$$$$$

Riding the Jacobite train (the Harry Potter train shown in my previous post) is an eighty-odd mile round trip to the village of Mallaig and back, beginning in Fort William,  complete with high tea and artisanal cheese board! I have booked a first class table for two for Annie and me - it'll be grand!!

We will pass through several quaint little villages and if it's a clear day we'll see some of the "Small Isles"  of the Scottish Inner Hebrides such as: Muck, Eigg, Skye and my personal favourite - RUM!

The cost for this sweet little diversion came to $255.41 for the two of us. Yes, it's a bit of a splurge but frugality during the year = splurging on trips!

Other costs that have been paid for so far...

• $775 round trip Toronto- Glasgow. Took me awhile to find direct flights as I abhor stopovers. It's worth it to me to pay a bit more for direct flights but $755 is still quite reasonable.
• $96.12 flight insurance - necessary.
• $125.92 - deposit on my hiking trip which covers accommodations and daily baggage transfer, maps etc for my 10 day hike. The final payment due in July.
• $513 sent to Annie for my share of accommodations in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oban and I need to pay her for Fort William.
• $49 for a boat tour to the Isle of Staffa
• $285 for 3 nights on the Isle of Mull
• $107 for two nights in Glasgow before heading home
• $421 for 250 pounds sterling

For a total of $2947.....so far. I have a few trains to book, more pounds to purchase and the rest of my hike to pay for. My trips usually come to about $5,000; this one might be a bit more but I'm staying almost a month. The biggest cost by far is accommodations. One of these days I'm going to seriously consider backpacking/hosteling. Yeah, at my age. It's not that I can't afford my trips it's just I would like to stay longer or take 2 trips per year instead of one. Spread my $$ a little further. 👍

This, That and the Other Thing

Today was a day of getting things done around the house. It's cold and gloomy outside and I just didn't feel like walking/running in the woods. Brrrrrrrrr! Yes, I'm doing some trail running. I've only fallen once! And it didn't hurt too bad! Damn tree root!

Among my other trail injuries is a Harry Potter lightning bolt shaped scratch on my forehead from pushing into a thicket to get some a--hole's empty water bottle. I HATE litterers! As soon as Kazi saw it she asked (sensitively-HAH!) "how'd ya get the Harry Potter forehead?" I also have another scrape and bruise on my forehead from bending over to clean out the kittys' litter boxes and I whacked my head on the laundry tub!

So I have to stay home til I get healed up - I'm not allowed out in public!

So here's what I accomplished today (so far...):

• made oat scones
• made granola

I think I should be called Oaty McOatface!! Hahahahahaha! Click HERE if you're not sure of my reference :)

I think I hit my head too hard!

Carrying on...

• I finished my first infinity scarf - now that summer's on its way..... 

•  the cats got into a hissy fit over the cat beds so I had to separate them. For some reason they both prefer the FIRST bed I bought and neither wants to use the other two for Pete's sake! So Lily "volunteered" to use one of the newer beds and of course I had to take cute pet photos :)

Lilypad

Luna- the big fat balloona!

Maybe it's because Luna needs two!!

• a piece of paint got chipped off my LOVE decor item so I mixed up some green and blue acrylic paints and touched it up!  

• I worked on  couple other things in the workshop - the piece below fell and got chipped so I had to smooth that out plus I'm flattening the top (it was rounded) so that it can hold a beautiful rock once it's polished. 

•  I worked on another small piece and have the final shape figured out - it's going to be a shadow box carving. (I didn't feel like polishing today.

•  I went around the entire house to find the perfect spot for this little art piece below - it's one of my Talize $1.99 finds when my seester and I went thrifting - I haven't shown you ANY of the great stuff I got - that's another post I guess. I hope I can remember what I bought! I fell in love with this - the frame is great and the silver/silver-plated/steel??? work is so intricate and far eastern-ish. 

 Here's a closer look:

Isn't it great?
The photo below shows its new home.

So that's my day - it was pretty productive. Oh, and I also read for awhile. See, I get a lot done when I don't go outside!

Did you have a productive day? Any new injuries lately? 

Now for a beer!

Cheers!

A Girl's gotta Eat

Today I spent more at the grocery store than I have since Christmas! Reason being I needed to buy a whole whack of stuff for the trailer: TP, paper towels, kleenex, cleaning supplies etc etc ... So to reduce the blow to the food budget I used $50.00 of my PC points to bring the overall total down to about $70.00.  That wasn't so bad...I still have $109 left in the food budget and should only need to pick up fresh produce between now and the end of the month.

Today's produce includes: apples, bananas, grapefruit, lemons, pears, cauliflower, avocados, green peppers, green beans, green onions, jalapeno peppers and some luscious tomatoes...

Frozen food includes two pizzas on sale, frozen corn and a package of "french" fish that was 50% off. This is our junk food!

Other treats included Triscuits made from brown rice, chicken bacon, eggs and whole wheat English muffins. On a whim I bought English muffins for an Easter breakfast (toasted muffin, slice of cheese, fried egg, chicken bacon and a slice of tomato). We're hooked!!

The dairy section includes mozzarella cheese strings which I take hiking for a quick burst of protein (reduced 60%), ginormous cheese blocks (800g compared to the usual 500g) at a reduced price so I grabbed two - won't need cheese for about 3-4 months! First pound of butter I've bought since Christmas baking and some half and half for my coffee. Just can't drink it black.

*see the pink heart-shaped thingies attached to my kitchen tile? They're sticky notes with generic reminders - I just put the applicable one on the counter to remind Kazi to do something..."clean the kitty litter", "tsf $$", etc, plus a few love notes for good measure!

Supplies for the trailer include: kleenex, paper towels, TP, garbage bags, Lysol wipes, dish soap, Windex spray, swiffer dusters but the no name version and shampoo, deoderant plus an extra shampoo for the trailer. And...two boxes of Kashi granola bars....

 ...in two yummy flavours...

And there you have it - $120 worth of groceries for $70.00.  After grocery shopping I spent the rest of the afternoon scouring the house for trailer stuff: sheets, blankets, throws, pillows, towels, tea towels and cleaning cloths, rake, broom, dishes, coffee maker, electric kettle, frying pans, lawn chairs and so on. I had a lot of stuff that I brought home from out east (and there is another truck load I need to pick up from one of my sister's barns in PEI). I will clean and arrange stuff tomorrow and make a list of what I'll still need. It shouldn't be too long of a list hopefully.

My daughter is going to be REALLY happy to find out I'm not bothering with a TV or cable. Or internet for that matter. She'll still have her phone:) She needs to rediscover books. She was raised as a reader and read the 7 Harry Potter books at least 10 times each but that has spoiled her for all other literature - she just can't find anything else to compare. Perhaps she can read them this summer for the 11th time! I have a library card for the local library and we can borrow movies. For me the trailer is just a place to sleep - the real action is on the beach and around the fire pit.

S'mores anyone?