Hugs Are Essential

I have always believed that we should express our love for our family as often as possible.  My OH is an only child and came from a background of  good parents but ones who never expressed their love with hugs or words, very unlike my own parents.  His mother found my need for hugs very strange but I always hugged my own children and still tell them I love them even though they are in their 40's.  My GD is 11 yrs old and last weekend went on a school trip, staying from Friday to Monday at an activity centre. At the last minute she really didn't want to go as she hates sleeping away from home.  When she returned on Monday I rang to ask how it went and she said she had actually enjoyed the activities very much and the nights were ok because the children were allowed to take one item from home with them and she had chosen a cushion I bought for her last birthday with the words:

 

Borrowed from Google

 

written on the front.  This is something we text to each other and say when we hug as she is going home :)  She said she slept cuddled up to it each night and it helped because it smells of me....

 

Aw (sob) I feel vindicated....

 

I still hug my 'baby' brother who is 62 and an ex-cop! How do you feel? Are hugs great at any age?

 

Anyway, have a hug from me now << >>

Take care x

 





Referendum Limbo and Home Grown Food

Well the referendum results are out and so are we.  Whatever happens now, it will take time and patience to extricate us from the EU and to get things right.  It's pointless worrying what will happen.  I can remember my childhood when you could leave school or Uni and walk right into a job; a 'job for life' if you wanted it.  Let's hope we can make a better UK for our children and grandchildren.

We will carry on being thrifty, watching the household budget and living within our means.  I printed out my latest Tesco voucher and pondered how to make the best use of it.  I hate the taste and chemical smell of our tap water and usually buy a couple of bottles of mineral water to drink ice cold from the fridge.  I have been paying £1.40 for 4 bottles from Morrisons but found Tesco Everyday Value bottles at just 17p each!  Today I stocked up with 8 bottles @17p plus a bottle of lemonade as a treat for OH @ 40p  The lot cost me just 25p and the water tastes lovely, no aftertaste :)

 

We have a couple of salmon portions for tea today so I checked in the garden and found the first of my new potatoes as well as a few peas, I am excited!  There are lots more to come but I will take them as and when I need them to keep them fresh......

 

Look what else I found! I'm afraid I have already sampled a couple of them and they are delicious so these will be our dessert with a slice of Viennetta ice cream (which cost £1 and will be sliced into 6 portions @ 17p a portion)  At least I got to them before the slugs did!!

Have a great evening everyone, thanks everso for popping in x

A Satisfyingly Frugal Day

We decided to go to the cinema this morning. Eddie The Eagle was on at the Odeon Silver Cinema so for £3 each we had a lovely coffee, a couple of biccies and a brilliant film.  The cinema was raising money for MIND, the mental health charity, and selling raffle tickets at just 50p each so we both bought one not really expecting to win anything but it's a very worthwhile cause so we went for it.  Just before the film began a young man entered the screen area and drew 3 winners.  We won a voucher for a free coffee and cake at Costa, located within the cinema!  Woohoo!  After watching the very enjoyable and heartwarming film, I took the voucher to Costa and asked if we could have a take out....no problem :) Oh, and we had a free Sun newspaper too!

We took them home and shared them with a sandwich for lunch.

Our Residents' Association is planning a fun afternoon to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen's birthday and I thought I could help with prizes for the raffle and tombola so I had a rummage and filled a bag with various new items and dropped them off to the organiser, another job done....

The car has been booked in for it's MOT next week...tick...a bargainous £29

I had received an email from BT offering an upgrade to unlimited broadband at a cost very similar to what we pay now so I applied for that online and it should start tomorrow...tick...

Whilst on the BT site I noticed an offer for mobile phones at just £5 per month with unlimited texts, 500 mg data and 200 minutes free calls.  Now, as I don't connect to the internet I hadn't considered changing from PAYG on which I spend £10 per month but as my GD seems to enjoy texting me with all her news ...lol... the unlimited texts does actually appeal.  I took up the offer which will, potentially, save me £5 per month (at least)  I'll let you know how I get on when my new Sim card arrives.

By then I felt kna**ered    erm.. very tired so we tootled off to vote in the referendum after which OH treated me to a nice glass of red at the pub...mmmm (satisfied sigh)

Tea was Spanish omelette with red onion, cooked peas, halved cherry tomatoes which had gone soft, 3 eggs and some strong grated cheese, served with buttered baby potatoes, followed by the last bit of trifle shared. Simple and satisfying.

Now, methinks, a nice warm bath (shallow of course :) followed by a mug of tea, a bit of baby knitting and a good drama at 9pm followed by zzzzzzzzz

Isn't it satisfying when you get a lot done in one day :)

See you in the morning for the referendum results, take care all x

A Washout Summer

I have no idea why I worried about the lack of water on my illicit veg whilst away. Apparently it poured down as, indeed, it did on our holiday!  We travelled north, staying near a market town called Richmond for a couple of nights in order to chop the journey into manageable portions then on up to Berwick Upon Tweed for 4 nights.  The campsite was called Seaview but a more appropriate name would have been Mistview because that's all we saw for most of the week!! Anyway, we returned home yesterday to a very lush garden.  My peas have shot up like rockets...

And there are some lovely peapods developing nicely.....

The lupins and lilies are gorgeous too...

And the strawberry plants have fruited and are only waiting for a bit of sunshine to ripen them.  I only hope I can beat the slugs to the luscious fruit.....

The only thing to have suffered from the torrential rain are the potatoes.  There is a big empty space in the middle as if a cat had been sitting on them and the leaves have been feasted on by slugs.  I will have a firtle around in the soil in a day or two to see what I can find....

A couple of days before we went away we had some very strange weather.  The rainspots began, then thunder and then hailstones.  Outside looked like a stream instead of a footpath. Who would believe it's Summer??

Thanks for popping in and I'm so glad you found me again, Jules, I've been having a similar problem with some of the blogs I follow too.  Peculiar :/
 xx

Disaster!

Do you remember me saying that we were going to use inverted water bottles as a watering aid whilst we go off in the caravan?

 Disaster! :/  I thought that maybe we ought to try one out as an experiment to see how long it took for the bottle to empty. Result? It emptied in less than an afternoon so will be useless..... just like my idea.....On to plan B....DD will pop in a couple of times a week and give them all a good soaking and our lovely neighbour will water our flower pots at the front.  They will all have to take their chances, I'm afraid...

The last couple of days have been sultry and hot culminating in a thunderstorm on Wednesday which caused heavy localised flooding and a downpour again yesterday teatime with distant claps of thunder to boot.  Perhaps things will cool down a little and give our poor abandoned plants a chance to survive.

I'll be taking a break from blogging for a couple of weeks as I will have no internet access and I don't possess a smartphone (why would I :0) ?)

Take care all of you and enjoy the lovely weather when you can.

Thanks everso for popping in x

Cor Blimey it's a Hot One!

Last night was so hot it was much too uncomfortable to sleep and 3am saw me in the bathroom running cold water over my hands and arms trying to cool down. Once I start tossing and turning it sets off the pain in my hip and even sleeping on top of the duvet didn't help me to settle.  I would be useless living in a hot country!  However, the warm weather is doing wonderful things for my illicit peas and potatoes, just look at the lush growth on my peas....

The flowers are starting to appear :)

 

 

We are going to have a few days away in the caravan soon so we need to find ways of keeping the precious plants hydrated.  OH poked small holes in our saved plastic water bottles which will be up-ended into the pots but we discovered that after a few seconds the water stops running as the vacuum sets in so he is going to put a small hole in the base too.  I hope it works because a neighbour has offered to keep an eye on things but I don't want to put him to too much trouble as he has his own problems.  Has anyone any tips?  Have you tried this system? Does it work for a few days? Any advice much appreciated....

We never feel much like eating when the weather is hot so yesterday we had a craving for a nice salad; little gem lettuce, grated carrot, locally grown tomatoes, home grown cress and a jacket spud with a bit of strong cheese...delicious...followed by Hereford - grown strawberries and ice cream :)

It feels like today will be a tad warm too and DD is popping in later so we could well be sitting in the shade in the garden.  Hmm...I think I need to give the 'Shirley Valentine' table and chairs a good wash.

(Hello again, A Heron's View, welcome back!)

See you later, have a really great day whatever you have planned x