Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Alan, Anna & Morgan live in West Wales and attempt to make the most out of life. Alan is a freelance website designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband. Anna works at Aberystwyth University and is a full time Mum & wife.
Thought I’d share a Christmas present label that had us intrigued. As you can imagine we had been wondering what this could be for a while. All was revealed on Christmas Day when we opened this. Maybe I don’t have such a dirty mind after all – It looks like a loaf of bread to me! If...
Read more »That was a lovely Christmas Day in the Cole household. The highlight being that we managed to successfully pull of the installation of a ground-level trampoline in the front garden and keep it a secret. Morgan was suitably impressed, surprised and delighted. Christmas Day Christmas Eve was the usual story with Morgan not being able...
Read more »If there’s one thing Morgan had wanted for Christmas it was a trampoline. You know the sort, the big blue ugly things that everyone seems to have rusting away in their gardens. He’s been wanting one for ages and we had always categorically said no. We had loads of reason why not as well. They’re ugly. I didn’t...
Read more »I had quite a bit of marzipan left over after baking and decorating our Christmas cake this year. That’s nothing unusual as I did have more than 1kg of the delicious yellow almond paste and with only one cake to cover this year I didn’t use it all. The leftover marzipan would usually sit there, gradually...
Read more »Christmas is creeping up on us faster than I would like and there’s still so much to do. I have this week off and had hoped to get everything ready early in the week so that I could then spend some days relaxing and doing things with Morgan before Christmas. The list of things to...
Read more »We spent last weekend at my parents house in Gloucestershire for a Christmas family get together. Well, I say the weekend, but it was actually quite a quick visit. We headed down straight after work and school on Friday evening. Once there we had dinner at their house and then sat around chatting before heading off...
Read more »We broke with tradition this year and put our Christmas decorations up a day before my birthday. We usually wait until after my birthday but as it was the weekend and we had little planned for Saturday we decided to get them out a day early this year. Not only that, but we put the...
Read more »I was back from our activity weekend by mid afternoon on Sunday. I therefore had plenty of time to unpack, was things out and then do some chores. Tidying the house a little, cleaning out the fishtank and then as Anna cooked dinner I made a start on this years Christmas Cake. Yep, it’s that...
Read more »Well, building this marble run was a lot more complicated and took a lot longer than we had expected. All done now though and I did have a bit of help from Morgan! We just need a battery to see if we can get it working fully automatically now. Marble Run Every little bracket and...
Read more »It wouldn’t be Christmas without loads of leftovers and what better to do with them than make a Christmas Dinner Curry. I didn’t stop at the turkey either, in went the stuffing, in went the sprouts, even the pigs in blankets and some nice sausage meat and cranberry balls that we had. Any leftover veggies too....
Read more »Lego Build number two of Christmas was the huge Lego City Explorers Deep Sea Exploration Vessel. This consist of a large exploration vessel, several little submarine crafts and a sunken treasure ship. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without some Lego building now would it and as usual, Morgan and I sat down together to do it. Lego...
Read more »Well, it’s Boxing Day so we have survived the madness of Christmas Day – Hope everyone else had a good day, we did. Lots of food, lots of drink, lots of fun and lots of games. Lots of presents under the tree, lots of lego and lots of fiddling with gadgets and lots of family time...
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