The Tougher Thread continues.....

lisakay_2

Having a very os weekend. tonight The girls and I curled up in bed and watched a dvd with homemade pizza (sauce was left over bolognaise for them and left over veg chilli for me) topped with mozzarella that i found in the freezer (it may have been in there some time:eek:). also popped some corn. the girls are sleeping with me tonight as a treat as dh is in work...although after the chilli I'm not so sure it will be much of a treat:rotfl:.

tomorrow we're off to potter about the lotty for a bit. the girls will probably go on an adventure in the apple tree, over the past couple of weeks it has been a pirate ship, a hot air balloon, a motorbike and a fairy palace. If the weather holds out we may also go shark fishing and bear hunting on the park:D 10/10 for imagination in this house.

have been out to the garage this eve and given my bottles a shake. have got rhubarb schnapps, damson gin and berry brandy. I bought a sack of onions the other week to make marmalade but i've used them all up in other stuff, so will have to pick some more up next week.

sunday will be a quick aldi shop followed by cooking and baking for the week ahead. I am determined to lower food costs and plan my meals better.


oh, what can i do with a bag of starting to go soft apples and some very tart pears? i already have a freezer full of apple crumble/pie filling in various guises (plain apple, apple and blackberry, apple and raspberry, apple and cinnamon) I'm not fantastic with pastry, but thought i may do a couple of diddy tarts to go in kids butty boxes for school. any other ideas/recipes would be gratefully recieved xx

goodluck taurusgb for test results and i'm sure there were others i wanted to respond to, but i can't for the life of me remember who/why! love and hugs to all x

GreyQueen

Good (early) morning, campers, and wishing you all a happy Saturday.

Dronid, I didn't dare click on those linkies at the end of the last thread as I was traumatised a few weeks earlier by a similar incident which involved a linkie from the same thread to some kinda weird gentlemens' underwear site. Suffice it to say, turquoise is a colour I shall never look at quite the same way again. Eww!

:wave:Hello Helen Yorkshire and Schoolhouse and anyone else I've missed.

Re funeral planning etc, I don't think it morbid at all, although I appreciate that some people find the whole subject too upsetting; I know the mere thought of losing Mum & Dad & Nan breaks me up but they're pushing 70 and 88 respectively so I know that we have limited time together, which makes them all the more precious.

With Nan, who is a lifelong member of the same church, former churchwarden etc, it will be straightforward. When Grandad passed away nearly a decade ago, she bought a stone for their plot which has his name and space for hers. It's a row of graves in a country churchyard, several generations of our family.

One great-uncle died a few years ago (without a will, he was 83, what was he thinking?) and there was very nearly a row in the churchyard when someone pipped up, at the graveside, that he'd wanted to be cremated. I could have smacked them; if you want a cremation and you come from a family where people have always been buried, you should have specified so. And the other rellie could have usefully mentioned it earlier or kept their trap shut - the coffin was in the ground at that point btw, and there it stayed. The mood at the funeral tea was interesting.....:(

I did mention to my parents did they want to be buried in the same churchyard and Dad remarked that he thought you should be buried where you live (the cemetary of their market town) as we moved away from the village for work when I was a young child.

I always encourage people to have wills as I have (ex-CAB adviser) seen the mayhem, upset and financial disaster attendant on their absence. Only go thru life will-less if you want to contribute heavily to a solicitor's income. Also, a lot of people have pretty complicated family circs and the law is a blunt instrument.

A woman I've known all my life (widow in her late 60s) re-partnered but did not remarry several years after her beloved OH died. Both she and the new man had adult children, adult grandchildren and great-grandkids and he wanted her to sell up her home and live with him in his.

They had a legal agreement drawn up that if he pre-deceased her, she would have rights to his house for the rest of her life, then it would revert to the original plan and be passed down to his children.

I have a will, it's pretty basic; brother gets the lot inc my local authority pension death-in-service grant. (I am worth considerably more dead than alive, I've discovered ). If he's not around and there are no younger rellies needing a hand-up from a mad-great-auntie-type, I shall donate my worldlies to charity.

I need to double-check that I am still on the organ donor register as I signed up several years ago in response to an acquaintanceship with a woman who was on dialysis and awaiting a kidney transplant. When you can put an name and a face to the need, it really brings it home. I once shocked someone I'd've thought unshockable by remarking that I'd like to be cannibalised for spares and the rest composted. Well, it's true, and entirely in accordance with the values with which I've lived my life; re-use the usables and dispose of the rest in an environmentally-sound manner. I've told people I want to be put in a woodland burial site but I ought to get around to putting that in writing.

It would also vastly amuse me to have a small plaque buried with me, of something unlikely to decay (stone? lead?) saying something like; If you can read this get out of my bleeding grave! I like the thought of some archaeologist p*ss*ng themselves laughing a couple of millenia down the line when they find it.:rotfl:

Mrs Chip, I sooooo know what you and the rest mean about the low-slung trousers. I'm heading towards the big five-oh and it drives me nuts; so stupid, so ugly and I soooo don't want to see some numptie's nasty keks. I wonder if they realise that, from the back, they look exactly like toddlers with full nappies..........?

I am also of the generation who was reared on the sight long-haired tight-trousered men and fear that irrevocable damage was done to my psyche.......hmmm, smiling to self and wandering off down Memory Lane with unsuitable former companions in leather jackets and tight jeans (and sometimes even tight leather jeans.......:p;))

Ahem. Do excuse me. I would go take a cold shower but there is no shower here so I shall just have get myself back on track the usual way...:o

Nuuuuurse!!! Tea, and quickly!!!!!!!!!!

ceridwen

Softstuff wrote: »

Ceridwen, I was going to post re funeral costs, but everyone beat me to it! I've organised a couple now, and neither required payment from me, the funeral directors in both cases waited for money from the estate. Thankfully. Incidentally Ches was bang on the money cost wise, for 1 person. There are a lot of costs you don't know about until you organise one. I feel like I've had some sort of funeral organising apprenticeship.



No, they're your own bits and entirely yours to do with as you please .

I think the stories of peoples organs being taken prematurely are just a bit of an urban horror story though, which is a shame, as it puts people off donating. There are so many checks made by multiple people before it happens. I know that I'm unusual in having no emotional attachment whatsoever to my bits, once I'm brain dead I have no concern at all what happens to me (turn me into Soylent Green for all I care), but in effect that's why there's an organ shortage too. I confess though, when you said you wanted to make arrangements not to be found for a few days, I did have the thought "I hope Ceridwen never has any cats...." .

It feels like I was up all night drinking, but it was only 1 glass of wine with the in-laws and they left at 8.30 :rotfl:.

We had the most incredible thunder and lightning last night, never seen anything like it. It makes thunderstorms in England look like a little light rain.

'Twas more the case of horror stories of graves disturbed from the "inside" and peeps who woke up and waved prior to that I had in mind my lass_pale_. Anyone wondering how come there seems to be a guy in odd-looking robes hanging round come the time - I've found me a way to get hold of a Tibetan llama to "tell the difference":rotfl:.

Cats - errrr...yep...very MSE that comment <ahem>

and thinks I might find out that tune for the music I always think of as "Where will we be in 100 years from now?" - dinnae fash thysel' - its that black SOH surfacing again. Dunno about music - I havent actually personally given a thought to owt other than where my assets go and instructions to "leave the body alone for 3 days after the event". I'm more concerned with what I'll be doing "afterwards". I know one thing - after the initial greetings - I'm going to have a good long sleep before I take a "Tour of Inspection" to see how well I'd figured out what it would be like:rotfl:and I know I won't need a house anymore (after all the struggles in that respect I've had with housing myself whilst alive) - but I will have one anyway - and it's going to be a Very Nice One:D set in a little valley with lots of trees and a stream nearby.

mrsmuggy

Also up early haven't had a very good night as too hot yet again.
Today we'll be taking some toys of my grandaughters to the charity shop and some to my mums for her to play with there.Catch up with seeing parents and family and then back home to do some baking for hubbys pack up next week.
Hubbys jobs are to put up some recycled shelves and a recycled curtain pole at the bottom of the stairs ready for winter.
I was given a big bag of pears yesterday and wondered if anyone knew a nice,cheap and cheerful chutney recipe as i don't know how i'm going to use them all up otherwise.Someone told me to poach them in lemonade and then put them in jars and cover with the lemonade,anyone heard of this?

Softstuff

mrsmuggy wrote: »

I was given a big bag of pears yesterday and wondered if anyone knew a nice,cheap and cheerful chutney recipe as i don't know how i'm going to use them all up otherwise.Someone told me to poach them in lemonade and then put them in jars and cover with the lemonade,anyone heard of this?

I can't imagine pears in lemonade lasting that long, but I'm ready to be proven wrong. I was looking for a pear jam recipe the other day, since I want to make jam and pears are the only thing going cheap here right now, and found this one:
http://southernfood.about.com/od/jamsjellies/r/r80810h.htm
I haven't tried it yet, but likely will next week. I thought it would be quite Christmassy.

katieowl_2

mrsmuggy wrote: »

I was given a big bag of pears yesterday and wondered if anyone knew a nice,cheap and cheerful chutney recipe as i don't know how i'm going to use them all up otherwise.Someone told me to poach them in lemonade and then put them in jars and cover with the lemonade,anyone heard of this?

Pear and ginger chutney is nice. I can't remember where I found my recipe but it was one with sliced preserved ginger in. Delicious with pate!

Kate

Hardup_Hester

For those of you who hate the low slung trouser look, take pity on me, I work in a secondary school & so I am surrounded by them all day, on the bright side, I do get to laugh hysterically when they fall down!

If you want to make for a really stressful funeral, you make no will even though you have been diagnosed with terminal cancer, you make no suggestions as for the sort of funeral you would like even though you have been diagnosed with terminal cancer & you die poor, knowing that your Son in law, whom you despise & is as tight as a ducks & it will crucify him to have to pay for your funeral. My Mum had a great sense of humour & I'm sure she was chuckling in the crem!

Grey Queen I'm with you on the tight leather trousers, yummy, I'm not so keen on leather chaps (the sort that cowboys wear) having seen two middle aged men wearing the chaps & nothing else, a) you need a really nice !!!!! for them to look nice from the back & b) you need something, anything, other than just your wife's hand to cover what ever is dangling at the front, especially when you are in the queue for hotdogs. I was at Olympia when I saw this!
Hugs Hester

Softstuff

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

Grey Queen I'm with you on the tight leather trousers, yummy,

I'd just be worried that the dye would come out, you know how they do with new leather shoes sometimes. And that it would look like he'd been dunked waist high in dolly blue. It takes a certain build to look good in leather trousers though, never mind assless chaps.

I need some choccy for comfort, had a most unsuccessful and very stressful shopping day. Remind me not to go in the big shopping centre again before the end of January. You wouldn't know there was a blinking economic crisis on. We went for hubby to pick me a gift, and came back completely empty handed. Which either shows I'm too tight or just don't need anything. :rotfl:

GreyQueen

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

For those of you who hate the low slung trouser look, take pity on me, I work in a secondary school & so I am surrounded by them all day, on the bright side, I do get to laugh hysterically when they fall down!

If you want to make for a really stressful funeral, you make no will even though you have been diagnosed with terminal cancer, you make no suggestions as for the sort of funeral you would like even though you have been diagnosed with terminal cancer & you die poor, knowing that your Son in law, whom you despise & is as tight as a ducks & it will crucify him to have to pay for your funeral. My Mum had a great sense of humour & I'm sure she was chuckling in the crem!

Grey Queen I'm with you on the tight leather trousers, yummy, I'm not so keen on leather chaps (the sort that cowboys wear) having seen two middle aged men wearing the chaps & nothing else, a) you need a really nice !!!!! for them to look nice from the back & b) you need something, anything, other than just your wife's hand to cover what ever is dangling at the front, especially when you are in the queue for hotdogs. I was at Olympia when I saw this!
Hugs Hester

:eek::D:rotfl:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HH, that is an image for which I will need the mind bleach for sure! Thank goodness my breakfast (just eaten) was porridge and fruit and not sausages...........:rotfl:

Well, I confess to being a saddo but yesterday I was happy as a clam because I got a pyrex casserole dish for £1 in a c.s. and asked the assistant if she could put a bit of paper around the lid as I was going to put it in my re-usable cloth bag and didn't want it to clatter. Well, I expected newspaper and I got...ta da!..... a large sheet of strong brown paper. I knew you'd understand.

I was once ambling thru the city centre when I came upon shopfitters putting a new fascia thingy above a store which was being re-done for a new tenant. They had the thingy in several sections each of which had come off their van wrapped in bubblewrap under the thickest strongest brown paper you ever saw. There was meters and meters of this stuff and I was immediately afflicted with covetousness.

Well, having very little shame where packaging materials are concerned, I asked if I could have it and they cheerfully said yes and to come back in an hour and have the rest which was still to be unwrapped. I made 2 trips with 2 huge armloads and my brother was delighted to have it for packing his online orders.

Top tip; if you find yourself in need of bubble etc and are in a shopping area circa 3-4 pm, have a wee mooch as this seems to be when the shops put out their packaging waste for the trade waste pickups. Of course, as one will be doing this discreetly and be careful not to make a mess of the neatly-stacked waste. And if you live in Provincial City, you'll have to compete with me.

Lists of things I find nearly irresistable; bubble and blister wrap, shoeboxes, brown paper, 35 mm film canisters, jamjars esp with printed or gingham lids, twine, elastic bands, button tins......you can see why I am on the OS board.;)

Oh, and I got a 9 watt low energy bulb to replace the 40 w incandescent bulb in the uplighter and it is a better standard of light and will cost me less to run. I have invested 69p on the bulb and now I have an entirely low energy bulb flat (pauses to polish halo, then considers how much leccy could be saved by hanging out less on MSE.......:rotfl:)

HelenYorkshire

Sat with my pot of coffee trying to erase leather chaps and hotdogs from my mind... Work for a couple of hours later, then trying to decide whther to go to shops and stock up the freezer a bit (maybe explore some charity shops in a localish town) or whether to continue eatign the bits and bobs in the freezer. I know what I *should* do, but there might be a bargain out there!