Living on next to nought - is that the key?

[Deleted User]

:rotfl:Growing up in the 1940s-50s all children were expected to do 'chores'My eldest brother had shoes to clean every night.Mum would never let us go to school in mucky shoes:) Middle brother kept the wood kindling pile filled up( we had a big cast iron range which was used during the winter for drying said shoes when wet off in the small oven at the side , plus she always had a large kettle of water bubbling away on it.
The front bit opened out and threw out quite a bit of heat and made smashing toast on the long handled fork

My job as the smallest of the tribe was to help Mum on wash days .I am pretty nifty with the mangle and rarely caught my fingers in the rollers(made you learn to be careful about what you were doing )

My favourite job was when she washed the blankets and covers as I was deposited in the large cast iron bath with lots of soapy water and told to stamp up and down to pummeling the washing clean :):) great fun on a warm day .

My late Mum never owned a washing machine bless her, so everything was either in the small washing tub/boiler or handwashed. I often had to scrub shirt collars and cuffs on the glass washboard with a big bar of green Fairy soap and a wooden scrubbing brush. In fact when I got married in 1962 I did my late OHs shirts in the same way I remember buying a wooden and glass scrubbing board from the ironmongers locally for 2/6d. I never owned a washing machine until 1969 when I had my second daughter.

When I was very small we moved from the east end of London to the relative peaceful greenery of Blackheath in London. My Dad bought a huge barn of a house there for £1200. It had 13 rooms but was so expensive to heat that the five of us lived on the ground floor and we never used upstairs at all, apart from playing in on wet days .My Mum hated the place ,although it had a very large garden which she loved .It was very cold in the winter and certainly never had central heating. In fact the range in the large kitchen was the main source of heating although all the rooms had fireplaces .She had a scullery where there was a small gas cooker and an gas water geyser with a silver arm that gave a thin stream of water.There was also a bath with a wooden top to it in the scullery. But we mainly bathed in the kitchen in a tin bath.Mum would stick me in first before my mucky brothers messed it up :)just as well really. Eventually my Mum persuaded my Dad that living there wasn't practical, and we moved to a smaller house but it was 1955 before we had an inside loo and a proper bathroom with hot running water .But we all survived none the worse for it.After all what you don't have you don't miss.

I never think of those far-off days of being cold with pleasure I love my central heating and hot water and although my house is very small (we downsized in 1995) I am happy with it as its easy to run and I like getting up to hot water and a warm house ,especially in winter time

mrsinvisible

Good morning, Mrs I reporting for duty, fine feathers have been put back into storage and 'normal' service is resumed.
Had an absolutely lovely perfect day at the wedding, Her dress was lovely, she was beautiful, he .....was there, so it all went ahead. They held it together during the ceremony, but as they left the church, her scout troupe had made a guard of honour for her, and she just crumbled.
Yesterday was spent recovering, as l had stayed up until 10 o'clock, and my tail feathers had a flutter or two with the music.
What a lot of skills we have between us, we could probably make a couple of goddesses and wonderwomen from the mix!
I always thought that baking powder was a mix of soda bic and c-o-tt, another myth exploded, eh?
Will I risk hanging out the washing? will I just drape it over the banister? watch this space! xx

Karmacat

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

why do you have 40 flowerpots?

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

karma - great to *see* you - I feel your pain with the plant pots, you get to 40 in no time at all.......

What Greying said between emptied pots that have now been planted, and annuals that I had on windowsills but never cleaned them after I cropped them and emptied them ... it adds up definitely my bad.

What do you think of my version of courgette risotto?

I think its lovely! So many people grow courgettes ... I've come to the conclusion that between my perennial greens - chives, lemon balm, mint, a few strawberry leaves - and courgettes, I could make great salsa/pesto once everything's planted (and more plantpots washed ) I'll be onto that - next year

Have a good day, Greying.

Shortie

Afternoon all

With all this talk of plums, I need to google a some ideas for plums that we're going to pick from the neighbour's tree - very definately over hanging our garden (and chooks, and past the shed, lol) and they don't care for the plums anyway...

Hoping to pick them tonight with help of Mr Shortie and some step ladders when I get home from work tonight

little_sweetie

It's dear GD's 10th birthday today and we have all been for lunch at one of those 'World Food' restaurants. All I kept thinking was " GP would love all this!" Foodfrom all over the world was represented and I could just picture you, GP, with a notebook and a tasting spoon going from Thai, to Indian, to Vietnamese, to Japanese, to Chinese etc and back again I was completely baffled and overwhelmed by the choices :undecided so I stuck to what I recognised but for about £8 each it was amazing ( cake was included for afters :T)

little_sweetie - I knew you was blessed and capable

Aw, shucks, GP, thank you

It does appear that we have many, many, capable and talented people on this thread. Let's hear it for the women on here! :beer: And GP's DP too, of course, he comes in very handy by all accounts

Hopefuljoy

Hello there everyone! I am reminiscing about my 1970's childhood while reading your posts.

Does anyone remember aluminium single glazed windows? I grew up in a 1960's detached open plan house which had really large picture windows. Strangely the gas fired warm air duct central heating didn't include the two North facing bedrooms!! Those were the days when the heating went on for an hour before getting up and an hour before bed time. Goodness knows what my mother did during the day!:(

Each morning I'd wake up to a beautiful ice pattern on my window where my breath had frozen during the night, :rotfl: We'd lie towels along the window sill to soak it all up during the day. My 15 year old DD was flabbergasted when she found this all out. Even now I try hard not to have the heating on where strictly necessary. People seem to wear t-shirts in winter in their homes!! I've ended up in another 1960's home and am only the second owner. It's far smaller though! We joke that you can heat the whole house by lighting a candle!:D

I'm trying to plan meals at the moment. You are all very talented and seem to be right on the ball with this but the skills seems to utterly elude me. I get very overwhelmed by the variety of things I could make.:eek:

However, I've gone through the few recipe books I've kept and marked every page with a good recipe with a little tab so at least I know where they are. So far Jack's book and Good Housekeeping are the winners!! :rotfl:

Back to work tomorrow and have chewed my fingers to bits:eek: Slight exaggeration there! I shall be fine once it starts.

I am in awe of everyone's plum jamming! My neighbour doesn't have a plum tree but has three apple tress crammed into her small back garden. She's a very kind person and I think I shall offer her something in return for her extras.

I am a proud Hopefuljoy today as my badge of debtfreeness has been awarded by the lovely Badger people!! Also my DD and DS and being nice to one another again and we went for a free MYWa£££se tea with him and his fiancee yesterday!!:T:T

See you all soon

Hopefuljoy

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Oh my! We've wandered off down memory lane some eh? I'll have to pop the kettle on and open up the biccy tin in order to try to corral you back onto the thread

JackieO wrote: »

I never think of those far-off days of being cold with pleasure I love my central heating and hot water and although my house is very small (we downsized in 1995) I am happy with it as its easy to run and I like getting up to hot water and a warm house ,especially in winter time

^ THIS. Just this. JackieO - the next home I own (if I bother) will be tiny, easy to maintain and easy to heat. If one more person says to me, 'oh but period properties have such character'. I shall scream. Very loudly.

mrsinvisible - so glad that the nuptials went well. How did your sis's outfit, erm, hold up?

I'm not sure over the c of tt thing either, as you added bp into the mix too :think: All I do know is that it worked

Karma - thank you for popping in. And yes, I've had a super day, thanks

shortie - how's the plum picking? Hope you're keeping safe up them ladders

little_sweetie wrote: »

It does appear that we have many, many, capable and talented people on this thread. Let's hear it for the women on here! :beer: And GP's DP too, of course, he comes in very handy by all accounts

:rotfl::rotfl:DP an honorary woman?? He's not that good :D:rotfl::rotfl: Mind, he's not a bad old stick.... most of the time Thanks for including him

And yes, you have me sussed with that restaurant - sounds FAB!

Hopefuljoy wrote: »

Does anyone remember aluminium single glazed windows?

YES

:D And the 'lovely' frost patterns......... And the bed linen frozen to the wall where the condensation ran, then froze I don't know which is worse, single-glazed aluminium or single-glazed sash - blinking rubbish both of them

:T:T:T YAY to your 'DEBT-FREE' status WHOOP!!! :j:j:j

Hope that tomorrow goes great and that you get into the stride of the new term in next to no time


So, today.

Well, I did spend money, as I did dive into mrS as I was passing. Just as well I did, otherwise tonight's dinner would not of happened...... However, that is it for most of the storecupboard/freezer stuff now, just fresh top ups for the rest of the month, fingers crossed........

I got the donation to the FB, saw the lovely receptionist and handed over the goods. So that's our September donation done and dusted. Only £7, which isn't a lot, but a bit more than we normally donate.

I found 11p in *roadkill* - a penny and a shiny 10p piece that was in the road, and had been run over several times...... Luckily, there was a lull in traffic, so I swooped and picked it up

I'm going to aim for 15 NSD's in September - only managed 13 in August, which with our hols wasn't too bad, I suppose, but I can do better

Dinner this evening was a recipe out of the 'Good and Cheap' recipe PDF that I linked to last week. It, and Leanne's companion title 'From Scratch' are going to be the mainstay of my recipes for this month, with a couple of Jack Monroe recipes (that I didn't try in my 'Back2Back' Jack week - earlier in the year) added into the mix, plus a few 'filler' austerity grade recipes to make it up to 30 days........ Wish me luck, that is a lot of 'new to me' recipes

So, from pg 90 of 'Good and Cheap' I made 'Pasta with Aubergine (eggplant) and tomato. Picture here;




I'd certainly make it again, it was very simple. I think it was a little like JaymeeO's 'stracci' pasta dish, as I've never made the 'pasta a la Norma' that the dish is supposed to be based on. The ingredients list is in US measurements, so as I made it, I converted the amounts and 1/2 lb of pasta = 230g, which I think is a little on the generous side - I did 200g and that was plenty. 2 cups of chopped tomatoes does = 1 tin of tomatoes and I grated 1/4 cup of grana padano/parmesan and found that loosely packed it weighed approx. 15g, which was more than plenty. I steamed up some broccoli - yes, some of the 50p 'savers' stuff. It was ok, it didn't turn to mush, but some of the stems were..... a little tough..... all fibre though innit I calculated that the meal, for 2 cost approx. £1.50 and provided 2 generous portions (although the broccoli was my addition, it's not in the book). DP wondered how much such a meal would cost at a high-street 'It.Al.Ion' restaurant chain.........

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

that the nice receptionist was on at the FB centre - makes it even easier to donate........

that I'm finding Leanne's recipes easy to follow, quick to prepare and modestly priced to make - it all helps the budget

that DP noticed the new JaymeeO series was starting tonight, and taped it for me, because he thought I might want to watch it - :smileyhea

Thank you so very much for popping by, reminiscing and bringing much to this thread. I do appreciate it. Greatly

See y'all later.

Greying

liltdiddylilt

Hello GP...

I do love this thread. It is like going to a nice happy household, sinking into a soft chair and being offered builders tea and sponge cake... *settles in* :rotfl:

I really need to meal plan this week. I have missed 2 weeks now... I haven't done badly, stuck to what food we had in and shopped carefully but still, I miss knowing what is for dinner before I open the fridge door... today we had (planned) stuffed marrow again with brown rice this time to mix it up (and because I have run out of the giant bag of white easy cook stuff and am determined to get through the mounds in the cupboard!) - again there are enough leftovers for dinner tomorrow.

Thanks for the inspiration as always GP... Off to meal plan.. or procrastinate...

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi Greying, I'll be trying some of these recipes in October, or may substitute some of my September menu plan. Tonight's dinner looks lush - if you make it again, give me a holler and I'll pull up a chair

Tilly x x

[Deleted User]

Tonights dinner was freezer roulette (I must remember to label things ) plus left over veg from yesterday that DD always puts in a small plastic container for me. I always have dinner at DDs on a Sunday, and anything in the way of L/O veg comes home with me to go with my dinner on Monday night.
She has a family of 6 all told so mostly there is enough for a little old Grandma to take home Last night it was some honeyed roast carrots and some brocolli.My freezer roulette meal was a curried veg with some chopped spuds, for pud I had some low fat basic yoghurt mixed with some left over stewed apple from Sundays batch that I made a crumble with.
Tomorrow night I will be at the pub quiz where for £2.00 we have a quiz and a supper (usually a pasta bake or jacet spud with bean or cheese.Good night out and a meal thrown in, win-win I think.

NSD for me today apart from taking the DGS for their haircuts (which their Mum paid for) I had no inclination for food shopping.We went to the local country park and managed to snaffle some blackberries. Some of them will go in my mueseli for breakfast and the rest will be mixed with Yoghurt for Wednesday nights pudding.
My purse is tightly closed this week :):)