A Case of Mistaken Identity ... and Resting

I'm currently eating my green courgettes at almost every meal, and in a twisted, colour infused way I was looking forward to some of my future meals containing some of their yellow cousins.  I think the garden centre must have got confused when it labelled these two plants that I bought off them when my second sowing failed.

My 'yellow' courgettes are most definitely green!!

Are well ... greens are good for you.  💚

We had family visiting at the weekend and Alan's sister Alison mentioned that she had never seen the Eric Morecambe statue, although Paul who is a biker had been down to visit with his mates many years ago, so a quick ride up the road to Morecambe it was then!!

https://youtu.be/GNbTJ2AnDKc?si=4JY_CG-VN6r7pzPv

The boys larking about at Barton Grange ... definitely Cheeky Chimps on a Log!!

We had a good, very food filled and very chatty weekend, which was followed by me and Alan having to drive to Manchester for a meeting at Mum's care home yesterday.  Now I have totally seized up and am good for absolutely nothing.

So ...

I'm planning a very slow and lazy week.

Blogging, then rest.

Instagramming then rest.

Television watching then rest.

Reading then rest.  😄

Sue xx

To See You Through the Weekend

 

What beautiful Lilacs, in a painting by Sergey Khamalyan.

Absolute perfection. 💜

A dream cottage in the woods, what a fairy tale it would be to live in such a location.

The most gorgeous of kitchens, I could happily live here.

But maybe I need a little more lace around the window.

Just some lovely images and thoughts to see you through the weekend.

I do hope it's a good one for you.

Sue xx

A Step Too Far?

We both decided that breakfast at Booths was a good idea the other day, we were up early and the sun was out so off we went.

We grabbed a trolley on the way in and while Alan picked up the things that he needed I only really needed to get some eggs.  Easy shopping ... my favourite sort.

The freebies that I brought home, just the excess from what the lady on the till put on the tray and that we didn't use.  Alan had a Full English, minus the toast and I opted for scrambled eggs on toast and gave him one of my pieces of toast, I can never manage the two slices that they give you.

I also couldn't manage all of my scrambled eggs on toast.

So, I neatened it up on the remaining half a slice of toast and popped it into one of the plastic bags that I now always carry in my handbag, and then put it very carefully into my handbag.

A step too far?

Nope, it gave me a lovely lunch later in the day.  

Although the toast wasn't good ... so I chopped it finely and put it out for the birds ... I picked the pea shoots off the eggs and put them to one side, while I placed the eggs in a dish with about a dozen little gloriously red tomatoes from the garden surrounding them, and then they were quickly zapped in the microwave.  Placed on a piece of freshly made buttered toast and then garnished with the slightly droopy pea shoots they were as good as new, and every bit as tasty as breakfast had been.

Sue xx

 

Nobody's Perfect ...

The trees in the woods accept themselves for what they are.  

We have so much to learn from nature, if we just slowed right down and appreciated our wonderful earth for what it is and what it gives us, and stopped listening to the leaders fighting over pockets of it and ways of life, and instead learnt to live like the trees how much better it would all be.

Can you tell I've been watching far too much news?

Well not anymore.  The six o'clock news can come and go and I won't be there watching it anymore.  I stopped watching the ten o'clock news a long time ago, all that bad stuff so close to bedtime was not a good idea.  In fact since we lost that lovely segment with the late, great Trevor McDonald ... 'And Finally' ... something light hearted or heart-warming to round off the 20 minutes of doom and gloom that he had just had to deliver to our homes, it has never been the same.

So many of us have reached the stage in our lives where we can begin to slow down, to settle into the lives that we want to live and start to enjoy all the sacrifices that we have made over the years to get us to this space. 

 It's a very good feeling.

It's not all perfect, at our ages there are health issues that pop up out of nowhere, things that we still do have to do whether we like it or not, but these days, happily, hopefully, they are few and far between.  But it's so much better than it used to be.

As long as we can avoid the doom and gloom of the news, the negative Nellies that have a problem for every solution, and instead focus on the good things that happen rather than dwelling for far too long on the bad .. not always easiest thing to do I know ... we should just about get through our days relatively sanely.

Sue xx

Hot Days = Simple Teas

 

The hot, hot days that we have been having up until today, have really meant that by the time evening comes around the last thing I want is to be in the kitchen cooking for longer than ten minutes.  So for the last few days I have been having the most simple of meals and it really suits me just fine.

Simple green pesto and spaghetti.

The easiest of easy teas, just two cod fish cakes from the freezer thawed overnight, and then cooked in the Remoska and served with some cucumber slices.  There were half a dozen cherry tomatoes on the plate too but every time I passed by the worktop I ate one, so I classed them as a 'tomato starter'.  😁

Using up courgettes is starting to be obligatory, after all the more you pick the more you get and we are now getting lots of little ones, so I keep picking them small.  I do not want to accidentally end up with a marrow!

The end result ... simple and very tasty.

Last night's evening meal was a nice egg salad bun and a sliced up cooked beetroot.

Simple meals for quiet simple evenings.  

All I needed and all I wanted.

Sue xx

Rhubarb in the Bath ...

 

The rhubarb was taking over the garden so I harvested about a third of it on Friday.

There was no space in the kitchen until I had washed the pots, so it went into the bucket of water that is in the bath every other day.  I wash my hair over the bath on the days when I don't have a shower, and it takes two thirds of a bucketful for the water to run warm enough not to make me squeal, the water comes in handy for numerous things.

After I had left it soaking 'in the bath' and washed the pots in the kitchen, the rhubarb was rinsed again in the kitchen sink and then to drain the middle section.

Chopped into one inch pieces it was then put into a pan with a splash of water and left to stew for about fifteen minutes before the heat was turned off, some brown sugar was added and then it was left to cool down very slowly on the cooling down hob with the pan lid on.

There was a lot of rhubarb.

 I had a dishful with some squirty cream, Alan had a dishful with some ice-cream and there was the large tub that I put into my fridge.  I was supposed to be making a rhubarb crumble, but I keep dipping into the tub for more rhubarb to eat with yoghurt for my breakfast ... and the crumble mix is yet to be made.

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.  

Sue xx

Much More Satisfying

 

It doesn't take many ingredients to make a very tasty and very satisfying Breakfast Wrap.

I was out early before the heat of the day ramped up yesterday ... I don't do heat at all, while I hide in the house, Alan basks in the garden like a snoozing sealion ... I was picking the four reddest tomatoes, one didn't make it as far as the house but the three that did were just about enough.  I picked the two largest courgettes and used half of the smallest one.

Added to the homegrown pickings were a couple of slices of red onion, two beaten eggs, a handful of cheese and a selection of spices from my tin.  In yesterdays case it was onion granules, garlic granules and cumin.

The veggies and spices were all sautéed together for five minutes, then the eggs were poured on top and the whole thing was topped with the wrap.  After a few minutes I checked under the edges to see if the eggs had set nicely, they had so I put my plate over the 'omelette', tipped the pan over and then slid it back in wrap side down. 

A few more minutes and the wrap had softened and warmed through nicely, then it was folded in half and tipped out onto the plate.

An absolutely delicious and healthy breakfast in around ten minutes.

It's funny because yesterday I was debating whether to buy a box of a Cheerio type cereal from Aldi, as the thought of cereal and ice-cold milk was very appealing.  I'm glad now that I didn't as this was so much more satisfying.

What is your current favourite breakfast?

Sue xx

A Piggy Past

 

All this week my Facebook Memories has been throwing up images of our rare breed pigs and news of their new homes, as this was the month in 2011 when we suddenly had to rehome our gorgeous girls, their babies ... and Jack the boar ... as sadly we were having to travel backwards and forwards to Scotland as Alan's Mum was in the last few months of her life.  We needed to be able to leave our farm at the drop of a hat.  It all went so smoothly looking back but it was a hectic time of our lives for sure.

Here's a real blast from the past, a full post from my old blog Our New Life in the Country. 

Friday, 8 July 2011

The Large Blacks in their New Home

Don't you just love it when......you know you've done the right thing.

We've known Lulu and Lottie since they were two weeks old, they came to live with us when they were seven weeks old.  Liz and Jack both came to us when they were four months old.  So they've known us and we've known them almost all their lives.

We felt like parents sending their children away when they left the farm this week.  They trusted us and we felt we'd let them down.  Then we get a phone call to say that Lulu has settled in well after we delivered her to Jimmy's Farm last week, and has made her home ready for her babies to be born.  Then yesterday we get an email with the picture at the top of this post, along with others showing more of Jack, Lottie and Liz's new home, grassy pastures surrounded by woodlands.

The lovely folk that picked them up from our farm took loads of pictures in the orchard, documenting the loading at our end and the fun and games we had in trying to move a 30st boar in a direction he's not keen on going in.  Luckily Lovely Hubby is a strong man and Jack is a friendly boar.  Henk and Annemie who are the new owners, were amazed at Jacks lovely temperament, and that he walked into the trailer and let them close the dividing door ready for the loading of his wives.

Now we feel we can take a deep breath, like parents who have raised their children well and sent them off into the big bad world with the knowledge to live their lives well, we feel in a small way we have done the same for our pigs. 

Jack, Lottie, Liz, and later Lulu and her litter when she joins them, are forming the start of a breeding herd of Large Black pigs in the Netherlands, supplying rare breed quality pork and keeping their rare bloodlines going.  Animals reared the natural way.  Henk has had to work miracles to get permission to do this, animals are not permitted to be kept outdoors in the Netherlands, something I knew nothing about.  He is breaking new ground and bringing a better quality of life to farm animals and educating people on what their meat should taste like through his restaurant.

We are so happy to be a part of this.

Sue xx

 Gosh it really shows how different things were in our lives back then.  Hope you all have a good weekend.

Sue xx

To view this post easier on a mobile, scroll to the bottom and click on 'View Web Version', it makes it much easier to read as my old and latest blogs are done in a slightly different formats to each other.

Thanks Angela ...

 

Angela from Tracing Rainbows gave me a real earworm yesterday ... all day.  

Her post was about granola and she very cleverly called it 'Her Name Was Lola ... She Ate Granola'.  The tune was stuck in my head, the only way I could get rid of it was with the old Postman Pat trick, but Lola came back again and again. 😐

The reason that most of Barry's songs turn into an earworm for me goes back to the mid eighties, when he was really popular with my ex-husband.  I made the mistake of buying him the double album on cassette tape for Christmas ... it was the only cassette tape we owned and our little orange Mini car had a cassette player in it.

From then on every single journey we went on, local or long-distance, had a Barry Manilow soundtrack, and we travelled to Manchester every week from Barrow in Furness.  We must have had the only five year old that knew the words to all of Barry Manilow's songs off by heart.  Simon would sit in his little car seat in the centre of the back seat of the Mini belting out the songs as loud as his little lungs would let him.  If it got too much I would tell him to sing very quietly and we could see his lips moving via the rear view mirror.

Happy memories in so many ways, except for the earworm that I have now given myself!!

https://youtu.be/Yj1r0sGV38s?si=saGu2xVpXfVFJnK_

Sue xx

Small Kitchen Appliances

 

These are three of the six small kitchen appliances that I use the most often.  Seen here in action last night earning their keep and cooking my tea.  😀

Usually the rice cooker is kept in the drawer, the other small appliances not shown here, are my toaster, which kept on the little white drawer unit in a basket, my Nutribullet which lives in the cupboard under the sink and ...

... my small sized Kitchen Aid food processor, which also lives in the cupboard until I need to use it.

I don't have the space to leave them all out ready for action so it's just the things that are used every single day that are on the worktop.  The kettle ... what would life be without numerous cups of coffee over the course of the day ... and the Remoska which is used once or twice every day and which normally stands on the back of the hob, I only ever use the front part of the hotplate so it's perfectly safe there.

I did give an air fryer a try for a few weeks last year when my last Remoska broke and was unrepairable, but it didn't suit my style of cooking as well.  So that was sold on and that particular little dalliance ended.

What are your most used small kitchen appliances?

Sue xx

I've Completely Lost It ...

 

I've completely lost it ... my train of thought that is.  😕

I had downloaded these two photos onto my new post, Alan came and asked me something ... and then the electric went off while the engineer was working on our Smart meters.  They haven't been 'talking to base', and since our change from British Gas who installed them, to Octopus, the new company has been struggling with getting the readings at their end.  British Gas kept us waiting for months and months and never got around to sorting things out, so hopefully we are on the verge of success.

Anyway all of the above made  me completely lose my train of thought.  When I compose a new post I usually start with a photo and go from there. I think the top photo was to show the space I now have next to my front door, so I will roll with that idea!!

  I sold the cupboard that used to stand there on Facebook Marketplace at the weekend.  It just had one of the Mother in Laws Tongue plants standing on it, and took up quite a bit of space.  Now the cupboard is gone, I have trimmed down both my plants, they were ridiculously tall, and put the cuttings into the jug you see there and I suddenly have space.  

This has been a very prolific plant, I have already sold two plants off the original and will soon have another pot of rooted leaves, so I guess another plant will have to go.  Not bad really, for an initial £24 purchase of a large Mother in Laws Tongue, I have already made back the purchase price and with hopefully more to come.

This was the second photo that I had ready loaded when the power went off ... at the same time as my brain seemingly.

Well, what can I say ... this is George the bear.  His name tag says Edward, but I have always thought of him as George!!  

You can just see next to him on the right, the jug that had been with the plants by the front door.  I moved it as I had visions of me whipping back the curtains and knocking water all over the floor, now that would have been annoying.

Not the blog post you were perhaps expecting, but then it's probably not the blog post that I was expecting either!!  

Sue xx

Shopping, Baking and Visiting

 

The weekends shopping and the last that I'm hoping to do this month.  I've been spending too much on things that I don't even really need.  Of all these things the only thing that I really needed, to keep my supplies up for the month, was the paracetamol.  I sort of needed potatoes, but I could have managed without them really as I have a couple of tins of potatoes in the cupboard.

I need to stop shopping and keep my cash, as the bank account has dwindled a bit after paying this years second tax bill. 

The two items that I had put into the freezer before I took the top photo.

Altogether these things cost me £12.17, which is actually really good, looking at what I've got, so I'm not being too hard on myself, and the single items and tomatoes added over 200 points to my Nectar card.  Those points are all I'm giving myself to spend for the rest of the month along with a pound coin or two if necessary for any overs.

I used up my old banana, so that it wouldn't make my new one ripen by being close together.  There's only two ways to use up very ripe bananas in my book, cakes or 'nice-cream'.  Once again I chose to make some Banana and Walnut Muffins.

The oats are in the Nutribullet cup as I didn't have enough flour, so the missing amount was made by whizzing up enough oats to make oat flour.

There were two more on the cooling rack, but Alan came over and spotted them ... and they mysteriously vanished.  😲

I purposefully made them quite small so that we could take some for our visit to Mum yesterday, and she really enjoyed two of the smallest ones.  She doesn't eat much these days so although there was a scary moment as she had a coughing fit, it was nice to see her enjoy them so much.

Sue xx

Remembering Suky

 

It's one year ago today that Suky went for her final walk with Alan and Mavis and collapsed on the tow path.  Dying shortly afterwards, completely naturally and in her own time at the vets.

To say that I miss her would be the understatement of the year, she was everything to both of us from the minute we visited her in South Wales as a five week old pup, and then picked her up and brought her home just in time for Christmas as a big girl of eight weeks.

She was my constant companion and the light of my life.

Suky 13th October 2011 - 6th July 2024  💔

Sue xx

In Reality ...

With last weekend's shopping being so heavy on books and light on food I thought I better reverse things a bit this week.  Somehow yet another plant fell into my supermarket trolley ... before I had even entered the store.

And on the way out a book leapt into my hands, oh well it only made me pay £1 for it.  😄

I had already stocked myself up on these again from the big Sainsbury's in Sale, after visiting Mum and having our lunch around the corner.  Ten pounds worth of Deliciously Ella Breakfast Bakes, totally delicious and handy to have in for those days when I really don't really feel like anything 'proper' for breakfast.  On special offer at two pounds per box instead of three, and it made use of the money you get back via a coupon from paying to park in the supermarket carpark.  Hopefully these will last me the six months that the last purchase did.

Happily my July pension payment went into my account. 

Unhappily, my July tax bill landed on the doormat.  Gulp!!

Oh well, as Alan said we have had the wages, we have to man-up and pay the tax man.  Sadly, it's time to jiggle some money around from my savings to pay this.

I did manage to make £15 by selling a little cupboard on Facebook Market place, but there is definitely more going out than coming in.  Numbers are not stacking up well. 😒

Thank goodness for a few free things this week, after all every little helps.

Two napkins, bringing unused napkins home off our trays has definitely saved me from buying paper kitchen towel since I started doing it.

A couple more napkins and a box of teabags for Alan via my Booths card.

Two sugars picked up from a coffee shop in Sale, where we went in preference to stopping off at the services after seeing Mum on Thursday.

Hope you all have a good weekend.  xx

Sue xx