Funny Time of Year

I have no idea what to make for dinner tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or New Year's Day. In theory, I should be able to manage with what's in the freezer but we're low on all sorts of stuff. I've got stuff in for meals but I haven't got stuff in for nice meals. I'm writing this around 7.30am and I'm wondering about nipping out now to the shops. I'll hit rush hour, but...

It's just shy of 10am and in a move that will surprise no-one who's read this blog, I'm just back from a trip to Tesco. It was deserted, and I picked up some burgers, some chicken, some fancy cheese for bear and some potatoes - all of them except the cheese were full price. But it means that I can do a 'nice' meal tonight with the extra tray of fancy prepared potatoes that I have needing to be used, and depending on what bear is doing New Year's Eve (which is extremely unlikely to be inside our house), I can do a decent chicken in sauce of some sort. I've got plenty of options for sauce, including ready made and ingredients to make my own from scratch, so I can see what calls. I'm not sure how delicate bear will feel on New Year's Day after a night on the town, but I've got an itch to try sausage and mash pie from What's for Tea. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like wonderful comfort food. 

This Christmas has felt a little flat. I haven't felt much joy. I've never really been one for Christmas, as my parents used to battle when I was a kid - you can see it here on my blog, which sort of explains it. Bear has been happy to be home, but he's been doing his own thing which includes a fair slice of studying. This means that knitting has happened. I should be working on the impossible jacket, but I thought that my brother could use a scarf and started this.

But then I was browsing eBay (which is always a bad start) and saw an extremely inexpensive knitting kit. The box turned up battered.

And it was part of one of those subscription knitting things. 

The pale blue stuff is for a lacy stole. I cast on, got to the pattern, swore, struggled, swore some more and a load of stitches slid off the needles. It's that crazy fluff stuff and it drove me nuts. 

I absolutely did not feel confident picking up lots of stitches as the dratted yarn stuck to itself as well as the box, my arm, my sweater and everything else it touched. I started again, and while it's a mare to knit, I think the plain knit wide scarf will be lovely and warm as well as light and pretty. I'm not sure what to do with the other balls of yarn. It's meant to be half of a cushion, with the other half coming in a previous box. I'm not sure about that. I could make it up and use a fabric backing, but the colours don't call to me. They don't look like they'd be warm as part of hats and scarves for the Mission for Seafarers either. I'll keep thinking. The kit was extremely inexpensive, but I still have a feeling that I've wasted my money.

Writing stuff - authors are encouraged to market their work and at this time of year, all the marketing gurus are enthusing about showcasing plans for upcoming work. I haven't got a clue what's going to happen. I refuse to try and predict anything. The latest instalment of The Guest went up yesterday on my blog here and that's all I'm will to guarantee. 

I'm also posting a lot on Substack. I started on there as you can use it as a newsletter, but I'm adding a few of the posts from my blog, so apologies if you've subscribed and are getting hammered by notifications. It should settle down soon. 

Hugs and good health to all.  

Still Unravelled

My sleep is now so out of kilter that I don't know what way is up. When DH and I went to feed the crows on Saturday, I had had something like four hours sleep in three days and he had just drank a load of standard coffee after months of decaf. If we had been stopped by police, we would have been tested for everything as we were not in any sort of normal frames of mind. 

But yesterday I had a win. Tesco are doing cheap veg, so 15p for bags of carrots and parsnips and also for swedes and bunches of broccoli. It's not as good as Morrison's 5p per bag, but I'm not going to Morrisons at this time of year if I can help it and there are no delivery slots at all. When I had my standard Tesco order, I added it in. I may have gone a little overboard. Yesterday I made soup. 

I cut up a bag of carrots, a bag of parsnips, a swede, and half a bag of onions. After stirring them up with oil, tumeric and cumin, it filled quite a lot of my big pan before I even added the stock and lentils. 

I dug out some frozen garlic when I sorted out the freezer ready for the Christmas delivery. I bunged in four lumps as I thought that the quantity could stand four cloves of garlic. 

Then I checked the packaging. Each block is the equivalent of four cloves of garlic, according to the packaging. I considered my options. The soup is meant to be healthy, and garlic is good for you, but as I wasn't expecting vampires, I decided against the equivalent of sixteen cloves of garlic and removed three of the chunks. I won't be getting the frozen garlic again. I rarely cook things that need four cloves of garlic and I prefer garlic granules anyway, especially if I'm cooking chunks of potato stirred through a little oil and garlic then microwaved. 

I added stock and lentils, gave it a nice long simmer, blended, and then froze ten decent portions of healthy soup. I was trying to tot it up. It went something like, veggies total 95p, stock cubes were 30p (three of the Tesco own brand), I guess maybe 50p of lentils and goodness knows how much I should allow for the garlic and spices. I also finished off a bottle of garlic oil which had been lingering, and I've no idea how to guesstimate that. I think that it counts as a bargain, regardless. Apart from the pennies saved, it's ten lots of 'I don't have to think about what to have for lunch'.

I'm on something of a 'use it up' kick and I've got a great recipe for tonight that I'll share if it comes off. When I get back to my planner, I need to have a section where I keep track of food that I need to use up. Last night we had meatballs with tagliatelle and sauce. The sauce was because I wanted to use up the freeze dried veggies and I had a stock of passata that had been ignored, so I made those the start of a nice Sunday dinner. 

Writing stuff - this isn't flourishing due to the lack of sleep, but today's episode of The Guest is here.

Hugs and good health to all.

PS I went over this a couple of times, because lack of sleep affects my ability to use words, and I found some very strange sentences. I think I caught all the weirdness, but I apologise for any that slipped through. 

A Success!

Do you remember a while ago that I posted about the cute owl candles that DH had bought me and how I wanted to save the containers? The post is here. I had an inspiration. I invested in some artificial succulents from Temu.

They're currently around £18 for ten, which means that they were an extravagance that I absolutely didn't need - but I really wanted. And it's always a gamble getting stuff from Temu. Some of it is absolutely top quality and wonderful and some of it truly isn't. These don't look too band and if you take them out of the concrete pots, they fit almost perfectly into the owls after the candle has burned out.

The one on the right is the unburned candle. I think that the succulent idea works great. They can be dotted around the house in tiny corners and safely ignored. Of course, that leaves me with the tiny concrete pots.

Which look like they ought to be useful, but I have no idea what. Because they look useful, I'll probably donate them if I can't find a use for them soon.

I'll be back with a proper post tomorrow.

Writing stuff - This week's instalment of The Guest is here. I'm working on a new edition of Cats in the Bible with a couple of extra stories, and for those who have read it, do you think this is a good cover?

For those who haven't, it's funny stories starring the cats who used to own me. Because I was always tickled by the idea that there was no mention of cats in the Bible, I put up a Bible quote at the top of each chapter that could apply, so if I post Genesis 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.” Then there's a fair chance of a mouse being chased in the story. I hope to get it all finished by the end of January.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Entertaining Bargains

Bear is home! And he's happy to be home! I swear that he's grown an inch, he's looking happy and relaxed and currently asleep. I know that there are so many on here who understand - there has been a gap and now there isn't. 

As I plan to be spending most of my energy on him today, I thought that I'd nip on quickly as I just received a parcel. I used to get a load of stuff from Approved Food but after a while, I just wasn't seeing the stuff that I wanted. Well, I saw a link to Price Panda, I was curious, I visited the site and the rest is history.

I particularly like the black fabric washer sheets which you add to a laundry load of black clothes and wash as normal to revive them. Bear only wears black so I consider these a boon. Anyway, I spent a chunk on little dehumidifiers, which I had been looking for, car mats, broken biscuits, a dozen bars of Pear's soap, some fancy teas that I had been considering for a while but never got to, and all sorts of bits. 

This may sound silly, but for me, one of the the best things was the packaging. The delivery driver commented on how sturdy and well packed the box was, which I thought was unusual, but it's a really good box. I shouldn't hoard cardboard boxes, but I'm tempted with this as it's just such a good size and strength. Someone in that company committed to serious packaging and spent the extra to get stuff printed on it. I think that it's genius marketing.

The packaging encourages you to share hauls on places like Instagram to get freebies and discounts, and what great marketing! I'm only sharing it here, so I'm not going to try tagging anything, but it impressed me.

Now bear is watching back one of the lectures he attended as he has exams the week he goes back so he says he has a lot of studying. I'm going to grab a bite to eat and then settle down with my knitting to enjoy hanging out. 

Hugs and good health to all.

Ravelled Sleeve of Care

Shakespeare talks about sleep knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care, and my sleep-sleeve is currently completely unravelled. Last night was something of an example. I actually managed to fall asleep just before 1am, which was a miracle. I woke up around 4am, which is when I usually fall asleep, tried to sleep until 5am, got up, found out some of my stories had been pirated on an audio site, tried to go back to sleep at 7am, got up again 7.30am, was nodding off at 11am but as soon as I tried to sleep properly I was wide awake. I managed two hours in the middle of the afternoon, I've accomplished very little and I feel like something that the cat would refuse to drag in. 

There is still a certain amount of squelch in the dining room but it's reducing. I'm not sure if it's because of the dehumidifiers or because it's stopped raining, but I'll take what I can get. When I wandered down around 6am this morning there was a slug in the middle of the carpet that looked like it wished it had brought water wings. It didn't help my mood. I suppose it's getting closer to this.

Photo by Jeff DeWitt on Unsplash

Small isles of dry carpet are appearing, but rain is forecast so I'll see how it goes.

One thing that I have managed is to get thoroughly depressed about audio books. Good narrators will make a story come alive in ways that the page can't manage, but they are rightly expensive. On one of the main platforms for authors to convert their ebooks into audiobooks, prices start at 2p per word. Out of the London Mist comes in at around 60,000 words, or £1,200 at the minimum. I don't have that sort of money, though I'm sure that they earn it.  

A lot of authors are using AI, which makes me uncomfortable. Partly I don't like the idea of putting people out of work. There is also the whole worry that it wouldn't sound right. I've had enough problems with spellchecker. I don't want the AI butchering pronounciation and syntax in audible form as well, and I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't have the concentration to properly listen to an AI recording to pick up all the bits that were missed. 

I'm not doing anything to take it down at the moment. Apart from not being able to get the dratted thing to work, it's not costing me anything and may possibly get me leads that will get me a few pennies. The site has all the stories from Royal Road but nothing from Amazon. I've always known that the stuff on Royal Road was vulnerable, but I've been treating it as a sort of gym to get me writing and to get another place to have my writing name on the internet. I don't put anything on there that I'm planning on charging for, although I can imagine me taking some stuff down, tidying it up, getting a halfway decent cover and then bunging it on somewhere like Smashwords. Not everyone takes that view, however, and some authors on Royal Road make money from their writing there, and it's taking income from them. 

Bear is coming home tomorrow. I think I will be feeling a lot better.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Deluge Continues

It's still incredibly squelchy in our dining room. I emptied the two big dehumidifers as they were full, but the two smaller, cheap ones hadn't filled up yet, presumably because they were little and cheap. I bought them with small spaces in mind, so I wasn't fussing too much. 

I've made a small dent in the dining room. I feel that it's been reduced from mountains to large hills. It isn't helped that my back doesn't like me standing or moving around for more than a few minutes at a time and the squish of the carpet is deeply unpleasant. Still, I have got a little further. Clothes have been distributed, I've got a roll of yellow bin bags for charity shop donations, and a roll of blue bin bags for stuff that should perhaps move to the junk room. I'm questioning some of my choices, though. 

One example is non-slip liner. It's this stuff, a sort of rubbery mesh that stops things sliding around. We got some to put on top of the fridge as it's quite tall but we have a load of stock cubes and spices on the top which had a habit of sliding around and getting knocked down the back. The stock cubes, worcestershire sauce, salt and such were put in plastic boxes which went on top of the non-slip stuff and nothing has been knocked down since. I consider it a win, but I over-ordered and have quite a large amount left over. I'm considering putting it on my tumble dryer (which is in my dining room) and perhaps stitching some to the back of the bathroom mat which enjoys travel more than most people, but should I just donate or throw it? It's not that expensive if I needed to replace it, and I can't see where I'd use it, but it's not on the shelves of our local shops and I can't help wonder if I'm missing opportunities. Besides, it seems wasteful to get rid of it when the dreaded might come in useful thought hovers over me. 

I think the most important step in this is to check my mindset. I guess that I need to consider the end result. What would happen if I didn't keep it? Where can I sensibly keep it? I need to think why I'm holding onto stuff. 

Bear will be home soon, and while I know he wants to study, and I want him to rest, I know that he'll make time to come with me for some heavy lifting to the charity shops. I feel so lucky. 

And while I stumble on, I've had some more thoughts about decoration for the dining room.

Photo by Lucas Calloch on Unsplash

Writing stuff - I'm still grumbling about the spellchecker, and did so at length on my blog here. For those who subscribe to my Substack posts, I apologise. I'm going to be catching up with the posts that should be on Substack, which are chats, articles, reviews and news from the writing blog which means that there will be a gazillion notices flying out. My grovel post is here, and I am sincerely sorry, but once it's done then it will be easy to find things on there as well. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

A Deluge of Dehumidifiers

We are at the bottom of a hill and just a little above a stream that's maybe a hundred yards away. There has been a torrential amount of rain. And I think that we've now got a leak in the cellar floor. I know someone a few hundred yards away who regularly gets a flooded cellar, and takes it as part of living there. I could probably manage it that point of view if we didn't have our kitchen and dining room in our cellar. 

The carpet in the dining room currently squelches. If you stand on it, you can see water. It is deeply unpleasant. Tomorrow I'm going to have to redistribute a large washing and ironing pile which still has stuff in from at least four years ago, towels which don't currently have anywhere to live and sundry craft and gardening supplies. After that, I should try lifting the carpet but I'm going to refrain. Apart from not wanting to have a complete wreck of a room for Christmas dinner, I've tried to get rid of the carpet before. I've loathed it since we moved in, back in 1994, but it's firmly glued down. It's going to be a mare to shift. 

There are currently four, yes, four, dehumidifiers down there. There were the two that we already had, one in the walk in cupboard off the dining room as it can get musty in there and for a while we needed the dehumidifer as the people at the back had a leak, which is no longer much of a problem, and one tucked in a corner as a spare. I don't really bother in winter as the heating sorts out any damp that comes from being underground, but it can feel clammy in summer so they're usually on then. Then there are the two extremely cheap small humidifiers, one next to the carpet swamp and one in the kitchen next to the cupboards which are affected by damp. Those last two were bought when I was worried about the leak in my bedroom. 

I feel like there's a theme here.

I've been thoroughly out of sorts all day, with a headache and upset tummy which I suspect had something to do with the tinned soup I had last night. It's finally wearing off, so hopefully I'll be more pro-active tomorrow, particularly with the new water feature. I was not going to take a pic of the utter dreadfulness that is my dining room, but I had been thinking about redecorating around it. 

Photo by Jeff Finley on Unsplash

So here is a pic that I may or may not take as inspiration.

DH has had a rummage on the internet and he thinks that it could well be something straightforward to fix. I rather hope so, but I'm still bracing myself. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

A Fail But Still Happy

I failed the Writathon by around six thousand words. However I started six days late, went missing in action for around a week mid challenge and finally wrote ten thousand words in twenty four hours, so I'm not unhappy with what I did. I'm happy with some of the lessons that I learned, including that I shouldn't try and write ten thousand words in twenty four hours. 

Knitting has been coming on.

That is the cheap Aldi yarn. The packet contains the cheap circular needles and I was extremely unimpressed. The yarn caught on the needles where they meet the circular wire on every row. I ended up digging out an old 5mm needle and it was infinitely better. The yarn is knitting up fine, however.

I've spent the day mainly on writing stuff, but tomorrow I start cleaning. I have to. Bear is home on Friday and he's been very clear how he's particular about keeping his space clean. My house is a disaster. I don't want him to come home and feel that he has to start cleaning, especially as he has exams the first week that he goes back after Christmas. I'll share any triumphs. Really I need to turn out a load of cupboards and make records of what there is and what can be used up.

Writing stuff - I haven't posted anything on the Royal Road for the last few days, but I'll be getting back to that soon. Today's installment of The Guest is on my writing blog here. I posted an article last Wednesday, here, and I've got one cued up (or queued up, I'm never quite sure) for this Wednesday coming. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Advent

I wanted to make something of Advent as I feel that Christmas is getting too much. I think that I failed when I didn't set clear objectives, but I will see how things go. I have taken the intention to be more mindful of what I'm doing. I don't want to be drifting or impulsively bouncing between ideas. Of course, things are never quite that straightforward with me, but it's something. Most importantly, I'm going to be choosing to make time for faith. At first it may be exploring how I make sure that I'm consistent and positive, but I hope to find my stride. 

I really needed to knit the other night. I find knitting incredibly soothing, but I couldn't find the jacket that I was looking for. I'm on the first sleeve and I just want the damn thing finished so hunting for it wasn't so soothing. However, I started the aran sweater with the yarn I got from Aldi, and I felt a lot better for the knitting. 

I need to take a pic of the freeze dried veggies that I got from Jux. There was a deal of some sort and I picked up a tubs of carrots, red onion, pepper and garlic. Yesterday I threw together a casserole to try out these veggies. I bunged in some diced lean beef, a generous helping of the freeze dried veggies, a tin of chopped tomatoes, Italian herbs and some beef gravy granules. I may have cooked it a little too hot and a little too long, as when DH went downstairs to check and add dumplings, he said it was practically all dried out, so he added some extra water. And the thickening type of gravy granules. I think I'll have another go with the veggies as what came out was delicious, mouthwatering, tar. I didn't say a word to DH, but it was incredibly tasty and thick. I made the mistake by putting it too hot, too long and not enough water, but the second dose of gravy granules wouldn't have helped. 

Another thing that I want to consider during Advent is making New Year's Resolutions. I usually refuse to do that as it's rarely productive, but this time I want to be more thoughtful and considered. I also want to prepare and plan to give me the best chances of success. Again, I've no idea about how that's going to go, and I don't have a good track record of sticking to things, but if I don't try then I have no chance at all. 

Writing stuff - last Monday's story is here and today's story is here. I'm supposed to be working on the Royal Road Writathon but I keep getting distracted - all the more reason to make mindfulness and choosing actions a big part of Advent. 

One of the things that's been distracting me is the Bumper Book of the White Hart. I've got it all in one Word document, which I swear creaks as I upload it, and I've been going through with spell checker and the Word editor function. I think this might be technically AI, but part of me thinks that it's just good manners to get any writing I publish in the best possible state. It may, however, been a mistake. I have spent hours arguing with an indifferent screen about commas. I've picked up maybe half a dozen typos, but I keep getting flagged for extra commas, removing commas and semi-colons. I refuse to touch semi-colons with a bargepole! And it keeps arguing with me about whether a phrase should contain 'were' or 'was.' At one point I accidentally double clicked and ended up chasing back because it had made a correction that it shouldn't have. And I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the commas that I allowed weren't quite right. For my own peace of mind, I'm going to have to go back and check them. I did a 'find' for commas on the document and there are over six thousand of them. I said rude words. 

But I made a draft of a cover, so that's a start.

Though perhaps I ought to make the stag's head white. Any gently phrased opinions welcome. 

The Writathon finishes on Friday so I should have more measured posts after that. 

Hugs and good health to all.