Freebie Weekend

Trying to "make do and mend" has led me to keep an eye out for freebies and bargains.  And this weekend was a cracker.

First on the list for Saturday morning was to pick up a newspaper, The Telegraph, which I had been reliably informed had a voucher for a free tie from T.M. Lewin.  JW and I had a grand stroll down the road to our local High Street, at Stockbridge, to pick up the paper.

Newpaper collected, we headed over to a jam-packed T.M. Lewin on George Street.  Right enough, the voucher let us choose any tie up to the value of £32.50 and it seemed like the whole of Edinburgh was rummaging through T.M Lewin's shelves!  After a bit of muscling in, JW picked out a fab red silk tie and after duly handing over the voucher, we were one tie up.  On leaving the shop I checked the receipt to see how much our tie should have been, and I was rather amazed to discover the ticket price was £65.00!!  The tie has gone in the Christmas gift cupboard and isn't bad at all for the £2.00 cover price of the newspaper.

Long walk enjoyed and dinner eaten, we headed over to KitKat's for a fun evening playing their new QI game. JW and the rest enjoying Vanilla Vodka, myself a rather tasty ginger beer; while we all took it in turns pretending to be Stephen Fry.  I would recommend such an evening to any QI fan; I am looking forward to playing it again already!


On Sunday we headed out to buy The Telegraph again, as this time it was complete with a voucher for a free necklace from White Stuff.  I love White Stuff's clothes, especially their colourful tights, so I was rather excited to be able to get a free necklace.  When we got to the store however, I was disappointed by the necklace selection on display, and had to have a good wonder around to find one that I liked.  I was then even more disappointed when I got to the till, and a rather embarrassed shop assistant told me sheepishly that I could only choose from a really tiny selection of four (frankly pretty pants) necklaces.  So, with a sigh I picked out one with a bee motif and handed in my voucher. The necklace had a ticket price of £17.50, but you would have to be mad to pay that, I was miffed at having shelled out £2.00 for it.  I think I may be able to salvage something from it, by making it into something else...watch this space and see.

We finally wrapped up the weekend with a trip to Craigmillar Castle.  My friend AJ had let me know that Historic Scotland were doing their annual free weekend, in celebration of St Andrew's Day.  A quick check of their website and I found that Craigmillar Castle was included.  We have never been before, which is pretty lax of us, as it is only three miles from our house!  So JW and I took the opportunity to go for a wonder.

My expectations were really low, as I knew that it was a ruin.  But we were both amazed at the size of the place.  Although much of it is roofless, you can still get a really good feel for the Castle and the scale of it.  Inside the solid outer walls, the inner walls and tower are really intact and the castle is like a maze to explore.  It was really busy, as lots of other people had had the same idea, but it was actually really nice to wonder about and hear other people saying "have we been here already?" and getting just as lost as we were!  The castle was a favourite of Mary Queen of Scots and it was a genuine pleasure to visit as you could well imagine the young Mary taking refuge in the safe castle walls.

It was also fun to figure out the architecture of the place.  JW spotted that one of the rooms we were standing in was actually three old rooms stacked on top of each other.  Check out the fireplaces below:

What with the free weekend pass, the free tie and (dodgy) necklace, we ended up not spending money on anything apart from £4 on newspapers and money for groceries; we were both feeling rather pleased with ourselves.  Then we started to read The Telegraph, and that was a whole other story... let's just say it won't be on my future 'must read' list!