Deliveries, visitors and kids playing happily

The day started early with a delivery of books by FedEx for the book party that the FH did for me last week. Ordinarily, that would have meant that the books could be bagged up and delivered to the party hostess today or tomorrow, but one of the jigsaw books has a piece missing so I have had to re-order and will now have to wait for that to arrive before we can deliver. I hate to send out imperfect books so we always check, check and double-check that they are all in perfect condition, clean and tidy so that the customers are happy.

I pootled around for much of the middle of the day, made some lunch (reheated leftovers so that was really hard work!!) and then moved up a gear when my dad called to say that he was coming over. We soon had the place looking tidier and then the FGs went out on their bikes with a neighbouring boy and he is still here playing with them now! My dad visited for about an hour and a half, inspected the garden and the chickens - he always has advice to offer - and then they left as he wanted to get home before dark.

It has been lovely to have the children playing together with Playmobil and Nintendos - instead of bickering, there has been laughter which has been very welcome! The FGs are not used to being together too much now that they are not home-educated; they used to play together very well, but now that they are both in school, they are not so comfortable together and bicker, and compete for attention more. Just one of the downsides of sending them to school, I think, and kind of a sad one, as they are not as close as they used to be.

Tonight I am cooking Toad in the Hole for supper but instead of baking it in the oven, I am cooking it in the Remoska and praying it turns out right. Remoskas are Polish inventions, and sold in the UK only by Lakeland which is a fantastic chain of shops/online store/mail-order outfit, which started in kitchenware and now sell a huge variety of things. Anyway, the Remoska is kind of like a big pan with a lid, and the heat comes from an element in the lid, but it only has one temperature which is about 180C, and works OK for most things. I have cooked casseroles and bolognaise, chops and fish in it, but this is the first time for this dish! It is great for economising as it uses so much less electricity than the oven so it is cheaper to run.

Snow is forecast for tonight, so we are wrapping up warm - hope you and your families are snug tonight!

Strange smells!

I am increasingly irritated (I know that I shouldn't let it get to me!) by some TV advertising for air freshener and laundry conditioner. There is a pair of adverts currently running for new fragrances in the Lenor range - one is White Diamond and something and the other is Black Diamond and Lotus Flower, I think. Now, today, I have seen an ad for a new room fragrance called "Glistening Snow". "Glistening Snow"???????? As far as I know, gemstones and snow don't actually smell of anything........do they? I'd love to know what these manufacturers think a diamond smells like.

I don't use artificial fragrances on our clothes very often - there is an old bottle of cheap store-brand fabric conditioner in the utility room cupboard which I use occasionally in the winter when I know that the FGs' shirts are going to have to be dried indoors, but most of the time our laundry is line-dried outside, sometimes under the verandah but that is still outside - and that gives us the freshest smell: the smell of fresh air! You just cannot beat it, and all the fabric conditioners in the world will never smell that good. Similarly, we don't use air fresheners in the house, prefering to open a window and let some fresh air in to take away any stale or unpleasant smells. I throw open our bedroom windows most mornings, even if it is just for five minutes, and the freshness of the morning air does wonders to wake me up!

The FGs are at home from school this week on their half-term holiday. The EFG has been to a sports centre for the day, playing cricket, benchball and basketball. She has had a good time with some old friends and made some new ones too - she loves going there and goes each holiday for a couple of days. The YFG used to go too but she doesn't like it now, so she stayed at home with me and made cookies. We picked the EFG up at 3 and went in to town to the bank, the Post Office and a clothes shop as the YFG had no jumpers (sweaters) at all for this winter - we were very lucky and got two in her size made of the softest fleece and she is SO happy with them!

On the way home, we did some more rural shopping - we stopped at a farm and bought two bales of straw for the rabbits and hens bedding. Straw has been difficult to buy this autumn but this farm has lots so I will be going back there to buy more but I could only fit two bales into the car today. A mile or two further along, another smallholder is selling bags of carrots and parsnips, and we picked up two of carrots and one of parsnips. These are BIG bags, about 15kg or so, I would guess, and the man gets them by the trailerload from local packing houses where carrots and other veg are processed and packed. These are the ones which don't make it through the quality control and are sold off cheaply. There is nothing wrong with them: there are a lot of odd-shaped ones and a wide variety of sizes, but they all taste great! Last year I made lots of soup with them and we had beautiful roasted parsnips all winter........I am looking forward to them on Sunday with a roasted chicken already.

I wonder whether The Mom who posts comments occasionally would like to share her recipe for pumpkin loaf cake as I have lost it and now is a great time of year to make it...please?

Getting there

Yesterday I paced myself and got up enough energy to take the YFG back to gymnastics. We didn't go early to help with the set-up of the equipment as we usually do - we got there about twenty minutes before the class was due to start so we could have a chat with the other coaches! It was OK and I managed to keep going for the evening, and actually felt well enough after the class to nip into the new Tesco for some fresh fruit and veggies.

Yes, I am back on the Tesco topic! Sorry, but I have to! The new Tesco has been opened in the nearby town, and it is Huge. It is also now open 24 hours, six days a week. The old shop was big enough for a small market town, and there are larger stores in three directions, all about 20 minutes away, where the occasional "big shop" at Christmas might get done. This new store is almost as big as these others, and it now sells clothes, household goods, electrical stuff, has a pharmacy, and has required an extra 150 staff. The visit last night was interesting, as I can now say that I have been and had a look - but I won't be rushing back. The size of the shop and all the "fantastic" displays are designed to part us from our money, and I am resisting giving them more of ours! It will also take longer to shop there as there is too much to look at and too far to walk, to start with...

How do I plan to shop now, then? I am going to continue to have my shopping delivered by the supermarket, visit Lidl once a month, and pop into the small Sainsbury's in the town when I need to pick up fruit or veg. Shopping online means that I can easily keep to a budget, check the cupboards as I am doing the order, and alter it right up to the last hours before the delivery. I have been using Tesco, but this week I was emailed a special voucher code from Sainsbury's so I am giving them a go next week. Having the delivery saves me time and also saves me from temptation in the shops!

Tonight, the YFG is having her first sleepover at her friend's house around the corner. I am pleased that she is only a two minute walk away but I am also quite confident that she will be fine. The FH, EFG and I are sitting here watching "Strictly Come Dancing" and marvelling at the progress that some of the celebrities are making from one week to another. When I have finished this post, I am quite excited to have a couple of new books to explore - "Better Off" by Eric Brende, and "Housewife, 49: the Second World War Diaries of Nella Last". Both are books about a really different kind of life and both are books which I really hope to learn from. I'll tell you more once I have read them.

Fantastic ginger cake

This is a lovely recipe for ginger cake - and it even makes two at once, so it is time and energy efficient as well. If you have wheat intolerance as I do, you can substitute barley flour, and dairy intolerant people can sub dairy-free margerine, and it even works if you do both, as I do if I want to eat it myself! It is a very accommodating recipe.

I call it "Beth's Nanna's Ginger Cake" as it was given to me by Beth's mum when I was childminding Beth, but that was years ago, and I do not remember Beth's surname, and never knew her Nanna at all, so I cannot give any credit for it beyond that - and I have no idea where Beth's Nanna got the recipe - but all credit to her, it is a great cake. If you can bear to leave it a day or two, wrapped up in foil in a tin, it will develop a slightly sticky top. I generally make two and freeze one for another week.

So - melt together 12oz golden syrup and 8oz margerine in a saucepan and then leave to cool. In a bowl, sieve together 1lb self-raising flour, 2 tsp salt, 4 tsp ground ginger, 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 tsp ground mixed spice and 6 oz caster sugar. In a smaller bowl or a jug, beat together 2 eggs and 2 cups (I use an American cup measuring set) of milk.

Once the melted margerine mixture is cool, pour it over the dry ingredients and add the beaten egg and milk, and then mix it all very thoroughly - ideally with a hand-held electric mixer. If you do not mix it well enough, you will find little bubbles of flour in the cooked cake, so it is well worth a few minutes extra beating.

The mixture will be quite fluid at this point and not perhaps what you expect cake batter to look like - don't panic - this is OK. Grease and line two 2lb loaf tins and pour half of the mixture into each one. Set both tins onto a baking tray and slide into the oven - I use the bottom shelf and cook at 160 C for about 45 minutes to an hour. When you check it with a metal skewer or knife, the skewer/knife should come out clean if it is done. Let them cool in the tins, and then wrap one in greaseproof paper and foil to eat soon, and put the other into a large freezer bag and pop in the freezer, or give as a gift to a friend!

I am still not feeling right, so I am staying at home and resting a lot of the time. The weather today has not been encouraging at all: yesterday's sunshine was replaced by cloudy skies and strong winds. The FH has been a taxi driver all day, and isn't finished yet. He started off by taking the EFG to her school early to catch her bus for the school trip to Hampton Court Palace today (they have been studying the Tudors), then he came home, ate his breakfast and took the YFG up the road to her school. It was soon time to repeat that trip at 3 to fetch her home and he had to go back again at 4 for her parent-teacher consultation - and he still has to go back to town tonight to fetch the EFG. She will be later than she expected as she has texted to say that the bus she was on broke down and they have had to wait over an hour for a replacement vehicle. Luckily, this is her last school day before the half-term holiday so she can sleep in tomorrow morning.

Oil prices are still sliding downwards, so I got one company down to £212 today for 500 litres - that was 40.5p/litre - I think that when it gets to a flat 40p, I will order!

Beautiful day

I said yesterday how few of these clear autumnal days we have had, and lo and behold, we are enjoying one today! So I went outside with the camera and took some pictures:
These are the strawberry plants which the FH was given on Sunday by my uncle. The ground has had to be prepared to put them in but they are all safely tucked into the raised bed here this morning.

This grey and white rabbit is one of the latest to be born and had never been out of the hutch onto the grass before today so he/she (not sure which yet) was very keen!

Mum and sibling came too - you will see that the shadows look long and you would think that perhaps I had taken these photos in the evening but this is our low autumn/winter sun!

"Can't we come too?" these bunnies are asking! Well, no, you can't as we don't mix bunnies now as sometimes they fight when they are not used to being together so only hutch-mates get put out in the run at the same time - maybe these will get a turn later!

And here is a final picture of the cat who lives with us; she is not our cat, but she has chosen to live under our verandah. She was luxuriating in the sunshine this morning and just got up to pose when she saw me with the camera.

Re-organising the house for the winter

In the UK, we will be altering the clocks on Saturday and the darkness will come upon the days more quickly - it will feel more and more like winter. It feels like we have had a short autumn as the beautifully crisp, clear and sunny days that I think of as typically autumnal have been few this year. There have been a few, and I have relished them all. But the cosy days of winter are almost here, and today I have stayed home and moved things around!

I am still not feeling well, so I have not been out at all - the FH has been to a school today for me to collect some paperwork, and took his friend with him for a ride. He has also taken the YFG to school and collected her again. We have not been to gymnastics tonight as there was just no way that I had the energy for setting out the equipment, supporting gymnasts physically and then putting all the apparatus away again. I guess I have been hibernating a little, and feel that I will probably continue through this week and maybe into next week.

So, today I supervised the moving of the dining table into the living room and got that all sorted out and the room looking cosy and warm for the winter. I wanted us to have one room that we could eat in, watch tv, read, chat and play in and not have to heat the whole house! We have throws on the sofa - about 6 or 7 of them now, so there are plenty to snuggle under, and thermally lined curtains which we are now drawing as soon as it begins to get dark.

The price of home heating oil is falling here - I could have got 500l for £220 today but I didn't actually place the order as we still have some and I think that the price will drop a little more before too long. Checking prices is one of my daily chores at the moment - I am waiting to find the best time but I must be careful not to leave it so long that the price starts to rise again, so I will never get the absolute lowest price as I will always chicken out and order some as soon as I think it is low enough. Considering that earlier in the year, I paid over £300 for 500l, today's price was very good. I know that I won't leave it much longer!

Sunday surprise

Church was different yesterday morning as it had be held in the back room of the village hall since the floor of the church is having to be replaced, at major expense, due to some serious damp problems. It says in the Bible that whenever a few people meet in God's name, He is there, so it really doesn't matter where we meet. It will be good to get back to the familiar surroundings of the church when the work is done, though.

After church, we came home for a quick cup of tea and then I took the girls to town. We dropped the YFG off at the leisure centre for the pool party she had been invited to and then we hit the shops for some bargain hunting. I don't generally approve of shopping on Sundays, but when we have to go to town anyway and there is not a lot else to do in a quiet rural market town at lunchtime on a Sunday, it seemed the best thing to do! It was not going to be cost effective to come home and then return to fetch her. We picked up a few things from Lidl, which is a shop I don't often get time to hit, and then went to Tesco as it was the last day of trading for that particular store (a HUGE new one is opening next-door today) so I was hoping for some bargains/reduced items - and I got some! We then headed off to Sainsbury's as well to round off the shopping trip - and I found some lovely Christmas presents in there: a present for the FH and some stocking fillers for the girls.

The party seems to have gone well, and everyone came out of the party room in high spirits, although the mother of the party child looked rather stressed! We came home to find that we had unexpected visitors - my cousin and her husband. We don't see them very often, but it was a lovely surprise! They had arrived about an hour earlier, chatting with the FH, and stayed after we got home for some time, catching up on one another's news. My uncle (my cousin's father's brother) arrived for the evening, and so they also had a quick opportunity to exchange their news albeit briefly. My mother was the brothers' sister.

My uncle settled in the for evening, and I popped the chicken into the oven. The FH had already prepared the veggies for me during the afternoon, and I had picked up a cherry pie in my shopping as I know that it is his favourite so my work was minimal for the meal. A quick session with the ironing board and the uniforms for the girls, and my work was done. After my uncle left, the girls were in bed for an early night and the FH and I sat down to watch "A Touch of Frost" as it is a new series and we do like Jack Frost! The FH spent some time in the police as a Special constable, and he finds Jack the most realistic copper on the TV these days.

I am resting in bed this morning as I have been unwell during the night, so the FH has gone out to do a book delivery on my behalf, and I am hoping to be recovered enough to get back to work tomorrow. There is nothing major spoiling anywhere, and I need a rest! Thank goodness for the EFG's laptop so I can stay in touch with the world.