Five OS Pleasures in your day today

bellaquidsin

Had a lovely day today.

1. It's 40 years since DD was born so we took her out for a meal, not very OS, but hey there are more extravagant ways of celebrating a 40th birthday than lunch in a garden centre.

2. From said garden centre I had a free pack of daffodil bulbs with a coupon which came through the door.

3. DH bought himself a new reclining garden chair half price. His old one was falling apart and this is the best time of year for bargains in garden chairs.

4. Back home DH continued moving a shrub which he had started this morning with the intention of enlarging our vegetable patch.

5. For the time being DH slabbed the area to house the cold frame in which I hope to continue growing salad leaves well into the autumn. They were doing well in a sunny spot in the garden until the squirrels found them,:eek: now they've got a lid on :T

Bella.

Kittikins

1. Worked in different office again today so more mileage expenses to come.
2. £16.68 to the mortgage from my Amaz*n sales recently
3. Took back the expensive dress and got more back than I paid (paid for some of it using a gift card, but when the girl did the refund she forgot to put the small amount back on, woo hoo!)
4. Seeing some photos with me in from Sat night's party and thinking "Wow, I DO look slim"
5. Midsumer Murders being back on TV tonight.

Caterina

Hi all,

Here I am briefly at the end of a really lovely day, to say hello and put my blessings in.

Kittikins: the borlotti and pasta soup was really nice, there is nothing like fresh beans to make it special - also my friend, who got some fresh beans from me the other day, loved them. Even if you just have runner beans, it is worth letting a few go overgrown and use the seeds rather than the pod (but not as nice as Borlotti, they are really creamy!).

Sparrer: I am really glad that you feel so blessed and also that you are getting so much help with your health issues, on the NHS.

Ollie: what you do is you let your radishes go a bit overgrown so you have a lot of green tops (but don't let them get too enormous or the leaves will get a bit tough). Then you pick them up, use the roots if you want but separate the greens, wash them well and chop them finely. They can be used in soups or as spinach, or if you want to dress pasta you can sautee them in olive oil with chopped garlic and chilli. Use as pasta dressing and top it up with some grated pecorino (hard sheep cheese). Hope you enjoy it! No need to wait till next year, if you plant radishes now you could still get a crop in late October depending on the weather.

Bella: Happy birthday to DD!

Here are some of my blessings for the day:

1 - Had the opportunity to go out for the day to Hastings, with a coachload of older people from a sheltered housing scheme. My friend went as a helper and told me that there were empty seats. For £8 return, not bad! Next time I can go as a helper as well and the trip is free and the person who gets help buys the helper lunch. Sounds good, but I would do it to give a hand, not for the free lunch (well, not JUST for the free lunch;))

2 - The weather in Hastings stayed dry and I even got some sunshine!

3 - Lovely walk through the old town and all the way to the top, good to burn that enormous belgian bun I ate before starting the walk!

4 - Found a lovely present in one of the little shops, for my boss' birthday on Saturday (I am invited, as I invite her to my parties, we have a good friendly relationship).

5 - Came back in time to make dinner for all, knocked together a lovely chick pea and spinach curry, also using the last of our courgettes (season over!).

Good night everybody xxx

Olliebeak

Lovely, but rather chilly, good morning to all :hello: - lovely fluffy white clouds rolling by so it looks like a nice day ahead.

bella - happy :bdaycake: to your DD - don't see anything at all wrong with lunch in a Garden Centre to celebrate. You and your family enjoy gardening, so a most appropriate setting for your lunch. Our local one is beautiful . A freebie pack of daffs and a half-price garden chair as well - profitable day all round :j.
Kittikins - good for you on taking your dress back again (no point in two same colour/similar style) and well done on being able to pay a little extra off your mortgage :T - it all helps to get rid of it earlier.
Caterina - sounds like you enjoyed your day out in Hastings with the sheltered scheme outing. We went to Blackpool for a day out back in June - worst day of the year - gales and torrential rain till we got back on the coach and then the sun shone as we drove down the prom :mad:. One of the ladies rang her son to come all the way to collect her and her pal to go home early! Thanks for the info on radishes - I'll try sowing another batch today and see how they go on - may need to keep them indoors for a couple of evenings until they germinate.

1. DD has been to register with a new doctor where she's moved to and has an appointment on Monday with a lady doctor. Hopefully they will now investigate her digestive problems properly. With a bit of luck, they might also check out dgs1 as her last doctor was quite happy to go along with what the school were doing with him but no checks on his behaviour/emotional probs.

2. Yesterday's meeting went OK, but still not sure why we all had to travel all that way for a three hour meeting on risk assessment. Mind you the H&S guy was a bit surprised to hear about us standing on tables to put Christmas Decorations up - to be quite honest though, tables are more steady than step-ladders! And warnings about not handling Christmas Tree lights with wet hands - what do they think we are at all!!! Most of us are mums, some are grandmas and we ever have some great-grandmas among us - been doing Christmas Trees since before this guy was even born! Blessings out of the meeting? ........... the tea, coffee and biccies were good and I got a lift to Asda on the way home :rolleyes:.

3. Topped up on bread, veg, soap powder, milk in Asda and a few whoopsies as well that were beckoning to me. 3lbs leeks for 75p and some ES vine ripened tomatoes for less than half price.

4. Offered my Asda 'coffee loyalty card' to be stamped and the lovely young man took it off me in exchange for my coffee and gave me another one already stamped as well .

5. Lovely evening meal of chilli (made with turkey mince) containing chopped onion, garlic, chilli powder/paprika/cayenne, chopped peppers, mushrooms, tin of kidney beans, some cubes of frozen tomato puree, tinned tomatoes and added a HUGE dollop of sweet chilli sauce stirred in at the end. Got some left over, as well, for a jacket spud one evening. Ooooh just had an idea - it could go into pastry cases in my Pie Magic :drool: ! I just know that there's some frozen pastry in the bottom of one of the freezer drawers .

That's about all from me for this morning - I'll pop back in again later to see how we're doing - love Ollie xxx

Reverbe

Monday

1. sold another book on Green Metropolis

2. 2p on the street

3. Offered a focus group at £60

4. Facebook emails from the crew from the play

5, free biscuit from my mate when I went to his office.

6. YS M&S smoked salmon sandwich

7. LO YS roast chicken for lunch

Tuesday

1. Focus Group in town - was oversubscribed so got paid off and didnt have to do it.Got same money anyway

2. 17p on street

3. emails on Facebook

4. Oprah mag - not os as such but the only mag I get now _ used to get practically all of them

5. Food from Selfridges - Beef & Guiness sausages for Arthurs Day on Thursday, crab chive and saffron quiche. and jelly beans

6. Beauty samples - Kiehls. Clinque and Chanel with an Oystercard holder from a stall in the food hall

7. YS M&S cod fishcakes £1

8, Booty from focus group - apple, biscuits, herbal teas and loo roll.

newlywed

1. Having a fiver left to my name, £1 on the gas, £1 on the electric, the petrol being nearly in the red, and being given my payslip today (a relief as tomorrows meals were going to end up decidedly strange!!)

2. Having HM butternut squash soup and HM bread for lunch.

3. Making a white loaf, kneading in parmesan and onions and then flattening adding olive oil and onions to the top, proving and baking. Yum with soup

4. Finishing up the last of the batch of twinks hobnobs last night.

5. Being glad my asthma is better today - not sure if it's because the cloudy windy weather has lifted or the increased dose of drugs has kicked in - but I'm glad either way.

6. Having a free family ticket to spinnaker tower and looking forward to a rare day out on Saturday (another reason to be glad it's payday so I have some petrol money).

Caterina

Hi all

Here are some for today, which is not over but I am not going to log on again, so here we go:

1 - Early start, went to do the shopping at 8am and it is out of the way for a few days now.

2 - The weather! How lovely to still have warm sunny days!

3 - Pottering in the garden, harvesting for tonight's dinner (something with borlotti beans, kale and cavolo nero leaves, tomatoes) still to be decided. Am truly grateful for the bounty of my vegetable garden.

4 - DS found my homemade liquorice and thyme syrup very helpful for his cough. I have lost the recipe but going to look for it and will make another batch for winter.

5 - DD came in for a few minutes on her way to the park and gave me a lovely cuddle.

6 - Only 2 hours to do my monthly work hours - I know I shall have to do more but can move the extra hours to October.

7 - Magazines in the post

8 - Voucher in the post to claim a Nivea cream online. Done.

9 - Voucher in the post for a complimentary head and shoulders massage & samples at Aveda counter.

Hope you all have a good day xxx

helyg

Olliebeak: thanks for the links. These are the lavender bags which I made: http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3581/summer2009254.jpg I was thinking that I could make them larger and hem both ends rather than gathering and tying the top in order to make sleep pillows.

Today's blessings:

1. Normandy Pork cooked in the SC made with apples from my boss' garden, served with runner beans from my inlaws garden.

2. Followed by Damson crumble made with damsons from my boss' garden.

3. Bike ride this afternoon with DD on the back of my bike, we went down to the forest to collect pine cones

4. Peace and quiet as DD is now having a nap, and the boys are in the (free) after school sports club until 5pm

5. My Next sale slot tonight, although I am only buying what we need and will not be sucked into buying things just because they are cheap (honest...)

Primrose

1. Nice little social event in our village yesterday evening.
2. Visiting a friend who recently had an operation.
3. Nella Last's Peace from the library. Have read it once before but I always like revisiting old friends.
4. Picked another load of ripe tomatoes so feel another batch of home-made tomato soup coming.
5. Gentle pottering and watering in the garden. We had a badger visit a couple of nights ago obviously looking for worms in this very dry period, so thought I'd give the borders a good soak so that if it returns, it may hopefully find some worms and slugs nearer the surface.

sunflower76

At the moment every single nice thing / small thing and down right strange thing has me smiling as I was diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks ago, had a mastectomy one week ago and am finally starting to think that I'll be OK. Initially I;d taken the approach that everything crappy that can happen to me and MrS does happen but now I'm looking for the good things that will come of it.

1) I have lots of movement back in my arm already and it's getting better every single day
2) A nice sunny (although chilly) day and a load of washing dried outdoors
3) A big box of chocolates from a kind uncle
4) A visit from my dad and Step mum
5) Finally being able to have a soak in the bath (showers only until today)