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Sunday 26 April 2015

A Sunny Carboot Sale

The weather has been so beautiful this week that I hoped it would last until the weekend so that we would have a good day today for carbooting. Luckily the weather has been fantastic this morning so we headed to our favourite car boot sale in Cheshire. Sadly the weather forecast all week has been for rain for today so there were not as many stalls as we would have liked.

Even so we came back with full bags of bargains for ourselves and our family. My first purchase was a huge box of sample tubes of Oral B toothpaste. There are 50 tubes in the box and they cost £4 which is less than 10p a tube. These are great for holidays and weekends away and we always have two tubes in our overnight bags. My Dad was asking for some when he saw we had them when we were all in Tenerife so I will give him some for taking away on his holidays.




I bought 6 tubes of Phil Smith shampoo and conditioner. These cost 50p each and I gather usually cost £3.50 in Sainsburys. My sister is a brunette so two tubes are for her and two for me as I have blonde hair. The other two are for added shine which I need as my hair looks a little dull at present.





I found this lovely Soap & Glory toiletry bag which is huge and is new and unused. This cost the grand total of 20p and I will be filling this with the Soap & Glory toiletries that I usually buy throughout the year. I have already made a head start and bought some already. By the time Christmas comes I will have filled this for a bargain price and will give this to my sister. I bought the very same style of bag last year and gave it to my niece (filled by myself) for Christmas. My sister loved the style so I am sure will be delighted with this one.






I bought 6 pairs of Pretty Polly ankle socks for my niece. They are Hello Kitty ones and even though she is eighteen I know she will love these. They cost £2 for all six pairs and there are 4 different designs.




I bought three fairly recently released DVDs at 50p each. I have watched the Woman in Black film already and thought it was brilliant. It scared me so much the hairs stood up on my arms and nothing beats being a little bit scared for the thrill. I also bought the entire Inspector Morse boxed set with all 33 feature length episodes on it for £8. I have some of the boxed set episodes already but am missing many of them so thought that I would get this at £8 as they cost around £35 on eBay.






I found a bottle of Boots No7 skin toner for £1 and this was good timing as I am just coming to the end of my current bottle. This normally costs £9.50 so I was pleased to find it.



I also bought a great pair of Marks & Spencer shorts for my Dad for 50p and a blue knitted cotton tank top also for 50p from the same family. David bought some lovely suede Marks & Spencer slippers from the same stall for £1. They were fairly new and still had the labels on. He is wearing them now!

Lastly I bought 4 slate coasters for £1 and some kitchen tongs for 20p from one couple who had clearly been sorting out their kitchen as their whole stall was full of kitchenware.

We are away for the weekend next weekend as it is the bank holiday. We are going to North Wales and already have planned to visit two different Carboot sales on the Saturday and Sunday. I'll tell you all about it next week. 

Sunday 19 April 2015

Cheshire Carboot Sale

After returning from our sneaky week holiday to Adeje on Friday I spent most of yesterday catching up with chores, emptying my suitcase and washing holiday clothes. The weather was so sunny yesterday that it still felt like I was still away apart from the temperature being a lot colder.

Well today we were pleased that the weather stayed dry again so that we could go to the Cheshire car boot sale and that there would be a reasonable turnout. We thought we had not bought that much when we were there, but when we got home and unloaded all the bags we realised we had bought more than we thought.

I found these gorgeous leather plate chargers for £2.50 for eight of them. They are a very large size which is perfect for my large white dinner plates. I think they will make a lovely change from having rectangular placemats of the table and I like the fact that they are a lovely shade of chestnut brown.




I bought numerous books and DVDs at 50p each. Two hardback Kirstie Allsopp books - Kirstie's Homemade Home and Craft. I loved watching both of the series on TV so thought these would be great to have a flick through or good read of when I have some spare time. From the same stall holders I bought a Travel Journal and photo album. Both of these had come from Paperchase and are new with £5.75 and £7.50 price tickets on them. I am going to arrange getting some of our holiday photos printed aand put them in the photo album as a gift for my Dad. The travel journal is a new one for me but I have always hankered to write about my holidays while I am away rather than after the event so I think this darling little book will be travelling some miles with me later this year when we have a couple more holidays. 







I found a very handsome empty bottle of Hennessy Paradis rare cognac. This cognac sells at around £500 so I thought 98p for the empty bottle was good. I will decant our much cheaper bottles of brandy into this bottle and use it as a decanter. It has the most lovely metal engraved top. I wouldn't lie to guests so that they thought I was giving them the Paradis cognac, I would tell them it was Remy Martin or Courvoisier or whatever is in the bottle, but I just think the bottle just looks so good.




I bought some cute glass olive cocktail picks that are new and originally come from The Pier. I used to love this shop but it has been a victim of the recession and all it's stores closed. I miss them so was happy to find these cuties. They have the original price of £3.95 on the box but cost me 50p along with this lovely smelling candle which was also 50p from the same stall.





A couple of other bits and pieces that I bought were two Marks & Spencer skirts for my sister for on her holidays for 50p each and the Nivea gift set for £1.50. The Jamie Oliver Recipe tin is new and complete and also cost 50p. Also, a selection of 8 magazines for 20p each.





Finally I bought a Jameson Irish Whiskey set for my brother in law for Christmas (yes I do buy Christmas gifts this early and throughout the year) this consists of 6 hot toddy glasses and a tin of hot toddy mulling spices which are contained in teabag type bags. The set was £8 and again is new and all boxed up.

David bought some navy deck shoes at £2, CDs at 50p and an inspection lamp for £1 so it was fairly slim pickings for him this week.

Well why would you buy full price items when you can buy things so cheaply on carboot sale? Tell me about you car boot bargains as I would love to hear about them.

Saturday 18 April 2015

Holiday in Adeje

Hello again and sorry that I have not posted for over a week. This is because I have been on holiday to Adeje, Tenerife with extended family and a very extended family it was - 14 of us in total. Some family were there for two weeks while others like myself, partner David and my Dad, just a week. 

We had a brilliant holiday staying at The Sunset Bay Club which is ideally located for all the shops, restaurants and bars. The Club itself was just lovely with two swimming pools one of which was heated with an outdoor heated jacuzzi. We had a two bedroomed apartment which had two single beds in one room and a double in another. We shared the apartment with my Dad and nephew. There was a great fitted kitchen and open plan lounge and dining area. The patio we had was huge with large table, chairs, sun loungers and umbrella.




 My sister has already booked for the same two weeks next year and I think we will be joining her and her family again but this time we will go for longer than a week as we enjoyed ourselves so much. We spent a few days by the pool, wandering around the resort down to the harbour and past the beach.







We went to Los Gigantes one day and chartered a yacht to go dolphin and whale watching. We saw several pods of them and it was just fantastic seeing these creatures in their natural habitat rather than captive. We went swimming in the sea just below the soaring cliffs afterwards and then had a few tapas and drinks afterwards on the way back to the harbour. It was a long but great day and some were nodding off on the way back to Adeje.  




We had some great nights out with some lovely food at different restaurants in the town. Many had live bands playing so we enjoyed the different types of music that they were playing while having a few drinks some evenings. 

I feel so much more relaxed after a week in the sun after such a busy time over the last few weeks at work. I really need to have a break every now and then to recharge my batteries and afterwards I find that I have renewed zest for my life back home.

What is great today is that we got home Friday evening and I now have the weekend to catch up. David works on a Saturday so he is at work today which means I have the day to myself... Bliss. The sun is shining, the washing is on the line and I have tomorrow to go to the Cheshire car boot sale too. 

Monday 6 April 2015

Today's Carboot Sale

The weather was chilly and foggy again today but not raining so we went to the Cheshire carboot sale again. It is always only about a third of the size at this time of year so we are usually finished within two hours maximum. At the height of the summer we can be there for five hours believes it or not. We see this as exercise as walking a couple of miles around a field must be good exercise for us and cheaper than a gym membership. 

Today a bought quite a few magazines as they were 10p and 20p each and were dated from April 2015 backwards to January 2014. I bought Country Living, Country Homes, House Beautiful, Style at Home, OK and Hello (known as Ay Up in our house - a nod to our Lancashire ancestors). I bought 20 in total which cost me £3 which is less than the full price of one of the magazines.  I found a number of DVDs again and bought 6 from one couple as they were 3 for £1.




I bought a net bag of  6 Boots No7 nail varnishes for £1. These were all new and 4ml size each. The standard size is 10ml and these cost £6 each from Boots so I thought this was a bargain price. There are some lovely colours with one metallic fustian colour. I will put these away for my niece as a stocking filler gift for either her birthday or Christmas.



I also found a lovely gift box which contained 10 sample and travel size toiletries for a young man. This was an unwanted gift and was wrapped in ribbon and tissue and at £2.50 is a good price. It contains Yves Saint Laurant Homme after shave balm, Murad face mask, 4711 cologne, Crabtree & Evelyn shampoo aswell as facial cleanser, moisturiser, calming aftershave balm etc.

I always have a Swiss Army style key ring on my everyday bunch of keys. This has come in handy so many times for all kinds of occasions because it has scissors, tweeters, a knife, emery board and screw driver on it. The one I have has seen better days as I have had it for too many years than I can remember. Today I found a Wenger one which is the same but better in that it has a set of nail clippers in it. This came complete with box and was just £3. These are currently £21.49 on Amazon.



I bought a travel hold-all that had come from Marks & Spencer and is a similar design to this one here. This had the keys and padlock with it and is a decent size for a weekend away. This was £3 and I think looks very classic.

I bought two large striped cushion covers from the same couple that I bought the travel bag from . These are a really happy stipe design and originally come from IKEA so not bad for £1 each. I also got the hardback book of Jamie's 30  minute meals for £1.

Well that was my haul for today. It sometimes suprises me how much some people want for their items. One man wanted £10 for a box of Yankee Candle tealights and a tube of Soap & Glory hand cream. This was only £2 cheaper than buying them new in the shops. I just politely say no thank you and walk on when this is the case but I would suspect he would be taking most of stuff home with him at the prices he was asking. When I have had a carboot stall I realised that you have to sell items cheap to let them go to somewhere else where they will be used.

David bought CDs, DVDs, some technical bits be pieces for wiring up some speakers for the ones we have in our lounge, a guitar strap and some shelving. The shelving was his bargain of the day at £1. The most he spent on one item was £2.50 for an LP.  He got a great DKNY t shirt for £1.50. He is delighted with his bargains.