Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

Cheery_Daff

That's exactly what happens! Turn your back for five minutes and there's weeks worth of the stuff! I do at least open it as arrives and discard junk and envelopes so that's something. 

Furniture moved, cobwebs shifted, mould cleaned off wall 🙄 Well, mostly cleaned off. Three rounds of vinegar and scrubbing was quite enough for one night. 

Have also made breakfast, dinner, and tea for tomorrow, plus another five meals for the freezer 😊

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, another decluttering win - one of my recipes called for some berries. Didnt want to use the blueberries I'd just bought so went raiding the back of the freezer and found some home grown blackcurrants - from July 2022 😮 so this weekend is a jam mission - there are blackcurrants, 2 bags of gooseberries, and a bag of damsons, all from 2022, plus a bag of blackberries from Mr C Snr's garden that I promised to make into jam for him. That's quite a bit of jam, but I think they've had quite long enough in the freezer 😂

Also we're trying to rationalise/sort out our plastic tubs, which cascade out of the cupboard every time we open it 🙈 A fairly random selection of tubs and non-matching lids - we used to use the chickens as an excuse (because we'd take treats out to them in a tub without a lid, and then leave the tub out there...) but I have no idea what our excuse is now. Anyway, I'd like to use tubs in the freezer - I mostly use bags because they're smaller, but if half the freezer wasn't full of fruit we'd have far more space 😂

I've also got a massive pile of apples from a friend's tree - I was going to stew those and freeze in small portions for smoothies/puddings, which is obviously going to fill the freezer full of fruit again 😂

Viking_mfw

@Cheery_Daff I'm sure you know this but you can get an easy source of pectin to add to the frozen fruit by cooking and straining crab apples. At this time of year it seems a waste to buy pectin in bottles!

Sorry if there's an element of sucking eggs here!

redofromstart

I hadn't thought of that, thanks Viking. Generally use some of our cooking apples but it can impact on the flavour. Plenty of crab apples here. 

I don't think I'll be making anything this year but will jot it down for future use. 

rtandon27

@Cheery_Daff - Passion fruit skins are also pectin rich - I've found the fruit on yellow sticker & used the pulp for cocktails, drying and saving the skin for jam/jelly making.  Putting in about 1/2 fruit worth of skin when boiling the jelly helps extract the pectin and make the jelly it set, but it does however impart a slightly floral note, which is nice in berry jelly for toast, but not so nice when the jelly is used for making gravy.

Viking_mfw

rtandon27 said:

@Cheery_Daff - Passion fruit skins are also pectin rich - I've found the fruit on yellow sticker & used the pulp for cocktails, drying and saving the skin for jam/jelly making.  Putting in about 1/2 fruit worth of skin when boiling the jelly helps extract the pectin and make the jelly it set, but it does however impart a slightly floral note, which is nice in berry jelly for toast, but not so nice when the jelly is used for making gravy.

Ooh, good info!

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all for your jam-making advice! I have a large bag of cooking apples from a friend's garden so I suspect I'll be using those. My crab apple tree has withered (or, more accurately, drowned) unfortunately... 

Busy day at work today, but I'm home, have made tea and dinner for tomorrow. Windows are done! They look great, it's always a shock how much difference new windows make Just the one whole window done, plus four blown panes. Bill was £1245, same as quote, so I've just paid that now. 

Banks and YNAB done too, not looking great right now but I think I shoved too much into the monthly savings pot last month, and have had to retrieve some of it (which is why it sits in a temporary pot first!) We did have a couple of bits of spendiness in the last few weeks (mortgage fee for a start). And a few more to come too - my stupid dentures, one car having a service, the other an MOT. So October won't be a big month for savings. Might get on the case with a few surveys, top up the coffers a little! 

One odd thing - there was a £1 payment that I didn't recognise, rather bizarrely to a church in London. It's likely that one of us has just bought something from a charity shop or stall (and I suspect I'll remember at some point) but I'm going to check back tomorrow to make sure there's nothing else I don't recognise. 


Nowt else to report. I've got a couple of hours to myself and I think after a busy day (and considering I'm commuting every day this week) I'm just going to get the IPL machine out and a film on!

Cheery_Daff

Evening chums.

Not much to report today. Got to work at 8.15, but somehow still didn't leave til 5.15, could have been worse. Busy day.

Little car is going to the garage tomorrow - at least I won't have to pay for a parking space 😂 I won't be at my office though, in a different location, so I've got portable lunch that I don't need to reheat (I usually have leftovers) and a travel mug so I can get £1 off hot drinks 😂 

Engine light is on in the car but it's been on since the start of September with no ill effects so probably just needs resetting. Getting a service at the same time though, car has done 164k miles now so just as well to get things topped up before the winter. Hopefully won't cost too much...

redofromstart

My engine light has been on for 18 months now, some random filter that can only be switched off by manufacturer. I'd almost miss its cheery glow now.

Cheery_Daff

redofromstart said:

My engine light has been on for 18 months now, some random filter that can only be switched off by manufacturer. I'd almost miss its cheery glow now.

Ha, our service light has been on for months too, and I regularly have the fog lights on when going to work at the minute so it's a bit like a distracting Christmas tree in there 😂

Not seen the cheery guys at the garage for a while anyway so it's about time I paid them a visit 😂 With two cars that have done over 150k miles we do see them quite regularly 😂