Looking Back at the July Finances

Before I forget ........Hello and welcome to new followers who've clicked that button recently, hope you enjoy reading.

The July  Financial ins, outs and frugally bits

Didn't get round to doing a boot sale so the 'ins' were just the normal County Council spouses pension, repayment of loans from family and small bits of interest.

The 'outs'....................there are no utility bills due in July but the bill arrived for the electrical work done in early June.
Otherwise food for me and the cat, direct debits for phones and charity and lots of diesel for the car........with all the oil tanker problems in the Straits of Hormuz (pushed out of the news by BoJo) I'm keeping my car topped up with diesel all the time..........just in case!

 Other expenses..........
 I sent for an early Christmas present for Willow............sand/water pit and bag of play sand, it's an early present so it can be used for the rest of this summer. I did exactly the same for Jacob and  Florence - have to treat them all alike!
Toys for grandchildren from car boot sales, few books for me ditto.
While in Woodbridge to sort out a building society account I bought myself another pair of Joseph Siebel slip on sandals ready for when the ones I wear all the time indoors eventually fall apart. They are the only things that are comfortable without arch supports which I have to use in all my other shoes, although Crocs are OK for a short while.
First part of dental treatment had to be paid for - they don't let you out without paying.....just in case you don't go back I guess, wish I didn't have to go back!


Any Frugal things?

Home-made walnut and basil pesto but without cheese.

• Eating from the garden/greenhouse: - Last of the strawberries; raspberries, cucumbers, aubergines, potatoes, green beans, courgettes, chard, first tomatoes, parsley, basil, chives.
•  Found a tee-shirt from car boot for £1 
• Still using bread-maker to make small loaves of bread.
• Still mixing milk half and half with water.
• First tomatoes into the freezer for chutney
• Reading free library books and books from my shelves
• Mange-tout peas into the freezer
• Not going out

Still clearing out..............
Why had I got a pack of very old shoe padded inserts in the cupboard - mens size? ......into the bin they went.
3 books to charity shop and few into the cupboard ready for boot sale and two more to the Ziffit pile.
One of grandchildren's' high chairs that I had here has gone to the wood heap and rubbish bin because it had cracked.



Soooooooo........ what's August looking like?
Only the half-year water bill due so should be a frugal sort of month but  if it carries on raining every Sunday morning I still won't get to do a boot sale with the workshop stuff.
Last year August was a really low-spend month so I'm aiming for the same again or better, especially as the Tooth Thing in the first days of September will be Very Expensive.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Growing Herbs

I've been growing herbs since the mid 1980s, when I discovered that many were interesting to grow and easy to sell. In the summer of the year before I had Youngest, when the older two were at school I used to pick raspberries to be frozen for a PYO fruit farm and then went on to sell the herbs there and then after we moved to the smallholding I grew for several years to sell at the gate and at the Suffolk Smallholders Annual Show. Eventually I found all the greenhouse space was needed for starting tomatoes, cucumbers and all the other things we  grew for selling and ended up only sowing parsley and basil each year.

Way, way back I wrote a page for Suffolk Smallholders Society monthly newsletter all about which herbs I would grow if I only had room for a few. Back then we had a huge herb garden which was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time but needed too many hours spent on it to be sensible for a busy smallholders. We cleared it all when the Bay tree centre-piece got to 15 feet tall and more than 8 feet wide!

I can't find a copy of the page I wrote years ago so started again and I can't find the list of herbs we had growing - I'm sure it was more than 20 different ones - several were more like weeds than herbs - Tansy for instance.........I had to pull it out from the flower garden for years after removing the herb garden.

Anyway,  if I only had room for a few Herbs they would be............

Parsley
Slow to get going from seed, it's the one thing that I make sure to buy a new packet of seed each year. It can be sown quite early and there are all sorts of old wives tales about the best methods of getting it to germinate. I usually pour really hot water over the compost before sowing (the old way was to pee on it!) then sow quite thickly and cover with a plastic lid, then keep it in a warm place.
I prefer curly leafed rather than flat-leaf but proper chefs usually seem to use the flat-leaf sort. Parsley will often survive through the winter outside in a sheltered spot giving some new growth early before running to seed in June - that's when I pull up the old clump and start using the new plant. My favourite way to use it is in potato salad and fish-cakes.

Chives
First to reappear after winter, so bits can be snipped to add to sandwiches before there's any other sign of green stuff. Difficult to start from seed but once you have one clump you can easily divide them and re-plant. I like to have two clumps around the garden, so one lot can be left to flower for the bees and another can have all the flowers taken off so there are no thick un-edible stems. Also use this in potato salad and with scrambled egg in sandwiches.

Mint
Either grown in a pot - which it hates, or left to spread in the ground .....depends how much room you have. Another herb hard to grow from seed but once you have a pot it should last years and is ever so easy to propagate from a rooted cutting. If grown in a pot dig out some with a root on to move into a new pot each year. If grown in the ground it might take over but I just  pull out some  each year. If you cut some down when it starts to run to seed in late summer then new growth will appear for the autumn. I use this when cooking new potatoes from the garden and for mint tea. I've tried umpteen times to get Peppermint to grow for me but found it always crossed with the common spearmint so ended up all the same. (I remember a slightly tetchy discussion with a man at one of the Suffolk Smallholder's shows when I had Eau-de-Cologne mint for sale. "How can there be Eau-de-Cologne mint - it's a contradiction and impossible". Oh no it isn't!)

Basil
I love pesto stirred into pasta and tomato/basil sauces also for pasta so always grow some. It needs heat to get started and then a warm place to grow. Some people swear by a pot on the windowsill but whenever I've tried that it's got invaded by greenfly. I nip out the flowering tip when they get to about 9 inches tall to get lots of branches. There are lots of different types of basil but I reckon the big green leaved Sweet Genovese is the most useful. I've seen on youtube that it's easy to take cuttings from basil just by growing in water - must give it a go although I don't need tons.

Thyme
No matter how many times I bought a pot of this to plant in the garden at the smallholding (another herb fiddly to grow from seed) it never lasted more than a few years. Yet in many places in the country it grows in the wild and often seeded itself easily at the smallholding so that I could dig up seedlings to sell. Lemon thyme is lovely but I don't think it's as hardy as common thyme. On moving here I found a patch of common thyme growing in next to no soil right by the paving slabs at the edge of the patio and it's looking well again this year. So maybe at the smallholding the soil was just too rich. Most useful with chicken I used to put a big handful inside the chicken when roasting and more between the skin and breast. Don't use it so much now as I rarely roast a whole chicken.


I've also got a very large Rosemary in the flower garden, some Lemon Balm and Common Sage at one end of a veg bed and lots of golden Feverfew that comes up every year in the rose garden. And of course Laurus Nobilis........... the Bay Tree.

And another good reason for having herbs..........There's a class in the Produce and Flower show for 'A Vase of Herbs' which I entered last year and came second. Hope to do one better this year! And today is the day to decide what to enter as entry forms have to be taken to the village this evening.

Last years 2nd place

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Reading From My Shelves

I ran out of library books in the heat of last week so decided to read the book picked up for 50p at a recent boot sale


The Amazon description says...........Dan Boothby had been drifting for more than twenty years, without the pontoons of family, friends or a steady occupation. He was looking for but never finding the perfect place to land. Finally, unexpectedly, an opportunity presented itself. After a lifelong obsession with Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water trilogy, Boothby was given the chance to move to Maxwell's former home, a tiny island on the western seaboard of the Highlands of Scotland.
Island of Dreams is about Boothby's time living there, and about the natural and human history that surrounded him; it's about the people he meets and the stories they tell, and about his engagement with this remote landscape, including the otters that inhabit it. Interspersed with Boothby's own story is a quest to better understand the mysterious Gavin Maxwell.
Beautifully written and frequently leavened with a dry wit, Island of Dreams is a charming celebration of the particularities of place.

Seems Gavin Maxwell was a very strange bloke who always had teenage boys living with him on his island to look after the otters!

(Edited in to say..... Yes I did enjoy it!)

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The next off my shelves was one of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire Series. It's been ages since I read one..........I'm gradually collecting and reading them all............... Seven have been on my Amazon wish list for years and the prices never drop.........sadly.
 Starting in the 1930s, she re-created the English county of Barsetshire (After Trollope) and filled it with intermarried families who get through World War II and the changes that challenged their old way of life. 
County Chronicle dates from 1950,  my copy was one of a bundle bought from ebay several years ago,  it's a very old Book Club Edition. In this story it's five years after the war and rationing goes on and on, but there are still grand (though impoverished) country seats, weddings and private schools and old family retainers. People from many of the earlier books re-appear and I had to fetch my copy of "Angela Thirkells World" to remember how the characters are related.

 Some people don't like them at all, they are full of genteel, snobbish characters. Lots of upper/middle/lower class distinction and, in this one,  a dislike of Them ......... the Labour government after the war. But how can  anyone fail to enjoy an author who names one of her villages 'Winter Overcotes'!
The Angela Thirkell Society in the States have published a map showing all the places in her imaginary county...........that might be handy.

And Finally when the heat of the week turned into a wet weekend, I pulled this from my shelves to re-read before I tackle the recent follow-up 'Go set a watchman'.

 Surely the ultimate in recycling...........this has the original price of 4 shillings, then on the front in pen is 2 shillings and on the inside in pencil is 50p .......must have been from a second hand book sale somewhere. It's only been on my shelf for about 5 years when I belatedly read it for the first time.



Back Tomorrow
Sue

A Week Off The Blog

It's been quite strange not to look at the lap top  to make sure the scheduled post has posted itself but as it was such a quiet, HOT week I certainly wouldn't have had much to write about. I  spent lots of time indoors,  all windows open and curtains closed. Mainly reading, with one eye on the lovely scenery of the Tour De France............and wasn't it weird that The Tour was stopped on Friday due to snow!(not weird that it was stopped, that was only sensible but weird to see snow while the rest of Europe wilted)

The first truss of Big Mama tomatoes really are Big but as the plant grows it seems that the later trusses produce smaller tomatoes, the first to ripen were skinned and popped into the freezer on Monday......two tomatoes weighed half a pound............ the start of collecting enough to make my favourite chutney but they'll be plenty to use fresh once they get going. The teeny weeny Cascade in the baskets have a really lovely flavour, they are turning  red a few at a time too.

Before the heat got going I used the small mower to do between the veg. beds and other bits in areas that can't be got at with the ride-on. Also cut the tops off the potatoes and weeded the asparagus bed. After that it was too hot to garden.

Swimming was a joy early on Tuesday morning because it was so quiet, some schools had broken up and others hadn't but the pool summer holiday schedule hadn't started so it was a sort of in-between day.
Amazing lightning in the early hours of Wednesday morning, there was no thunder to start with which was quite odd. Then just a little rain, still hot for sleeping which made for a horrible night. I couldn't be bothered to get up early enough to head to the midweek car boot.
But did head out later to the dentist. He can do a better filling but not before first week of September, due to holidays - it's a one man set-up. So I just have to be careful for 6 weeks. No pain except that which will be inflicted on my bank balance!

Thursday morning dawned with a nice breeze, which then turned into  hairdryer heat! The kitchen is coolish in the morning so I made a few scones and put the breadmaker on before my sister came round for a coffee which was good. I tried to give her beans and she tried to give me beans! but I was able to give her aubergines and a cucumber and she gave me sweet-peas.
 More thunder storms in the evening, but with hardly any rain, I turned off the TV and watched the storm from the dark room.

Friday morning and 10 minutes of rain but also 10 degrees cooler, supposedly....... although it didn't feel like it when I picked and blanched the mange-tout peas for the freezer. Not as many as last year which is probably good as I still have a bag of last years in the freezer. 


The heat has benefited the butterflies, they are everywhere now. I counted 6 Peacocks  at once on the Buddleia and managed to get a photo just before standing still in the sun made me wilt.

Well............... that was my week..................

This week I'm grateful for.................
The freedom to stay out of the heat quietly reading a book.
Lots of books to choose from
Not having to do much cooking


Have a good weekend everyone, the forecast here for the weekend will be cooler but showery ...........perhaps no car boot sales then.....bother!
I'll be back Monday.
Sue

What am I looking for now?................

.......................................... No, I don't mean in the whole great scheme of life.................

My 'looking for' is much simpler...............just at car-boot sales in the second half of the year!!

Then was my list updated......................... posted at the end of April.

• For Willow....  young children's classic books like  Very Hungry Caterpillar (Still looking for a copy of VHC but have found others)
• For Willow...............Wooden fit-the-shapes-in puzzles✔
• For Florence.......winter clothes aged  3 - 4 .....ready for next winter (Few found but need more)
• For Jacob's birthday ? (must ask eldest what Jacob needs)✔ Sorted
• For me..............vest tops in light colours (None found yet, may buy some cheap new ones)
• Things that would make Christmas gifts (No luck yet.... except for Grandchildren)
• Printer cartridges - Epson with a cheetah picture - vain hope! ✔ Huge surprise, found 3 out of the 4 colours at the local sale on Sunday!
• A lemon balm plant  Found one growing in the garden
• Kilner or similar bottles (Not jars -have plenty of them) for flavoured vinegar gifts  ✔ ( Found 3 in a charity shop in Diss for 99p each
• I'm sure there are other things I'm looking for but didn't make a note of and can't remember now 

 Added to the list after 19th Feb........

•  A stacking toy for Willow✔ at the local boot sale and given for part of her birthday pressie

 Three weeks ago I remembered the "something else" I was looking because I got to the end of my Sudoko puzzle book and there wasn't another one indoors or in the car. I went and bought a massive one from The Works for £3 and then found one for 10p at a boot sale, so I'm OK for keeping my brain active until Christmas!
Also found another black ink cartridge for my printer - handy

Last Sunday at the local boot sale a lady had lots of girls clothes, she had them divided up into ages which was handy, so I had a look for things for Florence for next winter. I had to smile as she kept telling me the names of all the Brands "that's Next" or "that's M&S". I've never been seduced by brand names - especially with second-hand children's clothes. What I'm looking for is good condition, right size and cheap! I bought two hoodies, a long-sleeved top with leggings and a pair of jeans for £4 in total.

I popped to the mid week boot sale and found some more toys for the grandchildren and a couple of interesting looking books for me - even though I'm not supposed to be buying books! but at 50p each for hardback non-fiction it wasn't too expensive.
The big tub of zoo animals and another of dinosaurs were £2.50 each, giant teapot full of toy cups and saucers etc was just 50p. The box of Easter crackers? that's me being silly! 50p for the Easter mantelpiece. 

The books look as if they ought to have been listed for the Wainwright prize that I blogged about a few days ago but neither were. The Long, Long Life of Trees looks fascinating........... a whole chapter about each tree......nearly 300 pages in all. They are on my TBR heap and to make up for buying these, 3 have gone into the car for the next charity shop trip. Two others have gone on the Ziffit pile and another one into the bag ready for when I do another boot sale.


So as of today .................I'm still looking for...................

• Forgotten I was supposed to be looking for a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar for Willow. I found one in a gift box with a furry caterpillar toy which made a gift for new Great Nephew but forgot Willow needed a copy too.
• Need to find Christmas gifts for Penfriends.
• If I find anymore Kilner preserving bottles...not jars.... I'll buy them for 2020! 
• Anything interesting or useful??

 Thank you to everyone for comments on Saturday. I'm glad I'm not the only person totally uninterested by the space race, although it will probably be a good idea if someone does find another place for humans to live as our earth might not last forever. 

I had an exhausting 24 hours with Florence - she was awake before 5am, I may need a couple of weeks to recover! 
As there won't be much happening this week because the weather forecast is for HOT, I'm taking a few days off blogging. I'll be back when I've something to say!

Sue

Rushing Through July

The end of the week again and what have I been doing?  Not a Lot is the answer although I was forced to do one thing which I had been putting off...................sorting out the hosepipe.

When I tried to unroll the hosepipe to rinse off the car after giving it a much needed clean I discovered the whole thing was jammed up around the back of the massive heavy roll thing which is fixed to the wall. Last time I wound it up a loop of the hose must have fell down over the back and somehow got stuck. The pipe is so long I've never needed to unroll the whole thing and when I did get it un-jammed and pulled it right out I found out another reason the water pressure is so low out the end of the hose. The hosepipe was really  long..........it went on and on and on. So I did what I've mean meaning to do for 2 years ........cut the darn thing in half.

Still long enough to get where needed and now much easier to lift the thing off for winter storage.

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Surely I'm not the only person who can't remember where they were when man landed on the moon. According to all the TV coverage it's one of the great events of history and "everyone remembers where they watched it". Haven't a clue and still not bothered.

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Had to have three trips to the health centre, one to get new ID for logging into their new computer system for repeat prescriptions, then when I did get online it came up with needing a prescription review so back again to see the nurse just to say Yes I am still taking these things and Yes I do still need them. And then blow me they didn't have one of the things in stock so back AGAIN to collect. Thought I might as well combine one of those journeys with the pensioners cheap meal at the Fish and chip shop in the same village. I drove straight by the chip shop on the other two trips!

The week was going well but now I need a trip to the  blinkin' dentist sometime soon as the tooth he rebuilt with a filling last year has disintegrated again, think I swallowed part of it!  He said it would  break sooner or later - might have to have it out although how I don't know as there's not much left probably be too late for capping now........oh b****r, more expense. At least it doesn't hurt as it's a tooth with no roots.

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Apologies to everyone who had a advert jingle for chocolate stuck in their heads all day yesterday! and thanks for comments.

This week I'm grateful for................
News of another grandchild on the way
Feeling better than last week
Good library books

Hope you all have a good weekend.
I'm on Nana duty............ having Florence here for 24 hours while her Mummy and Daddy go to a friends wedding ................ wish me luck!

Back Monday
Sue

Nuts, Whole Hazel Nuts

 Perhaps THIS year there will be enough Hazel nuts so that the squirrels will leave some for me

but I doubt it!

I wrote about Hazel nuts last year HERE.

Of course there is a Flower Fairy poem and illustration now I have the book.

So this is why I get no Hazel nuts.............because the Fairy give the squirrels first dibs..........and they are obviously greedier now than they were in the 1930s!

 And  more Hazels who aren't Nuts!...............my sister in law is called Hazel and is married to a Steven and I have a cousin called Hazel also married to a Stephen - but with a different spelling.


 Back Tomorrow
Sue

So Many Aubergines

Now is when I start to wonder why I have so many Aubergine Plants producing so many Aubergines!

This could be why I grow them...........

 Full of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre and with the potential to lower cholesterol and help manage weight, aubergines are a great choice for salads, stews and beyond. .
Aubergines are rich in antioxidants, specifically nasunin  found in aubergine skin - which gives it its purple colour. A potent antioxidant and free radical scavenger, nasunin has been found to protect the lipids (fats) in brain cell membranes. Cell membranes are almost entirely composed of lipids and are responsible for protecting the cell and helping it to function. The lipid layer is crucial for letting nutrients in, wastes out and receiving instructions from messenger molecules that tell the cell what to do.

Or maybe it's just because I like them and they are very useful in vegetarian dishes.

The first two, several weeks ago now, were used to make a big batch of  my simple aubergine and tomato sauce for pasta.(Recipe on the Recipe page) and 4 tubs were put in the freezer.

Then I ran out of tubs so  I gave 3 aubergines away.

Thought I'd better look for more recipes and  I found this one for a rather large Aubergine Gratin
But I'll need to wait for more tomatoes to turn red first..........and make it a lot smaller as this serves 4 - 6.

• 3 aubergines sliced thin lengthways
  
• 2 medium red onions, very thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 500g waxy potatoes
• 5 large plum tomatoes, thinly sliced
• 4 lemon thyme sprigs, leaves picked
• zest ½ unwaxed lemon
• 175g soft goat's cheese, crumbled
• 100g good-quality black olives, pitted and chopped

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Heat 11 /2 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan and cook the aubergines in batches, browning on both sides, then lower the heat and cook until they are soft.
2. Heat another 1 tbsp of oil in the pan and add the onions. Cook over a medium heat until softening, about 10-12 mins, then add the garlic and cook for another few mins.
3. Slice the potatoes very, very finely.
4. Brush the bottom of a gratin dish with olive oil, and arrange the vegetables in layers. Start with half the potatoes, then half the aubergine, onions and tomatoes. Sprinkle the thyme, lemon zest, goat’s cheese, olives and seasoning, along with little drizzles of olive oil on the layers as you go. Add another layer of aubergine, onions and tomatoes, again adding the other ingredients as you go. Finish with the rest of the potatoes, arranging them neatly on top. Brush with olive oil and bake for 45 mins. The gratin should be soft, the potatoes tender and the top golden.

 A couple of weeks ago I tried a recipe which involved baking slices of oiled aubergine in the oven for a few minutes then layering up in a baking dish with courgette, tomato and mozzarella cheese finishing with mozzarella  over the top and baking. It was edible but apart from the sliced tomatoes looked like a grey goo! and not a lot of flavour either.

Last week when some freezer tubs were emptied I remembered a Morrisons Thai Red Curry Kit in the cupboard, bought on a whim to try a couple of months ago when I'd noticed it on offer.

I used it to make a big pan of veggie curry with aubergines, tin of tomatoes, courgette, onion, green beans and potatoes.
Very good it was too and a nice colour and flavour change from my usual curry which I make from scratch with curry powder. 1 portion to eat and 4 for the freezer, now I'm out of freezer boxes again.

What next I wonder.

(There is one other reason for growing as I'll be able to use them for one of the classes in Bacton produce show next month!)


Back Tomorrow
Sue

First Tomatoes............At Last

Weeks after the first cucumbers and aubergines I have red tomatoes at last...........it can't be lack of warmth - the greenhouse is always several degrees warmer than outside but I do have rather too many plants with too many leaves keeping out the light.

The Very Large tomato is called Big Mama, shaped like a large plum type but bigger than San Marzano which is what I usually grow for making chutneys. The small plum ones are Sun Grape - exactly the same size as the tomatoes in a pack of mini-plum from a supermarket. The teeny tomato - the size of a sultana - is from the outdoor Cascade plants that are in baskets on the garage wall.
 

 After I'd sown three different sorts of red tomato seed I decided to try a yellow fruiting variety, Ildi, thinking they would fruit earlier as it wouldn't take so long for them to ripen. Really I was too late with that plan and the plants squashed into the greenhouse got too lanky before they even produced a truss of flowers. I passed on a couple of plants to BiL - he puts tomatoes in the ground in his greenhouse which has glass right down to the ground- but his were the same.

I've now taken loads of leaves off the plants so hopefully they'll ripen better. Once they get going I'll skin the monster toms and add them to a bag in the freezer until I've got enough for Red Hot Relish. Then once the 'pointy' peppers and chilli peppers are red, that will be something else to make for the hampers........and for me.

Thank you everyone for the congrats on the Nana news, it's happy news but tinged with sadness because that new baby will be the first of the four grandchildren not able to have their photo taken with Colin. We have a couple of  Willow with him as she was born a month before he died. 

 Welcome to some new followers - hope you enjoy reading. 

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Yesterday

So.........Yesterday was St Swithin's Day, the weather here in Suffolk was overcast and chilly.......40 days like that I really don't want.........but hopefully the folklore about the 15th is just about rain.
The boiler came on for hot water after I'd had a shower, which is quite unusual because normally the two Solar Thermal water heating panels on the roof do their job without much help through the summer, shows how dull it's been over the last few days.

We don't have any churches dedicated to St Swithin in Suffolk but there are a few around the country.

Picture of St Swithin in stained glass from internet (from a church in Berkshire)

At the bottom of this weeks page in my Country Wisdom and Folklore diary it says............
In 1315, on the day after the anniversary of the moving of St Swithin's body into the church, namely the 15th July, such was the deluge of rain, that rivers overflowed their banks to an awesome degree,submerging crops and rushing through houses, drowning men women and children. No survivor coud recall such a flood, nor such a famine that followed.
(Attributed to Robert De Graystone c 1336)

That was written nearly 400 years after the actual event because it was in 971 when the body of Swithin, the Saxon Bishop of Winchester who had died in 862 but had just been canonised, was moved into the cathedral.
Other stories from this time say it was the actual day of the moving of the bones when the rain started.

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Yesterday I discovered the netball World Cup is on TV this week. Has netball ever been on TV before? I can't remember seeing it and also can't remember the rules. I had no idea why the whistle kept being blown. I know we occasionally played it at Grammar school but  what time of year and whereabouts around the school the netball courts were I haven't a clue. We played hockey in winter and tennis in summer with a bit of swimming and athletics in there too, but where netball fitted in I have no idea. Did we play rounders? or was that just at primary school? the memory fails me. I wasn't at all sporty and hated and dreaded every minute spent in the gym or out on the fields. Now if we could have played table tennis, which I did at the Baptist Church Youth club, I might have enjoyed that time a lot more.

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Yesterday evening was small WI and we had a demonstration of wholefood cookery. Using just a electric frying pan and a electric grill the lady whipped up a whole load of dishes in 45 minutes. You could tell she was a trained cookery demonstrator. She said she'd once worked for the same company, demonstrating cookers,  as Mary Berry although Mary was several years older and they were in neighbouring counties. It all looked so delicious but we weren't allowed to taste any which was a bit disappointing - Health and Safety and Council rules she said!

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Yesterday I was given some exciting news and allowed to share.............Grandchild number 4 is due after Christmas!
Son and DiL are expecting a small brother or sister for youngest granddaughter Willow.
Goodness, that means four grandchildren........... all under 4 years old ...........that'll be fun!.....or chaos!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

A Shortlisted Book

Once again I have read a book that's been shortlisted for The Wainwright Book Prize. This prize is for UK nature and travel writing and is the only Book Prize that has books that I can understand........many book prizes are for weird books! ....and I know that's a terrible generalization.

HERE is where I wrote about 2018 Wainwright prize books

And this is the one just finished from the 2019 shortlist


 Juliet Blaxland lives in a house almost on the edge of the cliffs just north of Southwold in Suffolk. In a few years or maybe even less the house will be demolished as the sandy cliffs fall away into the sea.
This small book is a look through the years she has lived here, the wildlife and the people around and the things that make Suffolk so different and special.
It was a very quick read but I enjoyed it.


Thought I would look back at the history of The Wainwright Prize to see which books I'd read from previous years.

2014 was the first year This was the shortlist and I haven't read any 

The Green Road Into Trees: A Walk Through England, by Hugh Thomson (Windmill/Random House)  

Under Another Sky, by Charlotte Higgins (Vintage PB / HB Jonathan Cape) 

Badgerlands, by Patrick Barkham ( Granta Publications) 

 Field Notes from a Hidden City, by Esther Woolfson (Granta Publications)

 Walking Home, by Simon Armitage (Faber) 

The Old Ways, by Robert Macfarlane (Penguin)

In 2015, Oh, haven't read any of these either! (although I tried H is for Hawk but didn't finish it)

Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel (Transworld Publishers)

Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet by Mark Cocker (Vintage, Penguin Random House)

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Vintage, Penguin Random House)

Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place by Philip Marsden (Granta Publications)

Running Free: A Runner’s Journey Back to Nature by Richard Askwith (Vintage/Yellow Jersey, Penguin Random House)

The Moor by William Atkins (Faber & Faber)

2016. At last - I've actually read one..........The Shepherds Life

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

Common Ground by Rob Cowen

Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane

The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury

The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy

The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks

 2017........Better ....I've read 2 out of the shortlist....The January Man and The Running Hare

 Where Poppies Blow by John Lewis Stempel

Love of Country by Madeleine Bunting

The January Man by Christopher Somerville

The Otters’ Tale by Simon Cooper

 The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stempel

The Wild Other by Clover Stroud

 Wild Kingdom by Stephen Moss

 From the 2018 list mentioned at the top of the blog I had read 3.

So I ought to read 4 from this year's short list, pictured below .....but doubt I will.

Picture from Wainwright prize website

Thank you for the get well wishes on Saturday. I went shopping early and then had a lazy day and on Sunday felt OK enough to pop out to the local boot sale and do half an hours gardening so I think the whatever-it-was is on it's way out. I felt fairly sure it wasn't anything that needed a doctor, just time and plenty of fluids. That's my answer to most things as the children would testify .....when they rang up from Uni telling me what horrible colds they had I would inevitably say "stay off the booze, drink plenty of water, take paracetamol and get an early night!"

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Cricket Heroes

Has anyone else just spent several hours channel hopping between tennis and cricket?

What an amazing finish in both but especially the cricket.

There MUST be a way to get cricket back on Terrestrial TV after this win.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Another Saturday

And another Saturday round up from the end of the lane

The first Hollyhocks from the mini cutting garden and a chance to use my Big Jug.

I'm very disappointed by these, out of the dozen plants I bought, these are the only ones to flower and they all have rust disease.
 Half an hour after taking this photo the whole lot were drooping, so I googled and found I should have conditioned them first by filling up their hollow stems with water and plugging the bottom with cotton wool. A bit too "faffy" for me for cut flowers! I'm going to move them all out of the cut flower garden in the Autumn into the quarter circle flower garden and try something else for cut flowers.  I Live and Learn!


I've had a funny ol' week. Starting Sunday morning  feeling under the weather and wading through treacle (not literally.... obviously)  and so cold on Tuesday. I got all the grass cut with ride on and small mowers and my usual weekly swim - but had to have frequent rests. Tired, aching and getting more lethargic as the week progressed but it's given me time to watch lots of tennis (and read).
I'm very excited about being able to watch the cricket world cup final on TV. Colin loved cricket and listened to TMS on radio whenever he could, he would have so enjoyed being able to see the final. I shall watch it on his behalf and "tell" him about it.

I've been really lax at commenting on other folks blogs....apologies......mainly because I try not to look at lap top screen after 7 or 8pm  and lots of people post in the evenings so I don't see them until next morning when it seems almost too late to comment especially if other people have already written what I would have said anyway!


This week I'm grateful for.............
Food in the cupboard and freezer so I didn't have to go shopping all week
Raspberries and vegetables from the garden for the same reason.


 Hope everyone has a good weekend. I really have to pop out for shopping today, still no energy but once I'm home again I can stay at home for several days.

Back Monday
Sue

Making a Start...........

.............on the Christmas Hamper Gifts.

Raspberry Vinegar is on the go.

Just home grown raspberries and red wine vinegar.

It will be left like this for a few days then strained into little bottles. Useful for salad dressing.

I'll let someone else work out how many days there are until Christmas!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

The Lane and Meadow in July

A picture-heavy post from a sunny day last week.

Green is the word that first comes to mind when standing on the road looking up the lane. Shades of green all the way up the lane.

 The bramble/blackberry flowers are late appearing in the shady part of the lane

 Here is the land on the ditch side of the lane opposite next-door-but-one, all levelled and cleared. I wonder what will appear and grow. The old pump base in the foreground.

 This is where next-door neighbour has planted all sorts of native plants on the ditch side opposite their house

 There will be Elderberries but who will get them first....me or the pigeons?

 I think this rough prickly thing below is Bristley Oxtongue. Not something to grab and pull up by hand. It's popped up en-masse where the caravan was stood until last December.

 Among the hogweed, cow-parsley, grasses and other weeds wild growth on my meadow I spotted just a few Yarrow. These were so common on the grass verges near the smallholding and noticeable too in the dry coastal area because they are very drought resistant.........staying green when everything else turns brown.
I was watching the coverage of the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show where they were talking to someone breeding the garden version of Yarrow - Achillia - so many colours in the garden version. I had one pink plant in the quarter circle flower garden but this year it has vanished - too many Aquilegia I think.

 This is the Ash down the bottom of the meadow that I thought looked very sad - almost dead - earlier in the year. Now looking much better although rather sparse in places.

Some of the new trees in Colin's Birthday wood are looking sad but there is new growth on this Pine

 Looking North from the meadow, through the poplar trees onto the neighbouring farmland.

At the end of the meadow the footpath carries on across the field - Wheat this year. The farmer has sprayed the pathway earlier in the year - not all farmers are helpful with keeping the footpaths clear across their land, even though it's something they are supposed to do. Look how dry the soil is - like concrete.

  And from the same spot, turning round and looking back onto my meadow. I like to keep the grass path short............it's easy with the ride-on mower..........so people can see exactly where the footpath is.

 I then spent half an hour trying to get a photo of the dozens of brown butterflies on the meadow..........they wouldn't cooperate,  facing the wrong way or moving just as I focused or not waiting for me to focus!

 and not opening their wings when I asked them to............




Although I got enough of a photo to work out they are Ringlets.

Photo from website of Ringlet  underwing

Later I saw a Meadow brown and managed to just about get a photo of it on the house wall, it has a torn wing.

Photo from website of Meadow Brown Underwing

I've noticed a Red Admiral and Large Whites in the garden but I couldn't get near them at all.

Thanks for comments yesterday - I'm still doing as little as possible.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Lurk...........

................that's what French Climbing Beans do each year.

Every year I  find there are beans, lurking among the leaves, even thought the plants have hardly got going in their climb up the canes.
Every year I'm surprised how many there are once I start picking.
But every summer I enjoy my first meal.

Thank you for comments yesterday, sorry for not replying. I'm having an "off" week mentally and physically so not feeling like doing much at all. I was so cold and achey yesterday that I went back to leggings and jumper!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

WI Visit

Bit of a different WI meeting for Big WI this month. We all met up along the A140 at   Suffolk Farmhouse Cheeses.

Picture from their website

Photos from their website

Jason and Katherine started their business making cheese with milk from their Pedigree Guernsey  cows in 2004 but it was 2009 before they were able to buy this farm and have everything in one place.

We had a look round the farm. Saw the cows and the robotic milking machine - installed in 2017 and Jason told us  about the care of their milking herd, their feeding regime, health checking (Katherine is a vet- handy!) and how the computer chips on collars around their neck works just like a fit-bit relaying information to his phone day and night. (Not a new concept for me because at the smallholding we lived just a mile from one of the first farms in Suffolk to install a robotic milking parlour, although they retired and sold up before we moved away). By using a robot machine the cows can wander out to the fields, in and out of the barn and then through the milking parlour whenever they like day and night.The machine recognises each cow and automatically washes the teats and fits the vacuum pump. If the cow has decided to go through the robot machine too soon after it's last milking then the gates open again, the cow gets no feed and soon wanders off........clever stuff.

They also keep a Hereford bull. Jason uses Artificial Insemination for the Dairy herd to get pure bred cows - the females are added to the herd and the males kept for veal. But if A.I. doesn't work on some cows he lets them run with the bull to produce a cross breed calf which can be grown on and sold as beef.
Their first cheese they produced was called Suffolk Gold, quickly followed by Suffolk Blue. Then they started making a Suffolk Brie and just in the last few weeks now also a Suffolk Blue Brie.
As well as the cows he also keeps a few pigs, which are fed partly on the whey left from the cheesemaking and they send them off to a local butcher who makes sausages of all sorts  plus gammon and bacon.
The couple have a farm shop which is open through the week to sell their cheese, pork products, veal and beef but they also have a self-service vending machine to sell their fresh pasteurized milk. So you can go almost any time to buy milk and eggs.
Jason was very excited to tell us that they are in the process of importing butter and cream making machines from Eastern Europe so that very soon they will be adding fresh Guernsey Butter and Cream to the farm shop. They will be one of only 2 farms in East Suffolk making their own butter to sell and he said the other farm's butter is Very Expensive.

After looking round we all crowded into the shop for a cheese tasting. I've had their cheese several times before and Son and DiL had cheeses from them for their wedding and they are all delicious. I couldn't pick a favourite when he asked us to vote.

We then had a chance to look in the freezers and chillers to buy some produce but of course they are the price we should be paying for our food rather than the knock down prices supermarkets are able to negotiate with farmers, so seem expensive. I bought a chunk of Suffolk Blue which I'll enjoy.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

July Library Books

First of all......................Hello and Welcome to some more followers, hope you enjoy reading.

 Another month and another heap of books  ordered online and collected from the library van.

There are new crime and some reprinted from the golden age, and two by authors not read before. A couple more cookery books to flick through and I was pleased  to find the library had bought a few more Dean Street Press Furrowed Middlebrow re-prints. I'd better re-read To Kill A Mocking Bird before reading Go Set A Watchman. Should be sufficient for the month!

I only read 3 of the crime fiction from last month and just browsed through the recipe books, which meant I ran out of library books and had to read from my shelves - no great hardship!



 Books read have been added to the separate 2019 page.

There was a good steady rain here in IP14 on Saturday afternoon................that was a surprise as it wasn't forecast when I looked on Friday. It was much needed. I have 9 water butts and 5 were empty - the four still with water were the ones furthest from the greenhouse and patio pots..........  of course......... so extra glad to see the rain to save me lugging the watering cans.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

And Into July

Brother in Law came last Sunday and between us we got all hedges cut and he did all the big strimming. Everywhere is looking so tidy, should be OK for another year, especially now I can keep things under control with my small strimmer and the electric hedge cutter (in short bursts). Andrew borrowed a massive petrol hedge cutter with a swivel head and even did on top of the hedge between garden and field.
 Unfortunately I didn't notice until too late that he had zoomed the big petrol strimmer under the shrubs out the front and demolished the bee-orchids that I'd so carefully avoided with my small strimmer last week! There are two left which hopefully will seed themselves.

Now I have a massive heap of hedge cuttings for a bonfire.

This week..................

The swimming pool was very busy when I got in just after 8am and I thought " this won't be fun" but several people soon left to head off to work and for most of my time there were only 4 other people swimming.

Didn't see Youngest and Florence as she needed her day off work to catch up and rest plus there was a road closure which would have meant a long detour............... I defrosted the little freezer instead, and cleaned windows after popping out to the mid-week boot sale.................where almost everything I found came from one van load of house clearance stuff, boxes and boxes full of random things all chucked in together. The Christmas crackers, the pack of fly swats, the Ladybird fairy-tale books and the pack of RNLI note-cards set me back a total of £3.50. The Sudoku book was 10p and  the Twelve Days of Christmas fold out book was 50p - another one for the advent book parcels. Someone had several of the House Of Puzzles Jigsaws  but they wanted £4 each and as I've got two ready for Autumn/Winter already (and charity shops sell them for less) I left them on the table.
 

 Looking through these mixed boxes cleared from some deceased persons house is quite a wake-up call to the future and no wonder many of us are trying to de-clutter now rather than later. I spoke to the lady running this clearance stall and she said the boxes had all been from one house cleared just the day before ..........4 people taking 14 hours with dozens of boxes, they had simply loaded everything into their big van and brought it along. She was sorting through boxes as we talked and came across a butter dish........... still with the butter in it!

It got really sunny and hot by 9.15 and I headed off back home where it was annoyingly cloudy on and off all day.

Then there was the WI party which I enjoyed followed by a lazy Friday.

I've watched tennis whenever possible and looked for recipes for using aubergines - they are doing rather too well, I gave three away...........and  three cucumbers. 

This week I'm grateful for...............

A handy Brother in Law
The first beetroot from the garden
More raspberries than last year
Belonging to a friendly WI
Really good tennis from Wimbledon on TV


Have a good weekend
Back Monday
Sue

A Tea Party and Home In Time..................

..........to see Andy Murray winning!



Big WI is 100 years old this year and one of the things planned to celebrate was to throw a tea-party for the village.

 In the morning I made cheese straws, lots of cheese straws!

 Took them to the village hall at 2pm where there were 9 of us, plating up cakes, laying tables, cutting sandwiches, heating up kettles etc all ready to open the doors at 4pm

Proper teacups were borrowed for the occasion. 

 Cakes on plates

In the kitchen

 The crowds arrive

 A good time was had by all

 I was in the kitchen helping with the washing up - we had great fun!

Came home with  a few leftovers for my tea

Just in time to watch Andy Murray and his partner Pierre-Hugues Herbert's brilliant win in the mens doubles.

What a good day.

Many thanks for comments yesterday, do look back and read the post and comments if you didn't see it - all interesting. The WI tea party is  was something that definitely falls into the simple happy pleasures category. 😊

Back Tomorrow
Sue

A Quiet and Simple Life?

I've been reading 'The Way Home, Tales from a life without technology.' by Mark Boyle. Another book written by someone trying to search for a simple life.....The library website says....

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. In this honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life without modern technology, Mark Boyle explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the spring, foraging and fishing. What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire - much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

 (His earlier book in 2010 was all about a year without money, 'Moneyless man, A Year of Freeconomic Living'.)

After writing about the book 'Copsford' yesterday I got to thinking about all the books I have read about living a "simple life", starting with  John Seymour's Self Sufficiency books, Elizabeth West's Hovel books, Patrick Rivers' back to the land books and others from  the 1970s. 

I still own a few

 More recently Neil Ansells book "Deep Country" written in 2012 and the most recent was the book I read last year and wrote about HERE . Gaining Ground is a fictional account of a woman running away to a cabin in the woods.

Not many people can run away to a cabin in the woods and I'm not sure that's the answer anyway. 

I think I'm now living the quietest and most simple life I've ever lived. I didn't choose to be alone like the woman in Gaining Ground but during the last year I've learned to try to be positive about it  and  at least no one can argue with me about what I do! On the whole, most days I'm happy, as happy as all the happy times in my life before and much better than the hard sad times - mostly caused by depression. The occasional sad days are just that - a sad day, it passes and I'm back to contentment again.

Somewhere back in smallholder days I remember writing about people saying that we had gone back to a simple life on the smallholding - Ha! far from it. It was hard work - not that we minded as it was what we had wanted to do for so many years.

 I wrote that a real simple life would be living in a house rented from a responsible landlord (so someone else has to deal with  repairs) with a maid (to do all the work) with no garden (so you don't need to think about caring for plants) beside a railway station and a bus stop (so you don't need to run a car with all it's attendant worries) next door to a Waitrose and a M&S (so you could buy very top quality food that needs no preparation). BUT how boring that would be!

I think you can still have a quiet and simple life even if you keep the phone, car, washing machine etc and even if you don't move to a cabin in the woods. It's all a state of mind and I'm never bored.

Back Tomorrow

Sue