Latest Camping Trip

Last week we went camping. After going to this campground a few times before, we finally got my husband's dream site.

Fishing right at our site. Hubby caught a pretty good catfish.

Group photo. I took this with the timer on my tablet - came out a little blurry.

How to clear out your home and make money

Clutter, clutter, clutter. Most of us are surrounded by stuff we do not need, do not want and do not use. From children's toys they have long grown out of to clothes we no longer wear, it is very easy to be guilty of hoarding. Lofts are stuffed with boxes of indeterminate items, garages are so full of stuff that we cannot fit our cars in them and drawers are overflowing with bits and pieces that have no real natural home.

Clean and clear

If you are moving house then it is the perfect opportunity to go through your things and get rid of some of the items which have been lingering on long past their use-by date. The old fridge in the garage which still works but you do not use because you have a new one - the child's bicycle with stabilisers when your kids are now teenagers, the lamp which you decided did not match your decor, the list is pretty endless for most people. Even if you are not moving, a good spring clean is very therapeutic and you will be amazed at how much extra space you have once your home is free from all that annoying clutter.

Where to next?

But the big question is, what to do with it? You could try a car boot sale, where smallish items like children's toys and old books often prove popular purchases. You are unlikely to get rich this way, but you might make a few pounds and pass the items on to a new home.

Or of course you could gift the items to friends and family, or offer them to a charity shop. Many people now sell unwanted items online to make money and there is a myriad of auctions and selling sites on the internet you could try posting your items on to make a bit of cash.

It is a good idea to have a price in mind for each item so you will not be disappointed. Auction sites allow you to set a minimum (reserve) price so be realistic and remember it is a second-hand item and shoppers are looking for a bargain, so will not want to pay too much. Just think, far better someone else is making use of the old fridge and you have a few extra quid in your pocket than it is languishing in your garage forever. Big items like this will probably need to be sold locally, but smaller items can be parcelled and posted – just remember to add the right amount of postage onto your asking price.

People sell all manner of items online. Remember the proverb 'one man's trash is another man's treasure', so what you think is rubbish could make someone's day.

For certain items you could try looking on specific collectors' sites to see if anyone is looking for just what you have (old books and collectible magazines, for example) and collectors are likely to pay a decent price for items, too. Then you can sit back and enjoy your clutter-free home.

Making the perfect coffee: cafetiere or machine?

Discover your perfect coffee

Coffee is big business these days. Large multinational coffee chains are taking over the high street, people can be regularly seen walking to work swinging their Styrofoam cup and there are all kinds of flavours, toppings and extras you can have. Making the perfect cup of coffee is trickier than it sounds. With so many varieties of coffee, milk versus black, whether to add sugar, what the right strength is, espresso, cappuccino, latte... it is quite impossible these days to ask someone if they'd like a coffee without having to follow up with a list of questions about how they prefer it.

While there are many delicious types of instant coffee out there, coffee aficionados would argue that the only way to make coffee is to brew it yourself. But once again you hit a minefield of questions, such as whether to invest in a coffee machine or whether you can get an equally good cup of coffee using a cafetière.

What's the difference?

A filter coffee maker heats up the water before dripping it through a filter – either paper or plastic – filled with coffee grains. The coffee collects in the jug below – this is sometimes known as a drip brew. A cafetière, meanwhile, has the coffee and hot water added together and is left a short while before the plunger is lowered to leave the coffee liquid in the jug. Is one better than the other? It's all a question of taste – some people think you need a cafetiere for great coffee while others think a more traditional machine is the only way forward.

Filter coffee will most likely have a lighter body than coffee prepared in a cafetière, meaning it will just lightly coat your tongue, whereas cafetière coffee is much fuller in body, coating the whole of your mouth and giving a stronger, more long-lasting flavour.

Cafetière coffee will give you a slightly more muddled set of flavours. It contains more compounds than filter coffee, meaning there are more flavours swirling around your cup, which can be a little confusing for your tastebuds. A filter coffee will have a clearer flavour, giving you a simpler, cleaner cup of coffee.

Something which coffee lovers dislike about using a cafetière is the amount of sediment at the bottom of the cup. This is inevitable – when you depress the plunger, small amounts of undissolved coffee can get through the holes, which then sinks to the bottom of your cup. This is not something you'll often find with filter coffee, which produces a much cleaner coffee as the holes in the filter paper are too small for the coffee to pass through.

The verdict?

There really isn't one option better than another. Some people prefer to put a teaspoon of instant coffee in a cup, fill it with hot water and drink it straight away. Others prefer to grind their own beans, source specific types of coffee and put lots of time and effort into the perfect brew. So give it a bit of trial and error to see which one works best for you.