Appreciating What You Already Have

 

After sitting looking at the soil and rock pile at our new bungalow the other day, shown on Thursday's post, I came home and appreciated what we have here all the more.

Having no money at all to spend on the garden this year is setting me a nice little challenge, making the most of what I already have.  The little tin bath at my front door has been refreshed with the free rockery plant that I got from the garden centre as their April freebie for card holders ... along with the usual two free coffees.

The forget-me-not seeds that we got off the vets after Suky was cremated appear each year, (both Suky's and Mavis' ashes are in this little tin bath, so they will always be with us).  The tall twiggy plant at the back grew from sticks that were in a bouquet of flowers that Alan bought me a few years ago, I just pushed them into the soil et voila.  💖

The little vegetable bed at the end of the back garden had this years veggie seeds sown yesterday.  

There are just rocket, radish and three types of salad leaves in there for now, along with the perennial chives and thyme plants.  Seemingly there's also a random potato plant, which I didn't have the heart to pull up, but I will have to won't I ... maybe I'll try to transplant it.  😀

I was also going to sow some spring onion seeds, but I have none.  Also, much to my dismay I have absolutely NO tomato seeds.  How did that happen?  I was so upset going through my seeds tin and finding it devoid of tomato seeds that Alan asked what sort I had wanted to sow.  I told him that I was simply going to have a couple of hanging baskets of 'Tumbling Toms' this year, so he said that he will buy me a couple of plants when we next go to a garden centre.  Which I think will be very soon with a Bank Holiday Weekend upon us and two free coffees available at two of our favourite ones

Across from the vegetable bed the rhubarb is looking brilliant already and will soon start to be picked, and the apple tree is having a very leafy and blossomy time.  As are the blueberry bushes, two are full of little flowers and the third is the one that always blooms a bit later anyway.

As you may have spotted on the new header photo, we also have a little bit more colour appearing now that the daffodils have all gone over.  

I'm putting the photo here as well as one day in possibly the not too distant future, the header will change and then later readers will not know what on earth I was on about. 😄

Ginger in the garden first thing yesterday morning. 🐱

I hope he's still with us when we move, and that we can make him a new garden to explore and play in.

I hope you have a wonderful Bank Holiday Weekend, if it is one where you are.

Sue xx

Shopping ... and Piles

 

This weeks shopping was from Booths.

As you can see I didn't buy much, apart from not really needing too much I am quickly running out of available cash as I crawl slowly towards my first State Penson pay out in May.  The money I made from my Facebook Marketplace sales is just about keeping me on the straight and narrow, as the interest on my savings is also going down and down each month. I am now paying for all the necessary things for the renovation as Alan's account has virtually emptied.

We are not destitute by any means ... as the next paragraph clearly shows, but I am determined to stick to my guns and make it to my first pension date by using cash.

 I called into Booths because Alan wanted me to pick up a bacon bun and a takeaway coffee for him while he was hard at work in the bungalow.  I had been to the hairdressers so I was in the vicinity.   I got myself a coffee too and we sat on the back step discussing garden plans now that we know the way the sun hits the garden at various times of the day.

It going to be a long time until the garden looks anything like a garden.  This photo was taken at the start of the month, but apart from a few weeds appearing on the soil and rock pile nothing has changed ... but we can make plans.  😄

The front garden is very similar.

Sue xx

Remember the Coupon?

Remember the coupon that I got from Sainsbury's, the one that gave me £18 off a spend of £60 or more, well I only just remembered it in time.  I used it the day before it's expiry date, it would have been a shame not too.

What I did actually forget to do was to take a photo of the shopping when it was delivered.  I thought that I had, but it seems that the only ones I got were the coffee and rice, I was pleased with the long Best Before dates on everything so I took a photo.  Everything else had really good dates too, but seemingly my shopping came from a central hub not the local store so that explains a lot.

Order summary

Trolley total£69.75

Delivery cost£4.50

Coupon savings-£30.50

Total£43.75

That was my total after using my £18 off coupon and my available Nectar points.

I was really happy as my usual large pack of toilet rolls was finally on special offer.  I bought myself two packs of 12 double length rolls, but Alan said he needed some, so I gave him one of the packs.  Well it seemed a nice thing to do, after all he's always buying me bits and pieces of shopping. 😁

I also treated myself to my favourite pizza, and we shared this for tea the next night.

I also bought:

4 pouches of microwave brown rice

4 pouches of microwaveable vegetable rice

a ready made vegan quiche

a couple of large jars of coffee

some hummus

a very large bag of red lentils

6 small bars of dairy-free white chocolate

two bags of dairy-free grated cheese

and

2 twin packs of tissues

It didn't seem a lot of shopping for the full amount but with the coupon, the Nectar points and my nectar offers it all came down by quite a lot.  The delivery guys were lovely too, and came just two minutes after the expected time.  

I'll probably order online again ... when I get another coupon.  😄

Sue xx

Do You Tidy Up, or Return Yours?

 

We went to visit Mum yesterday, and as is our usual routine we stopped at the services on the way home.  On a good motorway day, which it was yesterday, it's only just over an hours journey between our home and the hospital, but on the way home it's nice to have a break mid-way, to get that all important coffee and something to eat after being out since just after breakfast.

As we sat down in our favourite place ... it's perfect for people watching, which we love ... I noticed this table.  It's a usual sight at the services and indeed sometimes they are even worse, food takeaway containers and mess all over the floor.  It makes us both sad, and if I'm honest annoyed, that people especially these days, don't seem to have the desire to tidy up after themselves in any way at the services, or in cafés.  Don't get me started about the terrible littering problem along the side of the motorways and roads either!!

It doesn't take much to either stack your plates carefully in a café, or go to the many bins in the service stations with all your paper, cardboard and detritus.  I have always done this, true we didn't eat out much as children but when we did we left the table as tidy as we could. I drummed it into my sons too, and the times I have eaten out with my grandchildren they always see me tidy the table and join in to help.

Seemingly there was a lot of debate on the matter a while ago, with some people countering that 'servers' don't like you to do it as they prefer to do it their own way.  Some servers said they didn't like the customers tidying up as they put the cutlery into the cups, make wobbly stacks of mismatched plates, saucers and dishes, and sweep all crumbs and food onto the floor.  Now that would get me annoyed too, so I do think common-sense has to be brought into play if you are tidying your table.

We always tidy up and do it sensibly ... do you?

There's a whole other debate too, do you return your shopping trolley (cart) or do you leave it abandoned to it's own devices in the carpark?  

Here in the UK a lot of supermarket trollies need a pound coin or a similar sized token to free them from the line-up.  I use the old pound coins and have one in every single jacket pocket and a spare in my bag as Alan often forgets to bring a pound. This does tend to get virtually everyone to return their trolley to it's correct place after use.

Whether you're tidying tables, returning shopping trollies or picking up litter that you didn't actually drop yourself, it's all just good manners really isn't it.

Sue xx

Ice-creams and Solar Panels

 

A well deserved ice-cream at the seaside.

We went to Morecambe for breakfast this morning, it's less than half an hour away up the motorway so it's a place we frequently visit.  Not quite as often now that we don't have the dogs but we do still go at least once a month.  

Alan tucked into a very well deserved ice-cream for his dessert.  Do breakfasts have desserts?  I don't know usually ... but this one did.  It was a lovely day, the third or fourth sunny one this week, but the first time we have been able to make the most of it.  Even then we had to dash back home for the latest vaccinations for us both at the doctors.  Alan joked to the nurse that since he retired all they seem to want to do is to stick needles in him, it is getting a bit excessive. 😐

Alan has been busy all week at the bungalow battening the walls for the interior insulation, and together we measured up and marked out the measurements for the en-suite bathrooms and their contents.

Simultaneously, the guys came to fit the solar panels on both sides of the roof.

We have a large array so that we can hopefully generate more than we actually use, especially on days like this.  There's not as many as we had on the small holding in Wales, but we are not too far off.

Added-  since publishing this post I've been told we will have 36 panels here, we had 45 in Wales but they were of a smaller capacity.   So we have actually got a much better more reliable and more profitable system now.  Oh, and we have 10 kilowatt hours of battery backup  ... gosh it's all very technical.  😄

Up in the loft are all the control panels for the solar panels and the batteries.  Alan had made sure that the floor had all been boarded safely in the areas that they needed to access.

Alan had laid the piping that will hold the wires that go over to the garage, as that too will have a roof full of solar panels.  Unfortunately, the company had sent the wrong fixings for these to the installers, so it is all being finished off and commissioned next week.

Here's the lates YouTube walk-through.

https://youtu.be/oFv6_OOUfRI

We're back to hospital visiting tomorrow, but hopefully we will be able to stop at the services on the way home and enjoy a little bit more sunshine, along with a sausage roll and a coffee from Greggs.

Sue xx

Riverford, Freebies ... and St George

 

We got our Riverford box last week, this one is going to be our last for the foreseeable future as we want to trial using our local farm shop for organic farm fresh vegetables and fruit that are grown right on our doorstep.  But we owe a massive thank you to Riverford for opening our eyes to the real delight of organic eating, something we had never really dabbled in before with anything but the eggs that I buy.

Alan had the choice for the final box and he chose the Small Fruit Box which we then divided between us.  Now as you know I'm not really a 'fruity' person, but it's been quite nice to have some lovely sweet oranges, and I even ate two of the pears which were so juicy.  I'm weird in that I don't usually like fresh pears but can eat them canned ... or bottled in brandy ... until the cows come home. 

I couldn't bring myself to eat any of the kiwi fruits, luckily Alan loves them so he got the lot.  Apart from hating the texture of the skins, I have been warned in the past not to eat them as anyone with a avocado allergy can also become sensitive to kiwis.  How true this is I really don't know, but I tried to make myself like avocados with disastrous results so it seems wise not to push things for something I'm not that keen on anyway.

Everything that we have had from Riverford has been just that much nicer than the fruit and veg that we had previously been buying from Sainsbury's or Aldi.  So now our experiment is to find out whether this is because of the organic side of it or the more seasonal aspect of it, in my opinion I think it's most likely to be a bit of both.

The little old wall cupboard was eventually picked up, weirdly we both had trouble with dates and times due to hospital parking.  Why do hospitals have such undersized carparks that leave you circling and circling to find a place for such a long time, while you either go in for your appointment or try to visit someone?  

But anyway, eventually we managed to swap the cupboard for the twenty pounds and we were both very happy.  😃

As this little cupboard used to hold my 'freebie stash' it meant that it was time to do something about the sheer amount that I have amassed over the last six months.  We used to use things up much more quickly on our little holidays and weekends away, but we've not managed to have any of them recently so supplies had built up a bit.

You can tell that I wasn't really concentrating on what I was doing ... I was convinced that this sugar tin had white sugar in it, and just poured in the two white sugar sachets without looking properly.  

Oh well, sugar is sugar is sugar.  😁

Everything is now sorted and ready for use at home.  The tomato ketchup sachets had already been put into a tub of their own, but now the salt is in 'Pepper' the name of the salt cellar ... after the cat that I had when I originally bought the cruet, he looked just like this ... sadly the salt one got broken many years ago, so now we just have Pepper holding the salt, and the pepper from the sachets is in the little jam jar as it was two different kinds of pepper and not just the white pepper that I have in my pepper pot.

Did you manage to keep up with that confusing waffle?

I used the two random sachets of mayonnaise on my lunch, slightly too much maybe, but very tasty.

It was a satisfying little job to get done, and now everything is either on the shelf ready for using or tucked away in the main food cupboard, and I have a very nice space on my wall where the old cupboard used to be. 😁

Happy St George's Day if you are here in the England, a day that often slips under the radar. 

Sue xx

I Will Be Back ... Tomorrow

 

Sorry to be missing in action a bit at the moment ... I will be back to annoy you all very soon.

In the meantime I am taking one moment at a time, and drinking lots of coffee.

Art by - Rosy Made a Thing

Oooh, where is the lavender when you need it.  😶 

Sue xx

Taking Five Minutes

 

The River Wyre

I had to go into town yesterday to pick up my new reading glasses, after about five years my prescription had changed enough to warrant a couple of new pairs.  It meant that I had to pay for an hour on the car park even though I would only be ten minutes, so I made good use of the ticket and sat by the river for a few minutes.

Sometimes you have to take five minutes in the fresh air for your sanities sake.

I had been woken at 4.30am with my phone ringing on my bedside table.  Mum had taken a turn for the worse and the care home were calling for an ambulance so they rang to tell me.  Then an hour later I was woken again by the ambulance crew telling me that a visit to hospital was deemed necessary.  I don't cope well with being woken from a deep sleep and having to make serious decisions, so the rest of the day saw me in a pretty much zombie-like state.  Thank goodness I was only picking my glasses up and not having to choose any.

Another thing to hit Facebook Marketplace, to boost my food shopping budget this week was this little cupboard.

 I bought it off FB Marketplace in 2021, and posted about it HERE.  It was just before we completed the move into our current home, and while I have loved having it, it just won't go anywhere in our new bungalow, it was a bit of a clutter-gatherer anyway but it was lovely. 

I decluttered it a lot for the FB Marketplace photos and have managed to sell it for £20, just a bit less than I paid five years ago.  It's going to be someone's bathroom cabinet in a little old cottage, above an old fashioned sink set into a little sideboard.  

I'm happy it's going to a good home.

Sue xx

Anything to Declare?

 

Aldi - 20p

At the start of the week I picked up some of the Easter 'bargain vegetables' from Aldi.  This year once again they were promising that they were absorbing the loss and not the farmers ... I hope that this was true.

The potatoes were 8p for 2 kilos, the onions were 8p for 1 kilo and the carrots just 4p for a kilo.  Lots of food but not much money.

They might have been cheap but I was still going to look after them and make them last as long as possible.  So they were all unpacked, left to breathe for a while and then repacked into my Lakeland Stayfresh bags.

Booths £9.60

We went for a coffee at Booth on Easter Monday so we got a bit of shopping while we were there, I spent £9.60 on a dozen eggs and two organic long-life soya milks.

Booths £7.25 + £1 for the book.

I called back to Booths on Wednesday to pick up a ready made pastry case, after being at the Doctors.  My back has been really bad and I just couldn't face making my own pastry, I cheat when I have to and I am more than happy to admit it.

The soya milks had been reduced since our last visit so I snapped up two more at the new lower price, along with four lovely looking Gala apples that were four for the price of three and a loaf of bread.  I kicked myself on the way home as I remembered that I have one of these loaves in Alan's freezer.  Oh well, it will all be used.

I was waylaid by the charity book table on the way out and this book forced me to buy it.  I am already halfway through, it is brilliant.

Have I anything to declare ... ?

Only my complete inability to stop shopping for food when I am supposed to be on a shopping ban while I work on making space in my freezer and random food storage areas.

Oh well, it was only me that knew about the ban, I didn't tell Alan and I didn't tell you ... so no one knows.  😁

Sue xx

Renovations and Rice

 

The wall is up, and it has stayed up.

This time they put it up in two halves, first the bottom, then the top ... not side by side halves or top then bottom!!  😄

This is the reverse of the same wall.

I bet you come to visit my blog for these riveting photos don't you, I am more than happy to oblige.  😁 

Here, have a bonus photo, the planned layout for the battening that Alan will be putting up on the inside of all the exterior walls of the bungalow over the course of the next couple of weeks.  This will have the extra insulation in each of the spaces before being plaster boarded over. 

We are doing this to raise the EPC rating as the bungalow had quite a low one to start with.  Hopefully by the time we are finished it will be much improved, even at the expense of the room sizes.  What with all this lining, and walls going up the space inside will be shrinking very quickly.

Alan will have to follow my lead and learn to live smaller.

I've been enjoying the pack of salmon that I bought over the Easter weekend. 

 I've eaten it differently each time.  This photo shows it as part of a quiche, served with roasted sweet potato mini wedges.  Yes, all the pastry edges of my quiche fell off when I was getting it out of the tray ...not that that matters in the slightest.  

Pastry is pastry is pastry and I love pastry.  💖

I

I had one portion of the salmon with leftover rice, peas and spinach.

One portion was had as that lunchtime salmon bun I showed on the last post, and the final one was served with a simple bowl of the roasted vegetables ... and a rather large dollop of mayo. So tasty, and it's really handy to have something in the fridge that gives you inspiration for simple but healthy meals isn't it.

Renovations and rice, you never know what I will be writing about next ... and neither do I. 😁 

Sue xx

Sunshine, Crisps ... and Base Floors

 

Doors open, sun shining and washing drying on the line again.  

How lovely it is to have some sunshine back after the awful weather of the last few days.  Sunshine brings out the best in people doesn't it, and living alongside the canal it means that we see lots of dog walkers who always love to stop and pass the time of day if we are at the front of the house.  In memory of Mavis we still have a large bowl of fresh drinking water for passing dogs, and it seems to have been very well used today.

There is one big dog that we have nicknamed 'splashy dog', as he has a big drink and liberally splashes water everywhere, the bowl usually needs refilling after his visit. 🐶

I had a bit of a cookathon with the last of my Riverford vegetables yesterday, not wanting to waste anything that I have paid good money for.  They might not look much, but oh boy do they taste good. 

 So much so that I decided on a salmon and roasted vegetable bun for my lunch 

I kept it simple, but delicious, and it was really filling.  Perhaps there was a little bit too much salmon on that bun ... but sometimes you just have to don't you.  😁

I am now on a shopping go slow after spending all of my Facebook Marketplace profits on stocking the cupboard, the freezer and ordering my favourite crisps direct from the farm they are produced on.

This should keep me going for quite a while, and buying direct from the small family farm that grows the potatoes and makes the crisps, is my way of supporting small UK businesses.   

I will share some with Alan ... if he's good. 😄

https://youtube.com/shorts/8BQzZi7FGI4?si=N6-opO0_OerIu30l

A quick walk through of the bungalow at the weekend, at last we have a level surface to walk on.

Sue xx

That Was a Week That Was

 

It's been a funny old week and weekend, both weatherwise and family wise.

The weather can't quite make it's mind up, one day we have glorious sunshine taking the edge of the cool breeze and I can get washing dry on the line, the next the skies are grey the wind is howling and then it's starts to sleet ... and once again I put off actually digging out my Summer t-shirts and tops from under the bed.

In the first of the family news, my brother visited Mum on Saturday, she got very angry with him and then fell asleep and didn't wake up again.  We went yesterday and she slept through the whole visit, even with us both being very noisy in a bid to wake her up sensibly.  Graham went back again this morning for another visit ... he only lives ten minutes away from Mum's care home ... she said hello and then fell into a deep sleep.  A lot of this is obviously expected at this stage of events but it's still a bit discombobulating.  Luckily our three hours on the motorways was much quieter than usual and our pit stop at Greggs on the services was very tasty on the return journey.

The other family news, in the much wider family was a very sudden and shocking death, publicised in the local news in Manchester and all over social media.  As a Mum it's really shaken me and made me really sit and think about how easily things can change for us all.  Just when we think life is ticking along relatively nicely, life stops us in our tracks and shows us that it's best not to assume anything.

To round the weekend off nicely, two of the guys were in the bungalow building the bedroom wall this morning ... and it collapsed.  Luckily neither of them was injured, but one guys toolbox suffered complete destruction.

'It's life Jim, but not as we know it!!'

Sue xx

Memories of Easters Gone

So many memories tied up in photographs.

Every Easter when we were children we would go round to visit my Gran.  She was my Mum's Mum, and gosh I loved her to bits.  Mum criticised her all the time to my Dad in the hearing of me and my brother and I never understood it or thought it fair even as a child.  Now as an adult a lot of the things that she said and did still seem so unfair, especially considering that my Mum is so like her in so many ways.

We are stood outside her large four story rented house in this photo, she was relocated there after the family home was totally flattened by a bombing raid during World War 2, and she stayed there until she was rehoused in the early 1970's.  As a child I loved the old house, but found parts of it very spooky as it was very gloomy in all but the front 'best' room, hence the photo being taken outside on the street.

It was about a forty minute walk to get to Gran's house, but back in the day we were all used to walking much longer distances weren't we and it just seemed normal.  Gran would walk round to ours most Saturdays as she loved to watch the wrestling on the television, she refused to have a tv in her house until her dying day, she thought that they would burst into flames willy nilly.

I have to say none of mine ever have.  😁

 We didn't have to travel any where near as far to visit my Nana, Dad's Mum.  We lived downstairs in her house.  So we would get our new Easter clothes on and troop upstairs to receive an Easter egg and have our photo taken.  I loved my Nana, just as much if not more, although sitting and posing for a photo with her seemed strange.

I would go upstairs and watch television with Nana most nights, our favourite evenings together were Mondays, when it would be at least one quiz show, usually University Challenge ... Nana did like Bamber Gascoigne ... and then Opportunity Knocks.  A highlight of watching tv upstairs was that I got to sit on a chair, downstairs we only had two armchairs so me and my brother would sit cross legged on the floor when we watched anything.

It's funny, but oh so nice, how two photos can bring so many memories flooding back.

Wishing a very Happy Easter to all my readers, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.  Perhaps you are making memories for the future, or simply reliving lovely ones from the past.  Both are wonderful things to do.

Sue xx

My Easter Shopping ... and Temptation

While Alan was doing a final pre-Easter days work with the builders at the bungalow yesterday, I took myself off to the shops for the things that I wanted this week.  First I called to Aldi, gosh it was really busy considering it was only 9.30 am.  People with full trolleys and the Easter egg aisle was virtually impassable.

I'm pretty stocked up with most things at the moment, so these were just extras that I fancied and replacements for things I have used.  Of course I had to include Ginger's Tasty Licks, a very necessary thing at the moment as he is on two lots of medication from the vets, one for his arthritis and one for his over-active thyroid.  They must taste nice as we have no trouble getting any of his medicines down him. most unusual for a cat!  🐱

The receipt for posterity ... and price comparison in a years time.

Gosh doesn't fish and wine bump up the cost of the shopping, I may have to have another try at frozen salmon fillets, the last lot that I got were not that nice though.

Then it was round to Sainsbury's as I had a £2 off coupon for the little Oggs cakes and they are currently on Nectar offer at £3, so I got them for just £1 which makes them a very nice Easter treat.

I picked up some of Alan's favourite cough sweets, he eats them in the car when he's travelling, I like the black traditional ones but not the honey or cherry flavours, so they are all his.

So pretty bog standard shopping for me really.  

We don't do family meals or even visits at Easter any more, which is a shame.  So there's no need for us to stock up on the makings of a large lunch.  I think I am going to try and rectify this once we move and we have our lovely big open plan living area.  It would be nice to get everyone round once in a while.

As I paid for my Sainsbury's shopping the machine spat out a very tempting coupon.  It's £18 off a £60 online shop, I need to sit and have a think about this one as it is a really good offer.  Perhaps to good to miss ... I don't know.  🤔

Sue xx