Into the Middle of February, Just Books and Shopping.

 And of course next day -the digger had to come back to fill in the grave.... 

................now the entrance is even muddier than yesterdays photo. The mourners and men with the coffin came in the top gate and walked down the shingle path avoiding the mud - thankfully. ( I don't stand watching funerals! but it's right opposite the bungalow so can hardly avoid seeing what's happening when I'm in the kitchen)

Such a grey gloomy week with lots of rain. I've not been far at all. The Winter Olympics on TV have kept me company - curling, skeleton, snowboard cross, ice dance and three books have been finished.....although one was a children's book and read very quickly. I even started to feel guilty that all I'd done was watch TV and read, with the odd bit of housework thrown in but then tried to think of other things I ought to be doing.......and there wasn't anything.

This below is by an author who usually writes under Natasha Solomons. I enjoyed 'The Song Collector' and 'The Novel in the Viola' by her several years ago. This is listed completely separately on the Fantastic Fiction website, a one-off under N.E. Solomons, a sometimes violent thriller set in the Balkans after the war there. Details here.

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As mentioned the other day I was out of carrots and eggs, for the good reason of Son doing a roast dinner here for us all last Sunday, so  shopping needed doing 4 days earlier than planned.

There was no point just getting two items so I did the weeks shop at Aldi with lots of bits that will last for several weeks and replacing things that had been used in the last couple of weeks.

Another one  for the 'food-shop-photo-fans!'

There's soft cheese and Blue Stilton (still no Shropshire Blue), tin of tomatoes, two decaf ground coffee - while they had it in stock as they often don't. Celery, kale, carrots and apples. A big tub of peanut butter (no salt, no sweetener - just peanuts, lasts me for months) 1 dozen free range eggs, 4 pints milk and a 600g pack of mini chicken breast fillets.- which I divided up into  5  portions before freezing. The UPF were stuffing mix and tortilla chips and a packet of figgy biscuits- they're there somewhere.

Then on my way home I called in at a village butchers for some lamb scrag/neck of lamb chops and they had some fresh cut,  ¾ Kg for £3 so I was able to divide into 2 separate portions before freezing. I'll be making a delicious lamb stew and dumplings twice (two meals each time) sometime in the next couple of months.

Total spend £30.92. Food spend so far this month £54.27

Out of curiosity at the end of the month I'm going to see what % of my purchases are fruit and veg and other basic simple foods - and how many are Ultra Processed Foods.

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There's a jumble sale today, I might go, if I don't run into flooded roads on the way .