A very belated merry Christmas and a belly full of boxing day dinner!!

Merry Christmas everyone hope you've all had a wonderful few days! I've been terrible and not blogged in ages partly because i flew back to England to visit the folks and have been spoilt rotten with lots of love and hot brews from my family! It is wonderful to be back home with mum (even though I am only 23 I moved out when I was 18 and have been living in northern Ireland for a while)

So since i've been back I had been invited to a gathering of old friends. A group of 12 of us got together to cook an early Christmas dinner to share. Everyone bought something to contribute(a great way of feeding a big group on the cheap and fun too!) We all chipped in to make beverages food and lets not forget the wonderfully decorated yule log! During the festivities we swapped our "found, free, homemade or acquired prezzies" and I came home with an amazing amount of thoughtful gifts! Including a free book of Christian stories and a customized t-shirt which I've totally worn everyday since :P

Christmas eve we attended a very magical Christmas carol service at our local church. The songs were beautiful especially as they were accompanied by a very talented trio of musicians! The church was lit by candles, we all had a few prayers and (this is where I spent a few pounds) gave money to a local charity. (I'm all for giving money for a good cause especially when it's to feed people at this time of year!) the whole community got together for mulled wine and mince pies after and it was a jolly good time!

Yesterday was a simple celebration with the folks, we swapped simple prezzies, had lots of yummy food (just the veggies for me) had a few drinks watched "white Christmas" and played games. Today is always my favourite day as I get t make and eat bubble and squeak! A plate of bubble, cheese and pickles is a plate of happiness!

Me and my mummy! She's a beaut!

The beautiful Christmas table (mum dug out the original Christmas table cloth which has festive characters on but this photo doesn't do it justice) complete with an old Santa hat each! I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the dinner as everyone was too hungry and excitable about crackers!

The amazing bubble and squeak!

This really doesn't look much of a meal but for me it was just perfect (the bubble was really thick, we squeezed every last veggie in that frying pan!!!)

How were your Christmas celebrations? Did you have a yummy dinner? Celebrate frugally by having leftovers the next day? Scrimping where you can? Or go out with a bang? 

Tis the season to be jolly

For those of you who have been reading my blog you'll know the amount of love and thought that goes into my Christmas plans. For me Christmas is not about splurging the little pennies I have by giving in to today's advertisements. I start my preparations long before most people, I put thought into every gift, book my flight home to family as early as possible to get the cheapest seat (this time I got a return flight for £66) and organize a lot of outings. As I've previously mentioned my friends and I have a Christmas pact the gifts have to be free, found, homemade of for a good cause. This year in April me and a friend purchased a medium sized hardback plain notebook in a supermarket costing £1.99 (something along those lines) and have created a journal for each other. Last night at 3am I finished my copy! I have filled it with experiments, tasks,   boredom solvers etc (I can't write too much about this in case a certain somebody has a sneak peak at my blog).

When I arrive in England I will be spending lots of time with friends and family, having movie nights, eating lots of food, celebrating good health and good company! I sadly haven't been able to bake anything yet as I can't take baked goods in my suitcase, so I will be have a mass baking day with my mum in England on the 21st. I plan to make scottish shortbread following the recipe from frugaldom's blog, bread and butter pudding (as it's my stepdad's favourite) mince pies, mulled wine and or spiced apple cider, dried oranges (for decorations and to make the house smell wonderful-possible potpourri ) and of course help with the Christmas dinner. 

Free food and free films= a wonderful long weekend!

Having recently moved to northern Ireland and therefore having a new address i was able to sign up to the 30 day free trial of love film (again). I must say i was a little suspicious of the free trial at first wondering why they needed my card details and how it would work but i cancelled with no problems after 29 days and didn't have to pay a penny!

So this weekend whilst pondering life over my hot morning coffee, i was greeted by a small white envelope. After excitedly ripping open the package i found series 1 of Alcatraz and the new Disney film brave. This may seem a bit of a bore to most people, however our household does not own a tv license or channels and therefore dvds are our only form of entertainment (making the 30 day free trial even more exciting). So the challenge now is to watch as many dvds for free over the next few weeks...challenge accepted!

The other website I was able to sign up for (again due to the recent change in address) was Graze. I first tried this in London and thought it rather wonderful, a box with 4 compartments (each individually sealed) consisting of tasty but healthy snacks ranging from olives, breads, dried fruits, nuts etc. One single box is usually £3.49 which includes delivery...however there was no way i would pay half of that for a snack! So i received my free box and cancelled my subscription. No strings attached cancel anytime etc.
So after a very cold day of northern Irish wind and rain I returned home to find this absolute BEAUTY waiting for me to open and devour!

My box today consisted of:

•  Slightly sweetened popping corn (ready for the microwave) 
• Blueberry swirl (yogurt covered raisins, dried cranberries and blackberries
• Some cheddar oat cakes with caramelized onion chutney
• afternoon tea sachet and a slice of blackcurrant and apple crumble

For those of you wondering what a graze box looks like or are interested in signing up check it out here. The first one is free and you can cancel anytime. I do NOT receive anything for sharing this link with you, it's just out of kindness, free food and films are a must! Enjoy

http://www.graze.com/uk

www.lovefilm.com

Anyone else out there get as much enjoyment out of free food or entertainment? I'm currently sitting my the fire having just watched a free DVD and had a sneaky midnight snack that didn't cost me a single penny. Rather happy with how this weekend turned out!

Christmas is around the corner!

So the festive season is upon us, there's frost on the ground (in N.I anyway) the adverts are flashing everywhere you look attempting to suck you in to commercialism and spend every penny in your bank (or overdraft). Well for me i'm holding two fingers up to this idea of Christmas, as I don't believe this is how it should be celebrated! Christmas is about family, good food, all mucking in together, building snowmen, board games hot mulled wine and thoughtful gifts (usually handmade or cheap tokens). Especially since i've been living across the water from my family i'm sure just having me home for the festive season will be a good enough present hehe :P

A few years back me and a friend made a pact for xmas gifts. It had to be free, found "acquired" homemade or for a good cause. For example anything you find on the street, freebies from websites/samples in the post, homemade gifts or a thoughtful gift in a charity shop (up to £5)  Having this challenge for xmas has been a much more exciting use of my time, and we always end up with great gifts each!

What's your idea of a great Christmas? How much will you be spending on presents and food? Will you give in to the temptation of high street shops with their sparkly advertisements and fake snow? Or will you be creating a low budget, homemade, heartfelt xmas like myself?

I'm still rather excited that our garden backs on to the local forest! Moving to the other side of the UK has made me more aware of such beautiful things we can sometimes take advantage of; for instance beautiful scenery. (especially when it's free) It's sickening to think how much some people pay to visit gardens/woodland trails/nature reserves when there's plenty out there for free! The sad thing is the "free ones" are usually bursting with free berries to pick, local wildlife to spot, little pathways and streams that naturally occur and generally have a better sense of adventure about them. Grab your boots and woolly hat and go explore!

Us supporting our local forest ^^^ 

So other than Halloween preparations the house has been filled with lots of job applications, lots of tea and cake meetings with family, and the constant challenge to not spend a penny unless needed. 

Our latest achievement being FREE homemade blackberry jam! There's no catch, honest! We picked the blackberries on an early morning walk in our local forest, brought them home to wash and boil, added sugar, simmered and poured in an empty jar, wallah! 

Berries found in Ballykelly forest, Northern Ireland.

Simmering the berries

The final product

There's something very satisfying about creating something for free! I'm interested to see if any of you are as frugal with food as I am? Any creations you'd like to share? 

For those wonderful people who sometimes browse upon my blog, a big fat SORRY for the lack of posts recently; It's been a bit of an "up and down" last few weeks here.
The big halloween party has been and gone, it was great having the challenge of attempting to make/find all of the decorations this year! I was lucky enough to not be working and to have my two best friends fly from London to stay for the celebrations!
Here's a little peek at the adventures we got up to:

Amy being a perfect model for my Halloween make-up experiment :)

The top of our stairs (complete with coffin, shackles and lots of blood )

One of le pumpkins (also one of the only things we purchased for halloween)

What did everyone else get up to for Halloween? Parties/scary movies/quiet night in?

I had some bananas that were extremely ripe last night and the whole house was smelling very "bananified" so I whipped up some banana cakes with things i found in the cupboards, self raising flour, 1 egg, 2 bananas(very ripe and mashed) sugar, milk and butter. Handy way of using up those smelly bananas!

Today the weather is "pants" I'm having a "stay indoors and be silly day" (It's also an excuse to eat the rest of those cakes) My inspiration for today is this picture. Taken from Dr Seuss Quotes

It's official It's chocolate week!
So naturally I shall be consuming a lot of the sweet substance this week.
Is anyone else feeling incredibly excited about Halloween this year or is it just myself? I decided it would only be fair to myself to indulge in some early Halloween goodness/ chocolate week indulgence by walking 1 and a half miles to purchase a chocolate covered apple on a stick. And it was completely worth it! Hope you're all excited for Halloween and getting your preparations sorted! I'm loving these little labels hobby-craft are selling at the moment:



We're being as Frugal as possible with halloween at the moment. So far we have made everything, props, decorations, costumes. We were lucky enough to find a shed full of cardboard, polystyrene, paint, old curtains and wood when we moved in so this has formed the basis of all our props. We've made gravestones with all the party attendees names on. Two coffins, dead bodies, broomsticks, framed pictures and ghost lanterns. I mixed up some red food colouring with water and splattered sheets and ripped cloths along with torn black bags. So far I think it's going to be a GRUESOME Halloween, and I can not wait!!! 

I got the idea of the ghost lanterns from craftgawker:
http://craftgawker.com/?s=Halloween

I am possibly the worst blogger as I keep forgetting I've even started one! Sorry for those of you who have been reading so far.

So a lot has happened since I last wrote. I've settled nicely into my new home (it's been a while since i've been able to call somewhere home that didn't involve my mum slaving over the stove creating a wonderful home cooked dinner and providing me with daily cuddles) 

The weather is some what colder here than the joys of London pollution warming up the streets. ( I'm quite glad to think I won't be filling my lungs with London's grey air for a while)

The houses here are very simple and plain as they were previously used as army barracks. However living in a simple village where there's no evidence of hierarchy in the way in which people live is quite comforting. In the village of ballykelly we have a few local shops and our nearest town is limavady. Travelling to Limavady is about the same distance as travelling from Staines to Sunbury. It's very behind in the times here, we don't have chain shops, just little boutique shops, cafes and charity shops. Which again I like very much.

I officially joined the local library yesterday and went to the jobcentre for more applications and information about "signing on" DUN dun dunnnnnnnnn!!!! 
Where we live is a very protestant area (I still can't get used to the sections of Ireland and all the problems it has caused in the past) I can tell this just by the amount of union jack flags casually waving in the breeze along side the red hand of ulster. 
From what I can tell there are many meanings to this and for any of you northern Irish lot having a browse at this please feel free to enlighten me as I am a complete "newbie" to understanding the culture of the north. From what I can understand it is loyalist's who adopted this flag back when "the main troubles" were about as a symbol to them as "freedom fighters"... which again I don't understand as the protestant community want to be a part of the United Kingdom. This subject is something that interests me a lot so if anyone has any information on it please feel free to comment!

I think it's terrible that in England we weren't taught about anything that happened in Northern Ireland. If it weren't for me having a fiance from the north of Ireland I wouldn't have Known anything about the terrible things their country had to suffer. In 1972 over two dozen innocent victims were shot by British troops. The victims were un-armed and more than 4 were just 17 years old. "One man was shot and killed while assisting a victim and waving a white handkerchief; another killed with his arms raised in a surrender position." 

After visiting Derry many times and settling in with my family here I have to say I am not in the slightest proud to say that I am British. 
Was anyone around when this happened? Was it televised in London? Or was it kept quiet? I'd like to know others views from England about this. 
Thanks for reading guys, the next update won't be such a negative one I promise.

For years I have often read/followed certain blogs and every so often I've felt a little inspired to start my own. However I've never had a "decent" reason to start one/ inspiration/ exciting life happenings to ramble on. (Not exciting enough for others to want to read about anyway)

So what might be the reason for starting one now? 

A few months back i was living in London in a top floor flat with my girlfriend, a flatmate and my cat. I had recently dropped out of university, was working two jobs to make ends meet and was experiencing financial problems. Our current flatmate had refused to pay rent or bills whilst living with us and resulted in her moving out. We then began to receive threats from our estate agents stating that we were liable to pay the other part of the rent. My hours begun to get cut at work, the pricing of food and drink shot up alongside travel fares and I started to receive those horrid letters that everyone dreads (and I am ashamed to say that I have opened a few) DEBT-COLLECTION!!!! 

From there on-wards it was a downward spiral and I'm still not 100% certain on some of the things that happened. I became afraid of the outside world shutting myself away everyday, not being able to work, everything sounding as if i were under water, sweating profusely, chest pains, not wanting to talk to anyone and unfortunately (i hate to admit this part) not wanting to be in this world any longer. 

Fortunately I have an extremely supportive family and girlfriend and they helped me get back on track. I was then diagnosed with GAD.  Having the great support of the NHS and my family really helped to get me back to the person I used to be! The image below inspired me a lot at the time thanks to the amazing Kerri Smith!!!

So about a month later me and my girlfriend were discussing a possible move as we'd had enough of the bad energy in our flat. It was then that we made a very spontaneous decision to move to Northern Ireland (where the gf is from). We sold as much as possible, took every hour possible at work for the next 4 weeks and camped in a tent in my mother's garden.

Le Tepee^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

May I just take the time to mention that my mother is an ANGEL! She has been the most supportive person in my life. Not only majorly financially (obviously with the great help from the world's best stepfather!) but also in terms of life decisions.

Le mother and Le step-father ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

So we packed what we could on our backs put the cat in his carrier and ventured to the north of Ireland.

Le me ^^^^ saying fairwell to London