Cost Cutting

My Yoga Instructor says that I have fantastic posture and a great centre of gravity.

Honestly, it’s true, the lady on the Wii Fit told me just a few days ago. I was fairly pleased at the time until I remembered that she isn’t a real person but a computer generated friend.

She’s a bit like my groom Alison, who tells me that I am a great rider who has empathy with any horse I sit on and she often wistfully says that she wishes she could ride as well as me.

Sorry, did I say that Alison is my groom? Yes, thought I did, what I actually meant is that Alison is my imaginary friend.

I appreciate that I may be sounding as though I am a hair’s breadth away from being carted off in a square wheeled ambulance, but I have discovered a wonderful way to save money and stay fit when you want to live frugally; and 10 miles from the nearest gym.

For example, I’ve just cleaned my kitchen. I detest cleaning the kitchen, so once I’ve done it, I pat myself on the back and mentally add up what it would have cost if I had just paid someone else to clean it. And hey presto, I smile and acknowledge the fact that I have actually just saved my household some cash by doing it myself.

In the winter, racing around with the Dyson saves me from having to put the heating on and in the summer if you wear a bin bag underneath your clothes, it can aid weight loss too. I can assure you that there are multiple benefits to be gained from wielding the Dyson and if you are still struggling for motivation I urge you to play Queen’s “I Want To Break Free” very loudly to mask the groan of the hoover. There are 2 rules should you choose this method of encouragement. Firstly, it is law that you perform Freddie Mercury’s 2 time quick steps as you move from one room to the next and secondly, you must have a moustache. If you have no real or false facial hair to hand, you must paint on a moustache with a biro pen or eyebrow pencil. Make certain that you remove it before you do the afternoon school run however, because I know from past experience that people tend to give you a particularly wide berth if you are standing in line waiting to collect your child whilst sporting what resembles a Hitler moustache.

It’s the same mucking out my horse every morning, only without the upper lip embellishment. Not only does mucking out and emptying the wheelbarrow give me a bit of a workout, but I am actually saving money by doing it myself. I also clean my own saddle and bridle (when there is a letter Z in the month) and congratulate myself on having just saved a tenner, as this is what I would charge someone else if I had to clean their filthy dirty saddlery.

I also save money by not going to the gym and many people might say that the bloke who built our house did me a massive favour by placing the lounge upstairs. In fairness, I don’t much feel like going to the gym after I’ve carried 25 kilograms of logs up the stairs to fill the log basket. And I suppose it gives Dick Van Dyke (my Chimney Sweep) a bi-annual work out when he has to lug all his paraphernalia up the steep, original and downright dangerous stairs.

I save money by doing my own ironing. Actually, that’s a complete and utter lie, I save money by buying shirts that have a label inside them that says “non iron”. This means that I don’t have to use the iron or tumble dryer and therefore saves electricity.

Sometimes if I’ve forgotten to wash my favourite jeans and I want to wear them that evening, I have to take a quick swig from the Gordon’s bottle to come to terms with the sound of the tumble dryer. The gin also helps me to ignore the noise of my debit card wimpering as it realises how large the next electricity bill is going to be. Furthermore, this activity keeps me fit due to the number of times that I run back and forth to my tumble dryer to see if my jeans are dry.

Washing and polishing my own car saves money and in turn, keeps me flexible because I am so undersized I have to jump on and off a small stepladder to enable me to reach all the way across the car’s roof with my soapy sponge. I have learnt to wait until rain is forecast before I begin to wash my car. There is nothing like the approach of an enormous, threatening black cloud to make you buff the polish off your car at lightening speed.

I save money by buying wine by the box, as it works out cheaper than buying wine by the bottle. This also saves the environment as I am able to recycle the empty wine boxes in my log burner and don’t have to drive my toxic diesel car to the bottle bank.

I buy Lidl’s washing power and decant it into Fairy Washing Powder box. This means that both Other Half and Britney (Not her real name) have no idea why they itch when they put on freshly laundered clothes, but it leaves us more money to buy wine.

Saving money is a talent and as you may be able to tell, I am gifted beyond all reality in the saving money department.

I know what you are thinking; you’re thinking that I must have some amazing money saving tendencies with all of my horse’s wardrobe and my own, equine type clothing.

Well no. Unfortunately my economy proficiency doesn’t apply to anything remotely equine.

I may use a familiar brand of washing up liquid rather than a proper equine shampoo to wash my horse’s legs, but Wet Dishcloth Horse’s wardrobe is worth more than the contents of my house. I might spray furniture polish into my horse’s tail to keep it free from tangles, but that’s to ensure that I can afford to buy my favourite everyday breeches which cost the thick end of £90. And should I accidentally reverse my car over my saddle, riding hat and new high visibility jacket, several underwriters at the National Farmers Union would be suddenly homeless.

You can’t cut corners with everything; that would just be ridiculous.

Potholes and Dangerous Driving

My local MP has just sent me my quarterly fire lighting equipment.

It’s a marvellous service, although I would much prefer a weekly newsletter as it would save me lighting the fire with tonic bottles and the foil innards removed from empty wine boxes in between editions.

I usually have a look through this bragging newspaper before I scrunch it up inside the log burner, just in case I know anyone in the photographs. I was at first disappointed that I didn’t recognise anyone in the articles featured, but I did notice that my Local MP is welcoming a “new pothole fund for Northumberland”.

Potholes do a huge amount of damage to vehicles and cause literally thousands of pounds worth of damage. As far as I am aware the 2 most dangerous situations arise when either: a) the pothole is full of water and a Visitor to the area drives into it at 60 miles per hour or b) when a local knows the pothole is there and drives on the wrong side of the road to avoid it.

Apparently the North East is to receive £3.9 million specifically for pothole repairs and Northumberland has been awarded £1,111,000 which is enough to repair 20,962 potholes across the county.

How on earth do they know that?

Who has gone around the county and counted the 20,962 potholes? Is this all of the potholes or just the worst ones? What if they’ve missed one? And what if a pothole has developed since this pothole audit was undertaken?

Surely there is no such thing as an “average” pothole? Some of them are enormous and some of them are tiny. Some of them are 5 inches deep, some of them; an inch deep. And does this £53 allocated to each pothole include the time of the person who is going to fill in the hole? It can’t cost £53 in tarmac per hole, can it? I can buy a bag of tarmac for about £3 so surely this is overkill.

What a ridiculous statement. I think I will need to request a written report from the Department of Transport detailing the repair of all 20,962 potholes. And what if they put too much stuff in the ones they fill first and run out by the end? Actually, instead of a written report from the Department of Transport I will just suggest to my Local MP that the Pothole Renovation Operatives begin their assignment very near to my house.

Apparently these proposed pothole repairs are going to be “real repairs” and not the usual unreal repairs where the Pothole Renovation Operatives just fill these evil car-killing pits with sawdust and saliva. So I suppose that’s a start.

I’m interested to know what sort of timescale this pothole renovation scheme is going to take and sadly there was no mention of this in the article.

In my local area, there always seems to be road repairs of some description being carried out and as the TK Maxx Ambassador’s husband is a Highway Surface Specialist, I asked him why this is. According to the Highway Surface Specialist (and a discussion on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 programme that I heard last week) the quality of the road surface (or rather lack of it) is the problem. And basically, the stuff that the Pothole Renovation Operatives put in the potholes resembles what Britney (not her real name) leaves on her toast plate after breakfast.

Currently, a section of my school run route is closed for 4 weeks and I had hoped it was

going to be completely resurfaced. This piece of road is home to the most horrible potholes in the world. Not only do they rattle your fillings loose if you drive over them faster than 5 miles per hour, but if you are on foot, it takes you over an hour to transverse them as you have to excavate your way past the underground streams, waterfalls and chambers before you emerge back into daylight.

I (illegally) drove down this section of road 3 nights ago, once the Thoroughfare Preservation Squad had gone home. The road had been shut for a 2 and a half weeks and therefore I was eagerly anticipating a new and smooth stretch of road. I drove The Licence Taker slowly over the railway line and then began to squeeze down the accelerator, gearing up to cover this new piece of road at a speed that would have been unthinkable a few weeks earlier. To my dismay I then had to apply the brakes as though I had just dropped a lit cigarette on my lap, because all the Thoroughfare Preservation lads had done was put in 2 drains.

That was it. 2 drains. No new and smooth road surface, no pothole repairs, just 2 new drains. I suppose the Thoroughfare Preservation Team have another week of road closure to complete whatever job they are doing. Perhaps another drain, or paint a white line or something.

The item above the “MP welcomes new pothole fund for Northumberland” informed me that my Local MP is also backing the “Government crackdown on dangerous driving”, because “Dangerous driving can be a real problem here in Northumberland”. I wasn’t aware that it was such a real problem, most of the time it is impossible to drive dangerously because you are stuck behind Old Bob in his Suzuki Swift on his way to collect the papers.

The only dangerous driving I’m aware of in Northumberland, is hitting a 5 inch deep pothole at 60 miles per hour.

That’s exceptionally dangerous.