make do and mend for tougher times

smileyt_2

Popperwell wrote: »

Should be a good meeting tomorrow with Smiley, Pah and Ginny...

..

Popperwell, how did you know that's what we look like? :rotfl:

Right, off to bed. My nose is cold and I can't feel it anymore, might be a hot water bottle night tonight.

Popperwell

smileyt wrote: »

Popperwell, how did you know that's what we look like? :rotfl:

Right, off to bed. My nose is cold and I can't feel it anymore, might be a hot water bottle night tonight.

Night Night Smiley,
I thought it was great when I found that smilie...

Sleep well...I'm a little warmer after putting the heating but perhaps I should think of using a HWB...that's a great idea...

XX

D&DD

Pops off to bed with you I can see your light on

Ginny I know the film you mean

Val thanks for posting about the fleeces really interesting stuff I can't believe how little they get for them,why is that?

Popperwell

Don't miss much Dⅅ)
I should get some sleep, you're right but I get unlimited access to the net between midnight and 8am so what do you do?

Hope you sleep well too...

Softstuff

I've had a couple of days of enforced internet absence when the power switch on my lappie died. After some googling it appears to be a design fault (crappy thin plastic that with use just bends), but of course we're long out of warranty. So, we took it all apart, fiddled a bit and I'm back. Now my power switch is a toothpick... if that isn't an old style repair I'm not sure what is.

I spent yesterday reading 50 shades of grey, I'd ordered it at the library after hearing how popular it is. Well, I read it in the day and frankly thought Mr Grey wasn't quite up to the job .

Apologies for everything I've missed, but it's enough to keep up normally without catching up too!

fuddle

A literary fluke softstuff. I too fell for the "you must read it, it's excellent!" words and was disappointed. Book 1 is ok. It's entertaining at least, but book 2 goes downhill that much that I have no intention of reading book 3. Dare I say it without making myself sound like a prude - I got bored of reading constant you know what.

Excellent fixing

Softstuff

fuddle wrote: »

A literary fluke softstuff. I too fell for the "you must read it, it's excellent!" words and was disappointed. Book 1 is ok. It's entertaining at least, but book 2 goes downhill that much that I have no intention of reading book 3. Dare I say it without making myself sound like a prude - I got bored of reading constant you know what.

Excellent fixing

Well, I've ordered book 2 from the library. The you know what in book 1 was n't particularly surprising to me, not much worse than Jilly Cooper (not that I've read much of that). But I confess to being more than a little curious where they go from here (I'm hoping he mans up, she stops sobbing and someone throttles her "inner goddess"). I fear I'll be disappointed, but frankly it's nowhere near as bad as Dan Brown was.

Pooky

Morning all

Ginny, SmileyT and PAH, hope you have a great day.

Fuddle - hope you endured your sleepover - the last big sleepover we had was a mixed one, 11 teens, they were all off to a festival thing in London so stayed over the night before to all leave together early and then again when they got back, it was bedlam but they're a great bunch of kids and they know the rules of my house. All the boys are 6ft+ but they still do as they're told . They call me their surrogate mum. I often hear cries of "mummy" when in town and get a group of teenagers charge at me for a hug. Must look quite scary to some to see them all charge at me.

Our sk* service ends today :j but we've now realised we need a new aerial, there's a bandwidth we can't get on our current one which doesn't come via the free channels on the satellite dish either. We hardly watch tv but typically these are some of the channels we watch most. So going to go buy a new aerial today and get it sorted (our aerial is in the loft so I can sort it without playing on the roof).

I need to squeeze the monthly outgoings a bit more, there seems to have been a lot of big spends in the past few weeks and I need to tighten everything up again. DH has been looking at cars, he currently has one through the motability scheme and his lease is up this time next year. We've no idea what changes are ahead in the schemes so its best we make provision whilst we're able. He has specific needs in a car and has a budget in mind so I told him to start the search now rather than rushing around and buying the first semi suitable thing next year. I need to factor in mot/service costs etc as currently they're included in the deal.

Still no sign of moggy, it's a week today that he disappeared.

mardatha

Awh it's so upsetting when cats do that, and you never know what happened. Mine appeared about 10 years ago - I noticed something during the night was taking meat scraps out of the ash bin. I thought anything hungry enough to eat ash-covered meat deserved a feed, so I lay in wait and watched - and instead of a mangy fox I saw a gorgeous big marmalade puddytat. Took ages to let me stroke him and still hates being picked up but loves tummy tickles & has never once used the claws. When we thought he was dying last year we took to the vet who found he was chipped. Born in 1996 but owners long since moved on...wonder if they still think about him?

7_week_wonder

Good morning everyone. I love keeping up with everyone'e comings and goings but never really have much to add so I mainly just lurk (I think I last posted about two toughie threads ago!)

Yesterday found me almost in despair in the supermarket - it's really hitting home how much prices are going up week by week. However, I rallied when I spotted that country life butter is only £1 at the moment, including the unsalted one, so I stocked up on a few which have gone straight into the freezer for future use. It was Mr M if anyone else fancies stocking up.

It's definitely autumn here so alas the heating has had to go on for a couple of hours a day (it was getting quite damp in the house and being cold makes me *so* miserable, but I still worry about the cost) so to cheer myself up I made soup inspired by a posh tub I'd seen in the shops. It turned out better than I was expecting so here's the recipe:
North African Veg Soup
1 kg mixed veg (needs to include an onion, but otherwise whatever's lurking in the fridge)
1 litre stock (veg or chicken or whatever's to hand)
1 teaspoon ground cumin,
1 teaspoon ground tumeric
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large teaspoon harissa paste.

Chop all veg, fry onion in a large saucepan for ~ 5 mins, add other veg and saute (fry with lid on) for another 5 mins. Add spices and harissa paste and stir, add stock, bring to boil and simmer for at least 20 mins until veg are tender. Blitz in blender/with stick blender. Eat some for lunch and put the rest in the fridge for lunches during the week It was scrummy, though I say so myself!

And finally a question, does anyone have any recommendations for good stock cupboard food from Amazon? I've got quite a lot of vouchers, and I tend not to buy that many books (get them from the library).

That's quite enough from me - have a good day all.