Comic Relief Week

So last week was Red Nose Day (Comic Relief)...this has absolutely nothing to do with my challenge...I didn't even watch it because I was working all night, but I did see this video. Peter Kay and Susan Boyle. Awesome. Fantastic. Hilarious. Amazing.

I love Peter Kay so much...he NEVER disappoints! Everything he does is incredibly funny and has my rolling on the floor clutching my stomach from laughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQhCiGZupcU

So anyway, last week I had to re-stock my fridge (£6.51 to fill it), which ate up most of my budget :( But I did have some money left over to buy myself an ice cream at work, and also a bar of chocolate :P Which I shouldn't have done...but I've been working so much lately I needed it.

Last week not a lot happened...I just worked a lot and went to Uni.

I've posted a photo of Eric Elephants below my budget, so you can all see them and go buy them...they're amazing. They're the same as M&S's Percy Pigs, but instead of being £1.29 or something stupid, they're only 39p and taste even better!

Also, I'd just like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has donated the past couple of weeks! I'm so overwhelmed by people's generosity and so grateful. A couple of hours ago we hit the £1000 mark! So we're a quarter of the way there :)

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Budget:

£0.76 - Bag of 7 pears - Sainsos

£0.45 - Milk - Sainsos

£0.59 - Crumpets - Sainsos

£1.00 - 2 Bags of 5 cookies (so 10 in total)...they were doing buy 1 get 1 free!!! - Sainsos

£0.29 - 4 Basics Fruit Yoghurts - Sainsos

£1.33 - Box of 5 Cheez Dippers - Sainsos

£1.00 - 5 bananas - Sainsos

£0.70 - 4 Baking Potatoes - Sainsos

£0.39 - Eric Elephants - Sainsos

£0.89 - Ice Cream - Wimpy's

£0.60 - Chocolate - Work vending machine

= £8.00

Fed up with living off a tenner a week

So I guess I told you about my most exciting event from last week in my previous blog post. I got 2 books for a total of £5.10 from British Bookshops in their closing down sale! So I'm afraid I haven't got much else to tell you, other than the training for the Bupa 10k is going...ok. I'm still having problems with my bum jiggling when I run...and my asthma's been playing up, so I'm off to get a new inhaler tomorrow :)

Also I'm a bit worried because I've been getting chest pains and heart palpitations/flutters?! It's really annoying and uncomfortable! Hmm...I'll ask the doc when I go to get my inhaler tomorrow. Also I'm really annoyed that my blog has all of a sudden stopped letting me use paragraphs...it's quite happy to let me have paragraphs when I'm writing or editing a post...bt when I publish it it ignores my paragraphs and bunches it all together :(

I've also been finding it really difficult to not spend money...and I'm kinda getting fed up with this whole living off £10 a week thing. I miss things like going to concerts, getting my eyebrows done (personally I love it and I actually find it a relaxing 10minute luxury for me), going out for dinner with friends, or going into London whenever I want. I've discovered I can buy books with my budget, and I guess if I really wanted I could go to Primark for cheap clothes...but to be honest I have so many clothes I just don't need any new ones at the moment so I'm still wearing what I bought a year or two ago. So it's more the big 'looking forward' to things and events I miss. I'm just bored with everything right now and need something to look forward to.

Good news - so far I've raised £922.58 including gift aid.

Big thanks this week to Adam Read for his very generous donation, and also Nick and Karen Chapman.

Also, last week I watched a TV programme called '23 Week Babies -The Price of Life'...it literally reduced me to tears...I was bawling my eyes out! It's on BBC iplayer for you to watch, and even if you just watch the first 10 minutes it will make you realize why we need to raise money for Tommy's. We need to help Tommy's raise money so they can carry out research to try and prevent babies from being born so early to give them a better chance of survival.

You can only watch it in the next couple of days though before it's 7 days is up and it gets taken off iplayer.

Watch '23 Week Babies - The Price of Life' here.

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Budget:

£2.10 - Book

£3.00 - Book

£0.60 - Chocolate Bar

£0.80 - Special K Bar

= £6.50

World Book Night

This week has been brilliant! I've got so many new books...and they only cost me £5.10! On Sunday at Waterstones they were giving out FREE books for their World Book Night 2011...I got two, 'Agent ZigZag' and 'Love in the Time of Cholera'. And then today British Bookshops had 70% off all books because they're closing down this Thursday due to Administration. So I was very excited to find a clothbound hardcover puffin classic of Peter Pan, for only £3 reduced from £10! And it's RRP is £12.99! So I basically got £10 off it. And then I also got a Nicholas Sparks book 'A Message in a Bottle'. They came to a total of £5.10 so I'm even considering going back in tomorrow to see what else I can find! I'm spending the majority of this week at home anyway so I'm tempted just to spend my whole £10 budget on books. Anyway, so that's this week. But last week I didn't spend anything on food either because again I was home all week. I'm getting so lazy with being at Uni, so the only way I actually go out running and training for our 10k run is with my Mum dragging me out of the house every night. I really need to get the balance right between living at Uni AND training by going out running. I think I'm just gonna have to get the girls to drag me out the house and lock me out to make me run. I just don't really fancy running around Hillingdon and Uxbridge...I'm kinda scared my trainers will get nicked :/ Basically I need to start living at Uni again and spending money on food...coz I kinda feel guilty not doing that :S I've just been really down the past few weeks about not being able to treat myself and spend any money...so it's been nice spending money on myself for once instead of on food. Also, do you think I should include charity donations in my £10 a week budget!? I'll put a new poll up so you can all decide... Here's a couple of photos of my new books and my very pretty Peter Pan book :) So anyway, last week's budget was;

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Budget:

• £5.00 - I sponsored my friend Ross who ran the Bath Half in aid of MERGE
• £0.60 - A pack of Mentos
• £1.10 - Car Park fee

= £6.70

Annual Family Holiday - Egypt

So last week was our annual family holiday, and this year we went to Taba, Egypt for the week. It was all-inclusive pretty much 24 hours a day....so lets just say I made the most of it...and gained 1kg in the process :P

I did stick to my £10 budget while I was there though and only bought a cute little wooden and mother of pearl box and I managed to haggle (how amazing is haggling!!!) and got the guy to throw in a couple of postcards for free so I didn't go over my budget :)

It really was a magical holiday and I'm so grateful to my parents for taking us there. It was so exotic and 'Arabian'...like something out of Aladdin! We stayed at the Sofitel Taba Heights which was one of the most beautiful hotels ever...it was set right in between the Sinai mountains and the Gulf of Aquaba, looking out over Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

I was really worried at first with the revolution going on in Cairo, but when we got to the resort I couldn't believe how quiet it was! There were only British people there because all of the Europeans had left, so the hotel only had a 35% occupancy. We were talking to the waiters in the restaurant and they were saying because we were in the Sinai region there were no troubles there...they even consider it a different country! Our Assad (our waiter who served us every mealtime the whole time we were there), said that it wasn't considered the real Egypt because it used to belong to Israel.

The staff at the hotel were sooooo nice and couldn't do enough for us! We also made the trip to St Catherine's Monastery and the Burning Bush in the Sinai Mountains, which was so surreal and as a Christian I felt so honoured to be able to see where Moses had actually spoken to God and received the 10 commandments. Just to be standing where Moses had stood thousands of years ago, to actually walk around a Monastery and view Icons that were thousands of years old! They also still have the relics of St Catherine there, and her thumb is actually on display! I understand some of you may not be as excited by all this as my Dad and I were...which is fair enough lol :P

It was also amazing seeing the Bedouin people and seeing how they live. Some of them still live in Caves in the mountains and travel around the desert with their camels and tents.

We also went swimming/snorkelling in the Red Sea and it was like swimming in a fish tank, the coral and fish were incredible! Really wish I had an underwater camera...but couldn't buy one before we went because of my £10 budget :(

If you ever get the chance to go there, DO! Ignore the warnings about the troubles and just do it, you won't regret it. It really was the most amazing place.

I really really want to go travelling around the Middle East now (Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia etc). It's just like a completely different world to ours.

My brother, mum and I at St Catherine's Monastery

St Catherine's Monastery....yes I climbed a mountain to take this photo.

Bedouin People at St Catherine's

A camel that we thought looked a bit like our puppy dog Dylan

The Red Sea by our Hotel

Half Way!!

Apart from officially hitting the half way mark, It was a pretty boring week. This was the week before we went to Egypt so I spent most of the week at home packing, helping sort out the house, helping mum with last minute things and working. Basically all I spent was about £3 on my lunch at work, I decided to treat myself to a Costa Coffee pannini....lets just say it wasn't the best customer service I've ever experienced. So I complained to head office...much to the Manager's annoyance. Anyway, I won't go into details but lets just say I won't be eating there again.

Oh and I also bought Easter Eggs for my family.

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Budget:

£3.00 (ish) - Lunch at Costa Coffee

£4.00 - Easter Eggs

= £7.00