No T Words mentioned at all - a fresh start

scottishminnie · 29 July 2014 at 6:21PM

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Morning SM there is a round courgette I believe called Eight Ball which we've grown before and they taste and cook exactly like the long ones. They are much easier to serve with a stuffing though as it's a better shape to hollow out!!!

Thank you! I wouldn't have thought of stuffing them. That's a great idea, especially since I have lots of prepared fillings for peppers and so on in the freezer. I'll wait patiently for them to become big round courgettes now

Pondskater - I'll be heading out that way soon then to see if I can spot the dragonflies. I'd be delighted to see them on home territory. Now I'd also like to see hummingbirds here however I think that is unlikely!

pondskater_2 · 30 July 2014 at 9:24AM

scottishminnie wrote: »

..........Now I'd also like to see hummingbirds here however I think that is unlikely!

Now that would be something to see

flowertotmum · 2 August 2014 at 3:34PM

Hi all..wow what a change in the weather..its cooler and raining..but nice.

Well we have had another busy week..we went to Wickes and priced up worktop for the kitchen and we think we can redo kitchen for under £300..so thats not bad is it..

Went to Belton House on wednesday..it was a lot cooler but very busy..the BBC were there setting up for The Antiques Roadshow the next day..we took a picnic and lots of drinks..but we did treat ourselves to a cuppa and the girls an ice cream each..had a good look around the gift shop too..ooh they have the most gorgeous handbag..was dropping hints for C word...we walked around the lakes and then up the avenue and across the woods...absolutely shattered when we got home.

Had a rest on Thursday..my friend and her 2 little ones came over on Friday..she bought yet more clothes for Iris..it was lovely to catch up with her..when she left she went home with courgettes,eggs,cabbages,cucumbers,tomatoes and some chutney..

I had some nice post..a voucher from Boden..so i bought Fern a lovely top for the winter..unfortunately the voucher didn't work..they have refunded me and gave me another voucher..so i have just bought her some gorgeous mittens...
I did a little treat shop..got an email from matalan..i spent £15 altogether and got lots fo clothes for Fern and i got myself and hubby a new top each..was surprised by how much i saved..am picking them up monday..so all in all a good week..

O and i went to the cs near me..and had a good delve in the 3 items for £1 box..got a brand new pair of jeans and top for Iris and myself a lovely top..so that was good...

Sam is now concentrating on tidying up the allotment..we have bags of cabbage and tons of carrots in the freezer..o and i can't forget the green beans..so my freezer is full of good food..bless him thanks to him.

I made tomato and onion relish..wow now that smelt amazing all day..
Today i am doing nothing lol..putting my feet up and girls are watching the film Frozen..its such a good film..

right got to go and see whats what ..
love to you all..
ftm

candlelight_2013 · 4 August 2014 at 1:07PM

Good afternoon everyone,

Another glorious day here, and the garden looks so much fresher for the rain we have had.

Not a great deal happening here at the moment, usual routine things, but tomorrow we are going out for a carvery. My younger sister and husband are back from America and we haven't had chance to see them, so tomorrow we are all meeting up and hopefully catch up on everyone's news.

DD is progressing well and has an appointment to see the Surgeon at the beginning of September, the 3rd I think, and hopefully x rays or scans will show more healing.

I had the result of my bone density scan which said normal and it is more than 2 weeks since my mammogram and haven't heard anything, so everything must be OK. Up until last year we always had a letter confirming the result, but now they have stopped that, I suppose down to expense. I did make a complaint because I said if you have had a cancer diagnosis, it is so important for your peace of mind, to know that after every check up everything is fine. I was told no news is good news:j

At the moment Flora is asleep at my feet and Himself is asleep in the chair, lovely company;)

All the washing is up to date, we are having chicken kiev, garlic and herb potatoes, broad beans and grilled tomatoes this evening. It is such a relief the weather has cooled down a bit, because it doesn't encourage cooking.

FTM:A your days seem to be filled with such lovely things, and the girls will have such wonderful memories of their time as littlies. You must be very proud of Sam what a lovely young man he sounds.

Lyn, you must be so relieved to have DD back from her travels safe and sound, I know He Who Knows is with her at the moment and you will be with her next week to spoil her and make sure she has a rest. Mums love spoiling don't they?

Hoglet, hope you are OK, I look forward to your posts and Alfie's little adventures:p

SM are you well and very busy?.

AOL I hope the feet are feeling a little better now and hope the weather hasn't been too hot for you. I will say Himself finds the afternoons too hot, so today he is more comfortable.

Hello to everyone else who reads or posts here, hope you are all well.

Take care of yourselves

Much love
Candlelightx

hoglet121 · 4 August 2014 at 8:47PM

Morning everyone :-)

Candlelight- ah that's lovely of you to say :-) Very glad all went well for you with your check ups

We have had a lot of rain recently here, although the bonus with that is that it hasn't been too cold at night. 14 degress overnight at the weekend - not too shabby for winter eh?!

We are concentrating very hard on gathering together some extra cash as our mortgage is up for renewal in October and we are only able to add in extra funds at renewal time. We've still been having fun though, in true no T words mentioned at all spirit! I had my craft club on Saturday this week and I took along homemade chocolate hobnobs (from the Twinks hobnobs recipe) and chocolate crackles from the Great British Bake Off cook book.

Sunday I was out at the food show with some friends and was very restrained, I bought NOTHING! And came home with a bag of potatoes, 2 packets of seasonings and some bean bags (like tea bags but for coffee) all for free. I am enjoying the first of the coffee bags at my desk at the moment. We met a famous (in NZ!) chef and had our photos taken with him, and thoroughly ate and drank ourselves silly from all the tasters. In fact I was still full until Monday lunchtime..

Yesterday DH was at his referrees meeting so I pottered about in the kitchen and made chicken chasseur for dinner tonight and 9 portions of smokey corn chowder. Had a bit of a disaster when it came to blending the soup - cracked through my blender! My own fault for not being patient enought to wait for it to cool down. Dug out my ancient stick blender and that did a good enough job, so I'll stick to that for the time being. Anyway, the freezer is now stocked full of soups so that will do our lunches for a week or two.

DH says we should never mention money saving in front of the cats as when we do they always conspire against us. First it was Alfie and the abscess, and this week I'd expected to be able to save quite a big chunck of money - oh no I'd forgotten 2 of them were due their vaccinations this week... so that was Saturday morning in the vets and of course they both require ultrasonic plaque removal from their teeth - that just sounds expensive doesn't it?! I will ring the insurance company and see if non-emergency dental treatment is covered, you can only ask can't you? One of them has already had 3 teeth removed so we need to look after the ones she's got left.

Right, I've got a busy start to the day ahead of me so I'd better crack on,

Hope you're all well and having a lovely evening

Hoglet x

scottishminnie · 8 August 2014 at 1:45PM

Good afternoon all.

I can't believe it is Friday already - where did my week go?!

I was away on business for a few days so I'm definitely playing catch up now. Have a huge washing out and a casserole in the oven for tonight.

Hubby was a bit lax on watering my tomatoes so they were looking a bit sad this morning - hopefully they will perk up as the day goes on.

I'm thinking about making some Twinks hobnobs now that Hoglet has reminded me. They normally disappear pretty fast so maybe I could do half plain and half chocolate coated. That would be different to my normal.

I may be back later once I've made more of a dent in my chores however that's my lunchtime over so I need to get moving!

hoglet121 · 10 August 2014 at 8:53PM

Hi everyone,

Monday AGAIN!

Scottishminnie - I did chcoclate coated Twinks hobnobs too - I think something must have happened in my cupbaord, because one day there was a full biscuit tin of them, and the next day there were none....

A very quiet weekend for us, but nice to give the bank account a chance to recover properly. I had a few errands to run on Saturday, all of which I did on my push bike so no spending on fuel at all, and then convinced DH that we should walk up to the shops he wanted to go to, and we had a lovely walk in the sunshine, and a couple of beers in the new bar there - had to have a little treat at least! Yes I know those cost more than the fuel, but we had been intending on checking the place out sometime so it seemed like a good opportunity.

We had a big clear out yesterday and got rid of a huge pile of clothes and books. We desperately needed to make room in the drawers and wardrobes and my cousin needed donations for her son's school Ag Day (like a school fete, but based around agricultre). DH announced he was being 'ruthless' and bless him he was, none of the 'hmmm I MIGHT wear it again' when it hasn't been worn for 5 years.

Other than that, not much to report from us,

Hope you're all well

Hoglet x

candlelight_2013 · 14 August 2014 at 3:48PM

Hello all,

Hope everyone is well and just busy or of course on holiday.

Well I am one proud Nana. DGS received a B in physics, chemistry and biology in his AS results. This is a little boy born with dispraxia, and we were told he would never be able to swim or ride a bike. I said does that matter. As it turns out he swims like a fish and clearly is capable of much more. We are so proud of what he has achieved, and I know I am biased, but he is a lovely young man, very quiet and laid back and will be 18 next year.

Himself was attacked last Thursday by one of the dogs next door. It scaled the fence and luckily Himself managed to put the re-cycling wheelie bin between him and the dog. I spoke to the Dog Warden again and she came yesterday and took a statement from him. She was going to visit neighbours today with another warning that if they don't control their dogs she will take it to court.

I was really worried about him when he came in because he seemed to be in a state of shock. He wasn't bitten thank goodness, but for someone with a dicky heart it didn't do him any good at all.

They have no control over the dogs and really don't seem bothered either. I don't want it to go to Court i just want them to act responsibly and control the dogs when they are in the garden. This particular dog growls at me when I am putting the washing out and she actually can't see me, she can just hear me.

We are having a fair amount of rain over the last few days, and it is considerably cooler. Hopefully once the dogs are under control we can go to the bottom of our garden and do some work there.

DD is progressing well, and not long to her appointment with the Surgeon. I so want that bone to be healed after all this time, but she is doing most things around the flat so that is good. I think once she can drive again she will feel more confident.

Lyn I am so pleased DD is feeling much better, it must be having her Mum to look after her.

Well that is my mixed bag of news.

Much love to you all

Candlelightx

[Deleted User] · 15 August 2014 at 8:36PM

Evening all, it's really nice to be home with my lads again. Poor old DD has had some problems coming back from the Zambia trip and having western foods again so I've been keeping things very, very bland and fibre free this week and we've taken dairy foods and sugar out for a while and she's feeling much better, not 100% but getting there. Her AS and A level results were better than she'd hoped for given the marking changes that had been put into place and pretty much all her pupils have a uni place although not necessarily thier first choice. They all seem happy with what they've got though and she actually slept properly last night for the first time in ages. Teaching is not easy even when you're supposed to be on holiday!!!

Zambia was amazing and most of the kids enjoyed the experience although there were a couple in each of the groups who were not finding it either easy or to thier taste but the majority of them loved it. The photographs are super and the house they built looks amazing, she even has a photo of the grandma and 7 kids that will be living in it (daughter died from aids and grandma is looking after the family left) and the grandma was mesmerised at seeing them and herself on the camera, she'd never seen what she looked like before!!! The animals they saw and Victoria Falls will stay with them for always and she even had a video clip with sound so I could hear the falls - they aren't called the waters that thunder for nothing, wow, incredible stuff!!!

The garden is in full production and we have so many blackberries we can't keep up, the greenhouse is full of ripe tomatoes of different kinds, the courgettes continue in quantity and the runner beans I thought had finished are covered in flowers and baby beans again after some rain showers. We have lots of cucumbers ready so I'm making more bread and butter pickles tomorrow to go into store and the apples on the front garden tree are getting to be huge after the rain has perked them up. He Who Knows has 6 gallons of cider blurping away in the study too and it's beginning to feel a little autumnish here which is lovely, nice too for it being a bit cooler now and letting us sleep.

Hope you are all having a nice summer break (winter in your case Hoglet!) and are well and happy, look after yourselves, Lyn xxx.

candlelight_2013 · 18 August 2014 at 12:50PM

Hi everyone,

Just lost a post so I will start again.

What a change in the weather and I have put the duvet back on our bed this morning. I woke up in the night and felt quite chilled, but a good enough excuse to cuddle up to Himself:). The weather lady said this morning that night time temperatures will be just above freezing. For goodness sake we haven't reached August Bank Holiday yet, but summer was wonderful while it lasted.

I have just shredded some red cabbage and salted it ready to pickle later, and I have pickled a large jar of shallots. Himself helped me peel them, but to be honest they were much better than pickling onions, not nearly as strong.

Have just stewed some plums and apples ready to make crumbles to put into the freezer for the winter, a touch of summer when it is cold.

Flora had us up early this morning, rushing around like a banshee, I think she must have seen a cat in the garden, and I suppose now she will be asleep for most of the day.

DGD and boyfriend came for lunch on Saturday and Himself took them home about 5 p.m., it is so lovely to see them. I know when I was young I sometimes didn't want to see my grandparents (Mum and Dad went every Sunday) and I feel really guilty about that now. I suppose I always had something else to do, which is why I am thrilled that DGD still likes to come to see us . She was really worried when I texted her to say that Himself had been attacked by the dog, so she is a very caring young lady.

FTM I hope you and the girls are OK and just really busy, but I have missed your posts. Give Fern and Iris a cuddle from me, when does your term start:)?

HOGLET hope you are OK and the kitties, probably your weather is similar to ours now. You know over here we can go from summer to autumn almost over night.

AOT and SM hope you are both OK and everyone else who reads our daily doings. I know Lyn is good, although extremely busy, what with looking after DD1 and processing all the produce from the poly tunnels. You are an inspiration to me Lyn and that is why I have made so much this year, and will be making christmas hampers with the things I have made.

Well have a good day and "see" you soon

much love
Candlelightx

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No T Words mentioned at all - a fresh start

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