There's Been a Delivery

Jo - the plant is a fuschia. There are hundreds of varieties of fuschia in existence. Some are small with fat pink flowers. Others have dainty crimson and purple flowers. As far as I can tell, the nearest type to this is the variety known as Tom Thumb, but it's only supposed to get to two feet tall. Gladys, my fuschia, towers over me every year no matter how much I cut it back. It was planted by my father, however, and he had form for growing giant fuschis from what were supposed to be small pot plants. When I was tiny, he planted a 'small' fuschia that had to be hacked back twice a year so we could use the path and it cracked a sewer pipe. Here's an older pic that gives a slightly better view.

Bless - thank you. Bear remains calm, which is more than I'm managing. 

I've shopped at Temu. I'll be honest, I view it as a type of gambling, like putting a bet on a horse. I'm not against betting on horses, and if I could find a betting shop and work out how to place a bet, I would possibly bet on a horse with the prettiest name but it's unlikely. My form of gambling is shopping at places like Temu. I have concerns, but I shop using my laptop which has lots of anti virus stuff on it and I pick up stuff that I can't find over here. There are some serious temptations, but I work hard to limit myself. Today's parcel included some fancy dice for bear for Christmas and a couple of notebooks. 

The first is a cleaning notebook. I thought I'd do my best to follow that and hopefully I'll gradually get the home into shape. 

There will be plenty of times that I don't do what's on the list, or do more, or branch out and do something completely different. For example, I'm never going to meal prep. That has never worked well for me and I'm going to ignore the note for me to prep on Sunday. On the other hand, it's a framework and I'll take all the help I can get.

The other notebook is a planner. I thought it would only be a notebook divided into hourly blocks so that I could hopefully plan out what I'm doing, but it's more. There are pages about setting goals and making plans. If I work hard at sticking to that, it will help me direct my attention where it needs to go. Once I've got through the notebooks (if I can manage to stick to them), I hope that I'll be in a good place to keep going and use habits that I've developed. 

I keep thinking that they're a waste of money because I can just make lists, but if they give the slightest bit of help then it will be absolutely worth it. I'll share how it goes.

One thing that I'm not doing today is anything in the garden. It's cold, wet and miserable. Today is definitely an indoor kind of day. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Sorting Out a Schedule

I've not posted over the last few days because I'm not managing the timing. I've usually posted late at night about what happened that day. Over the last few days, however, by the time it gets to my usual posting time, I'm too tired to be even remotely coherent. I've also failed with pics. Yesterday, though, I managed to get a nice pic of Gladys.

We'd been to feed the magpies and crows and they had some serious gang wars over the peanuts. 

I'm not sure what other bits that I've missed. I put a post up for the Green Party in the window for the local council by-election. The local Green Party have worked really hard for their constituents over the years, and I've quite a bit of respect for them. Except... I was talking about putting the poster on the side window of the porch so that more people would see. The representative (who is a lovely lady - seriously lovely), said that she thought that it would be better facing front so that more people would be able to see it from the bus. I just took a pic of the view from my front door, right next to the window that shows the poster.

As you can probably tell, buses don't come down here. It is a bus-free zone and the drivers would probably strike if anyone asked them. I nodded, smiled, put the poster where they asked and considered my voting choices.

A week last Friday I failed to cook tofu because the darned stuff had been left in the fridge and was frozen. The fridge is still acting up but I know that I'll just have to work with it until something drastic happens. The day before yesterday, Friday, I tried again. The recipe was baked tofu with ginger rice. The tofu was fine and I had no trouble coating it with gluten free breadcrumbs, although next time I think that I'll use the cornflour-and-fun-spices technique. This time the problem was with the rice. I pressed the wrong button on the rice cooker and the rice turned out like gravel. I ended up using microwave rice instead. It turned out beautifully, and it's definitely one to consider again. 

As a bonus, we have some fresh ginger left over, so if all goes well I can see some lovely fresh ginger, lemon and honey tea in the near future. 

I cleared out the freezer yesterday so that DH could take it this morning on his usual tip run. There were some fish fillets that bear said were particularly nasty and wouldn't eat, some green beans that expired in 2023 and all sorts of packets holding one tiny fragment. In a perfect world, I should have creatively used up all the crumbs. I thought realistically about the chances of that happening and threw out all those bits where there was one tablespoon of mince, or two chunks of butternut squash, or some brussels sprouts that expired in June. I'm fairly lax about expiry dates on frozen foods, but I loathe the things at the best of times so it was a great excuse. I got rid of a surprising volume, mostly packaging.

We now have some space in the freezer so we can use it properly. I've got some plans that I'm not going to share on here just in case. I also have an idea of what's available and I plan to start working through those this week to continue to make space ready for Christmas. Besides, Tesco are running a '4 for the price of 3' deal on frozen foods. There's not much that we'd use, and no decent plain meat, but I may as well get a couple of packs of peas and some bits for bear.  

I'm planning on posting in the morning instead, so hopefully I should be able to keep up a little better. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

All About Writing

I've spent a lot of today on Writing Stuff.

Apart from that, I've been coaxing bear to hand over his washing. I was all in favour of him doing his own washing when it was a good learning tool and he wasn't under pressure. However the pressure for his A levels next June has already started. He has promised that he'll hand over his washing tomorrow. 

It's crazy for bear. He's pretty relaxed at the moment, but the pressure has already started. That's the thing. He's already got all sorts of tests and practices lined up at school. To be honest, I'm worrying about him. He's currently fine, but I'll be watching like a hawk as he heads towards the A levels. 

The current pressure is about the MAT, or the Oxford test for Maths. Bear's college are devoting massive amounts of time and energy to get him ready for it. I knew that there would be pressure when I agreed that he should enroll in a high achieving Maths college, and bear seems to be handling it with grace, but I worry.

Writing stuff - apart from worrying about bear, I've been setting more stuff on Royal Road and you can find all of Across a Misty Bridge here. I've been working on a few things, and I'll share when I can. 

 Hugs and good health to all.

Lots of Writing Stuff

DH and bear made dinner and it was spectacular. It was a large Yorkshire Pudding, filled with gently cooked mushrooms and a wonderfully thick and savoury onion gravy, together with peas and baby potatoes cooked with pesto and lemon. It was fantastic. I was so impressed. We all agreed that it was pretty perfect and I think I'll have it for my birthday dinner - whenever that is!

It's been another quiet day in many ways and we watched some more of the classic Doctor Who episodes. It's been wonderfully comforting spending that time together and I got quite a bit of knitting done. The rest of the time has mainly been writing stuff.

Writing Stuff - I've set up the first chapter of Tales from the White Hart on Royal Road and you can find it here. I've set it up to release a chapter per day and queued them all up to release one at a time right to the end of the books, which takes us to the end of November. After that I'll be posting Dark Picture and Under Dark Hills. Then I can put in Back to the White Hart and whatever else I've come up with. I've come to the reluctant realisation that I'm not good at converting stories told as serials into novels. I've been having a real struggle. So I'll put them on Royal Road to hopefully direct people to novels, which, with luck, I'll get more written because I'm not stumbling over the serials. I'll share as I go along. Though I'm not writing anything more tonight as sorting out the scheduling of 67 posts left my brain in a very porridge-like state. 

And as I haven't got pics, here's the cover of Tales from the White Hart.

Hugs and good health to all. 

It's Not My Birthday

I don't fake much. What I write about me and bear and DH is absolutely true. As you can tell from the last few weeks, I don't do well at elaborating when nothing much is happening. However Sybil isn't the name on my driving licence, and neither is Lyssa. 

I've always been a bit twitchy about birthdays. It used to be one of the easy ways to steal your identity. Things have moved on since then, but apart from bear, whose birthday is ridiculously close to Christmas, I try to avoid mentioning birthdays for any of my family that are still alive. When I created the Facebook page for Lyssa Medana, I lied about my birthday, because of course I did. I put down 22 September 1968 as it was nearly my age although not very near my birthday. The birthday wishes have already started coming on Facebook. 

I always feel hugged by a birthday wish. Sometimes I feel bewildered as I listen in British to someone giving me wonderful good wishes in American - bewildered but completely appreciative of the kindness. I also always feel guilty. Last year I had over a hundred good wishes. I have something like 4.8k friends on Facebook. I have met, I think, one of them or perhaps two. Some may not have met me in person, but are very dear friends. Others are something of an enigma. 

This is the page for the writer so I'm extremely undiscriminate about who I accept. I have had far too many encounters with sleazeballs and scam artists. Sometimes it's people who have got caught up in the algorithm that recommends me as a potential friend. Sometimes it's about the writing business. There are also some truly lovely, wonderful, kind and generous people who I've 'met' there and now adore - rather like this blog. It's wonderful fun for me. I still feel guilty when I get the birthday wishes. 

I'll fudge over a few things here and there to try and stay vaguely anonymous, but I'm well aware that anyone who wanted to find me wouldn't have much trouble. I'm more comfortable being honest about who I am. But I'm kind of glad to have a cobweb thin layer of a different name between me and people who aren't keen on my books or who are not acting in good faith. It's something of a sanity saver. 

So if you are on Facebook, don't worry about my birthday. If you aren't already a friend and would like to add me, or want to follow me, the link is here, but it's all about the writing and I don't stress about it. This blog is for friends. I'm quite boring on Facebook. I mainly share funny posts, info from fellow writers and an occasional reference to my writing. 

(I also have a Facebook page in my real name, but it's mainly mums from bear's primary school so I don't check it very often)

And this is the pic for my personal page. I guess I should update it with something fancy, but I kind of like it.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Fridge Freezer

The problems with the fridge continue and I suspect that it needs replacing. DH seems to think that we can work around the fridge's little ways. I am not so sure.

Tonight we were supposed to have Air Fried Tofu, but I was going to toss the cubes of tofu in a mix of cornflour, garlic granules, onion granules and paprika. I planned to make rice in the rice cooker plus stir fry veggies in a pouch of sweet chili and garlic sauce that was part of the offer on jars of sauce. 

The tofu was frozen solid. 

I ended up doing the rice, the veggies in sauce and some herby vegetarian sausages. It wasn't a complete fail, but I would have preferred the tofu. 

I need to overhaul the contents of the freezer. There are a few boxes of food that bear requested and then decided to never eat again. I may throw a couple of them out to make room. I'm also sure that there are things that have lurked in there for years and I may as well get rid of those as well. I also need to use up the oddments lurking in the corners. We are in the run up to Christmas and I want to be able to store stuff in there. 

Apart from that, it's been a quiet day. I need to make more excitement in my life.

Hugs and good health to a..

Spiders Don't Have Skeletons

DH and bear have both explained to me that spiders can't have skeletons. It's not possible. It didn't stop me from indulging from Morrisons Halloween section.

 I nearly got the rat with the skeleton ears. The men in my life were equally bewildered and tried to explain to me that there were no bones in ears and there couldn't possibly be skeleton ears. It didn't stop the creators of that Halloween decoration. 

I've spent a lot of today going over the sequel to King's Silver. It was in editing when Three Furies Press shut down, so it's finished but it needs a lot of polishing. It's been fun, but it's meant an unremarkable day. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Passport Chaos

We thought that my brother's partner could countersign bear's passport application, but apparently they're in the wrong department or something so we were stranded. Bear needs photo ID by the end of October and we may be cutting it fine with the passport application. 

It's been tense today.

I found a few possibilities. There's a Citizen card which is used to prove things like age, and I may suggest that bear gets that anyway because he'll soon be of an age to start drinking and it's better to carry around a replaceable card than a passport. His student ID may be appropriate but apparently it's not signed and there needs to be a signature. 

In the end, I rang bear's old school. The person signing the form has to be a teacher who has known the applicant for more than two years, and bear's old head of year was very happy to sign for him. I am pathetically grateful. 

I have spent a large part of the day frantically searching for answers. I don't fully understand all the details, but there are a couple of tests that are used as almost entrance exams or aptitude tests for Maths courses. Bear is applying to Oxford and their courses require the MAT test. There's another one for Warwick University which is one of bear's fallback universities, but I can't remember its name. I've told bear that I'm happy to do things like washing and cooking for him. I've left him alone with those chores for a while to help him get ready for life at university, but I'd rather run around after him and take the stress off. As it is, bear told me he is fine. I'll keep an eye on things. 

He's keeping some balance in his life so it's not all studying. Tonight he went to a pub quiz with his friends so I drove the ten miles or so, dropped him off, called in to Tesco, found a nice, quiet car park and had fun knitting, picked him up and drove home. Driving home was a little more adventurous than I'd like as there was a road closure and I had to get creative with the route.  

I didn't get pics, so I'm enclosing a pic of the moon. It was gorgeous tonight. 

Photo by Micah Giszack on Unsplash

Writing stuff - the eBooks and paperbacks are all live on Amazon and the White Hart series is down. I'll start posting it on Royal Road next week.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Accidental Housework

I wish I could remember what this cloth was called, as I would absolutely link it.

I got a pack of them from Amazon, and I've used them to mop up spills in the kitchen and occasionally to wash dishes. Today I wrung one out in cold water to knock some dust off the fan heater in the study. However, before I got there, I found myself wiping over some of the woodwork on the way. The woodwork hasn't been touch for far too long and was covered in gunk, and this cloth, or rather, the damp version because I don't put damp cloths on my laptop, just wiped it off. There was no cleaning fluid, no soap, no magic ingredient like vinegar. It was just this cloth and water and it made a massive difference to some seriously mucky door frames, handles, light switch covers, window frames and the front of the fridge hasn't been so clean for years! It's better than the standard microfibre cloth - it's a miracle! I can see some easier cleaning in the future.

Bear has been working on his personal statement for university applications. It's a whole process, and it looks like he's in a good place as long as he gets the grades that are forecast. Some universities add weighting to kids from deprived areas and our postcode counts. Before Brexit, this area got extra funding from the EU because it was so deprived. Bear isn't particularly affected because of DH's hard work, but the area isn't a good one. There are a lot of one parent families, lots of generational unemployment, and far too much deprivation and drug use. I used to worry about bear a lot, but bear isn't easily influenced and his friends seem to be good people. And tonight bear was working on some maths problems while watching the first Tom Baker Doctor Who episode which was awesome. 

Writing stuff - King's Silver is now available as an eBook. Out of the London Mist is available as a paper back and Amazon is reviewing the paperbacks of King's Silver and Under a Bright Saharan Sky. A huge block in my creative process has disappeared. Now I hope to move on with purpose. The White Hart stories should be down by the end of the week, though I'm making no promises. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Where Was I?

I've been pootling around and felt guilty and thought that I'd better update. 

There's been some stormy weather around here. 

I posted off bear's passport application and noticed that a huge branch had come down by the Co-op. 

The tyre pressure light came on again, so today I was back at In n Out, the garage, who are awesome. They didn't charge me as they just needed a little air. I'll keep an eye on things. I'll take them some chocolates later in the week as they are awesome and never mind me waiting and knitting.

I have fourteen different tabs open on my laptop and I think I have two music feeds going on. One is a rain sound effect, so I suppose that it's not too bad.

Bear has been fine, with a wonderful social life that has had me giving a lot of lifts. 

I'm sure that I'll remember a few more bits, and I'll add them as I go. My health is still a little ricketty.

As you can tell, I'm feeling a little fragmented. Today I've done a couple of loads of washing, been to the garage and Tesco (bear's favourite frozen Thai thingy isn't on the delivery app) and got a vast amount of writing stuff done - quite unexpectedly. I'd planned to only do housewifery today. 

Writing stuff - I put up an overdue instalment for the White Hart here. Then Amazon were amazingly helpful so you can once again find Out of the London Mist and Under the Bright Saharan Sky on their site. Currently it's just the eBook, which is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, but I'm hopefully sorting out the paperbacks as well. It went quite well, but there were a lot of fiddly details that needed to be tweaked, altered in the original document, checked through the Kindle Create App and then uploaded again. I'm frazzled as I'm not very good at that sort of thing. I'm not exactly sure which way is up. I've a lurking suspicion that the books may be questioned by Amazon as they have been previously published, but I've got the documents I need ready and hopefully there won't be any problems. 

And that's it. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Slow Day

Cheri - I shall try veggies in sweet and sour. One of my favourite recipes is something I just threw together one night and it stuck. It's one of those that's a 'some' recipe. I chop 'some' onion, soften in oil and add 'some' garlic. I throw in at least one, preferably two, chopped bell peppers and whatever other veg will suit. I usually have some mushrooms around, and courgettes would work, or practically anything that can be added and softened. I add some kidney beans/chick peas/black beans/haricot beans/some sort of legume and something tomatoey. In the past I've used condensed tomato soup but ordinary tomato soup or passata would work with abundant mediterranean herbs and worcestershire sauce. It's really good served with pasta of whatever type that you have on hand. Now I fancy substituting sweet and sour sauce for passata and serving with rice. 

Bless - thank you for your kind hugs. 

Today has been something of a fail. I've spent a significant chunk of it on Amazon chat as I'm trying to upload Out of the London Mist. The problem is, it's been published before by someone else - the wonderful people at Three Furies Press. When they shut down, all rights reverted to me, so I have the right to publish. So far it feels like technical difficulties, but I may have to work on this. As I haven't done anything worth taking pics, I'm including the cover of Out of the London Mist which was created by the amazing Rebekah Jonesy.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Tesco May Have a Point

Last March, I think, Tesco had a 3 for the price of 2 deal going on sauces, including the pasta bake sauce that DH likes. I knew that this deal ran twice a year so I bought 26 jars. A few weeks ago, we ran out. It was a problem. Now that the deal is back on, I'm planning on committing. I don't save much, but it keeps me entertained. I can't stick 26 jars of pasta bake sauce on one order, but so far they've been happy to accept 6 at a time. I'm not getting much else, but I've added a jar of butter chicken sauce as that's something that we can always fall back on, and a jar or two of sweet and sour sauce for me because I like it and I can make up a batch of sweet and sour something and have it in portions at the same time as DH has his pasta bake. 

(As an aside, last week, before the deal, pasta bake sauce was 66p and now it's 76p which makes me really want to keep a price book and it also shows how few pennies I'll save.)

I've also just renewed my Delivery Saver. I got the expensive version where I can get up to one delivery per day at any time free. It also allows free delivery from their third party Marketplace sellers and it cost me £83 and change for a year. I think it's a bargain.

In fact, I may have saved the cost of the delivery save in the last month. For example, this week I had a delivery on Monday for the start of the week. That's the salad for DH and the basics for the rest of the week. I usually also have a delivery on Friday with all the stuff we need for the weekend. The minimum order is £50 but that has been a surprisingly easy target to hit with bear at home. This week I added a Wednesday delivery, as I needed more salad for DH and I thought that I'd take the opportunity to top up on jars. I just about scraped up to the limit by adding a few candles which we'll very much enjoy over the winter (and we're running low on candles after having a stock for ages).

Today (Wednesday) I woke up and checked the app to see if the order was on time, and before anything else I got a pop-up. It suggested that I may like to try shopping in-store. It felt like an intervention. 

I've had a day where I've moved a little more. I'm (very) slowly clearing the cupboards, throwing stuff that's out of date, and shifting things around to make room for the new jars. I've washed a load or two of washing and generally managed a few more steps. I even cast on for the next blanket, which was the only thing that was worth taking a pic.

I hope that I'll have something more to show tomorrow. 

Writing stuff - I'll be taking the White Hart books down on the first date possible after 7 September 2024. I'll be posting them again on Royal Road starting (if possible) on 1 October 2024 with one episode daily until I've caught up. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Finished!

I finished the blanket.

And I don't think that I had enough for another row.

And I even sewed the end in straight away, which is a miracle. It's about 52 inches by roughly 72 inches, which would make a blanket for a single or child's bed or a decent throw. I knitted 800g of aran weight yarn on 7mm needles in just plain knit and it was incredibly relaxing. I did a search of this blog, which is better than a diary, and it cost £18 total and I bought it on 13th February 2023. I'm hoping to perhaps sell it on eBay, though I don't know whether I'll get the cost of the yarn. It's a lovely warm blanket, though, and I'm planning on waiting until November before listing, so fingers crossed that it will appeal for the long, cold evenings. 

This afternoon was spent trying to sort out bear's passport. He needs photo ID for various entrance exams. I was told this last week. He needs it by the end of October and the website said that the turnaround is currently three weeks, as I suppose that it's the end of the summer holidays. We applied online, filled in all the boxes, dug out my and DH's passports and then we needed to find someone to sign off his photo. This was hard. I don't get out much. DH doesn't get out much. Bear doesn't really meet up with his friends' parents. The list of people who can endorse his picture isn't that long, it's full of professionals and they need to have known him for at least two years. I was concerned that I would have to call his old school and beg one of the teachers as he's only been at this college for a year. Fortunately we worked something out, so they can now get his pic endorsed, then he sends off the birth certificate and we keep everything crossed.

I've also downloaded an app to count steps. I can only manage a few steps at a time, but I'm planning on getting more bursts in and I'm aiming for at least 10 steps more each day until I hit a decent target. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Still lots of Ouch

Fat Dormouse - You have an amazing name. My washing machine definitely needs a patron saint.

Bless - It sounds more adventurous than it is. Last week I was scrolling through going, 'no fish as DH and I don't like that, no lamb because bear and I aren't keen, no pork as DH doesn't like that, no aubergine because I've only seen it slimy, no prawns because while bear loves them DH and I loathe them, I'm not paying out for fancy cuts, bear won't eat sweetcorn, I can't eat cheese or gluten, bear can't tolerate all cheese, I can't stand stuff that's too spicy, bear won't have soup...' 

Speaking of cooking, it's bear and DH doing the fancy stuff, and they are amazing. They're trying out a load of ideas because pretty soon bear will be away from the house and it's important that he knows how to cook a meal. I'm usually the one chasing down a recipe, but I give the guys plenty of options and we've been eating very healthy food. I'm chasing down recipes for savoury food that include oats as I bought a load when they were on offer so that bear could have over night oats for breakfast on school days. He's decided that he's not having that for breakfast any more and so I'll need to use them up. Thinking about it, it will probably be me having the overnight oats. 

Bear goes back to school on Wednesday. I've been checking all summer about stuff he needs to get ready for next year and he assured me that he had it all in hand. Last night, around 10pm, he decided that he needed a pencil case. I put it on the Tesco order for delivery today, but it was substituted - with a lock box! I was baffled and so was the delivery driver. I didn't accept that.

I've struggled a little today with health, so there's not much more to report. I've no pics from today so I thought that I'd share a pic from September 2021. I couldn't walk that far now. I need to make it my wallpaper so that I'm encouraged to get better and walk even further.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Problems with New Recipes

As I've been saying, we've been trying out a lot of new recipes recently. The Tesco Recipe collection has been ruthlessly raided. Tonight we had black bean burgers, but just the burgers and not the avocado accompaniment. Instead we had them with oven chips and green beans (I have a lot of green beans in the freezer). 

One of the ingredients is breadcrumbs and I splashed out on some fancy gluten free breadcrumbs. They may have been a little dry, as the burgers crumbled in the pan. We may well do them again as they tasted amazing, but next time we'll add an egg. I now have a nearly full bag of gluten free breadcrumbs that we need to use up. They can go next to the '100g less two teaspoonfuls' of sesame seeds that one recipe asked for. And I've a suspicion that there are spring onions that need to be eaten up tomorrow. 

I actually found this recipe because I wanted to use up the tinned black beans that I'd found in the cupboard. However we're gradually acquiring a growing stack of ingredients that will also need using up. I can see us getting more and more adventurous with food as we try and make sure that we waste nothing. DH has been pickling chillies. He did it initially because he wanted to use up some leftover chillies, but now he and bear are really enjoying them and I'm regularly buying huge quantities of chillies for them to pickle. It's like a vicious cycle, but tasty. 

I called in at a Sainsbury's local last Wednesday and took this picture. 

They've started putting out Christmas merchandise and it isn't even Halloween! Grumbling about how early the Christmas stuff appears is becoming as traditional as Christmas pudding. 

Hugs and good health to all.