Living richly; simply and debt-freely

Upsidedown_Bear

Smilie of the day.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Afternoon :hello:

INOD - you say the kindest of things Thank you

Upsidedown Bear - super smilie - ta!

Well, I've not been a lazy bones, a-lying in my bed. We've been up and at 'em since the break of dawn..... Tried to combine a trip to mrL to bag some of the special offer oranges with our intended destination - failed dismally, as the delivery wagon hadn't arrived, so they had none of their 'specials'......

We then spent the morning going for a walk :j It was DP's suggestion too :j Although I picked the location. We had a ball, walked up a hill - it was over 500m at the top, so quite a steep ascent, but we only had to start from about 300m or so, so not quite Everest...... :rotfl: It was a good work out, but so misty, we couldn't see thing at the top, and on all the photo's, our clothing looks white, from all the little droplets of water that landed on us - plus DP has a dew-drop on the end of his nose as it was quite cold! :rotfl: Still, we munched our snap, slurped our coffee and then wended our way down again. Said howdy to the local farmer, tending to his sheep and then met another couple who were going up the same route

We heard nothing but skylarks, chirping (small birds, sparrows, robins etc) and the odd crow - an odd baa off a sheep and a distant dog barking. It was absolutely wonderful I know we had to use diesel to get out and about, but other than that, it was free entertainment. We came a different route back, and whilst wending along country lanes, I got great close up views of snowdrops, hazel and willow catkins Actually nicer than some of the 'formal' snowdrop walks that you have to pay to go and see, and something that transported me straight back to my childhood, where snowdrops and wild primroses were abundant

On the way back, we dropped into mrL again and they'd had their delivery by that time, so I got some oranges (74p for 1.5kg) The oranges are usually sweet and juicy, although you do have to check each bag, as they do tend to have some that have the citrus mould thing

Dinner last night was black olive pizza and chopped potatoes. The tatties were YS'd from m&$. I forget what the variety was - it wasn't one that I has heard of before, and as they were a product of Israel, perhaps that is why (the other YS'd tatties were Charlotte - product of France. I would have bought British had there been any........) They were quite nice, browned up well, but not crispy. They appear *wet* not from too much oil, but i'd cooked them, put them in a bowl and put vinegar and salt in and then t0ssed the dish to coat them all, so that they were seasoned on the plate. Picture here;



Dinner this evening was going to be Penne pasta with tomato and vodka - from my student cookbook. I was going to buy a vodka miniature for the sauce, as we don't really drink spirits and it would be a waste to get anything bigger. However, I couldn't find any vodka miniatures in either mrT or mrA (whisky yes, anything else, no) so I'm substituting white wine instead. I can also use some wine in tomorrow night's risotto - so win, win MSE'ing :T I'm going to pre-prepare as much as I can though as the rugger is on, and I don't want to be chained to the stove all evening

Right, I'd better toodle orf and get cooking - 45 mins until kick-off at Twickers

Edit: Forgot to add that I made yoghurt last night and thankfully it was successful - although I am not overly impressed with the texture/flavour from the *cheap* UHT milk that I bought. It is OK - certainly edible, but I won't mind one bit when we have used it all up Also, it doesn't make good yoghurt if you use it as a starter (goes very thin) so I have had to spend 60p getting some more natural yoghurt for starter purposes - not ideal, but it makes the yoghurt work, so is the best option. Also, I made bread rolls for our snap today, and put in a big dollop of yoghurt into the bread dough - have to say, the rolls were tasty and very soft in texture, really nice. Stuffed with HM chickpea and mushroom bangers - we were doing the *Guy F Hunch* trying to eat them at the top of the hill! (DDD followers will know what Guy's burger hunch looks like.... )

Thanks everso for popping in, reading and commenting. I greatly appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

muddywhitechicken

:wave: Greying

Enjoying the rugger?! Mr MWC isn't :rotfl:

Today is Afghan carrot hotpot day :j:j:j

MWCx

Greying_Pilgrim

muddywhitechicken wrote: »

Enjoying the rugger?! Mr MWC isn't :rotfl:

Today is Afghan carrot hotpot day :j:j:j

I sure AM Wonderful game - love watching Italy play. They play to the whistle and have just improved, improved, improved. But what about Tommaso (Tommy) Allan? Surely MrMWC must applaud his efforts? Besides which, 3 trys, one converted, is a brilliant scoreline - I don't care what England got - it was a great game to watch and Mike Brown is OK, so... all in all, a great rugger match. Bring on the next......

And HUZZAH!!! for it being [STRIKE]valentines[/STRIKE] Afghan Carrot Hotpot Day :j:j:j:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Greying x

Hopefuljoy

Hello there GP and friends. I'm having a slow day today as DD has gone on her skiing trip and I'm so tired.

I'm also fed up with myself for an overspend since Christmas which has resulted in an od of three hundred pounds. I will claw it back next pay day but it feels like a chronic failure. I'm at my lowest in winter and tend to overspend. However, I don't need to buy any food this week as I'm using up cupboard supplies so that's thirty saved. Only need petrol for two trips so that's fifteen not spent and I'm enjoying Pirin. Life could be worse and I've come a long way.

Tonight I'm going to bed with my kindle to watch free programmes on Amazon and then tomorrow I'm going to bluewater with my aged Ps as I've saved a tea and cake voucher for JL and have a free Lebanese meal voucher for lunch. So zero spend for a nice day out!

Thanks for the Valentine smiley Upsidedownbear!!

Have a great evening everyone!

in_need_of_direction

Whoop whoop whoop.

mrsinvisible

thank you all for your kind thoughts and wishes, very much appreciated. xxxxx

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

INOD - do I detect a faint air of celebration??? I'm afraid I missed the majority of the match However, what I saw was very good - France weren't giving an inch, right down to the whistle. Very well played Ireland. Wonder how this afternoon's match will go?

Hopefuljoy - if it was easy and straightforward to remain out of an overdraft, then everybody would be doing it. Please don't be so hard on yourself - you have come a long way, in a very short space of time in the grand scheme of things..... So, it's a blip - a blip you've caught before it grows into an 'O Bother' - and you're mindful of where you need to be to be back on track :T I hope you have a super time with your parentals today - let us know what you had for your lunch at the Lebanese restaurant

Well, we enjoyed ourselves yesterday, although I think that the indulgence tipped slightly into the over catergory Still, at least it was all paid for and cost far less than even one 'Valentine special' at a restaurant would have done.

The pasta dish was based on the student 'Penne, Vodka & Tomato' recipe, but I think the finished article was more 'inspired by' that based on........ I used that student staple of valoo penne I pre-cooked it then cooled it and warmed it through when we wanted to eat. That worked well. I made a sauce with red onions, celery and garlic, to which white wine was added and allowed to cook off. I then added a few whole cherry tomatoes and let them cook down. I then added in the cream and the rest of the cherry tomatoes that i'd chopped in two. Let this warm through, and then added in the pasta and seasonings. Served in a bowl with some of mrL grana padano on top and some fresh basil. Picture here;



I forgot that I had cooked some YS'd purple sprouting broccoli so that is not on the plate - I added it afterwards, the meal would have been cold if I had stopped to photograph it. I had to whisk the plate back off DP's lap as it was :rotfl: You can also see that we had an icecream to follow - the mAgnums are 3 for £1 from c00l trader.

A fab walk with lashings of fresh air, good company, good food and rugger games - February 14th, 2015 was purty dang good

Right, I'd best shift a tail-feather, I've got tons to do today, before I allow myself to park my bUminfrontofthetellytowatchmorerugger

Thanks for popping in, reading and commenting. Very much appreciated.

See y'all later.

Greying

supersaver1000

Hello hello.

Hopefuljoy, I'm the same with the overdraft this month. Doesn't feel good and it's a bit scary too. GP is right, we've caught it and the fact we're bothered and not putting our heads in the sand is great news.

GP your walk sounds lovely.

We had a fabtastic Valentine meal out - guilt free - and wonderful food and company. Took my car for a wash in the morning so mooched the CS and found a fab dress for a fiver. Will be gr8 for work but wore it for my eve out - it would have been about £90 new . Also treated myself to a Coosta coffee and had some Valentine balloons so I've been well and truly spoiled.

Have a great Sunday all you GP-ities

liltdiddylilt

GP your Valentines dinner looks lovely.

You would have been proud of me last night. The options were all there. There were some beautiful steaks... some amazing *ready* meals, 'offers' on all manner of oriental dishes, and so on and so forth... and I was offered a takeaway to stop me having to cook. Do you know what I had? A fresh crispy salad with a dollop of mayo, and a mushroom omelette. It was LUSH and cost me about £1 :rotfl: Him decided on fish pies from the freezer section. £1 each and he had 2, We did rather indulge on puddings. :o:o:o but it was delightful, have more for tonight

Have a lovely Sunday everyone xx