Maybe Not Overcomplicated

I've worried about doing a gazillion things, and got nothing done. I've been puttering around with some writing stuff, sorting out bits and pieces and getting distracted. I am also missing the radiators. I'm not cold cold. I'm just not warm, and I don't like it. I used to suffer when I was a kid before central heating. I remember my hands going the most gruesome grey when it got cold as my circulation is pathetic and I feel the cold. 

One thing that's been preying on my mind is the continuing supply of potatoes in my kitchen. I maybe have gone through a tenth or less of the large bag that I shouldn't have bought. I've leafed through the cookbook and mentally checked through all sorts of ideas. Then I decided to forget all the fancy ideas and I boiled a pan of potatoes, just plain. 

I'd got a pack of cooking bacon from Morrisons. It's £1 and there's 500g (just over 1lb) of potentially good bacon in there. It's all the odds and ends and trimmings and it can be a bargain, depending on the pack. It's the only thing that I remembered to take a pic

It wasn't too fatty, and it was mainly smoked bacon, which I prefer, but nothing is guaranteed in these packs. I trimmed the fat from enough bacon to make two good portions and I think that I used maybe a quarter of the pack. I plan to trim what's left, cut into small pieces good for stews/stir fries/casseroles/omelettes/pasta etc and freeze in small portions. The stuff I did today made two ample portions fried up with green peppers, onions and mushrooms. I think it may have accidentally made it relatively healthy, as there was a generous veggie to meat ratio, even if the meat was seriously processed, and while I'd trimmed off most of the fat from the bacon, what was left was enough to allow the rest to cook and I didn't add any extra oil. I ate with plain boiled potatoes and I very much enjoyed it. 

I was born in the 1960s, when food was a lot simpler. I'm not saying that it's better, but sometimes it's nice to have food that reminds you of childhood. I always enjoyed plain boiled potatoes much more than mashed, and it was nice to have some on my plate. There are so many ways of cooking potatoes and I felt that I ought to be doing 'fancy' food with them. I was looking at roasting them with rosemary, or slicing them up with garlic and casseroling them, or making one of the versions of rosti, when all the time I'm very happy with eating them plain. 

Of course, I cooked a double batch and I'll be frying up the leftovers tomorrow to have with the leftover bacon, onions, peppers, and mushrooms, with perhaps some peas added as I believe that if you reheat a dish then you should add a little something that's fresh.

There's nothing wrong with dicing potatoes, stirring them in oil and garlic granules with perhaps some herbs, then cooking in an oven/microwave/airfryer. They taste amazing, and I've already had a portion or two like that. But it's like the central heating. When I was a kid, things were much plainer, and we did fine. I sometimes talk about it with bear, and I swear that he doesn't believe me, but I was the first person in my circles to eat a bell pepper when I was a kid. Nobody bothered with garlic or chillies and heaven help you if you looked for cumin and tumeric instead of generic curry powder. Now bell peppers are a staple and grown in gardens up and down the country. 

The pack of cooking bacon, with all the trimmings from whatever bacon was being sliced that day, reminds me of the trimmings that you used to be able to get at the cold meat counter at the butcher, or later, Morrisons used to have a little tub in the cooler next to the fancy sliced meat, and it was the same - trimmings. Bits of various types of ham that had been cut to thick or had been the wrong size or bits of the ends that were so much cheaper and fine for a sauce or to add a little zing to a beef or chicken casserole. There used to be the same sort of thing for cheese as well, and mother used to bring a bag of cheese scraps from Chester market to indulge the cats. These weren't just any cheese scraps, by the way. They were the offcuts from the stalls that sold cheese from the local farms and it was the good stuff - great for sauces or toppings. 

I sort of miss those days as I will be prettying up the potatoes with all sorts until I finish them, but I've decided to remind myself that it's okay to have plain boiled potatoes if I feel like it. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Drove Again!

I drove the new car for the second time, and I was so nervous the whole journey. It's annoying, because there was like a cold knot in my chest for the entire time, which there didn't need to be. Regardless, I went out late because I'm still getting used to the clutch, and there are junctions and roundabouts around here where you need to move out with speed when you get the chance, because there aren't many chances during normal traffic. And while I was slow away from some traffic lights, I was fine and I'm getting the hang of it.

Tesco is wonderfully empty around 9.30pm. This was just as well as the new car is a lot bigger than Red and more than fills a parking bay. 

I resisted buying their yarn. There wasn't much and it seemed overpriced for the quality.

Still, I bought several rather nice candles (I'll have to get pics) and some gluten free cereal as a treat, and spent over £60. The candles are an extravagance, but one that we would have indulged in anyway as both DH and I love candles. And I now have a coupon for 8p per litre off petrol, which is lucky as the petrol warning light came on as I approached our house. 

I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with the car yet, but I'm sure that I'll get there. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

It Absolutely Could be Worse

This may come across as a little scattered as I feel like my brain is about to fall out of my ears. I need to get back to lists and I need to stick to them. 

The war against the slugs continues. We keep our cutlery in containers on our dining room table as I currently have two drawers that work in the kitchen and both are full. The kitchen was elderly when we moved in 1994, and the counters are still admirably solid, but the drawers and doors are shaky at best. I can't see it being upgraded any time soon, so I'm working around it. As I don't feel confident that the slugs would stay away from the cutlery, I got some expensive (to me) wooden containers and added some copper slug tape. In the unlikely event of a slug heading that way, the tape should keep them in their place.

It's not a thing of great beauty, but it's not awful either and I've always been a sucker for copper. After posting this, I need to go down and put down more traps as I've been forgetting all day.

As for the boiler, it needs replacing. A nice man came around and prodded it, confident that all he would have to do would be repressure the system. That didn't work. He prodded around and fiddled with the thermostat, which also didn't work. Then he called his boss and started investigating a little closer. It was just like being on holiday as almost the same thing happened to the boiler there. In the end, it was diagnosed as the electronics had failed, partly because of a load of sticky stuff that had oozed onto the circuit board. The nice man asked whether something had been glued.

I remember that last year, when other nice plumbers serviced the boiler, something broke off and they glued it back on. Apparently the glue didn't stay in the break and it may have melted a little over the hot summer. It's gunked up the circuit board and there's not much the current nice plumbers can do. It was sort of embarrassing as the nice man was trying to look up the codes for the non-functioning screen and our model was too elderly for him to find anything. 

So we are paying £3000 for a new boiler. I paid the deposit today. That sum includes system flushes and all sorts, will take a full day, and is happening at the end of next week. Until then, I shouldn't complain. We have hot water, electric heaters, and lots of blankets. I still want my radiators.

It's kind of funny, because I didn't grow up with central heating. I remember getting dressed under the bedclothes in winter when I was a kid, and I certainly didn't have the luxury of electric fan heaters everywhere. I shouldn't be complaining so much. I still want my radiators!

While the nice man was prodding at the boiler, he was leaning across the washing machine. This wouldn't be a problem, as the machine turns itself off automatically quite soon after every load. However I'd just finished washing some clothes and I think the nice man leaned on buttons in a complicated way as after he left, I went to put a load of DH's clothes in, and we couldn't get the washer to work. Honestly, I was terrified that we would immediately have another huge bill. After trying turning it on and off again, switching it off at the mains and back on again, and swearing, DH found the solution online. We pressed the right things in the right order and the washing started. For a moment, though, I could see money evaporating from the kitchen. 

This boiler was installed February 2010, and I remember a lot of what was involved. I have nine days to make sure that there's plenty of access to the kitchen radiator and the cupboard in my room which used to hold the old immersion heater. That should be plenty of time. Stuff has been shoved into places and piled up which makes it harder for the nice plumbers. This is a great excuse for a clear out - a really big, empty-everything-out, clear out. And I'll need to get used to the car because I'll be driving to charity shops and the tip. There's no way that I'll manage more than a small clear out by next Thursday - but it could be the start of a bigger one. 

Mind you, I've a lot of writing to do, and I want to do a clearance of the garden and plant some bulbs before the cold sets in...

I'm going to have to use a lot of lists.

For those in the UK and who are older, I found this video thought provoking. I've been meaning to look into setting up alerts for a while, and I'll have to talk with DH about it. It's not nearly as alarming as the headline makes it seem, but it makes some useful points. I need to add it to a list. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Here We Go Again

I'm not really that bad, but I can see the way the wind is blowing. 

Back when bear was in the middle of turning three years old, we had a bad time. We had to replace the tv, and the fridge and freezer, if I remember, and the printer, and I seem to remember trouble with the washing machine, and the clutch on the car went and needed replacing (sound familiar?), and the boiler that we got with the house and that may have been older than me finally gave up the ghost immediately after British Gas serviced it. 

Fast forward to today. We've just replaced the whole car because the clutch went. The holiday was great for the men, I believe, but it was stressful for me. The PC I'm currently using is creaking and I'm backing it up like crazy. I'm cossetting all the appliances because I have a bad feeling about things. And, to add to it all, the heating currently isn't working. We have hot water, which means that it's better than when we went on holiday, but no heat. We have portable electric heaters, which is again better than we had on holiday because one woodstove can't be carried around to where it's needed, but I feel the cold and I want my radiators back!

It's a year and a few weeks since the boiler was serviced, which I could check because I posted on here, and I'd been meaning to ring the lovely plumbers from last time. According to their website, their temporarily closed and their phone is turned off when I rang. I rang another local firm, and they're getting back to me. They're local, and have great reviews, but I used them many years ago when bear was little and I ended up having a good cry after they left. I'd forgotten their name, and the address was different, so now I'm wondering what will happen. Last time we had a cluster like this, it was expensive.

And slugs have got into my box of clean dishcloths. The traps are working, but they must be coming in squadrons. 

There may also be a trace of writing issues, but the posts are continuing for the rest of the month. 

Apart from that, I'm doing fine. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Perfectly Normal for Here

Apparently slugs don't eat clothes. 

But that was the state of a t-shirt that had just been washed. It didn't look like that a week or so ago, and it's 100% cotton. I know that I should look for the bright side of a shopping opportunity, but I got half a dozen of these ages ago from eBay, and they're so soft and comfortable and fit so nicely, and now I just have extra rags. If it isn't slugs, then the culprit may be silverfish. I saw one a couple of months ago, two floors away, so that's plausible. Just in case, I'm not looking too closely at the washing that I'm rewashing, but dumping it quickly into the washer and then sorting after it's been thoroughly washed, spun, rinsed, spun and is hopefully free of anything creepy. 

I've been distracted by writing, which I'll be going to straight after writing this, which means that tomorrow I need to spend time clearing a space and planting a very large rosemary bush that I apparently ordered. I plan to put it next to the gate, so that people brushing past can get a nice aroma. That is, if it survives. I've heard that rosemary flourishes where the woman wears the trousers, and while I've had some good seasons, my rosemary plants have never gone rampant. I'm pretty sure that the reason it appeared is that I ordered some seat belt pads for the new car while I had the rosemary in my eBay basket from weeks ago, as I was deciding whether or not to get it, so the whole lot turned up.

I've less excuse for the Morrisons order. I get an order from Morrisons on a Monday because DH likes their salad and I get it for the week. I also got some bottled water, because I'm trying not to watch too much of the 'be prepared for disruption' message that's coming out, but I get twitchy. Bear and DH like to have the bottled water on hand, so I thought that while bear was away, I could get a little bit built up and then just rotate through. I got three big packs of the 500ml bottles, which came packed on top of a 10kg bag of potatoes. I thought that this was unfortunate in so many ways. I've got the pic from Morrisons website as my ability to take pics is pretty shaky, and I thought that it would be better this way. 

Link to the potatoes in question

The bag cost £6.30, and it's the 'seconds' or 'wonky' potatoes. I got the delivery yesterday, but only opened the bag today. They feel a little... less firm. I'm not sure if it's because they're seconds or because they've been tenderised by having litres of water stacked on top of them. Between that and the rampaging slugs, I need to get them eaten quickly. I made a casserole tonight that was heavy on the potatoes and I plan for it to cover three meals. It was mainly 'use it up' ingredients, and out of interest, I started to have a very rough guess at the price. 

I started by putting a couple of sachets of chicken cup soup, the cheap brand from Tesco, which I think came to around 33p, and I remember weighing the potatoes out of curiousity and that was about 800g or so, maybe 50p. I had a bag of carrots destined for the freezer and I used around, maybe, 15p's worth. Then there was a tin of black beans which says 50p on the website, but I'm sure it was 45p when I bought it, and an expensive small tin of chicken hotdogs which I picked up thinking that bear might like. He never bothered, but I chopped them up and added them for £1.85. I also added some of the Jux dehydrated onion, garlic and bell peppers with a liberal hand, and I can't even think of cost of that, but I could guess high at around £1. It was a nice big dish which should make three or four portions for me, for perhaps £4.50 total. I think if I use fresh veg or stuff that I've frozen myself, and cooking bacon instead of the hotdogs, and a stock cube instead of the powdered soup, the cost would plummet, and I may just do that next week. 

And speaking of chopping stuff for the freezer, I added the rest of the bag of carrots, two kilos of on-sale mushrooms, and half a dozen peppers to the freezer. I'm going to keep a close eye on Morrisons website. Sometimes they have small sacks of onions which are an economical buy and I stash those in the freezer. I'm currently okay for onions, but I'd like to stock up for the autumn soup and stew season. 

Of course, I have that potato recipe book that I got, and there's a very pleasant sounding recipe involving potatoes and bacon, which would be great for lunches if I'm having the casserole for dinner. So much potatoes, unless the slugs get in! I've closed the bag with bulldog clips, but I feel that perhaps I should go down and sprinkle salt around the bag. It's going to be a thing!

Hugs and good health to all.

Dammit to Heck (Again)

I am having real problems with slugs in the dining room, where the laundry lives. The problem is that it's a damp cellar room, with issues with the floor, an air brick, a gas meter, an outside door nearby and a garden notoriously infested with slugs. 

I'm going to have to severely water the garden with nematodes next spring. It worked really well a few years ago when I was on top of the garden. 

Until then, I've put indoor slug traps down, and I need to clear everything out. I was planning something of a push today, but I got caught up with a few things. I deactivated my Draft2Digital account and took the meter readings (which I loathe doing as it's fiddly), and then I thought I'll just check on a parcel that's due. I looked at the online tracking and the parcel was nearly here. Great, I thought, I'm the next delivery, I'll take that in and then I can get started. I was that next delivery for the next four hours and the dot on the tracking map kept circling around the side roads near me. Every now and again, for variety, it would say 'your driver will be there soon after a few drops' then the dot on the map I was daft enough to keep watching would circle around a few more times and I'd be the next delivery again. And I kept putting off doing anything because that dratted parcel was nearly here and I may as well be ready to take it in. So I played patience and fiddled around and got nothing worthwhile done! I'm so frustrated by myself and had abandoned hope of getting anything done at all by the time it came.

This is a spade. But it reminded me of those bundles of paper wrapped in bin bags and tied to resemble dead bodies and left out as Halloween decorations. 

Blogger is still playing up which is making me concerned about writing blog stuff, and I can see me sticking almost totally to Substack if it carries on, at least for the writing bits. Tech isn't playing nicely for me, but before my PC gave up again, I managed to book my Christmas delivery slot at Morrisons.

Yes, Christmas delivery slot! I took a very deep breath indeed when I saw that they were suggesting that those with passes book their Christmas delivery on the first day of October! I am using a lot of italics in this post, but it feels like an italics type of day. 

Speaking of supermarkets, Tesco have a 'spend £60 instore and get 8p off per litre of petrol' deal going until 18th October. I guess they think that there's more chance of profitable impulse buys if someone shops instore. I am not entirely sure that's true, especially not for me, but it means that if I want the deal, I've got to somehow make my way around the store, find £60 of stuff that I want in one go, which is currently unlikely, then fill up the car. DH is picking up the new car on Saturday. It's an SUV, and I'm willing to bet is thirstier than a little Citroen C3. I'm also fairly sure that it won't turn up with a full tank, that almost certainly holds more than Red. 8p per litre sounds worth it. I have no idea what I can get for £60. There may be alcohol involved and I daresay I can get a whole trolley full of the cheap beer for the slug traps. 

I hope tomorrow goes a little smoother. 

Writing stuff - I started the 'story every day in October' today. I'm hoping that I can get my PC working again soon as I haven't got all the days sorted. I heard about one relatively successful romance author writing their novels on their phone. I'm not sure how my elderly Motorola would handle it, but it's beginning to look like a fallback option. I'm not linking here every day, but I did make this graphic, and I thought that it looked pretty. 

It looked bigger on Facebook.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Grumble in Parts

The bad thing today was finding that the slugs had got into a pile of clean washing that I'd been meaning to sort out for... well, forever. It's a great heap of stuff and it makes my skin crawl to even think about slugs on the fabric, so it's all got to be washed. And then dried. And then I really need to put it away or the slugs will get it again. 

On the other hand, I treated myself to this, which has made me unreasonably happy.

It's just a cheap ornament, but it's a shiny, irridescent, blue dragonfly and it works for me. I've also done loads of writing stuff and I've cleared some bits that I've been meaning to get to, so it all could be worse. 

Writing stuff - the last instalment of The Guest is here (Blogger) and here (Wordpress). I think that today is the last time I will post a link to Wordpress, which feels a little odd. I'll be getting The Guest ready for Amazon over the next few weeks. 

That was Monday. Today I put up a post about upcoming plans, again, here (Blogger) and here (Wordpress), which includes a reminder that I'm taking down my Draft2Digital account 1st October 2026, or at least, trying to start the process thereof. 

I'm thinking hard about what is important to me with writing and what isn't, and I'll share what happens next as I find out!

Thank you for all the kind words about my writing, especially compliments about my books. It feels like the most amazing hug ever! And if I haven't said it, I'm also desperately grateful for the kind reviews, thank you!

Hugs and good health to all.