Inbetweeny

Here we are in between Christmas and new year and for some reason I'm feeling a bit bored. It shouldn't happen because I have plenty to do but I think the psychology of 'Holiday period' has taken over. I watched the film Horrible Bosses last night and killed myself laughing. It was on the same level as The Hangover and really enjoyable. I haven't gotten around to watching Hangover 2 just yet. Can anyone recommend it, or not?

I'm embarrassed to admit it but this frugal, foraging, self sufficient Woman has run out of pickled beetroot. How did that happen then? Reminder to self, make more for next year.

Well Christmas day was a mixture of stress and fun but overall a fantastic day and night, spent with family, good food, humour, Twister and plans for the year ahead.
As you know, I was in charge of the dinner and had everything planned down to the last pea, due to Mum's oven being tiny and having 3 different roasts to cook to satisfy everyone's taste buds.
I had to get in the car and drive back to my house because I forgot the Christmas pudding but other than that there was only one little hiccup. Everyone was due to arrive at 2:15 for dinner. At 1:20 I discovered that whilst I was away getting the pudding, Mum had turned the oven off, rather than down to a lower heat, so the roast spuds and veg were no where near ready.
Everything turned out alright in the end though and we had a lovely family dinner. The pudding never got eaten because I stuffed everyone with the main course hee hee.

My Sister in law is a self sufficiency convert. Woohoo. Having packed in her job in order to slow down and started teacher training, she has loads of time on her hands and has been off walking, pheasant shooting and gutting and generally embracing the self sufficient ideal. Now I have to teach her how to forage. You should have seen my brothers face when she announced that half their back garden was going to be turned into a chicken run and veg plot.

Myself and J have been planning our growing and foraging calendar for next year and started collecting materials to build a greenhouse and cold frame in our gardens. I still can't find a log burner at the right price and the biding on eBay annoys me. There is a store on there who have loads of log burners with no reserve and people keep bidding ridiculous money rather than biding their time.

I'm not getting as much time to blog these days due to the pressure of course work, but there is only one more module to do so I should be back to normal pretty soon.

Thai Thai and Thai Again

I will write about it tomorrow. It's 10:30pm, my feet ache, I'm stuffed and I'm going to bed ha ha

Okay it's tomorrow and I'm writing on the same blog as I posted yesterday because I hate to waste paper :)
Yes my feet were aching after wandering around Meadowhall last night trying my hardest to spend a £50 voucher in one of the Arcadia group stores, BHS, Miss Selfridge, Evans, Outfit, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis. I couldn't find anything that I liked. In fact the only thing that each of us bought was Brazil Nut Toffee from Thornton's.
I still have the voucher for £50 plus another one for £20 which I received as a gift from my employer today, so the sales are going to get a good going over in January  It's such a shame that the vouchers didn't work in Russell & Bromley or I would have used them towards a pair of half price court shoes at £165. Christmas present to myself. You know how it goes. Spend and then repent by doing 10 hail Mary's to the recycling Madonna from January onwards. Anyway I didn't buy them so no need for me to turn religious.

However, we did spot the new Thai Restaurant in the Oasis and decided to go for the buffet run.
£12.99 each for as much as you can eat.
We paid, we ran the buffet and we certainly ate, filling the table a total of three times with different dishes for us to try out. They were all superb.
The food was beautiful, the staff were excellent and I can highly recommend it.





Just as I was about to switch off the computer last night, my friend from Mexico popped up on facebook and we chatted for a while.
I now know what my sealed pot money is going towards, because She invited me to her wedding next August. It will be great to see her again and catch up face to face along with the rest of the girls from the four corners of the world.

At work this morning, myself and Jen popped to Asda for a bottle of wine and had a little drink at midday. I returned to Asda at half past one and got the veg for Christmas day so that's all sorted out. I just need to go and get a few last minute prezzies and some Jalapeno peppers and cream cheese so that I can make some Jalapeno Poppers for tomorrow evening's festivities, wrap the prezzies and that's me done.

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J came round so we went to Tesco to do a little bargain hunting. Whilst browsing I spotted a lovely little toy for my Grandson and dropped it into my trolley. It had been reduced from £14.97 down to £9.97.
When I got through the checkout I noticed that I had been charged £15.97 for the toy.
Hi ho Hi ho it's off to customer services we go.
The security guard informed me that customer services closed at 10:45 "Ruddy hell what time is it?" I asked
"Eleven thirty" he replied
Anyhooo I found customer services and explained the problem and asked that I be charged the price displayed or be given my money back because I had been charged £1 more than the original price of £14.97 anyway.
The lady looked at the doodah played with the till, put my card in the slot, refunded me double the difference on their pricing mistake plus my £1 and Tesco ended up paying me £6 to take the toy off their hands.
Ha Ha, Result

I also got 2 tubs of kalamaki olives for 37p

 

Busy Busy Busy

I was so busy yesterday that I didn't get the time to write my blog and I think it will be like this for the rest of the week. Yesterday I was busy pulling up the remainder of the beetroot and pickling them for sometime next year. Cutting the leaves of Spinach which are still sitting in the ground and throwing all the withered and half eaten ones into the hole in my garden.
I made some chocolates to give as Christmas stocking fillers and found a suitable box in my craft room, which I then made into two separate ones.
The white chocolates are pure sugar rush. I know they are because I tried one or two. Or three. Maybe more, I can't remember to be perfectly honest but there are still enough left over to give as presents so all is well. White chocolate, candied peel, marzipan centres, brandy and icing sugar.
In between making the chocolates, I did a couple of hours of studying because I have only done lesson one so far and all 6 lessons have to be in by 29th December. I'll make it.

Had chicken for Sunday dinner and I used the carcass to make a stock base for Christmas dinner. The remainder of the meat was turned into dog food, chicken and mushroom pies, sandwiches for tomorrow lunch, cold meat to go with the fry up for tonight's evening meal and the rest is reserved for a curry later in the week. The legs I removed before cooking and popped in the freezer.

I was brought up on Christmas starting 6 days before and 6 days after. What relevance it has to anything I don't know and don't particularly care, but Christmas in my house has officially started.
I escaped from work just after lunchtime to take Mum down to the butchers to reserve our meat supplies for Christmas dinner, prior to nipping over the community centre to join in with the Women's group.
Later in the week, I haven't decided which day yet, I will escape from work again so that I can wander around town for a few hours, do my Christmas present shopping, listen to the brass bands playing carols and soak up the seasonal atmosphere.
I need to keep a close eye on the reduced sections this week and see if I can pick up some Salmon and Asparagus spears for the starter. Might be a difficult task that one, but as usual I remain forever optimistic.

It sounds like we will be decorating the office tomorrow. Nope, not with festive bunting, but with left over paint. When i arrived in work on Friday, having not been in on Thursday I was told that they had painted it. I made comment that I couldn't tell the difference so we are doing it again. hee hee.

Well, Strictly has finished for another year, so nothing to watch on TV on a Saturday any more. My favourite two dances of the series were Holly Valance doing the Charleston, which wasn't her best one but I enjoyed it

and Chelsee Healey on Saturday doing the rumba

Everything Happens For A Reason

Everything Happens For A Reason

I am a great believer in that quote and events of today support my belief. I wasn't going to accept this new job that I have but in the end I did. The building that we occupy was previously used as a shop selling fireworks. Prior to that it was a cafe.

Today in a period of inactivity I had a nosey around the place and found a cellar. In the far corner of the cellar was a pile of rubbish and underneath it all was this old pop bottle crate. To most people its just an old crate, in fact my colleague looked at me gone out when I ran up the cellar steps screaming "LOOK WHAT I FOUND" To me, this is a thing of beauty and when dusted off will be even more beautiful. I have been looking for old crates for the past few weeks and now i have my first one.

Further foraging in the cupboards revealed bags and bags of styrofoam cups, dishes and trays, which had been earmarked for the wheelie bin. They are now in my shed waiting to be recycled into other things. I also found 4 picture frames, off cuts of wood which I can use for my indoor 'Window Ledge Greenhouse' and an assortment of cleaning solutions, so regardless of what decisions I make in the future about this job, I come out ahead.

I also got round to making some more hand scrub this morning before I went to work. I don't think that many things could be quite as simple.For the container I used old jam jars, the little ones that you can get from the supermarket for 19p.
Amazingly the mixture is absolutely perfect for this size of jar.

1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tbsp olive Oil
1 drop of your favourite essential oil (I used Neroli)
Grate a little bit of Lime or Lemon peel into the mix, give it a good stir and spoon it into the jar. When you come to use it, just wash your hands with it as if it were soap and when you rinse it off under the tap, use the lemon or lime to rub over your hands to help cut through the oil. This size jar will give you 3 or 4 uses.
Last time I made it, I put Lime juice into the mix to try and get a nice colour, but when I used it, the mixture had split slightly and it kinda just washed straight off before the oil had chance to soak into my skin. This time I didn't add any juice at all and it was a bit too oily, so I will need to play with the mixture a little bit until I get it right. I will let you know how I get on with that.

Comments on my last post -

Anne- ha ha glad you enjoyed the read

Rainbowchild - I am reliably informed that doing a client my way is not as profitable

New Week - New Ideas

I stayed in the office for most of the day and didn't leave until 3pm in order to do a client. Tomorrow I shall be in there ALL day without escape due to one member of staff being away. It's not as bad as it sounds though because with just the two of there and not much passing trade we have planned to manufacture a batch of hand scrub and some moisturiser, so we should be able to pass the time.
I also designed some promotional literature today and am waiting for it to be printed so I can spend an hour or two tomorrow chatting with my colleague to see what else we can come up with to increase business in our favour. It would appear that I am not alone in my reservations about the quality of this employment.
Tomorrow will also be a little bit of a first for me because I have decided to catch the bus into work. I think I mentioned previously that the last time I got on a bus it cost me 2 pence for the journey. Luckily I have a free months travel pass. Well actually I have 3 of them so it seems a shame to waste them and as my fuel tank is nearly empty in the car, I can use the money that I would have spent on fuel and split it 50/50 between my sealed pot and Christmas goodies.

Reading back over that last paragraph I ought to mention that the term, 'Do a client' refers to on line tutoring as opposed to a quickie in travel lodge. Just thought I would clear that one up before we go any further.

I actually managed to get into a charity shop at lunchtime and nearly came out with a lovely Chinese tea pot, but left it on the shelf. There were also two gorgeous silk dresses but as is usually the case with Chinese silk dresses, they don't come in sizes above 8. Now if only they had been the same pattern, maybe I could have got them onto the sewing machine and done something funky with them. Or completely ruined them. We shall never know.

A couple of things caught my eye on TV this evening.
The return of It's a Knockout.
Jimmy's Grow Your Own Christmas.......and the ridiculous complaints (in my humble opinion) over the birth of a polar bear in a Dutch animal sanctuary which was supposedly filmed in the arctic.
I don't see as it matters where it was filmed, it was still in context with the program and showed a baby polar bear being born. Awwwwww, sweet.
Maybe the complainants would like to apply for film crew on the next shoot and they can be the one to go inside with Mummy bear to adjust the camera angle whilst she is giving birth. I suspect not.
To my knowledge, polar bears do not have the calming effects of gas and air during child birth and even if they did, we all know that even that chemical concoction is insufficient when it comes to keeping us calm as we get the little bugger out. An intrusion by some wally who wants to disturb her last ditch effort in the name of cinematic truth, is only going to get his head chewed off at the neck to give baby bear something to nibble on whilst Mummy sleeps it off.
Tomorrow they will be complaining that the veg grown on Jimmy's farm was harvested before the 12 days of Christmas and so does not accurately portray a Christmas lunch.

Dan - Don't be fooled or misled by my apparent skills on a sewing machine. Here's the door curtain that I threw together. It's purely functional, rather than beautifully stitched and lined. But it works a treat when it comes to keeping the draughts at bay. No hat, scarf and gloves required.

SFT - I still haven't ruled out going back for the piggy bank, I love it.

New Job

Why it took so long I just don't know, but my fear of losing control of my life were totally unfounded. I don't lose control of anything do I? I either choose to hand over control to someone else or I keep it.
Well, I have kept it. I accepted the job and made a decision over how to fit it in with my lifestyle rather than vice versa.
At present, I am working full time but in the new year I will be going part time or packing the job in. At the moment I haven't decided and the outcome depends to some extent on the response I get from my employer with regard to their methods. Anyway, enough of that.

Today I have been making door curtains to keep out the draught and another draught excluder for the dining room door.I can't believe just how much warmer it is in the house with the door curtain fitted. I have had to turn the thermostat down to make it comfy.
The open fire idea has been shoved to one side permanently after i remembered how much heat is lost through the chimney. I will bide my time until I find a log burner.

Hiding in the bushes along the side of the field is a pallet which I keep meaning to pick up and bring home. Yesterday I finally decided to drag it out of the bushes and drag it up the track into my garden, but when I lifted it I discovered that the kids around here are crafty. The pallet was obviously part of their den because they had it secured to a tree with a padlock and chain hee hee. I left it where it was, bless them.

When I was in Matalan last week I spotted this piggy bank and instantly thought "Yes! The perfect sealed pot" The problem was the price. It would have taken me a month to recover the purchase price before the coppers started to count.

You wouldn't think that Rhubarb was too hard to find would you? but I can't find anyone who has rhubarb growing in their garden so that I can get a root from them for my own garden.

My dogs have gone traitor on me. I came home on Friday lunchtime to do some work from home and whilst I was sat at the computer, the dogs both got up and headed for the back door. The key turned in the lock and my friend walked in dressed in her woollies and wellies, ready to take the dogs out for their lunchtime walk as she has been doing every day since I started this job.
The dogs were jumping up and down and as soon as the leads were on, they were out of the house without even a glance backwards at me to see if I was going too. It reminded me of a recent episode of wife swap that I saw on TV where one of the wives told the husband, "It was horrible when my kids called the nanny Mummy"
"Waaaaaahhhhhhhh"

Last night I opened a bottle of wine with the intention of having a single glass whilst I was laying in the bath with the candles burning and soothing music playing softly in the background. I finished the whole bottle and started to regret it at 11pm. I either need to drink more often or leave it well alone.
I haven't been in a charity shop for nearly a month now. I really must make the time or I will no doubt be missing all the bargains. Maybe I will visit tomorrow as I am out and about with work.

Hope you all had a great weekend and have a good week ahead.

Sunday Afternoon in Song Titles

I have had to move to plan B as far as my desire for a log burner are concerned. Now I'm looking at having my chimney swept, repaired as necessary and an open fire put back in.
At the moment I just have this electric fire which I never use.
Just think, I will be able to do proper toast again and dry my washing to get that 'freshly smoked' smell that was always around when I was growing up. I will have to start reading the Beano again on a Sunday morning whilst lying with my head under the clothes horse, trying to achieve that rosy glow on my cheeks, dodge spitting coals and waiting for Mum to shout through from the kitchen that dinner is ready. Does anyone else remember the scene I just painted for you? Ahhh the good old days.

My Sunday Afternoon in Song Titles
The Happy Wanderer
Singing In The Rain
Looking Out My Back Door
Dog Eat Dog
Splish Splash I Was Taking A Bath

Some folks keep their eye on the stock market, I keep my eye on the supermarket. Having just been up for a bottle of milk, I had a look around the shelves and picked up 6 peppers for 29p. Buffalo Mozzarella has a use by date of the 6th and goats cheese, the 10th, so I will be visiting the reduced shelf and planning cheese dishes for those days.

There are no more River Cottage episodes to watch this evening, other than the Christmas one which I have seen recently anyway, so I looked for a film to download and found Jeremiah Johnson. It's been a fair few years since I saw that one so Sunday evening with Robert Redford is on the cards. Maybe I will turn the heating up because if I remember correctly there is a lot of snow in that film.

Ohhhh..... Heck!!

Today I am sat here wondering what I have done.

A week ago I was messing around on Linkedin and came across a part time job teaching people how to use the internet and general computer stuff.
I applied.
I figured it would be a little bit of extra cash and also give me a bit more volunteer work to do in order to help out and be involved with a different part of the community.

During the interview I was asked if I would consider full time. IE. 37 hours per week. Well I looked at the ceiling and thought about it and then said, "Yes. Why not?"

But now I am worried that I have just ruined my life. I feel that if I take the full time post, I will have lost all control of my life and be returning to the old styley Christine, working all hours that god sends in order to get the job done due to the fact that I won't leave something half done, coming up with new ideas to make things more interesting for the customers and increase profits for the business, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I don't want that any more. I escaped that. I am happy foraging, recycling, crafting, baking, going for long walks with the dogs, trying to get a community website built up to improve the area and all the rest of the stuff that makes my life fun, relaxing and pleasant. The long hours and hard work that it takes to maintain this pleasant life are rewarding rather than binding.

I will be back in the situation where money controls my life rather than money being a bonus.
I won't be able to do the volunteer work that I have recently started with the community group because I won't have time.
Someone else will be walking my dogs.
I won't see any of the wonders of the day because I will be stuck inside.

This, my dear friends, is fate kicking me in teeth for not acting upon the crazy thought that I had midweek, when I saw a little cottage in a few acres of land for rent on the isle of Uist.


Addendum

Positive proof that I am worried and stressed out. I can make an upside down cake with my eyes shut. I can make an upside down cake whilst writing a thesis on rocket science. Just look at the state of this flaming thing!!!
It's half an inch thick and I have a bowl of what can only be described as caramelised shortbread. AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH

Thursday

You never know what's going to come your way and you should always follow up on those little subconscious ideas. On the way back from town this morning I suddenly decided to detour past my daughters house and pop in for coffee.
Whilst I was there, my son in law walked in with a carrier bag, dropped it on the kitchen side and said

"There you go, you are always telling us not to throw things away until we have checked with you"

In the bag was this lot. 2 Packs of Puff Pastry, 1 pack of Dessert Pastry, 1 Penne Pasta bake and a bag of Hash Browns.

Then I spied a tin on top of their kitchen cupboards and thought "Hmmm that would be perfect for the sealed pot challenge.

A few minutes later my daughter started brushing her teeth at the kitchen sink and explained that they had ripped out the bathroom sink this morning. I logged into Freecycle for a quick look and guess what was on offer? A brand new basin and pedestal.

Not bad for a quick visit eh?

Oh and my new book arrived the other day. River Cottage Preserves. Time to get busy in the kitchen again I think.

Did anyone watch Kirstie last night. The part where she was on the stall with the lady who made the hand scrub?

That is so simple and I shall be making a few of those for Christmas presents if I can find some suitable jars.

I have been spending a lot of time on the energyshare website lately, trying to figure out how someone like me has a cat in hell's chance of understanding anaerobic digestion systems and even less chance of getting support and understanding from my local community in working together to find the land, the permission and the technical know how to actually get one up and running for the village.

I also discovered by accident this afternoon about something called Community Right to Reclaim Land, which was spooky because when I walked the dogs yesterday I looked at a huge bit of waste land that I pass daily and thought that it would be good if I knew who to contact in order to turn that land into allotments.

It turns out that the land is public sector asset. Guess who will be digging around in the local council next week?

I had to post this. Girl falls off bike, listen to her reaction

The Eyes Have It

It dawned on me that I didn't post the 'After 1 week' photo on my last blog, so here's the sloe gin after 1 week of shaking.
I have so far resisted the temptation to open it and have a finger dip and continue to shake on a daily basis.
Today I managed to get hold of 9 bottle corks for my wine making foray and have also liberated a plastic bucket for the times that I go into mass production of various types of fruits.
Mum and me still haven't got round to making the Christmas cake but there's still plenty of time to make sure that it's a rum laden, cockle warming bit of festive desert.

It's been a bit windy around here lately as you can see from the photo, most of my garden furniture ended up in the 'hole'. Maybe it was fate that made me lazy enough not to start wheeling muck from the bottom of the track into my garden. If I had filled the hole all my garden furniture would probably have achieved lift off and ended up down the road somewhere.




Yesterday when I went to look for a last batch of crab apples, they were all gone. However, on the way home I spotted an apple tree on the bypass with fruit remaining at the top of the tree where people couldn't reach and they were huge. So I tied the dogs to a fence in the field, picked my way through the brambles, climbed up onto the crash barrier, grabbed the highest branch I could reach and started shaking for England. Down they came.There are still a couple of dozen left up there but I need to go back with a home made crook so that I reach up to the top of the tree for another little shake. I shall return.

Back at home I made some more candied peel which I split between myself and J. Now we both have plenty to munch on or add to cakes and buns.
The flesh went into the pan and once turned into mush I strained it overnight and made two bottles of rather sharp breakfast juice. Hee hee, it doesn't half wake you up.



The sign language course that I was supposed to start on Monday was cancelled so I spent the day in the office as a volunteer. The course now starts tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that. I have also signed up for a Food Hygiene Certificate course so that I can sell on my stall (when and if I ever get around to opening it)
Also, it looks as though I might be able to cross one of the things off my Bucket List because there is also a sewing course which incorporates dress making, patterns and such like.
Oh, you remember the craft fair that I was going to, but didn't actually attend because it looked way too small.? Well it wasn't. My new employer had a stall there selling her Aloe products and she told me that there were another 2 huge marquis around the back.
Bugger!!!

Went to pick up my contact lenses this morning and be shown how to put them in, take them out, put them in, take them out, put them in, take them out.
All well and good and easy enough to do. The only thing that bothered me was that I couldn't see anything because my eyes were watering so much. The first couple of times I tried putting them in and out were really easy. The 3rd attempt was less so. Each time I pulled my finger away, the contact lens was stuck to my finger ha ha. When I finally let go of it, my eye was dry and itchy. I appreciate that you have to get used to them but even the big signs in the shop were blurred, so the optician is ordering some new ones for me to collect next week. Until then, I will keep practicing shoving my finger into my eye and then trying to squeeze my eyeball in order to remove the lenses. Don't be at all surprised if my next few blog posts look like they have been written by a 4 year old who's first language is not English and doesn't know that spell checkers exist.

I was sat outside chatting with my neighbours and they asked me to try and find season 1 of A Cook On The Wild Side. You know the one, the Gastro wagon thing, pre river cottage. Anyway, I found it, downloaded it and started watching it myself. By heck, Hugh doesn't half look young.
If anyone is interested the Gastro Wagon episodes and the Bain Marie episodes are still available to watch on 4 on demand and also on YouTube as are the other River Cottage series.

And finally, I still haven't managed to find something to use for the sealed pot challenge starting on Saturday.

New Activities

On Monday of this week I was introduced to a lady who runs a community organisation and I offered myself up as a volunteer. Within half an hour I was helping out with a group at one of the local community centres and had a wonderful afternoon. Today I went down to her office for a chat about what I will be doing to help out and was very kindly invited to take part on a Sign language course and a first aid course. That will be quite good because my First Aid certificate expired around 5 years ago. Now I just have to wait for the enhanced CRB check and then I will be able to help out with their work in schools. I'm really looking forward to it.

The dark evenings are depressing me a bit, I have to admit. They don't make dog walking any easier either. I have tried the flashing collars which just work their way underneath the dogs fur and render them useless and the only time I catch a glimpse of the dogs is when a bit of light happens to fall on their white bits, but if they go for a dive into the dyke, well, there aren't any white bits left. I have to rely on my keen sense of smell to find them and then refuse them entry to the house until they have been fumigated with the hose pipe (which they hate) and the home made dog shampoo (which they lick of themselves because it has garlic and aloe vera in it)
I'm not quite sure which smells worse. The black mud from the dyke or my shampoo.

Surveys are appearing thick and fast in my inbox lately. I should have another voucher in time for Christmas at this rate. I made a new batch of sloe gin ready for next year. Yes, I really am going to leave it for a whole year. Before and after shots. i.e. before I gave it a shake and after a week of shaking.

There was a craft fair up in the next village today, so I went along to have a look. As I drove past on the road I noticed that there were no outside stalls and that the marquis was the size of a cig packet, so I turned around and came home. Yes, I may have missed some real bargains but I decided to take the dogs for a long long walk instead. I may go back tomorrow and have a look because Santa is arriving by helicopter at midday. Not that I'm bothered about seeing Santa in November, but his guest appearance may bring out a few more stalls and wotnot.
I filled my back pack with carrier bags to hold whatever I managed to forage, a flask of coffee for myself, a few dog treats, a bottle of water and a bowl, donned my hat scarf and gloves and off we went.

I love this part of the wood, looking down into the hollow at the bottom, all expectant at what I shall find, or not. I always try to keep away from the paths so that the dogs can go wild and enjoy themselves without worrying about a horse and rider or other dogs coming in the opposite direction.
Besides which, all the best finds are in the untouched bits of the wood.



Although, occasionally I come across things that are not strictly born of nature
Two saucepans and an empty can of lager. I wonder if someone was trying to make an alcoholic tempura batter maybe? I suspect not. Anyway, I chucked them in my bag and disposed of them when I got home.

This, on the other hand is completely natural. I took the photos to try and identify it from my mushroom books but I have failed in that quest. It was huge. 10" across and tough as old boots. I'm sure it was welded to the tree.
I didn't notice it at first. I chose the fallen tree to sit on and have a coffee
and only saw it when I dropped my cup onto the floor at the other side of the branch.
The dogs had a drink of water and the little one went to sleep whilst the other nutter got busy with a bit of wood.


On the way back out of the wood something blue caught my eye and when I walked over to investigate I found this crate, undamaged. It's now in my garden waiting to be washed and put to use...for something.

Foraging Is Not Just For The Hedgerows

Yesterday was the fine day that I have been waiting for and I managed to get all my sofa and armchair cushion covers washed and dried. I finished wrestling them back on to the cushions this afternoon.
I had my usual slow start Sunday, in so much as I didn't get out of my dressing gown until 1:15pm but once I got started I achieved quite a lot. I wouldn't have been quite so late in moving if I hadn't stayed up until gone 2am watching TV.
I watched a film called The Station Agent about a guy who inherited an old railway station office and moved in there. All he wanted was to be left alone but everyone kept trying to befriend him. Eventually he relented and they became firm friends. It was one of those slow films but still had me engrossed.
When it finished I was halfway through a coffee, so I flicked through the channels and started watching a programme about the wildlife in Yellowstone park, which was a bad choice because I couldn't drag myself away until I found out if all the animals managed to survive the winter.

Foraging is not just for the hedgerows
Here are three links to free ebooks if you fancy having a little foray into foraging whilst you are on your daily walk or even a saunter down to the shops.
The guides are in PDF format with the option to print out and keep as a colour pocket guide. There is also a recipe link on their website to give you some ideas of what to do with the food that you collect.

Urban Foraging Guide

Riverside Foraging Guide

The Cornwall Foraging Guide

Shaggy Parasol Mushrooms which I found in the woods

Checkout Challenge
Most of you thrifty Ladies and Gentlemen probably have this off to a fine art but I thought it worth a mention. I am referring to the sport of  'Tesco points foraging'
When you go to Tesco to do your shopping, don't automatically head for the nearest till to the exit. Go to the one furthest away. Once you have your shopping bagged up and walk to the exit, check every till on the way to the exit and look for receipts. There are Club Card points to be had by the bucket load, especially at the self service tills. Pick them up, sort through the ones with unclaimed points and next time you visit get them put onto your Club Card. I find the best times to do this are lunchtime and between 5 and 7pm. It's probably because folks just nip in quickly and all they can think about is getting back to work or home for the evening.
Try it for a month and see how many extra points you manage to collect. I would love to see how everyone gets on.
I got 32 points this afternoon.

Back on My Feet

What a horrible couple of days.
I went to bad with backache the night before last and since waking up on Thursday morning have been hardly able to move. Luckily it seems to have gone and I can move around again.
As I was feeling better I decided to sort out a few things with British gas, the tax man and motor insurance. The tax man was very nice and is sending me some money. British Gas was very nice and are giving me a further discount. The insurance company was not very nice and I am about to get into a battle with them. I will not sit idly by and stand for their diatribe in an attempt to rip me off.
Okay that's off my chest :D

I was unable to go sealed pot hunting so am still without, but I have plenty of time before the start date of 4th December.
Things I have discovered in the past two days....

• Daytime TV is terrible
• The dogs are not happy and are a constant pest when you can't take them for a walk
• My sofa is not as comfy as I thought it was
• My ironing needs doing. In future I will hide it somewhere that I can't see it.
• Lying on the sofa during the day allows me to see dust building up on surfaces at eye level. Couple that fact with looking at the ironing pile and a bad back is the least of my worries
• Trying to dust and do ironing when you have a bad back is not a good idea and only worsens the problem, causing you to lie down and look at the ironing pile and dust once again
• Being badly is good for frugality but soup becomes boring

Anyway, now that I back amongst able bodied society I went to the Coop and got a jar of Kahari cook in sauce for 39p. I don't have any lamb so its chicken kahari for tea tonight. After a few days of soup, it will be like a feast.

Food spend for the week, erm, 39p

Just A quick one

Not much of interest happening over here today so I have posted on Tips & Tricks instead with a few of my herbal remedies and Baking Soda tips.I hope you find them useful.
Tomorrow I will be heading into town so it's a perfect chance to, did I say chance, I meant excuse, to go around the charity shops, because I need to find a suitable 'thing' to use for Sft's Sealed Pot Challenge

I was pondering over my Bucket List this morning and thought that the objective of listing things that I want to do before I expire is a bit silly. I want to do them all next year. So I added a few more based on my currents needs and hopes and will tick off as many as possible before the end of next year.
Whilst I am still debating which wellies to buy for myself I came across this one which I was going to fetch home and plant something in it, but dare'nt pick it up because there were things crawling all around it.

Joke for the day:

Why do frugal Women insist that their menfolk be circumcised?

Because we won't touch anything that's not at least 20% off

All Quiet On The Barnsley Front

Had one of those days where you seem to get nothing done until you look back. The best part of today has been spent working on line and talking on the phone.
I sold another two items on Amazon and the total was a 300% increase on yesterdays sales. See, I told you I would be a millionaire this time next year. With that type of exponential growth I will be looking to buy a farm rather than rent an allotment, although I am becoming less hopeful that the allotment will come my way. It has been a couple of weeks now and I haven't even had so much as acknowledgement that my application was received.

Even when the day is not very interesting, there can be something that brightens it up. This is one of the most sought after mushrooms in the UK and is positive gold dust to a forager. Unfortunately I wasn't the one who found it, it was given to me by my friend next door. Not that I really care because I have it now and I am going to chop it up, freeze it and save it for one of those special occasions where you crave a dream on your taste buds.

Locally, I have everything I need on my doorstep, free food, village stores, country walks, entertainment, friends, family, everything. Apart from sea food that is. My favourite all time food is a minimum of 80 miles away. I have to find a realistic way of getting to the coast on a regular basis throughout the year and stock up on various wild food stuff. Sea Buckthorn is another one of the things that I would really like to try, along with sea weeds. I don't scuba dive any longer so an underwater forage is pretty much out of the question these days.

Lying in my garden is a Kayak. Next door in Jules garden is another one. We got them in the summer of this year so that we could explore the rivers to see what was available. I can't make my mind up whether to sell them or not. We didn't really use them much and didn't find anything worth the effort each time we went paddling and now I just see them as something else that is taking up space.

October was a great month for me. I had a lot of time to myself, I was cooking, crafting, walking, exploring, building, shopping and generally relaxing every day, but lately I can't seem to find the time to do any of the above. But when I think about it I have done quite a bit. The past few weeks have been about planning and preparation for next year. I have found another 180 square feet of growing room for my veg in various family members gardens, which should be really good because I may be able to get them to see the benefits and pleasure of growing your own. If that were to happen we could have a little family Co-op thing going on.

My plans to create a regular web based income source also seem to be going according to plan at the moment. If I can get that working in conjunction with eBay, eBid and amazon, it should provide a steady trickle of income throughout the year. Usually, I don't plan too far ahead, I like my life in disarray and love to take it as it comes. But the deeper I dig myself into the frugal lifestyle and the more I enjoy it, the deeper I want to go and that takes a bit more planning than usual.
Now here's a thing. I usually buy milk at £1.65. If I am going past the garage in the next village, I get it for £1.30. Today, the blinkers fell away from my eyes and I realised that I can buy it from Asda for £1. How have I missed that for so long

Uncle Ben versus Auntie Christine

UNCLE BEN	AUNTIE CHRISTINE	RESULT
Boil in the bag rice from supermarket £1.68	Boil in the pan rice from storage jar £0.05	I win on cost
Fill pan with water	Put 1 cup of water in pan	I win, less water used
Bring to boil and boil for 10 minutes	Bring to boil and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes	I win, Less energy used
Tip water down sink	No water to tip down sink	I win, less waste
3rd degree burn opening bag	Spoon rice straight onto plate	I win, no medical attention required and less time used

Medicine. It's that time of year when I check my medicine cabinet and see what herbal remedies and potions I have in stock, what needs throwing out and what natural resources I need to find, in order to get my pans a boiling and restock.


Did you get it Mum? 

Monday

Today's post is a little bit of all sorts as I wind my way through Monday, by way of the written word and high quality photographs for the entertainment of my followers and anyone else who happens to trip over their feet and land at my door step.

Welcome to Anne over at Azza's Blather and thank you for deeming me worthy of your attention. I now have 7 followers. I'm jealous of your cottage by the way but if that photo on your blog header is not really your cottage, don't tell me. Let me stew and live in blissful ignorance.

I think about it and it happens - but not always the way I expect or want it to. Last night I was measuring 200 fluid ounces of milk and thought to myself
"I really must buy a measuring jug in fluid ounces rather than having to convert all the time"
Later on, I was drying one of my Pyrex jugs, dropped it on the floor and smashed it. Now if that isn't fate decluttering, I don't know what is. It's like I'm not allowed to have another measuring jug unless I really need one.
I also broke my pedal bin. It's now a 'Lift the lid by hand bin'. Not quite sure how that event fits in with 'think it and it happens' though because I didn't want a new pedal bin, I was quite happy with the one I have. WAS, being the operative word.
I now have a plastic jug showing millilitre's for 30p

Woohoo I made my first two sales on Amazon and netted a grand total after deductions, of........ £1.18p
This time next year Rodders.
I celebrated this success by visiting the charity shops after collecting my new specs and picked up a couple of nice items. I found another little trinket bowl and 4 little casserole dishes which I am going to use as salt and pepper bins.

Town was great today. I helped a lady out by completing a survey and was given a free pen and there were four guys stood in the precinct playing music. They were quite good actually so I grabbed a coffee and sat and watched them for an hour as they played some lovely music ranging from "I did it my way" right through to Salsa tunes. When I started to get a bit cool, I dropped £5 into their collection bin and thanked them for entertaining me and letting me video them. Yeah I know "FIVE POUNDS WOMAN. Are you mad?"

Amazon profit £1.18
Charity shopping £3.25
Entertainment Fee £5.00
Deficit £7.07 (Frugal Fail)

I haven't quite got the hang of this frugal lifestyle have I? Lets just put it down to a very happy mood and me feeling benevolent. Anyway without further ado please welcome to the stage, The Cheapside Quartet. There were 4 of them honest, I just didn't get them all in shot.

When I went to Maplins to get a new bulb for my torch the guy had to check to see if they actually sold that type of bulb. Whilst he was looking through his book, I popped my shopping bag on the counter and instantly I was threatened with being shot for entering an exclusion zone by a two foot tall robot with flashing eyes and a rather menacing attitude.

Mops - the floor mop that I have is one of those bog standard tiny things, that scrapes the floor where the mop head joins the handle and sheds its string each time that I use it and the flipping thing is destroying my will to live. I want one of those industrial size mops that cleans half the room on each sweep of the head. That's a mop.

Can I ask the folks who are following this drivel if they tick the box for follow up comments on posts, or check back to see if I answered? I noticed that a lot of people answer comments within their next posts and if that's the preferred method, I will start doing it so that no one thinks that I'm ignoring them.

After my sparkling success as an Amazon seller I decided I should go the whole hog and become a shop owner at eBid as well, so I was up until the wee hours of the morning (again) making accounts over at eBid and then at PPPay, as that is their preferred payment method. I have more flipping online payment accounts than I do current accounts, savings accounts and ISA's added together. What's the world coming to?

And finally, I have the okay from one of my neighbours about me keeping a couple of chickens. Now I just need to have a word with the other one.

Food Spend £1 for half a dozen oranges, 4 lemons and 2 limes to make candied peel for Christmas cake and presents.