Still Dark and Stormy

Bless - thank you. I always feel hugged reading your blog.

Hazel - Our freezer is upright with drawers, but there is still lots of corners and stuff that migrates to the back. I think I need to have a further rummage and I'll have a pile of veggies tomorrow with any single sausages or grills that I find. It's too good a deal to waste, even for things like peas!

The Awesome Unknown - thank you! Everything that I write here is true. Sometimes I fudge a detail for privacy, and I definitely avoid posting about some sides of bear's life, but at least I feel honest. As for the quotation marks, I'm armpit deep in editing Digging up the Past and I am ashamed. I feel like I am translating parts of that into English. I never criticise spelling or punctuation because I know that the second that I try that, all my errors will show up!

Eileen - thank you. And I am all about the bargains. And I find your blog inspirational in all sorts of quiet ways. Thank you for sharing.

Weather continues just as stormy. I was glad that I didn't have to do an early school run. The strike must have caused chaos and quite a lot of hardship in some places, but bear was glad of it. He could chip away at the mountain of homework that he's facing.

I was thinking about the 'boring' comment. Sometimes I feel like the blog is a diary that anyone can read. There are dull times when it's very much a case of, 'Did two lots of washing today, weather continues fine'. Then there are scary times, like a few years ago when I had two separate cancer checkups in the same week, one for skin cancer and one for breast cancer. I think aloud here, show my pride in bear (who is getting taller and skinnier by the day, I swear!) and share my triumphs and disasters. One disaster today was leaving a carton of perfectly good icecream on top of the freezer as I was sorting things and it wasn't found until it had melted and had to be thrown. 

I think that it is important to be honest (within reason). I'll share the fails as well as the wins, because I think that helps those who have had a fail day feel less alone. And the blog has helped me a lot. I've identified a lot of patterns in my life which I am intermittently working on. But also there have been times when coming on here and posting whatever nonsense is going on in my life has kept me from shrinking into a dark corner and freezing up. The wonderful people I have met through here, and the amazing encouragement and support, are something I seriously treasure. 

Onto something more pragmatic - I did a 10% off shop today. I get two per month with the Tesco Extra clubcard but I think that it's more trouble than it's worth. I saved around £12 but some of that was frozen chicken on the 5 for 4 deal. I think it is designed to encourage people to buy a little more than they need to 'get their money's worth' but I want to run our stocks down. At the moment, it would suit me more to pop into which ever shop suits me best on a daily basis. I'll start stocking up again in the autumn and for Christmas, but I can re-subscribe to the Clubcard Extra then for a few months and then cancel. Besides, I always forget something. Tomorrow I need to pick up potatoes. 

And I forgot to take a pic, so I've dug this out.

Image from Unsplash, taken by Manki Kim and showing a cat's respect for its human

Hugs and good health to all.