make do and mend for tougher times

GreyQueen

Happy daze............falling-on-face tired, have had to take 2 disco naps since 5 pm but I'm very happy.

Family came up. We let my brother loose on the city and Mum, Dad and I were on the lottie by 9 am and stayed until nearly 2 pm.

Dad go hold of the mattock and ventured into the area of the lottie known as The Rough, the Nature Reserve or That Bliddy Messy Bit at The Top (depending on my feelings that day) and started chiseling backwards from the strawberry beds towards the shed.

:j There is now a bare strip of soil about 1.5 metres wide the length of The Rough. It's shrinking. I will aim to hold that line and shrink it further and further..........and we found slugs and snails. Today's kill-count was pitiful compared to my solo score last Saturday (27 against 205) but every one gone is one less to munch next year's crops.

I was myself plying a digging fork in the formerly-potato patch were I foudn a few small spuds which we missed at the great harvesting a few weeks ago and I unearthed some of the bad weeds like docks and bindweeds and we took a huge bag of the grotters to the green waste section of the tip on the way home.

I feel much more positive and optimistic about the lottie that I did last week when I was suffering a bit from overwhelm.

Mum was made to sit in a deckchair and natter (she's got a bad back at the mo) but she did decide to try out my grass shears at one point and promptly declared she wanted some just like it to do the family graves with. Dad managed to talk her out of it and I carefully-frisked them before we left the shed to make sure that the shears weren't heading off the their town.

Glad to hear that the glorious weather seems to be widespread and that we've all had a dose. I'm as tired as a small child but have had a bath and will sleep well (depending on the neighbours as it's the city centre on Saturday night) of course.

:T Welcome Glam girl, glad to have you de-lurked.

Right, going to ingest another gallon of tea and see if I can stay awake until the ridiculously-late hour of 9 pm. Laters, GQ xx

[Deleted User]

LISAKAY - I had the same situation over reading books with DD1 - she read through the infants reading scheme in 1 year, and for the next 2 years was taking books from the junior library. She was reading Black Beauty and Children of the New Forest at the age of 7. Up to juniors and she came home with the same book she'd been given on day 1 at infants. Tried to tackle the new teacher and got told that they set the reading standard to the lowest ablilty in the class. DD was saying 'It's good Ma, I remember what I wrote for comprehension last time, so I just write that again and then I can draw a picture'. I got nowhere, until one Friday when I went in yet again to tackle said teacher and she was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands crying. She was just in such a dilemma, and said if you can get her a place at one of the village schools, please DO IT! It's the only way she is goping to get an education. So we did, and she never looked back. got GSE's. got A'Levels, Got a good degree and is now a Senior Teacher and Department Head in a secondary school.

It's difficult to move them when they're settled and I got lots of flack from parents of kids she was friendly with but I had to look at her future and I knew she would make friends quickly in a new place which she did. Not an easy decision to make but it was the right one for her. Difficult though isn't it? Cheers Lyn x.

mama67

fuddle wrote: »

Welcome peony

Byatt I think a dinner ladies is a person who dishes out the meals where as a dinner nanny is a person who looks after the children while they eat/play... I'm officially a dinner nanny :j

I can't start till my CRB check is through though, which could be anything from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Sooner the better... and guess what, it's right up my street - I have to wear a pinny :j

Well Done Fuddle we are called "lunchtime supervisors" regardless of whether we serve up the hot food as I do or just supervise the packed lunch eating and then playground duty.

Cheapskate

Evening all

Fuddle, I used this recipe for the sloe gin I made last year, dead simple. I bought supermarket El Cheapo gin, you'd never know it wasn't an expensive brand by the time it's turned into a liqueur!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sloegin_7722

Instead of pricking the sloes with a needle, I froze them (either method is just to split the skins so the sugar and alcohol will soak in), then defrosted a few hours before I made the stuff. I used the cheap Kilner-type jars from !kea to steep it, then decanted into screw-top bottles, including some mini wine bottles. I used the same proportions of brambles, vodka and sugar to make bramble vodka - that was stunning, if I do say so myself! (and lethal! :rotfl::rotfl:)

A xo

Pooky

GQ - sounds like a productive day. Your parents sound much like mine, when they arrive to help, they get stuck in and my god do they help.

I've got another kidney infection . Pfft.

lisakay_2

oooh, not nice pooky hope it clears quickly x

GreyQueen

Pooky wrote: »

GQ - sounds like a productive day. Your parents sound much like mine, when they arrive to help, they get stuck in and my god do they help.

I've got another kidney infection . Pfft.

Sorry about the kidney infection. Sounds painful and miserable. Hope you get well soon.

Yeah, my parents are great but I have to try and rein them back in as they're not spring chickens. Mum's in remission for cancer and is taking anti-oestrogenic meds (hormone driven cancer) and they're burgering up her bone density which was recorded as excellent the month before the cancer showed itself. I'm trying hard to get her to rest so made her sit on the deckchair halfway down the path and chat rather than we almost shout at each other from the sitting area near the shed at the top, the bit I call the "patio". The inverted commas being to dispel any suggestion of swankiness as it's just some ex-LA slabs from the reclamation yard.

Dad's a one-man dynamo and you can barely stop him when he confronts the horror of couch-grass infestation as my lottie stood derelict for many years before I got it in 2008 and has major probs with couch grass, bindweed and my personal bete noire, HORSETAILS.

I'm gonna win. I intend to have a bed of fruit bushes and herbs where The Rough now stands and the nettles, brambles and misc non-organic carp are gonna have to go. If people can clear the rainforest, I can't see why a few square meters of rough meadow should defeat me.

fuddle

Ergh at kidney infections

The patio sounds ideal for a spot of tin cooking GQ

I didn't get the rose hips picked today so that's on the cards for tomorrow.

DH has said no to chickens. He thinks the LL will take exception.

Tried the 'lid on boiling water and turn the heat off to save electricity' technique with my pasta this evening. Works well so thanks for sharing that.

Oh, and found my camping kettle. Many a freebie heating in the coming months via tin cooking. Tomorrow I am twig, moss, leaf and bark hunting as it's been so dry for days. A nice stash is needed

GreyQueen

The patio is the plan for the on-lottie pyromanical experimentations. Hope not to incinerate the shed whilst I'm at it.

Lottie rules include a burn-ban til Oct so I will observe that as don't want the lottie officer on my case. I'm counting down the days til I can play around with my tooled-up ex Woolworths stainless-steel cutlery drainer (50p at bootsale on Bank Holiday weekend). It's sitting twinkling on the wall unit a few feet away. I actually bought two at the same time......I could be going into production.:rotfl:

Good luck with the foraging. Dad was telling me today that there are hardly any ripe blackberries in his neck of the woods (folks live 30 miles away) and that they're very late this year but a few more days of sun like today should bring them along nicely.

Oooh, just remembered from my Bushcraft course; the fluffy seeds of rose bay willow herb, available now, are excellent tinder.

I learned that thingy with the pasta last year from OS board. It's great to get cooking done with the power off, feels like you're winning somehow.

Pooky

GQ, very much like my parents then. My mum had her thyroid removed because it was cancerous, this is going back a few years now but she really does forget that her thyroxine levels are only good when she's at normal pace. They live the other side of the county so when they come to visit she likes to "do" rather than sit so I try and find small jobs for her that won't have her running around like a woman possessed. Last time they came Dad disappeared, about 20 min ties later a head popped over the garage roof and asked for a cuppa. He'd noticed the flat roof needed a bit of attention so came with his overalls and tools and just got stuck in.

Kidney infections are indeed vile and I spent an hour and a half being prodded and poked at the hospital this morning before being given some anti-bs - felt very tender after that.