Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Makingabobor2

Ooh I love it when we see military aircraft going over.

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
This afternoon finds me writing to you from the dining table in the conservatory in a thunderstorm. Yes, the horrid muggy weather has broken & it is now raining properly, not the 14 drops we had this morning. I won't be at all sorry to get back to some (Ooooh, big lightning!) more seasonal temepratures. Yesterday was unbearably hot, but our friend, with whom we spent the evening after braving the Swedish Emporium, has air conditioning in her house, so we cooled off. Later, after dark, we sat out in her pretty garden by candlelight, chatting & wondering why we don't do that more often. It's free (apart from a handful of tea-lights & a few matches), calming & good for the soul.
Today's small budget-helping positives:
*Got up early & did a team effort on harvesting the pears. I reckon we've got about half of them - we can gather others as needed. Mr F went up the stepladder wielding the apple-picker & I plucked the low ones & triaged  into 'Good' (for us to eat/cook with/preserve), 'Compost' or 'Garden waste wheelie' (the latter for those with the sort of mould which might spread). I also made sure some mushy ones were left on a nearby patch of flower border for the bees as significant numbers of honeybees have been tucking into the windfalls lately. The birds enjoy them too, of course, not forgetting Mr or Mrs Badger (my guess is that it's a young male). There is now a large very full crate of pears in the lobby to be used as & when. The thing with pears is that they are picked when they are 'ready', which is when you can cup your hand underneath, press upwards & the fruit comes away naturally. They then ripen indoors. This is starting to read like "Everything you didn't want to know about pears at Foxgloves Manor" so I will move on to........
*Tomatoes!! Picked all remaining fruit except the tiniest weeny little ones which kind of won't have the hormones (?) to ripen properly before wrinkling up. Arranged all the varying stages of green ones on a tray in the conservatory (not very effectively as more of a pyramid & they keep tumbling off & annoying the cats) for gradual ripening & the ripe ones are in a basket in the kitchen awaiting my attention. Went back out & cut down all the spent plants while also thinking 'Thank-you' for our harvest this year. Mr F followed me round yanking out the roots, canes, etc.
*Other garden pickings today: Another small colander of blackberries which was handed to me along with some arch hints about the possibility of a blackberry & pear crumble at some point & 2 more courgettes.
*The flower seeds I gathered 2 or 3 weeks ago had dried, so I have sorted them into envelopes & labelled for sowing next year. Cerinthe (honeywort), Calendula & that big pink frilly poppy freebie so far. 
*Gathered sweet pea pods to see if I can get any viable seed from them this year. I am successful at seed saving in most cases, but for some reason, sweet pea seeds, however long I let the pods dry & ripen, seem to grow dodgy white fur. They were quite expensive ones from a not-too far-away historic walled garden & have been glorious this year, so I was determined to see if I could save some of the seed to sow next month,
*Started getting together a bag of library returns.
*Have checked for surveys, but nothing doing atm, so will try to increase my earnings over the coming week.
And that is it for today. I shall try to finish my 3rd cat blanket tonight. Mr F is roasting chicken so you can bet I have factored in 3 more meals from that on the meal plan, oh yes! I shall need to keep busy this week & next as I have 2 appointments I'm not looking forward to at all & do NOT need to be overthinking them. Soot is sitting at my feet looking a bit ripped-off. He thought the rattly sound of me sorting seeds might be more biscuits. Ash has been out in the rain, which he doesn't seem to mind, having been feral, & has just come in looking like a spiky grey hedgehog. 
Well, enough verbiage from me,
F x
 

Makingabobor2

Ooh blackberry & pear crumble sounds delicious. We went blackberrying this morning. Got 1300 grms, not bad for our first picking this year. There are several places near here we can get some, so that's one fruit I don't need to learn how to grow. lol

Humdinger1

The cupcake frenzy made the dog sick long before he was sorry, @foxgloves.

ladyholly

Many years ago we used to run a shop that sold cheese and would mature whole 56lb cheddars in our spare room. One day the dog got in and helped himself to a large chunk of it despite several layers of cloth binding. He was ok but was never very keen on cheese afterwards.

Blackcats

I'd love to see a Lancaster in flight.  My dad was an engineer on Lancasters just after WW2.  He has lots of stories about them including flying low over Ruislip Lido on a summer afternoon with the sunbathing crowds waving up at them.

slm6002

My daughter was at the coast today and said an old plane flew over and it was really low.  She said she could have touched it - I am sure she was exaggerating a little 

milann

You’ve done incredibly well with your home grown haul. Out of interest- roughly how many tomato plants do you plant?

foxgloves

@milann - 18 (but numbers are partly dependent on germination rate & transplant success rate).

PennysIntoPounds

Oh no, not the arch hints! I suppose you'd better make some delicious autumnal crumble then, what a shame
Hope the appointments go very well. These things are always a worry but you're being brave and sensible. And I hope that doesn't sound patronising, a huge amount of otherwise capable people don't engage in their health care because of worry, so good for you. And I always like being reminded I'm being brave anyway, despite not being five years old ☺
Your pear comments weren't boring at all, I didn't know the technique for when they should come off so thank you for the insight. There's an apple tree in the front of a block on the street which I presume is the council's responsibility but no-one maintains it so the apples never flourish, I'm wondering about just guerrilla gardening it so any tips welcome!