Devon mini break

Last week I booked us a last minute weekend getaway in an effort to relax before we all started back to school. I decided that we would go to Devon. I likeit there the sceneray is very pretty and it is a relatively short drive. It should have taken us 3 hours 25 minutes to get to where I had booked. Unfoirtunately there was a traffic incident- along the 3 motorways we had to tracvel along; meaning we did this a lot:

yup!! we sat at a complete standstill. A LOT. the journey took us 7 and a half hours in total!

Nevermind it was sowrth it. I had booked us to stay in a little 'pod' as I thought it might be warmer/drier than the tent. The days a relatively nice at the moment but evenings are still very cold.

The pod was £103 for the three of us to stay in for three nights. The pod did cost us almost double what the tent would have cost at the site we stayed on. But look at it!!

 

Inside there are 2 single beds and one double. It was the perfect size for us. Friday was a beautiful day ( our travelling day!) So when we got there ready to stretch our legs we went straight out for a walk. The site leads straight out into the woods so we had a wander. We saw dg walkers, cyclists and horseriders all out enjoying the weather. We made up stories about fairies we invented as we walked.

 

We even found a rope swing to play on. Unfortunately my phone died before I got to take any photographs.

 

We then headed back to have dinner.

I decided to give the children their Easter egg from me early so that they could enjoy them whilst we were away ( and I didn't have to panic over the fact they might melt, like I was on the way to Devon!

We played some card games before we crawled into our sleeping bags for the night.

FAKE SLEEPING! LOL


So that was our first day of our get away break. I'll show you some more tomorrow as I should be doing some paperwork about now!

Bargain holiday!

I thought as many of you have expressed an interest in how our barain holiday went I would dedicate a post to.

I booked at the very last minute and got our caravan for £69 instead of the £250 it should have gone for. We had 4 nights; Monday to Friday. The caravan was on a Parks holiday site. See my post here for pictures of our caravan. It was a Silver level caravan this meant that we got the bedlinen included in the price, we had a fully equipped kitchen with toaster, microwave, fridge etc. We also had a tv and dvd player (although it says you only get DVD players in Gold accomodation on the website). The caravan was very clean and well looked after, unlike some we have been in in the past on a different holiday site a few years ago.

Our entertainment passes were included in the price I paid for the caravan these gave us use of the swimming pool, and the clubhouse. There were also children's entertainment activities going on during the day included but we didn't use these so I don't know how they were. There were some entertainment in the evenings for the children for me the entertainment leader lacked a little enthusiasm and could have livened up a little, that said Stephanie seemed to enjoy herself when joining in.

Not advertised on the website was that the swimming pool on our site was closed, we were told we could journey to the next Park holiday site and use their pool free but we didn't do this. There was no hidden extras onsite; no fair rides for children to pester for, no go-karting/crazy golf etc etc that we have had on previous sites. This did mean there wasn't a huge amount to do on site but as we planned on exploring the local area it wasn't a problem I have never been a fan of all singing all dancing spend spend spend sites. So this site suited us perfectly.

 This holiday did prove to be a complete bargain, I would happily pay cheap rates to come again, I wouldn't pay the full asking price. When I compare this break to ones in the past when we have taken a sun holiday I have found that it is not for £9.50 as advertised as you have to pay for 2 adults!!! I hate that! then you pay for the children, then a surcharge for the entertainment passes, then pay for bedding etc. When we did a Sun holiday I took my sister as I refused to pay for an absent adult, altogether our £9.50 holiday was around £100.

I took food for us to make all of our meals with us and each day we took a packed lunch out with us so we barely spent on food. Apart from Thursday when I managed to leave the cool bag on the caravan table! I had packed it with drinks and nibbles as I was planning to surprise the children to a fish and chip lunch, so not a great loss I did end up paying out a few pound in drinks, but this was balanced out by discovering if we parked at the top of the Cliffe and walked down to the front we paid £1.20 to park for 4 hours instead of £4 for 3 hours at the bottom of the Cliffe.

We had 2 days we spent on the beach and a little play in the arcades I gave the children £2 each in total and they used their pocket moneys and had lots of fun. We visited Battle Abbey making use of our English Heritage membership so saved £7.80 per adult and £4.70 per child  on entrance fees, also as we were members the car park for the whole day was £1 instead of £4.50. So in all we saved £20.70 on that day out.

I did spend a little on treats, we went to the clubhouse for one drink each evening which cost between £3.50 and £5 each time, and we spent £1.25 per game on 3 games of bingo. Our fish and trip treat ended up being a little more than anticipated as due to wet weather at lunch time we decided to eat in and not have soggy chips. So lunch for 3 plus drinks came to £14.00. Which was only a little more than I had expected it to be.

We had a fantastic time on our bargain holiday which truely had no hidden extras, so I will be keeping a close eye on the Parks holiday website to see if we can book a bargain during another school holiday.

Spring tease!

Yesterday I truly thought spring had finally sprung- it seems today came to prove it has not it was in fact just teasing us!
It is freezing out there. The car went to the garage today to have some work done on it at a cost of £150 that means it has cost £370 in maintenance in just over a week with the new tyres I had put on last Tuesday.
This has meant there has been no savings here this month, well there was until the car ate them all! Still I am 4% of the way towards a mortgage deposit. Slowly but surely we will get there.

While the car was in the garage we walked the couple of miles into the local shopping town. It was bitter especially when we had to cross the river, was mighty windy on the bridge. I got the bits Dylan needed for school, when will that boy stop growing? I also got Stephanie some new tights, she has fallen over in countless pairs recently so made massive holes in the knees.

Yesterday we spoke about the possibility of going camping next week if the weather is warm. The children decided they like the look of Hastings. So while waiting for them to wake up this morning I was googling to see which sites were near there and in our pitiful price range when I found a caravan site, you know the kind with the static caravans. When I discovered that for next week I could have a 4 night stay for £69 for all of us, this is around what it costs us to camp in a field. The caravan site has a pool, entertainment etc all included for the £69 and a caravan with heating! So I decided to go for it. If we were camping it would have been a case of play it by ear and watching the weather for the next few days to see whether or not we would brave it.

We are going posh this time by having a caravan;

 which apparently will look something like this.

I'm so excited! Don't worry the holiday will be done in true frugal style. We are planning on using our existing English Heritage to explore the Abbey etc while we are there, there are loads of walks around/from the park which will keep us entertained for the 4nights we are staying. And the food will be taken out of our fridge/freezer/cupboards on Monday before we leave. I do have some scratchcards to cash in which the children's nan gave me the other week, we will get a fish and chip supper one night probably with these, I can't remember if it is £8 or £10 I have on them either way that's a meal for us.

School cardigan number 2

I began knitting this cardigan on our recent camping holiday in Wales with the intention of completing it before the children went back to school- last Monday!
Well I slightly missed that deadline, but I have managed it finally. I really enjoyed knitting this cardigan it has a very pretty lace effect pattern, the instructions were so clear even I followed them with no trouble. It is a pattern from the British Hand Knitting Confederation, it is Pattern number BHKC19 *. I borrowed this from my mum, she has hundreds of knitting patterns, some are slightly dated others like this one are beautiful.

Stephanie hasn't seen this one yet as I have literally just finished sewing it together although I suspect that it will be worn to school tomorrow.
I realise I have not posted for a while but for some reason I seem to have not had time to do anything. I have started my new job in the past week and as it is full time I guess we are adjusting to the routine we need to fall into and before that summer holidays got in the way. I am considering writing several posts and then setting them up to automatically post, I have lots I want to share but have had no time to actually get around to writing the posts.

This weekend for instance I feel that I have not stopped, yet nothing except this cardigan have been completed. I have taken the children swimming and had a surprise whilst we were there- Stephanie swam, not just front crawl but also breaststroke for the first time by herself. I have suspected for a while that she is capable but lacking in confidence I think that I can safely say that this was indeed the case. She is now -quite rightly!- very impressed with herself and telling anyone that she happens to see.

We have also been to the allotment- I plan on a blog post about how this is developing over the next couple of days, as well as spending an awful amount of time cleaning. Don't worry I won't dedicate a whole post to this! I do however plan to have at least one post showing the highlights of our recent camping holiday, what I have already mentioned the holiday in this post? Well, I hadn't noticed.





* Mum did not buy it from this site, I have linked it to show the pattern.