Sniff

Eileen - bear spilled wax due to one of those strings of events that are almost inevitable. I was burning a large candle in the centre of a very stable table. Bear stood up too quickly, had a dizzy moment and, as he is rapidly approaching six foot tall, had a sort of blast radius as he stumbled and knocked over the candle. The candle went out straight away, but there was wax everywhere as it had been burning for ages and was mostly liquid. Some of the dratted stuff got onto my newish bag and soaked in. I was so unimpressed.

Wherethejourneytakesme - you need a black belt in shopping these days. I wish I had the energy for the challenge.

Sharon - I think we are all going to see a sudden jump in costs and it's going to be hard to keep up. I hope that you don't need too much of the ibuprofen.

Bless - I think I'm going to have to have a page per item in the price book as you suggest and work around it like that. I used to wait every year until the tinned soups came down to 50p per tin. The sale was around the same time each year in autumn and I bought loads. That was at a time when a tin was normally around 80-95p per tin outwith a sale. Now the same soup and the same brand is £1.45! When I saw a sale a few weeks ago that worked out at around 60p per tin, I bought a dozen. They will last maybe two months. It's a challenging time.

DH and I both have sore throats, sniffles, coughs and are full of aches. We can't call it flu, but it's not very pleasant. I ended up cancelling not only the hair dresser appointment, but also our trip to the theatre that we planned for tomorrow. I didn't do a big shop, though I booked a delivery for Sunday. This morning I was seriously worried that I wasn't in a good state to drive! I am not a ray of sunshine.

On the other hand, I made the soup! And it is so much of a win for me. Months ago I bought a pack of stew vegetables that had been marked down. There was a carrot or two, parsnip, swede, and an onion or so. I chopped them up and bunged them in the freezer. Today I pulled them out of the freezer ready to go, added some lentils, a stock cube and water, a little oil, turmeric and cumin. It took very little effort because all the veggie prep was done and I could leave it on the simmer for half an hour and it would be ready. Then DH liquidised it and it was lovely. It felt really warming. I think I shall watch out for those marked down veggies more often and make sure that they're prepped. 

I feel really good about it. And it's made me rethink the freezer and how I use it. At the moment there is a lot of beige stuff in to suit bear, but I can pick that up quite easily on a day to day basis. It would make more sense to freeze bargains. If I remember correctly (which is not guaranteed), that bag of veggies cost something like 43p, down from about 80p or 90p. There aren't any packs currently on the Tesco website, but Morrisons have a kilo of frozen casserole veggies for £1.55. Even with the lack of waste, the frozen stuff is still a lot more expensive. DH and I had a good meal out of it, and DH had seconds. I'll probably throw the dregs away because there isn't much space at the moment, but even though bear utterly rejected the soup, there were still three good portions. If I had managed it better and perhaps added a potato, there could easily have been two or three portions going into the freezer. If you add the (probably) 43p to the cost of the stock cube, lentils, spices and oil, and even the bit of bread we had with it, it still would not have been a lot per portion. It didn't even take much cooking. 

And that is where I need the price book. Not everything that is marked a bargain is actually a bargain. I'll still be buying my frozen onion. But I need to recognise a bargain when I see it and use it properly. 

Writing stuff - I put a small post about what is happening on my writing blog here. I'll be taking a few stories down on Sunday. It will be incredibly good for me to have a sort through.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Second Verse

Sharon - thank you for the lovely comments on the photos. Your opinion means a lot. The shop is so amazing that I'm trying to think of excuses to go back. There is a sort of similar bookshop in Holmfirth (or was) and I'm planning a trip there. Being able to rummage for the unexpected is part of the fun!

Bless - I think this hardward store is a similar age to yours. He said that it had been open for 67 years. There is something so reassuring about those shops. 

Well, my stomach is currently behaving but I'm having all sorts of fun with what feels like a sinus headache. I am not looking forward to the hairdressing appointment tomorrow. I'm definitely feeling under the weather. I suspect I'm getting a cold, and with all that has been happening, colds seem to be so much worse now. DH is also rough. He has a sore throat and is not on top form. I picked up a wide selection of throat sweets for him and we are all having an early night.

I am going to settle down after this and write some lists. I've been having a little success with them this week, and they are keeping me on track. I've got a notebook for my price book. I thought I'd share my processes and mistakes on here, because it may be useful to others. 

This is my new A5 notebook.

The tabs are marking sections as it's a project book with inbuilt dividers. I thought I would mark them as 'Fresh', 'Frozen', 'Food Cupboard' and 'Misc' (I had some rude ideas about something that would represent a mish mash of cleaning and health and that would start with 'F' to keep the theme, but I'm going with 'Misc'). 

I'm not entirely sure how it will work. For example, there is no point in me buying bagged salad in bulk when there's a good sale, so do I track it? DH has a bag every week. As it is such a regular buy, I may keep an eye on how it goes and just track the price so that I have an idea of how the budget will work. On the other hand, if I see mushrooms at a good price, I can chop and freeze them, and the same for root veg, so that is probably worth recording. 

I jotted down some prices.

I will never win prizes for penmanship. But I think I need a separate page for each item, and I need to be more specific. Currently, on Tesco's website, there are Rosedene cheap small pears at £1.73 per kilo, Conference pears at £2.79 per kilo (half price with Clubcard), Seasonal pears at £3.82 per kilo and organic pears at £5 per kilo. I need to check out the farm shop for these as well, as they may or may not be equivalent prices, but they may be better quality. I'm working through ideas, and I'll share as I go. I'll get rid of this page and start again. I knew that I would be changing my mind a lot, which is why I'm starting out with an extremely inexpensive notebook.

I'm still keeping my shopping list notebook. I use it intermittently, but I've been using the same one for ages. I try and use up all the page so stuff gets squeezed in all sorts of corners. 

It's getting a bit battered, but I'm using every scrap of it. 

I still haven't found a handbag that I like, after bear spilled hot wax on the current one. I dug this out of the back of the warddrobe. I got it ages ago from my friend eBay, but there was a smell. The smell has pretty much gone.

It's a little bigger and will take both the shopping list and the price book as well as the rests of the rubbish I lug around with me. 

I need to sit down after posting this and make a shopping list. I could do with getting the 10% off shop done tomorrow, and my ideal schedule would go - drop off bear around 7.30am (his choice!), then go straight to Tesco and do the big shop, hopefully finishing not much later than around 9.30. I don't need huge amounts, but I need a few bits and I may as well group them together and then get the money off. It costs £7.99 per month for the Tesco Clubcard Extra, so I need to get more than that using the 10% off shops. Ordinary clubcard reductions don't count as you get them with the free clubcard as well. I want to pick up some clothing (10% off F&F clothes if it's not already on sale) and shop for some Christmas presents. I also need to call in Aldi for a tiny bit or two before diving home and grabbing a shower then heading back towards Heckmondwike for my appointment at 12pm. By the time it's finished, it will barely be worth going home to come back, so I'm planning on getting some serious knitting done as I wait to pick up bear. 

Then home, and I'm risking letting you know that I'm planning homemade soup for DH and I. Bear has utterly rejected soup, so he will have something beige. Normally if I even whisper what I am planning for dinner then it all goes wrong, but I'm hoping it will work out. 

Writing stuff - I'm still planning on removing some of the stories under A Whisper in the Shadows so dip in if you feel like it before 2nd October.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Sort of Busy

Thank you for the compliments about the pics. I'm feeling a lot better. 

Today has been an off balance sort of day. I didn't have a clean shirt for bear (and it's one bit of housewifery that I'm usually really good at). I finally packed a parcel that I'd been meaning to pack for ages. I had a bit of a fail printing the label, as the ink is getting sparse, but I got there.

I met up with a friend for a coffee and I had a blast. Her son was at primary school with bear and while they are at different high schools, they are both doing well. I forgot the time and had to rush back. 

I failed to take the right turn off for the post office at the Co-op so I ended up lugging the parcel around Heckmondwike to get to the post office there. Most post offices seem to be in shops these days, like the Co-op, and this is one of the few stand alone ones that I know. Then I went to get a fuse.

You see, bear has a heater in his room. That room is the coldest in the house, and bear has a small, oil filled radiator for when he's up there. This was vital a few years ago, when bear had so much trouble with his legs. The medication they gave him made him absolutely crippled with cold. He went from a furnace to an iceberg. It is a known side effect of the damn tablets (which didn't really help) and it's only now that he's getting back to not feeling the cold at all. However, after the warm summer, it feels chilly and he does a lot of homework up there, so I'm happy for him to have that radiator. Of course, now it's stopped working after some sterling service. I wondered if it was the fuse, so we checked and it needs a 10amp fuse, so I thought I would call in at the hardware store that I had noticed at Heckmondwike. 

It was amazing. The store is so full that you can barely squeeze around. There are peg boards on every wall with screws and washers and padlocks and bolts and wires and plugs and string and, well, everything. Things hung from the ceiling (I got a decent sized pan at last!), things were propped up in corners and against shelves (I did not expect to see a warming pan) and there were relics like oversized purple brandy glasses. The nice man (who was lovely) had to move half a dozen ladders to get to the fuses, and he pulled out a pack of four with three left in them. He pulled out one and charged me 30p. 

It had a story to it. The store had been going 67 years and once had nine people working there plus two drivers supplying the local mills, workshops and factories. They have all shut now, and I think that it's much reduced. He told me he had the old imperial measure drill bits in the back room but that there wasn't a call for them. I shall be going back there whenever I have an excuse. It reminds me of the sort of shop that my grandfather used to use.

I took a view of that fuchsia from a different angle. I swear that next year I'm going to be measuring it.

You can understand why I'm worried about it blocking the path, but the flowers are such a lifeline to the bees and I'm worried that the sparrows would get even more assertive with me.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Stomach Continues

Thank you for the kind comments. The stomach stuff is a well worn theme - there is something out there that my body really hates, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. I'll have another day of it, I think, but I should be able to get more done tomorrow.

I got some pics first thing yesterday, before it really kicked off. It didn't look entirely like autum in the canopy, but it looked quite autumnal on the ground.

Those are acorns. I should have got a little closer, but I was already feeling off. The paths had dead leaves on them, which made it more like autumn.

Bear's workload continues. Poor kid doesn't seem to know which way is up at the moment.

Hugs and good health to all. 

In Haste but Showing Off

I am in the middle of a stomach upset and sinking under the writing but I wanted to share that another of the articles I wrote on research is on the Three Furies Press site here. 

Also, you are all awesome.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Unexpected School Event

Col - I'm absolutely looking at that site! I don't bother with washing powder for stuff that isn't really too dirty, just some white vinegar for softener. It comes out just fine. My cloths are a random assorted of microfibre, cotton, knitted and unknown. I have a poly cotton nightie that is so ragged that it's next step is dusters. An egg sounds like it's a win for the environment and my pocket. 

Sharon - thank you, and so far so good.

Bless - thank you, you are really kind.

I had another bad night, so was less than thrilled at getting a text from bear just after I dropped him off. He asked whether I was going to the Parents Information Evening that night. My instinctive reaction was - what Parents Information Evening? It was just before I called into Aldi, and I got so flustered trying to work out logistics that I bought yarn and forgot icecream! You see, bear had late drama tonight, which finished at roughly the time the Parents Evening started, and the buses at that time are sparse and complicated. So as soon as DH had finished work, we drove off, met with bear, gave him money for snacks, went into the meeting with all the other parents, listened to 'Death by Powerpoint', made notes, got out, picked up bear and went home. 

I didn't get too much done apart from a little writing. I managed a walk, though, and took a few pictures, including what looked like a very inadequate fuschia compared to mine.

In comparison, the most recent pic of my plant thug.

It hasn't got smaller. 

Now I am going to crawl off to bed with a view to pulling myself together tomorrow.

Hugs and good health to all. 

A Fail Day

Hazel - thank you. I think that makes sense. I hardly ever buy kitchen roll as I use cloths, and the microfibre ones that are, if I remember right, older than bear are still holding up. I could do with some bigger ones, though and at least the new ones are a better size. And I use a front loading washing machine, which is apparently a good thing. And the comments are getting harder to navigate I swear!

Bless - the bathroom is clean.

I managed to clean the bathroom and I got some washing done, but it's been something of a fail day. I called in to Marks and Spencers on the way home but their gluten free bread is more expensive than Schar (which is the good stuff) and they don't have the rice milk that bear and I use. I picked up a bag of salad for DH and it was more expensive and I'm not sure that it was nicer. I think it will be worth bobbing in if I have time spare first thing to see if there are any bargains, but perhaps not get most of my shopping there. 

I feel very fed up with myself. I'm giving myself a good talking to and then I'm going to bed for an early night. Last night was a shocking night's sleep and in one of the few snatches of sleep I got, I dreamt that I was defending Morrison's car park from zombies. My first thought when I woke up was that it was soooo not worth it.

Hugs and good health to all.