A Touch of Magic!

I can't remember who pointed me in the right direction ( I have tried to back track to find out, to no avail) but I downloaded the Too Good to Go app and this morning found a Magic Bag on offer at the Spar supermarket not too far away.  I am excited!  There is supposed to be a bag containing £10 worth of food for the princely sum of £3.09 which I can collect after 7pm tonight.  I wonder what it will contain?  There could be fruit, veg, meat, fish etc but it's a lucky dip.  All will be past the sell by/use by date so I'll let you know in a post tomorrow what I get.  Meanwhile a big 'thank you' to whoever shared the information in the first place.

Watch this space!

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

EDIT: I have just found the information on Marlene's blog PoppyPatchwork.  Thank you Marlene.

SECOND EDIT: I had only just come off the computer when I received a text to say that my order has been cancelled because the supermarket doesn't have enough surplus food to fulfill the order. My payment via PayPal has been refunded but I am gutted......

I think I'll just shut up shall I..... 🤐

Home Grown Produce

What an awful week its been weather wise; too much rain and not enough sun with low overnight temperatures thrown in.   A few weeks ago the apple trees were covered in lush blossom like this...

The blossom has all disappeared, hastened by the wind and rain, but I can see that apples have set so I'm still hoping for a decent crop of fruit.

We still have plenty of rhubarb and are eating crumbles and stewed fruit on a regular basis.....

Yesterday I popped to the allotment between showers to thin the lettuces out.  The tiny ones weeded out were shared with my brother and mine were eaten for lunch.  They were crisp, uber fresh and utterly delicious 😋 

As I'm on a mission to save a little money out of the food budget, I wasn't best pleased to come downstairs  this morning after G had gone to work to find this....🤨

 

Why on earth make a mug of tea with milk and sugar if you don't actually drink it?  I would have drunk it myself had it not been lukewarm.  Good grief....

Anyway that's all for now. Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Rain, Rain And More Rain

 

The last 10 days have been pretty boring (apart from the parties next door) with lots and lots of rain interspersed with weak sunshine.  It has done the garden and allotment a power of good and everything has put on enormous growth spurts.  From the allotment, we have been picking lots of rhubarb for crumbles, distributing a share to our daughter, my brother, and a lovely neighbour and our first radishes have been pulled and eaten.  They were delicious 'Breakfast Radishes'; not too hot but very crunchy and tasty so we have sowed more seed in the raised bed.   Although we had grease banded the apple trees earlier on I decided to try a tip from someone and apply a thick ring of vaseline below the grease band to try to deter the earwigs which spoiled a lot of the Bramley cooking apples last year.  I don't know if it will work but it's worth a try.  I dare say I will have to replenish it every couple of weeks but I have a BIG jar of the stuff 😀

The 'first early' potatoes have been earthed up 3 times so are doing really well and the 'second earlies' are showing the first bit of growth.

The photo above shows the tiny Canada Goose goslings which we came across when we went for a walk in the park last week.  They were drinking from and paddling in a dirty puddle watched over by some adult geese.  We counted 12 and they were so sweet 😊

Next week is going to be just as unexciting, I think, because more rain is forecast for the whole week and we have our Pneumonia jabs to look forward to on Monday 👀  I feel a bit like a pin cushion.  That will be my 5th jab in just a few months.  Ah well, needs must.......

I'm off to the shower now and will have to try to decide what we are having for tea tonight.  There's not much in the fridge/freezer right now .......

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

Thanks So Much

 Thank you all for your helpful and supportive comments on my last post.  You have helped me to come to a decision.  I plucked up the courage to ring the police and the officer was so calming and helpful and I've filed a complaint.  He did tell me that they attended that address at some point last week so someone else has reported her too and they would have attended on Sunday after my online Covid rule- breaking report on Sunday/Monday but had another issue to deal with and couldn't respond.   I also managed to speak to the lady who lives directly opposite the problem house and she has seen even more than me, having a birds eye view, as it were. She says that she commented to her husband that she didn't know how we put up with it.  She is happy to support my complaint if I contact the council and apparently the police attended the house sometime in March too, which I didn't know about.  Young Neighbour is skating on thin ice, I think.

This will be the last downbeat post, I promise.  

My next post will be brighter (if I can prop my eyelids open long enough to type one!) 👀

Stay safe everyone, wherever in the world you happen to be x

Neighbour From Hell Bullies Again

 Please excuse any poor grammar, punctuation or spelling today.  I am knackered 😴 

A week ago young neighbour had yet another party ,totally ignoring rules and keeping us awake until the early hours yet again.  The next day I tried to speak to her but she ignored my knocks on the door so I wrote a polite note asking her to please be aware of noise levels when she next had visitors because G had to be up at 7am for work.  She ignored it.

Yesterday afternoon visitors began to arrive in taxis and cars at 4.30pm. Great...I thought...here we go. At 5.30pm a minibus pulled up and 6 girls piled out of the house and into the vehicle.  Yippee! They were going out! By 10.30pm they were back; roaring drunk and LOUD.  Immediately the pounding dance music was turned on and there were screams, shouting and bang after bang of the doors.  We waited patiently until midnight before trying to sleep through it but couldn't.  When I could stand it no longer, I filled in the online form on my phone to report Covid rule breaking.  Yet another car pulled up at 1.30am but no response from the police.  I finally got to sleep at 5am, woke again at 6.30am, gave in and got up.  At 7.30am whilst making a mug of tea to help down the paracetamol to relieve my headache, a taxi pulled up to collect 3 girls who fell out of the house whooping and taking selfies on their phones.  Its obvious that at least 8 were at the party and 6 slept overnight.  I despair....she is a bully and cares for no one but herself.  Her baby daughter spends more time out of the house than in it too.

The gloves are off.  I intend to keep reporting her now until something is done.  Her behaviour is anti social and affecting our health at this point.

What worries me now too is how she is treating her baby daughter. Is she safe?

Sorry for such a downbeat post but I needed to get it off my chest.

Stay safe everyone x