The Toothy Tale Continues....And Craft Fayre Woes

Poor OH is still suffering after having his tooth extracted.  The socket is still wide open after more than 8 weeks and he is so fed up.  Last week he visited his own dentist, the one who had referred him to the larger practice in the first place, who has now decided that something more needs to be done, referring him to the local hospital, this time to extract the impacted wisdom tooth next to the original extraction.  Apparently the wisdom tooth could be stopping the healing process.  Now, as OH had originally asked whether this tooth needed to come out and they had said no,  he is NOT best pleased.  Heaven knows how long he will have to wait for an appointment so he is still swooshing the socket after meals and cursing roundly as he does so.  The poor chap has lost half a stone in weight (no snacking!) and will become a shadow of his former self  if they don't hurry up and sort it.

It was the craft & local produce fayre this morning and I set up the stall full of enthusiasm...

Hardly anyone came through the door :(  As the £5 charged for the tables goes to local causes,  I agreed to try one more time in July (sucker, aren't I?) I've got a handful of advertising leaflets to distribute around the village so I hope next month will be better (yes, I know....I'm an optimist!)
The good bit of news is that I bought a large home baked iced lemon cake for just £2 from another stall holder so we can have a treat for tea.  If I had taken more money there would have been lots of other things there to tempt me to part with it, handmade jewellery, scarves, hand painted tea light holders, hand decorated canvas shopping bags.......the list goes on.

Have a great weekend folks x

Joyful June & Gently Does It

Gosh! Saturday again already, who ate the week?  We have had a very busy week.  Jobs (long put off) have been tackled, the garden tidied, the house de-cluttered (including 2 black bags of shredded paper from old bills, bank statements and generally any rubbish with our names and address on) and a bag of stuff taken to the charity shop.  I made requested ;)  OH to clear out the drawer on his side of the bed as it was so full it was in danger of the bottom falling out.  We ditched an old broken shaver, an empty box from the Satnav we had stolen 6 years ago, an old extension wire and empty box after empty box!  Boy did we feel better after that lot, de-cluttering is definitely good for the soul :)

A warm welcome to Julie, my new follower, how are you doing? :)

On Wednesday we went to the car boot sale but as buyers this time.  It was a pleasant day for browsing and I only bought some fruit and veg.  A big bowl of Jersey Royals for £1, 500g of small English tomatoes for 50p and a punnet of English strawberries also £1.

I can't believe it's already Summer.  Remember this photo of my Peonies?  The sun has made them burst forth in a veritable froth of pink tutu like flowers which have proven to be a bit too big and heavy for the stems.....

 

 

Of course, I couldn't let them just fall so this morning I trimmed off the biggest two to bring indoors....

Close up they are so beautiful.....

A while ago I bought something from Boots which generated 1000 bonus points worth £10.  As a rule I don't spend much in Boots as they can be much more expensive than the pound shop or even the supermarkets but I needed some Sensitive toothpaste (expensive at £3.50) so decided to use some points.  The antiperspirant was on offer at £2 for a large size and the handwash just 75p.  The little lot below cost my favourite price...FREE... They would have been £6.25!  And I still have £4.55 worth of points left.

 

 

As finances in May were a little stretched and we have a week's holiday coming up shortly, I want to spend as little as possible on the food budget and start June off gently.  We are going to eat simple and mainly home cooked food for the next couple of weeks.  I found a tin of condensed milk in the store cupboard along with some Tesco Value milk chocolate so made Millionaire's Shortbread using the recipe from the Hairy Bikers' Family Cookbook.  It's so simple (well, it must be if I can make it!) and it was a good job I did it because the family descended for a visit during the week and it vanished before you could say "Hairy Biker" !!



 

 

I will need to do some more baking to last us over next week, so today or tomorrow it will be a batch of scones, although I will wait until I have the oven on for something else too.

 

The LPG has been topped up (not too bad at £67) and I'm hoping that it will last us until September now that we don't need the heating on.  Showers and washing up take very little gas so I'm crossing my fingers.....

 

Later on I'll have a rummage at the bottom of the fridge.  I know we are out of carrots but I have peppers, tomatoes, those lovely new baby potatoes and a few mushrooms.  Frittata could be on the menu.  I'll see what else I can find.

 

That's all for now.  Have a wonderful weekend wherever you happen to be x

Sunny Days & Car Boot Sales

It's Saturday and it feels like it's going to be another stunner.  During the early hours I awoke to the sound of heavy rain but it's almost 11am now and it's warm and sunny, Yay!

Yesterday afternoon we were invited to a neighbour's BBQ so, armed with a pack of veggie sausages, a bottle of good rose wine and 4 cans of San Miguel, we tootled off just a few yards away for a good chin wag and lots of laughter.  By 11pm we were getting chilly so we dragged ourselves away home and slept like logs until a) I heard the rain and b) OH got up at 7am to go to work.  Me?  I'm off out shortly to visit DD and her family and to eat (probably) another bit of barbecue food in the sun :)


On Wednesday we decided (well, to be truthful I decided) that we ought to do a car boot sale to help clear some 'stuff' and raise some cash for our next short holiday.

The nearest one opened to sellers at the unearthly hour of 5.30am!  We packed the car the night before, got up at silly o'clock, skipped breakfast and got there at 6am.  As soon as we had turned off the ignition and opened the boot the dealers descended like a pack of wolves!  I sold 4 items before so much as a single box had been unloaded but I decided that a 'bird in the hand' was most definitely 'worth two in the bush'.  Luckily, they bought stuff I really wanted rid of but we didn't manage to sell any of the decent stuff because people wanted to pay very silly prices and I'm not selling my treasured crystal for £1 :(   We took a total of £29.50 and it cost £7.50 for the spot so by 11.30am we gave up, packed up and came home.  Not a very cost effective exercise but worth a try we thought.

In a weak moment I booked a table at a local craft fair which takes place in 2 weeks time :/  so I am busy making lots of items to sell (hopefully)  I will not be allowed to sell my HM cards as there are already other sellers booked in, so I'm racking the creative side of my brain for other ideas!  I only want to make low priced items because, although the table only costs £5, I need to make at least some profit on the day.  I'll try my pin cushions again and make some simple brooches, card toppers, felt hanging hearts etc

Has anyone else chanced their arm selling at craft fairs this year?  Are people actually spending their money?  I know many belts are being pulled in at the moment but I would regret not trying....

Enjoy your day wherever you happen to be and thanks everso for popping in x

Heartbreaking news

Oh my God, another atrocity, this time targeting young people in Manchester Arena.  My heart is broken for the people killed and injured, many of them just children.  When will this all end.....

God bless and keep you all safe xx

Holiday Woes and Growing Things

Hello all (waves as she comes in) today so far has been a stunner weather wise.  Our holiday was almost a total washout, just two sunny days and the rest wet and windy :/ However, we did manage to breathe in some lovely fresh sea air and ate pasties on the quayside, ice creams too, so not a total disaster :)

Thank you everyone for your comments on my last post.  Real books, it seems, win out for enjoyment every time with kindle having it's place only when travelling.  I got through two whole books during the 9 days we were away; one 'real' book and one kindle one.  Rainy days make me feel less guilty about sitting reading for hours on end.  The biggest problem with the wet weather was where to go each day so we did more eating out than we would have liked.

One favourite was taking the ferry (£4 each return) to Rock where we ate delicious fish cakes in the Rock Inn. It wasn't cheap @ £13.95 each but the meal was soooo delicious and the two salmon and cod fishcakes filled us up until evening when we had just half a HM sarnie each ......

On the first Sunday, it was deceptively sunny and we sat eating ice cream and basking in the glow at Padstow harbour (sigh) ......

 

Padstow

 

 

 

Rock Beach

 

 

 

Rock at low tide

 



At home there was a touch of frost on more than one occasion which, luckily, hasn't stunted the growth of my potatoes.....

But it did affect my illicit strawberries by taking off all the little flowers which were ready to form the fruit.....

Other shrubs were unlucky too, both the Camellia and Rhododendron were decimated......

But the Lupins survived....Hooray!

And so did the Peonies...yay!

Now I just need to fetch in my lovely, freshly line-dried washing (shame I have to iron it...hmmm)

A big welcome to my new followers Lee and Mary, it's lovely to 'meet' you :)

Thanks everso for popping in x

Book or Kindle? And Jolly's

Tomorrow we are off to our most favourite place in the whole of Cornwall, Padstow, for a bit of a get away.  We're taking the caravan as it's much cheaper than renting a cottage so it won't be an entire rest-fest for me as I will still be cooking but I am so looking forward to the fresh salty air....

photo from Google

I'm looking forward to eating a warm pasty whilst watching the activity on the boats within the harbour, scoffing scones with jam and rich Cornish cream, and licking a locally made ice cream cornet too (although not one after the other, of course....obviously  :) ).  We'll walk as much as we are able to work off the effect of any treats and (hopefully) relax in some sunshine to replenish our vitamin D.  Apparently, people are so used to sloshing on the sunscreen that they are now Vit. D deficient!  Good grief, the 'experts' tell us one thing and then some time later change the advice into a totally opposite direction.  Everything in moderation, including the sun, seems to be the way to go, I think.

Book or Kindle? I ask.  I have a book to take with me to finish but I will need another so I thought I would take my kindle too.  Browsing Amazon's website has shown me a big change in the swing of the pendulum from books to kindle.  It seems to be swinging back to books as they are often much cheaper than the kindle version now!  I must admit that I love the feel of a physical book in my hands, the ability to read the cover now and again and to flick back and forth to check on bits of the story that I may have mis-read of forgotten, to see how much I have read in page numbers and not percentages.  I LOVE BOOKS!!  How do you feel about them?

Take care whilst I am away and enjoy the sun (in moderation) whilst we have it.

Thanks everso for popping in x

Marvellous May Already?

Golly, another month has gone by already.  It's May and OH's toothy saga goes on!  This morning he rang the dental surgery for an appointment and was asked to be there by 10.30am.  Marvellous! (I thought) we'll get this sorted at last! WRONG....the nurse looked at the gaping hole and pronounced the gum healthy so they could do no more.  According to her it will heal in it's own good time.  OH must carry on eating food which doesn't need much chewing and swoosh out the socket each time with salty warm water.  I am absolutely convinced that a stitch in the gum at the time would have ensured that it healed within 2 weeks (mine did) Talk about a stitch in time saves nine......

Okay, so today's lunch was yet more HM soup, leek and potato, using the sliced leeks I had frozen a couple of weeks ago.  We are eating out tonight to celebrate my Brother's birthday.  Heaven knows what OH will eat but he is determined not to spoil the celebration, bless him, and he's treating us to the meal too. The following two days meals will be Quorn shepherdess pie with mashed swede, very easy on the gums, and then fish next.... all nice and easy to prepare...... :/

I hope you all enjoyed the Bank Holiday yesterday, we just had a quiet one with lots of reading and pottering after doing the 'main' shop (still within budget this week as I'm not buying any meat)

Take care and thanks everso for popping in x