A Thrifty February Sunday

Cheer up! I know it’s damp and cold and windy, but the first snowdrops are here.

At Fountains Abbey, the woods are carpeted with snowdrops. They always make me happy: among all the drabness, a sign that Spring is finally on the way.

On Sunday morning, I grabbed a few croissants from the freezer – I picked up a carrier bag of them from Morrisons, discounted to 45p because it was the end of the day – and warmed them in the oven. We had them with a pot of fresh coffee (again: a discounted bag from the freezer) and lemon curd, which I make in my slow cooker.

Thrifty Baby had to be prised from his new chair. It was 50p in a local jumble. I am planning to re-upholster it, but in the meantime, he likes it as it is. He likes to sit in it and read; also, he has just started to walk and it is also the perfect height to launch himself from.

My marvellous mum and stepdad were up this weekend, helping to make our new patio. It’s a work in progress, but lots of smashing and carting and digging has now been done. I stuck Thrifty Baby’s chair in front of the French windows, so he could keep an eye on things.

They had to set off for Essex; after we said goodbye, we took off to Fountains Abbey for the rest of the afternoon.  It’s on our doorstep and it is beautiful. Also it is surrounded by rolling lawn, where Thrifty Baby can work on his toddling.

It is quite expensive to get into Fountains Abbey if you don’t belong to the National Trust: about £21 for a family, I think. But this year we are members: I took advantage of a nifty Quidco cashback deal just before it expired at Christmas. We got joint membership for £66 with £16 cashback. I also qualified for a £25 Christmas bonus payment from Quidco, thanks to the Christmas shopping I’d done through the site, which I decided to put towards membership too. So all in all, it cost us just £25 for the year.

We are lucky to live in a pretty part of the world, but last year we didn’t get to see very much of it, thanks to work and baby. So this year, armed with our discounted National Trust membership cards, we are determined to make the most of them…

P.S. I took these photos with Instagram. I have started using Instagram as an image bookmarking site. Basically, it’s as good a place as any to store images for posts in progress and posts I’m planning for the blog, so that I don’t lose track of them in the overcrowded fug that is my hard drive. So I am not one of those super-cool Instagrammers, but if you would like to follow me on Instagram you can find me here.