Winter drawers on

Wet wet wet, not the group, just Wales. In the interests of "being prepared" I put the heating on to check that all was in order, Oops it was not. The boiler lost pressure 3 times in as many hours so I called in the A Team, well the heating engineer. He sorted that out and I turned the heating off as the house was now slowly cooking me. Had homemade soup and cheesy garlic bread for dinner, yummy.  Did some hooky before tootling off to bed around 10.00, when I came down this morning I spotted a damp patch on the hall carpet. Ben got a sideways look and I got some kitchen roll to mop it up, HA, it was not damp it was soaking. Close inspection showed that the radiator was leaking, nothing that a spanner could not deal with, the helper with the heating chap had bled all the radiators yesterday but obviously did not spot this. Oh Dear, Never Mind. Sorted (fingers crossed)
 Dinner tonight is cottage pie topped with cauliflower cheese instead of mash, served with cabbage and carrots. I love cauli cheese as a topping, it goes well on fish pie. I have served it griddled on burgers and that is amazing, so is macaroni cheese come to that. I know that it is calorific but you do not have to eat it by the pound and not every day. Sometimes I just cook the cauli in milk and mash it with a little grated cheese, it makes a nice change from potatoes. I should say now that my greengrocer has some enormous cauliflowers for 39p.

I have had a request for some dog coats so will be playing with fabric later, they are for Archie and Dolly, I will post pics once they are done. I have not sewed anything much this week, I have been hooking away.

I am almost 1/3 rd of the way on my coastal ripple now, as you can see Ben is trying to stake this out as his own.

My ripple scarf (?) is progressing nicely, I hook a row or two before settling down for the night and another couple while drinking my first cuppa of the day. The question hanging over this is will it become a scarf or will it morph into a cushion cover. The jury is out, I will think on it for a while, I have another 20 or so bands of colour before the decision has to be made.

In the last few days the leaves have started to turn yellow and as the sun gets progressively lower in the sky it turns them to gold. It is so dark at the moment that it feels like 7.00 at night, I have my lights on to see to walk round the house.

So much for stoptober, as my blanket is growing so fast I have bought some more yarn from Wool Warehouse, it is the large pack from Attic24 shop and I had a couple of extra balls as well. This is for a double blanket for a friend. 

The Stylecraft Special DK yarn is 100% acrylic and is 100% user friendly. It does not split all the time, it does not shed fibres, it is consistently soft to use unlike more expensive yarns that I have used. ( this is my personal view and is unsolicited).

I have not spent much though, my usual Thursday shop at Lidl was under £10 and I am using things from cupboard and freezer. I look forward to stocking up with the ingredients for stews and faggots, soups and bean feasts, simple warming foods from the slow cooker, yum.

I tried jacket potatoes in my slow cooker last winter and will be repeating this frequently. A jacket potato with leftovers becomes a feast with a sprinkle of grated cheese and some homemade ketchup or chutney.

Reasons to be grateful.

1.  The rain, lots of crafting time.

2.  Radio 2, in the background.

3.  My friends, a cuppa awaits me almost every day after Ben's 2.00 walk.

4.  Ben, a constant at my side.

5.  The bloggers who I read, and those who comment.

I went through my blog list and found several that had not had posts for many months, and also found some new ones to follow just by clicking on comments that interested me. A quick shuffle round and hey presto an updated blog list.

I have played catch up reading through the posts that I missed while the lap top played up, I see that Ilona has stirred up a few peeps. She states quite clearly that all she writes is what is pertinent to her lifestyle, I understand that. Some of her ideas would not work for me but a great many of them do.

Frugal Queen is sharing crock pot dinners with us, very nice and tasty. Karen from Chelmarsh Chuntering is still tempting me with her recipes, and I am still giving in.

I have totally missed Bake Off, I know that I am in the minority but after the first series I could not get into it.

I did catch part of a cooking program with Prue Leith as one of the judges, the contestants were cooking "war time" themed meals. I thought that the food was unrecognisable as war time food and that the panel were a pretentious group. I have no idea what it was called, I hope never to find it again.

I have picked some tasty ideas from many of the bloggers that I follow and some from their followers, who needs celebrity chefs and their high faluting ideas.

Right, it is still dark and raining, this calls for tea and maybe some lunch.

              TTFN                                                   Pam

BTW I have not forgotten to share my new crafting idea, I have not started it yet, still waiting for 1 thing.