'supporting each other through really tough times'

kidcat

morning all - we are having a quiet day here, its horrid weather out and I am drained after DS had a sleepover on Thurs night, having no sleep at all really has left me limp today.:)

Mardatha - I would guess at ebay being your best bet, betterware/lakeland may do them too but not having a Pressure cooker, I assume they are an accessory with it and you have lost/damaged yours, so ebay you may pick up a basket from someone whose pressure cooker has broken and they are selling the accessories.

Have no idea what I am cooking for most meals today except OH is having chilli salmon steak (whoopsy from freezer) and someone else is having plaice fillet! The rest will be a dig in the freezer job

prepareathome

Mardatha, cannot help with the basket but wanted to let you know the soaps you made for granddaughter 3 were given to her on Christmas Day and since then she has been taking the unicorn to bed with her, she will not consider it being used as soap, she adores it. The carriages and mice are always being picked up and sniffed and one been used for her baths.

Going to go digging in store room as I have a vague memory of keeping a basket from a pressure cooker I inherited from MIL but as don't like them gave it away but am sure I kept basket as might be useful. Will let you know if I have it.

Hugs and Lovexxxxx

mardatha

TY.I will try Lakeland that's where I got the pressure cooker. Never had one but think it would be good to save money.

CRANKY40

I've never had a pressure cooker. All that hissing and stuff scares me :rotfl:

My idea of meal planning is remembering to fish something out of the freezer in time for it to defrost and become dinner, but I'm getting better at that. Tonight's dinner is home made spag bol. I tend to batch cook and freeze as there is only me and the house elf.

I have just cut the house elf's hair with the clippers so they've now paid for themselves (£5 a haircut x3). The last clippers crashed and burned but they'd paid for themselves too. He doesn't like going to the barbers. They let the hair go up your nose apparently.

We're going to do some baking this afternoon as there are no cakes or mince pies left and the elf is going to make some gingerbread shapes which may or may not be decorated depending on how soon he gets bored and wanders off. He has also requested shortbread with chocolate chips in. He seems to have hollow legs these days, probably because even when he is sitting down some part of him is still moving.

I hope all the poorly people start to feel better soon and sorry about your tree Aria's Tail. My good decorations haven't been out of their tub since the cats came to live with us.

2tonsils

Glad to hear most of you had a very good Christmas...wishing all the ones who have been ill good health again and wishing all of you a better year next year, it seems to have been a tough one for most of us.

We went away for a holiday for five days to Northern Greece. Got a 50 percent discount on the ferry tickets both ways and managed to get a half decent hotel with half board for 300 euros for five nights so did pretty well. We were way up in the mountains by a huge lake. The weather was glorious sunshine but it was really really cold except for a short time in the afternoons.

We walked for miles around the lake in the sunshine, around the shops, out to the restaurants and took a tour of a huge cave..forty five minutes of hard climbing up and down sets of steep steps underground! Only bought two tops as the clothes were way to expensive to spend on. However the petrol for the car was much cheaper and so were the meals. We ate out most evenings as the hotel tried to charge us for the first evening meal although it was included in the tariff. I was really annoyed about it and embarrassed, although they gave us the money back it made things uncomfortable afterwards. They did serve a good buffet breakfast though with lots of choice.

Back home now and had to queue for two and half hours in the bank yesterday as everyone was in paying car tax at the last moment. I left my OH to queue and went and did all the food shopping before collecting him when I had finished. Ran out of firewood last night so went to try to track down the man in the village who cuts it and delivers. After failing to find him and leaving messages in four places for him I met him coming round the corner to wish me Happy Christmas lol. So he is delivering it on New Year's eve...hopefully in the afternoon as we are going to a fancy dress party. Dancing is going to be fun after shifting a ton of olive wood Ha ha.

Have already started on my healthy eating plan to try and lose some body fat which crept on over the last year with my thyroid problem. It feels right to do it now that my meds are right.

Any suggestions for party food I can make with cream cheese? I bought a tub by mistake thinking it was yogurt as someone had moved it to the wrong section in the fridge.

13 degrees and rainy here with a warning out yet again for freak dangerous thunderstorms. Glad we went away for a few days in the sunshine, even if it was freezing at night. It is now snowing where we stayed so glad we came home when we did. Wise move...

SDG31000

Hello everyone

Well I managed to survive the Christmas hols without feeling I'll, but woke up this morning feeling incredibly dizzy. Dizzy enough to make me seriously worry about falling off the toilet. The family would have loved that and I can just imagine the paramedics reaction to my wearing DH's Kermit pj bottoms if I had banged my head.

DH was meant to be cooking lunch but had a shower and then fell asleep instead. So DS2 and I made bacon and mushroom sandwiches with me leaning against every available surface. It was like something out of a Marx brothers sketch lol. Hopefully it ends soon as my freezers are full to bursting and I need to have a sort out.

I hope everyone poorly feels better very soon xxxxx

kidcat

sdg - sounds like labyrinthitus, its awful and can linger, your GP can give you tablets to help it though. ALthough I sometimes can wake like that and if I sleep for a few hours it passes.

7_week_wonder

Hi All,

Hugs to those with greedy/clumsy dogs - it's tough when you want to be mad at them, but they didn't really do it on purpose!

I am looking for my inner zen, which has gone missing. I am desperate to make a start on organizing, tidying, de-cluttering and other New Year type things whilst I still have some holiday left but my mum is still here and I find it quite inhibiting. Bless her, she is 82 and I know I should (and mostly do) appreciate the fact that she is still around and largely with it. But when she comes to stay she mainly sits and watches TV or does sewing, which is fair enough, but she likes us to keep her company whilst she is doing it. So I end up sitting doing very little (surfing/knitting whatever) in a roasting hot room - whilst I am desperate to get on with stuff. And if I do go and do stuff, say, in the kitchen, she comes and just stands in the most awkward spot and scrutinizes what I'm doing. Sorry for the moan - I think getting completely soaked whilst fetching the car to pick her up from the shops was the final straw today!! All coping strategies gratefully received (even if it's just to tell me I'm behaving like a spoilt brat!)

Oh well onwards and upwards: homemade quiche tonight to use up some brie that absolutely refuses to ripen.

Have a good day everyone.

kidcat

7ww - when she follows you into the kitchen can you give her something to do? I dont know how you are set up but I have an L shaped kitchen diner, so if my mum followed me I could put something on the table and say while you are there could you just do this please?

Jazee

2Tonsils - Party food with cream cheese. Cut small squares out of ready made puff/filo pastry and use them to line a muffin tin. Mix most of the cream cheese with smoked salmon and bake at 180 for 15 minutes. Use the rest of the cream cheese to pipe a pretty pattern on top when they are cool.

This is dependant of course on you having all the other leftovers in your fridge/freezer too!