A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

Byatt

Mardy, they has some jelly babies on AF.

Meme a great post, and one I could have done with some years ago. Totally agree about co-dependency, it took a long time for me to accept that and now I have to work really hard not to get myself in that situation again.

Kidcat, DD is getting better I think, she has the district nurse every day and she says it is healing. Just seems to be a long time and DD going stir crazy. I feel helpless as I can't be with her, until next week so I am stressing quite a bit. We are talking on the phone a lot though.

Fuddle, I get excited when the box arrives from AF! Every time, it's like Christmas. I get a real buzz from it. What a lovely MIL, makes up for a lot of people...maybe you can give her a home made something. A card which lets her know how much she is valued and loved.

HC, horrible news about your elderly neighbour. I'm not sure but I think you can have a block put on cold callers like that. Maybe someone here can remember how it's done. Maybe ask her phone company.

Stopped raining briefly here, but wind is up. Popped into town and got a crochet hook and wool, so will watch youtube later for a lesson!

edit: cheapskate, just hugs regarding adult children. My 2 brothers were always getting into difficulties of their own making, so know how frustrating and dififcult it is, especially if there is emotional blackmail. I won't give advice because they are your children, but if it was me, I'd dig my heels in, and refuse to take calls if it's all about them, and if they start off being nice, suddenly say you have to go, there is someone at the door or you have left a saucepan on the stove. Is that me giving advice?:o:cool:

lizzyb1812

HC - could your neighbour's relatives get her number registered for the Telephone Preference Service? Wouldn't stop overseas companies but would stop the ones here. Edit TPS link here: http://www.tps-register.org.uk/ there's probably a way to do it over the phone as well.

Fuddle - what a lovely MIL - bet that's cheered you up no end

Mardatha - if RV is being true to his name now you'll be able to have a head biting off session :rotfl:

May have to turn the kitchen into a potting shed tomorrow - have 9 large tomato plants desperately needing to get into big pots and no chance of being able to get outside to do it without getting soaked:( Weather so bad here the last day of the Suffolk Show was abandoned - that's a pretty big call. And Felixstowe dock has Operation Stack in place - mostly because of the howling wind. Rain is forecast to be on and off for the next few days but it's still going to be very very windy.

fuddle

Well pleased it was not just me getting all in a tizzy over a box of out of date food. I must have been expecting a load of bashed in boxes or something because I was surprised at how colourful and pristine it all looked. The girl's have had oat cakes and cottage cheese for lunch and snacking on poppy seeded biscuits. It's been a success but not buying anything more till the summer holidays.

Oh when my mil dropped them off I was so touched. She really is a star and would do anything should could to help you out. She has had it tough in her past and knows what it is like to have nothing as when DH was a little baby, they lived with his older sister in someone's old towing caravan. Even as they got on their feet DH tells me stories of real hardship but DH is a lovely, lovely man. I do truly believe that the nicest folk are those who have nowt.

MIL loves ginger preserve so when I make the batch up that I want to try out I will get the girls to design a label and give her a jar. I think she'll be made up

How is DD's abscess today Byatt?

Edited to ask:

Do any of you forage? I have just reserved Richard Mabey "Food for Free" as I fancy learning a bit about it. I've only ever blackberry picked.

mardatha

* is packing to move in with SDG who makes lots of cake*

jpscloud

smileyt, to help build your ark I can offer a large pile of leylandii trees from the bottom of my garden that I still haven't cleared up yet and a rather fetching crocheted rag rug (it's not finished yet but it will be rather lovely). I suggest we make lodger-boy be the galley slave as retribution for his naughty ways!

fuddle, that's lovely and definitely goes some way to restoring faith in humankind!

Well, it's getting very windy here as well as raining non-stop. And there I was thinking it couldn't get much worse...

jpscloud

fuddle wrote: »

Do any of you forage? I have just reserved Richard Mabey "Food for Free" as I fancy learning a bit about it. I've only ever blackberry picked.

I have dabbled in the past but I think it's one of those things, you might get lucky but some years you would get nothing, depending on weather conditions and how many other people are onto the resource!

you can grow a fair few blackberries even in a fairly small garden (just cut them back if they start to get invasive, they love it anyway). Part of my wild hedge is blackberry. I'm also growing my own hazelnuts now, and had a first crop last year of about fifteen nuts!

I have two trees each about four years old. I plan (if I get good crops) to use the nuts to make nut roasts and help cut down on expensive meat.

Cheapskate

Byatt - you give as much as advice as you like, hun, maybe there's something I missed! How's your DD and her teeth?

Fuddle - I've got the new "Food for free" from our library - first person to have it! :j:j It's a much bigger book, physically, than the earlier editions, but the photos are fabulous and he's added recipes or ideas on how to eat things. I'm going to hate returning it; if it was cheaper I'd consider buying it, but £25 is a big chunk of money! :eek:

I go blackberrying every year, and have picked wild garlic in the woods near me, and sometimes wild apples and pears. They're not really wild, but grown from fruit people chucked away, I think. I'd like to forage more, hence borrowing the book, but am so short of time right now, but there are some things I've recognised in my garden and friends', so might "shop" for odd green things this week!

A xo

colinthecockrel

I know this isn't strictly foraging, but for mother's day my dh and kids planted up a huge pot of herbs for me which is outside the back door - I just love nipping out there and snipping off a bit of this and bit of that and my goodness it saves a fortune on fresh herbs from the supermarket. I also find that because it's on the doorstep I add herbs to loads of things now that I wouldn't have done before.

lizzyb1812

I do a bit of foraging - lots of blackberries, cherry plums, walnuts if I can get to them before the squirrels, cobnuts ditto, a few tiny wild strawberries. I'll have to find some apple trees this year as after a huge crop last year on my tree I have about 4 on it this year Best of all is field mushrooms which I slice fry and freeze or dehydrate to add to stews etc. I've also picked elderberries and made wine in the past and will be having a go at elderflower cordial this year. Oh, and rosehips later on. I really enjoy doing it and it would be a good activity to do with kids - I have fond memories of my mum and her friend taking all the kids to pick bilberries on the hills above Huddersfield.

SDG31000

mardatha wrote: »

* is packing to move in with SDG who makes lots of cake*

I'd love to have you move in mardatha, but the phrase "Better the Ratty Virgo you know" springs to mind. I can be a right grumpy madam on occasion, just ask DH. Maybe one of us should move closer then we can swap cake and soap much more easily. I would send you cake, but I don't think the Royal Mail is up to it unless I send Dwarf Cake and I don't have a litter box that needs emptying.
I have been inspired by you however and have found a tin of fizzy cherry sweeties I had forgotten about. They taste like Cherry Drops that I was addicted to as a teenager.

fuddle that was a lovely thing for your MIL to do. I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful MIL and know what a difference it makes.

The house is freezing at the moment, I've decided not to put the heating on yet but have given in and turned up the thermostat so it comes on later. I'm listening to DS1 shout at the pc and I hope at the game he was playing earlier rather than his maths revision. Onions are frying to make onion gravy to go with toad in the hole and making me hungry.
DH has just got home, so he will want to lie on the sofa for a few hours while getting fed and watching mindless tv. He does the same as your DH PAH and comes to bed at 3am after I've gone downstairs and shouted at him to come to bed. You have my sympathies.

Time to hope that the kitchen fairies will come and take over and finish cooking dinner. What am I meant to leave as bait again?

Take care xxxx