Storm time

 

Well, we had quite a bit of a storm in the night.

A tree from my neighbours garden over the road came down unfortunately. It landed right across the road, and blocked my drive.

I can say though that I am honestly pleased it came my way! Had it gone the other way, it would have landed on their bungalow :( 

I have no electric this morning, neither has my next door neighbour, but we've had offers of tea, car lifts (as my drive is blocked) and showers (hinting? Lol) which has made me realise what lovely neighbours I actually have :)

Hopefully the electric will be back on sometime today....I'm a bit worried about what I may lose in the freezer.....so when the electric does come on, I may have to do quite a bit of cooking so that it's not wasted.

I have quite a bit of fabric crocheting to do as I've put in an application for a stall at a Christmas fair on 30th November, and as yet have no stock.....

I've also tried to get a space in a local vintage warehouse, but alas, they told me that they have a waiting list of over 200 folks waiting for spaces to come free.... Even though they keep advertising their space....

Well, hopefully my next post will show some headway in my crafting, and the little vintage pieces I got at the vintage fair the other week.

Have a great week folks. 

Crafting mojo

Well, it's been another dry space between blog posts! 

But the good news is that since my last post, I have got my crafting mojo back!  Since I split with my partner at the begining of the year, I have been seriously lacking any crafty thoughts. Well, I mean I've had a bit of crochet on the go (which I must have attempted a handful of times), but other than that, I haven't done any sewing or papercrafts at all :(

Yesterday my crafty soul had a huge boost too!    I went here :~

To the vintage fair at Blandford Forum. Oh I had a fantastic time! My best most cheerful day in long time I can tell you :)

The hall was packed out -not only with other crafty, vintage loving souls, but it was jam packed with sellers too. Quite a few of them were brand new sellers to me whom I'd never seen before, so it was a very fresh, enjoyable experience for me!

In fact it was so packed in the morning that I had to leave the hall as I was just too hot. 

But when I went back in the late afternoon, it was really nice to look round with a degree of peace!

This lady :~

Has totally inspired me to take up my needle and thread again! 

She is Teresa from Willapark Designs. A really talented lady.  

But it was a lovely day, and I spent my full budget that I had yo spend too! 

I'll show you what I bought next time.

Have a great day :)

New spaces :)

Well good afternoon folks :)

I've had quite a busy and not altogether good week.

First of all, after a big fight, my Miss 18 started college! Yay. The bad news on that front is she had a seizure on the first day, a seizure on the second day, then her third day on Friday she was too poorly to go in!  But hey, onwards and upwards. Hopefully she'll have a better week next week! Fingers crossed x.

Then I've had a very sick Jack Russell to nurse - bless him. He's had a really dreadful stomach upset. Lots of sick and shakes. I think now though he's recovering nicely. He's kept down two scrambled egg and the juice, and I blew the budget on some 'basics' salmon to bake for him which he's kept down too. I was really worried about him dehydrating I can tell you. Fingers crossed he really is on the mend though. X!

Yesterday was quite a sad day as I had the funeral to go to of a 15yr old lad. He had been poorly since he was four, and lived an amazing fulfilling life even though he wasn't given as many years as he had .. Bless him. My heart goes to to his family who'll have to now come to terms with the space he's left in their lives. :(

I've been very busy gardening in between other busyness. I'm in the process of making a special veggie patch in the front of my garden where I grew the wild strawberries.

See the space there? Over the back ? The above picture has some of the junk that I've so far cut away! Still a long way to go!

Jake is balancing on the back wall. It's not a very big space but I'm hoping to utilise it with veggies starting next spring.

Maybe I'll do the same as sue over at the blog 'Our new life in the country'. She grew three different veggies in one small space, all intertwined with each other. And she also grew a large variety of veg in a tin bath over the summer.

Unfortunately the garden that I have been using all summer has come to an end, so now I have to utilise as much space in my own (rented) garden as I can. Even if that includes using pots. I have to say I really dislike container gardening!

I've recently (this summer) realised that this is down to vine weevil larvae !! 

In the early 90s I had lots and lots of containers with gorgeous veggies growing. But I was new to gardening then, and didn't recognise the vine weevil beetle for what it was. My plants were devastated but the larvae eating all the roots of my plants :( 

Since then I have been very reluctant to grow any amount of produce in pots - just the usual flower pots outside the door. But now I'm on the lookout and will just have to do the best I can.

See this beautiful tin? This is my treasure tin, and inside is this :

Packets of seeds for container growing! I do have boxes of other seeds too, but these were all on offer a my local garden centre for 50p a packet. And the use by dates weren't till the end of 2014/15 !

So at least I have seeds that are supposed to be good in containers!

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be finishing off that front bed and then protecting it from cats until I decide what to put in there, or till spring.

Have a great weekend folks.

Rw

Blogging dry period!

Well, goodness me, I didn't realise it had been so long since my last post! In my defence though, I have been very busy, and also had a couple of emergencies to deal with too.

One of them was a visit to the local A & E dept with my son.. (Don't ask!).

The other was the local college refusing to let my daughter attend this September as she as epilepsy!

Yep, discrimination of the worst kind. This fight has been going on since June. Then, this week they insisted that it was their right to tell all the other students in her group that she had epilepsy in case she had a seizure! !  But fight over now, she's in and keeps her privacy too... Bless her.

I've been busy preserving and gardening. I've made more chutney -rhubarb. I've made tomato and basil sauce for pasta. I've pickled cucumber slices. I've made pickled eggs and I've dried some small orange tomtoes and preserved them in olive oil. At this precise moment I have plum tomatoes drying in the oven for more preserving in oil. 

Today I'm going to be making cucumber pickle as well.

I've also been participating in a couple of frugal challenges for September. This has been pretty hard this month as I've had to pay out on unexpected 'emergencies'!

I joined the www.frugaldom.myfreeforum.org/index.php frugal September. It's a great forum for getting inspiration and support to help on your way! I don't think I would have done what I've done without their support, and reading others stories.

I also joined www.sftandthe101challenge.blogspot.com stretch it out September. Which is making three weeks worth of money do the job of 4! 

I'm hoping to get into some good habit this month that last!

Have a great weekend.

Rw

Boot sale bounty

Well, I had a stroke of luck at the boot sale yesterday. I've been looking for some larger cloches for a while, and just as it started to rain yesterday at the fair, I spied these!

They are just over a metre long, and half a metre wide. 

I shall now get to, and make two long planters from some decking so that I can have a couple of raised beds next year.

I'm so looking forward to that.

Have a great bank holiday Monday. I'm off to another boot fair this morning, and the sun is shining!

Rw

Bread

Well, my bread has been made. In fact I have made three loaves since i last blogged.

The first one was wholemeal.

A large loaf. (I have the three settings of small, large and extra large -not sure where medium went lol)

Medium crust.

My last bread maker was a Swan make, and the hook always left a humongous hole in the bottom and middle of the loaf. But my new Panasonic 2500 leaves a very small hole in comparison.

The texture and taste were perfect. Mmmmm.... So much for me losing a few stone before Christmas when I have all these tasty carbs to eat!

I also made two white loaves. Despite the crust looking a very pale, the loaf was perfect too!

I can't wait to see what else I can do in my breadmaker!

I'll be back tomorrow with the details of the challenge I'm joining in for September!

Have a great day everyone.

Rw

Chutney and bread

Well, managed to produce 6 jars of red tomato chutney. I seriously under estimated how much juice comes out of 4lb of tomatoes though, and it took forever to reduce down!

I think I've managed to work out how to reduce the size of the photos on my iPad now, so hopefully they won't be as large as the last photos!

Today I've made a loaf in my new bread maker. It's a Panasonic 2500 in case anyone wants to give me any hints and tips on how to use it. 

The wholemeal loaf is just on the rise part of the program, so as soon as it cooks, I shall edit this post with a photo.

I've been out this morning and bought quite a bit of sugar and bread flour for making my preserves and bread with. Now I just need to get round to making them.  I have rhubarb chutney and jam in the front of my mind, as I haven't picked any rhubarb in a while, and its looking good.

Have a good day everyone, and I'll pop the bread photos on here in a bit.

Rw. 

Chutney on a Sunday afternoon.

Well, I'm sitting here with rain outside and the strong whiff of red tomato chutney filling the house!

The only reason I can tell it isn't yet autumn is because I'm still wearing shorts and tea shirt, albeit with Wellington boots! 

This is how the chutney started off. 4lbs of overripe little orange tomatoes, 2lb of onions, 3lb of bramleys cooking apples (all amounts are approximate) 2pints of pickling vinegar (any vinegar will do) several teaspoons of mustard powder, mixed spice, ground ginger, 2lb sugar. Simmer the whole lot.

This is at the stage where it has been simmering for an hour. Still a way to go. I think I've put too much vinegar in it, as I normally make apple chutney and didn't allow for the juiciness of the tomatoes, but hey, I'll know for next time, and all I have to do is simmer longer... :)

I'll post pictures of the finished product tomorrow. 

Happy Sunday everyone. 

Rw x

This and that

Well, I just thought I'd show a few of the things that I've been up to over the past week.
Below is a gorgeous kohl rabi that was grown in the garden. I gave half to the children raw, and roasted the other half with home grown courgettes and a shop bought acorn squash. It was delicious.
We've never eaten kohl rabi before as they always seem so expensive in the shops.
I do love the plants though. I think that look amazingly retro - they sort of remind me of Sputnik !

I've been out doing a bit of thrifty shopping too.
I found two beautiful pictures on wood.
This wren one (which I obviously had to buy)

And this gorgeous spaniel one which I just couldn't leave there!

The artist is Dick Twinney. If you click on the picture, it tells you more about him.

I've also actually started rag crocheting again. I know, about time! 

It's actually taken me all the time from when I wrote my last log post until now to work out how to use blogger properly on my iPad ! 

I've tried to post this post numerous times, but alas I just couldn't work it out..Doh!

So hopefully now I can get around to posting more often!

Well, that'll do for now. Have a great weekend. 

A new start :)

Well, it's a long time since I've made a blog.

I must say though, it's good to be back :)

I hope to record my new little world on here for all to see. If you want to have a read that's fine, but it would be good if you'd maybe leave a comment too. Nice ones of course :)

It's been another hot sunny day here in the UK. So far we've had a beautiful summer. The runner beans have really started to take off in the garden, and in the garden that I 'borrow' to garden in, we've already had a lovely kohl rabi plant, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, spring onions (scallions), potatoes, beet root, courgette (zucchini), lemon balm and radish.

My journey for saving and making money is all the more important now that I'm a single mum, so I shall be charting that journey on here too.

I've yet to work out how to get all the photos I've taken off my iPad and onto my blog, I think I'll have to upload them to Picasso or something, but I'll try and sort that out tomorrow.

For now I'll have to finish this post photo-less I'm afraid, but at least I got on here at last!

Happy evening all. Take care. X