Monster Fish and Good Nosh

When on holiday we do like a daily walk so whilst in Edinburgh we decided to walk along Marine Drive; a purpose built shoreline walk suitable for pedestrians, cyclists and dog walkers alike.  It's great! It's a flat easy walk during daylight hours although it could be problematic at night time as we could see no lamps anywhere.  It runs pretty parallel with the curve of the road albeit some distance away separated by trees and a big grassy area and on the other side is the sea, so fresh sea air comes free of charge :)  En route we encountered this marine monster. Isn't he great? He was funded by the local Cramond community and 'Friends of the Fish' in 2009.  I suppose local livelihoods depend on fish so the tribute is very fitting....


                                     

After 25 minutes we rounded a bend and saw this little estuary where the river meets the North sea. It was so pretty and obviously well used....

This sign explained exactly where we were......

A little further exploration and we discovered this..... as the Scottish say "pear...fect!"

It was a super little pub and the food was excellent. As I go for vegetarian food there is usually so little choice, maybe pasta or veg lasagne.  Here I chose sweet potato, chickpea and spinach curry with plain boiled rice (which looks a little off colour in the photo, it wasn't, it was pure white)  It cost £8.50 but was worth every penny.  OH chose scampi & chips which he really enjoyed.  It was well worth the 25-30 minute brisk walk to get there and I felt quite virtuous on the walk back.  Good food and then walking off some of the calories!

Does anyone else know Cramond?  Have you been to the Cramond Inn? Incidentally it's also dog friendly....

Now here's a photo you won't see very often....

.....OH on his knees with a dustpan & brush.  I haven't seen that in over 42 years of marriage! He was sprucing up the mat.  It just shows how he loves his caravan...lol....

It's rather hot here today and I want to make an apple crumble for tea so I must dash and make it before the sun moves round and I roast myself in the kitchen.  Half the ironing has been done, beds stripped, washed and dried so all that's left to do is the crumble (cold chicken and chips for tea, nice and easy).

Have a lovely day, whatever you are doing x

Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens & Royal Yacht Britannia

 

Thank you all for your comments on my last post.  I'm a day late with this one because I had visitors for most of yesterday and didn't get around to sitting down at the computer, or sitting down at all, in fact!

 

Anyway, the second leg of our holiday took us to Edinburgh and we visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, something we had wanted to do for ages.  Entrance is free and for a charge of £3.50 per person for seniors you could buy a ticket to visit the glasshouses too.  This lovely Victorian building is the entrance to them all.

Outside was a small building displaying Alpines and tiny plants clinging to the smallest crevices in the rock.  As you can see from G's red winter apparel and the glowering grey skies, the weather wasn't very warm. At least it was dry to wander round and enjoy all the plants.

Inside one of the glasshouses was the most amazing orchids. This one was just suspended in mid air and,  like the air plant surrounding it, it just takes it's moisture from the air. The colour was beautiful....

 As was this one....

Look at these fantastic lily pads which must have measured around 6 or 7 feet wide!

 

 Who would believe that they start life like this; a 12" spiky looking leaf....

We decided to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia too but it was difficult to get a proper shot of the Yacht where it was moored.  You can see how big it is from the tiny people on deck.  It cost around £8.50 each to go on board (I think... I actually forgot to write it down ) but it was worth every penny as we could visit every deck and lots of the Queen's possessions were still in place to admire and get a real feel for how things must have been on board.  We spent a good couple of hours on there....

Not least of which was a visit to the tea room.  This was mine...all mine...but £3.50 for a hot chocolate?

And £5 for a bowl of soup? :/  As it was waitress service we left £10 including the tip.  How the other half live, eh...

Anyway, I won't post any more pics today in case I lose even more followers!  But, like Arnie, I will be back...tomorrow...

I hope you are all having a super weekend. Today is lovely and cool and fresh and I aim to do lots of crafting whilst the house is quiet.  It seems that a heat wave is promised for the middle of next week so I must enjoy today.  I don't do heat :(

Thanks so much for popping in x

Whoops, Was it Something I Said? And The Case of the Disappearing Parking Machine

 

Hi Honey, I'm home!  Actually, we got back from holiday on Tuesday last but the internet was playing up and I have been unable to write a riveting post-holiday blog post (ok, so not that riveting obviously, because I seem to have lost two followers whilst I've been away :(   Never mind, my fave readers are still with me, and I digress.....

 

We spent the first 3 nights in Cumbria, Grange Over Sands to be precise, and it was lovely (weather rubbish, but place and people lovely)  Our first adventure was to visit the Haverthwaite Railway; a lovely little station complete with hanging baskets....

 

 

They had this welcoming sign outside the coffee shop, just the job for weary dog owners in need of a cuppa.  There was even a bowl of dog biscuits for owners to take one or two for their companions quite free of charge. What a lovely touch.....

The train looked a bit Thomas the Tank Engine'ish but performed the task of pulling the train perfectly well.....

A 15 minute journey took us to the shores of Lake Windermere and, although the sky was very grey and threatening we spent a few hours wandering around without the threatened rain falling...

 

As we needed a few provisions we ventured into town next day, found a quiet car park and rummaged around for some coins with which to buy a ticket.....

 But where from?? The Pay & Display notice was there but I couldn't believe my eyes. From the blue and white Police tape flapping in the breeze it seems that some bright spark had stolen the machine!  How they uprooted it from the concrete without someone noticing is beyond me.  If you expand the photo you will see that someone has written 'parking is FREE' on the orange barrier in felt tip pen.  As we had no mobile phone with which to ring the number, we made a dash to the supermarket and then legged it just in case.  OMG what is the world coming to when two pensioners have to run to the shop and back in as short a time as possible.....

Our first three days disappeared in a flash and we packed up the caravan and set off to Edinburgh for a further week.  If you can bear it I'll post some more photo's tomorrow :)

Thanks everso for popping in x

Take care, a short post!

Thank you to everyone who posted replies to my last post. It's lovely to know that there are bargain hunters all around the world!
For the next week or so my posts will be quite short and not contain many photos as we are on our main holiday in Cumbria and the site we are on has wi fi but it's not strong enough to let me upload photos. I will have to save them up for later.  At the moment we are relaxing in our comfy caravan with a nice cup of coffee, people watching and listening to birdsong.  It is so peaceful..

Take care whilst I am away and I will carry on reading blogs even if I cannot post.  Have a great weekend whatever the weather :-)

Thanks for popping in x

Free Stuff And Bargains Galore!

In my last post I mentioned checking my purse full of vouchers to see what was useable. My first stop was Sainsbury's.  I had 1000 Nectar points which converted to £5 worth of shopping so I decided to get my Weightwatchers mag from there, as well as my salad cream and kitchen roll ( I was running low on both) They totalled to exactly....£5...so totally free to me. Yay! And I still have a few points left to roll over to my next voucher.

 

 

Next came M & S.  I had been sent a £3 loyalty points voucher and used them to buy this set of plastic jugs which cost exactly....£3...so totally free to me :)  They are all marked in fluid ounces as well as cups so will be brilliant for baking.

 

 

I had earned a £5 voucher from Morrisons Match & More scheme so used it to buy a bottle of port for my DD's wedding anniversary next week.  It was already reduced in price, so it only effectively cost me £2.99  DD doesn't read my blog so it won't spoil  the surprise.....

Next came a trip to Boots to spend my loyalty points there.  I decided to stock up on some essentials as well as treating myself to a new pair of nail scissors.  One pair broke whilst on holiday and my ancient pair at home are coming loose at the joint.  These are nice sturdy straight blades (I hate the wicked looking thin pointy, curved ones).

This little lot came to 1013 points so totally free and leaving me 68 points to spend at another time.

Debenhams next.  Last week I ordered some new Sloggi knickers as they had 40% off the price and I used Click and Collect.  When I picked them up I was handed a £5 voucher with no minimum spend but a closing date of 7th June.... tomorrow....We are going on our main holiday towards the end of next week and my T shirts are a bit shabby looking.  I found this one marked at £9 but they have 25% off today.  I had been emailed a voucher for a further 10% so, combining the two, the top cost me £1.07.  As luck would have it I had just found a £1 coin on the wet tarmac right beside my car so it cost the princely sum of ....7p!

Next came the sock department; a pack of 5 cotton rich socks for £6 minus 20% discount, minus a further 10% with my voucher = £4.32  I had a £2 loyalty voucher as well so they cost me just £2.32!  They will either be added to someone's Christmas stocking or saved for the return of the cold weather.

I was really pleased to find so much to take advantage of.  Thank you, Sue, for inspiring me to do this.

Do any other readers do this kind of thing? I know there are some extreme coupon-ers out there so what have your latest bargains consisted of?  Do you get such generous discounts living overseas?
Do tell!

Thanks so much for popping in today x

Freebies, Flab and a Glow in the Dark

When I did the shopping on Monday I saw these on offer at £1.49 a pack.  It's a pack containing 2 portions of fish and all I have to do is send the yellow 'Try Me Free' flash from the pack with a few words saying whether or not we liked them together with the receipt and my details then I will get my money back whether I liked them or not. Brilliant! Free food! (well, almost, as it cost me a second class stamp)  Very tasty they were too :)

Sue, from Our New Life in the Country,  has written an excellent post about using coupons which has reminded me that I have a few lurking about in my purse too.  I will investigate what is useable and let you know how I spend them.  Free stuff is always lovely :)

Speaking of free stuff, I won two free cinema tickets for last night to see the new film SPY which releases on Friday.  It's not a film I would have paid to see but I didn't want to waste the tickets so persuaded OH (not a film buff ) to come with me.  He treated us both to an ice cream ( a whopping £2.95 each ...aaarrggh) but I got talking to the young chap on the ice cream stand and he was lovely, filling our tubs to the brim as we chatted...slurp!  The film was actually laugh-out-loud funny in places although very gory in a slap stick way, with lots of American type verbal innuendo.  Far too many F words....but....we came out feeling happy and smiling so I was glad we went.

As the weather had been dull and dismal, I put off switching on the fairy lamp until last night.  Look!
It works! The photo is awful, taken on my tablet, but we have light! Yippee...

The weather today is lovely. It feels like Summer has arrived although we are told that it won't last.  Today, however, I am enjoying the feel of the sun on bare arms :) Don't worry though, that is all I will be baring!

I have decided that some of this winter flab has to go.  The older I get the harder it is to shift.  My cholesterol reducing diet is making no inroads at all into my surplus pounds so drastic action is called for.  I achieved my target weight with weightwatchers a few years ago but have gradually slipped back into my naughty ways.  I need to lose about 10 pounds.  I can't justify spending around £5 a week on classes as that would be 25% of my weekly 'pocket money' gone in a flash.  I would rather spend a bit more on healthy food.  Tomorrow I might splash a bit of cash on a WW mag though to inspire me and get me off to a good start.  I have done it before and can do it again....

Are there any WW members reading this?  What do you eat when you get a craving for something sweet?  Sometimes zero pro-points fruit just doesn't kill the craving for me. Any tips much appreciated.

Thanks everso for popping in x