An attempt at shopping at Lidl, UK

Let me start by introducing Lidl and Aldi to those who might not know it. I know we don't have them in SA.

They are grocery stores which are supposedly cheaper than the other grocery stores like Tesco, Saisnbury's, etc that we have here in the UK.

They both have yellow-blue-red/orange logos and I have always wondered if they are actually owned by the same company. Well, if you were wondering the same thing, they're not. I just went and read a bit about Aldi and Lidl on wikipedia and they are actually each others biggest competition, owned by different people.

In Switzerland we had an Aldi in Dietikon where we lived and there I did find buying some groceries from them made quite a difference on what we spent on groceries by the end of the month. I bought tinned food, some meat, pizza dough, we liked their yoghurt, and some other things there. Then I would drive to the Coop afterwards to get the rest of the groceries, especially fruit and veg.

So yesterday I decided since I now have a car I should go try out either Lidl or Aldi here in the next town. They were right opposite each other. I mean right right opposite the road from each other. I chose to go to Lidl since I know Aldi from Switzerland. (We had Lidl in CH too, but not in our town.)

Well first of all as I was used to doing in Switzerland, you have to insert a coin in order to get a trolley. (See the picture above.) If you do not have the correct coin to release a trolley you will be carrying your groceries in your arms since they don't have baskets. Their thing is that when you get to check out you will put your groceries directly into your trolley and then after paying you can go pack your things in bags out of the way of the other customers. I found this out after trying to pack my groceries into my bags as it was being scanned and was told in German to just put it in the trolley as I'm too slow at packing bags.

Now I got this plastic token from my mom which you can insert into the trolley instead of a coin. Do you know how many times in CH I did not have the correct coin because I just tried to use up all my change? So the plastic token works great. You cannot use it to pay for something else so it always stays in your wallet!

So I insert my token, get a trolley and off I go. I am only a few feet down the first aisle when I start thinking, "Where's my laptop, I want to do this online!"

There were people behind me trying to get past and I need to take my time to choose and compare you know.

I had brought with a previous online grocery shop receipt to compare prices. I was surprised to notice that many products were actually a little more expensive or priced the same.

So I started unloading my trolley, but then noticed there's no getting out of this store without going past the till. And I don't want to abandon my trolley. I want to get my token back. So I decide to just buy what's already in my trolley and go finish the rest of the month's shopping at home on my laptop.

Outside I push my trolley back into the queue of trolleys to get my token out. But it's stuck. There is already a lady struggling to get her coin out too, which she manages to do eventually and then try to help me. Another guy comes along and has the same trouble. His wife eventually tells him to just leave the trolley there with their token in it. I didn't want to give up. My mom gave me this token. And even though I don't need to use it much here in the UK, once in a while we come across this kind of system and then I'm always happy to be able to take out my token.

Wel, sadly in the end I also had to just let go of my token. I drove home with my one bag of groceries. Cereal and a chocolate as this is what was in the first aisle at Lidl. And ordered the rest online.

It will be delivered within the next hour. A friendly man will ring my doorbell and carry all my groceries for the month into my kitchen. I will sign for it and unpack and not waste any plastic carrier bags. Then I will go back to the couch to finish watching some recordings on tv while eating my jelly beans that are on their way here now.

The jelly beans!

Want to have a look inside my shopping trolley? No token required for this one!

Mrs Balls Chutney! I bought three bottles just in case it's sold out next time!

Update: Here is a picture of what online grocery shopping looks like when it arrives in your kitchen. No trolleys, no heavy bags, no kids crying for candy.

How to create and print your own album with Blurb

When we left Switzerland I decided I wanted to make an album so we can remember all the experiences we had there. Both Andre and I love photos. He really enjoys taking the photos and improving his photography. I don't have the patience for that, but I enjoy the editing and everything else that comes after pressing the shutter button.

So imagine how many photos I had after 11 months in Switzerland. And also with it being such a beautiful country. You can't help taking so many photos! There's the mountains, lakes with crystal clear water... Now I'm missing all that a bit!

So anyway, I was going to tell you about Blurb.

It's very easy to use. You download their software called Booksmart. I usually watch all the tutorials I can find before starting anything new as it just helps you to use it to it's maximum and not miss out on any nice editing tools.

Import your photos to Booksmart by either dragging it there, searching for it on your computer or getting it straight from iPhoto if you use this, which is what I did and found the easiest.

Then you just drag photos onto the pages of your album and that's it basically!

You can change page layouts by clicking on 'edit page' if you cannot find the exact layout you want in the templates. I used this for most of my pages. Changing the layout slightly to get it the way I want it. This way you can add text boxes where you want in the size you want and can have a mixture of portrait and landscape layouts on one page.

When you're done, upload your album to Blurb and order it!

The only only thing I missed in Booksmart was being able to rotate picture frames. Sometimes you want a more informal look and have pictures stacked at angles to each other on the page. That you can't do with this program.


Before starting my Switzerland album I made a small album of our wedding (both of them!) and our honeymoom (again, both honeymoons!). I also added some pictures of the bachelor(ette) parties. Since we already have a beautiful big album of our January wedding day and reception taken by our photographer, this time I used pictures taken by guests at our wedding so it's a more informal fun wedding album. Oh yes, I even have some engagement photos in there as well, so it really tells the whole story!

I did this to check what Blurb's printing and colour and quality would be like. I chose the smallest and cheapest album they had, which was only around £7, as a test. Their prices are reasonable. The printing turned out very good and I am very impressed and happy with my albums. I eventually (after more than 6 months!) finished my Switzerland album too which I ordered in hardcover.

Here is the link to my book on Blurb: A Year in Switzerland. If you click on the book you should be able to view the inside pages.

So yes, I would recommend using Blurb. Good quality, good prices and user friendly! And it is possible to create an album in 30 minutes instead of the 6 months I took!

All Things Sweet

As part of the business Charlene and I have started (we have three parts to it!) we are baking what we call Petite Sweets. Mini cupcakes, completely edible so no paper wrapper, and so much better than a normal cupcake. We have a secret ingredient inside!

Yesterday we had an appointment with the food inspector. We did a lot of research before starting and found out that we have to register as a food business. Anyone selling anything edible has to register. And so the food inspector came to inspect our premises and see what we do.

I can tell you that we passed with flying colours. :-)

He was impressed that we already had the file called "Safer Food Better Business" and had worked through it and filled in everything that applied to our business. It tells you about hygiene, cooking, cooling, freezing and storing food and many other things. He had brought such a file with to give us but we were already one step ahead of him!

He was also impressed that we had one kitchen cupboard designated for all our business baking ingredients so it was separate from other food in the kitchen.

He also told us about 'Scores on the Doors' where restaurants are given stars, 5 stars being the highest, for hygiene. You can go to the site, type in a restaurant name and it will tell you their score. We won't be on there as we're only a small business, but it was interesting to hear about and I've already checked out a few places where we've eaten.

Here's the link to our website All Things Petite. Click on All Things Sweet to see what we're baking.

Blogging Time vs Business Time

I don't know where time is flying to. I am really trying to make time to write blog posts, but I'm hardly getting time anymore to read the blogs I follow. And I feel like I'm missing out. Some of these bloggers like The Pioneer Woman blog everyday so I really need to keep reading to keep up with her!!

I used to have facebook time and then blog time after that every morning. Not so anymore. I'm a business woman now! Working hard but not earning money yet! Yet.

I promise next time I will tell you about our new business and share the website with you. Promise promise. But I need more time to write a special post to introduce it to you and I need to go have dinner in two minutes! I made a spinach quiche. With mushrooms and bacon and feta. I think Andre put some extra cheese over too.

But here's a sneak peak screenshot of our new home page:

We're working on getting it to the front of the google line, but go google so long and see if you can find it. Don't forget to leave me a comment if you do find it! Tomorrow we'll add some more tags to hopefully bring it up easier in a google search.

Now go google!

zoom zoom

Yay! I have my own car now! Andre bought me this cute little MX5 on Friday. Not a spur of the moment buy, we did look at 12 MX5's the past two weeks before buying this one.

We've had plenty of opportunity this weekend to drive it around with the top down.

On Friday (Andre took the day off :-) we drove south to Hayling Island. To the beach. A nice long drive. It was just a bit windy down there. But that didn't bother us too much, we still had the top down!

I will be enjoying the freedom of being able to drive around where I need to go this week.

Mom and Jürgen's first visit to us here in the UK

We my mom and Jürgen up at the airport on Friday, a few weeks ago already.

I love going to the airport, even if I'm not the one going on holiday. They came to stay for the weekend.

Saturday we took the train to London. It was fun going on the train with them. In the past 6 months that we've been living here I have only been on the train three times, including this outing. For some reason I don't like going on the train here. It just scares me. In Switzerland I used the train every day and loved it. It was so easy. Anyway. I'm getting a car tomorrow so I can avoid the trains. Not that there are any close to us anyway.

So we arrived at Waterloo station and started walking and walking and walking.

We saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. My first time seeing this. There were so many people all over town. The handful of other times I've been to London I've never seen it this busy.

We had a drink at the Sherlock Holmes Pub. Drink stops were necessary to rest our tired legs.

We went to Harrods (very large and famous department store), another first for me. It was huge and we only had a quick walk around there and then went for a cake break to rest again at a coffee shop inside Harrods. We'll have to take my sister here. But maybe I'll have to keep her money safe for her.

We ended the day with dinner at a restaurant close to Tower Bridge. It was such a beautiful evening.

Sunday we went for lunch at a pub, one I think I've written about before. It's called The Anchor, in Wisley and is right on a lock so you get to see the long boats coming through.

We were very lucky that it didn't rain on Saturday while we were in London. It felt like it rained the entire month of August! But not that weekend. Except for a few drops while at the pub on Sunday. It didn't stop anybody from sitting outside though!

Windsor Horse Races

It was my first time ever to go see horse racing. We bet a little bit for fun, but it was more fun just being there, watching the people, and the horses of course. It was not a big fancy do with hats and all, you could dress as you like, but I took the opportunity to at least dress up a little bit. 

Charlene and I studied the horses, trying to pick one that could win us some money. We didn't win anything, but enjoyed the Pimms.

The parade ring where the horses, well parade, before they start the race. 

This one had a fancy hair cut.

Number one decided he had done enough parading and wanted to get started.

At the finishing line, waiting for the horses to come past. Farryn is getting heavier now so we conned Andre into holding her for a while.