Hi everyone,

It’s back to reality today. After supper I had some garden pootling time. I picked a lettuce and some chard, I’ll have the lettuce for lunch tomorrow and I’ll stir fry the chard with some other veg and prawns. Everything has gone wild and I have to go out and cut some vegetation back, thin out some of the plants and let the others have some light and space. It’s a big experiment and somethings are growing incredibly well, mainly beans and all sorts of courgettes and squashes, along with chillis, tomatoes and onions. The potatoes have ‘legged it’ and need earthing up again, which will have to wait until tomorrow.

I also got back out on the road tonight. It was amazingly easy after spending a week on a bike; the hills were not their usual effort and I could keep up quite a pace. I also weighed myself today, with some trepidation I must add because I did stray from the Dukan path last week, but only slightly. I’ve lost a further 2lbs and now I’m down to 12stone and 10lbs, so a loss of 1 stone and 4lbs altogether.

Another job for the mindful frugal was to go through every receipt of everything we spent in France and log it. I’m sure it’s quarter of what we used to spend on holidays. We treated ourselves to a meal in Roscoff of a mountain of sea food but other than that one meal out, we ate and lived as modestly as we do at home.

Before I go, here’s a couple more photos from France, the one above is the sea food inside the supermarket and the one below is the sea food inside the restaurant. Dearly Beloved is here, checking out his dinner, we didn’t count them on the way in and on the way out………..but we may well of eaten one or two of them.

Here’s my frugal keep fit route! Click to see where I went/go!

I’m so excited after finding this ‘app’, which is free and trying it and making it work!!! Thanks very much to everyone who left such encouraging comments and to Angela, who told me about mapometer. According to mapometer, I walked 3.88 miles and used 371 calories. You can click on the link and see where I walk each night! If you want, you can then see where I walked on google maps. My start and finish point, has purposefully not been exactly pinpointed, not to give too much away!!!

I’m now going to plot some cycle routes for my holiday! I’ll be able to show you those in a few days!

Until I get back later,

Froogs xxx

Now, most decent self respecting women would only put their very best face on public display. Not Froogs! Here’s me, sweaty and looking shocking after the four mile circuit!!! I’m noticing lots of people, who just like me, hit the pavements and seem to do the same route as me. I alternate between the anti-clockwise route that takes me down a reasonable hill and then up a killer hill, with slight inclines and a couple of miles of flat here and there. On the other night, which included tonight, I take the clock-wise route and go down the killer hill and up the reasonable hill and then hit another long flat loop before I head up the last two hills for home.

On the way, I pass the Lux Park Leisure Centre. People drive there in posh sporting gear, looking groomed!!! I looked up how much it was to use the gym and it’s £5 a time! I won’t be going there!!! Another ‘thing’ that caught my eye this morning was the sight of a lady on our school field, with her personal trainer!!! I noticed a shiny Mercedes in the car park and wondered who on earth it belonged to. Parked next to it was a van advertising Sweaty Betty’s personal training services (not the actual name!) and the woman who was being ‘trained’ looked about a size 8!!! She didn’t look a mess like I do, she had blond hair in a pony tail, a tiny bum, that unlike mine, stayed where God put it when she was running around!!! Mine seems to try to get away from me!!!!

Now there’s me!!!! Sally Army shop trainers! Sale rail tracky bottoms, ebay i-pod and looking shocking!!!! Not paying for a personal trainer, not paying £5 to go to the gym, not wearing flashy sports clothes but doing it any way. It’s another day of not putting it off! Not saying, I can’t exercise because I can’t afford the gym, I don’t have the compression leggings to wear and I look a mess in public. As I said earlier, I’ve noticed lots of folk in an old pair of trainers, a pair of grey joggers, a warm jumper and they just get out and run or walk. I was passed by the local ‘harriers’ who ranged from nimble looking elderly people to children of primary school age, I’ve seen people out running with their dogs, I’ve noticed groups of ladies who go out and walk and chat at the same time. I’m not the only one who feels no need at all to make this expensive!!!!

I’ve tried to take as many people on my frugal journey as I possibly can. I try to spread the frugal word of living simply, not spending and doing what we can with what we’ve got! Well come with me, on a scruffy, just as you are, no need for fancy clobber, just get out and walk, frugal foray into fitness! We’ve paid off debts together, we’ve home cooked food and grown beans, we were there, side by side when we made our own soap and jam, when we knitted and carbooted, we saved the odd quid here and there and may be together, we can step out together……any takers?