🌞 Happy Days in our Golden Years 🌞

Fortune_Smiles

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81993532#Comment_81993532

Well done on the Premium Bonds win @Humboldt. That's a great strategy to use it for treats - have fun shopping 🛍.

Pleased to hear you're enjoying the meal plan. I have lots of old favourite meals but like to try some new recipes too. Plus there's usually a glut of something or other in the veg patch that needs using up.

The WI is always a great friend in need. Many in our area are closing now though. They find it difficult to get anyone to sit on the Committees. Such a shame.

Thanks for popping in.

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Date Day

Mr F and I went out on a date yesterday. We visited an antiques fair. We took along our list of things we need for the house but didn't find anything on it. I did find a tiny FDawg though to hide amongst the nooks and crannies of the house with the other critters we've collected since we've been here. £2 for tiny FDawg and £8 total entrance fee so we didn't break the bank.

We stopped for lunch at a little college close to home. It's a charity providing specialist education, training and work experience and has a garden centre, cafe, vintage shop and gift shop which support the work of the college. We had some lunch there and a browse around but no money was spent other than on the food.

The day's costs will be met from this month's fun money.

It was still quite early when we got back so Mr F did some work on his truck and I finished the painting I'm doing for a friend.

We had cheese and tomato sandwiches for supper as we were still quite full from lunch.

Today I did some final touch ups on the painting and then spent several hours working out why my overlocker won't do a wide cover stitch. I tried everything and re-threaded and re-threaded but nothing made any difference. Finally I worked out that one of the needles is going up too far into the holder. There should be a bar which stops the needle when it gets to the right position so it's either missing or has moved or something. This is a fault of the machine and not of me! Which is frustrating but also a relief as it means I'm not going mad 😁 I've never been able to sew a wide cover stitch on this machine so I'm going to speak to the retailer and see whether they will fix it under the guarantee. I bodged a fix so that I could take the sleeves up on a new fleece I'd bought for the gym so that's an item off my alter and repair list 😎

I was out in the veg patch at 7am this morning in my dressing gown picking rhubarb for our breakfast - Rhubarb Crumble Muffins. There was Hot-smoked Salmon, Rice and Asparagus Salad for lunch. I did not put 180ml of olive oil in the dressing 😲 I put 50ml in, left out the white wine vinegar and halved the amounts of honey and mustard. Supper was Cauliflower, Shallot & Spinach Gnocchi.

Mr F went to pick up some logs from our friend. He came back with a trailer load of cut logs and tree trunks. There are about eight trailers worth of tree trunks remaining 😲 Mr F's trailer is quite a small one but still - should keep the fires burning for a looooooong time. Although we may need another log store to keep it all in 🙄

After all that lifting and shifting you'd think he'd just want to veg this evening but he's gone off for a workout in the barn. Leaving me with a glass of red and an episode of Doc Martin 🥳

Happy Sunday all.

Fortune x

beanielou

So cute. 🐶

Fortune_Smiles

May in a heartbeat 🌺

May is my absolute favourite month. The hedgerows burst into life and the air is sweet with the smell of hawthorn. The swallows arrive and their chirps and warbles accompany me around the house and garden. The skies are blue again and, this year, the sun has graced us with it's beaming prescence. But here we are at the end of the month and it seems to have passed in a heartbeat.

We were suddenly very busy. Our new client was very excited to have us as an additional resource and booked us for jobs every week. I'm not complaining as it's great to have the income and to carry our eggs in several baskets, however, we'd like to spread the work out a little. I'm sure things will calm down once we've helped them clear their backlog.

FDawg recovered from his infection quickly, however, he then had an adverse reaction to the antibiotics and has been very poorly as a result. All is well now and he has made a full recovery. I was a full time veterinary nurse for about a week though.

And I'm still ploughing through the court stuff 🙄 I've gotten used to a slower pace of life but think I'm going to have to step up my game for a while.

I'm giving myself a break this weekend though. Yesterday, I went to a sewing workshop and learned how to make swimwear 👙 Activewear fabric was probably the one I was most afraid of but now I feel confident and equipped to make both swim and gym wear 🏋️‍♀️ I didn't get to finish my garment but intend to complete some more of it today.

Also in the plan is the prep for my book club meeting this week and a manicure. I might make some gin too.

But first some breakfast. Having checked the barn freezer, I discovered many, many kilos of raspberries from last year 😮 I remember we had a glut of them and we haven't used up as many as I thought over the winter. The new season will be ready soon so be prepared for many raspberry recipes appearing in a dairy near you soon 😂 As any regular visitors will know, I have no problem serving up pudding for breakfast so I've made a start this morning with Raspberry & Redcurrant Cobbler.

In the meantime, can I please have May to do over 🙏

Hope you are all safe and well.

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

May is indeed beautiful, and while I agree this one has whizzed by, and I have worked lots of long hours and missed some of it, we've also made the most of the warmer weather and been in the garden. It's been glorious 😊

Sorry to hear FDawg has been under the weather. Glad he's back up and running now though. Glad work is up and running too, albeit impinging on your leisure time!

Pah to stupid court nonsense though. I hope that resolves soon (is there any kind of date on the horizon??)

Fortune_Smiles

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82017465#Comment_82017465

Hi @Cheery_Daff. No dates yet. Good job really as I'm still preparing evidence - nearly half way through now though.

Fortune x

rtandon27

What a beautiful garden @Fortune_Smiles - thanks for sharing that cheery pic!

South_coast

Raspberry gin is clearly the answer - two birds with one stone, and all that….😀

Humboldt

Thanks for sharing the pic of your garden @Fortune_Smiles. Simply stunning 😊

Fortune_Smiles

Hello lovely people 👋

I can't claim to have had much of a hand in creating the garden as most was planted by the previous owner. The aquilegias are down to me - a friend gave me some seeds from her garden and I threw them around a bit and they took.

In the interests of finding the elusive balance in life I'm always striving for, I'm taking most of the weekend off. Yesterday, the Fortunate household joined a convoy of classic 4x4s on a tour through the hills. We started off at a pub with brunch, drove through the gorgeous Shire countryside for a few hours, then returned to the pub for a late lunch. The weather wasn't great but it was good to get out of the house and remind ourselves of what a great part of the world we live in. I spotted lots of wildflowers in the hedgerow and meadows - wild comfrey, sweet briar roses and drifts of foxgloves. Beautiful. Costs will be met from this month's fun money.

The pub was selling free range eggs from a local farm. They were huge! We bought a half dozen for £2 and had one each for breakfast this morning with cheesy english muffins - both were double yokers 🙂 I've placed one next to a brown, supermarket bought, medium egg in a photograph below to show the difference.

Today I plan to do some more work on my swimsuit and spend a bit of time in the veg patch weeding… if the weather holds. I also have some work work to do. We have six invoices that need to be prepared so I'll do a couple of those later.

The power company are switiching us off tomorrow for the day while they replace some poles so I need to think about how to keep the fridges and freezers closed and how to have a productive day without electricity.

Have a great Sunday folks and I hope all your eggs are double yokers 😁

Fortune x