Postcards from Kalkan

I have not posted many blogs during October because I was on holiday for two weeks and came back to a very busy time at work. I suppose it is pay back time for being away for two weeks. So having just started to find my feet again I thought I would post details of my holiday in Kalkan, Turkey.

David and I have been visiting Kalkan and the nearby resort of Kas for around 18 years now. We adore the place and visit most years for one of our holidays. I can only recall one year when we did not visit because we fell back in love with Greece that particular year. 

We have stayed at a number of different hotels over the years and returned to some on a regular basis. We are currently enjoying staying at The Pirat Hotel which is right at the centre of the town over looking the harbour. We stayed here last year in June and visited again this October. The views from the rooms are just spectacular and my favourite time is sitting having a coffee first thing in the morning on the balcony and watching the sailing boats and yachts being prepared and leaving the harbour for a days sailing.

We also love to visit the beach clubs on the other side of the bay and we catch a free boat from the harbour to them. This year our favourite was The Mahal where we had peace and quiet, space and fantastic views across the bay towards the town. Lunch was just divine with ice cold beers and a shady spot looking out to sea. The Mahal was a little pricier than the other beach clubs but we worked out that for the cost of the sun beds, lunch and a couple of beers each that it had cost about £20 each for the day.

We also had a lovely day at The Palm Beach beach club where they have a great platform built over the sea with comfy sun beds overlooking the bay. They have a great cafe bar where we had some pretty tasty snacks at lunchtime.

We visited the market which is held every Thursday towards the top of the town (Kalkan lies on a hillside, so everything is up hill from the harbour). I bought 3 T shirts which cost me about £1.35 each. They are not fake designer tops, just normal T shirts. One is a vest style with some fancy detailing around the neck, the other a standard T shirt shape and the third is a strappy camisole style. The market moves to Kas the next day but the market is different there with much more fresh food and sometimes goats and hens for sale on the road down to the market.

This year we could not book our hotel on just a bed and breakfast basis with Jewel in the Crown holidays who we usually use. We could only book on a half board basis and as we have eaten at most of the restaurants in Kalkan we were happy to do this. The breakfasts have been brilliant when we have stayed before so we thought the evening meals would be equally good. There was plenty of choice and the food was filling but it lacked some finesse. It was tasty but just not a comparison to eating in a rooftop restaurant looking out towards the sea or in the hustle and bustle of the kebab shops in the middle of town.

We were lazy this holiday and only went on one visit to Kas by dolmus where we had a look around the shops, stopped for a drink in the harbour and later on at one of the beach clubs for a view out to sea. In the past we have visited Patara and Fethiye but having stayed near Fethiye last year we were not too bothered. We spent most days lying by the pool, visiting the beach clubs and having a wander around town shopping and having a light lunch.

The weather was fabulous with temperatures up to 34 degrees but towards the end of the holiday we had one day where the wind picked up and we watched the fork lightening head towards us from Kas. We decided to spend a couple of hours in our room while the storm passed and we watched a DVD, David always takes a small portable DVD player to plug into hotel TVs so that when we are feeling really lazy we can watch a film late at night or when the weather is not brilliant.

I am not sure whether we will return to Kalkan next year or not as we felt this time around that we could do with a change. We may feel differently next year when it comes to booking our holidays and it also depends on whether we can get a good price or deal. We had managed to save over £100 each on this holiday and sometimes we cannot resist a great deal. If I was having just one holiday a year then I would not keep returning to Kalkan but as we have a couple of holidays each year it is not a problem to return.

This Weeks Frugal Living

It is getting to that time of the year when I start to think about Christmas. It said on the radio on Friday (24th October) that this was the day that most people start to think about Christmas shopping. For those who read my blog, they will know that I have already bought most of my Christmas presents by now and this week I started to look at those gifts that are food and drink related.
I leave these until later in the year as food will have a best before or use by date. 

I received a 20% off reduction code from Thorntons this week as they are one of my favourite chocolatiers I had to look at their website. There I found a hamper that was on offer which is still available here. It has been reduced from £57 down to £24.99 and with an extra 20% off I paid just £20 for it. I bought two and only paid £1 delivery (if you spent more than £30). This arrived within 3 days of ordering as they always have a quick delivery service. Once you have ordered from them and provided your email address you will get regular emails with offers or reduction codes.

I was delighted with the items when they arrived as the earliest best before date was end of February and the latest was May 2015. There was a really good selection for presents and stocking fillers ranging from medium and small boxes of Continental chocolates to boxes of Special Toffee which is one of my sister's favourites.

Sainsburys  recently sent me a months worth of extra points vouchers for the Nectar Card. I have posted details on making the most of rewards cards on a previous posting which you can read here. I made sure that I did my shopping at Sainsburys as I was getting 800 extra points each visit. Every time I shopped there they gave me a money off voucher for next time so I got £6 off a £60 shop and £7 off a £70 shop etc. I also won some addition points in a point.a give away promotion. I now have over £60 on my nectar card so I will do my fresh food shopping at Sainsburys at Christmas.

I started clearing out the freezers in readiness for stocking up for Christmas and we enjoyed a lovely joint of beef last weekend. I cooked a traditional roast dinner which lasted us for three days. I cooked fresh vegetables every day to go with the beef. I had managed to buy large family packs of prepared vegetables from Marks & Spencer during the week at the reduced price of 45p each.

Yesterday I took out a tub of what I thought was a home made casserole or soup but once it had defrosted I took another look to find it was stewed rhubarb & ginger! I had planned for us to eat this as an evening meal one night this week so I will have to have a rethink. I pondered what to do with the rhubarb as David does not like it, so I bought a large tub of yogurt and will have the two together with some granola at lunch time. I save jam jars but only the Bonne Maman ones as I adore their shape and red & white gingham lids. I will put the rhubarb, yoghurt & granola mix in one of these to take to work for lunch next week.

We visited the Cheshire carboot sale again this morning but found it was fairly slim pickings with mainly traders there rather than genuine car boosters. However, David managed to buy 8 LPs (now called vinyl) at 50p each, a Reebok jacket at £2 and some CDs at 50p each.

I found this great Jamie Oliver's America cook book which is as new for £2. David is a lover of American food so I am sure I will be trying out some of the recipes over the next few weeks. The seller gave me this cute Clarins bag with some samples for free.

I bought a mixture of DVDs for £1 each with one being a box set of 3 films for £1. This should keep us happy over the next few weeks when we cannot find anything we like to watch in the evenings.I found a Louis Vuitton style make-up bag for £1. It is black patent leather style and matches a bag I bought a couple of months ago.

Finally I bought this Homer Simpson vhip flask and cups set for £3. This is a little stocking filler for my brother in law for Christmas.

Car Boot Sale Finds

We were lucky again last Sunday in that the weather was fine, dry and fairly warm for the beginning of Autumn. We reckon that we may have two more weekends left of car booting until the end of October if the weather stays as good as it has been over the last two Sunday's.

The problem with the end of the car booting season is that there is a dwindling amount of sellers as most people sell during the height of the summer when the weather is good and the days are long. I tend to find that instead of numerous rows of sellers who fill the whole field that there is maybe 4 or 5 rows which fill a third of the field. This means there is not as much choice or bargains to be had. There is also the issue that the mornings are dark so we are not leaving home until 7.30am and getting to the car boot at about 8am. We have normally been at the carboot sale for an hour at 8am in the middle of summer.

Having said all of the above, we still came home with some great purchases. David managed to get some better bargains than me this week as he found a fabulous Technics cassette player for £2 and a fantastic DJ album case for his vinyl collection for £3 along with numerous CDs for around 50p each. He also bought 5 brand new TDK minidiscs for £4. From that collection, I am sure you can guess that he is really into music.

I came home with a mixed bag of all sorts. I am a lover of tea as I suppose most British people are. These days I find that most of us use teabags, but last year I managed to find a great teapot that had a metal cage fitted inside it so that you can use loose tea and not have the problem of tea leaves in the bottom of your cup. I now often buy loose tea and find that you can get some interesting blends of loose tea compared to tea bags. I found this lovely tin of English Breakfast Tea from Williamson Tea and it is in their limited edition range in their Elephant Tea Caddy. This is called Pink Love in aid of the Breast Cancer Charity. These are actually tea bags rather than loose tea and cost £9.50. I paid £1 for this and the bags are best before 30th November 2016 so plenty of time to use them.

I try to take care of my hands and nails and have a manicure every three weeks with gel polish. I was pleased to find this cute tin of hand care products from Crabtree Evelyn which contained hand cream, hand saviour and nail & cuticle gel along with a manicure block. This cost just £2.

The other items that I bought were just DVDs for between 50p and £1. Some of these were boxed sets so will keep me occupied for a few weeks to come. I also found a brand new apron which had been bought from Past Times, which has now sadly disappeared from the high street along with so many other businesses. They used to have a shop at The Lowry outlet not too far from where I live and I used to get a few gifts from this shop for Christmas or birthdays. This had a printed ticket price of £12.50 but I paid just £1. I already have a lovely apron that I bought in France when visiting my mum so I will keep this in reserve until my current apron starts to look a bit too shabby. I used to think that wearing an apron was so old fashioned but for keeping your clothes clean when you are cooking or doing some messy cleaning jobs then they are indispensable.

Well I hope I can give an another update on bargains soon and hopefully tomorrow if the Cheshire car boot sale is still on.

End of the Car Booting Season

We came back from our holidays yesterday evening but we're up early this morning to visit the Cheshire car boot sale as we are coming to the end of the car boot season and not a moment is to be missed. I did quite well with a mixture of bargains today whereas David bought only two items. These were a RayBan sunglasses case for 50p and a Helly Hanson waterproof coat for £1.

I found a new copy of Jamie's Great Britain Cook Book for £2.50. The RRP for the book is £30 and I am a real sucker for recipe books especially when they are full of mouth watering pictures. I have quite a few of Jamie's books but not this one so I was pleased to find this one to add to my collection.

I will have a read of it over the next few nights and plan some meals using up what I already have the freezers as a start and buying any additional ingredients I need to complete the recipes.

It is my niece's birthday next month and I know she loves all things Soap and Glory so I was pleased to buy 4 items to add to the collection that I already have for her. A few weeks ago I bought a Soap & Glory toiletry bag and gift box for her and I am planning on filling these for her. I found a full size Body Scrub for 50p and then two travel size pots of Flake Away body scrub and The Righteous Butter body moisturiser. These were also 50p and finally I found a travel sized bottle of Girligo body mist for the same price. The travel sizes sell for around £2.50 and the Girligo body mist is £6.50 for 250ml so the 100ml travel size bottle I found was a good buy but not as a bargain as the full sized body scrub which is normally £7. I am sure she will be delighted with the selection I have found for her.

I bought three new T Shirts for my nephew for Christmas. He is 16 years old so just starting to get into fashion and certain labels but he does like jokey T Shirts so the ones I bought him have three different funky joke designs on them. They were only £1 each but are a really good quality so great as stocking fillers for him.

I like to use a hairdryer that has a brush attachment so that I can dry and style my hair at the same time. My hair is naturally wavy and of course I like it to be poker straight so spend money on straightening serums and hair straighteners. To try to help with the straightening I find using the brush attachment helps to dry it straight and frizz free so it was great to find a new and unused Nicky Clarke Hot Air Styler for £3. These sell for about £23 so it was a good price at £3. I already have one of these but I am sure it will come to the end of it's life at some time and instead of going out to buy one new I will have one ready and waiting in the wings to replace it.

I found a black and grey floral patterned parka coat for £3. This has been used but has been gently worn and looks in very good condition. It is from the Arcadia Group so I think has come from Evans. It is a plus size so I would put my money on It coming from Evans rather than one of the other Arcadia shops. I love the fact that it has this muted pattern on it and that it comes with a hood. Looking at the fashion magazines over the last few weeks I think parkas are in so a good buy all round. I know I am showing my age in finding a hood on a coat as a good thing but given that the weather in the UK can be so wet, a hood comes in handy when there is no umbrella to hand.

A few girly purchases included a cute little purse from Accessorize. This has never been used and has the words "Hello Sunshine" embroidered on the front along with some buttons and a bow. This is such a useful little purse for popping in an evening bag when you don't want to be carrying too much. I just love it to bits and thought 50p was a good price. I also found this gorgeous Miss Patisserie bath bomb for 50p. It is actually called a bath bake as it looks just like a cup cake complete with candle and sprinkles. It smells divine and as these normally retail for £4.50 I think was another good buy. I may use this as a stocking filler or I think I may keep this for myself!. Similar bath bakes can be bought on line here. I also found this lovely Emma Bridgewater hand cream trio for £1. Marks & Spencer are currently selling her range and I guess this would have probably cost about £10. The hand creams are three different scents; Love & Flowers, Black Iris and Tea & Oranges.

I also bought a number of DVDs for between 50p and £1 each and two pairs of trousers for my sister for £1 each. One pair is navy blue linen and I thought these would be great for her for the summer or for holidays. The other pair are black work trousers and are new. Both pairs were from Marks & Spencer so are a reasonable quality. We often look out for things for each other when we are out and about at car boot sales and it is great to suprise each other with little gifts.