Buying and Selling - Exciting Times

 

We are now into the more exciting time of the renovations.

All this week Alan has had the company of our joiner at the bungalow, so while Alan has been tiling my bathroom the joiner has been fitting skirting boards, door frames and doors.  So with two pairs of hands we're now coming on in leaps and bounds.

We have a cleaning company booked to come and do a thorough post-renovation clean on 10th November, and a removals company booked for the following week.

My mission today was to choose and order the curtain poles and curtains for all the windows.  After initially thinking he wanted to choose something unique for his bedroom window, Alan has now decided that he likes my choice so much that he wants the whole bungalow to match, and as the curtains are green ... I have absolutely no problem with this.  😁

We've gone for nice simple metal curtain poles in keeping with the style of the open-plan kitchen, dining and living room.

Along with ordering stuff we've also been selling stuff, a big declutter of all sorts of things that we have come across in our cupboards and drawers.  This morning the large Le Creuset casserole pot left home after many years of good service.  It was far too heavy for me to be able to lift these days, and we have enough pans between us to more than happily equip our new kitchen.

You'll have to excuse me now as I have bags of tiling adhesive to list on Facebook Marketplace, and then a table and chairs set to order.  Alan has talked me into selling the chunky table we already have ... as seemingly it won't suit the aesthetic of the new room.  

Sue xx

The Borrowed Book

 

After yet another weekend trip to Wickes for some more building supplies that Alan needed for the bathrooms of the bungalow, we went on to Morecambe for breakfast.  I'll be honest I had a bit of an ulterior motive for the venue selection ... a brand new second-hand bookshop was opening that morning.  

I had been following the progress of the proprietors on Instagram as they turned the derelict shell of an old shop into the most cosy looking little book emporium, and with it being in one of our favourite seaside destinations it just made sense to visit on it's first day.  😁

Alan was all for it too as it meant he had his favourite cooked breakfast in the little café that we regularly frequent on the sea front there.

Alan treated me to three books, and we had a nice chat with the owners.

I could not resist picking up one of their 'Blind Dates with a Book'.  Remember the lucky bags of our childhood years, well this is the adult readers version.

The only thing is, it is that pretty I have yet to bring myself to open the lovely little package.

The ex-retailer in me thinks that this is a genius way of making extra money for a book that maybe they had a few copies of or that they thought might not be that popular.  Oh well, one rainy day I will break into my 'Blind Date' and see what I have as my surprise.

The address of the shop in case anyone is interested.

Oh and yes, this is their loyalty card ... I obviously need to buy some more books.  😉

Sue xx

Tomatoes ... and Chickpeas

 

A slightly blurry photo, but isn't it nice to still be able to pick some homegrown tomatoes so late in the year.  

The majority of them are the yellow ones now, but a few of the red cherry tomatoes in my hanging basket are still ripening.  These gloriously seemingly spur of the moment sunny and warm days are keeping them going.  Helped by being in the sunniest part of the garden.  I thought I would be making some green onion chutney again, but I've now lost all the green ones to various shades of yellow and red ... which I am quite happy about.

I think a cook up of some lovely garlicky, tomatoey pasta style sauce will be on the cards in the next couple of days.  It will be lovely in the dark, short days that will soon be with us, and a nice reminder of the sunnier and warmer days of Summer.

I had made a small panful last week with the pickings from the week before, first we used it for our tea stirred through some pasta, and then the next night we finished it off on some homemade baguette style pizzas.  While the oven was on I put in some salt, pepper and garlic powder chickpeas to crisp up as a evening snack to go with a glass of wine.  

I might do the same again next time the oven is on for something else, they were very moreish.

Sue xx

Catching up on Shopping Posts, and Back to Riverford

The final shopping of September which with one thing and another slipped under the radar, leaving the photo trapped in my camera, it cost me £19.54.  My shopping seems slightly different at the moment while I am making Alan a packed lunch every day, and cooking an evening meal for us both to eat together.  He supplies the meatier parts of his meals and I do everything else.   As you can see from this photo, this is the last of my shopping photos that will include Ginger's little treats, he needed these for me to be able to put his medicine on.  He was very good at taking it twice a day.

Unfortunately, we had stocked up on all his treats, his favourite foods and two giant bags of his favourite 'posh' cat litter in the days before his sudden death.  This has all now been donated to our local animal rescue centre in Lancaster.  They were very grateful, as they were when we took all the dogs items last year.  It's nice to think of everything being put to good use.

Here's the receipt for the shopping for future perusal.  😄

My first shopping of October was a simple loaf of bread from Booths, after we had stopped in there for a coffee.  Then I picked up two boxes of paracetamol from Aldi while I walked around with Alan, I didn't need anything else.

I didn't buy that much more on my next trip to Aldi on 2nd October, spending just £10.56.

I did add two tins of peach slices to the trolley after taking that photo, it was taking the photo that reminded me I hadn't picked them up.  

The receipt.

I won't be needing much, or even any, shopping from the supermarket this week either as we have just started with our Riverford veg boxes again, after taking the Summer off to enjoy our homegrown crops.

I was tempted to start again this week for two reasons.  Firstly without Ginger's diet to be catered for we suddenly have an extra £25 a week in the housekeeping kitty, and there is currently an offer of a free chopping board that's worth £22.50, and mine is looking a bit dodgy at the moment.  So I jumped at the chance.

This cauliflower is HUGE.

 I don't know how they managed to cram it into the small box that I ordered for this week, I know I couldn't get it back in after getting it out to check things over ... and it won't fit into the fridge at all.  I have now persuaded Alan to share some some cauliflower cheese with me for our tea to use half of it up and so that I can make the rest of fit onto a fridge shelf. 😁

The new chopping board is lovely, and once it is oiled it will be ready for action.  Just wiping it over with a damp cloth as was suggested, showed off the lovely grain of the wood.

My instructions.  💚

To bring my spend up to the required amount to get the chopping board I completed the rest of my shopping for this week.  So Aldi is going to miss me completely for a week.  I needed some milk, so I thought I would try this Oat milk, it's been a while since I've had oat milk.  I used to make my own, but there's something so beautifully creamy about carefully made professional oat milk, so I thought a treat was in order.  I also chose some eggs and hummus as my choices and Alan asked for a pack of Pork and Apple sausages.  They look so like the ones we used to produce, it was a real blast from the past when I pulled them out of their cool box.

As the delivery was first thing in the morning I was even hungrier by the time that I had unpacked everything so, I used  one of the Cavolo Nero leaves in my lovely buttery scrambled eggs ... it just had to be done.  

If you would like to take advantage of the chopping board offer while it is still on you can use this LINK and enter the code CHOPTOIT at the checkout, hopefully my referral link and the code will work together, if not this will at least give you £15 off your second order with Riverford.

Now I'm off to start prepping a cauliflower cheese.  

Sue xx

Thank You

 

Early Autumn Morning by Lucy Almey Bird - my October Calendar Page

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments on my last blog post.  We are both slowly coming to terms with being a completely animal free household, something that we have never experienced before.

When I met Alan twenty two years ago I had two cats, having only just gone down from having four and just about recovering from that.  He had a Border Collie dog called Sophie, that actually lived with his ex-wife while he travelled backwards and forwards to Berkshire for his job. When we moved in together and then married, we moved to quite a few places in England and Wales always with a steady stream of pets as our constant companions.

Over the course of the last two or so years we have lost all three of our last, very beautiful furry family, it's been hard but we have managed to adapt and we will again.  Hopefully one day in the not too distant future we will adopt a dog but we are going to be leaving it for a while.  

Ginger has been our final cat, which for me is a hard thing to say. I have had a pet cat since my first birthday when I was bought a beautiful jet black cat by my Nana, which in my young mind was blue, so he was called Bluey,  He remained with me until just after my first marriage, when sadly he died at the grand old age of almost 18. But if I was going to end my cat adventures on any cat it would have to be Ginger, he was the most laid back and charismatic of all my feline friends, so what a happy memory to hold forever.

Thank you for all your support on the last post, it meant the world to both of us. 💖

Sue xx