New Clothes

I've gone a bit mad buying some new clothes from Marks & Spencer in their sale and some more clothes from eBay. 

I have bought two t shirts at £6 each. One in white as it goes with anything and one in sapphire blue because this will look great with a patterned blue linen skirt that I have for my holidays.

A maxi dress because you can never have too many and this was reduced from £45 to £27.

A kimono top for wearing over t shirts and vests and it will look fab with skinny jeans. This was £10 reduced from £22.50.

A pair of loose swing shorts in navy reduced from £22.50 to £14. This price stung me a bit but it is tricksy finding plus size shorts that are not too short, too long, too fitted or look like they are made for a bloke. These are perfect for me - slightly feminine in the cut and a dark colour

All of these will probably end up in my suitcase for my holidays to Turkey - Kalkan again, in September.

My purchases from eBay are more for wearing at home and work.

Cheeky animal print Mac for £20. I bought this at a buy it now price rather than bidding as I loved it on sight. Great for late summer and wearing into autumn.

Wrap dress for £4.29 and I've already worn this to work with red flats and red cardigan - it looked casual but still smart enough for work.

Loose tunic top for £6.66. This will look good worn over an ivory camisole and with black slim fit trousers for work or a casual night out.

I will try to refrain from any more purchases for some time unless I see a bargain on a Carboot sale that I can't resist.

Northern Belle

David and I have been lucky to have had a number of days out on the Northern Belle train which is the sister train of the Orient Express. We have visited Edinburgh twice and also London. There is nothing to beat the luxury and service on the train and our days out have been some of the most lovely experiences we have had.

We went in June 2012 to London on the Alnwick Carriage and this was our second time travelling on the Northern Belle. We could not fault the experience and they really think about small touches for their customers as there was a card on our table saying "welcome back" which was very thoughtful.

We love the whole ambience and the journey is part of the adventure rather than the adventure starting when you get to your destination. The service is excellent with friendly, helpful and pleasant staff who cannot do enough for you.

Brunch was a peach Bellini (or two), fresh fruit cocktail, smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and caviar on a toasted crumpet, with Danish pastries, buttered fruit loaf served with jams and all washed down with piping hot tea and coffee.

We had a fantastic trip on the London Eye and a River Thames cruise included in the price along with  a guided coach tour of London from Kensington Olympia station to the South Bank with some free time to do your own thing. The return trip on the coach followed a different route for more of the London guided tour.

Our return trip was excellent with champagne on ice waiting for us at the table. We had roasted red pepper soup with speciality breads followed by Aberdeen Angus steak, a brilliant cheese board and then chocolate fondant with ice cream.  We are usually a bit tipsy by the end of the journey.

We have not been since 2013 so I think we may need to look at another adventure on the train soon.

Car Boot Finds

When I was driving home from the car boot sale today I felt that I had not bought much and that it had not been a good day for finding bargains. It was only when I was unpacking bag after bag when I got home that I realised that I had found quite a few good items today.

Soap & Glory? I said I was not buying any more until I found this £18 gift set for £5 and then these two full sized products of "clean on me" shower gel and "glow lotion" body lotion for 50p each and then this travel sized shower gel for 10p. Clearly I failed on not buying any more.

I bought two new tubes of Donna Karan Cashmere Mist shower gel and body lotion from the same guy for 50p each - great for taking on holiday as they just last 2 weeks exactly. The guy threw in 7 sample sachets of L'Occitane products for free. They are hair masks, hair conditioner, body lotion and face cream.

The lady who I bought the Roc face serum was on again this week so I bought this bottle of Roc skin toner from her for £1. It is priced up as £12.50. I also found some Aromatherapy Associates anti-ageing instant skin firming serum for £2. I ummed and ahhed about this as I bought 5 bottles of serum last week. I'm glad I bought it as it is normally £46!

I also bought lots of items for 10p each from one lady. Clinique DDM face cream, two OPI nail varnishes for my niece. 10 aftershave and perfume samples which have a spray pump on them. These are great for taking away when we go on holiday as they keep the weight down in your luggage rather than taking a large size bottle of perfume or aftershave. I also bought a box of 24 sample sized perfumes from one lady for £1. I will take some of these on holiday with me later this year.

I bought this gorgeous Tom Ford eye shadow quad for £3. It has been lightly used and I normally only buy new and unused but these usually sell for £64 when new so I could not resist this. The lady selling this had lots of beautiful and expensive items that she was selling very cheaply. I also bought a New York map cushion cover from her and a T Shirt for David for £1 each.

This cute beauticology gift set containing fluffy socks and foot creams was £1 and will be going in my gift box for someone at Christmas as will this new Suzy Smith purse for £1.

One lady had clearly had some business that she was winding up and she was selling off lots of new items which had originally had some high prices on them. I bought these gorgeous tea towels for £1 each (£6 price tickets on them) and two boxes of chocolates for £1 each (£6.50 price ticket on them & best before 31.12.15)

A box of mixed bath bombs cost me 50p and I bought a little set which contained a bomb cosmetics bath melt and a Yankee Candle votive for £1. It is pineapple cilantro scent which I have not seen before.

My usual DVD obsession was satisfied with 10 single DVDs ranging in price from 20p to £1.50 each.

Finally I bought 9 newish magazines from July, June 2015 going backwards in date for £2.50. Five of them are Jamie Oliver magazines and these cost £3.99 each which I think is scandalous for a magazine as a book doesn't cost much more. 

David bought Lee Cooper suede shoes for £2 and vinyl as usual along with an LP case (£1) and new mini discs. Blokes things.

More Carboot Bargains

I am weary and my feet hurt. We spent 4 1/2 hours at the Cheshire Carboot sale this morning and did not get home until 1pm after arriving there at 7.40am. We look at as being our exercise for the day; walking, bending down to look at items on the floor; stretching to reach items at the back of stalls and lifting weights which is carrying all the items we have bought. 

I have a peculiar selection of items today. I bought 3 brand new Jamie Oliver cookbooks for £2.50 for the three. They are The Naked Chef, The Return of the Naked Chef and Happy Days with the Naked Chef. Each one is priced at £15.99 each. They are softback rather than hardback books but are the size of a hardback book. I will keep these to hand in the kitchen and work my way through some of the recipes.

I was running out of facial serum and was delighted to find one lady who was selling Roc and Aveeno products at very cheap prices. She had new and boxed bottles of wrinkle correction serum for £1 so I stocked up and bought 5 bottles which hopefully will keep me going to the end of the year as I use around about a bottle a month. I have seen these for sale on eBay for £5 plus around £3 p&p so I am happy at £1 each.

I cleared one lady of all her travel sized tubes of  Corsodyl toothpaste (20ml) at 10p each. I bought 24 tubes as I use this toothpaste everyday and it can be quite expensive so I can use these on holidays and weekends away as everyday use. I also found two tubes of L'Occitane hand cream for 50p each. They are not massive tubes, just 15ml each but I love L'Occitane products and these were different scents - cherry blossom and honey & lemon.

I paid £3 for this fantastic Wella gift set which is priced at £14.99. It contains a bottle of enriching shampoo, jar of enriching conditioner and leave-in serum to use before blow drying.

I bought quite a few DVDs as they were so cheap that I could not resist. I bought the boxed set (in immaculate condition) of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. All 11 series containing 61 episodes for £2. We always say "ask the price" because we have assumed before now that something will be expensive and then someone else asks and you realise it is ridiculously cheap and you have missed out. I walked passed this and thought it would be around £15 but then went back and asked and when I found it was £2 I just had to have it.

I also bought the boxed set of Life on Mars Series 1 and the boxed set of Phoenix Nights starring Peter Kay both of which cost 50p each. I also bought the boxed set of series 1 of Homeland for 33p. It was part of a 3 DVDs for £1 deal. I bought the boxed sets of Primeval 1 and 2 for 50p each and a few other DVDs at either 33p or 50p each.

I bought 14 Dr Who DVDs for £4 from one man who was selling everything off towards the end of the Carboot sale for 50p. Each DVD contains about three episodes so this should keep me out of mischief for a while. He reduced the price of the DVDs from 50p each to 3 for £1 and then said take all 14 for £4.

From the same guy I bought this new and boxed candle holder. It stands tall at 35cm and I think will be great at Christmas with a plain white candle in it. For 50p it was a bargain. He said that whatever he did not sell was going to the tip so we had a bit more of a look around his stall and spotted an Axio backpack which was also 50p. It has been gently used with no scuffs or tears and he told us it had cost him £140. We looked on eBay and found a similar smaller one for sale at £99 so 50p is unbelievable.

I found this cute Harrods Christmas decoration which was new with labels for 50p and a lovely black necklace for £1.

I also bought this new jar of Williamson Tea in green tea blend for £2. This should have cost £9.50 and is best before 31.12.2017 so 18 months away. I love these elephant caddies and already have one that I bought at the Cheshire Carboot sale last year. I may build up a collection of these for inside my pantry as I love to open the door and look at neatly lined up storage jars or tins.

Finally I bought three magazines for £1. These are two copies of Cheshire Life - June and July 2015 and House Beautiful - July 2015.

David bought a Panasonic video recorder for £5 as we still use videos and I had read an article last week that they will go the same way as record players and vinyl and become more expensive. I had a look on eBay and sure enough they are selling for £25 upwards. This came without a remote control but we have lots of Panasonic remote controllers as we have lots of Panasonic items. The remote controllers all work with any Panasonic item as we found out early days so we usually just buy Panasonic. He also bought some vinyl and plenty of CDs.

What bargains did you find this week?