the day that LB and I had decided to spend selling at a Car Boot Sale out of town. We hadn't done a car boot sale for around 15 years or more (since LB was quite young and ran the battery down on the car playing her music on the car CD player, or so she tells me as I can't remember!). As I'd mentioned in a previous post, I was half looking forward to it and half dreading it in equal measure.

We'd both spent the last week or so, sorting out stuff to take and sell. We then packed the car the night before, so we wouldn't make lots of noise in the morning setting off at 7am.

On the day of the car boot sale, we got up at 6 am, had breakfast, packed the last few things into the car and set off. The car boot we decided to sell at, was one that was held on a Park and Ride Car Park and didn't start until 8 am, which was great for us, as we didn't want to get up at a ridiculous hour to get to the alternative boot sale for 5 am.

We set off at 7am as planned, with a packed lunch in a cool bag, bottles of frozen water and a full car. We were given a pretty good pitch with plenty of room and set to work setting up our stuff for sale. A few people came around early, very politely looking at what we were putting out. In fact, we found that everyone we came across was very polite and friendly. Some people did make lower offers, some of which we took, some we didn't.

The footfall was pretty steady for the first few hours and LB did particularly well, as she sold a couple of more expensive items quite early on. She was also selling Pokemon Cards, as she collects them and was selling off ones she no longer wanted. This brought quite a lot of people to our stall to be honest, so I was glad of her being there with me.

My sales were a lot slower and smaller, the most expensive items I sold being priced at £5. I'd gone into it thinking that if I made £50 on the day, I'd be very happy, as I figured I'd be earning money and getting rid of stuff I no longer wanted. Most of my sales came from clothing and a few house bits.

By 12 noon, some stalls were starting to pack away and leave, but we stayed on until 1pm, when there were no more customers, then started to pack up the car. Unfortunately (for OH), we still went home with quite a lot, but we were very happy with how we'd done, as we had exceeded our expectations. I'm afraid I didn't take any photos, as we were so busy setting up, selling and then packing away, that it didn't really occur to me.

We were quite lucky with the weather too, as it was warm, sunny at times, but mostly cloudy, so the heat wasn't too overwhelming. We couldn't have asked for better on the back of a heatwave here in London a few days before.

When we got home, we added up all the cash we'd taken, worked out how much we'd made, minus the entrance fee, which was £13 per car, and which we split between us, making it much more affordable.

So, how did we do? Well, I made £65 (£55 if you deduct the £10 I'd spent on some camping chairs to use on the day). LB did a bit better and made just over £100. We were both really happy with these results, especially as it had been good fun too. 

We probably won't do another one for at least a year, if at all, but it was definitely a good way to make some cash from things we no longer wanted. Also, I only spent 40p at a nearby stall, as we were both so focused on selling, that neither of us took the time to wander round and look at the other stalls.

We then just need to empty the car and unpack everything that was left, but we took a breather before doing that. Some of it can just be donated to the charity shop and some will have to wait for another opportunity to be sold or maybe just be put out on the street for people to take for free.

Have you ever done a car boot sale?

Another Heatwave, A Solar Eclipse, A Canine Visitor And a Car Boot Sale - W/E 16th August 2026

This week got off to a slow start due to being tired after a full day out at the cricket on Sunday. I had a long lie in on Monday morning, before getting up and ready to go out to do the weekly shop.

Before heading out, I needed to do a couple of small jobs. One was to iron a linen dress I'd bought a couple of months before, that was languishing in the ironing basket. I decided that if I wanted to get any wear out of it this summer, I needed to iron it and put it into use. This was my first job. Whilst I had the iron out, I had a small alteration job to do, ironing some patches onto a sweatshirt to cover a stain and keep it in use, so I did this too. I was happy with the results and I finally wore the dress!

I went back to my usual out of town location to shop this week. I was looking forward to using £15 worth of vouchers off my Lidl shop. The shop went okay, but I spent quite a bit, regardless of the vouchers. I also went to the charity shop and bought a few items from there; 3 items of clothing and 4 books. I'll post about the clothing at the end of the month, but here's a picture of the books:

OH can give me the RSPB book and Middlemarch book for Xmas. The books were two for £1.

On Tuesday, I was back at the gym for Zumba. It was the cover teacher again, so the class was good. I had left a cooling towel there a couple of weeks ago, which was annoying and I had ordered a couple more to replace it, as they are super useful in a heatwave, but I found the original one on this visit, which made me very happy. I like it when lost things turn up.

I spent Tuesday afternoon watching a couple of documentaries on Amazon Prime with LB and a couple of episodes of Clarkson's Farm. One documentary was very interesting, it was about land grabs that are currently taking place in some parts of the world to secure food and water supplies. It's quite scary what some countries are doing because they can't produce enough food or water for their populations. It's probably only going to get worse if the weather continues to heat up.

On Wednesday, I didn't need to go anywhere, so I had a super long lie in before getting up. I finished reading Voltaire's Candide and was pleasantly surprised by the ending. I then did some laundry and altered a dress I'd bought at the charity shop this week to a skirt.

In the evening, there was due to be a solar eclipse, so OH, LB and I went over to Hackney Marshes, which is a wide open space near to where we live, armed with a couple of handmade viewing devices, as we didn't have any eclipse glasses. I'd fashioned them after watching a YouTube video, using bits I had found around the house. Here's a picture:

When we got out to watch the eclipse there were lots of people doing the same, most of whom had the proper glasses through which to watch it, but we'd not been able to get hold of any. I tried using the box, which wasn't very clear, but OH got the paper plates working the best. We didn't look directly at the eclipse, as without the special glasses it can damage your eyes. We watched it on the plate:

It was interesting how something so simple worked. The sky didn't go dark, however, but it was fun. Anyway, a woman sat near to us, took pity on us trying to watch it with our backs to the sun and let us borrow their eclipse glasses to have a proper direct look at it, which was really kind of her, so we did get to see it through eclipse glasses too. In any case, it was good to get out for an hour and do something a bit different.

On Thursday, I was back at the gym for Aerobics. When I got home I did a bit of shredding. I'm quite a way through the pile now. Hopefully I'll get it finished by the end of the week. I then just need to take the bags of shredded paper to the tip, along with quite a bit of other stuff currently set aside. We're currently experiencing another heatwave with temperatures in the mid to high 30's, so I didn't venture out much today. 

In the evening, OH and I did need to go to the allotment to water and harvest. Mostly raspberries, tomatoes, lettuce and a few other small bits.

Friday, the whole day was spent sorting out stuff to sell on our stall at the Car Boot Sale on Sunday. I managed to dig out quite a bit more stuff and also found some things in the shed that I'm going to try to sell. There's still a few more things to dig out from under the bed, but I'm almost ready. I also just need to get some change from the bank or Post Office for a float.

Late afternoon, a cycling friend of OH, who lives over the back from us, dropped off his dog, Bruce, as we are looking after him for the next 10 days whilst they are away. He took a bit of time to settle in, the heat didn't help tonight, as it had been another scorching hot day.

I discovered a bird sound app today, that I downloaded to listen out for birds in the garden.  The only bird that it identified tonight was a parakeet. We get lots of them here in London. They are a regular sight. I'm looking forward to using it first thing in the morning when there are more birds singing.

Saturday morning, after a long hot night of really not sleeping well, I had to be up early to walk the dog, as OH was out cycling.  I wasn't  thrilled about this, but once we were out it was quite nice and cool. Definitely the best part of the day and we were back before 9am.

I then did the rest of the big pile of shredding I'd collated. I got to the last 30/40 sheets of paper and part of the handle broke of the hand operated shredder. I managed to limp along and shred the rest. It has done well to do it all one sheet at a time. I'm hoping we can fix the handle and it will continue to get used for a bit longer, but either way, it has done a great job.

The rest of the day was spent doing more prep for the car boot sale. I needed to measure and price some fabrics I'm taking, clean a sun bed I dug out of the shed, delve into other corners of the house and release a few more items I'm not bothered about keeping. It's amazing what you find when you look in every drawer and cupboard, well almost. Between us, we've got quite a lot of stuff to take for our stall. I'm just hoping that we manage to sell some of it. I'm half looking forward to it, half dreading it. I just hope it goes okay.

Later in the evening, LB and I headed to our local Lidl to do a bit of shopping for our packed lunch. The car boot sale we're going to starts at 10am, but we need to be there for 8am. This was preferable to getting to the other car boot for 5am. I don't think we'd have found getting up for that very easy. I'll do a separate post about how the car boot goes.