Manic March and I'm Home!

Where on earth is the month disappearing to?  I'm sure there's a malevolent being which gobbles up days in great chunks so that the month has barely begun before it's halfway through.   Anyway, I digress.  We spent the whole month of February based in Bridgnorth despite previous plans to decamp to Cornwall halfway through.  The weather forecast was not good and high winds were predicted which is a nightmare when planning on towing a caravan nearly 200 miles!  So....we stayed put.  The site, Stanmore Hall, was very nice.  We had a lovely view of the lake with it's ducks, geese and a resident Heron which I was never quick enough with my camera to snap a photo of.  We were warm and cosy.......

The caravan shower room contained all my favourite toiletries which I had saved up for the very purpose and we were attached to the mains water tap and drainage so that I could shower without leaving the warm environment of our vehicle......

There was an abundance of wildlife the whole time including two peacocks, well strictly speaking one peacock and one peahen which were mother and son.  The poor father got attacked by a dog and died. 

We walked and rested and walked again.  We visited Bridgnorth town where there were some fantastic charity shops (I picked up a few bargains too) and The Old Mill antiques centre where I could browse for hours and had to be dragged away on more than one occasion!

There was an M & S Simply Food and we bought a meal deal consisting of a large pie, mash and fresh cream roulade which cost just £6 the lot.  It could easily have fed 4 but we were a bit greedy and ate the pie, mash and half the dessert in one sitting (insert a shamed, blushing face icon) :/

On another occasion we went in to buy milk at exactly the right time for YS bargains.  We couldn't resist all the sweet treats for just pennies, it was too good to miss.  These lasted us for several days and we eked out the fruit bread by toasting the last few stale slices.  It was delicious.

Our normal food budget was just enough each week to keep us ticking over and we ate out twice a week using our saved cash of £68 plus hubby chipped in by paying for one of those meals from his own cash.  There was a super pub a short drive away, The Bandon Arms, with 2 meals for the price of one.  Two meals plus 2 soft drinks came to less than £20 and we ate there twice.  Breakfast was usually cereal, fruit and yogurt or toast or croissants.  If we went out for the day we took sandwiches or a banana and I always carried a bottle of water to drink.  A small bottle from a multi-pack cost 12.5p instead of paying up to £1 a bottle in a shop.

As we didn't make the trip to Cornwall, we had £20 left from the diesel fund which has gone back into the piggy bank for our next trip.  I have no idea when that will be but I sincerely hope it will be to Cornwall this time.  With that in mind we will be adding to our £2 coins in the piggy bank in the weeks to come.

I am happy to report that my health is slowly picking up.  My vertigo lasted a good 2 weeks followed by a tummy upset which I put down to a re-emergence of the IBS I suffered from a few years ago.  To cap it all I hurt my neck the first weekend we were home!  I was struggling to remove the soap dispenser from the washing machine when I felt the bones in my neck crunch followed by a shooting pain down the side of my neck.  Good grief, when will it all end ?

The blog title Manic March is how I feel about the last couple of weeks.  I don't feel my feet have yet touched the ground.  We have so many bills to pay including insurances, car services etc that I seem to have spent all my waking hours chasing up quotes and looking at comparison websites.  I'll tell you more about that in my next post.

For now my painful, stiff neck and I wish you well.  Thanks everso for popping in x