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

30 ways to save £1 part 4 and No Spend November

Yesterday was fine and sunny to start with but a bit misty later, then sunny again but no wind so  a load of washing hung limp on the line before I brought it in to drape over the clothes horse. My clothes horse is plastic coated metal and held together by string where the clips are broken but whenever I open it I remember the old wooden one we had years ago......... It was always turned into a children's tent in the summer.

I'm still trying to resign myself to this new lock-down so made cake!

Chocolate Cappuccino squares - from the WI Cakes cookery book. I often make these and they used to sell well at the Country market. 16 squares = 16 days of cake.

 

Still having internet  connection problems sometimes. Telling me to log on, not recognising my sign in or password then I find I can still get onto internet anyway - all very weird

So once again I'm saying that if I disappear that will be why! Hope it doesn't happen

So far this month

(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

 

More from the 30 ways to save £1 list from April 2013

16. Poundland and 99p shops are sometimes very good value but not always so know the prices of the things you buy - keep a little price book in your bag. 

       This is still true but probably now that Poundland etc have been around so long we probably know which items are best value without needing a price book.

17. Make Xmas gift tags from old xmas cards or cut an 2 inches off the end of wrapping paper, stick on a piece of card and cut out to make matching gift tags.

         I still do this with my Christmas cards after Christmas every year

          

18. Borrow recipe books from the library and see how many recipes you will actually use before buying the book.

           I'm sure the library has all the recipe books that are published ....and that's a lot, especially at this time of year. Free to borrow, cheap to photo-copy a page. A year later almost every recipe book there is appears in the charity shops!

19. Tip bottles up-side down and leave to drain to get the last bit  of things out.

         This still works obviously and I try to buy sauce and mayo in glass rather than plastic where ever I can. 

                   

20. Cut the end off tubes of toothpaste and creams etc. to get to the last bit.

           This used to be a dangerous process when the edge of the cut off bit was often metal and sharp.    Now tubes tend to be plastic, easier to squeeze to get every last bit out.

So to Friday, another day at home alone, seeing no-one and speaking to no one. Ho Hum

Sue

No Spend November + 30 ways to save £1 part 3

So here we go again..................locked down from midnight. I got through the depression that set in after the announcement . 4 weeks doesn't sound long after getting through 4 months and there is all the 'fun' of what's happening over the pond  for entertainment!

 A cold start yesterday morning, the first frost of the season - I think it's time to start putting the car in the garage again................

 How does nature make these wonderful patterns on the car windscreen? Half an hour later it had gone as the day turned sunny - wonderful after several gloomy days.

Determined to have one final swim before lock-down (even though it broke the no spend November thing!) I booked a slot yesterday lunch time. The busiest it's been with the new system - 5 people in the slow half and 4 in the faster half. But I managed a good 35 minutes. 

Before going swimming I spent a while trying to find out why the compressor (for pumping up tyres) wasn't working. Tried a different extension lead and replacing the fuse in the plug. No Luck - Bother. Now I've no way to pump up car or bike and the bike needs pumping up quite a lot. This is one problem I can't solve on my own.

No Spend November 

1st.        No Spend

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

3rd         No Spend

4th        Swimming £2.25

 

More from the 30 Ways to Save £1 list revisited from 2013

 11.Invest in a flask and take tea or coffee with you on days out.

           This must have saved us a fortune over the years. We even used to take a flask to Addenbrookes hospital in those last months of Colin's treatment. It must have looked a bit strange sitting in the waiting room pouring out a flask and opening the sandwich box but the alternative was a very expensive coffee from the adjacent WRVS snack shop or a grotty coffee from a machine.

12 Don't waste money on bottled water- stand a bottle of water in the fridge and take it with you next day.

       Thank goodness I've always lived in places where the tap water is very good to drink. I used to be horrified when emptying the bins on the campsite at the number of plastic bottles once holding expensive fancy water. If we weren't taking a flask with us we always took a bottle of tap water everywhere anyway.

     

13. If you need more than 2 regular prescriptions a month always buy a NHS prepayment card.

             I guess the pre-paid NHS discount prescription cards are still available? Now I'm over 60 I don't pay anything so don't know. I know it was a huge saving years ago. 

14. Find out about free events at local museums or NT free open weekend vouchers etc.

            Well, this would be a good one anytime except for now! when everywhere is closed due to the virus.

15. If you have an answerphone set it on the longest number of rings so you get there in time to answer and don't need to phone people back.

          I suppose some business people still have answerphones? We had one for the campsite where this tip was useful - saved me ringing back to people all round the country trying to book a pitch. Not needed so much now with the prevalence of mobile phones and text messaging.

5 more tips from the past tomorrow

Sue