Slow Living - Doing It Old Style!

Florafauna

Today started with a health scare for a close family member but as ever the fab NHS swung into action and after tests gave them an all clear. Had a great 40 minute swim followed by a large flask of tea. Home and then divided my sourdough dough into 2 baskets to prove. Will bake them tomorrow morning.
Went through the kitchen cupboards to get rid of stuff for our imminent move, got rid of mugs, glasses and plates along with some v ood yeast, nuts and teas. Not huge amounts but all inedible. 
Made a tuna crunch salad with olives, wild garlic and roasted peppers, very yum. 
Watched Scoop, the film about Prince Andrew and Emily Maitlis, really superb whilst knitting the second never ending scarf - only another 50 cm to go! 

leftatthetrafficlights

@Wednesday2000 - hope you enjoyed your soup! It depends where you are in the country as to whether the schools are on holiday - my grandbaby is but in my ds's area they went back at the beginning of this week (and broke up the week before my grandbaby)

@Florafauna - I'm glad things were okay for your relative 🙌 it's such a worry when things like that happen and it reminds us of how important it is to value the important things and people in our lives! Sourdough sounds good 😁 I haven't made it before but we tried to sort a starter a few months ago which was unsuccessful - our room temperatures fluctuate far too much during the winter to make it work - but I'm going to try again later in the spring so may be tapping you for advice! 😉 

My soup was lovely 😁 I spent most of my day playing trains, colouring, building stuff and planning a bug hotel with my grandbaby so was very grateful that I had the soup to just reheat!! 




I decided on a variation of my meditation garden space yesterday - I'm no longer having a static firepit made with bricks. I've decided that a movable one will be a better idea so dh ordered me one last night as a pressie! 😍 I really love it and it's design is ideal for the position it will be in - we already have an old potting table cover we can adapt for it so it also reuses something that has been hanging around in the shed! 🙌 In other garden news, dh has a friend who has offered to give us a control box with 4 plug sockets for the pond pump/lights etc - I was looking at having to make a substantial outlay for one so I'm over the moon about that! 🥳 it's literally going to save me hundreds of pounds!! Hopefully it will be with us by the weekend and then dh can get it sorted out but there's no immediate rush as the pond can be be left alone for a while longer to settle before the pump is required 😊 

Today I'm making tofu, writing and reading. I have to wait in for some deliveries so will fit in my walk and asana practice around that so it should be a lovely slow day 😁 

Valli

good morning Slowies

I’m awake a little earlier than expected so i’ve taken my first tablet and have to sit for 30 minutes.  Messed this one up yesterday as i took the wrong one and then, as i needed to be up and fed decided it was probably best to skip it.  It has to be taken on an empty stomach, too.  

I need to look for car insurance today, the reminders have been going into junk so i missed them.  I’ve probably missed the optimum time for the lowest quote but we’ll see.

Other than that i have nothing planned.  I’m making tea which is Thai Green Curry. 

I will try to take a bunny photo if the weather is not too foul.

Florafauna

Just got the sourdough out of the oven and v pleased with it. Went out for my friends birthday today and am still feeling full. Had aa very jolly afternoon

leftatthetrafficlights

@Valli - I hope you managed to get your car insurance sorted - I hate doing jobs like that! 🤦‍♀️ 

@Florafauna - that loaf looks lovely! Glad you enjoyed your friends birthday bash 😁 

Yesterday did not turn out as planned - one delivery arrived but the other did not so I was unable to do what I wanted as I was waiting all day! 🙄

I did make the tofu but there wasn't enough time to marinate it for as long as I would like so I made the mushroom and walnut bolognese for last night's dinner. We'll have the tofu tonight and my grandbaby can have some bolognese. 

I also had a bit of unexpected news yesterday- my dd has been offered a job so will no longer be working for me!! 😳😔 It was totally out of the blue, she currently volunteers for them and they called her yesterday to offer her a temporary paid position starting on Monday!! I'm thrilled for her, it's doing something that she wants to do and intended to start next year; the hours fit in perfectly with my grandbaby too so it's a win-win for her.

I am sad that we will not get our time together anymore though - she was cleaning for me twice a week and we always spent a few of those hours chatting. We are very close and spending that time together was incredibly special to me so I'm really going to miss that 😔 

The other consideration is whether to employ someone else 🤔 In all honesty, I mainly employed my dd to help her out financially - my grandbaby was very young and they needed the money. However, after all these years, I have got used to having someone do my cleaning so it will be a shock to have to take back that responsibility! 😳😂 I will probably wait for a while and see how it goes for her before I make a decision - her job is currently temporary so if it doesn't turn into permanent I'll re-employ her and I don't know if I can be bothered to go through the process of getting another cleaner for a relatively short space of time 🤔 I believe that these are things that would definitely be described as first world problems 🙄🤦‍♀️ 

Anyway, today I am having my grandbaby, he's coming until tomorrow lunchtime. He's told me he'll be here for breakfast so I need to go to the shop in a minute and we're going to the beach this afternoon. This morning will mainly be building train tracks and playing with those! 😁😍 I'll be exhausted by tomorrow afternoon!! 😂😂😂

Have a lovely slow day 😁 

Valli

Hello all

I am at work today.  Although i’m contracted for 18 hours I currently do 10 as our cafe is closed, so there’s less to manage.  

I am nearly there with the car insurance; quidco have £45 off all the policies but i need to read the T&Cs as their cheapest quote is for the company I am with now, so it might be better to go with the second cheapest if it’s got to be with a new provider.

I did get my soup out of the freezer so i have lunch ready (i put some soups in one of the freezers at work as mine were full).  And I need to ‘christen’ tea…Im thinking a veggie chilli to use up stuff.  I could get up and stick it in the SC actually.  I should, I suppose, get out of bed.

Wednesday2000

Good news about the job!

I got my hair cut finally and did a lot of walking around yesterday. I looked in quite a few charity shops on the walk there and managed to get myself a dress and my husband a jacket. The jacket was only £1 which was good as it was Red Herring.

My legs are aching today however so I am about to have a hot bath. I was happy to have found plantains yesterday for the first time in years at a local market so I was thinking of making fried plantains with curried jackfruit and rice for lunch. That is all for today apart from finishing my book as I have three ready to pick up at the library!

I will go back to that market when I have more time to properly look around as I saw fruit and veg there that I couldn't identify. I know they sold unusual veg like mooli as I have seen that before. I just googled and it is also called daikon.

Florafauna

Hi everyone, well we are slowly making our way up north. Lots of road works but we are keeping smiling. Had a nice day, birthday lunch for another friend which was lovely. Didn't have a swim today but had my front crawl lesson last night. I did practice drills for an hour, came home, ate and then slept solidly for 10 hours!
Finally have had a day with no rain.. 
Very strange! 

leftatthetrafficlights

@Valli - hope you've made ahead decision on your car insurance and that your chilli was nice 😁 

@Wednesday2000 - sounds like you got a bargain at the chazzer! 🙌 Nomnom on the plantains - I really like them and have them every couple of months 😋 I love the sound of the market - I'm always mega excited when I find a fruit or veg I haven't tried before!! 😁 Dh works close to an ethnic retailer and goes in frequently to bring me random stuff - I've never been disappointed yet! 

@Florafauna - I hope you've made it to your destination! 😁 I'm not surprised you slept for ten hours, I couldn't do five solid minutes of swimming without going into a coma!! 😳😂 

Wednesday and Thursday were lovely days - had loads of fun with my grandbaby and a friend dropped in yesterday afternoon after I'd dropped him back with dd so that was an unexpected surprise 😁

Today I have been cleaning my house! 🙄😂 To be perfectly honest, I've actually enjoyed it - I thought about it before I started and recognised that it was a new start - I'm going to have all week (other than when I have my grandbaby) on my own until dh returns from work. It's a perfect opportunity to concentrate on the things that make me happy without having to alter any plans to accommodate anyone else at all. I love my house being clean and being able to maintain that myself is a privilege, so I stayed in the moment and found it quite meditative 😁 Next week I'll start the deep clean of the rooms - I've got a plan and by this time next week it will be completed and I can get back into the routines I used to have - I feel very content with it all. 

I've had a spend day today - I've ordered a lot of stuff for the meditation garden and ponds - tomorrow we'll be putting in the control panel, the waterfall and the stones so it will look a lot better 😍 I'm really looking forward to getting more of it done 😁 

Anyway, time to get a chamomile tea- have a lovely slow day!! 😁

Floss

leftatthetrafficlights said:

Today I have been cleaning my house! 🙄😂 To be perfectly honest, I've actually enjoyed it - I thought about it before I started and recognised that it was a new start - I'm going to have all week (other than when I have my grandbaby) on my own until dh returns from work. It's a perfect opportunity to concentrate on the things that make me happy without having to alter any plans to accommodate anyone else at all. I love my house being clean and being able to maintain that myself is a privilege, so I stayed in the moment and found it quite meditative 😁 

I need to do this, to make proper cleaning plans - I work a 9-day fortnight and am off every other Friday. At the moment it is 9 longer days (8:10-5:00) but in a couple of months I am dropping some hours so I will work 9 regular days of 7.5 hours. Hopefully that extra time will be put to good use!