recessive genes?

We're in a recession apparently and the amount of people trying to save money, or talking about trying to save money, has exploded!

I love it personally as we've been trying to live cheaply for a few years now, since I had to give up work. Hence getting the chickens, growing fruit and veg, amongst other money making (or rather money saving) exercises.

This is the diary of a chicken keeping friend of mine and I love reading what she's been doing to save a penny or two! http://diaryofapennypincher.typepad.com/blog/#tp

Apart from perusing parsimonious personal postings, I signed up to the http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ newsletter and have had really good tips from that. For example, I managed to print off 4 x £5 Debenhams vouchers on line recently and got 4 brand new 'lock & lock' tupperware boxes without having to spend a single penny! The vouchers had no minimum spend limit but it was one voucher per item so, I bought 4 items that were just under £5 each which meant they were all free! Of course, it was one voucher per person so I roped mum and Ian into coming with me and then just smiled sweetly at the cashier! ;0)

We even got free parking thanks to mum's disabled badge! That's another good money saving tip, take a registered disabled person with you when you go shopping ;0)

Mum even treated us to coffee and cake in the Debenhams cafe, so I didn't even have to spend a penny all day! Well, not til I got home but I blame the coffee for that!

Christmas is coming...

...and I haven't been blogging very much at all!


I've been spending most of my time on Facebook to be honest. It's more interactive and my blog doesn't seem to attract many comments, not that I do it for that reason but on FB you do get more of 2 way relationship with those with whom you share your life. However, you can't really vent memoir style on there so thought I'd pop back for a scribble on here.

I've been devoting quite a bit of time to my 'Poetry Found' project and another 2 issues have been collated, designed, printed and distributed to be scattered. Almost 400 copies were sent out to various scatterers in time for National Poetry Day. I adore making the little books and secreting them where I think they might be appreciated.

That's another reason I've been using FB a lot. It's so useful for, well, social networking! PF has its own FB site and it's invaluable for co-ordinating the poets and the scatterers but not only that, photos have been uploaded and experiences shared.

That's not my hand by the way, it belongs to NPD director, Jo Bell, who was also one of the happy band of scatterers.

Sometime in August, we went to Gawsworth Hall to see The Bad Shepherds. Ade Edmondson is a member and they are really rather good! The fantastic setting made for a magical evening.

I mentioned previously in my blog that we were intending to get some quail. We've had the housing for some time but not got round to getting any birds.

I saw a post on freecycle '5 quail to good home'. As we promised to give them a 'good home' we've decided not to eat them! We don't know if any of them are female but we've had them a few weeks now and not had any eggs so looks like we've inherited a bunch of freeloaders ;0)

And apart from some pleasant, miscellaneous days out here and there in between, that's about it for the last 3 months!

As for the future, I shall endeavour to tear myself away from FB from time to time to share the odd snippet, whether anyone is reading or not!