Making Good Use

Listing for England

I've managed to unearth so many bits and bobs to list on ebay that I'm having to do it in stages rather than, as I usually do it, all in one go on a Thursday afternoon. 

After a lot of trying things on and parading about in front of the mirror, I've had a good purge of my 'what was I thinking of when I bought that' autumn-weight clothes - and am now feeling slightly worried about exactly what I will be wearing when the colder weather comes in.  Probably the same favourite few items that got me through the last couple of winters.  I'm so picky when it comes to clothes and being not only rather rotund but also rather tall (I prefer to call it 'Amazonian'!!) finding clothes that not only fit well but that I actually like can be a bit tricky - to say the least.

I've also been digging around in the various piles of 'stuff' around the bedroom and have managed to unearth some rather nice vintage aprons which have gone on to ebay.

I love the retro prints on vintage pinnys so always pick them up when I come across them. 

I like the idea of wearing them too, but know that a) with my waistline they probably wouldn't even tie up properly and b) I need something much more utilitarian and which covers more of my clothes when I'm cooking.  If I was wearing one of these pristine vintage aprons I'd soon have it covered in all sorts of un-removable stains, tomato being the usual culprit with me.

Rain Stopped Play

Due to the fact that a small monsoon seemed to have parked itself over southern Essex this morning I gave up on the idea of blackberrying and contented myself with picking in a few apples from one of the trees in the garden instead.  I got quite wet enough just being outside the back door for a minute or two, I certainly wasn't going to venture any further in pursuit of fruit - free or otherwise.  The apples have now been stewed up and will no doubt be a tasty enough pudding with another dollop of clotted cream on top - although P may be very virtuous and have his 'au naturel.'  Perhaps I'll have another attempt at blackberrying tomorrow.

The British Heart Foundation were collecting house to house this morning and luckily they'd picked up the four bin bags of books I'd left out for them before the heavens opened.  Their information said to leave donations outside the house by 8.30 am but I had a feeling they tended to be on the early side so my bags went out at 7.45 am.  Sure enough, before ten past eight they were out there loading them into their van.  I'm very grateful that they agree to take books as so many other charity collections only want to take clothing, but I do wonder how many donations they missed out on by arriving earlier than people expect.  I'm just glad I've now got a LOT more space in the shed - although no doubt 'stuff' will quickly be deposited in there again.

I did donate some clothing as well and have also listed a few items I no longer wear on ebay.  I seem to have accumulated A LOT of 'stuff' (clothes and other things) these past few months - probably because of all the car boot sales I've been to recently, and I'm going to try and list as much as possible on ebay to a) clear a bit of space and b) make a bit of extra money.

I used to do a lot of second-hand book selling on Amazon but it gets harder and harder to find books to sell on at a decent price.  Even when things have been listed they often subsequently get taken off again when the prices drop so low it's no longer worth trying to sell them.  Hence why I'd managed to accumulate so many books to donate.  At one time I used to earn approx. £50 per week selling on Amazon, these days I'd be lucky to make £50 per month - and I've definitely noticed the drop in my income.  Ebay, for me, still seems to be a steady place to sell - some things fetch excellent prices, others not so - but one thing's for certain, if I don't list items for sale I sure as hell won't sell them.  Yup, time to get my 'ebay seller' hat on.

Plum Tuckered Out

That's it, I think I'm now officially 'over' making plum jam.  Saturday afternoon saw P, and his incredibly long arms, on a step ladder picking in all of the plums he could reach - and he can reach a very long way with his arms.  We ended up with a washing-up bowl and a carrier bag full of them.  So, having purchased yet more preserving sugar, today I set to and made yet another batch of plum jam.  I seriously don't think I want to cut up another plum for a very long time!!  The plum jam itself is lovely and we're managing to make good inroads into the jam I've already made but, for this year anyway, the jam-making element of the kitchen is closed. C-L-O-S-E-D.  Ferme, finito.

Unfortunately, we still have half a washing-up bowl full of plums and I know my next-door neighbours are also 'all plum-ed out' so I'm seriously considering putting them in a box out the front with a few carrier bags and asking people to help themselves.

The greengages I picked in last week were simply stewed up and proved to be absolutely delicious - especially as we had them with a generous dollop of clotted cream!!

Tomorrow I'm going to investigate the blackberries in the little lane that leads between our road and the next one.  This lane has become almost impassable this summer so I'm hoping I can still squeeze my bulk down there.  Last year I had some lovely blackberries from there and they're really safe to eat too as no vehicles, not even motorbikes, could get through the lane-way and I didn't pick any that were low enough for dogs to have pee'd on them.  The bungalow that lies along one side of the lane has recently been sold to a builder - judging by the amount of work going on, and he is busy ripping out all the overgrown shrubs in the garden so I fear if I don't get my act together quickly he'll have dug out all the blackberry bushes too.  I've got a real craving for blackberry and apple crumble (with clotted cream, of course) so I'm hoping I find at least enough to make one - or two.

Greengages

This is the fifth summer that we've lived in this house and have enjoyed the produce from the fruit trees in the garden.  I am somewhat ashamed to say that this is the first time that I've realised we've got a greengage tree.  I always assumed the thin, lanky tree that produced green fruit which never ripened was some sort of stunted plum tree.  And I'd have gone on thinking that if my next-door neighbour hadn't asked me how the greengages were coming along!!  Right enough, when I went to have a closer look the tree was laden with little green fruits which looked totally different to the lush purple plums.

Yesterday afternoon I braved the great height of tottering about on a wooden chair and managed to pretty much strip the tree of all its fruit.  It was a good colander-ful that I managed to pick in and they're gently simmering away on the stove now so that there'll be stewed greengages for pudding this evening.  I'm so glad my neighbour mentioned them or else, for the fifth year running, they'd have just dropped from the tree!  What an ignoramous.

Likewise the pear tree.  Most years it has produced some fruit (and yes, even I could recognise they were pears) but I've never actually managed to eat any.  This year the tree is laden with pears but I'd begun to notice that quite a few were just rotting on the branch.  After consulting Mum I decided to pick in those that were still good and see if they'll ripen off indoors.  Nothing ventured etc etc.  I think there are 18 pears now in the bowl.  Let's see what happens in the next week or two.

I also want to say thank you very much to Frugal Trenches for the Superior Scribbler award

and to Caroline from Whats Happening at My House for the Kreativ Blogger award.

They're both much appreciated and I'll try and get round to playing by the rules of these awards next week. 

I Like a Nice Cup of Tea in the Morning ....

I do like a nice cup of tea in the morning (Earl Grey preferably) and I'm absolutely no good to anyone until I've downed a really large mug of tea.  Sadly, my largest mug recently met with a tragic end and so I've had to make do with not-as-large-as-I-would-like mugs of tea first thing instead.  This morning at the car boot sale I found a nice large mug, still boxed, for £1.  Not only was it the right size for me but I rather liked the tag line on it too

'Chocolate - It's Like Men .... The Richer The Better!'  You can't argue with that really!!  I know its supposed to be a mug for hot chocolate but, as I don't like hot chocolate, I'll be using it for my morning Rosy Lee instead.  It came with a small grater (originally for grating chocolate but I'll be using it for grating nutmeg) and a small whisk (for whisking grated chocolate I presume which I'll no doubt find a use for when making salad dressing.)

Also found at the car boot this morning was a nice bottle of Body Shop Shower Gel - 50p and a small tub of Body Shop Body Butter - also 50p.  I do like me some Body Shop products in the bathroom.  I'm pretty well stocked now with shower gel, face wash, body butter etc etc but I keep on buying them when I see them as it'll be a long time before the car boot sales start up again and my stock of toiletries will have to keep me going until at least next March or April.  Heaven forbid I'd actually have to buy them from a shop!!  The Body Shop bits are on another rather cheerful vintage pillowcase I found for 20p.  I'm doing very well finding vintage pillowcases lately.

Home Cooking

P is away for a couple of days at a law conference in Wales so I've taken the opportunity to cook myself one of my favourite meals of all time.  It's a very simple dish that consists of layers of mashed potato, hard-boiled egg and fresh sliced tomatoes in a cheese sauce. It doesn't have a name that I'm aware of but it was something that Mum used to cook for us when we were younger and I've always loved it.  There is something of the 'nursery food' about it but it is extremely tasty, cheap to make and is very comforting to eat.  Sadly, P thinks its revolting - hence why I have to wait until he is away to cook it. 

It worked out very well for me today as I happened to have all the ingredients to hand anyway and it gave me a good opportunity to use up a fairly substantial amount of sprouting potatoes - and that's despite keeping them out of the light in a black cotton bag.  Once I'd cut out all the sprouting bits and peeled them they looked fine and the ensuing large amount of peelings went into the compost bin anyway. 

As it was such a favourite dish of mine as a child it got me thinking about the other foods I used to love when I was younger - and rarely eat now.  My Mum was, and still is, a fantastic cook.  There's something about her cooking that is just far more tasty than anything I ever seem to produce.  I know she also used to make us fish cakes with a fresh tomato sauce over them and I have tried to make fish cakes myself but they never seem to be as nice.  As for the fresh sieved tomato sauce, I have to confess I've never tried doing that - it seems a bit too much like hard work to me - so I stick with the Heinz (or Aldi's equivalent) ketchup.  Her Sunday roasts were so nice - I don't think I've ever had crackling to beat what I used to get at home.  And when we had roast beef the dripping was stored in a cup in the fridge and we'd then have that on bread with tons of black pepper for tea - absolutely yum.

We often had vanilla ice cream to follow with a dark chocolate sauce.  This sauce was made from melted down Bourneville dark chocolate and was soooo nice - it used to form a really hard shell around the ice cream that I loved to crack with my spoon.  When the 'exotic' Arctic Roll came out in the early 1970's we sometimes had that for Sunday dessert with a homemade toffee sauce.  Oh my goodness but that toffee sauce was gorgeous.

Even simple things like tomato sandwiches were much more tasty when made by my Mum - why is it that Mum's just have that ability to make all food taste wonderful? 

I'd love to hear what your favourite dishes were as a child?

Probably Summer's Last Hurrah

Today the temperatures here are forecast to get into the high-20s (26 / 27 degrees) and already, before noon, it's pretty darn hot in the garden.  Naturally, I'm in tune with it being so hot today and have started knitting myself a new scarf for the winter and we've got a warming chicken casserole for our evening meal!!  Hmm, that's not very well organised now is it?  Luckily, the really warm temperatures are only forecast for today with tomorrow onwards being a much more seasonal 21 / 22 degrees.  I suspect today will be probably be this summer's last hurrah.

I know many parts of the UK have had yet another mediocre summer (and that's a typical British understatement,) with a lot of rain and low temperatures, so I'll just whisper this - here in SE Essex we've actually had quite a good summer.  We only had a couple of days where the mercury was above 30 (which is a blessed relief for me) but really for the past few months the temperatures have been around the 22 / 24 mark - just nice - with little rain and a fair amount of sunny blue skies.  And in the summer, in the UK, who can ask for better than that?

Years ago I loved the sun and the hotter the weather the more I loved it.  I still have the fondest memories of the summer of 1976 where the temperature rarely got below 30 for two months or more.  Then it was my idea of heaven, now it would be my idea of hell.  Of course, in 1976 I'd just turned 16, just finished my 'O' Levels and had nothing better to do all day than lie in the sun getting the best tan I have ever had in my life.  Funny how our tastes change as we get older and we have to do an awful lot more every day!

And still the plums are hanging in their droves from the plum tree.  I packed two large Kilner jars with plums preserved in port at the weekend and am seriously considering whether to make yet more plum jam (although a shortage of jam jars is hindering this plan a tad.)   I'll start picking more plums again tomorrow and see how many I can distribute between the neighbours before I decide what'll be the best course of action.  I certainly don't want to waste such a wonderful crop.

Thrifted Pillowcases

At the car boot sale yesterday there were a couple of young studenty-types who had masses and masses of not-quite-vintage but definitely-not-recently-manufactured pillowcases, still pristine in their wrappers.  It transpired (from a bit of judicious eaves-dropping on my part) that they were selling off a lot of one of their grandmother's things. 

There were tons of bits and bobs and I bought two aprons on my first visit to their stall.  I did a further circuit of the car boot sale but the lure of those still-packaged pillowcases kept calling to me.  Eventually I went back and had another rummage through their stuff.  In the end I only bought two lots of pillowcases as most of them were 'vintage' Woolworths circa 1980 and were heavy on the polyester content.

This first pair I bought with the idea of actually using them on the bed as I really liked their cheerful, folksy, blue and white faux cross-stitch pattern.  However, when I unpacked them I realised the fabric was a bit too 'harsh' for my liking so these two are destined to be made into a couple of pillowcase totes.

The second pair, which are older, boxed and pure cotton, I bought for selling on ebay.  However, having had a look at what such pretty pillowcases fetch on ebay (not very much), I've decided to hang onto them and use those on the bed instead.  They're really fresh and pretty looking with embroidered edges and a fine crochet border as well. 

Of course, now I'm kicking myself and wishing I'd bought a lot more of the pillowcases (they were only 50p each) and I could have made a lot more pillowcase totes from those as well!!  He (or she) who hesitates, etc etc.

Random Musings

Lots of random thoughts today - and none of it relates to anything else at all really.

- Very pleased I decided to price up the Rooibos tea-bags in the health food shop before I went into Somerfield as they were £4.29 for 80 in the health food shop and only £2.00 in Somerfield.  Granted the Somerfield ones were by Tetley and not the beautifully and nostalgically packaged 'Tick Tock Tea' but at less than half price the Tetley ones won hands down.

- Actually found some 'roadkill money' again today (must be the first time since about February).  A whole 1p.  That brings my running total for this year to 5p!!

- The evening meal will be salad again today.  Salad that consists of home-grown salad leaves, home-grown cucumber and home-grown tomatoes - delicious.  I want to use up the salad leaves still in pots ASAP as I don't want any left outside when the first frosts arrive.  It was so nippy yesterday evening I fear a frost could be much sooner than expected. 

Flushed with my growing success this year I'm already hatching plans about what to grow next summer and, more importantly, what containers I can grow the stuff in.  I know there is an old metal bucket and a manky old aluminium jam pan in the shed, both of which will look great as planters next summer.  I'll just have to ask my next-door neighbour if he'd mind drilling a few holes in the bottom of each one with his power drill, otherwise any crops could get a bit water-logged.

- I'm wondering about trying to bottle the rest of the plums in a Kilner jar - well soused in port.  Anyone got any experience of bottling fruit in alcohol?  It's just a thought at the moment but the idea of some really nice boozy plums in the depths of winter quite appeals.

- Having made a reasonable job of hemming a pair of P's suit trousers (and, no doubt, saving a few ££s into the bargain), I've now been given another pair to mend - this time one of the leg seams has come apart!!  Exactly how energetic does it get working in an office each day?  And whilst on a roll with making do and mending, I'd better get one of my pairs of jeans mended too.  Inexplicably one of the seams near the zip has completely come apart - lord knows how / when that happened.

- And if you're wondering about the Union Jack photo at the top of the post, it's part of a Queen's Coronation head scarf I bought for 50p in the charity shop the other day.  I was hoping to re-sell it on ebay but on closer inspection the scarf is a bit moth-eaten, so now I'm thinking perhaps I can do something with the Union Jack bits as Union Jack motifs seem to be very popular at the moment. 

Irritations

Today has been one of those days that is filled with -thankfully minor - irritations.  It started off with a problem with the remote control on the TV, I couldn't switch the telly off.  So, I had to heave my pyjama'd self off the settee and actually switch the flippin' thing off manually.  I mean, really!!  Then I worried about being able to switch it on again so I fiddled around, switched it on to BBC1 and switched if off again at the set.  Ah, I thought, sorted for lunchtime viewing whilst eating my lunch.  Wrong!!  The TV switched on alright at lunchtime but there was no sound (well, only through the headphones) and the remote control refused to work anything at all.  B*ggerations!  I felt a right prat eating my lunch wearing HUGE headphones.  I fear I know where the problem arose - yesterday evening P was heard muttering about sticky remote controls (that'll be me and the plum jam no doubt) and disappeared into the kitchen to clean it.  I suspect rather too much water was used and the remote is now water-logged.  Hopefully, he can sort it when he gets home.

So a bit later on I thought I'd just log on to the internet and see what was happening in blogland.  Now I wasn't totally surprised to find the internet wouldn't connect as I'd seen a few Virgin Media vans parked in the road and had an idea they were fiddling with the telephone junction-box thingy at the end of the road.  So out I go in the pouring rain to ask if what they were doing could be having any affect on my internet access.  The answer, of course, was an emphatic 'no.'  Oddly enough, when they'd disappeared about an hour later the internet miraculously started working again - hmm, what a coincidence.

Having sold two books on Amazon yesterday (it's a red-letter event just to sell one these days so I was very pleased) I had to go to the post office to post them off.  Whilst I'm at it, I thought, I'll pop one pair of P's suit trousers into the dry cleaners for mending as the hem has totally come down on one leg (what does that man do during his working hours?)  Naturellement, the dry cleaners / menders is closed for two weeks for their annual holiday.  How selfish can you get, taking a holiday when there is an urgent repair needed on work trousers?!  It serves me right really as I'm quite capable of sewing up the hem myself, I just didn't fancy doing it, now I'm going to have to.  But I'll wait until the light is a bit better than it is today - excuses, excuses!

On a more positive note, I've just made a second batch of plum jam which seemed to go alright.  Finger's crossed it'll be as tasty as the first lot.