It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

HariboJunkie

redlady_1 wrote: »

Does anyone know where to buy cheap coconut milk please?

Have you tried an Asian supermarket? Welcome back by the way. :hello: Hope you didn't embarrass yourself too much in front of the surf dude eye candy. :D
ps sorry to hear about that little girl.

Happy Birthday Kidcat!! :bdaycake::beer::T

RedDoe where are you? I know things are tough this week but please pop on to let us know your ok.

Mardatha I am with you about the kindle. I love the feel of books and have kept every decent book I have ever read. I kinow the kindle suits some though and must be a blessing for those with failing eyesight.

Smiley, I hope Hepzapah continues to improve.

GQ good luck in your continued battle with the pumpkin.

Hope you feel better soon SDG.

Giger I too spent time with the hens today. They're very relaxing companions and it was lovely to see them sunbathing rather than wallowing for a change. :rotfl:

Sorry for my miserable post last night. Sometimes the never ending maintainance on this house overwhelms me. We just finish one job and don't get time to enjoy it before another comes along. But I do know that there are people who would give their eye teeth for this house in this location so I am back to counting my blessings and it's our own fault for taking on a period property. :cool:

Beautiful weather up here too and really looking forward to our houseguests arriving tommorrow. :j

ginnyknit

Thank you all you crazy bunch for so many laughs after a long long day. Commiserations to those with poorly animals and fingers.

Redlady that is so true about things being put into perspective - my beloved dad always said there was a natural way in life and one thing which should be certain is that you go before your children.

Had a rush to get Dgs to the 'go to doc' place tonight, turns out he has blisters all over his tongue, little monkey won't let you look in his mouth but his childminder caught a glimpse and though he was fine all day he was really fed up by the time we picked him up. I was very pleasantly suprised at the speed and the manner in which we were treated. 10 minute wait after talking to a lovely receptionist (that was a shock as they are often unhappy people but who blames them some times) then a fab nurse examined him, told us he was under the weather and possibly had hand foot and mouth. Great advice, Ibuprofen given to us (no rushing to find a chemist) printed leaflet all about the illness and loads of tlc for the 3 of us. Altogether wonderful service. I think people need to know that some systems do work and you can be treated well even though this is totally off topic -hope no one minds me posting this.

Its takeaway as a treat tonight as I am a bit baffled all in all.

rachbc

ginny - poor dgs - my minx had hand foot and mouth and its horrid, but glad you have got such good care.

haribo - know that feeling so well - we need a new bathroom but much as ours is failing us the thought of being without and all the work involved makes me keep shoving it to the back burner.

I've been feeling very rough today with sore throat and cold and rushing across the city with kitten to be neutered between work and school run hasn't help - kitty is back home and seems to have forgiven us for his missing knackers.

NualaBuala

Hobsons_Choice wrote: »

That'll be the bog standard stuff then eh? :rotfl:

Oh that's baaaaad! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Happy Birthday Kidcat!!! :bdaycake:


Sending healing hugs to all those who need 'em ... quite a few by the sounds of it! x

littlecal

Happy birthday kidcat,what a beautiful day for a birthday!

c x

fayhare

redlady_1 wrote: »

Does anyone know where to buy cheap coconut milk please?

My OH loves coconut milk and it has really shot up in price over the last few months. We are always on the hunt to get it for less than a pound and usually pick it up from asian supermarkets or the asian section in the general supermarket if it's cheap enough. (Tesco had some buy one get one free last week, so two for about 85p) Lately I have also been buying it from B&M for about 70 or 80p ish a tin.

Rosanna79

Thanks to all who,ve wished me me well with our little cat. sadly she's getting worse so we've had no choice but to bring her vets appointment forward to Friday afternoon. I've rearranged my usual committments in order to spend the last morning with her. As much as we love her she's getting ready to leave us. In the meantime Henry Hoover, in the bloom of good health keeps visiting to see what leftovers are available. thankfully ours is still eating OK, thanks to the cortisone injection but has developed a taste for the most expensive wet cat food!- as it's so short a time we've been spoiling her rotten.

Keeping busy otherwise with various craft classes and walking

Anyone interested in storing carrots do look online at Kitchen Garden's video- it's about 9 minutes long. Basically you lift the carrots, top and tail them and then lie them out , preferably in the sun but at least somewhere dry to 'cure' - This allows a certain amount of evaporation to take place and retards rotting.

Using either wooden or strong cardboard boxes put a 1 inch layer of sand at the botton and lay carrots 'head to toe but not touching and put on another layer of sand. Continue like this until the box is filled.

These boxes can be kept in a shaed or garage and only the best of the unwashed carrots should be used. Thgis is a clamp.

The traditional clamp which involves digging a trench in the gardedn and doing the layers with straw & topped with earth is also explained. We decided that trying to get into a traditional clamp in the height of winter might prove a bit challenging so have opted for the box method. Hope that helps

GreyQueen

cat_smith wrote: »

GQ. Can you please start putting a warning on your posts. I have just covered the hound in Coke. And he's now doing the hokey cokey trying to lick it off.

Aww, hun, I'm sorry.:rotfl:

If it's any consolation, I just about spat tea across my keyboard as I burst out laughing when reading the above; the visual was superb. Hope the hound enjoyed his impromtu shower/ beverage.

Well, Mr Pumpkin is the gift which keeps on giving. Last night a kilo starred in Pumpkin Curry with Chickpeas, from the linkie HJ kindly posted. 'Twas surprisingly good, too.


Surprising because I am a pretty ignorant cook and keep running into things in recipes which fox me by not being absolutely specific. A kilo of pumpkin or squash was specified. I presumed peeled and diced but what caliber? And cardamom pods....well, it said 6. Some time back with another recipe specifying cardomon pods, I went to the market to the Spice Guy and asked for the pods. He sells them shelled by the gramme. They come in green or black.

GQ to Spice Guy; "They come in colours?! Why wasn't I told?"

I bought black ones and I THINK that was what I added to the curry last night (32 of them) and it all tasted yummy but it could have all gone a bit wrong. They might not even be cardamoms.

Me and Spice Guy had a reprise of the Cardamom Pod Fiasco this week when I went and bought the mustard seed for the same recipe.

Spice Guy to GQ; "Green or black mustard seed?"

GQ " Errmmm (thinks; it comes in colours too?), it's for a curry, which should I use?"

Spice Guy; "Doesn't matter."

GQ; "I'll have whichever is cheaper."

They were the same price. So I had the black ones. Then I tried to buy lemon grass from him and was directed down to one of the fresh veggie stalls. Well, I'd never seen lemon grass in my life, how the hell was I supposed to know?

You can see why my shopping trip was leaving me rather fraught a few days ago. Honestly, I despair of my own ignorance sometimes; it's like everyone else knows all this stuff already and I'm the hick from the sticks who wanders around in a daze and a phaze because she can't even buy the ingredients for a curry without causing maximum mirth on two separate market stalls and a supermarket aisle.:o

Anyway, it was delicious, even if the Thai yellow curry paste was Thai red curry paste and the major seasoning may or may not have been the correct one. I had it for supper and have 3 portions sequestered into the freezer for another time, nomnomnom.

SGD ((hugs)) on your poorly fingies. That hurts like beggary, doesn't it?

Happy belated birthday kidkat, glad you enjoyed a BBQ. The weather was awesome here, lovely to see the sundresses and shorts out again for a last jaunt around the streets.

Smileyt congrats on the new job and take care of your energy levels as you get adjusted to the new regime. Un-bloody-believable about putting the wheelchair-using student on an upper-floor classroom without lift access; did they expect her to levitate up the stairwell, chair and all?

redlady, I was grinning at the image of you and the Surf Dude. I so know what you mean except in my case it'd be if only I was 20 years younger........the times I've told myself off for mentally letching when I realised that I'm old enough to be his mother........:rotfl:
A woman of my acquaintance and age has been shacked-up for a couple of years with a feller in his mid-twenties. Me being me, I had to ask her how come (she lacks all the traditional things which would attract a younger man such as wealth, power, fame and beauty if this was a movie rather than the RW).

"Big t*ts and low morals!" was her chortled answer. Mind you, she has a fabulous sense of humour and is a great cook so he's doing all right. I've met him, too, and he's perfectly presentable.

OK, that's quite enough drivel for one morning. I need more tea! Hope that the sun keeps shining on us all, especially on Mardatha, who hasn't had her fair share recently at all.

ETA; Coconut Milk Yesterday I saw this in the 99p Store at 72p a can.....had me scratching my head a bit, too. HTH.

ceridwen

G.Q. - You forgot the other thing that attracts younger men too = experience:rotfl: and older women are more "laid back" in relationships, as they arent focusing on things like "Is he marriage material? Is he "father" material?". So - even for those of us without power/money/fame - whilst the looks still hold up then they will be interested. These days - its easier to just "have a laugh" with a man without even thinking "Is he at least boyfriend material?" and so I've been able to recently make a new (male) friend without worrying myself that he doesnt even come into "boyfriend" category. So what - that he's probably got no money/certainly got no ambition and is probably less intelligent - he's a laugh and we swop "gardening notes". That'll do these days (and hope he DOESNT have any "other" intentions towards me <but I no longer expect that>.....).

Well - the looks have now gone (such as they were) - RIP:( - and its down to "As long as I dont frighten the horses"...:rotfl: - so "Am I clean and presentable? - that'll do..." The Age of Invisibility has its advantages - as in sometimes its possible to think "I dont actually WANT anyone seeing me here...just all pretend I AM invisible folks" and a lot of them wont notice the little middle-aged woman deliberately lurking on the sidelines:D.

T'other advantage is it saves on the cost of cosmetics - if no-one is going to think you're attractive any more anyway - then might as well forget about the "primping and perking"....very MSE.

Charis

SDG31000 wrote: »

Fact for the day- A car door shutting on your fingers hurts like ^&*())*&^$£$%^&*()^%()*

I was getting out of my friend's car and had my middle and ring finger of my left hand in the wrong place when the door closed itself due to the car being parked on a slope.

I did that a couple of weeks ago in the strong winds. The wind caught the car door as I shut it so I shoved extra hard, not realising my thumb was in the way. It did hurt, as described, and by bedtime it was throbbing but I took some painkillers and by next morning it was just numb in the nail area. Now it's almost normal, apart from the black bruise. A friend tried to cheer me up by telling me that 'people have lost fingers that way!' Great. :rotfl: