No T Words mentioned at all - a fresh start

hoglet121

Morning all,

Well the car passed its warrant, which was a minor miracle so one less expense. Still squirelling anything extra into savings as

a) the 'extra' mortgage payment we make annually, as we pay fortnightly not monthly, falls during Christmas

and

b) I have a tax bill to pay in Feb.

Neither are a surprise and I have saved the money away, but I would like to have that money replenished before it goes out.

Made more roseamary flatbreads last night - DH taking one as a sandwich to work today, stuffed with cheese and homemade pesto, and I've turned mine into an aspapragus pizza for my lunch. Quite pleaseed with how it turned out.

Tonight it's pork loin steaks with either champ or homemade gnocchi, depending how much energy I have when I get in. Found some great yellow stickered veg in the supermarket yesterday (they're quite rare here) - kumara (which we had roasted last night), new pots and sweet perppers.

Sadly, work is calling me,

love to you all

Hoglet x

katep23

Hello everyone, been mad busy with work.


Big news is we have a provisional date to exchange and complete next Friday! Am nowhere near ready so it's going to be a really hectic time.


The plans is to go over that weekend and make a start on things like the electric and heating and then start moving in the following weekend when we are off for two weeks for Christmas. I suspect Christmas Day will be spent with paintbrush in hand!


We've bought a van so we have flexibility to move as quickly or slowly as we want and don't have to be tied to being in one place or the other at a certain time. As we rent, we won't hand the keys back here until the end of January so there is no imminent deadline and we don't have to move in one day.


Then the plan is to sell the van and make some if not all of our money back - cheap removals!


Off to make a list of what needs to be moved when, who we will need to inform, is there anything we need to buy (a second kettle so we have one in each house - then it will go in OHs workshop later!)


Love to all x

candlelight_2013

Kate how exciting for you both, I do envy you. In no time at all you will make your house your home. Keeping your rental home until the end of January is a good idea. After a day working in your new home, you can close the door and go back, have a shower and be warm until the following day.

Good luck I am so excited for you.

Much love
Candlelightx

[Deleted User]

Well done KATE, it will be hard work but when you close that front door on the day you finally move in to your new home, it will definately have been worth it!

VJsmum

Hello all

Eeh but i am busy. I always said i wanted a job where i could be busy in the winter (which i hate) but have time off in the summer (which i love) and I do have that job. It's tough though, although these next two weeks are my busiest time and hopefully things will calm down a bit.

kate good luck with the move. How exciting

Things are jogging along here - busy with work, homey stuff and juggling the demands of ageing parents. My dads not too bad but MiL is a trial. She is very depressed but won't admit it, won't seek help and we can't make her. SiL (OH's sister) who lives near her just keeps making excuses as to why she shouldn't go to see the doctor. Very frustrating.

DD is still loving it - am excited cos she is coming back for christmas at the end of next week. Another reason to get the marking finished. I have bought most of her presents off amazon - which i am not chuffed about but it is so easy at a busy time. Neither child wants that much, so I may make up some themed hamper type things for them. i find it such fun. Dad will get a hamper which we both take great pleasure in - me buying and him receiving. MiL has got a tower of London poppy in a bud vase. it may not come before christmas but i will get the vase and put in a picture of the poppy explaining.

All the rest (some 20 odd gifts for nieces and nephews, friends kids etc) will be what the parents suggest. not much fun but gets the job done. i am going out with my friend on Sunday which will be fun - lunch will be consumed as well as coffee and afternoon tea. Hopefully we will get some shopping done too :rotfl:

We are having a dinner party on Saturday for some friends we don't see often. I am planning to do a slow cooked leg of lamb with indian spiced marinade. We have done it a few times so know that it works. i was going to do a daal and rice to go with. I am going to experiment with a raw key lime pie tomorrow for pud, there will be another pud. Any starter suggestions? All the normal indian things may be too tricky - bhajis or samosas etc. Any suggestions gratefully received.

[Deleted User]

An indian restaurant we used to go to when we lived in Kent used to do a Nargis Kebab as a starter, it was like an indian scotch egg with a hard boiled egg in the middle and mince with lots of aromatic spices round the outside instead of sausage meat. It was served with a crisp salad and mint mayonnaise, was delicious and would mean less main course meat to serve you all. Sadly I don't have a recipe but it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a spice mix for the mince to your own preference.

katep23

Ooh MrsL, just googled those and they sound lovely. Will have to try them some time soon.


Glad DD is still enjoying it VJsmum.


Taking my old slow cooker in for a colleague at work tomorrow, she's never had a slow cooker so hopefully she will get on with it.


Need to empty out our old fridge freezer and put in on Freegle to be collected this weekend; it stopped working so we got a replacement on ebay for £20 then OH fixed it. Now we've been given an American style fridge freezer so we have 3!


The old fixed one will go on freegle, the American one will move with us and the ebay one will be moved at the last moment and be a spare in the garage.


Just ordered a kettle using clubcard points so that was free!

candlelight_2013

HAPPY DECEMBER EVERYONE:xmastree:

Weather is now turning cold today and quite a trong wind.

Had my retinal screening this morning, no bleeding at the back of the eye, which is good, but he says I have a catarract on my left eye now, I knew I had one on y right. Nothing to be done yet, early days.

HOGLET has Alfie and the other cats settled since you have been back home? I thoroughly agree with you about overspending, because you then spend the next year paying it off. I don't know whether on your news they showed people in stores on Black Friday it was absolutely disgusting. People were fighting over TVs and such like. I can't imagine wanting anything that badly. I think you re very wise to put the money away gradually when you know you have large bill coming up.

VJs Mum you will have a lovely time when DD comes home. I am so glad she has settled in well. I know you were a little concerned befor she went, but these young people continue to surprise us.

Lyn it is great that you have the old Docky back, and a relief that you didn't have to work through various medications before you found one that suited him. I am sure you will have many happy years with him and the Zebra child will grow up knowing him.

FTM I hope you and the family are well. When are you putting the tree and decorations up? The girls' project on Christmas sounds really interesting, and I must say I would definitely go for a Victorian Christmas given half a chance. I know Lyn is doing masses of baking before her trip to Germany, have you started your baking for Christmas yet? I have to make masses of sausage rolls and mince pies yet.

SM I expect you are on your travels somewhere, so HELLO and safe journeys.

Hello to everyone else and take care.

Much love to you all

Candlelightx:santa2:

hoglet121

Morning everyone,

Kate - how exciting! great news re the date and moving slowly sounds wonderful, time to get things just as you wish them to be.

Candlelight - oh thanks so much for asking after the cats. They are not keen on letting us out of their sight but it's nice to know we were missed. We got back late so went striaght to bed and they all came and piled on the bed with us. Alfie murdered his second toilet roll in a week this morning - at 5.12am. I half heartedly played with a toy with him before going back to sleep, where Izzy joined me under the duvet when Alfie started annoying him. Yes they showed the UK's black friday nonsense on the news here - fortuantely nothing like that here (yet). They did advertise that there would be deals but nothing much. Here the Boxing Day sales are the big thing, but even so, none of that awful behaviour.

Ordered my Christmas present yesterday (who said romance was dead?!) - Hugh F-W's Light & Easy book. You'll never guess, it was cheaper to buy on Amazon UK and pay Amazon's postage to NZ than to buy in ANY of the NZ shops. Saved $23 doing that so not an insignificant amount.

DH made the pork steaks with champ last night - came home to find him rummaging around in the garden, head down in the veg patch, wanting to know which one was the sage. To be fair to him it was a valid question as it's quite hidden behind the tomatoes (which have finally started grwoing!). Pork steak with garlic and sage chips and spring onion champ - oh my it was delicious (and very cheap as the pork was what we'd won at the fireworks last month!) He was very complimentary about the rosemary bread I'd made him for lunch, and the homemade pesto in the filling, and I got lost of compliments about the smell of my asparagus and rosemary pizza when I warmed it up at work. Have to admit to feeling rather pleased with myself as I said 'oh it's just something I made last night' - naughty I know ;-)

DH will be working late tonight so I have a date with my recorded cooking shows - we have the Great British Bake Off from 2 seasons ago (we are slightly behind the times here!) showing at the moment so I'm enjoying that - in fact it's so old my mum gave me the book from that series when she came to visit over a year ago. That and Masterchef Aus which is on 5 nights a week so I have no chance of keeping up with it. Cooking is a bit of an obsession for me...

Right - work time. There is a big pallet, which I deferred sorting out yesterday, sitting looking at me and I might as well get it sorted whilst it's quiet....

much love to you all

Hoglet x

scottishminnie

Evening all. Feels like ages ago since I caught up with everyone!

Candlelight - no travels outside Scotland this week, boy am I glad! I had a trip to London last week, should have flown in and out of City airport and been home by 7pm. Due to fog and a broken down plane I left the house at 5am and didn't make it back until after 11pm and I ended up being diverted into Stansted and had to fly home from Gatwick. I saw more of London than I intended and never did make it to meet the people I should have seen, I had to call them instead. The joys of travelling, I'm staying home this week!

FTM - belated happy birthday to Fern, sounds like a good time was had by all.

Kate - great news on the house. It's going to be a busy time for you!

Hoglet- I was watching Hugh F-W earlier, I do like his recipes.

VJ's mum - key lime pie is my favourite. I bring back bottles of key lime juice from Florida and I do keep meaning to make something else with it however I always end up just doing key lime pie again!

MrsLW - the nargis kebab sounds amazing. I may well experiment with that before Christmas as we could do with something different.

I've promised the team at work that I will use my beautiful Yule log baking tin that I got in the sale at the beginning of the year to make them a proper Yule log. I need to search online though as all the recipes I have for Yule log are to make a Swiss roll type then cover it. I'm not sure if I need to do something different when it's the actual log shaped tin as it is quite deep. The guys will be eating it for days however they said that was definitely ok! They are my taste testers when I experiment although I've yet to find anything they don't like so not sure how effective they really are from a feedback point of view!

I had a spare hour today so nipped out and gave blood before the gap in my diary disappeared. I'm very aware that people are so busy at this time of year the stock levels often drop very low. The staff are always very welcoming and they insist on you having tea and a biscuit before you leave. They have cheese sandwich biscuits, kind of ritz cracker type things which I remember from the 70's. We only ever had them in special occasions though so I enjoy one when I'm there ( bet they are full of awful preservatives and e numbers:))

The rhubarb gin seems to be fermenting well, I shake it up every 10 days or so. I also am thinking about making bacon jam, I saw a cookery show at the weekend where it was served with bacon and avocado on toasted sourdough bread. Sounded delicious.

So I'm off to dig out scarf and gloves for tomorrow. It's now very cold here and I think it will be winter coat territory for a day or two. It is dry though which is good. My grandmother used to say that really cold dry weather killed all the bugs and illnesses off. Certainly beats wet, misty, dreich days!

Have a good week all.