Robins, Riverford and Renovations

We called to our local garden centre on Saturday to return something, so we decided to get some breakfast and a coffee while we were there.  We were very well entertained at our riverside window table by a pair of robins, a pair of some kind of tit and a couple of little black and white birds dashing here there and everywhere.

Have I ever mentioned my complete lack of knowledge of flora and fauna, my head is just too full of other things for any of this to stick ... the robins are lucky that they mean so much to me.

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The river was hurtling past, right at the very top of the bank, fascinating and very hypnotising to watch while sipping my coffee.

We didn't go for a full Riverford box last week, instead we got a salad bag each and some additional blueberries and another pack of hot cross buns.  But ... I've had enough of the hot cross buns now, seasonal eating is good but you can gorge too much on something when it suddenly appears on your radar.

I loved this week's newsletter.

On our way back from the garden centre we called to the bungalow, it had been a few days since I had last seen it and Alan and the builders had been working hard all week.

This is the view from the front door.

This is the old kitchen, who needs windows with glass in them when you can have a wooden board that the wind relocates. 😄

The old living room.  

As I said who needs windows, or in this case part of the front wall too.  We do seem to have gained a coat hook though.  Proper posh!! 😁

The biggest gain of the week is an actual concrete floor in the living/dining/kitchen room.

An actual surface to walk on!!

Just four more layers on top of this and the floor will be done, ah well it's all progress.

Alan and the builders will hopefully have all the floors to this stage by Thursday night, when the builders all down tools and head off to Spain for the Easter weekend.  We are obviously paying them far too much. 😄 

Sue xx

Just Read Books

 

With the suddenly colder weather back again I've been sinking into books almost every afternoon.  

It's cosy in my little living room with the sun streaming through the French doors on the sunny but 'cold outside' days, and it feels even cosier if the rain is battering the glass and I can be inside with the heating on and a cup of coffee to hand, and of course the occasional biscuit ... or three.

When the warmer weather appeared last week Alan brought our garden chairs down from his spare room and put them on the patio, then the weather turned cold, wet and windy and we have yet to actually sit on them.  One day soon ... hopefully, it will be warm enough, perhaps with a cardigan on, to sit outside and read on one of them.

We can but hope.  😎

In the meantime I will sit indoors and carry on really enjoying my latest book, it's one by Stanley Tucci.  It's the sort of book that I love, very foody ... enough to make me hungry while I read ... and very well written.  He has a slight sarcastic at time humour that I find funny, and gosh doesn't he know a lot of very famous people so well.

Being half Italian and a really good home cook, he's making me want to eat more pasta with his wonderful descriptions of the meals that he makes, which can only be a good thing considering my current spaghetti mountain.  😄

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Sue xx

Purely Bungalow Renovation News ... and Floorplan

This meme really strikes home. 

We really are downsizing our home for the final time.  While I will have more square footage than the lodge, Alan will have a lot less than his current house and we will be sharing.  Hence this final move being quite possibly the last one we make together.

So it's important that we get it right.

After weeks of no floor, then a gradual infill of rubble floor, this week has seen Alan and the builders getting ready for the concrete to be laid.  The bricks from the walls being taken down were mostly used to bring the level to the right height.  Alan sunk the main pipes that will come from each bathroom into the floor and then all the gaps were filled with a top layer of sand, to protect the damp-proof membrane from puncture.

 On top of all these layers the thick insulation boards were laid in place in the dining/kitchen/living room ready for the concrete to be poured.  Our chief builder Paul could not resist a little tap dance to celebrate, now Alan just has to break it to him that this photo is going all around the world.  😄

It's all starting to come together nicely.

Nearly all the windows are now at their new sizes and with new concrete lintels.  This will be my en-suite shower-room window.

Country Cook asked in the comment section the other day for floorplans, so she could visualise how we are changing the layout of the bungalow.  Alan has all the 'proper' ones at the bungalow.  But here are two of the basic ones I worked on while I was originally changing the layout.  The original layout is on the left and our new one on the right.

I am a very visual person so I always look at floorplans of a property before understanding it or buying it.  Hopefully these make sense to you.  

I think that the best thing about this simplification, apart from it about to be the bungalow design that we have always wanted, is getting rid of the excess of doors that used to be there ... at least we managed to sell them all.  😄 

Sue xx

Washing Symbols, Snow ... and Choccy Balls

 

It's a slow news day today, hence the washing symbol chart that really made me laugh yesterday when it popped up in my Facebook Memories.

 I'm sat here with the heating having just come back on, it clicked on itself even though it's set at just 14 degrees so it must be chilly.  We had torrential rain, howling winds, flooding and snow yesterday ... so much for me thinking it's about time to unpack my Summer clothes.

How Alan and the builders are working in these temperatures at the bungalow I have no idea, but Alan comes home every afternoon and either heads straight back out to the gym to sit in the steam room and the hot tub, or he goes upstairs to fall asleep in a hot bath.

We called to Asda last weekend to pick up something that Alan needed, we don't have an Asda particularly close to us so it's somewhere we visit quite rarely.  They do have a brilliant selection of dairy-free chocolate goodies there, so I always enjoy a browse.  I was very lucky Alan decided that whatever I chose would be my 'Easter Egg'.

Now I just have to try and save them for nearer to Easter ... I  have to admit the Choccy Balls did not even last the day.  😁

Sue xx

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

What Do You Get When ...?

 

What do you get when you have two slices of bread that are too thin for a decent slice of toast, one egg, two and a half slices of Quorn ham, and a slice of cheese that is very quickly drying up around the edges?

Well, if you crack and beat the egg, pour it into an oiled pan and then top with the bread.

Flip the whole thing over ... the hardest bit of the entire procedure.  Then top with the Quorn ham and the cheese slice, folding the excess egg into the middle.

Then fold the other half over like a lovely ham, egg and cheese book.  Then toast it until it reaches your perfect shade of toasty-ness and crunchy-ness

You get a filled omelette toasted sandwich, that is delicious and remarkably filling considering the sum of it's parts.

You also get to use up lots of random leftovers from the fridge, and no wastage.

And ... you get something very random for a blog post.  😄

Sue xx

Is Everybody Stockpiling?

 

I was watching a few of my regular YouTube channels this morning over my first cup of coffee of the day, and there seemed to be a regular theme running through their latest updates.  Stocking up their food supplies.

It made me wonder if this would be a sensible thing to do.  Fuel prices have already risen twice in our area in the last week, which of course will have a knock on effect very quickly on the price of food.  My first thought was to go to the shops immediately after breakfast and buy a few things, then I realised how dizzy my early morning tablets had left me, so I changed my mind.  

I'm not supposed to drive when they have this effect on me, I usually take them in the middle of the night if I get up for the bathroom, but this morning that was at 2am, much too early, so I took them at 7am ... hence the morning dizziness.

I decided to do something much more sensible instead, check the contents of the store cupboard to see what I already had in stock and finish off the moving of all the food dated 2026 to the top cupboard.

Everything in the top photo needed moving up ... and the spaghetti with the orange banded label wins the award for the food that has been neglected for the longest.  

Best before January 23 ... oops!!

It turned out to be a good exercise to do as I thought I had just two tins of tomatoes left in total, and I was all set to buy some more, but then I found these four cans tucked away at the back of the bottom cupboard.  Funnily enough I didn't remember buying them, but happily ... due to me showing my shopping in great detail to bore you all rigid over the past couple of years ... I found out that they had been bought HERE, in April 2024.

Now the top cupboard is fully stocked again with all the foods that either should have already been eaten, or that should be eaten at some point during this year.

And the lower cupboard has all the foods date during 2027 or beyond and some space should I choose to gather in some more supplies ... which according to the dictionary is another way of saying 'to stockpile'. 😁

The very old spaghetti though has gone back into the basket in the lower cupboard, waiting it's turn to be used, as the spaghetti in my spaghetti jar is even older.  😆

Have you been tempted to get some more supplies in yet, or do you already hold a really good supply of foods ready for any emergency?  I know we used to when we lived on our various smallholdings and were further away from the shops.

Sue xx