Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - I always find your bee updates interesting. Glad your courgettes have decided to buck their ideas up!
F

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers, 
Well that's the last time I carefully consult the weather forecast & time my 3 loads of laundry for pegging out in the 3 hour window of 0% chance of rain! Naturally it paused just long enough for me to waste time pegging it all out, then resumed raining as soon as I got back inside. Ah well, at least it is washed. I brought all the clothes back inside - now festooned on the airer (which is NOT being switched on!) in front of the open conservatory doors. Big towels too soggy for that so I have left them out there as it is supposed to be dry tomorrow.
Yesterday was a bit of a mixture. Some good money saving positives:
*Mr F got a really good trade in on the new upgraded X-box he's been wanting for ages. He actually got over £80 for his bagful of decluttered DVDs & X-box games plus £70 for the old X-box itself. He was told he'd have got £90 for it had it got the correct controller, but he had a lah-di-dah fancypants one due to some or other tedious saga dating back to a previous trade-in. Obviously such fol-di-rols as X-boxes come from his Personal Spends, which he was perfectly happy about, but wanted to get the best deal. I think he might feel motivated to do a bit more Man-Cave decluttering now, as he was quite surprised to get such good valuations on his old stuff.
*Bought 5m of black fabric from the local market for making (probably) a maxi-dress for the winter. Bought plenty as I am only just getting into dressmaking after several decades of non-engagement & I wanted to have some spare fabric to allow for error. At £3 per metre (closing down sale) I certainly can't complain about the prospect of a £15 dress!
*Reasonably good Week 4 grocery shop  - I shall still have to do some adjustments at the end of next week when Big Budget Day rolls around again, as we will have overspent by then & have guests coming to stay right on the cusp between July Week 5 & Aug Week 1. We were able to use 3 money off vouchers & Mr F enjoyed his usual free coffee. Like an idiot, I forgot to take my beaker, so was given several sips of his to make up for this.
*Garden pickings: Courgettes.
*Mr F fed & watered all the veg.
NOT money saving, oh no, not at all:
*Mr F received a £100 speeding fine & 3 points on his licence. He was really annoyed & downcast. Not because he thought he wasn't speeding, he was caught bang to rights, but because the police officer said that due to his spotless licence, he would be recommending a speed awareness course. Obviously this recommendation fell on deaf ears, as there was not even the option of a course. Coincidentally, we were only talking about speed the other day when he told me that I drive faster than him (generally true) & certainly when he's a passenger while I am driving, he won't hesitate to say things like "Remember it's only 50 mph here", etc, etc. Anyway, apart from asking him which savings pot he thought the fine should be paid from, I didn't have a go as it could have been me. He was unfortunate to get caught. He was on his way home from work in the evening, no oncoming traffic, so he sped up to overtake a BMW. He got past it, then noticed it had sped up & guess what, switched some blue lights on! A police officer in a plain unmarked car. He said "I could see you getting ready to overtake me & you were doing 63mph in comparison to my 50 in this 50mph stretch of road". It was apparently a pleasant enough chat  - I think the worst thing was coming home late feeling like a chump & having to tell me he'd been done for speeding when he has always acted as though the overly fast driver is Yours Truly!! So 100 quid wasted, grrrrr.
And onto today:
I've already moaned about the soggy laundry.
*Garden pickings: More courgettes (seriously the ones I didn't deem big enough to pick yesterday were all big enough by today!), lettuce, spring onions, carrots.
*Made some pickled courgettes (pictured) which took care of 1.5kg of the fiends! 
*Easy use-it-up nosebag tonight. Have defrosted the rest of the Cajun pork Mr F made last week & will serve it on jacket potatoes with a large mixed salad.
*Made tomorrow's packed breakfast & defrosted a portion of veg curry & rice for packed lunch. I think freezing single l/o portions is so useful for hot work lunches.
*Too rainy for many steps up & down the garden so did a 20-min free online indoor steps video to get my daily target. It was very boring, as usual. I just don't find any exercise for exercise's sake enjoyable. I know many people love it, but I find it stultifyingly dull & have to force myself to carry on until the end. Walking about generally or at an interesting place or around town or city centre is fine, as that has a primary purpose other than exercise, if I'm making sense (& you haven't all dropped off reading this woffle!)
Annoyed not to have caught the sodding mouse yet. The electronic trap had been moved, but no zapped rodent within & I was reminded that the red flashing light is 'low battery' rather than successful trapping. Mr F has bought new batteries today & in the meantime, I have baited 2 humane traps with tiny piece of oatcake spread with peanut butter. I have heard rodent feet at the back of our big pan drawer, but capture has so far been elusive. Soot & Ash are cracking mousers but they obviously can't get behind fitted units......& I haven't entirely ruled out that one of them originally brought it in & then let it go. They do have form for this.
Ah well, that's enough chat from me. Time to clear up courgette-strewn kitchen & maybe read a chapter of my book.
Cheers all,
F x

DawnW

How do you do your pickled courgettes @foxgloves?

rtandon27

ooo - I had no clue that courgettes could be pickled!  I'm guessing they are similar to burger pickles (sliced gherkins)?

ladyholly

Sorry to hear of Mr Fs points and fine. I got caught for 32 in a 30mph area which I always thought was unfair as speedometers are not always dead accurate but I did get the speed awarness course which cost the same as the fine would have been.

Sun_Addict

Sorry to hear Mr F got a speeding fine 😖 It annoys me that the drivers only just going over the speed limit get caught while the boy racers seem to get away with it. One of my friends who, like Mr F is usually super careful, had to go on a speed awareness course recently. 

I’ve been plagued with snails eating my courgettes, how do you keep them off yours? 

Hope the mouse is located. 

foxgloves

Thanks for speeding fine sympathies. Yes, it IS infuriating, but as Mr F said himself, he has to hold his hand up to the fact that he was doing 63 mph in a 50 mph zone, which is above the 10% plus a couple of extra mph leeway they give you. Police officer told him that they gave him the opportunity to slow down once he'd overtaken their car,but he didn't, hence the blue lights & pulling him over. 
@ladyholly - That was very harsh on you when you were only 2 mph over the limit, you'd usually get thatbit of leeway to reflect speedometer variations.
F

foxgloves

@rtandon27 - Yes, pickled courgettes are a bit like that, but not as piquant. I first had them on a burger at a chilli festival....well tbh, I pinched a forkful off Mr F's burger as I had something else. I thought they made an interesting addition & decided to have a go myself. I don't make them every year but enjoy them when I do. I like them on top of a mixed salad too.

@DawnW - I make them like this......it's a mash-up of an old recipe for bread & butter pickles & another one:
Thinly slice 1.5kg of courgettes into a large earthenware bowl, followed by about 450g thinly sliced onions. Add brine, which you make from dissolving 225g salt in 2.5L of cold water. Cover & l leave for 3 hours. I give it a couple of stirs during this time. Drain the veg & rinse really well, then pat dry with a clean tea towel. Then it goes in my big stockpot. For the pickling vinegar, I use 500ml white malt vinegar, 225g granulated sugar, 2 finely sliced cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp black peppercorns & 1 tsp mustard seeds. You just heat it on the hob until the sugar has melted then pour it over the courgettes/onion mixture. Leave it to stand off the heat for an hour. 
Then you lightly cook the veg by putting it on the hob, bringing to the boil & simmering it for 3 mins. 
Pack the veg into sterilised warm jars until nearly at the top, then pour on the spiced vinegar. Seal straight away & leave for 2 or 3 weeks for the flavours to mingle before eating.
Hope this is helpful,
F

Blackcats

Boo to MrF getting caught speeding.  I had to gently remind MrBC on Wednesday that keeping up with a speeding Porsche isn't really anything to be proud of and that it would make the police v happy to catch get 2 speeders for the price of 1. I also reminded him that he professes to have no interest anymore in racing away from other cars at traffic lights so I enquired why he did it twice on our way home from our trip away.

foxgloves

Thanks for mouse sympathies, Not long after chatting to you yesterday, the mouse was captured! As Mr F had not yet arrived home with new batteries for the electronic one, it was captured in one of our humane traps. To start with, I could hear it head butting the trapdoor & thought I'd caught it, but when I opened the cupboard door, the trapdoor (they are very finely balanced) had fallen & the dimmest (or hungriest) mouse in the East Midlands was headbutting & shoving it trying to get INTO the trap!! I guess that little chunk of oatcake spread with peanut butter was just too tempting! Anyway, I could see it hiding at the back of the cupboard, so I re-set the trapdoor & waited a bit longer until I heard the noise again & this time, it was inside. I wrapped the whole trap in a towel & took it down to the bottom of the garden where it promptly went next door & was last seen investigating a little gap under the fence to a neighbouring street. Had intended to take it to the horse field but we have a long garden so technically it was halfway there already. 

Today's livestock incident......
A large & fabulous green dragonfly was doing circuits of our back courtyard when Soot jumped in the air & caught it in one. This boy can certainly leap for an 11 year-old! I rushed over & lifted him off it & it was very much alive but didn't seem to be able to get itself airborne. It crawled into a flowerbed but Soot was clearly planning a re-capture so I ran indoors & rattled the cat treats. Thankfully, greed saved the day. I scattered a handful of treats to keep him busy then managed to scoop up the winged beauty into a lidded freezer container. I had a good look at it & its wings & legs all seemed to be fine, I think it was stunned from being suddenly pounced to the ground by 5.6kg of cat! It crawled out onto a high bit of privet behind the greenhouse where I hope it will fully recover its equilibrium.

Briefly back to mice.....the electronic trap is now fully powered, re-set, re-peanut buttered & is back in the pantry just in case we have another visit. They are definitely around in the garden even though Soot & Ash are good at keeping the numbers down.
F