Shopping Fail

Bless - thank you. I suspect that the kestrel may have been blown away from their normal patch as the winds here have been pretty strong. For a relatively urban space (though you can see farmland from my window) we are not doing so bad.

Eileen - Happy New Year. I am not keen on the rats, though they can actually look cute from a safe distance. I think the squirrel comes with a side order of serious attitude. 

Cherie - squirrels caused so much havoc in uncle's garden. They also fought on his roof, and it was a tin bungalow. He used to hide rat poison in apples to leave out for them. I know that they do massive amounts of damage, but I love the way they seem to float sometimes, with their tail drifting behind them. Mind you, this one seems to have the same Glaswegian attitude as the robin.

This morning the sunrise was beautiful. This is what Aldi looked like this morning.

I popped into Aldi to pick up some of the beans and sausage that bear likes, or, rather, will sometimes eat. Sigh. And I failed at shopping. I picked up some yarn. I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE YARN!!!!! But it was only 99p for a skein with a bobble and a hat pattern on the band and I have been tempted by it for a while, even before the price was cut. I also picked up a couple of food thermos as well, at £7.99 each. They are smaller than the magic burning pot thing, but I want to experiment with 'cooking' frozen veg in them. I'll share any results. But when I called in to Tesco, there were food thermos for £6 at clubcard prices, although they weren't quite as big. I'm so annoyed at the fail, but it is what it is. I just need to get my money's worth out of them.

To add insult to injury, I was just planning on walking around Tesco for a while to get my steps in and picking up some water for bear for school pick up, but my knee went half way around and I had to limp out. Next time I'll take a trolley that I can lean on. 

There is 85g in the bobble hat yarn, according to the band. Getting it for 99p was a bargain but I didn't need it! A bargain that you don't need is not a bargain.

Talking about frozen veg, I'm hoping to get more creative with it. I use frozen chopped onion, because I can just use a bit and not worry about using the rest of the onion up and the frozen stuff is chopped smaller than I manage. I chop and freeze mushrooms as it makes it more convenient and reduces waste. And I think I want to expand my use of frozen veg.

Over the holidays we had a casserole and I used a 1kg bag of frozen veg which was freshly frozen, no additives and no waste and I could probably have used half to three quarters as there was plenty for all. It was £1 for swede, turnip, celery, onion and carrot. A 1kg pack of fresh veg, what I think of stewing veg and mother used to call pot herbs, is £1.10, with parsnip, carot, swede and onion. It has to be peeled and chopped and goes off quickly if you don't keep an eye on it. Of course, if you see a marked down pack and then take it home, prepare it and freeze it, that's different, but the frozen veg was probably frozen quickly and therefore has better nutrition. As it is likely to be used in things like soup, the thought of being able to bung a handful of frozen veg in with something like lentils, a stock cube and some herbs, cooking and then using a hand blender has a lot of attraction. 

Hugs and good health to all.