Autumn has come at last to the Fens; the days are still warm and bright for the time of the year, but the mornings are colder and the evenings are darker all of a sudden! The growth in the garden is over and all that we have left is the ripening of the last tomatoes on the vines - they will have to be harvested tomorrow. To bring the autumn feeling right into the house, we have enjoyed a delicious beef stew for supper tonight and the aroma as it cooked was wonderful!
I am still processing food for the freezers - another load of pasta sauce has gone in there tonight: I have re-used old plastic hummous tubs for individual portions, as well as the usual Vitalite tubs for more family-sized meal portions. I am reduced to squeezing these tubs in to the little gaps! We must eat from the freezers for a week to remove enough food to allow the FH to "harvest" the remaining Sasso hens: I cannot afford to keep them through the winter when they are not laying, and I think that they are as meaty as they are going to get, so as soon as there is room to freeze them, their days are up. I think that there are 8 or 9 of them left (must count them!!) so that is a good few suppers for us!
Today was Adam's birthday - he was my friend at primary school until I moved schools when I was nine. I sat next to him for a year when a "naughty" boy had to sit amongst the girls in the class as a punishment and to try to stop him mucking about with the other boys but that meant that a girl had to go and sit in the midst of the boys and that was me! Adam is just two days younger than me.....haven't seen him since I was nine, but I saw his mother a year ago and apparently he is married with two little girls (a lot littler than mine!) and works in website designs. Funny how I remember dates and people like that - some people's brains seem to hold on to useless info like that!
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Whoops!
To give my family some degree of privacy, I blog here in a quite secretive way - I don't mention our real names, nor exactly where we live - so I was surprised to get a comment today mentioning my name. Apologies to the commenter, but I won't publish it, although it will go into the hat for the giveaway - and now I am totally mystified as to how I let that slip - and where?!?!?
Monday, 28 September 2009
More lovely gifts
My gorgeous neighbour, who is all of 5, has been round with a bunch of flowers for me, whilst I was out this evening - I had to go and give him a hug when I got back! And my sister has also brought me flowers this evening, bless her. They are also lovely and now both bunches sit in vases in the fireplace, beautifying the room. The FH cooked a roast chicken whilst I took the EFG to band practice this evening, and I came back to a lovely meal - he even washed up - bliss!
Thanks for all the good wishes and comments - amazing to hear from you all!
Thanks for all the good wishes and comments - amazing to hear from you all!
Birthday give away!
How wonderful that my 300th post should fall on my birthday! So I am going to give a book away this week to mark the occasion. All commenters this week will get their name put in a hat and at the end of the week (you have until Sunday) I will draw a name out to win a copy of
The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.
So far this morning, I have opened gifts from the FH and girls: a "Best Mum in the World" mug and coaster, a manicure set, handcream, a huge bubble bath set, bath fizzers, a wet-teabag-holder, a new apron covered in beautiful cockerels from Ulster Weavers, a keyring into which I must insert a tiny photo, and some beautiful cards. I have also had a text from my lovely friend B. Thanks everyone!
Now I have to go to school for a meeting - not so much fun!
The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.
So far this morning, I have opened gifts from the FH and girls: a "Best Mum in the World" mug and coaster, a manicure set, handcream, a huge bubble bath set, bath fizzers, a wet-teabag-holder, a new apron covered in beautiful cockerels from Ulster Weavers, a keyring into which I must insert a tiny photo, and some beautiful cards. I have also had a text from my lovely friend B. Thanks everyone!
Now I have to go to school for a meeting - not so much fun!
Sunday, 27 September 2009
And another good day
Church this morning was fun, apart from one hymn which we had trouble warbling our way through because no one knew it, and it was a long one which made matters worse! My uncle came over for a BBQ - except I couldn't be bothered to fire up the actual BBQ so I cooked it all inside and we got the BBQ atmosphere from eating outside in the beautiful sunshine. We had pork steaks, chicken thighs and sausages, onion, sweetcorn, tomatoes, rice salad and garlic bread. A good while later, we had some apple and pear crumble and then we just had to sit for a while in the sunshine!
This afternoon, I had just sat down for a snooze when my dad appeared with my birthday card for tomorrow and some photos to show us. He and MB stayed for a while, and then they nipped off home and we watched some more TV. The troops had some cheese and tomato sandwiches and ginger cake at about 8pm and then I sent the girlies to bed so that I could watch Doc Martin in peace and they could get themselves ready for school. YFG has been asleep for a long time now - she should be exhausted from hours of rollerblading today. EFG is still pottering around.
This afternoon, I had just sat down for a snooze when my dad appeared with my birthday card for tomorrow and some photos to show us. He and MB stayed for a while, and then they nipped off home and we watched some more TV. The troops had some cheese and tomato sandwiches and ginger cake at about 8pm and then I sent the girlies to bed so that I could watch Doc Martin in peace and they could get themselves ready for school. YFG has been asleep for a long time now - she should be exhausted from hours of rollerblading today. EFG is still pottering around.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Peaceful day
We have had a lovely day - after getting the washing hung out and doing a spot of babysitting for the neighbour next door, the girls and I got spruced up and went to Ely for the afternoon. I gave them £10 each to choose some birthday gifts for me!!
We mooched around the shops and the market at a very leisurely pace, and I picked up some bits and pieces I had been wanting; they spent their money in a flurry of "Don't look, just stand there!" and "I'll be back in a minute!" which was amusing and touching at the same time. I do know that there is a manicure set in amongst the gifts as the cashier had to check that I was the responsible adult and paying for the scissors in the set, but apart from that, I can't wait until Monday to find out what they bought!!
After the shops, we went down by the river and walked along in the sunshine, eating ice creams and looking at all the beautiful boats moored on the side of the river. There was the odd one ploughing along the water, but the scene looked so peaceful with the weeping willows and the footpath - it was so relaxing!
Then we went to Tesco where the YFG still had £3 left and was desperate to be parted from it! I was delighted to find Philippa Gregory's new book, The White Queen, on sale for less than £10, as I had picked it up in WHSmith but put it back as it was over £18 in there. I have bought that for myself and I am looking forward to reading that very soon. I find that it is always worth buying her books in hardback as I read them time and time again and get something new from each one every time I read it! I did buy the first ones I read in paperback, but they are looking rather tatty now. We picked up pizza for tea for the gang, and headed home, via Littleport.
At Littleport, the tyre fire I reported on 21st August is STILL burning! The pyre has died down but the temperature in the middle of the piles of tyres was reported to be about 700 degrees Centigrade at the height of the fire. Local firefighters are recorded as saying that they hope to have the site completely put out by the middle to end of October! Some fire......
This evening, we have watched Merlin, which frustrates me somewhat: Guinevere (or Gwynhyfr) was a Welsh princess, not a servant girl, and Arthur becomes King in the legend when his father, Uther Pendragon, dies - there is not all this malarky with him and his father together at Camelot. The FGs pointed out that the BBC altered Robin Hood as well - Marian should not have died, for a start, but then perhaps the BBC likes changing things to make "good" television. Strictly Come Dancing was good and I always like watching the professionals twirling about the floor - shame about a couple of the contenders, though - and the one I wanted out at the end stayed in, last week too! The YFG's favourite is Anton Du Beke, the FH likes Kristina who partnered John Sargeant last year, and I think Erin Boag is a great dancer! The EFG doesn't watch.
Church in the morning and a BBQ at lunchtime, so hoping the good weather holds on for at least one more day - two would be better!
We mooched around the shops and the market at a very leisurely pace, and I picked up some bits and pieces I had been wanting; they spent their money in a flurry of "Don't look, just stand there!" and "I'll be back in a minute!" which was amusing and touching at the same time. I do know that there is a manicure set in amongst the gifts as the cashier had to check that I was the responsible adult and paying for the scissors in the set, but apart from that, I can't wait until Monday to find out what they bought!!
After the shops, we went down by the river and walked along in the sunshine, eating ice creams and looking at all the beautiful boats moored on the side of the river. There was the odd one ploughing along the water, but the scene looked so peaceful with the weeping willows and the footpath - it was so relaxing!
Then we went to Tesco where the YFG still had £3 left and was desperate to be parted from it! I was delighted to find Philippa Gregory's new book, The White Queen, on sale for less than £10, as I had picked it up in WHSmith but put it back as it was over £18 in there. I have bought that for myself and I am looking forward to reading that very soon. I find that it is always worth buying her books in hardback as I read them time and time again and get something new from each one every time I read it! I did buy the first ones I read in paperback, but they are looking rather tatty now. We picked up pizza for tea for the gang, and headed home, via Littleport.
At Littleport, the tyre fire I reported on 21st August is STILL burning! The pyre has died down but the temperature in the middle of the piles of tyres was reported to be about 700 degrees Centigrade at the height of the fire. Local firefighters are recorded as saying that they hope to have the site completely put out by the middle to end of October! Some fire......
This evening, we have watched Merlin, which frustrates me somewhat: Guinevere (or Gwynhyfr) was a Welsh princess, not a servant girl, and Arthur becomes King in the legend when his father, Uther Pendragon, dies - there is not all this malarky with him and his father together at Camelot. The FGs pointed out that the BBC altered Robin Hood as well - Marian should not have died, for a start, but then perhaps the BBC likes changing things to make "good" television. Strictly Come Dancing was good and I always like watching the professionals twirling about the floor - shame about a couple of the contenders, though - and the one I wanted out at the end stayed in, last week too! The YFG's favourite is Anton Du Beke, the FH likes Kristina who partnered John Sargeant last year, and I think Erin Boag is a great dancer! The EFG doesn't watch.
Church in the morning and a BBQ at lunchtime, so hoping the good weather holds on for at least one more day - two would be better!
Friday, 25 September 2009
Macmillan Success
The Coffee Morning today was a success - we raised £190 for Macmillan! About £110 came from the raffle, with the rest coming from the donations for the cakes and coffee and then a little from a small cake stall we had. Although we live in a small village, I was very pleased with the turnout of people - a lot of older people came along in little groups to chat over the coffee and have a morning out, and some younger mums popped in straight after dropping the children off at school. It was a very sociable and enjoyable morning - we'll do it again next September!
Flip side of that success is that all I really want to do now is to go to sleep. There is no gym tonight so at least I don't have to go there and be energetic. I'm taking advantage of the free couple of hours to get the school uniforms in the wash, and I'm going to throw some baking potatoes in the oven for tea and that will be that for the evening - I shall be putting my feet up and either reading a book or watching Strictly Come Dancing.
Flip side of that success is that all I really want to do now is to go to sleep. There is no gym tonight so at least I don't have to go there and be energetic. I'm taking advantage of the free couple of hours to get the school uniforms in the wash, and I'm going to throw some baking potatoes in the oven for tea and that will be that for the evening - I shall be putting my feet up and either reading a book or watching Strictly Come Dancing.
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