Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@rtandon27 -  - Thanks. I'm just the same in real life - always got far too much to say!
@EssexHebridean - Thanks - Yes, a big relief that the scans didn't find any cancer. I don't think I will avoid surgery but at least I still have a month before seeing the Consultant so I am actively monitoring symptoms. As in all things, information is power. I'm also reading up on anti-inflammatory foods & other potentially useful stuff.
F

Toni'sfriend

I'm a bit late but so pleased that you have had some good news, foxgloves. Hope it continues and you have a good outcome after speaking to your specialist. xxx

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Another decent day here with sunny interludes, a gentle breeze & only next door's builders' power tools & shockingly auto-tuned music to interrupt the green peace of the garden.
Oh my goodness, I am stiff today from all yesterday's bending. I might be an exercise-dodger by nature but I don't like sitting still for long periods either, so have been pottering around tackling various jobs. The money saving wins as follows:
*Liaised with Mr F over picking a week's worth of meals from our August master list. Transferred to food planner in my diary &....
*Wrote grocery shopping list.
*Started town list for Friday.
*Defrosted a small amount of leftover beef strips which I will cut up & use in tonight's spicy rice along with assorted garden produce & salad.
*Today's garden pickings: Coriander, spring onions, basil & rhubarb.
*Cooked the rhubarb towards my fruit intake this week as fresh fruit basket getting a bit low.
*Removed 3 buckets of duckweed from pond & composted - had done this by 8.23am. You sometimes need to pick off the worst job first, like the old 'frog-swallowing' adage.
*Watered veg & the strawberry runners I potted up yesterday.
*More present bag knitting. Aim to finish this sock this afternoon & cast on its pair.
*Worked out that I need 35 crocheted squares per cat blanket so I can fold it double. This first one is for Soot - he has already tried to chomp the yarn & been found up on the table shoulder-deep in my crochet bag so I am taking that as him.putting 1st dibs on the finished article. Always good to see a new item emerging from leftovers & scraps.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast. Mr F often likes a sliced egg cob for breakfast so I am hardboiling a few at once to save on gas use.
Well, it's time for cat treats so I will do those then return to finishing this sock.
F x

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - Our garden is a good size but not huge. Our house is a very ordinary red-brick 1930s semi-detached. The garden is the long narrow type which are quite common in 30s houses. It's only 30 feet wide but is about 135 feet long. We have a sandstone courtyard (too shady to call it a patio!), Then lawn & very relaxed style cottagey flower beds & a small wildlife pond. From there on, it is laid to food production - greenhouse, herb bed & onto the top third of the garden which is the main veggie plot. The productive section isn't huge. My allotment friend reckons our food producing section is equal to just less than half an allotment. It is more than adequate for us. I expect our next garden will be a lot smaller, but I will still grow food. There is nothing to beat going out there early with my picking basket & seeing what looks good to go. I would grow some food even if I had only a balcony.
F

foxgloves

P.S Re garden size.....when we bought this house about 20 years ago, the solicitor doing our conveyancing commented on the long gardens on the 1930s streets in our village. He said this is often the case with 30s housing erected on previously rural unbuilt-on land. He said that back then, landowners often seemed actively to be trying to off-load surplus land, so were very flexible about where garden.boundaries went. War broke out 3 years after our house was built & of course rationing, so I should think it was a god-send having such a good space for digging for victory gardening. If all our garden was laid to allotment, we could be pretty much self-sufficient, but I like a flowery cottage garden so in the absence of zombie apocalypse, intend to keep it as it is.
F

foxgloves

@Toni'sfriend - Thank-you. I think I will need surgery from what has been said, but am trying not to overthink things & won't be making any decisions till I have discussed it & have all the info. I do appreciate all the support I've had from readers of my diary. You are a lovely lot & I'd post you all a 🥒 if I could!
F x

Sun_Addict

Your garden sounds just like ours very long but relatively narrow - also a 1930s house. The area we’re in was previously an orchard many years ago so there are quite a few apple and pear trees around still producing. We also have a very long drive and front garden we had block paved several years ago for ease of maintenance. I am planning, inspired by you, to turn the bottom part of the garden into a produce growing area as I think it would be a good use of the space. 

foxgloves

I think that will be a really satisfying project, @Sun_Addict. We are nowhere near self-sufficient & make quite poor use of our veggie  garden in winter, but the stuff we grow does impact our grocery budget positively, tastes great, is chemical-free & can be counted in food metres, not miles.
Go for it, I say!
F

PennysIntoPounds

I'm much like you @foxgloves an exercise dodger but unable to have a pleasurable completely lazy day. And you haven't *stopped* going on your bike, you've just had enough to be occupying your physical and mental energy lately, you'll get back on it when you feel like that'll be enjoyable for you again ☺
I didn't eat my biggest frog of sorting out my new phone provider/contract, but with any essential tech things I have to sidle up to them and take them (and myself) by surprise because frankly I would rather leave the country and adopt a new identity on no-phone-and-laptop island than deal with the sheer boredom and complexity of what'll probably be a ten minute job. I do appreciate I'm hypocritically writing this on the internet on my phone btw 😁 I did however meet a friends new gorgeous puppy though so it was a good day.
How's the leak? If you did plug it with a courgette it'll probably need changing now!

CRANKY40

Oh yes, rhubarb....I picked thirteen and a half pounds of rhubarb from my garden last week. When my best friend had his house fixed the kitchen was moved around and the small fridge freezer went into the garage. I have four pounds of rhubarb in my freezer, we gave two pounds to his next door neighbour and two and a half pounds to my next door neighbour. The other five pounds chopped and bagged is in friend's garage freezer. My dad told me a few years back that I should dig the rhubarb out and let it rest in the shed over winter. I don't want to think what it's capable of if it's rested if this is what a tired plant produces. We also took some more leaves off the tomatoes today.

We're a bit behind you - our courgettes are just getting going (I've had two) and so are the cucumbers (one normal still growing but I've picked and shared six mini ones). We took some apples off the baking apple tree today as they're starting to fall. That's a half carrier bag of something else to deal with on Saturday 😁 I thought of Soot this morning when next door's large black tom cat arrived to tell me that he was being starved to death. I am allowed to give him a handful of biscuits now and then as he comes to me for food when they are on holiday so it's a sort of reminder for him but they do feed him well. I think he just fancies a change now and then because he couldn't possibly be taking advantage could he?  😄