Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Mr_Singleton

PasturesNew wrote: »

This all started when the house was put up for sale

Oooooh, when can I come around for a viewing?

PasturesNew

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Oooooh, when can I come around for a viewing?

It's sold. Well, in a fashion.
People liked it, but all had something to sell.
4th through the door ending up buying it, when they got a buyer for theirs 7 months later. Then it's dragged on as the bottom of the chain were FTBs trying all sorts to get a mortgage, which they finally got last week

PasturesNew

At 4am this morning I was scoffing crumpets.

I was starving.

Didn't eat "properly" yesterday, "forgot" to have a 2nd "meal".
I had spud/beans/cheese; I managed to eat all THREE of the trifles; I had some chocolates and a pack of doritos. I have a bread roll/marg.

So, come 4 o'clock I was peckish, so it was crumpets.

I HAVE to use, or freeze, those sausages today and I have the pack of YS sweet peppers I bought and I have 4-5 onions. So I need to drag the SC out and throw that lot together with the tin of soup I bought for the purpose. I'll do that in a bit, really don't fancy it right now.

If I weren't moving, I'd simply open the freezer door and lob the lot in there

pattypan4

I keep small oatcakes in a little box by my bed and eaten one on 3 nights when I woke up too early, seemed to work too and I woke up several hours later. Wd PN, you have been very calm throughout selling


Ate out with a dd yesterday, good meal of flan with nice salad mix, got back home to find that 2 big orders of plants had arrived, earlier than expected, so I had to get out and plant them. Took me 3 hours because of the solid manky compacted ground hiding under the topsoil, I have to use a crowbar to break the ground up below so that rainwater can drain, then I add stuff to make it nicer for plants. Its solid hard work and is wrecking my joints. Downside of a new build, those that think they are sitting pretty with grass are sitting pretty now but give them 2 years and all will be yellow. No grass here


Oh yes food, came in at 8 and grabbed stuff, not a proper meal but dry ryvitas, yoghurt, strawberries. Must have been ok because I slept through. I couldn`t face the watercress soup that I made in the morning, will have half later and freeze half


Btw all plants look well this morning, early days

PasturesNew

pattypan4 wrote: »

Wd PN, you have been very calm throughout selling

I detached emotionally from the minute I made the decision.

I expected it to be unsettling. I had to go through 20+ viewings and 2-3 2nd viewings, as many people liked it, but had to sell theirs.

I never allowed myself to make plans and to take an attitude of "It is what it is and what happens happens".

Luckily I don't know where I'm going, so not invested any emotion into wanting a particular house.... and I never ended up "trapped" in the middle of a chain.

I had no idea the bottom of the chain would be so problematical in obtaining a mortgage, I bet the people buying from me were having kittens as they'd wanted mine for 7 months before theirs sold, then they paid for a survey etc.... I bet they thought it'd all collapse and it'd have cost them money and they've have lost my house.

As time was getting on, I realised if it does collapse (it still might of course!) then I've missed the best marketing months of the year, so I'd pull it from the market until about Xmas time for a break.

It's not been easy, perpetually cleaning/clearing and keeping it all neat "in case there was a viewing" .... then having to change it from "how I sit/doss" to "viewable" for each one (then back once I returned from hiding round the corner for half an hour each time).

It's not easy though.

I've absolutely no idea where I'll go .... but nothing's on the market I like/can afford.

I'm apparently moving from a desirable area to a cheaper area, yet the houses there aren't better than mine! How does that work? I should be able to get better for the same money - and I'm tossing an additional £50k onto the table for the next one!

Wednesday2000

I had some dip and crackers and I'm about to have an apple.:)

pattypan4

PN, you have summed it up perfectly, how sellers could cope with selling. I hated the cleaning and hiding myself, I used to go to a cafe for a treat and at least my home was shiny when I got back. Dossing took place then it was all systems go again for the next viewing. I had my share of nosies and liars. The system in England is very bad, very stressful for all concerned. I take my hat off to you, I really do

[Deleted User]

Good lunch out yesterday, l/o for tea. Bought measuring spoon, am pleased with it. Decided to do fish tonight and am now deciding whether to make some sliced potato and courgette rings to make sort of scales, bit fancy, or some pepper style coating/marinade. Do like to experiment, I had never had aubergines until last year, just did not like the look of them, always look muddy, but did try and now have made a mousaka style dish as they are quite a mild sweetish flavour, not as imagined. Also never bought courgettes or blueberries until grandson talked me into it, now have blueberries on porridge ever day and have grown courgettes this year. Never too old to learn or try new things (couc cous, sour bread etc etc).

caronc

Good morning everyone,
I don't how I'd cope if I was selling my house, I'm not sure I could emotionally detach myself from it enough not to get stressed out. I'm finding selling my Dad's hard enough .... I think you've done fab PN to stay so calm.:A
It's a horrible day here, gale force winds and we have weather warning in place for heavy rain from lunchtime. I've done the bin run and that will be as far as I go today . My groceries have been delivered and put away I'm just waiting for the meat order now which should be here in an hour or so. I've treated myself to a pre-made prawn salad for lunch not something I would normally do but it started with me popping a bottle of iced tea in the virtual basket and thinking about buying a scotch egg. I realised that the egg & tea came to £2.10 and as part of a meal deal I could add the salad usually £2.50 and pay £3 for all three items! Yes I could easily have made up a similiar salad myself but I reckoned 90p for a "pay day" treat was fine by me:D. This afternoon I need to do my finances and over the weekend decide what to do with my Nationwide accounts now the deal has finished. I'll also set the vac pack up and get the meat portioned and into the freezer. The brambles I picked yesterday have been steeping in lightly salted water to get rid of any bugs, I need to rinse and sort these and get them into the freezer to as well as the Greek lasagne and other bits. If you hear a strangled scream and a lot of muttering later you'll know my freezer tetris isn't working:rotfl::rotfl:.

Dinner tonight will either be a gammon steak with pineapple or a smoked haddock fishcake. I'll decide later which option I fancy.

PasturesNew

The sausage casserole got put on, in a fashion.

The original plan was to toss in a tin of spuds, sliced. But having gone through the motions of peeling the sausages, cutting/rolling them into balls; slicing the peppers; peeling/slicing two onions .... I really CBA any more, so I just opened the soup and tossed it in. I did think "you can always add the spuds later", but that won't happen.

It's smelling/tasting gorgeous. It's been on 2½ hours now. Not sure what I'll have it with, can't remember if I used the last of the rice or not. There's always chips and there's always pasta and there's always spaghetti... have to see what happens at the moment I'm hungry enough to scoff a bit.

The peppers were three colours, so I retained a few bits of each, to brighten up a naan pizza topping over the weekend. I'll hook out some of those sausages/onions, add the fresh pepper slices and that'll be a nice pizza topping with a bit of cheese added over the weekend.

EDIT: Had a little dip in and cheeky taste. Served myself a tiny finger-bowl sized dip dish of one sausage worth and 2 tablespoons of sauce. Bl00dy lovely it is.

Then I had two crumpets and marg for lunch, followed by a kit-kat.