Indoor Gardening, and Winding Down

 

Over the last few days I have been doing a few little jobs in the garden and I really thought I was on a roll, then yesterday morning I woke up to really heavy rain and temperatures that had plummeted ... as promised by the previous nights weather person.

So I decided to find an indoor something or other that I could do to try and keep me motivated.

A little trawl through my seed tin and I found two different kinds of courgette seeds, a pack of cucumber seeds and some rocket.  So I sowed them all in little pots with labels.

And now they live on the bedroom windowsill, alongside the chitting potatoes.

The potatoes that we have had from Riverford for the past few deliveries have been delicious, so I had decided to sacrifice three of them to see if I can grow some for myself this Summer.  Fingers crossed. 🤞

I'm not growing too much this year, for two reasons, firstly, my health.  Gardening is becoming increasingly difficult for me and I can only manage a few minutes at a time without a long rest, and secondly because of our imminent move we want to wind the garden here down to make it truly easily manageable, but at the same time we want to keep it photogenic enough for when we put this house on the market later this year.

So just a few vegetables, and our regular fruit from the apple tree and the blueberry bushes will be more than enough.

Sue xx

Food, Family and Footings

 

My mission ... and I have chosen to accept it ... is to use up as much of my outdated spaghetti as I can over the coming few weeks.

I tend to eat between 80g and 100g for a simple spaghetti meal, so every time I cook any sort of pasta I cook up twice as much as I need.  Cooling the half to be saved under running cold water in a colander before storing it in the fridge.

The first day with this batch was with a simple pesto from the fridge.

Two days later I thawed out one of the tubs of my homemade pasta sauce, it was very good, and to save on washing up I ate it out of the storage box after zapping it in the microwave. 😁 

A couple of days ago I did exactly the same, but this time I decided to use a jar of bought pasta sauce from the cupboard.  In a fit of time saving enthusiasm I emptied the whole jar of sauce into the whole double portion of spaghetti in the pan, and put half of it to cool while I ate my tea.

Big mistake, the sauce was awful, anyway I persevered and ate the portion in my bowl, but then thinking about it later, still with a nasty taste in my mouth, I decided to throw the rest away. 

What a waste of good spaghetti, I mean I know I have lots but I still do not like wasting food.  I will not be buying that particular Marks and Spencer pasta sauce again for sure.

In other news ... my middle grandson Kyle, had a milestone birthday on Saturday, reaching 21 on the 21st.  He partied with family and friends before hitting the town with more friends to keep the celebrations going into the wee small hours, oh the stamina of youth.  He spent a good proportion of his family party teaching his younger brother Oscar, on the far right of this photo, how to dance.

In renovation news, the gaping holes that were the two gable ends of the bungalow, have now been bricked up securely and all the windows of the bungalow now have proper concrete lintels, ready for new windows to be fitted in a couple of weeks.  So no more drooping and cracking of the brickwork below.

If you are interested here is the latest walk-through, it's just a quick one this time.

https://youtu.be/851gKzufm7I?si=H5ZVM-PWsT90yGf5

This shows the newly laid footings for the wall that should hopefully be going up this week, which will separate the bedrooms.  This is a supporting wall that we needed to move over by about three foot to equalise the bedroom sizes a bit, thus the Acro props and standing pieces of wood that you can see in the video that are temporarily supporting the joist in the loft above.  The bathroom walls are non-supporting so do not need their own little 'foundations'.

Alan has been really impressed with the progress this week, he is still loving it ... luckily. 😄

Sue xx

  

A Shopping Catch Up - Sorry Sue!!

I have fallen so far behind with my shopping posts, that this one is a quick round up of everything that has come into the house since the last one.

Last weeks Riverford box was a medium box for 2-3 people, and we also choose a couple of extras.

Choosing those extras was dangerous ... those Chocolate Chip and Orange Hot Cross buns were delicious, and lasted barely two days.  We both loved them, I might have added them to next weeks order too!  😁

14th Aldi - total of £34.90

Normal shopping in the order it was done and with prices.

This shop was in two parts.  

The items above were my normal weeks shopping at £13.15.

These items were a stock up at £21.75.  Although when I got home I realised that the Weetabix tin was just about empty, so these will have to be dipped into quite soon.

I went wild in the aisles at Booths on the 18th, spending a total of £54.40.  It included treats for each of us and some store cupboard items to stock up.  The sun was out, the store was lovely and quiet and I had earned myself some extra cash.

Definitely for the store cupboard were the tins of beans on offer at £7 for 8 cans.  A lot more expensive than my usual Aldi's own, but I do like Heinz when they're not £2 a can!!

The Booths receipt.

The finally, and to bring you bang up to date I went to Aldi yesterday morning.  I spent £19.68 on a mixture of store cupboard items and a couple of things that I actually needed

The things for the store cupboard were dated and stashed away, although I will have to dip into one of the peanut butters next month as my current jar is almost empty.

So, that's us all up to date.

The reason for the extra available cash this month has been some really good Facebook Marketplace sales, which me and Alan both agreed would be good to use for stocking up before any coming price rises.  Seemingly the things that are pretty much guaranteed to rise in price first are cooking oils, chocolate and coffee, but I get my coffee from Sainsbury's were I can usually get the best price, so that's possibly something for next week.

So with apologies to Sue in Suffolk who in this posts comments let slip that she finds shopping photos boring ... hey Sue at least I didn't video it all and talk you through it.  😉

Sue xx

Presents, Meals and Progress

 

My elder son and his fiancée called on Saturday for a coffee, they were on their way back from their yearly visit to Mum.  He had already sent me a box of 'Letterbox Flowers' ... not that any of our postmen have ever realised that the box will fit through the letterbox, they always knock on the door ... luckily the flowers were just starting to open out so he got to see them looking good.  They are even better today, fully open, really filling the jug and looking so fresh.

Alan got back later bringing me some sparkling water and some paracetamol ... oh he knows the way to a girl's heart.  😄

I've been trying to use a few things from the freezer this week, so my lunch was a bowl of the soup that I made here and half of one of the garlic breads that I bought here.  There's something very luxurious about a garlic bread dipped in a tasty homemade soup.  The soup gets a bit more garlicky with each dip.

A bang up to date progress report of the bungalow.

 Alan sent me this photo of the opened up loft space late afternoon yesterday.  We aren't using the loft for living space, there isn't the head height to add rooms as it is at the moment, and anyway we like the fact that our bungalow is a 'true' bungalow.  But we are having to have both the gable ends taken down and rebuilt as the wooden lintels above the windows below have all rotted.  We are putting in all new lintels above the windows and doors.  It's not a huge problem really as we are changing the sizes of all but one of the windows, so it would have made sense to change them anyway.

Alan got the photo because he was also up in the loft working to make a wooden pathway to the front of the roof space for access to what will be the solar installation panel.  He said at it's busiest there were six workmen and himself all getting on with various jobs.  

He is absolutely loving it.

Sue xx

Granny Would Be Proud

 

All today's photos are from Google Images

I've watched some really interesting YouTube videos over the last few days, slotted in here and there between shopping, visiting and visits to us.  Sometimes I choose YouTube in preference to watching a pre-recorded television programme because I can pick and choose and slot in viewing in the space it takes me to eat lunch or have a cup of coffee.  I can also watch it in preference to the news, as once I have heard the headlines I feel a real urge to take a step back.  After all there's nothing I can do except live my life calmly, quietly and as peacefully as possible.

https://youtu.be/2dmJVyRR4Mo?si=lCCb53A-WpPpETvz

28 minutes long

Just recently I have been watching a few tips and money saving channels and really retro ideas that actually make sense for now.  One that I came across on Saturday was this one. Try and ignore the annoying AI voice, but enjoy the photos that don't quite match up with the words, I found some of them made me laugh, so it was entertaining in every sense of the word.

Wouldn't a step back to a lot of the old ways be a welcome relief at the moment, well I think so ... but then I am a Granny.  😄

My washing goes out on the line in all but the worst of the weather, I shop predominately with cash, I don't buy what I don't need and I repair what I already have.  I reuse, recycle and re-invent before I throw most things away.  Oh, I make mistakes sometimes, but then don't we all.  But doing our best in difficult times can only be a good thing.

https://youtu.be/Y3Rg-UJ39pU?si=oXNdHGKyPI8CcGCU

Under 9 minutes long.

This more food based one is charmingly retro, and very on point with todays escalating food prices.  It's also American so I loved the completely different foods that it shows.  I do like the idea of 'biscuits and gravy' still popular I believe in the USA today, but for me in the UK that always brings to mind a dish of custard cream biscuits smothered in Bisto.  😐

This mornings little 'reset' was lightly stewing up six little apples that had lived in the fridge for far too long.  One portion for breakfast with a Weetabix and three more in the fridge for later in the week.  Nothing wasted, everything being used up in a good way ... granny would have been proud.

Sue xx