How to Get Through The Tough Times The Old Style Way.

GreyQueen

Up at Ridiculous O'Clock as Idiot Boy and Idiot Girfriend came crashing home at 4.45 am from a hard night's clubbing. This is a predicable pattern when they make a lot of noise in the evening and then go out so I took the precaution of going to bed soon after they left to get my sleep in ahead of time. Mercifully, they only racketed around for 10 minutes and are sleeping peacefully now (aw bless!) so decided as I was wide awake I might as well get up and fit in a bit of internetting before getting up to the lottie in good time.

7 week wonder re the rhubarb, you can pull the stalks whenever they seem big enough to bother with; it's a case of the usual veggie tradeoff of small and tender versus bigger yield but possibly stringier. Howsomever, because rhubarb is a perennial, you have to think of the welfare of the crown and not take too much from each plant so that there are unsufficient leaves to photosynthesise and add vigour to the crown for next year's crop. You should apparently pull and twist the stalks off, not cut them, and not harvest at all from a first year crown, to let it build itself up nicely so you get a strong plant. HTH.

A slight aside, but speaking as someone who "lost" her rhubarb in a patch of allotment, it's a good idea to mark the whereabouts of the plant with sticks or something as when those giant leaves die back in winter it effectively disappears for a few months. I had to gingerly garden around the last known sighting of it until it
resprouted. The next year I put a tripod of bean canes over it...;)

Lauren, that's a sweet child. Do you think as he's pro-water you have a championship swimmer in the makings? I love it down the swimming baths when I see the littlies in the baby pool with their mamas learning to swim. Read somewhere that up until about 6 weeks old we humans swim naturally but if we go past that window it becomes something we have to learn.

(Sigh) wish I was a better swimmer. Apparently it was considered such an important skill that one of the ancient cultures (Greeks or Romans, someone help me out here) had an insult which was to describe someone as so uneducated that he could neither read nor swim!

Well, I had a very OS Friday night and thoroughly enjoyed the wind-down from the week. First off, I stayed home, meaning no £s escaped into the hands of local publicans etc......:rotfl:Then, I enjoyed my roasted chicken which had started life at £6.80 but was reduced to £2.75. Had a plentiful meal hot, have enough breast meat for 3 more main meals as cold cuts, plus picked the carcase of the scruffy little bits of meat. After cooling, I have frozen them in a sandwich box to incorporte into a future chicken pie and if anyone has a great recipe I'd love if you could post it (hey, embarrassing tho it is to admit it, I've never made a chicken pie from scratch). The carcase was then simmered down for stock which I have frozen too, as otherwise I'll be eating chicken at every meal for the next 7 days and will probably start clucking.......

I was thinking to myself that a chicken is very OS, you can get some much out of it. My mum recalls from her country childhood (early 1950s) that chicken was an expensive meat back then and you only had it when you had a spare cockerel or an old hen permanantly off her laying. Speaking of spare cockerels, Cousin J and her OH have a flock of Light Sussex and one of the subordinate cockerels made the fatal mistake of flying spur-first at OH and badly ripped his ear (mercifully it wasn't his eye). That was midweek. Said bird was invited to Sunday roast dinner in which he had a central role.......:rotfl:

So, yesterday I restocked the freezer with meat and fish that had originally cost £25.66 and was reduced to £10.39. The salmon steaks have been divided into individual bags and frozen separately. I decided to leave the loin steaks as they came (2 to the pack) as will cook them together and have the same dinner on consecutive nights. I don't personally mind doing that and I have only myself to please. The meat and fish works out at 77p/ portion and I'll spead it's consumption over the next 2 months or so.

Oh, and I darned a sock and patched my gardening trousers last night, too. Just need to knit my own spaghetti and I'll be due some kind of OS medal..........:rotfl:

Hope everyone has a great Saturday and has a share of the yellow ball, looking like it's going to be here for sure.

PS. Ginnyknit I had a thought about being propped up comfortably in bed (or even in an armchair). What about one of those V-shaped cushions? You can get them on the markets around my way for £7 and you'd struggle to make one any cheaper. You put them between you and the chairback or headhead upside down (cushion not you personally... he he) and they support your back, shoulders and arms very nicely. If you're not sure, maybe someone you know has one they'd let you borrow to see if it suits you? HTH.

7_week_wonder

Good morning GreyQueen and others

GreyQueen I really feel for you. Years ago I lived above a restaurant that had an active late night scene (they used to do the washing up at 2am to reggae music which came straight up into my bedroom) but at least I had the threat of licencing laws etc to use when they got really bad. Fingers crossed everything goes according to plan at the court hearing.

I too was up at silly o'clock, but thankfully it was my over-active brain that woke me. I'm now working on my thesis in the hope that I can get a decent chunk done before the sun comes out to play and my OH emerges.

Thanks to the nice people on the baking board I have spiced fruit loaf in the BM due to be ready for elevenses and I have big plans for gardening today. We decided to stop our veg box delivery last week so that is focussing the mind on growing stuff.

I think I'll maybe try a little rhubarb this weekend see what it's like. My sister gave us four crowns so I'm hoping in years to come it'll be a good crop. I have this silly daydream that through preserving etc I'd like to be able to eat fruit from the garden the whole year round. We're still drinking the liquor from last year's rhumtopf so that's a start:p

Right back to work.....

silvermaid

SammyKaye Minnie is beautiful. I have a similar photo of my DD1 having her first taste of chocolate:)

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Oh Lauren isn't he lovely? And so are you, too btw

So true, so true:)
Both gorgeous x

ceridwen

GreyQueen - have you got a detailed plan worked out for what you are going to do on the day to try and keep your mind off it a bit whilst your future is being decided (ie the court is deciding what to do about Idiot Boy's tenancy)?

Guess you'll be at work for a few of those hours - but what about your leisuretime? Have you got suitable things lined up? (escapist trip elsewhere or escapist book you've been promising yourself you'd read or something/anything). Whatever it is - summat to stop you circling round endlessly in your mind that day thinking "Please dont let the Court muck up my future by deciding against me...please dont let the Court muck up my future...". Well - thats how I would be thinking I know - so I expect your thoughts might be similar...

alec_eiffel

GettingItRight wrote: »

I am also now going through charity shops to see what clothes there are. I am looking for a couple of linen shirts. Went into 2 shops today, but did not find any. I have a few charity shops to hunt through still.

It might be a tiny bit early for charity shops to be putting things like linen shirts out yet. Items like that will very probably be stored away in an "out of season" area and will be brought out when the summer stock starts to roll out. You never know, if the weather stays nice then these bags might be brought out a bit earlier. In all the cs I've worked at (as a manager and vol) we've generally waited until May before putting summer stuff out.

You might be lucky though, if something like that is donated this weekend it could find its way straight out into the shop as the weather is good at the minute.

ceridwen

Freeby packet of carrot seeds in today's "Daily Mail" and part 1 of a Monty Don guide to foodgrowing.

Just seen on one page of it that he has a very clear "square foot gardening" plan for a bed of vegetables 10' x 10' - and thought "Thats that clear and matching in with my taste that I could copy it exactly as it is:D".

Note to self - must get out there and plant some more seeds up this weekend...

BitterAndTwisted

alec_eiffel wrote: »

It might be a tiny bit early for charity shops to be putting things like linen shirts out yet. Items like that will very probably be stored away in an "out of season" area and will be brought out when the summer stock starts to roll out. You never know, if the weather stays nice then these bags might be brought out a bit earlier. In all the cs I've worked at (as a manager and vol) we've generally waited until May before putting summer stuff out.

You might be lucky though, if something like that is donated this weekend it could find its way straight out into the shop as the weather is good at the minute.

I can't think of a single reason why a very polite and friendly enquiry might not extract some of those precious linen items hidden away in the stock-room. It has been known for some of those lovely ladies in charity-shops to be on the lookout for things if people ask nicely. It's worked for me in the past.

lauren_1

GreyQueen wrote: »

Lauren, that's a sweet child. Do you think as he's pro-water you have a championship swimmer in the makings? I love it down the swimming baths when I see the littlies in the baby pool with their mamas learning to swim. Read somewhere that up until about 6 weeks old we humans swim naturally but if we go past that window it becomes something we have to learn.

When I was pregnant baths were the only thing that helped the backache, sadly our swimming pool was closed about 2 years ago with a promise to rebuild a better one out of town linked to a local school.

The previous land was sold to tesco's which has been demolished and levelled ready for building.....now the council have said they cant afford to build a new pool.

The nearest pool is 15 miles away now.

Now we are pool-less and expecting a new tesco (in a town which already has a Sainsburys, Asda, Morrissons, Iceland, Farmfoods, Aldi, Lidl's, Tesco express and Somerfield and a population of around 35,000

bertiebots

Hi everyone..its a beautiful sunny day here again, my washer is on and all will be pegged out soon. Some important paperwork has arrived ,feels like I have been waiting weeks for it -so I can finally get things moving with my divorce come monday! And my Harry Potter dvd has arrived 2 days earlier than its release date!!! So I am a happy bean...tonight we are going to have a takeaway for a treat and watch the film. Might have a wander into town this aftenoon with the beans and have a look in the charity shops. One is very large and sells furniture and I am on the look out for a small sideboard (and a pair of sofas but they tend to sell as soon as they come in) so today may be my lucky day.
I hope you all have a lovely day and the babys are just wonderful! ...it seems like such a long time since mine were that small x

BitterAndTwisted

Whereabouts in the country are you Bertiebots? There's British Heart Foundation shop not that far from me which sells some very nice furniture and appliances incredibly cheaply