What were your best buys in 2020?

A bottle of exceptionally good red wine which I opened just half an hour ago and is " going down nicely"! Cheers everyone! ???

A new car. We bought a Vauxhall Crossland x in Persian blue. I liked our old car, a Vauxhall Mokka, but the new one is much better for me to drive. I love it.

On a more domestic note, I bought a set of silicone kitchen utensils in lime green to match the kitchen tiles.

A garden room added on to our sitting room. I’d wanted to do it for years but we never got round to it.
Our builder knew lockdown was coming back in March & asked if they could work over the weekends to get it done for us.
They managed it & although we had to wait till August to get the flooring done, it was a real boon to be able to sit there during lockdown & subsequently.
Worth every penny.

Veg Trugs. We bought them with the money we saved not going anywhere.

Really really pleased with them.

My new iPad - incredibly fast compared to the slug I had ? mind you , served me well for 8 years !!!

A flight to the Canary Islands to meet up with my partner in august this year and to spend a month in our apartment together on a small island. Then back to the UK for another lockdown. A lovely few weeks.

Greeneyedgirl

WOODMOUSE49 I love the hammock, I have wanted one for ages. They are expensive but look good quality, were the firm ok to deal with?

The hammock itself was around £50. It was the wooden stand that was expensive. They had an offer on and I got both for just over £300.

Company is excellent and there's a good warranty on it. Weatherproof as well so the stand is outside all the time. I took the hammock in every night through. DH is an engineer and was impressed with the stand structure.

I recommend hammocks with the bars (see photo).

A Breville hot cup water heater. My dh drinks a lot of tea and instant coffee and would boil the kettle, walk away and then boil it again when he was ready to make a cuppa. We find the water heater is very good as it quickly heats up just enough water for the cup or mug. Saves energy and no more lifting a heavy kettle. Even better was the fact that I used £50 worth of Nectar points towards the cost of it.

An electric pressure cooker/slow cooker.

I use it nearly every day. Makes delicious soups, stews and stock, steams veg, cooks a whole chicken or gammon in a third of the time and keeps everything warm until you need it.

It's also a great rice cooker.

Happy New Year to HQ

Thanks, PamelaJ1 - we need a new toaster, I will look at those.

Puzzles for DH - they have kept him happy and quiet in lockdown.
Yorkshire Jigsaw Company, Amazon [sorry] and Hobbycraft.

A new mattress (Sleepsoul Bliss). It's the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on. I initially saw it in a local shop for £400 but they had a 3 month wait for delivery. I found it online for £250. I actually think it's one of my best buys ever

A HOTPOINT Aquarius TCM580BP Condenser Tumble Dryer , dries a full load in just under an hour! whereas my old 7yr old dryer took 2 hours plus. This is a basic dryer not one that has a sensor that stops when the dryer thinks the clothes are dry when they are still da,p!

A tyre inflator bought early last year but I haven't done much driving since.

WOODMOUSE49 I love the hammock, I have wanted one for ages. They are expensive but look good quality, were the firm ok to deal with?

Hammock and wooden stand. I treated myself as my 70th birthday holiday was cancelled due to lockdown.

It was my resting place in between gardening this year. Except when family visit then granddaughter claims it.

www.simplyhammocks.co.uk/

A reflective jacket from Mountain Warehouse which ‘ lights up like a beacon’ in car headlights according to a fellow night time cyclist. In day light it’s grey; in darkness the whole jacket is a very bright white.

A beautiful kitten who is keeping us amused. He arrived as a tiny terrified little creature but very quickly brought us under control as his servants.

New iPads for us both in February, been heavily used over 2020

A compact Sage glass kettle. Have it upstairs for early cuppa. It’s ideal if you only want to boil a small amount of hot water and looks stylish.

A jigsaw ,Hokusai The Wave. Took us 3 months to finish!!!!!

Chicken snitzel , not smitten !

A George Foreman grill.
We use it for sausages, fish fingers, chops, chicken smitten, steaks and gammon.
The fat runs out into a a tray underneath for disposal.

A Dyson robot vacuum.
We just turn her on and leave her to it.

Our cats are not fans though ...

Ooh, yes, Missingmoominmama, I recently bought a merino wool base layer top from Mountain Warehouse - wonderful!

An Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. I love being able to accumulate books on my small, light handheld device. I can enlarge the font, change the brightness, buy a recommended book in about 3 minutes.

I will still buy actual books from my independent bookseller but my Kindle has increased my reading fourfold. I slip it into my bag wherever I am going so I can pick up the story wherever I am.