WHILE SHEPHERDS WASHED

Dear readers, it’s hard to believe that Christmas has rolled round again ending what can only be described as another pretty shit year.  

Wait, is that carol singers I hear in the distance?  What’s that they’re singing?  Ah, it’s 2021’s newest Christmas carol which goes something like this:

 

While shepherds washed their socks by night,

No heating from the ground,

The angel’s car had broken down,

No charger to be found.

 

Fear not said he/she/it for mighty dread

Had seized their smartphone addled minds

Just how to pay their energy bills

Had put them in a bind.

 

Go you to Boris’s town this day

Reached by the HS2 line (except Leeds)

White elephant of social care

Paid by increased N.I.

 

The heavenly babe you there shall find,

All fake nose and fake tits

Its gender has been re-assigned

Tax payer funded bits

 

Thus spoke the sheriff and forthwith

Appeared a blue clad throng

To shove protesters off the road,

Keep traffic moving on

 

Oh glory be for cod and chips

As turkey’s so old hat

Here’s to enormous credit card bills

From buying loads of tat

Merry Christmas everyone!

BASE - THE FINAL FRONTIER

After months of patiently waiting, the day of concrete reckoning has arrived at last.  It’s base – the final frontier, the place where our new shed will eventually be installed.

 

Preparing the shed base

Unlike Angel in her fancy French chateau, I don’t have the luxury of having a dedicated craft room neatly tucked away in the loft and yet I do have mountains of wool, felt, beads and craft display equipment that all desperately needs a home. 

As the other half has bagsied the garage for his motor racing, beer store man cave then I’ve got my sights firmly set on making this new edifice part of my knitting emporium.  Yes, I’ve got plans!

 

All set for shed delivery

Shed will be 8ft x 6ft - big enough for my craft stuff

Meanwhile as we wait for our new shed scheduled to arrive in February 2022, a little trip round Kent to make up for the lack of holiday this year. 

Kent appears to be famous for 3 things: 

• ·       Illegal migrant crossings
• ·       Windfarms
• ·       Having a Covid variant named after it

No shortage of wind in Kent

There are plenty of windswept beaches or white cliffs to explore and at this time of year, it’s all pretty much grockle free as let’s face it, everyone else is too preoccupied with looking for the best deals on turkeys, avoiding the lurgi or attending those all-important business meetings (minus cheese and wine) than searching for blue birds around Dover.  Nope haven’t seen any.  Vera Lynn clearly made it all up to get attention. 

Here's my Kentish top 10 holiday photos:

Canterbury canals

Friendly lot in Canterbury

Interesting architecture

Herne Bay

Margate - Got any 2ps to spare?

Very festive Ramsgate harbour

Botany Bay near Broadstairs

Dickens Museum - Broadstairs

St Margarets Bay near Dover

Dover Castle

Likely to return in the new year to spend some long weekends exploring Canterbury or Ramsgate which looked worthy of a bit more attention but in the meantime, I've got some important office meetings to attend to.

 

MERRY SCRIMBO!

Leaving my Bongo obsession aside, how the hell am I going to afford Crimbo this year?  

Making table crackers out of loo roll middles or wrapping gifts in newspaper is hardly going to save me a small fortune but now that the plastic glove has been thrown down, I’m rising to the super scrimper challenge on how to finance the festive season with just a few farthings. 

Know any good jokes?

Winner, winner – chicken dinner!  And why not?  Turkey is so old hat.  The cheapest bird I’ve spotted in supermarket freezers this year will set you back around £12 to £15 and to be honest, there’s more meat on next door’s cat. 

A fat chicken is cheaper and often tastier than turkey.  If you can’t cook, that KFC gravy bucket advertised on telly could easily be spruced up with a few sprouts and a couple of Yorkshire puddings for a tempting treat.  

All I want for Christmas is you

Super scrimpers like us will be tucking into a delicious slow cooked venison casserole (£5 for 500g bag) accompanied by a selection of yellow ticket veg, discounted new potatoes washed down with a few glasses of bargain bucket booze.  I’ve been stockpiling discount wine for months.  What a saddo!

 

A very cheap vintage

Cheap as chips

Dessert is also straight out of the dumpster diver’s cookbook – fruit pavlova.  Meringues can be made weeks in advance so you can take advantage of cut-price eggs.  Keep in an air tight tin or if it’s a big one, just store in a carrier bag to stop it getting dusty until it’s needed.  I’ve already got a box of homemade lemon flavoured ice cream in the freezer that I prepared a few weeks ago and will be scouting for yellow ticket cream and fresh fruit to fill my pavlova nearer to Christmas Eve.

 

Bargain meringues can be made in advance

Keeping dust off the pavlova

Living near a blue Co-op?  Get yourself a blue Co-op card or sign up to their app as I’ve discovered a nifty little discount to save on shopping.  Every week, you can get a pound or more off your shopping basket by activating the latest Co-op offers.  Every week, I buy one tinned or boxed item off my Crimbo food shopping list which is then paid for using the £1 off your shop offer.  In this way, I’ve been systematically picking up bits and pieces for my festive feast and it’s only cost me pennies.  This is super scrimping at its best – all you need is patience and to remember to activate the offer on your card each Monday.

 

Happy Mondays for a new deal

It's not all penny pinching, I’ll have you know.  I have splashed out on a lovely selection of gifts for everyone but again using every discount card, loyalty points or cashback scheme on the planet.  There’s no shame in being a ‘voucher’ person or looking for presents in charity shops as you can often find some fabulous items that can be transformed into surprises for those you love.  Luckily, being quite a crafty and creative person then I can always resort to handcrafting gifts although you need to be clever when sourcing your materials as sometimes this can work out more expensive than online shopping. 

For example - I recently made a lovely personalised hand decorated picture frame by painting a wooden one I found in our local hospice shop (£1) in a bright Christmassy red then jazzed it up with some stick-on snowflakes and glitter glue from The Range.  The frame contained a printed quote from the recipient’s favourite author which I rustled up on the home PC.  A unique gift made with love at a fraction of the price of a shop bought one.

 

Knit your own Weasley jumper

If you're a dab hand with the knitting needles, a Weasley jumper is bound to be a big hit for any Potter fans.  I made this one for under £20 by adapting a crew neck jumper pattern.

With a bit of discipline and advance planning, it’s possible to have a fabulously cheap Christmas as long as you stick to your shopping lists and budget.  Forget keeping up with the Joneses or being suckered in by fancy phones or gadgets you really don’t need – be strict and curb impulses to splash out on unnecessary stuff or fripperies.  Believe me, you’ll be thankful for not starting off the new year with a heap of debt.  

Merry Scrimbo everyone!

OMG! ANOTHER COVID CRIMBO

It’s beginning to look a lot like Covid …  I'm having a strange sense of deja-vu ...

Ok so who ordered a side of omicron with their turkey dinner?  Somebody did at our girlie night out the other week and now the office has turned into an episode of Shaun of the Dead where everyone is barricaded behind their plastic screened desks giving everyone else a very wide berth in case they turn into a brain-eating, germ spreading corona-zombie. 

Merry Covid!

This is what happens when those who live with the infectious but test negative themselves think it’s OK to continue to mingle in society.  

Did they not stop to think that having shared a toilet, towel or tea break with their contagious co-habitor there’d be the slightest chance that they would eventually succumb to the lurgi?  Nope, they just carried on regardless until a week later they too tested positive because let’s face it, lateral flow tests only really register anything once you’ve got full blown Covid and by then its too late, you've hugged granny or flirted outrageously with the checkout guy at the Tesco Express.

On YouTube some bright spark has posted that omicron is an anagram for ‘no crimbo’ but with a stretch of the imagination, you can also get Mi Con Bor(is) out of it too. Read into that what you will.  What a hoot! 

So, in the words of Santa – it’s Ho, Ho, Ho – lateral flow before you go if you want to enjoy Crimbo safely this year.

Where's the party?