From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening MFW'rs

Heavens - are the Red Roses going to hold on........

A good day. LG had a lovely time at the birthday party.  There was food, and then we had soup for lunch, to feed everyone who was hungry.  Birthday cake made an impromptu dessert at lunchtime!

The Red Roses hung on, YAY!

Tea was a curry plate.  I had replenished the stocks of curry powders this morning, as I was out of my 'goto' ready-made powders.  I made my basic recipe, and the Sri Lankan curry powder which is a R1ck Ste1n recipe.  I also made up - for a change - a batch of Jamaican curry powder.  It's slightly different, and I thought I would ring the changes a bit.  I then looked for a recipe to use the Jamaican curry powder, and ended up choosing Jamaican Black-Eyed Pea Curry, which had ingredients that I had in - albeit i used my own version/recipe of Jamaican curry powder and I used tinned potatoes, as I had no 'fresh' tatties.  Served with Lentil Dhal and boiled basmati.



Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

the joy of partying
internet recipes
our storecupboard and freezer

Thanks for reading.  Greying X

mumtoomany

Morning @Greying_Pilgrim. Not "spoken" for ages. In the middle of lambing here. Great fun!!! Trudging up and down fields in the dark, looking at sheep's backsides. Rescuing lambs being born wrong. Tube feeding and heat lamps. Counting sheep and lambs constantly. Hopefully only another week or so to go. 

Talking of self service tills, has anyone else noticed that B&Q have only self service now. If we go there OH refuses to use them and makes someone do it for him. 

We had a sparrowhawk trapped in the barn, not long after moving here. It was trying frantically to fly through the glass in a window. I put on gauntlets, caught it and let it free. Never seen it since. I did notice the first two swallows this morning. Soon have a barn full, and be divebombed. The house sparrows are nesting in the garage, and two lots of crows in the barn roof. The fields are full of rabbits, and a few foxes. Glad summer's on its way.

I made a dhal a couple of nights ago. Never made one before, but have been looking at the pack of lentils in the cupboard for months, maybe years. Made it with them and two sweet potatoes. Very tasty, enjoyed by OH too. Thank you for inspiring me. Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

mumtoomany - Hi sweetie!  Thanks for popping by.  

Heavens, you do sound rushed off your feet.  Hope the lambing has gone well and you've plenty of trouble-free births, and lots of new lambs that can be grown and used to support the family in the future.  

I'm glad that you liked the dhal you made.  I bought some sweet potatoes this week - I think I shall make a curry with mine, but dhal with SP's or carrots is lush 😁I had considered doing carrot dhal for tea last night, but just did the standard recipe in the end.  

Interesting that you've just had the swallows turn up with you.  I had always thought that now that we lived more 'urban', it was just that we were 'second choice' for migrating flocks, on account of there being potentially less nest-sites/food.  Hence why I wasn't surprised to see the first swallows/martins/swifts (whatever they were), earlier in the week, when we were slap bang out in the country, with old agricultural buildings nearby.  

I haven't been to BeeandCue for an age.  I assume they must have some sort of 'zapper' on a lead attached to them though - not everything you can buy in-store can be easily man-handled across the bar code reader, surely?  And it's all very well these shops saying 'you can buy on-line', there are times when you need to see something in the flesh to be able to see if it's the right size/shape/colour/quality.  

Hope you are well, and the crops are flourishing in the polytunnels.  

Greying X

mumtoomany

Hi, greying. All well, apart from my arthritic knee, but that's been on and off since i was in my twenties, rather a few years ago. Yes lambing keeps one busy. All births but one have been plain sailing so far. The one that was difficult came out like superman, one leg and his head forward, one back, rather than like a diver, both legs and head forwards. He needed a pull, and his head was rather swollen. He's survived, didn't think he would, and now on the field with mum. 14 more to deliver, if the scans are right, including a triplet mum and several sets of twins. Hopefully plenty will stay alive long enough to go to market later in the year, almost all ram lambs so far, but sheep seem to have a death wish and will often die for no reason at all. 

Polytunnel has asparagus growing well, if you'd like some just call in, and broad beans filling out. Tomato plants are in. As are the butternut squash and courgettes. Beans planted, runner and French. A few leeks and carrots in there. Some beetroot, chard and celery. And some potatoes coming up, not planted but coming up anyway. Outside the rhubarb is growing, peas are in and main crop potatoes. Lots of brassicas to go out. Red currants are in flower, blackcurrant just starting, as are the gooseberries. Raspberries all in leaf. Might be a good year. 

Our housemartins should be back soon, we usually have several nests around the house each year. 

Right off to check on sheep, hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

peb

Glad LG enjoyed the party.  Can be hard doing socialising.

Greying_Pilgrim

mumtoomany said:

Polytunnel has asparagus growing well, if you'd like some just call in, and broad beans filling out. Tomato plants are in. As are the butternut squash and courgettes. Beans planted, runner and French. A few leeks and carrots in there. Some beetroot, chard and celery. And some potatoes coming up, not planted but coming up anyway. Outside the rhubarb is growing, peas are in and main crop potatoes. Lots of brassicas to go out. Red currants are in flower, blackcurrant just starting, as are the gooseberries. Raspberries all in leaf. Might be a good year. 

Ooooooooooof, **salivates** - weeelllllllll, as I have the jalopy fired up to sneak over to rtandon's house anyways............🤔 I could be wif ya 3 weeks on Friday, that be ok?  "Greying Roadtripping - The Movie".  I can see it now........ 🤣

So glad that lambing is going well and there haven't been too many difficulties - and hopefully won't be now you're all on the home-stretch.  Yes, sheep and their tendency to keel over - it's a wonder they've not died out really..... Thank heavens they've not tho, otherwise w0nderfulwoolly Wales couldn't have happened this weekend, could it?

Thanks for popping in.  I love these gardening/smallholding updates.  Just because it's not on the cards to have veg/livestock in my future, doesn't mean that I don't love hearing all about it - and I always understand what hardwork the 'good life' entails.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

peb - apologies, I missed your post.  I had written my post earlier and saved it as draft, so just pressed post and missed ya!  Yes, it's great when the kids have a good time - although it gets expensive, this venue has additional 'games' to gobble up participants money 🤔  much like a seaside arcade or funfair.  And try as we might, we couldn't get through to LG that the machine 'always' wins.......🙄  However, this was a relatively new friend, I get on well with the mum, so it's a delight to see a friendship developing, especially as this is a child who attends a different school to LG.

So I walked into Greying Town and did the money-shuffle.  The town itself was deathly quiet and even the bank only had a couple of customers - which is a rarity, a rarity on a Monday and a rarity towards the end of the month payday for some folk.  Most odd.  

I think we'll have Afghan Carrot Hotpot for tea with brown rice. ( Gosh, as I am typing this I am listening to L1za TaRbuck on R2 eye-player, the late C1lla Black is singing 'step inside luv' in....... Italian (I think).  It's messing with my head 🤣).  I will use red lentils rather than chana dhal tho.

Did I mention I had one of Sally Butchers newer cookbooks 'Persepolis' from the library.  Haven't had chance for a deep dive yet, but hopeful there will be a keeper or two of a recipe.  

Right, best crack on.  It's all very well wandering about all over the place undertaking financial transactions, but it does eat time.  

Ta for popping in.  Appreciated.

Greying X

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim said:

... as I have the jalopy fired up to sneak over to rtandon's house anyways............🤔 I could be wif ya 3 weeks on Friday, that be ok?  "Greying Roadtripping - The Movie".  I can see it now...

 Would that be the 21st or the 28th GP???  Eighteen years later and I still can't comprehend the way ya'll tell time this side of the pond! 🤣🤣🤣

In all seriousness - though OH is a meat & potatoes man, he does have a lovely repertoire of 'meat-free' meals that we can lay on for guests!😁  Name the day & I'll get him cooking for ya'll!

As to the emptiness of town, I thought the same thing this morning when getting myself from the train to the big city, through the train concourse and across the bridge to work!  Didn't get bumped into once, nor a near miss of being mowed over by a cyclist, there was no queue when I passed the coffee shop, and hardly any traffic to dodge when crossing the street outside the office!  Almost a post-apocalyptical happening in this big city!  The last time journeying was this light was during & post-covid when folks were still hiding out at home & tourists were not allowed!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

RT - as the jalopy is variously a combination of solar power and peddle power, my journeying may take some time....... 😉😁  I think i would be worried if I was in the big smoke and it was deserted too........  😕I'd be looking up to see if Godzilla was tip-toeing amongst the skyscrapers, or if a humungous gorilla was dangling from a tower......

Well, we ended up having a spiffy start to the week - long may it continue, as spiffiness has been in short supply of late..... 😕

We went to LG's activity, but due to a hold up that was not of the instructor's making, the session was curtailed.  However, LG did well, and the instructor insisted on not charging for an element of the class because we had a shorter session.  That was incredibly kind of them.  To build on this good-fortune, I have decided to put that 'refund' into the 'C4C' pot - as that is going to be squeaky tight on getting to £15; and we've got to pay this next instalment, tonight.  We'll do all the sorting out/counting up and digging down the back of the sofa for pennies after school tonight.  

I've activity-wear to peg out on the line.  Despite the BeeBeeCee's proclamation that there would be 0% chance of rain this morning, it was mizzling when I just went outside now 🙄 so I'm hopeful it'll blow over.  The load is all lightweight stuff, so it should dry relatively quickly, but we don't need it to be mizzling.  I'll try again in a while.

The afghan Carrot hotpot was nice for tea last night.  It didn't look all that attractive, as I had just diced up normal carrots and used red lentils that mushed down, but it did taste nice.  Served with brown basmati and green beans.  We had a scoop of icecream and some tinned peaches for pud.  

I've not decided on what's for tea tonight.  The cupboard is a bit bare of 'complete' meals that can be eaten at different times - but I'm sure I can cobble something.

I've been having a think about budgets again for May.  I think I've got to maintain the slighter increased amounts, as anything less is just impossible (for our household composition/circumstances etc) to stick to - given the shops available/travel/not having 0li0/YS items being few and far between etc etc.  I'm going to do a bit of jiggling tho.  I didn't spend anything of my £10 bulk fund this month, but I did overspend on household non-food.  I already know that this month I have a 'bigger ticket' purchase of washing powder to make, which will skew the budget.  So overall, I am going to stick to £250, but will allocate £215 to 'food', £30 to household non-food and put the remaining £5 to the bulk fund (which now notionally stands at £15).  Whilst I think household non-food is going to be a budget buster again, I can but try.  May has half-term and 2 BH Mondays, so it could prove expensive! 😕  Still, to keep trying to do our best is the key, isn't it?  

Can't think of owt else MSE related, so best shuffle orf.

Ta for popping by.  Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

First of May, heavens, time is marching.....

Nothing super-exciting happening.  The money shuffle has (already) been done for this month (!), and everything is where is should be - but at least that means that all expected bills are covered, so I am grateful for that.  

LG had a super time at club last night.  I didn't bother going to MrS as I had intended, as the traffic was so backed up when we went out, that I didn't want to get stuck in it and risk getting stuck and not being able to pick LG back up.   I went to MrA instead - what a waste of time that was.  I don't know if it's our local branch, or it's changing nationally, but it seems to have become an expensive place to shop, and our local store always looks like a plague of locusts has been through just before you stepped in the door.  I've no clue if this is the case, or whether the management are rubbish at getting the shelves re-filled.  I popped into the HB next door and picked up a few bits and bobs there - I will set out my new grocery spend for May, as it came from May's budget, and will be consumed in May.

Tea last night was lentil bolognese and pasta.  Sauce and lentils from the freezer, pasta from the cupboard.  

With the residue of the activity money and the 72p that was leftover from April's grocery budget and some other coins that were languishing at the bottom of my purse, we were able to make the April target of £15 for 'C4C'.  LG handed the money in last night.  I did swap it into notes from my grocery money, and didn't lumber anyone with tuppences and other assorted coinage 🙄 I did do this as an exercise with LG - as last month they had assumed that I had 'kept' the coins from the 'C4C' jar, and magicked the money out of thin air - we had to try to establish the notion of there only being one amount of money - we were just putting it into a more 'user-friendly' form to hand over to a third party.  It was hard work (last month) trying to get this point across, heavens knows how hard it will get trying to establish that you only 'have the money once' when everything is done by 'ether payments; with a wave of a watch, phone or other contraption 🙄

The weather looks a bit iffy today, so I'm not going to do any washing - although I have some I could do, but there looks to be a risk of 'wetting enough' rain, coupled with light winds, so I probably wouldn't get very far with the laundry.

Tea this evening will be from the store cupboard or freezer, and will likely be on a 'chilli' vibe or curry plate, but as DH isn't feeling so good (has this yukky cold that is going about and flooring people), I might play it by ear, as to what I make over just pulling something out of the freezer.

LG has an inexpensive activity after school, which has already been paid for, for the rest of the term, so that is covered, paid for out of CHB.

Can't think of anything else MSE-minded to report.  So best shift a tail-feather.  Snap to make up.

Ta for popping in.  Appreciated.

Greying X