Monday Money #65 Brighton and Grafham Water

Totally going to keep this post short, as 1) its TOO HOT to type, 2) I am behind today with everything 3) I want to lie in the garden and finish The Alchemist. Written, pics added, SEO’d all in one hour!

It was the 5th week of the summer holidays and it very fraught with trying to find my lost cat Trev all week. Every day we went out treking the streets of Knebworth calling him, going to see possible sightings. I was starting to lose hope then finally 10 days after his disappearance he returned yesterday Sunday. Thinner and very clingy. With saw dust on his paws and cobwebs on his ears. He must have been trapped in a garage somewhere.

We were so glad to have him back. The hugest thank you to the Knebworth and Stevenage residents who have helped in the search. The shares on Twitter and the messages of support. I know, hes a cat, but he is my 4th baby, and we do love our pets like children. SO happy to have him back.

Trying to keep the spending lower

I tried very hard to keep the costs down last week and I am going to write a detailed spending diary for my Mrs Mummypenny Spending Diaries post for tomorrow. I still managed to spend around £400, all in and all to be revealed tomorrow.

Eating Clean and Training Dirty

I am back on the eating clean plan until I depart this country for Corsica next weekend. This eating plan you may remember from May half term (before my last trip to Corsica) and felt really good afterwards. I lost a load of weight during the week and it on whilst away as i was so active on holiday. And I am planning on doing exactly the same next week.

The plan involves a meal plan with lot so clean foods but it does include fish, chicken, vegetables, beans, goats/feta/halloumi cheese. Lots of eggs. There are 5 meals a day, main meals with two snacks in between. There is no caffeine, alcohol, sugar, few carbs, no red meat or cow dairy products.

Plus we train five times for the first five days of the plan. I am three days in and so far we have done HIIT, circuits in the woods and upper body strength training. 

I found day 1 a challenge and ended up caving at about 8pm in the evening and ate the half tub of icecream in the freezer, the thought ah well busted may as well go for it, so had popcorn (homemade salty so not too bad) and a lolly. But you know, no one is perfect. And I have been good since then.

Brighton day out

On Friday we headed to Brighton for the day by train. We had arranged a picnic on the beach with Super Lucky Di and Eco Thrifty Zoe at the beginning of the summer. The wonderful thing about Brighton is that its a direct 2 hour train journey from where I live and it cost £30 for the four of us (with my network railcard). So much cheaper than driving and then parking (its cost us £15 for two hours when we parked in Brighton at Easter!!). Oh and I wrote a post including lots of ideas from my fellow money bloggers on who to save money on train travel, here!

We had a lovely picnic on the beach, the sun was shining and we even went in for a swim. It was glorious. And so lovely to catch up on all things blogging, books, events. We all write about very different niches so it was interesting to compare notes and share learnings. 

Self-care

I am a huge advocate of self-care and keep hearing from women, mums in particular that they feel guilty about self-care. No, never feel guilty and prioritise it! I wrote a post about it and why it is so important along with some ideas on how to practise self-care without spending too much money. 

Self care for me includes getting back to water. And this week was a real treat with a trip to Brighton and a trip to Grafham Water with the boys. The beach, no matter where we go is two hours away, but Grafham is just 45 minutes away. We did an 8 mile circuit of the water on bikes. It was beautiful.