Light the fire...

woodfired

Hazelnutty wrote: »

Great effort on making the food stretch out, Woodfired!

Thanks for the words of encouragement Nutty! It feels good to get back into cooking properly and stretching things out after the excesses of Christmas!

Well it's one step forward and two back at the moment, such is life. Our little kitten escaped unnoticed out of the front door on Saturday night and returned in a sorry state with a badly broken hind leg. Cue an out-of-hours trip to the (hideously overpriced) emergency vets down the road. The account currently stands at £860 and he has yet to have the surgery to repair which is estimated at £1000 - £1100 IF everything goes smoothly. :eek:

Luckily we have a healthy emergency fund and he is insured, although with a limit per incident of £1000 less a £99 excess. So it is probably going to cost us around £1100 after the insurance pay out (assuming they will!). Things never seem to go smoothly for very long.
I am planning to put a good chunk of the cost on my 0% CC which has nothing on it at the moment, at least I can spread the cost of paying it off. I find this psychologically more palatable that taking the funds out of savings!

On the bright side, he can be fixed. The sight of him crying on the doorstep wet through and in pain will haunt me for a long time. Poor baby. At least we can make it right, as it is not always the case that they can be saved. The children were distraught so it will be worth it to have him home where he belongs. Animals. Nightmare. :rotfl:

In other news, we have had a cheap weekend. Took DD to try a new dance school nearby. 2 classes for £6.60 seemed very reasonable and she really enjoyed it. Whilst she was dancing DH took DS to a nearby bike circuit with bumps and turns and then a playground. I popped into the leisure center next door to take advantage of their January "5 swims for £5" offer. Considering it is usually £3.90 to swim, this was very reasonable! I have til 17th Feb to use them so plenty of time. The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet and spent at home (aside from the cat incident) so hardly any pennies spent. Today I am at home (day off in case of cat needing me), I have done two loads of washing, visited my elderly Great Aunt who is on palliative care in hospital, had a healthy lunch of Jacket potatoes and salad and lit the Esse to help aforementioned washing to dry. I should use the Esse to do some cooking for the rest of the week, free heat and it seems a waste not to use it. I shall see what I can dig out of the freezer to use whilst waiting for news on the cat.

greent

Aw - poor kitten - hope he gets fully fixed without any issue x

woodfired

Thanks for the well wishes greent! I haven't dared to post any more in case I jinx anything but have just heard from the vet this morning. We have had a rough ride with Ralph (kitten) this week, he was severely anaemic with a really low red blood cell count, Vets couldn't find a reason for this and started talking about the possibility of leukaemia or something similar. All this had prevented them from operating and so we were just playing a waiting game. However, he has gone back in this morning, his bloods are almost back to normal and they have decided that as it is now 9 days since his accident the break may well have healed too much and they may do more harm than good by trying to re-break and pin it. They are happy for him to go home and heal naturally. This is a less brutal option for poor Ralph, who faced a really painful op just as he was starting to feel better and will save us somewhere in the region of £1400!! Good news. He may have a slightly limited mobility in that leg but that may well have been the case anyway, had they managed to operate.

In other news, we have had a fairly cheap weekend, DD went dancing and then swimming with me, DS went to a party and we had a takeaway with friends on sat night.
I am also currently anxiously awaiting a scan appointment for a lump I found on my neck. It is on my thyroid and the doctor wants to investigate further. I cant help but fear the worst and am trying not to do any googling as I know that never makes you feel any better. I'm trying hard to shake the feeling of impending doom. 2019 hasn't got off to the best start.

chocomonsta

hope its good news for you.

I have just had a scan (31 Dec) for a lump in my neck

I had visited the drs a week or so before Christmas as I had this lump that wasn't visible, but if I swallowed while turning head to the right, I could feel it and sometimes a pea sized lump seemed to get stuck and pop out! They did an urgent scan and the result, which they told me on the day, was nodules on my enlarged thyroid, and it is actually quite common. I also have an underactive thyroid. That was a very worrying couple of weeks, so I understand how you feel. I didn't tell anyone either as it was so close to Christmas. Anyway, its all good now, wishing you the best, I love reading your thread.

best wishes and hugs

woodfired

chocomonsta wrote: »

hope its good news for you.

I have just had a scan (31 Dec) for a lump in my neck

I had visited the drs a week or so before Christmas as I had this lump that wasn't visible, but if I swallowed while turning head to the right, I could feel it and sometimes a pea sized lump seemed to get stuck and pop out! They did an urgent scan and the result, which they told me on the day, was nodules on my enlarged thyroid, and it is actually quite common. I also have an underactive thyroid. That was a very worrying couple of weeks, so I understand how you feel. I didn't tell anyone either as it was so close to Christmas. Anyway, its all good now, wishing you the best, I love reading your thread.

best wishes and hugs

Bless you chocomonsta, this is exactly what I am hoping to hear. I have been incessantly googling my symptoms (which sound really similar to yours) and praying it is just nodules but fearing the worst (as is human nature!). I am pleased to say I have felt better the last couple of days, I think my symptoms may have been aggravated by a slight cold which has now cleared up. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, it has made me feel much better.
PS. thanks for reading, glad you enjoy my ramblings!xx

woodfired

As mentioned above, I am feeling a bit better and more positive regarding my health, long may that continue. Still no news on a date for a scan though. Seems like its taking forever!:mad:

I have spent the week making the most of a large chunk of beef that was half price in the yellow sticker section. Roast on Sunday, same again Monday with extra roasties and HM yorkshire pud. Tuesday was bubble & squeak (fried in butter till really crunchy :drool: ) with poached eggs. On Wednesday any leftovers were all chucked into a stew with extra potatoes, onions and carrots (there was hardly any meat left by this point but we didn't notice ) topped with fluffy dumplings and served with the freshest white bread and butter to dip in. It was lovely!! Today DH & I have had the last of the stew for lunch so that one joint, albeit £11 has fed us all week (did I mention DH had it in sandwiches with horseradish sauce all week too?!)

Tonight there is a chicken in the Esse, although I'm not quite sure what to do with it? We are a bit sick of roasts now :rotfl: It needed cooking though and my freezer is jammers! Might just cook, let cool then strip to make other things with tomorrow?

In other news;
I have had a text from the pet insurance people to say they have received my claim and will send news in the next 10 days, lets hope its a straightforward claim.

It has been really cold these last couple of days and I'm feeling very thankful for plentiful wood and a woodburner and Esse. I got home at lunchtime today and lit both and used the Esse to run the underfloor heating in the kitchen. The big flags hold the heat really well so downstairs will keep warm for the next couple of days off that one blast of a couple of hours. Lovely. It (the Esse) has also kindly cooked the chicken at the same time, bless it!
*I also love picking the children up from school and bringing them home to a lovely warm house. I have vivid memories as a child of going home to a freezing house and it taking ages to warm up! It was an old farmhouse with no CH and just an open fire with immersion heater for hot water. It was even worse after swimming lessons with wet hair!! Brrrr!

I have tidied downstairs this afternoon (too cold to go upstairs and refuse to put heating on just to clean up! ), done two loads of washing and hung out to dry in the warm attic room.

I have also updated the spreadsheets and found our savings are back up to £11500 and mortgages set to drop below the £200k combined figure at the end of this month :T. My target was to get them below this by 31st Dec but I'm only a month late!! I still don't have a figure for our tax owing yet though, so the savings will soon take a hit in order to clear that. Waiting for the accountants to finalise all that.

Finally, I have opened two HS3C regular savers at 5% this week as we are filling up all of the high(ish) interest accounts and need somewhere else to put savings. Set these to the maximum input of £250 per month, we can take it out again in an emergency but fingers crossed that we won't need to.

Phew, mammoth update. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!! xx

woodfired

Today has been a day off for DH and I, we sometimes get Friday off together and treat it as "date day" whilst the kids are at school. This morning I had a quick tidy and clean of downstairs (again!!) and did a load of washing whilst DH did the school drop off, then he took me on a very wet, cold and windy walk up the hill at one side of our valley (5 miles), followed by a much needed steaming hot shower (Esse fueled ) then a cheap lunch in town. Finally back to spend an hour in front of a roaring fire at home with a brew before collecting the children. Bliss.

Last night's roast chicken became chicken kebabs/wraps with salad and I stripped a further large bowl of meat from the carcass. Tonight I used half of this with a bit of bacon, a couple of aging leeks, garlic and a splash of white wine together with a bechemal sauce mixed with pasta, topped with breadcrumbs and baked. Served with salad and it was lovely. I think the rest of the meat will go in sandwiches with some stuffing and apple sauce for lunch tomorrow. Hopefully nothing wasted (Ralph enjoyed the gristly bits and slimy chunks of skin!)

Tomorrow DD has her dance classes and DH, DS and I will go for a swim whilst shes there. Then we have arranged to go ice skating with friends later on in the afternoon. Another busy day planned.

woodfired

Wow its cold here! Actually about 5 deg outside but a cold northerly wind is howling and making it feel like -2! Brrr!

So up early, fires lit, coffee in hand and I have just put some broth mix to soak that went out of date in Oct 2014. I have found loads of old packets of lentils/grains/broth mix etc at the top/back of a cupboard and must try to use them up. So there is still a decent amount of chicken left from Friday, I will use some more in sandwiches for lunch (they were delicious yesterday) but the rest I will add to a broth for lunches this week. I think I will make the broth then let go cold and portion out before adding the shredded chicken so it is not reheated twice. I haven't had broth for ages - you can probably tell by the date on my packets!!:rotfl:

We had a lovely afternoon with friends yesterday, we skipped dancing/swimming in the morning as DD fell at school on Friday and hurt her knee, it was really sore yesterday. We did manage to go ice skating in the afternoon, I couldn't believe how slippery it was! I was rubbish at it :rotfl:, the children had a whale of a time though and the adults had plenty of laughs.

In the morning DH and I gave the house a really good clean, deep cleaned the bathrooms and tidied/cleaned/hoovered the rest, including wiping skirtings on the stairs/landing and our bedroom. I brought in loads of wood from up the garden ready for cosy fires today and put away the mound of junk that had a accumulated by the back door to go to the sheds.

This means we can have a relaxing day today, I need to visit the shop to finalise the order in a few minutes but aside from that we have no plans. DS really wanted to walk up the hill behind the house to a local landmark but I think it'll be too cold in that wind. I think it might be a day for films and board games by the fire. Happy Sunday all.x

woodfired

I'm being quite productive today , have spent the morning sorting out the fridge and chopping and using all of the old veg up ready for a re-stock either tomorrow or tuesday.

So far I have used up: the dregs of 3 bags of potatoes (I'm a bit lazy and only peel the big, evenly shaped ones! I end up with bags of small/oddly shaped spuds that are a pain to peel!), 4 wrinkly carrots, 3 parsnips, 1 bag of out of date sprouts, half a wilted cabbage and 4 sprouting onions. I have also decluttered the bag of broth mix (5 years out of date!) and half a bottle of red wine left over from xmas that we won't drink. The result is a huge vat of bolognaise sauce in the oven and a big pan of broth on the stove top bubbling away. Broth for lunches, the bolognaise will go with pasta for tea tonight and half frozen to make a lasagne with another time.

I still have some sweet potatoes to use up and I'm thinking sweet potato and lentil curry this week sometime. I have two bags of red lentils in the cupboard that are years OOD so need using. Would make it today but I wont have enogh room in the freezer to store everything!!

At least there is some room in the fridge now. WF.x

Hazelnutty

It's so satisfying, isn't it, when you've had a good use-up of the fridge? Ours is pretty naked now as we've been eeking out the budget until payday, which thankfully is tomorrow!