Hazy Lazy Sunday, Bring it on.

Lawks a mussy, another glorious day, same as yesterday minus the laundry.

Today I went to Lynn to visit Mr S, he very kindly sent me a stack of vouchers for money off shopping and petrol if I spent £40. A much better deal than the one Mr.T offered me.

I made my list and off I went, I should say we as Francesca very kindly drove me in her car. I stocked up on  some basics and filled some gaps in the larder. I was careful to keep just over the £40 mark.

I did find a very pretty little heart shaped tin of chocolate hearts on a 25% off promotion so had 2 of those for stocking fillers.

I did not look for RTC items as my fridges are full and it would be an unnecessary expense., Francesca treated her car to a spin through the wash and I treated her to a tank full of petrol using my 12p off a litre voucher.

My treat was not driving and time for a leisurely browse round the non food departments. I found an ice cream scoop, just like the old mashed potato scoops from school dinners days, I will use it for measuring cookie dough and filling cup cake liners, that way they will all be the same size.

Every thing has been put in its allotted place and I am in mine, my chair in the shade with a cup of tea and a book to flick through. Lush, good times for all.

Ben and Bertie are snoozing, I took them out for a gentle stroll at 6. this morning and it was pretty warm then
my tea is getting cool so it is                  TTFN       Pam

PS, I am approaching the 100 post mark so am thinking of a little giveaway, watch this space. Pam

Lazy,who me?

It has been a wonderful day, between us Francesca and I have changed the beds, done the laundry and the ironing, and hoovered through. We did not dust as with all the doors and windows opened I am hoping that the through breeze did that job for us, not joking!

I had some sausages RTC and quite a few eggs so Scotch Eggs and salad for dinner, and I have a piece of RTC Brisket to put in the smoker for tomorrow.

The rest of today has included several glasses of chilled lemon, more than a few cups of tea and a very juicy mango for my lunch, dressed up with some black grapes and strawberries. Lush.

There has been a bit of reading, a moment or two of dozing, about 20 minutes or so cutting back a few thuggish plants. Then there was a big chunk of  Lewis, one that I recorded during the week. I enjoyed Morse and read all the books but Lewis has grown on me.
I do like Kevin Whately, he has a gently crumpled lived in face. Lawrence Fox has a long intense sort of face, not handsome or even good looking, interesting is the best word that I can call to mind.. He reminds me of the lead singer in Cold Play.

Following that there was a bit more reading and some nodding off along with moving my seat around the garden to keep out of the sun.

I did put my new  fabric away, I will show you another day, it was just not a day for picture taking, plus my batteries need charging.

I am at work tonight, I will not be sorry when this month is over, we have some new people starting their training next week and that will take two to three weeks.

I have to go now I need to find the energy to drink the tea that Francesca just made.

Lazy, who me?                 TTFN   Pam

OOPS, I am working so hard I forgot my list

Reasons to be grateful

1. Francesca's marvelous tea making skills

2. The shady spots in my garden.

3. Francesca's Ironing skills.

4. Bertie still with us, although snoozing most of the day.

5. The roses that scent the garden.

Embarrassed, Frustrated and feeling Very Very Fortunate

An awful title but it sums up my feelings right now. I went to the PO delivery office in Wisbech to pick our parcels. This is situated just behind Mr T's Emporium so like most other folks I availed myself of their car park and walked through. More about my parcel at another date.

I only had a few things to buy so popped in and grabbed a trolley. Just inside they have a stand set up to collect non perishable foods for a local food bank, Mr T has pledged to top up all donations by 30%.

For the last little while we have been living out of the freezer and larder just buying dairy, fruit and veg. I have saved a tidy sum even though during this time I happened upon a few bargains and snaffled them up.

I had a quick think and ran through my blessings in my head while doing my shop, £9 63. I set my weekly budget at £50, I could cut that but I am fortunate in that I do not have to.

If I was facing the wall I would want to slash that to to minimum so having thunked I decided to put my shopping in the car and take my trolley back and see what it would cost for a week using the basic range.
I started off with the basics, pasta, rice, tinned potatoes, peas and carrots, remember these have to be non perishable, I added 1 tin each of tuna, corned beef, spam and luncheon meat, 2 jars of pasta sauce. Then it was baked beans, spaghetti, 2 each of those, then 1 each of macaroni cheese,  spaghetti bolognese, beans and sausages. I added a bottle of tomato ketchup, 2 bottles of squash 1 orange and 1 blackcurrant with apple, 1 family pack of custard creams and 1 pack of jaffa cakes, then I went back to tins and added 1 rice pudding and 1 custard.
Merrily through the checkout and WOW how cheap a third of the £25 I had in mind.

I took it to the very nice girl manning the display ( A dead ringer for Adele BTW) and handed it over.
I went back and bought it all again but twice as much,
 I added coffee, tea and hot chocolate as extras, I don't know how I forgot them in the first place, that added £2. ish to each of the 3 shops, so over budget but completely my own fault. Reading this I realise that I forgot sugar, that is because we do not use it. Duh!

Now as to the title,
 I am embarrassed that I have not done this before, I have read many articles about how essentials food banks are becoming.
I am frustrated that I could not give fresh food.
And I feel very very fortunate that I was able  to make this small gesture today.

Reasons to be grateful,

1. I do not have any financial worries.

2. The sun is shining.

3. My wonderful parcel from America.

4. I do not have to go to work tonight.

5. I do not HAVE to go to work, I choose to.

I am not a "do gooder" sort of person, I do not feel the need to stroke my ego or do the "lady bountiful" thing.
Today everything was in the right place and I did what I felt was right for ME.
I do not think that it is the answer, teaching basic skills in cooking, shopping and setting a budget would be a good step. The question is who should and could take it on and how do you tell a woman with 3 children and a husband living in very basic accommodation struggling to pay fuel bills that she has to do this. It is demeaning enough to have to literally beg for food without somebody inferring that it is your own fault for not having a certain skill set.

Her comes my good fortune again, I grew up learning these skills without realizing it. I have friends who never got the chance to learn, they were never allowed to stand next to mother/ grandmother and watch pastry being made and pie fillings cooked, bread being made and a massive rice pudding slid into the oven to cook in the residual heat and provide a sweet finish to dinner.
Never shown how to cook up a chicken carcass to make stock and soup for pennies, or how to stretch a joint of meat   to 3 or even 4 days meals.

Enough, cease and desist !

I had planned to show some sewing today, really thrifty pretty sewing but that can wait for another day.
I will get off now and play in the kitchen.                TTFN    Pam
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A little time in the garden.

I have a section of garden that I am deeply ashamed of, it runs along the espaliered apples and is not so much a Work In Progress as an Abandoned Project. I made a start on a while ago and then got bogged down with work and sewing and stuff in general, we had some really cold nasty weeks and it sort of slid out of my mind. It was so far out that I walked past it without even seeing it.
Today all the stars were in the correct alignment and BINGO it jumped straight to the front of my To Do Today list.
I told you about my 50p roses and I had a few other "budgie" plants.....................well they were going cheep, sorry couldn't help it.

This is the first section that I worked on ages ago.

I had some broken concrete and a pile of shingle to rehome and this long bed was just a tangle of old ground cover plants and the odd strawberry or two. I dug down about 4 inches, placed random bits of concrete and tipped the shingle over it., I left an odd plant here and there to soften it.

This is the section that I worked on today, same process but I popped my little roses and other plants in. There is still some tidying up to do and I need to scrape round the pavers and fill in with a dry mix.

And then there is this,

The next bit down, Oh Dear, I can see me on my hands and knees tomorrow sorting this out, I do have some more plants and a good job too as there is another 12 ft at least to tackle.

While I was snapping away I took these,

This is a broken pot that I  "rescued"  from a skip years ago and planted up with Alpines, I regret to say that over time most of the plants died off and the pot was forgotten, today I noticed that the Pink has survived and has a dandelion for company so that is now high on my list.

An elderly sage bush, I let it get leggy and when in flower it hums with bees, lovely.

I need to pull my chair forward, my favourite rose is taking over, this spot is sheltered and where I sit with a cup of tea and a book for 15 minutes as often as I can. Sometimes I take my hand sewing out there and stay till my bum is numb. I dare not have a comfy seat or I might take root. You can just see my pot grown potatoes in the foreground, and here is one tub's contents.

Enough for two meals as Francesca does not like new potatoes, not bad considering I was given the seed potatoes as they were long overdue for planting, the compost was from some split bags that I cadged in a local plant growers yard, well I did help to clear the spill up.

The pots came from work, we get them full of olives, as they are white I lined them with three layers of newspaper, also from work.

Reasons to be grateful

1. Bertie is a little more comfortable today. 

2. A job done in the garden and crossed of the list.

3. The taste of fresh salad leaves, picked and washed seconds before eating.

4. Homemade lemonade on a hot day.

5. The prospect of some sunny days ahead.

I have to go to the Post Sorting Office tomorrow, Francesca has a parcel that the Postie, allegedly, tried to deliver this morning and was too big. I have a parcel from America, so excited. While I am out I will pop into Aldi and have a quick look, I have a little shopping to do. I will also buy some bottles for my Elderflower Cordial, the flowers are ready to be steeped overnight and I will be straining the resulting liquid tomorrow afternoon.  I think that it is time now for,     TTFN   Pam

I hope you enjoyed today's gardening shots.

PS

A quick snap of Bertie, this is his good side. He was exhausted after his bad day.

No Go Shopping at Mr T and sad times approaching.

Well I am going to pass on my £6 voucher, I have not done an online shop for ages and it took me ages to get 10 items on my list, there were no decent offers on anything that I wanted and the cheapest delivery was £3.50, more than half the value of my voucher!

I thought that it would save time and effort but with hindsight realised that I still need to shop for fruit and veg, milk and cheese etc and no shop assistant is selecting any of that for me.

I go to the local market on Fridays and we have a pensioner in the village who grows and sells all sorts of produce, added to what I grow myself there is nothing left to buy online.

I make all our bread, cakes and biscuits and now that I am making my own buttermilk, yoghurt and ricotta another gap appears in my shopping list.

I do buy tinned baked beans, chopped tomatoes, sweetcorn and tomato puree but can not store £60 worth of these, I also buy tinned chickpeas and other beans but have decided to invest in a pressure cooker and cook from dried.
Not just for economy but for portion control, for 3 of us 1 tin of chickpeas is not enough and 2 is too much but hey, guess what, when I open 2 tins we eat them all.

I usually buy my bread flour from Mr T but when I was in Asda with Francesca I noticed that it was much cheaper there so bought 10 bags and the dried yeast to go with them.

I was at work last night and as luck would have it I had to go outside several times and boy was it raining, I borrowed a waterproof hi-viz jacket from one of the drivers and looked like Orphan Annie. The sleeves were about 6 inches below my fingertips and the hip pockets were near my knees, a visiting driver was cheeky enough to ask if I had shrunk in the rain.

Dinner tonight is some Gloucestershire Old Spot sausages and they were a treat at £3.50 for 500g, but I did buy 6 assorted packs and got 2 free packs. We will have new potatoes and a selection of veg and onion gravy.

There is a big pot of Bolognese type sauce simmering away and that will be prtione up and frozen for future meals, I put it into Lasagne, on pasta or rice , into a big Yorkshire Pudding or Baked Potato and even into a pie as the mood strikes me.


Reasons to be grateful.

1. The rain for watering my garden.

2. My empty laundry basket.

3. The lovely reader who is sending me some scrap fabrics.

4. The punnet of gooseberries given to me when walking Ben.

5. The Michael Connelly book that has me riveted right now.

Bertie is not too good today, he has a lot of small and medium growths and one on the side of his face is bothering him. He has nagged at it all day so far and it is bleeding, I have spoken to Francesca and she will have to make a decision tonight. Bertie is really her dog and the call is hers to make.
We have said for some time now that while he is OK in himself we will keep him going.
That point has now been passed. It is a sad thought but he has had a good life and been loved and looked after, in some ways our lives revolve around his needs.

I have made myself teary over this so it is     TTFN    Pam

A Coat of Many Colours for Tehlula the Toyota.

I have been sewing my scraps together and when I had a decent sized piece of material I decided to treat the Toyota to a cover. The one she came with was really past it, more holey than righteous, if you get my drift.

So I did a rough bit of measuring and got this.

and this

 I should have said these.

I used some scraps of wadding and a piece of creamy yellow material left over from a commissioned quilt, so all free.

Not bad, and the other side

Not forgetting the side view.

All fine and dandy but what about the inside.

Yeugh, raw edges no no no. All that fluff clogging up the works.

Much better, neat and tidy, no raw edges and no fluff.

A trim little bottom, well we all want one of those.

Job Done.

I did not make a gap for the carry handle to pop through, I do not want anywhere for the dust to get in, if I need to move her around I just lift her up from the bottom.

I am undecided as to whether to make a pocket and attach to hold the foot pedal and plug, or whether to make a little bag to do the job. I will think about it...............................OK I have thunk and a pocket it will be, that way they will stay together, I will put a fastener on the pocket to keep it closed. Tomorrows job I feel.

Tonight's dinner is a mish mash, I want to include lots of veg, I will steam them. I have chicken left over from Sunday,

 I forgot to tell you, I went  to Asda on Sunday morning with Francesca and they had Banham Poultry chickens. I know the company and their produce is really good, I found a 1.5Kg bird for the princely  sum of £2.30 it was yellow stickered of course. It was succulent and tasty, very very tasty.....sorry I couldn't resist.
BTW no one asked me to sing Banham Poultry's praises, I have always bought their chicken when I see it. I used to work in the chicken industry. Nuff said.

Any way back to tonight, I rootled through the freezer and found some smoked duck and some garlic sausage, extra strong of course, and in the fridge I have some Chorizo.  So it will be cold meats and steamed veg drizzled with garlic sauce, I also have some smoked garlic puree in the fridge and I will put a good squeeze of lemon juice in to give it a lift.

Reasons to be grateful

1. A cooler day so I can get some chores done without melting.

2. Seeing the little Terrier from 3 doors down chasing his tail in excitement while his owner tried to get a lead on him.

3. The butterflies smothering one of my elder trees.

4. The big patch of wild poppies that brighten the footpath where I walk Ben.

5. Just being here, now and happy with my lot.

BTW no. 5 does not apply every day, if it did it would be unreal. I believe that we all have off days and bad hair days, some more than others. My way of pushing through is to either take Ben for a good ramble, do some creative sewing or immerse myself in a book with radio 2 playing in the background.

Now I have to get a shopping list together, Mr T has sent me a voucher for £12 off a £60 pound shop. He will be delivering a stock up shop of all the heavy and bulky things like tins of beans and tomatoes and loo rolls and kitchen rolls, I will stock up on flour as well and that will save me a journey and stop my arms from being wrenched out of their sockets hauling a massive trolley round the shop. Not to mention lifting it on and off the belt and then out of the trolley into the car and then out of the car into the house. Whew I feel a lie down coming on to get over all that hard work.   TTFN     Pam

Full Fat or Low Fat that is the question.

I have been reading various blog posts on diet and nutrition, healthy foods as apposed to Health Foods.
I am over weight by 5 Kilo to 20 Kilo, depending on what "experts" latest proclamation that you may be reading. if I lost 5 Kilo I would be happy, if I lost 20 Kilo I would be bony and gaunt. I have a large bone structure, hence my big feet and hands, and being thin makes me look awful.

I do not buy low fat/ reduced fat anything, with the exception of skimmed milk as it is the only form that I like it. I do however buy extra thick double and clotted cream on occasion.

I love butter but do to the cost of the good stuff buy whatever buttery stuff is on offer, provided that it is suitable for cooking.

My Granny had it right with her "A little of what you fancy does you good" LITTLE. being the key word.

Strawberries are in season and Eton Mess is dear to my heart, I have made it twice and will probably make it twice more while the season lasts.

My favourite cake is chocolate with a filling and topping of ganache, I have made it a few times this year and we have one slice each and the rest goes to my neighbours or to work.

I cook fatty joints of meat, they are cheaper and the meat is better tasting, but we have small servings balanced out with lots of veg or salad..

Tonight we had bean and mushroom bake, a tin of cannellini beans and a tin of black eyed beans, drained and mixed with 12 or so chopped mushrooms and tossed with a little rapeseed oil some cumin seeds, paprika, salt and pepper and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic. This was cooked for 15 minutes at 180c and tipped onto a bed of salad leaves, diced onion, celery and peppers. There is enough for tomorrows dinner.

I do not buy Health Foods, we eat healthy foods most of the time. I do eat burger and chips, it just comes from my kitchen not from the golden arches. I use beef that I process with onion for the patties, I make the bread rolls and the relish, I make the chips and oven cook them in a minute amount of oil and we have a heap of salad on the side.

There is no set formula, we are all different, I am about to have a cup of tea and something sweet, an apple.
I could reach for the biscuit tin but it would be a waste of time as it is empty. I work on the premise that if we do not have it we can not eat it.

We all like a treat, if you have it every day it is no longer a treat and it is taken for granted.
What do you think about all this, are you on the fasting diet, do you put your trust in the diet ready meals,or is it a slimming group for you?

Things to be grateful for

1. The miniature roses I bought for 50p each.

2. The French tarragon that I was given

3. My lovely neighbour Marina, in good form today.

4. My work colleague Izabella, a joy.

5. My sewing for keeping my mind busy.

I have a stack of photos to share tomorrow so until then       TTFN    Pam