Holiday ?? What holiday?

Well, school's out for Summer once more and DD has a holiday booked for next week.  Where do you think they are going? Yep....you guessed it...Kos....  Last year it was Turkey and I was worried the whole time until they returned.  This time the family don't really want to go after the devastating earthquake, the little ones are scared, but the penalty on their Thomson holiday will be 100% if they don't go.  They lose the complete cost even if they choose another destination. A holiday is supposed to be relaxing .....isn't it?  Is anyone else due to go soon?

Today was the local Craft Fayre once more.  It wasn't well attended (again) because the school holidays have begun and people are whizzing off on holiday but I took a little more money than last month and had a laugh with the lovely stallholders.  Of course I agreed to do one next month too :/

The rain lashed down the whole of last night so everything is looking and feeling freshly washed and clean once more.  It was lovely lying in bed and listening to it.....

See you tomorrow.  Thanks everso for popping in x

God Bless The Air Ambulance Service

 

God bless the men and women of the Air Ambulance service all over the country.

 

 

On Friday we had a bit of an emergency here.  A neighbour, who is a young 60'ish tripped over her flip flops and fell head first down the back steps of her home, knocking herself out in the process.  Within minutes of the 999 call a paramedic who lives locally arrived in his own car closely followed by a regular ambulance crew. God bless them all too.  Shortly afterwards we heard the shugging sound of  helicopter blades and a low flying helicopter circled slowly before landing in the small field nearby.  How they managed to land is a miracle.  In order to take off again the pilot had to turn around at almost ground level then lift off and fly backwards to avoid the electricity lines crossing the field.  My heart was in my mouth.  The neighbour has head injuries and broken ribs so she is in quite a state, poor soul, but she should recover given time.

 

The incident made me think how I've let my fundraising and donations slip a little lately.  The AA has no government funding at all so help is always needed. I intend to donate again as soon as I can.  I still support Help4Heroes by donating a percentage of my eBay sales but my Food Bank donations have been neglected compared to last year.  On Saturday I donated 4 items as cash is tight this month but I will ramp that up too next month.

 

We are so lucky in this country with our emergency services.

 

Have a lovely, safe and relaxing Sunday x

Specs, Teeth and a Tenor

Saturday again!  I have suddenly realised that it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post but I confess that I've been feeling 'under the weather' for a while and not much interested in anything. The flashing in my eye is back but in the right eye this time and it's very disconcerting.  When I had it in my left eye it eventually stopped (after some months) and I kind of learned to ignore it but this is new and scary.  I have had to buy new specs too as my old ones, although the prescription hasn't really changed much, have started to fall apart.  A lens keeps falling out and they are loose all over.  I chose the cheapest frames I could find that I actually liked but they have still cost £236, an amount I hadn't budgeted for this year :/   Most of the cost has come out of my savings but I'm desperately cutting back on all other spending this month.  I've put just £10 worth of fuel in my car (usually £20 a month) and I'm just over 1/4 tank full so I hope it might just last another two weeks.

In addition to my eye problem I've had a delicate stomach.  I think my IBS has reared it's head again so I'm watching what I eat and trying to eat small and often.  It seems to be helping.  Jacket potato and cheese for lunch today.

OH had a hospital appointment come through to see about his toothy problem.  The socket still hasn't healed and he's still having to wash it out 3 times a day.  The consultant said that it will heal in time and the undescended wisdom tooth doesn't need to come out after all....sigh....he has to go back in a couple of weeks  for them to check the progress of healing.  If it's not healed they will (and I quote) "Do Something" .....bigger sigh......After more than 3 months it's no joke.....

On the brighter side, we took a trip to Stratford on Avon last Wednesday as the weather was warm and sunny.  Near the river was a young man who has been on the TV program 'The Voice'.  He had set up his sound equipment and was performing songs from the musicals for the eager crowds.  We sat and listened for quite a long time, eating our sandwiches, and he was lovely!  Coins were falling into his music case like rain so he must have made quite an impression.  His rendition of 'Bring Him Home' sent shivers down my spine.  He will be performing in September at Stratford ArtsHouse   I won't be able to go but I expect it to be excellent :)

Have a lovely day everyone, wherever you happen to be.  And a big welcome to my new follower Margaret (I think it is) x

Awesome Knitting & Baking C*ck Up

Crumbs...another week has gone in a flash.  Somehow there just aren't enough hours in a day at the moment.

In my last post I promised to share details of the knitting exhibition which we found purely by accident in Honiton, Devon.  It was at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery which is housed in a lovely Georgian townhouse, the former home and studio of the artist Thelma Hulbert.  I was in awe of the knitting skills of everyone who contributed.....

I LOVE this clown!

A picnic.....



Vegetable garden produce.....

Beautiful knitted roses....



A sweet little blue tit.....

Yummy looking cakes....



Cacti galore......

This was a favourite, a bee hive!.....



The exhibits change every few weeks and, sadly, this one has now closed but for FREE admission it was awesome (donation made, of course)

Baking c*ck up!

As money was a bit tight by the end of last month I tried to eke out the desserts by making a lemon curd sponge using a fatless sponge recipe from an untried recipe.  BIG mistake!  It was so dry despite following the recipe to the letter but I was determined not to waste it.  It contained four eggs after all :/  I opened a small tin of pears, placed them in the bottom of a big dish, sliced up about half the cake and laid that on top.  I sloshed brandy over the sponge (it soaked it up nicely!) and emptied a tin of value custard (cold, straight from the tin) on top of that and chilled it. It made 4 good and tasty portions of pudding with a drizzle of cream one day and a dollop of ice cream the next. OH thinks I'm a Domestic Goddess ;)

Today is wonderfully sunny and I've had a wander around the local garden centre this morning.  I had enough cash for a pot of tea in the teashop too....lovely.

Enjoy your day wherever you happen to be x

On Amazing Weather & A Disaster

When the weather forecast predicted a warm spell we tootled off to Devon in the caravan last week and, BOY! were they right! A 5 day heat wave arrived!  It has been roasting but we had a wonderful week in Sidmouth.  It was too hot to eat so we lived on simple salads, fruit and lots of ice cream :)  We came back on Thursday last and it has cooled down considerably although I'm still wearing shorts around the house.

One of our neighbours promised to water our strawberry pots in return for watering their garden (they were away the week before us and came back the day we went IYSWIM) We came back to this.....

and this.....

To say I am gutted would be an understatement.  The second plant must have been in a slightly shadier spot and I managed to salvage a few strawberries for tea but that is the lot.....

We have our potatoes in a different part of the garden and another neighbour (totally unasked BTW)  trained his hose onto our tubs of spuds.  What a star he is.....

 

I had a little rummage around one tub and found these.....

 

 We ate them steamed, with HM quorn lasagne, peas & carrots.  They were delicious....

When we were away we had no internet access so I'm totally out of touch with what's been happening in blogland and need to catch up.  Next post I'll tell you all about an amazing knitting exhibition we accidentally found.  If you love knitting you'll love this exhibition.

Thanks so much for popping in and being patient.  Take care x

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