1st Saturday of November - Week 34 of Strange Times

Sheep grazing ....................A very unusual sight for this part of Suffolk. Farming here is all arable, wheat, barley, oil seed rape and sugar-beet. Occasionally there might be field beans, maize or linseed but never sheep.....but here they are just up the road. Fenced in with electrified wire strands and grazing on a field of  I don't know what.

They look like the Suffolk breed and obviously less prone to escaping than some of the sheep we kept in the past.

  

 

I went back on my bike for a closer look at what was growing and still couldn't work it out. There is grass but something else has been sown , very annoying that I don't know what it is!

 

After two days of lock-down I've settled into it,  although more or less run out of library books already. To get the ones I'd read and those I didn't want to finish out of the way I shoved them through the return letter box at Eye library on my way back from swimming. So it will be back to reading from my shelves for 7 weeks until the mobile is round again.

Obviously the way to get through the next 3 and a half weeks is to write 'A List of Things To Do While Locked Down..........'

• Cross stitch something Christmassy
• Watch the two DVDs I picked up from a charity shop last month (didn't write about them at the time as I was going to do a review when I'd watched them to fill a blog post)
• Write a letter to my penfriend who I should have written to about 3 months ago (Sorry W)
  
• Knit some dishcloths until I've used all the dishcloth cotton
• Ask for ideas for Christmas presents for two youngest grandchildren and oldest granddaughter (Oldest Grandson already sorted) and get things ordered.
• Actually get round to sorting out the soil in the Camellia pot and the old strawberry plants
• Sort out more craft stuff and put aside for charity shop reopening
• Chop Kindling wood as and when I need some more
• See what else there is to sort in the workshop.
  

 

 No spend November

(Direct Debits for Council Tax, Phones, Car Breakdown Insurance,Charity Donation Total £260)

1st.        No Spend

2nd        Food  £33 + Cat £6 +  Diesel £18 + Printer Paper £4.          = £61  

3rd         No Spend

4th        Swimming £2.25

5th         No Spend 

6th        No Spend

And finally GOOD NEWS. I went and had another go at the compressor which lives out in the workshop, switched on at the mains and it made it's usual charging up noise (which it didn't do on Wednesday)......just for a few seconds and then switched off. Oh! thought I......... must be something there after all. So I fiddled with the plug connection and by keeping my foot on the compressor plug where it's plugged into the extension lead - hooray - it charged itself up. So I haven't got to buy a bike pump/car pump after all.

As requested............... here is the recipe for the CHOCOLATE CAPPUCCINO SQUARES from yesterdays post.

Grease and line a square 8 inch cake tin. Preheat oven to Gas 4/180C/160C fan oven.

1 tablespoon coffee  concentrate (I use instant coffee dissolved in a teeny bit of boiling water)

2 tsp cocoa powder

5oz butter at room temperature  softened by beating a little

5oz caster sugar

2 eggs at room temperature

5oz SR Flour plus 1tsp baking powder.

1. Beat everything together until well blended but don't over-beat.
2. Spoon the mixture into the tin, smooth the top. 
3. Bake for 35-40 minutes until firm to touch on top.
4. Cool for 10 mins then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely
   

For the topping melt 2 oz chocolate in a bowl over pan of simmering water with 1oz butter and 1 tablespoon milk. Remove from heat . Sieve in 3oz icing sugar and spread over the cake. Cut into 8 bars or 16 squares.

This week I'm Grateful for

• Getting through a bad patch
• Strictly Come Dancing able to carry on
• Books on my shelves
• Some sunny days this week 

 

Have a good weekend. I'll be back Monday

Sue