Another Kalkan Holiday

I am writing this at the poolside of our lovely hotel in Kalkan in heavenly warm sunny weather. This may explain my lack of recent blogging so apologies to all my lovely readers. I will do a full write up when we are home but for now here are a few photographs from the last couple of days.

Our hotel is set on a quaint residential cobbled lane just above the harbour and one row back from the front over looking the sea. The Hotel Dionysia really is a warm and friendly place to stay. There is calmness surrounding it. No music blaring out at the pool, just peace and quiet. Lovely olive trees at one end of the pool where we have sat and drank chilled beers and ate tasty fresh salads. We have whiled away a few hours here chatting, laughing and enjoying each other's company. This often gets lost at home where we work long hours and sometimes only see each other when we are in the same bed!. Too many long days at work and after work drinks with work colleagues on both our parts has meant some days we have spoken at breakfast and then not until the next morning.

We have a room overlooking the bay and islands in the distance. The villa in front of us has a fantastic rooftop seating area that David and I have coveted. I think we may look at rental costs for this place for future holidays. 

I've already visited my favourite leather shop and eyed up some future purchases to make before the end of the holiday. Bsg has it's own factory and the quality is fantastic. They are more pricey than other shops but the leather is always a far superior quality.

Well it is time to cool off with a few laps of the pool, so I'll sign off for now. 

Weekend in Cleveleys

At this time of year my sister books for us to stay on the border of Cleveleys and Fleetwood so we can visit Blackpool Illuminations. She used to book this mainly for her children's enjoyment but these days they would rather stay at home with their friends and iPads nearby. It meant that there was just four of us staying in a caravan for 8 people. Myself and David and my sister and brother-in-law.

As is our habit we visited some charity shops on Saturday and I bought quite a colourful Roman Originals maxi dress for £8 from one shop. It is similar in style to the one in the link and originally cost £40 although reduced to £25. It is like new and for once a good length on me given that I am 5ft 10ins tall. Often maxi dresses float around mid calf or above the ankle on me so I was delighted to find a dress with a decent length for once. I also bought a set of 12 Partylite tea light in Peach Vanilla scent for £1.49. These normally cost around £10 or so.

As we have been to this caravan park before we know where the nearby carboot sales are. Sadly one of them was not on with a sign on the gate saying closed due to illness. There were two others to visit and so off we all went at 7.30am to see what bargains could be found. I bought another fantastic Jamie Oliver cookbook for just £2. This is like new, looks like it has never been used and has a £26 price ticket on it.

I found my usual selection of Soap & Glory products. I said I was not going to buy anymore but could not resist this boxed selection for £3 and the body spray for £2. The spray normally costs £6.50.

I love Bomb Cosmetics and saw this lovely soap in a "everything 20p" bowl. It is called Baby ur a Star and usually costs £2.49. It smells of baby talc and has the most sparkly iridescent glitter on the top of it. Just too cute for words.  I also got this Beauticology set at £1. I will use this as a little stocking filler for my niece or sister at Christmas.

I also bought this Boots No7 free gift set for 50p. It is a jewellery wrap with 5 products in it. A full size lip gloss (normally £9) in colour Smile. I like this so may use it straight away. There is also a khaki eye shadow, mini black mascara, cleansing lotion and mans eye cream. Not sure whether David would use this to be honest!!!

I got a couple of 50p items which were a fake Louis Vuitton style purse (stocker filler for my niece) which is unused and a cover for a bottle of sparkling wine. We use these a lot as they keep your wine cool once they have been taken out of the fridge.

On Sunday afternoon we drove into Blackpool and spent some time on the promenade eating ice cream and enjoying the sunshine. We watched the seagulls, spotted some old style trams slowly working their way up and down the front and then decided to wander around the shops.

Marks & Spencer is normally selling vastly reduced summer stock at this time of year. My sister bought two bikini bottoms for 99p each and I found a lovely pair of loafers reduced from £55 to £14.99. They are a classic style so I will put these away for next summer. My cat decided she wanted to be in on the photo. We called into TK Maxx and I bought a pair of winter boots. They are Lotus boots and they cost £40. Looking at the Lotus website I reckon they would have cost £70 to £80 new so I've paid around half price. These should be quite versatile boots as I can wear them with a trouser suit for work or with jeans and jeggings at weekends. I hope to get my money's worth out of them this winter.

We do not have anymore caravan weekends away booked for this year but I have my holiday to Turkey to look forward to in October. 

Carbooty Buys

Yippee for some sunny and warm weather even though we are officially in Autumn. We were up and out and at the Cheshire Carboot sale by 7.20am.

My first purchase was four Yankee Candle candles. I bought two large 22oz Christmas candles. The first is a lovely slightly minty fresh smell called Nostalgic Snow and the second is a spicy fruit smell called Vintage Berries. I paid £20 for the two. These normally retail at £21.99 each. I am going to use these myself at Christmas.

From the same stall I bought two smaller candles at 12oz in the simply home range. The smell of these is called Pantry Spice and they just smell yummy. The scent is like gingerbread but with a little sweet vanilla thrown in. I bought these as gifts but have decided I have to keep them. They were £3 each.

I bought three pairs of shoes from one lady. Two pairs of Footglove loafers and a pair of Nike thong flip flops. They were £8 for all three pairs. I slipped up with the loafers as I did not try them on and when I asked what size they were she told me size 8. I loved them, so bought them both and when I got them home I looked at the soles and found they were size 7.5 which is too small for me. They are both already listed on eBay at twice the price I paid so no loss there I suppose.

I bought a fabulous pair of Christian Louboutin Bianca shoes for £5. They are a tiny size 4 and the lady selling them said she had struggled wearing them as the heels were so high. I have bought these to sell on eBay and will list them in the next month ready for the run up to Christmas. I am sure I can make a little money on these. I've grown a little more confident after selling my Gucci Hightop trainers the other week. I do wonder whether these are fakes or not but the lady was selling other expensive items cheaply and I have bought Christian Louboutins before at this carboot sale for £4.

I found my usual selection of magazines and bought 8 for £2. A mixture of Homes & Gardens, Marie Claire and Ideal Home. You can't beat 10 minutes relaxing with a magazine.

I love Heyland & Whittle and found this lovely Labender gift set for £2. It contains a candle, soap and two bath melts. These usually sell for £20 on their website. I like the smell of lavender as it is calming but I realise not everyone likes it as it can be a little "old granny".

I managed to find two Clinique duo eye shadows at £1 each. The colours are Strawberry Fudge and Beached Plum. I go through so much eye shadow as I won't step into work without a full face of makeup and I just love powder eyeshadows. I use a Nars primer before using the eyeshadow and I never get any creasing or fading of the colour. These were £1 each which is great as they normally cost £22 each.

We got another Christmas card for 10p for David's brother and sister-in-law.

Bill Bryson book - one of my favourite authors. 40p. It is a light read as the book was written for charity. This should just last long enough for the 4.5 hour flight to Turkey later this month.

Three boxed sets at £2.50 for the Gangtser set and £1 each for Shackleton (still sealed & unopened) and Miami Vice (for David). I bought just 3 single DVDs today at 10p and 25p each.

I found two white tops that I loved - one cotton with white embroidery and white beads and another t shirt style. Sadly one fits in the body but is tight on the arms and the other fits on the arms but is tight on the body. As they were only 50p each I can cope with them not fitting, but I think they should fit soon if I carry on with my current rate of weight loss.

David bought some loft ladders £5, a video player £2, some vinyl cases for his LPs at 20p and £1. He got new swim shorts at 50p, Rayban sunglasses case at 20p, Eric Clapton autobiography for 10p etc etc.

A good time was had by both of us and we were walking around in the warm sunshine in the middle of the beautiful Cheshire countryside. Oh and talking of Cheshire, do any of you watch the series called Cheshire Housewives? Well we've seen Ampika on this carboot sale a couple of times over the last few weeks. She was buying, not selling. She certainly is attractive in real life and has an enviable figure. Good on her for being careful with her money. A girl after my own heart.

Magazine Freebies

I am a sucker for magazines but these days they cost so much at around £4 each. I have been buying magazines mainly from carboot sales this last couple of years. Usually I can get them just a month old and I am not bothered that someone else has read them first. Plus they cost around 20p to 50p each rather than £4 which means I can get a lot more bang for my buck.

Today I could not resist buying four new magazines which has been out of character for me. These were the excuses I gave myself:

• I had a £12 off a £60 shop at Sainsbury's which I guessed meant my magazines were free. 
• Three of the magazines had freebies with them
• If I bought two magazines I got £2 off the price
• Because I bought the smaller sized Marie Claire magazine it cost £2.50 instead of £3.99

The freebies I got were just fabulous. I got a full sized Neal's Yard body moisturiser called Bee Lovely with the Instyle magazine. This contains organic honey and orange essential oil. It is sealed but I know that once I open it that it will smell divine.

There was a black Organic Glam full sized mascara with the Red magazine worth £19.50 which is already in my make-up bag because my other mascara was just starting to dry up.

There was a choice of three Balance Me products with Marie Claire. There was a face wash, hand cream or face cream. I plumped for the face cream as it can be used day or night. 

I bought the Woman & Home magazine because it is one of my favourite magazines and it was in the "buy 2 save £2" offer. 

I flicked through the magazines without reading them to pull out the samples in them and found two L'oreal shampoos, a Body Shop facial oil, foundation and Givenchy perfume sachet. These have been popped into my weekend bag for using next weekend when we go away with family.

Not bad pickings and I still have the magazines to read.

Village Carboot Sales

Yesterday we visited two local Carboot sales just as the rain was ceasing. It was very wet first thing so the sellers must have been brave souls to set up in the rain. There were plenty of sellers who had brought gazebos with them to keep their items (and themselves) dry.

We first went to Dunham Massey Village Hall car boot sale where I bought a throw which is the same as one that I bought the other week, but this one is grey rather than cream. I used to like having matching throws on both settees but felt my lounge was a bit too "matchy" so I like the idea of having the same throw but in two different colours. This cost me £1.

I looked at a Tefal frying pan but noticed the handle was a little loose. The lady selling it said she wanted 20p for it. At this point David had caught up with me and said the bolt holding the handle just needed tightening so I bought it. It's like new and 20p is a bargain price. David has already fixed the handle which was a 2 minute job.

One stall was in aid of the local church fund. I bought this lovely new per una hot water bottle cover for 50p. This will replace one that has seen better days and needs throwing away.  I got this wine cooler which is made for sparkling bottles of wine which tend to be wider in shape than still wine. This cost 50p.

I also bought the DVD The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for £1. I wanted this when it first came out but rarely buy new DVDs because they cost £10 upwards. If I wait a couple of months someone will be selling it on a car boot sale. This cost me £1. I bought a selection of 3 DVDs for £1. I also bought three DVD boxed sets. The mixed set was 50p. The Riddick Collection was £1.50 and The Killing was £2.

My final purchase was a Yankee Candle votive called a Child's Wish for 20p. This is currently on sale at £1.80. It smells like softly scented flowers.

David bought a medium sized Samsonite suitcase that exactly matches our two large hard shell cases. This cost just £3 which is such a good price as it has been just gently used.

We then visited Timperley Cricket club where I bought this cute Marc Jacobs bag with different badges attached to it for 50p. People are selling them on eBay for £5 upwards. It is substantial in weight and has heavy duty handles so will be used for carrying shopping.

From the same lady I bought 16 Good Food & Delicious magazines at 20p each. Nothing beats a flick through a magazine while having a coffee and relaxing for 20 minutes or so. A little 'me' time is good for the soul.

I bought a couple of CDs for 20p each and then 3 airplane travel bags with prairie and L'Occitane products inside. All of them cost me £1. I am not bothered about the bags but wanted the products and the little brushes/combs as they are great for putting in a small clutch bags on a night out or travel bags for when we have a weekend away. I also bought this large triple milled soap for 20p. We seem to go through a lot of soap in our house.

On the way home I called in at Waitrose as they had emailed me a voucher for a free copy of the 2016 Good Food Guide. These normally cost £17.99 although Waitrose have it on offer at £12.99. I managed to pick up a free copy. This required some persistence as I had called yesterday and they had gone immediately. Delighted to have managed to get a copy as we love a meal out on our weekends away and we do not always know where to go so this will be invaluable. Thank you Waitrose.

Not bad for a weekend of bargain hunting.

Bumper Bargains at the Carboot Sale

We spent 5 hours - yes I do mean 5 hours at the Carboot sale yesterday because it was MASSIVE. Our feet ached with walking around and I went back to the car 3 times with bags full of bargains. Part of me wanted to go home half way round but part of me was wanting to stay for more DVDs at 5p each (5p!!) or CDs at 10p each. I went a bit mad on DVDs because of the cheapest prices ever. 

It's going to take a while for me to show you everything I bought, so be patient and I am sure you will be impressed with the bargains. 

Two ladies were selling masses of beauty bargains. Large tester bottle of Aura perfume by Swarovski (unused) £5. I had looked at this in the duty free shop at the airport in June but it was around £40 so I passed. Delighted to find it at £5.

Two tubes of Soap & Glory Sunkissed Tint Body Lotion, £2 each (£8 in Boots) and a Soap & Glory Pillow Plump lip gloss £1 (£10 in Boots).

Avon Genics Treatment Cream £1 (£23.50 on the Avon website). Naturals Lemon Blossom & Basil body lotion and room & linen spray 50p for the two.

Three Christmas Cards with flock material detailing for 10p each (priced £2.99 each on the back of each of them)

Two bottles of Baby Bio Orchid Feed 50p each.  I love white moth orchids and have them all over the house.

Two Wacky Races keyrings. One Dick Dastardly & Muttley and one Penelope Pitstop £1 each (currently £10.99 and £12 on eBay).

Padded black coat which has been gently worn £3 for me. This is lovely and thick so should keep me toasty during the cold winter months.

Six metal studded balls, two large and four small, which I now have displayed in a bowl on my window ledge £1 for all of them.

Boxed set of Terry Thomas films £2 and a boxed set of 14 episodes of the original The A Team series 50p. I also bought 15 other DVDs which ranged in price from 5p (2 films), 20p (12 films) and £2 (1 film)

I work from home and sit on our settee in the lounge but find that my feet get cold so £1 for this large hippo foot cosy was money well spent.

Dress ring 50p.

I also bought a massive commercial bottle opener, new and boxed for 50p. The people selling it wanted to go home so everything was 50p.

I bought David a pair of Helly Hanson waterproof/ski pants for £10 (original cost £140) which look really good on him. He wears this style of trousers when we go away in the winter as they keep him warm. He pretty much lived in them when we were in New York.

He also bought a Sony Media Player to turn our bedroom TV into a smart TV. This was £15 and is working as I type. David likes to watch TV in bed so is delighted with this find.

He also bought LPs, CDs, light bulbs, deodorant and a pedal for his guitar. Bloke things I suppose.

How did you do at the Carboot sales?