Saturday at The Lowry

We are blessed to live not too far away from The Lowry. We love visiting the theatre and often spend an evening seeing shows or bands at The Lowry. It is based on Salford Quays and there is also a really good outlet shopping centre there with plenty of shops, a cinema plus bars and restaurants.

We visited on Saturday and had a packed late afternoon and evening. We went to the Marks and Spencer's store first and they had a pretty good clearance sale on. I was pleased to find this jersey dress for just £9. The length of some dresses can cause me some difficulty as I am tall so often knee length means above the knee and bordering on mini on me. This dress is just the perfect on the knee length. I love the navy pattern and think it will be great as a work outfit with a navy jacket and heels. It would equally be lovely to wear on holiday with sandals on a warm evening when going out for a meal and a few drinks. It will make a change from maxi dresses.

I also bought some dark navy pull-on jeggings for £6 which are a decent length on me. I usually buy M&S trousers in "long" but this can be a bit hit and miss with some fitting perfectly but with others being a bit too long and I end up with trousers dragging on the floor or with wrinkled ankles. These are "medium" and just sit perfectly on my ankle. I tried on some lounge pants also in "medium" length and fell about laughing in the changing room as they were half way up my calves.

My dad needed some shorts as the one's he has been wearing for the last couple of years had become too tight on him so he gave them to my nephew while we were all on holiday in Tenerife earlier this year. He was sad that they no longer fitted and I managed to find him a pair for just £6 in his size.

After some shopping we went to Cafe Rouge for a meal and to use the £20 voucher I had with Tesco clubcard vouchers. I have heard mixed reports about Cafe Rouge but whenever we have been we have had a lovely meal with efficient and friendly service. We usually keep it simple and we both ordered the steak and frites, bottle of house wine and shared the cheese plate for dessert between us both. All were excellent with the cheese plate in particular being a fabulous dish served with candied figs and celery sticks.

We then went to the theatre to watch Wicked. What a great show this is with drama, romance, comedy and friendship running through it. It was fantastic to watch with wonderful costumes, great acting and brilliant songs. I would recommend anyone to see this as it appeals to all ages and the children in the theatre looked mesmerised.

It was gone 11pm when we got home so it was straight to bed as we knew we would have an early start in the morning for our favourite carboot sale in Cheshire.

What shows have you enjoyed seeing?

A Wet Carboot Sale

It has been raining this morning and a lot. Short heavy downpours followed by steamy humid spells of sunshine. Not the best weather to go carbooting in but we are resilient carbooters and we were at the Cheshire carboot sale for 3 hours and came home with a real mixed bag of items.

I bought two toiletry sets for my nephew and niece. They are both new and cost me £4 for the pair. The first set is a Ted Baker gift set which contains two full sized products of hair & body wash and body spray. This had the Boots £8 price tag still attached but I paid £1. The second is a very cute Soap & Glory gift set which contains 6 travel sizes and a shower puff in a darling travel bag for £3. I guess this would have cost around £15. Both of these will be put away for Christmas gifts for my lovely nephew and niece.

I also struck lucky on two other full sized tubes of Soap & Glory products. Both of these were 50p and the face soap is normally £8 (although it has been on offer at £6.40) and the Pulp Friction body scrub is also £8. Why pay £16 when I can get them both for £1?  These will also be tucked away for Christmas presents for my sister and niece. I have bought quite a few Soap & Glory items over the last few weeks so think I will stop now as I have enough to fill the bags I bought to make up my own gift sets. 

I am a sucker for a sparkly eyeshadow. I saw 4 brand new Revlon diamond lust eye shadows on one girl's stall and wanted them all but at £1 each I was struck with a mean streak and decided to buy just two. I plumped for a dark grey sparkle called Night Sky. It has multi-coloured flecks in it and will look great with a dark eyeliner and black mascara. The second one is a divine deep purple called Plum Galaxy and has flecks of pink and deep blue sparkle. These are around £3.50 - £4 on eBay so maybe I should have not been so mean with myself and bought the other two which were a chocolate shimmery shade and a twinkly silver shade. I have bouts of meanness on carboot sales over 50p or £1 which is totally irrational.

One lady was selling Institut Karite products so I bought a boxed tube of the rejuvenating hand cream for £1 and three bars of soap for £1 for all three. What a bargain! The soaps are scented Honeysuckle, Almond & Honey and Local (French) Lavender. I wish I had bought more from her at this price so hope that maybe she will be there again next week.

I bought a boxed set of three tubes of hand cream from Marks & Spencer for £1.50. These are a nice size for having in the car. I sit in traffic most days on the way to and from work so usually put on some hand cream while sitting in the traffic jam. I also bought this small travel sized gift set for 10p.

I found a Yankee Candle votive candle in White Linen & Lace scent for 30p on one stall which is a good price considering they normally cost £1.80.

I bought a new boxed set of Bohemia lead crystal glasses for £15. I have these glasses already and initially paid £55 for a boxed set of 6 red wine glasses. I had other sets bought for me as presents from family and have a full set of all styles of glasses but they do get chipped or broken so if I find them at a reasonable price I buy them to use as spares. I have previously paid £5 for a set of 5 red wine glasses and £3 for 6 white wine glasses on the Cheshire car boot sale that match my set. It is called Bolero.

Finally I bought a mixture off DVDs ranging in price from 50p for the The Great Gatsby and Toast (based on the memoirs of one of my favourite cooks - Nigel Slater, to £2 for a new sealed copy of Man of Steel. I got a boxed set of a series called Jericho for £1 and the seller threw in series 2 for free because it is missing a disc. This will last me a week. Remember Game of Thrones series 1 & 2 that I bought last Sunday. I've watched it already - it was addictive.

David bought lots of man things. A large Samsonite briefcase to store his documents in for £2 and beautiful Henri Lloyd wool coat for £6. CDs and LPs also featured as did a huge sports bag for £3.

Well that's it for this weeks carboot update. How did you do are your carboot sales?

Small Carboot Haul

The other Sunday we went to the Cheshire carboot sale after missing two weeks of sales while on holiday. It was a small sale for this time of year and fairly quiet on both the sellers and buyers front. I did manage to get a small haul of  bargain finds and am very pleased with a couple of items that I found. The most I spent on any one item was £2 which was for a Clinique Chubby Stick Lipstick. These usually cost £17 so £2 is a good price. The seller had three bowls of Clinique make-up and skin care items all at £2. I have lots already but could not resist the chubby stick as they are so great to use.

I found a Soap and Glory gift set similar to the one in the link but containing a shower puff aswell. The gift set is around £10 and the shower puff £3.50 so the set would have cost about £13.50 to buy although it would have been cheaper on a 3 for 2 offer. I paid just £1. There are often new gift sets for sale for 50p upwards and I always puzzle as to why people sell them at such low prices or get rid of them at all. I asked one lady who I bought a Lush gift set from as to why she was selling it and she just said she did not like it so I suppose that is probably the answer. So this set will go in the gift bags that I have for my sister and niece for Christmas. I also found a cute Soap and Glory toiletry bag for just 50p which was new and unused. I will put some of the travel size products in this for my sister.

I love L'Occitane products and my favourite scent is their Verbena range. I saw a bar of verbena soap in the standard leaf shape that L'Occitane use and then noticed it was standing on a matching ceramic leaf shaped soap dish. I thought this may cost a few pounds but when I asked how much I found it was £1. Sold!

I bought a box of Laura Ashley candles for £1. These are just too cute to use as they are shaped like cupcakes. The other week I had found a similar Laura Ashley candle set which I posted about here and these had also cost £1. I think I will use these together on a tiered cake stand on our dining table when we have friends over for dinner. I think they will make a great centrepiece for the table.

It seems to be pretty standard at the moment that I will find a selection of magazines and DVDs each time I visit a carboot sale. I bought 30 magazines for 10p each. They are mainly Gardeners World mags and as I need to spend some time and effort on the garden so thought these would give me some much needed inspiration. There were also a few Sainsbury's mags for cooking inspiration.

The DVDs are my usual eclectic mix and ranged in price from 3 for £1, 50p and £1 each. I am now getting to the stage of having too many DVDs and think some now need selling on, giving to charity or seeing if family members want any.

I also bought this cute Christmas cookbook and love that the pages are scalloped rather than straight. It is full of pretty foodie gift ideas rather than how to cook a turkey and I love it. I will try my best to dig it out in November and start planning foodie gifts for the family for Christmas. So much better to receive a homemade gift made with love than a mass produced gift.

What did you find at your carboot sales?

Cheshire Carboot Sale Success

After not sleeping very well on Saturday night because of the heat, it was hard work getting out of bed early to go to the Cheshire carboot sale on Sunday morning. We were later than usual so took our breakfast "to go" for when we got there. I am so pleased that we made the effort as I found a few items that I am really pleased with.

My first few purchases were two designer bags - a Lulu Guinness tote for £2 and a fabulous Louis Vuitton Monogramm Cheche 2010 bag for £18!. It is missing the luggage tag so I knocked the lady down from £20 to £18. This is what it should look like in Blue but mine is in pink and I love it!!. I think this will now be my casual bag for weekends over the rest of the summer. It is so beautifully made with such detail on every metal trim. No wonder Louis Vuitton goods are so expensive to buy new. I am not sure whether this is fake or original but if it is a fake then it is a very well made copy. I have bought a few original designer bags on this carboot sale before now. The lady also had a gorgeous Christian Dior bag in cream for £80. She was asking a lot more for this because it was leather but just not my colour so I passed on this.

I bought series 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones for £5 (I knocked her down from £6). The second series boxed set had a £22 price ticket on it so I think this is a good buy. So far the whole Game of Thrones phenomenon has passed me by but for £5 you have to go for it. I look forward to hours of viewing and becoming hooked in the next couple of weeks.

I bought 8 Golf magazines for my dad as he is a keen golfer and has been all his life. They are July 2015 going backwards to the end of 2014 and cost 25p each so I am sure my dad will be a happy man for £2. There were lots of home magazines for sale but I resisted as I must have bought around 60 over the last few weeks and these need reading first.

I found a new and boxed bottle of Soap & Glory Glow Lotion for £1. This would have sold for around £10 so not a bad price at £1. This will go in th Christmas gift box for my niece.

I bought a Yankee Candle Sampler  in Sweet Vanilla for 20p which is great considering they usually cost £1.75 or so. My regular readers will know how much I love Yankee Candle and thatI just can't resist buying them at a good price.

My final buy was a Jamie Oliver cook book - Jamie's Food Revolution for £1. I looked through the book first, checking out the recipes and would I be likely to use them? Yes. I looked at the pictures and checked the condition of the book and was it good? Yes. When I got it home I checked how much it should have cost $35. Dollars?...it is an American version so the quantities are in cups and spring onions are called scallions etc. Schoolgirl error! I have never been a slave to recipes so actually love the fact that it is an American version and has a novelty value for me.

Finally my sister called to say she had bought me a bundle of unopened books by one of my favourite authors M.C. Beaton. Eight new books for 50p. This was from a car boot sale near where she lives in Leeds. I was delighted.

How did you do at the carboot sales this week?

Saturday Evening in the Garden

The weather has been so warm over the last week that we have spent a lot of time in the garden. Nothing beats an evening sitting in the garden when it is warm and sunny. We sit drinking some chilled white wine, reading, listening to music and chatting. Every so often I have to get up and clear some leaves or weeds or dead head some flowers as I am one of those people who struggle to sit still unless I am on holiday where I have made an art out of sitting still.

We built our patio ourselves out of spare 3 by 2 flags given to us from my mum, dad, grandad and friend. These were collected over several months and the patio grew in size each time we were given some. We laid the patio in the spot that gets most of the sun and in particular the last of the sun at the end of the day. It happens to be at the back of the garden between the garage and greenhouse and under 3 huge trees that we are unable to touch as they have a preservation order on them. We have grown to love these trees and when looking up from our wooden seats it is mesmerising to see all the leaves against the blue sky.

I am pleased with my planted pots which I filled with a mixture of bedding plants bought for £1 a pack of 6 from the Cheshire car  boot sale earlier this year. They have burst into bloom over the last couple of weeks with the bursts of rain and sunshine that we have been having.

I love sitting on the patio and facing the back of our house and looking at the garden when I have just mown the lawn. Yesterday when my dad visited he gasped at the beauty of the white clover flowers covering the lawn. I had thought - ugh weeds yet he said the lawn looked beautiful in a carpet of white. I felt bad mowing the down after he had gone but a neat lawn settles my slight OCD compulsions. The smell of the clover was lovely as I was cutting the grass so I look forward to it growing again and I know it will be back in a fortnight. 

The sun is shining now but I think we are due for rain again this afternoon so I look forward to the next sunny evening this week to kick back with a G & T or chilled wine and a leisurely chat with David.