Get a grip woman!

Suffolk_lass

I may have to tweet a few female opposition politicians on this. 

Suffolk_lass

Loads more chopping and weeding yesterday and my sweetcorn seedlings arrived and were planted. The advantage of buying local is they arrived in really good condition - best of all, with multiple seedlings in each seed pod - so DH managed 27 plants when he planted them out. They are squidged around my courgettes which is a bad idea really - both fruit at the same time. 

Today's plan is to get some butternut and pumpkin seedlings in the ground and some indoor cucumbers potted on, plus some path weeding and seed scattering. I have bee club this afternoon so not everything is possibly going to get done, but a three hour break might just set me up for a bit more this evening.

Suffolk_lass

Potted on my indoor cucumbers and I've got my outdoor ones ready to tie onto the metal climbing frame so that they grow vertically. I'm still holding off planting butternut squash and pumpkins but I know they will gallop away (I just don't need 8 and five, respectively). I've got two more courgettes to sneak in somewhere too!

I want to plant more in-between seeds - carrots, beets, lettuce and radishes too, and maybe a bit more kale and chard.

I need to inspect two hives at home to see if all is well. It might be Wednesday though as the decorator is that end of the house at the moment. 

On money saving, having bought 500l of heating oil in April for 85.4ppl I bit the bullet and bought 500 more last night. Paid 100.49ppl plus the boilerjuice fee so £535.pp - what a nightmare! with no price cap on heating oil I can't risk it going up again.

I also turned down the toolshed fridge-freezer after finding the carrots frozen in the fridge. I shall be using some of them in a veg curry for tonight. I acquired two small swedes and a net of 3 large onions in my TGTG bag on Friday. I was going for some treats and fresh strawberries so there was no fuel on top of anything else. I may sort that curry out now now, so it can go in the slow cooker for the afternoon as The Times says that is the cheapest way to cook.

Suffolk_lass

DH retrieved the nucleus from the Farm with a micro-swarm in it. So we will check the bigger hive this morning with a view to donating some brood that can give them a bit of a boost.

Veg curry on repeat for tonight's supper.

I found DH used his other CC on his recent trip - so total cost more like £1300-1400 when ferry included. Not cheap!.

I have booked a cottage in October in Scotland, just a week but we will stop with my Mum either on the way up or back. It is also dog friendly with a secure garden, so little man can come with us. We will need to secure DS to cat sit. Which reminds me, we need one to look after the house and garden while we are away in July as DS is off to USA at the same time.

foxgloves

I've also read that slow cookers are the cheapest way to cook - roughly the same electricity use as a lightbulb. I treated myself to a new slow cooker recipe book back in the new year. I'd borrowed it from the library, intending to copy out a couple of recipes for a bit of variety, but as soon as I started reading through it, there were so many things I wanted to eat, I decided it was a 'buyer'. I'm slowly cooking my way through it now. We haven't yet tried a single recipe from it that we haven't loved, 
I think it was a good idea to get that extra heating oil. If it isn't capped, there's nothing to stop it shooting up again, as you say. If we used heating oil, I think I'd have done the same.
Re bees. We briefly considered starting bee-keeping - a friend of ours offered us a fair bit of kit & advice, but we decided against it in the end as we didn't know anyone very locally who could help us if we came unstuck, although I expect the local beekeeper's group would have helped us. Our garden is packed with flowers & I do try to garden with wildlife in mind. We do see lots of honeybees visiting & they seem to start very early in the season on our spring flowers. I love to see them & frequently rescue them from my greenhouse if they can't seem to find their way out unaided. We see a variety of bumble bees too, but I think my favourite are the tawny mining bees who make lots of little burrows in our lawn in early Spring. I always think they look as though they are made from orange velvet. They come back to our garden every year. I'd be gutted if they didn't turn up.....same as I would if the swifts didn't arrive.
F

beanielou

If only I was nearer I woulde happily cat sit.
Having my mums nxt week 

EssexHebridean

Interesting about slow cooker's being the cheapest way to cook now - I generally try to use mine overnight so aside from the first couple of hours it's mostly on the cheap rate driving the cost down even further, I do need more ideas of things to do in it although I could also get back to doing things like bulk-cooked bolognese sauce etc that way too - I used to do that from time to time but haven't for a while. might have to consider investing in a decent recipe book I think - I believe the one Foxgloves has mentioned before is the blue cover with the heart symbol on it - which appears to be available at an inviting price on the likes of the Bay...  

Suffolk_lass

EssexHebridean said:

Interesting about slow cooker's being the cheapest way to cook now - I generally try to use mine overnight so aside from the first couple of hours it's mostly on the cheap rate driving the cost down even further, I do need more ideas of things to do in it although I could also get back to doing things like bulk-cooked bolognese sauce etc that way too - I used to do that from time to time but haven't for a while. might have to consider investing in a decent recipe book I think - I believe the one Foxgloves has mentioned before is the blue cover with the heart symbol on it - which appears to be available at an inviting price on the likes of the Bay...  

Is that the Beverley LeBlanc one? I might have a couple of Slow Cooker Recipe books... I am terrible for actually following recipes though. I am much more random. I read them for a bit of inspiration then do my own thing!

I wish you were close enough to cat sit too @beanielou - a trusted person is worth their weight in gold

Today I need to respond to the National Grid pylons proposal. The deadline is tomorrow. Husband was on TV last night when ITV News covered it. We are pushing for offshore, along with MPs along the proposed route. If the power is from offshore wind and bound for London, it is a nonsense for them to use overhead lines to desecrate East Anglia's Open skies when the government policy is about to change to offshore anyway. Oh, let's ruin the tourist industry too... furious.

foxgloves

Yes, I do have that book...."I heart my sc' but my newer book which I'm cooking my way through atm is 'The Slow Cook Book' by Heather Whinney. I borrowed it from the library first, then bought it when I saw so many things I'd like to cook. Each recipe is given first for slow cooker, then underneath for conventional cooking. We've enjoyed every recipe I've cooked from it so far. I always think it's worth borrowing cook books from the library to assess which ones are future purchases & which I'd just use to jot a recipe in my notebook.
F

Suffolk_lass

I like the BBC Good Food recipes and the Hamlyn slow cooker books (my Mum and Dad bought me the all colour cookbook, maybe even before I left home - she had her copy when it was first published or shortly thereafter and I used to spend hours looking through it).

It is my Sister's Son's birthday today so we whizzed off to the sorting office to post his card yesterday, containing a few euros for a forthcoming trip to Belgium, and anyway, on the way back I detoured us into the pub and we had a blissful 45 minutes in the pub garden with a cold drink and a happy dog, receiving corners off the cheddar snack bag contents we shared. Under £12 added to the treats and entertainments heading and the first fun spend together this month, although we have both spent separately.

The piece of agricultural land we were interested in buying went to auction yesterday. It sold for £101k!!!! The thing is, the auctioneer advertised it as speculative development land but it falls outwith the development boundary of the Village, and both it and the application by the neighbour, have been turned down for planning and should be again. I actually spoke to the auctioneer and he said it is a matter of due diligence for the buyer (buyer beware) and his responsibility to raise as much as he can for the seller. We thought it might go for £40k and as agricultural land it should be £4-£20k.