Strange Times Week 3 Post 3

Toast and marmalade is my go-to breakfast - and now it's usually between 9 and 10am, with a cup of frothy coffee - while I still have some in the cupboard.  I'm up every morning by 7.30 - thanks to Polly cat, but usually don't want anything to eat that early. This is all so different to the early smallholding years when we had a cuppa about 6 o'clock, then outside to milk and feed goats, check the sheep and let out the chickens, then back in again for breakfast and for Colin to be off before 8 and to get the children up, fed and out to catch the school bus at 8.30..............it seems a Very Long time ago now as I dawdle and potter around the house alone with no rush.
Accepting the situation we are in is much easier than moaning and I'm all for the easy life! and I've settled into a pattern of not hurrying with anything. My quiet life in Suffolk is even quieter although I do try and do something useful everyday - hence the marmalade below
 
 Several weeks ago I bought a tin of orange marmalade concentrate. I would have preferred a tin of the prepared lemon because my last batch was orange, but only Lakeland sell the lemon and I wasn't going to Ipswich, so orange it had to be.
Thanks to the Approved Food sugar I was able to get this made and, by adding a tin of grapefruit, rustled up 7¾ jars of Orange and Grapefruit Marmalade.....delicious. I have to admit to never making marmalade from Seville oranges and I never will while the tins are available.

This week I've also planted out the rest of the potatoes,  sown pumpkin, courgette and squash seeds and then peppers for the 3rd time. 3rd time lucky hopefully  - as  it will soon be too late.
And on dry days when I walk up and down the meadow I come in with a good bundle of sticks for lighting the wood-burner. A simple job but satisfying.

When I saw a Weetabix Loaf mentioned on a blog ( just a couple of days ago but I've already forgotten who and where - sorry but Thank you.) I remembered the pack in the cupboard ready for the Easter visit from oldest grandson which isn't going to happen.
It was so simple and tastes delicious...........I like simple and delicious!
2 Weetabix                                                      )
1 Cup Sugar - or a bit less as it's quite sweet )               All these into a bowl, mix and leave to
1 Cup Sultanas                                                )               soak overnight in the fridge.
1 Cup Milk                                                      )

Next day add one beaten egg and 1 Cup of SR Flour and stir well together. Pour into a lined loaf tin and cook at 150C for 50 minutes. (I used Mk 4 on gas because I forgot to look at conversion chart and most things are OK on 4!)

This week I'm so grateful for

• Another week staying well
• An improving weather forecast
• Food in the cupboards. 
• Quiet roads for cycling exercise

It's over two weeks since I went to Asda and 12 days since I got some fruit from the Co-op - I think I'm allowed to  head out for fresh fruit and veg next week to make a change from dried, tinned and frozen.


Hope everyone has a good weekend - enjoy the warmth and sunshine at home!

Back Monday
Sue

Recent Reading

This has happened before - I read a book about something I don't know much about and then by co-incidence the next book is about the same subject. Very weird.

The River Thames is at the heart of both these books

Fiction..........A Stranger City
The library have catalogued this as crime but I think that's wrong as it turns out there is no crime involved in the main story line. This book has also won prizes - so normally I would avoid reading. All in all I'm not sure how I came to  request it from the library!
It's a book set in London around the river Thames and at the present time after the Brexit vote but in this version immigrants are sent on trains to prison ships on the river to await deportation.
When a dead body of an unknown woman is found caught in the chains of HMS Belfast, a policeman, a documentary film maker and an Irish nurse all respond to the death in different ways.
The book shows how people in London can disappear, how relationships change and move on and how home isn't always a physical place.
 

Non Fiction................Mudlarking
Totally different but also has the River Thames as the main theme. Lara Maiklem has been scouring the banks of the Thames for 15 years looking for objects lost there in the last 2,000 years.
In this book she describes all the places along the Thames that have access at low tide and what she has found in each place. Then she finds the history of how many of the artifacts were made and even sometimes who they belonged to.
I found it fascinating as some of her common finds are the same as we turned up in the garden as a child. The house we lived in dated back to the C16 and had once had derelict cottages in the back garden and we were always finding "treasures" left there from before the time of bin-men. Countless clay pipes and pieces of blue and white china and buttons were common finds. I'm regretting the things once found, kept for a while and then lost like a tiny dolls cup, codswallop marbles and a very old dice.We never discovered anything of any importance or value in our Haughley garden unlike Lara who has had some very special finds that have ended up in museums.
Mudlarking on the River Thames has been going on for hundreds of years, once it was children who scrapped a living from finding and selling pieces of coal. Now you need a permit and have to report anything of value.
The inside front and back end-papers show drawings of items another Mudlarker had found.

Many thanks for comments over the last couple of days.
Back Tomorrow
Sue

Strange Times Week 3, Post 2 Nature Notes and More Thriftyness

Last week when the weather was warmer and  I was talking to the window cleaner - from a safe distance - we both noticed a Yellow Brimstone butterfly passing by - first of the season for me. The day before that I'd seen my first butterfly of spring in the garden - a Peacock.
I wonder if the much colder weather that we've had after those sunny days last week, will send everything back into hibernation.
Out cycling and at home I've seen one hare around - probably not the same one and frequently frightened off a Buzzard, perched at the top of the Ash tree as I've walked down the meadow. I'd love to have photos but everything is always in a hurry!


I have a feeling that there will be a big recession after all the virus issues are over. Not all businesses will be able to bounce back and trade as they did before and many people will be struggling to live on less for a long time, some think 800,000 businesses will go under.
Sorry that sounds depressing but events from the past do tend to come round again and I've lived through several crisis - oil shortages, coal miners strikes, 3 day weeks,  but at least it's unlikely that interest rates will rise to 16% which is what we had to deal with in the early 90's (I think it was)

After the 9/11 event people were encouraged to go out and spend to get things back to normal and it might be the same again although I hope people don't, as adding more debt to what they might already have isn't usually a good plan.
At the moment many people are being given mortgage and council tax holidays but they will still have to be paid at a later date so you will still need to be canny with money.
So prioritise .
I would put the things that keep a roof over your head and fed or keep you from being cut off/fined at the top of the list
Mortgage/rent
Council Tax
Heating/water
Food.
TV licence

Then CUT BACK everywhere else
And CUT OUT all those things that you know you can do without, it's time to be REALISTIC! for instance - magazine subscriptions, new phones every year, expensive beauty/hair products, designer clothing, buying something just because someone else has it already and after all you deserve it. Tons of toys for children, big birthday/anniversary/Christmas celebrations. Anything new that's available second hand. Some people go all sniffy at buying second hand but think about it..........antiques like these below have changed hands dozens of times and no one worries about that.



Most people move into a house that someone else has lived in - do you turn your nose up at a "second-hand" house?!

Lots of these things might have to wait until the world is back to normal, so I hope those who need to know how to manage on less will remember.

Just found a question from Kate - I get wild bird food from Garden Wildlife Direct. Usually prompt delivery and different sizes available to order


Back Tomorrow
Sue