Paintings ... and Tattoos

 

I was asked for a closer look at the picture that was seen in the third photo of THIS post.  Here it is for your delight and delectation. It's a print of an original by Judy Boyes that I bought just before I met Alan.  

It's called My Old Fireplace.

I had been going out with another guy, and on one of our first dates he bought himself something very similar by the same artist for his old cottage in Cumbria.  I loved that it had the two cats pictured in it that I had at the time ... Pepper and Ginger (my Ginger, not the current Ginger who came to us already named as a foster cat).

We parted company not long after, and I thought sod him and his mean ways, and I travelled back to the original shop up in the Lakes and bought myself this one.  I tend to do this after a failed relationship, I have a tattoo on my arm of a gecko, he's called Freddie Freedom and he came to live on me after my divorce was finalised.

The picture is almost as permanent and has travelled with me through many addresses.  And of course this can be passed on to one of my sons, whereas a slice of my skin can't!!  😁

Yes I have a strange sense of humour ... but then you knew that didn't you.  😉

Sue xx

Free Electricity ... and Food Review

We're with Octopus Energy for our electricity and gas, and for the last few weekends there has been an hour of free electricity.  Alan has made it his mission to use as much energy in that hour as possible and I've been joining in, maybe with not quite so much gusto, but joining in nevertheless.

Over the weekend just gone we had one free hour on Saturday, so I did all the usual, charging my laptop, camera, phone, vacuum cleaner etc,  putting one load of washing in the machine, alongside making twice as many cups of coffee as usual and boiling a kettle of water to wash the pots instead of firing up the boiler for hot water ... looking at that little lot perhaps I have been as obsessive as Alan.

Anyway late on Saturday night Alan got another email telling him that there was to be a further two free hours on Sunday.  What else could we possibly do to take advantage of it?

Well I decided that for my lunch I would cook the Rainbow Vegetable Parcel which requires one hour and twenty minutes of cooking time in the oven, and I had been putting off using just for that reason.

We also decided to quickly prepare all the apples off our little tree in the garden.  Now they are lightly stewed and in six 'takeaway' containers, three of them in each of our freezers.

I also decided to descale my kettle.

Usually I use vinegar or lemon to do this but I had neither, so I 'borrowed' a sachet of descaler off Alan.  He has the most well stocked, chemical fuelled array of household products under his kitchen sink.  I literally have a couple of well used favourite products.

With free electric for the full two hours it meant that I could boil and re-boil the kettle numerous times to get it nice and sparkly clean and not have to worry about the cost.  Then I boiled it a few more times afterwards to make sure to get all the nasty chemicals away, pouring the boiling water down each of my plugholes one by one, my preferred way of keeping the drains clear.

So ... what did the Rainbow Vegetable Parcel taste like?

It was dire!!

I think you can see quite clearly from this photo how compressed the layers of 'vegetables' are in it.  I put the word vegetables in quotation marks here because they were pretty unidentifiable as vegetables flavour-wise in my opinion.  They were supposed to be spinach, butternut squash and red cabbage ... well what can I say, they were the right colour at least.  😕

I had cooked them alongside the last of my leftover boiled potatoes from last week ... thank goodness I did, at least I got something for my lunch.

It looked promising on the plate.  

The one saving grace was the pastry it was lovely.  In future, for a much quicker version I will wrap my own leftovers in pastry, perhaps in layers or maybe just simply mixed together and have a homemade version, as the idea is one that I do like.

Oh well, at least I now have a nice big space in the freezer, one that I will be filling this week with some cooked homegrown rhubarb.

Sue xx

Autumn Vibes

 

I don't do much furniture shifting these days.  All my things have found their place, just the way I have found mine ... so we all stay where we are.  

I do, however, have a little bit of a colour swap around with the seasons, and it's mostly with books.  The cool whites and blues on the spines of the books that used to be beneath the plant on the sideboard have been swapped for browns, oranges and greens.

Alan walked in and noticed straight away ... 'ooh orange' he said, orange does happen to be his favourite colour, well alongside purple.  Luckily I don't have any purple books!!

After a bit of titivation with books being replaced into the bookcases and new ones being picked out I ran out of steam and enthusiasm, so the radiator shelf stayed a mess for the evening.

By the next day though it had been reorganised, and the eagle-eyed among you will notice that Valerie, the teddy bear has been relocated off the bookcase near the door onto the books on the radiator shelf.  She's an old lady, she will be much warmer for Winter on there.

Some things stay where they are no matter what, the two wooden boxes on the righthand side for instance, as that is where they are useful.  The large box on the bottom contains candles and nightlights alongside matches to light them in an emergency.  The smaller box on top is my small change money box, and is proving useful for buying bits and bobs from the shops during this lean year with no wages.

When evening comes around and dusk starts to fall the salt lamp comes on and casts it's amber hue around the living room, it makes it feel a bit cosier on these cooling evenings.

Safe and Sound - Lucy Almey-Bird

Sue xx

One Month Later ... New Freezer Inventory

 

My previous freezer inventory worked out really well and menu planning from it has really helped me to use the contents of the freezer up logically and regularly.

But by the time we went away on holiday the inventory looked like this!!

I struggled to make head or tail of it, so I decided that as soon as I got back I would take  everything out of all three drawers and see exactly what I had left.  Then hopefully, put everything back a lot more logically and in categories that made sense.  I thought I had done it only a couple of weeks ago but looking back on the last freezer inventory post, it was almost exactly one month ago.

Gosh, it shows how much food I had jammed in the drawers that I have still got this much left ... mind you I really have made a lot of space as it is all easily accessible now, which is a huge relief.

I was very nearly a bad blogger as I forgot to take a photo while everything was laid out on the worktop.  But I realised just in time and took this one above ...

... and then this photo of the top drawer before I slid it back into the cleaned out freezer.

As I said earlier I decided to categorise the drawers more logically, so this one is the bread style items and the bits for making my compost heap jelly along with some other little homemade bits and pieces.  Putting my new loaf straight into the freezer while it's nice and fresh means that I can take a single slice out each day for my morning toast, or take out two slices for a sandwich, and not waste any of it.

The middle drawer is now the vegetable drawer.  I was surprised at how many bags of various veggies I had, but really pleased too.  Some are bought bags from the supermarket and some in the zip lock bags are homegrown, or things like fresh onions chopped ready to be used in various dishes.

The bottom drawer, which is the smallest due to having the freezer motor behind it, contains packet foods bought from the shops.  Having this ratio, more veggies in the middle drawer and then less bought 'ready made' things in the small drawer is the way I want to eat from now on.

I was shocked to find that I still had these two 'rhubarb bases' buried amongst all the frozen stuff.  My priority this week is to make some crumble topping and actually eat them as I need to make space for this years rhubarb in the freezer.

Doing a freezer inventory is something that I usually put off and put off, but this time I actually just got stuck into doing it without thinking too much about it, and and had it done and dusted in less than an hour.

My new, much neater, freezer inventory which is now on the side of the fridge freezer ready for me to menu plan from ... and I've promised myself that I will neatly tick off each thing as I use it.  😁

Sue xx

Catching Up - the First Shopping Trips of the Month

 

I'm playing catch up with my blog posts at the moment, so here's the shopping that I've picked up since we got back from our little holiday.  

Ginger needed some cat food so we called into the big Sainsbury's near Mum's care home on our way home from visiting her on Sunday.  Alan went and got the cat food and I picked up a loaf for myself.  It's usually £1.25 but it's nearly always on my 'Sainsbury's Offers' on the Nectar card, so I get it for £1.

Then on Tuesday Alan needed a few things, and with one early morning meeting, and then one late in the afternoon he decided he wanted to decompress and go for a light lunch at Booths, who was I to object.

After a simple lunch, Alan had a fish finger sandwich and salad, and we shared bowl of chips with mayonnaise, and of course some nice cups of coffee. I picked up my usual offerings from downstairs in the shop.  Just buns and eggs ... gosh I am really turning into a creature of habit!!

A total spend of £6.40 ... but Alan paid for this and the the bread in the top photo as he was buying more than me.  His generosity is really helping my budget.  💖

Then he wanted to go to Aldi, which is just through the carpark from Booths, as you can see it was lovely and quiet in there.  He needed quite a few things, I simply needed some Weetabix and fish.

This is what ended up in my trolley.  

The things I needed plus some treats for Ginger and chocolate for me.

It was quite a bit more than I meant to spend, but I had the cash in my purse, so it worked out okay.

I'll get six meals from the fish fillets (the salmon and the lightly breaded portions), which will work out at around £1.66 per portion and served with something like potatoes or rice and with vegetables, will probably give me a meal below £2 each time.  

I seem to have a background 'budget plan' working in my brain at all times these days. 😃

While Alan was paying for our shopping in Booths, I tidied up the charity books shelves and table, they were in a dreadful mess.  I always think when it's like that people just won't bother to have a look and the charity will get a lot less money, so I like to leave it looking neat and tidy.  Just as I was finishing I came across this book buried under a pile of others and it looked really interesting.  

So I was rewarded for my efforts, a really nice book for just a £1 donation ... and yes I paid this time, not Alan. 

Sue xx