Well there goes the diet then...

Being frugal is like being on a diet.



At first the diet goes well, a little weight is shifted, success seems on the horizon, you're feeling right chuffed with yourself.



And then the diet gets a bit boring and repetitive. A life of salad is dull. Perhaps you haven't lost quite as much weight as you'd like, progress is slow, friends stop telling you how wonderfully well you are doing and get fed up with you mentioning food all the time. They try and tempt you with takeaways and trifle.



And then, one day, you snap. You have the sudden urge to treat yourself, to reward yourself, to completely and totally pig out!

Well that's exactly what happens with frugality. And today we pigged out. Once in a while I just take the kids out, we have lunch out, we spend money we haven't really got (or that should be earmarked for something else) and then we go home, feeling like the kid who stole the chocolate cake at diet camp.

Money was burning a hole in the children's money boxes. Dd has been asking every day for around a week if she could spend some of her money. I don't think it's the money that interests her, just the process of going into a shop with her own money and buying something. She was getting desperate (and annoying).

So why not help her spend her pennies. And the boys were keen to break open the piggy banks too. So where could we go. Well how about that place with a toy shop and - er - the (shhh) wool shop.. [You didn't think the trip would be entirely altruistic do you?]

So after wandering round charity shops, chip shop, weird plastic and assorted junk shop, toy shop, pet food shop, and WOOL SHOP we came home with:

2 soft toy beanie dogs
1 hard plastic, extortionately-expensive dog
1 wind up furry mouse (possibly a rat?) that makes the dog bark
2 bags of sour Haribo sweets
1 pack of Pokemon cards
4 full bellies from greasy chips from very unhygenic chip shop (remind me not to go upstairs to the toilets in restaurants until AFTER I've eaten the meal - it's best not to know what you might be eating or where they chop the chips)
2 balls of black double knitting wool (for ds1's balaclava)
1 ball of furry skinny wool (for socks?)
1 sack of chicken mash
1 sack of chicken corn
and 1 of these:

Oops...how did that get there?!

Ok, so I forgot to mention the bike shop that was next to the pet shop. Saw the above item outside the shop and fell in bicycle love. Well as much as a committed non-cyclist can be attracted to something that you have to put energy into to get to move.

Ok, so it's a bit battered. But it fits in the car. And will probably fit even better once I've worked out how to fold it (erhum). Bet the guy in the shop enjoyed watching me as I tried to squeeze a fold-up bicycle in its non-folded-up state into the back of a people carrier on top of two sacks of chicken food, one large bag of just-bought tat and three small children. That should keep him going in laughs for a few weeks at the pub.

What is most amazing is that the bike fits me. I mean I can actually sit on it and reach the floor with my feet (Unlike my huge great hulking lump of iron on wheels that is currently residing in the garage - yeah one of those 1940s things that you expect to see a huge breadbasket on the front). And the wheels of this bike don't go round with almighty clunks and shudders that throw you off course(unlike my huge great hulking lump of iron on wheels...etc etc) and this bike is kinda cute (unlike my huge behind when I'm riding it...).

Anyway, I don't know why I'm here justifying my decision to break from the dieting regime. So, I confess, today I AM the kid that stole the chocolate cake at diet camp. But, life is just too short to not impulse-buy strange bicycles outside pet shops.

On my soapbox...(but not one of those designer ones)

I took ds2 today to one of those factory outlet centres about 20 minutes away from where we live. His boots are - well - no longer footwear really, the insoles aren't in, the outers aren't really out and they wouldn't even make good slippers. So I promised him we could go, just me and him, to buy a new pair at the Clarks outlet shop.

What do you make of these sorts of places?

My heart sunk as soon as we arrived.

Maybe it's just me, but I find these places really unsettling...on the stomach. People walking around with their little designer paper bags with string handles to show off which designer outlet they've just been to; shops that are more interested in fancy lettering and strange lighting than actually stocking anything; shops that just sell sunglasses, or white things, or suitcases, and prices that are just way OTT. Seeing customers contemplating whether to spend that 80 quid on a Jimmy Choo handbag , or 100 quid on a mac in Helly Hansen (these are DISCOUNTED prices remember!)...ooh it made my stomach turn. There were kids dressed up, identical little models of their consumer parents - designer outfits, handbags, shoes - with their little designer paper bags urgghh!

Maybe it's just a person's attitude towards money, the income they're used to, the pressure to keep up with the Jones's, or their family's relationship towards money when they were a kid. But me...well, I'm sure that even if I had the money to spend on an expensive handbag/pair of shoes/coat/white plate/cushion cover/pair of sunglasses, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It would be be too obscene. Obscene, yes that's the word. It's not that I don't spend money on things when money really needs to be spent, but I really can't - couldn't - even contemplate spending so much money on - what? A pair of socks with a designer label? A floral teacosy? I just don't get it.

When I was pregnant with ds1 I went to stay with my sister to buy things for the baby. I was chuffed to little meatballs when I bought a silver cross pram with carrycot in a charity shop for £20. It had already been used for 3 children by the woman who donated it. My sister and I took it back to her bedsit, carried it up the stairs and between us we wiped it down and polished it. It lasted for another 2 children of mine, until I was given a lightweight buggy and passed the silver cross pram on to another family. Later when I had my second child I had friends who spent vast amounts of money (e.g. 50 quid on a changing bag!) on their baby. I'm not criticising these people...they have a right to spend their money on whatever they like...it's just when you've seen people who have nothing (I've travelled and I've seen people offer the only food in their house to me, a wealthy westerner, because I'm their guest), well...

So. A good thing came out of today. No, we didn't find any boots for ds2. BUT I was remindedthat although I'm bombarded with consumerist messages, and although I occasionally sucumb, splash out, blow some cash, spoil the kids etc, I remain a relatively sane human in an insane world.

And having watched the 3 Matrix films this week, I do wonder about how real this world is...lol.

Wii Wii Wii all the way home...

So..er...that was Christmas then.

Spent alot of time playing on the Wii with the kids and, not surprisingly, discovered that the 'shoot-em-up' games are not good for sibling relations or my stress levels(!).

As for me, well I had to get up early each morning to get a chance to play on my Christmas present - the wii game, Endless Ocean. In Endless Ocean the idea is that you park your boat in this ocean place and go diving, collecting all sorts of fish and - er - other stuff.Then you go back to the boat, check your email, talk to the irritating woman on deck and look at the list of fish that you've collected. Occasionally you take other visitors for dives, train your dolphin, take photos of strange fish and pop to the aquarium where you can put the best specimens and swim around with them. Ok, so that doesn't sound very exciting, but it's a kind of 'chilling out' game and, well, I like it.

Apart from that we ate a lot of chocolate and crisps and missed most of the tv programmes that I'd circled in the Radio Times because we were too ingrossed playing on the Wii.

Today we hit the Sales, briefly. Lots of tat and to be honest nothing we really needed anyway. No surprise there then...

And right now we are watching the DVD 'Swallows and Amazons' which I bought for ds1 for his birthday. I kept meaning to read the book to the children, but have been putting it off for ages and so it seemed easier to get the DVD. I read some of the series as a child, but it's so long ago I can't remember any of it. I do remember that parts of it were full of sailing references and could be very dry and hard going. Watching this reminds me that I should take the kids camping more often (when the weather gets warmer). If my kids have plans to be running around islands with nothing more than a kettle, a blanket and a pair of shorts, then I'd better get practicing some minimalist packing.

Did I tell you that we went to a talk by Ray Mears a few weeks ago? Apparently he camped out on his own from the age of 8;he didn't own a tent till he was 16! Must have been a fairly hardy chap even back then...

Well, will write more soon. Instead of blogging I ought to be doing the homework for my writing course: I still haven't completed the short story I was supposed to write last term, ho, hum. I've obviously been away from the schooling system too long now as I just can't seem to get the hang of deadlines...{g}