September 29th - Michaelmas

 Today is the Feast of St Michael and All Angels or Michaelmas, a Quarter Day when farm rents were due, annual employment terms ended, local courts were held and children would finally go back to school after helping with the  harvests. In some places it was called Pack Rag Day because the poorest farm labourers would be packing their few possessions to move to a new job.

 From my book Cattern Cakes and Lace by Barbara Deer and Julia Jones

In one of my books it says that Michaelmas day is the last day that blackberries should be picked. It is said that when St Michael threw Lucifer, the devil, from heaven, he fell from the skies and landed in a blackberry bush making the fruit useless. 

BUT in another book this story is given for October 10th, this difference will be due to the change of calendar when 12 days were lost. In reality it probably depends on the weather and how damp it's been to make the blackberries mouldy.

This year the blackberries here were poor due to the drought and heat of summer and have been finished for several weeks already.

There are several other posts for Michaelmas HERE

The September Food Shopping Photos...............

 ...............for food shopping photo fans and  to fill a blog post again.

First shop on the 2nd was a quick pop into Aldi for a few basics.

Mini pears were on the 'Special 6' offers at 69p; 2 peanuts £1.18; 400g extra strong cheddar £2.45; penne pasta 41p; 4 pints milk £1.65; 2 ground coffee  @ £2.59 = £5.18 (still no decaf); 2 x dried prunes  @ £2.79 =£5.58.

Total £17.14 + half a dozen eggs from a car boot sale £1.50. = £18.64

I'm not a fan of Lidl, they are the wrong side of the town and always seem in a muddle, with long check-out queues but I tried them for decaf ground coffee - they had plenty, same price as Aldi who haven't had decaf for weeks, so I got 2 = £5.18. I noticed they also had plenty of wholemeal bread flour and the wholegrain crackers that Aldi haven't had for weeks. So now I know what to do about Aldi's missing items!......Turn left at the traffic lights instead of right and go home the other way via Lidl.

£18.64 + £5.18 = £23.82

Then a big '4 supermarket shopping trip'.

I've never been to all 4 supermarkets in Stowmarket on the same day before but  decided to do just that three weeks ago, due to Lidl having nectarines on the special 6 fruit/veg offers and Tesco being the only supermarket that had the canned meat I was putting in the cupboard for the zombie apocalypse - or just bad weather! 

It took an age - won't do that again.

£37.75 spent

£18.64 + £5.18 + £37.75 = £61.57

 I forgot to take photo of a quick pop into Tesco when I was over by the coast, when I got a few things to see me through the week around getting the car tyres fixed. Spent £8.29.

£61.57 + £8.29 = £69.86

Then finally after tyres were sorted I had to go into town so went to Aldi (still lots of gaps including   de-caff coffee, tins of sardines, tins of salmon, multi grain biscuits, mini cheese bake biscuits) and Asda(to spend £5 to get £1 parking fee back) which together turned into a big spend because I didn't want to go shopping again....ever! .................well not really ever, but sometimes it feels that would be a good idea.

2 bags of pears, head of calabrese, mini cucs, tin mackerel fillets, 6 eggs, extra mature cheddar, feta, mayo, bacon bits, 4 pints milk, peanuts and cashews, cheese and onion rolls, 'hola' hoops and tortilla chip snacks, bread rolls, naan breads, tin fruit salad. 

Totaled £27.69. Making Septembers food spending £97.55.  

Although I must have missed something because in my accounts book food spending added up to just over £111. Oh well, still not too bad.

Saturday 26th

 The guys at the car repair place put new valves on two of my car tyres so I'm hopeful that will solve the problem and will stop the tyre pressure warning light coming on every few weeks.

Someone asked about the hand-held compressor that I can use for pumping up tyres at home. It' shaped like a electric drill and  has a re-chargeable battery or will also run off the car cigarette lighter thingy and  works well. For many many years we had a huge electric compressor - needed for the tractor and when miles from a garage forecourt  - but after the plug on it got bent and the gauge stopped working it went to BiL's for parts a few years back. It was also incredibly heavy and very LOUD which didn't matter at the smallholding but got the neighbours here all out at their doors wondering what was happening!

After more clearing there's not much left in the greenhouse now and I have enough chopped peppers in the freezer to last months. I'm hoping that BiL will get here soon to do the yew hedge, if not I need to make a start on the Buddleias while the garden waste bin is empty.. I'll probably need to cut the grass again too. It's amazing how quickly it's growing after the summer drought.

Other than going to a solicitors to update stuff to do with YD's house and my will, I've not been far at all this week, but hope to get to the car-boot sales this weekend. It will soon be the end of them for the year so best go while the weather is fine.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.