The Farm Animal Sanctuary
The first farm animal sanctuary in Britain – ‘The Farm Animal Sanctuary’ have posted details of their fundraising events for the year. The first one is their Spring Fair on the weekend of 26th and 27th April. There will be lots of stalls to visit as well as getting to meet some of the 600+ rescued farm animals.
The Farm Animal Sanctuary will be open most weekends from 3 May for visitors. Please book tickets via their events page https://thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk/events/
Their first Sheepover of the year is on 31 May – details via their website https://thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk/event/the-farm-sheepover-may-2025/
In July they are hosting the Freedom Fields – Festival. 25th – 27th July. With food, drinks, live music (including a DJ), celebrity speakers, shopping, wellness workshops, yoga, a dedicated kids’ area, and much more, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
In September they are holding their Autumn Open weekend on 6th and 7th September. https://thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk/event/open-weekend-autumn-2025/
and in November the Christmas Fair is on 22 November more details nearer the time.
November will be another busy time for me – finishing packing my Link to Hope Shoe Boxes as well as receiving and processing other people’s shoeboxes ready for collection and making items to sell at the Christmas Fair to help raise funds for the Farm Animal Sanctuary.
Link to Hope
The Shoe Box delivery diary is now available on the Link to Hope website along with a photo gallery of some of the shoe boxes being delivered to other countries/areas. https://linktohope.co.uk/shoebox-appeal-delivery-diary-2024/
The theme for February on the Family and Elderly Shoe Box Calendar is Heat and Light. “Items to bring Hope and Light to peoples lives – candles and holders, hot water bottles, torches, socks and tights.”
I’ll start with some hot water bottle bargains that are still available in some locations at the time of writing. Dunelm have 500ml hot water bottles with furry covers reduced from £5.00 to either £2.50 for pink, turquoise and grey or £1.25 for olive. The olive ones are only available in a few stores – some only have 1 left in stock but some seem to have 10 or more. They aren’t available for home delivery, so you made need to change store location to find somewhere near you that has them in stock. The south east and north east seemed to have a few locations with them in stock.
Dunelm have several other larger hot water bottles and covers reduced to £2.50 – there’s a cute Cyril the Schnauzer 1.7L hot water bottle and cover which could double as a soft toy as well as a hot water bottle. (The smaller version is £3.50) There is a long badger hot water bottle, and a waffle hot water bottle also £2.50 – all are traditional hot water bottles – some other designs contain heat packs which need a microwave!
If you’re heading to Dunelm they still seem to have lots of scented candle jars for 50p, so candle and holder sorted in one go 😊.
Returning to hot water bottles – Proper Job have 500ml hot water bottles without a cover for £1.20. Yorkshire trading have 1L hot water bottles from £2.49. A couple of weeks ago I bought some character hot water bottles and covers for £2.00 from Primark. They didn’t appear on their website at the time, so I don’t know if they are still available.
I haven’t found any bargains for wind up torches so far. The best value I’ve found so far are on Amazon – 6 wind up torches for £12.99 or one black Rolson wind up torch for £3.50 – I’ve had a Rolson one for several years and it’s still working – though that isn’t a guarantee that all of them will be as reliable. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs – read the description carefully – the description may say 3 led dynamo and picture 3 torches but you are only purchasing one torch which has 3 led bulbs.
Bargain Buys
Tesco had packs with 12 wax crayons reduced to 30p. Asda have 12 long pastel colouring pencils for 50p. In Poundland I found a baseball hat for 50p and a pumice stone and foot brush for 50p.
They also had some A4 drawing pads for 50p, 6 HB pencils for 30p, 18 felt pens for 75p and 24 long colouring pencils for 80p which are all their standard price, but availability seems a bit hit and miss.
A new What! store has opened up in a nearby town which I stumbled across accidently and got some thin scarves reduced to 50p which shouldn’t take up too much room in the shoeboxes, and 4 pairs of cotton work gloves for 90p which is their usual price at this company.
Until next month