Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

cheerfulness4 wrote: »

Viv, I was going to say that Juicy Orange Chicken you gave us is absolutely delicious cold in a salad. We had to have our tea on the go so I took some in a box with rice & green salad and it marvellous.
That will become one of our new summer dishes for sure. :drool:

Cheerfulness- please could you let me know how you do links on here? xx

misstara wrote: »

Jackie, that's so disappointing about the afternoon tea, hope DD complains. I've got a hen weekend coming up in the next couple of months and we are going for afternoon tea at a posh hotel in Edinburgh - £27 each. It's a ridiculous price for sandwiches and cakes plus then we are going out for fancy meal in the evening :eek: I dread to think how much the weekend will cost altogether:)

Afternoon tea events are such a rip off. I went to a hen do at a fancy hotel which cost £35 for the non-alcoholic option (:eek:) - they couldn't even find coffee pots to put the coffee in so they put both the tea and the coffee into identical white teapots which resulted in a LOT of unintentional cups of "toffee"! I mean, come on, you're a 4* high-spec hotel with a restaurant, that's a schoolboy error! Maybe it's the coffee snob in me but the rules are simple: NEVER serve instant coffee, don't use too-hot water as it will burn the coffee beans and a tea pot is for tea. If only Alex Pollizzi (the Hotel Inspector) had been there, she'd have had a fit!!

We were served the equivalent of one sandwich each (in triangles) and one mini scone each which came ready made with either jam or cream, not both, and no extra pots of either!

And, to make matters worse for the bride to be, her entire wedding was vintage themed, hence the afternoon tea and 1950s dress code - they didn't even serve the food and drinks on/in vintage china! Everything was white. And very obviously not china.

Back OT, I've finally invested in a new super kingsize duvet since my old one was starting to look a bit ropey and flat after 5 years of being washed. Believe it or not, it's actually cheaper to replace it than get it either laundered or dry cleaned!! (£18 instead of £25-£40) I'm thinking of donating my old one to a dog's home or something since it seems a shame to throw it away into landfill.

I'm also mid-way through my ruthless decluttering and am enjoying the feeling of being able to get at things I need! OH complained that the wardrobe was too dark to see his stuff in so I cleared out the chest of drawers, put all of his stuff in there and moved my stuff into the wardrobe - I don't know why I didn't do it earlier! I now have everything I need for the morning in one handy place - I bought one of those hanging shelf thingys from Ikea a while back and it now holds my work tops, trousers/jeans, underwear, socks and pjs so I'm not scrabbling around each morning/evening in drawers!:beer:

Good morning Make do, mend and minimizers

The sun is smiling amongst the clouds. Bit cold though.

Making do = For dinner we are eating the steak pie from freezer.
Another shoppers tale = x1 pie £3 or x2 for £5. We eat one and put the second in the freezer.
I would have prefered to just buy one @ £2.50.

Mend = OH is doing a very good job of tidying up the garden

Minimize = this morning I have given the x2 drawers under my bed a look over and decluttered a few things into the bin.
Found another environmental shopping bag. A folding one. Put it in my going out bag.
Going to wash x2 plastic boxes and put into use holding a few grandbabies toys for visits. Gets things off the floor.