Finally Friday

Ooh I am so glad that Friday is here, the last three nights at work have been manic, to say the least. I read in the newspaper the other day that manufacturing is growing and that is certainly true for us. By now we would be slowing down for a couple of months before the Christmas Party season kicked off. The opposite is happening, we are not only maintaining but increasing our level of production ,year on year it is an amazing jump but then the last two summers did not happen. We seem to be coming out of the dark days of recession.

The growth factor is much the same as these Lilies, I had 5 corms, they each grew and gave me weeks of glorious colour, lapping up the heat and sunshine. Nature ran her course and they died back. When I emptied the pots yesterday I found that I had a good handful of baby corms ( I am sure there is a proper name for them) If half of these flower I will have more than three times my 5. How about that for "growth" percentage. I can see why so many farms round here grow corms and bulbs. Ther is a Lily field on the edge of the village and when they harvest the corms I will have a little wander and glean some of the leavings to start the cycle over again.

The weather report is for 2 days of rain which is annoying, even though we need it, as Michael and I planned to push a mountain of hard wood prunings through the chipper today. You can not do them wet as it just bungs up the works.

These are the cakes that I made from the Jane Asher Victoria Sponge mix. I used the wrong size tin so they were a bit thin and also a little on the dry side. However the mix held the fruit well and it did not sink to the bottom, I managed to tip most of the crumble topping off the plain cake as I put it on the wire rack. Note to self, next time remember to press it GENTLY into the cake before baking. I forgot to take a photo of the crumbles, Nev said his was delicious, I gave it to him straight out of the oven, and we had ours with some custard and it was very good.
I rate the sponge mix at 6 out of 10, next time I will use the right size tin and stir a spoonfull of melted buttery stuff in, and the crumble gets a 10 it was really as good as homemade. I put the packets into the freezer, both to keep them fresh and also to save space in the cupboard, by heck it is full.

Reasons to be grateful.

1. I made it through the week, in one piece.

2. My shrubs are not taking over the garden any more, letting shed loads of light in.

3. We are having a FREE meal tonight.

4. We had a FREE supper come breakfast this morning.

5. One of my colleagues has found her dream job.

I should explain 3 and 4. One of the factories in the group makes Pizza and these come into the staff shop every week. I never buy them, even at 50 p as I prefer to make my own. Last night we had a massive amount that were out of date today so they were giving them away. Ditto some pillow packs of salad, well I could not resist. Cheap is good FREE is better. I know that it will not help my Use It Up challenge but it would have been rude not to. 3 Pizza,s and a bag of baby leaf herb salad are now sitting in the fridge, it will not be quite free as I have to heat the pizza and put a dressing on the salad but still the cost will be tiny.
We have vending machines in the canteen and 2 of them hold filled rolls, sandwiches, cakes and cookies. Every morning the supplier refills them and removes any on their last use by date, this morning he took out 2 long rolls filled with Cheddar and salad just as I walked through and he gave them to me. We had one each with a cup of tea when we got home. As we had both been running all night they were very welcome and quite tasty, they were in white bread which we hardly ever have and it made a change. I am never sure whether this is supper or breakfast, it is the last meal of our day, but we do not eat at work so we are "breaking the fast", any way it was fast, free and filling.
Now it is gone 2 and I am more than ready for another pot of tea.

                                      TTFN        Pam