Continuing Quiet

The perfume that spawned a dozen bullet proof vest adverts has arrived.

It's described as 'Wild Bluebell' but it's very light and I'd describe it as less 'wild' and more 'slightly miffed'. I like that sort of fragrance as I can keep refreshing it without it saturating the room which is incredibly refreshing in hot weather. And at least the adverts are tapering off. 

I made dinner tonight. Monday to Thursday, DH has pasta bake and bear does his own thing. I make dinner on Friday, Saturday is mainly sandwiches with fancy fillings for the men and something easy for me. DH and bear make dinner on Sunday and it's a way of bear getting into the habit of cooking before he goes away. Sunday is a day for following recipes. I am a little less rigid. For example, tonight was a sausage traybake. It asked for the root veg medly that they sold all last winter, but there's nothing like that in Tesco at the moment. I remembered the contents, though, and loaded up with a swede (rutabaga), carrots, parsnip and onion. The recipe asked for beetroot, but none of us really like them so I left them out and instead added extra carrots and parsnip. The sausages were the gluten free cumberland sausages instead of the low fat ones, and it should probably have been spread thinner, but it was still delicious. The men practically inhaled it. 

It's becoming one of my favourite things - I love looking at the recipes on Tesco and checking with DH and bear about their preferences. We've been trying all sorts.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Odds and Ends

According to Tesco, I saved a bundle last year by using their clubcard - £2221 in savings! Mind you, according to them, £534.91 was the Delivery Saver or the savings of paying up front for one yearly fee and getting deliveries up to once per day. I sometimes worry that I abuse that - I have had loads over the year! £142.25 was on coupons, and sometimes I'm less than sure that I'm getting the best deal. I try and stay strong and only use coupons on stuff that I actually need but impulse sometimes sneaks in as well. I also got a boatload of points which turned into £134 of vouchers which covered some all the Christmas groceries and some presents.

Speaking of impulse, yesterday I bought a small bottle of perfume from eBay. I like my fragrance, and there was a joke going on with DH and I. However, as I finished paying, the ads next to the 'you have paid' bit were for bullet proof vests. Ads are supposed to reflect your browsing history. I'm fairly confident that I haven't been researching bullet proof vests, though with my random brain, who knows? But I have concerns about the perfume now. 

And my phone isn't getting texts, so I have to look at getting a new one. The phone is well used - I use it for my kindle and I'm always dipping into books as I have to sit between and during tasks a lot. I checked by searching on this blog and I think it's about three and a half years old and I bought it where it was coming to the end of being sold new as there were two newer models of the brand out. Thinking about it, I use it for taking pictures, reading and texting DH when dinner is ready. I can see another cheap android phone in my future. 

Just realised that I didn't press 'post' yesterday, so here is yesterday's instalment and I'll catch up again tonight.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Quiet Day

I need to apologise. My 'n' key is sticking so I have to wallop it a few times to get it to work and then sometimes I get random 'n's turning up in the middle of spaces or I get 'nnnnnnnn'. Please excuse any weird typos.

I've spent a lot of the day thinking. This is less impressive than it may sound as it's been a lot of dithering about whether I should or shouldn't do something. The highlight of today was knitting in the carpark after dropping bear at the pub quiz. If you pick the parking bay then nthe lights shine through the windows just right and it's bright enough to knit by. This is the knitting on my lap, when it was dark outside but the car park lights hitting the spot.

I had a blanket on my knee and plenty of layers but I forgot to wear a hat. I was tempted to nap, to be honest.

Bear is doing fine. The rules are that he had to apply to five universities and he has offers from the other four. All of the offers are lower than his predicted grades, and all are universites with good maths and computer sciennce departments. I'm so proud of his positive attitude.

And that's about it for today. I hope to have more to share tomorrow.

Hugs andn good health to all. 

Disappointment

Bear didn't get into Oxford. He doesn't want to talk about it and I'm respecting that, especially as he isn't slacking but working on some weird geometrical homework. He has offers from other universities, so as long as he keeps up his grades, he'll be fine. 

I feel quite subdued. My sleep continues erratic, but it could be worse. I felt awake enough to drive (I'm very cautious) and dropped off some donations at a hospice charity shop and then called into Tesco. My picture of the day was of the card stands.

I took it because it fit in with the story for the White Hart that I wrote first thing this morning. 

Writing stuff - and speaking of the White Hart, the latest instalment is here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Weird Sleep

It's 4.30am at time of typing and I've just woken up after a nightmare involving my sewing machine. 

Mind you, I had an early night. I went to bed before 9pm when I realised that I'd knitted the last two rows of the blanket with my eyes shut.

I'll check it for errors later, although I'm knitting plain knitting on larger needles so I'm not expecting too many knots. Speaking of knitting, I've finished the scarf that's going to the Mission for Seafarers.

I followed their pattern (cast on 40 stitches, knit 200g of yarn, cast off) and it came to around 80 inches by 9 inches, which is impressive. 

Yesterday wasn't a high achieving day (apart from finishing the scarf) but we got rid of the Morrisons carrier bags. When you get a delivery from Morrisons, you get a credit of 10p for every carrier bag that you hand back. I usually grab the bags and let the driver disappear as I know that they're on a schedule. I usually get three, four or perhaps even five bags per delivery as I get small Morrisons orders. Yesterday I handed back 29 bags with an abject apology. I'm transferring the £2.90 plus the £3.76 offer savings to an account where I'm saving for bear for univesity. It's only pennies, but it will help. 

I also got a chaotic Temu order which I ordered before I started writing things down. Some of it has a use but some... dearie dearie me! I may show some results when I've shed some of my embarassment. I actually placed a Temu order at the weekend but because I was writing things down I let it sit in the basket overnight and had to justify each item. It includes 2 very large hanging yarn bags which I hope will start to tame the mounds in my home. I did the same with an Amazon order.

DH feels the need to organise things at the moment so the Amazon order was for an over the microwave standing shelf to better hold various spices and teas. The order also included some kitchen roll which wasn't a bad price and was under their 'You Buy, We Donate' campaign. The qualifying items had a lot of things like Garnier and L'Oreal, but there were some basics and the donations go to Multibanks which is like a food bank but for non-food items. I bought a total of six rolls but as I use mainly rags, I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't last a year or more.

And I didn't get the White Hart instalment finished. Meh!

I'm off to try and nap for a while until the household wakes up. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Half Asleep

I can feel my eyes shutting and my head is nodding, but I'm determined to make a post.

Last night's sleep was epically disturbed, so I'm not too surprised I'm tired. We went to feed the crows and magpies this morning. This pic doesn't do it justice.

There were so many of them around. We put out plenty of extra food. Then we sat and enjoyed the peace and quiet. There were a few good dogs being walked, but on the whole, it was a lot quieter than normal.

The roads to get there were fine but the car park itself was an icy nightmare.

Apart from that, it's been a very quiet day. I've added several inches to the scarf and we've been hunkered down in the study with all three of us keeping warm together. There was a wonderful cosiness about today.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Still Cold

The car hasn't moved for ages, perhaps since last weekend, and as the car is elderly, I was worrying about the battery. The charge goes down especially quickly in cold weather and the last thing we need is a car that won't start. In this sort of weather, the AA and garages would be stretched and I don't want to find myself suddenly needing the car and unable to go out. So I went and ran the engine for twenty minutes, revving it occasionally and knitting.

It was actually quite relaxing, sitting there in the quiet. It was a little cold and the windscreen looked like this when I got in.

And I only had the heater on minimal. The idea was to build the battery up and not drain it. I had the trusty car blanket on my knees and I knitting a few more rows of the scarf.

I love this blanket. It's surprisingly warm and cosy and just the right size for my lap in the car. 

Otherwise it's been a quiet sort of day. I found a call for submissions for an anthology that ended at midnight, which called to me. I had an extended nap in the middle of writing it, fought with the formatting and ended up submitting it five minutes after the deadline. I fully expect it to bounce right back to me, but I enjoyed writing it a great deal and I may look for other places to submit when it comes back. To be honest, the hardest part was the formatting. A lot of magazines and publishing houses require the Shunn Format, which lays out the size of margins, fonts, spacing etc. I fail at this formatting but found a ready made template to use. I did okay with this, I suppose, but it kept correcting my spelling from British English to American English and it kept throwing me off my stride. 

Hugs and good health to all.