Making Good Use

Snowbound Frugalness

It's amazing how being snowbound with no end in sight can focus your mind on not being wasteful with food.  Although at the moment we should be good with food until the middle of next week, this weather is really making me think hard about what to use, what to eke out for another meal and what to use up creatively.

Tonight for tea I'm cooking a new recipe - Tuna Pasta Bake.  It was a recipe I found on a Channel 4 website before Christmas but as both P and I were unwell then I didn't get round to cooking it.  I dug out several lots of suspicious looking foil-wrapped bits of cheese from the fridge to make the cheese sauce with.  One of them was so mouldy it was beyond saving but the other two only had little bits of mould on them so I chopped those bits off (and threw them out for the poor birds in the garden) and grated up the rest.  I wouldn't have chosen to make the cheese sauce mainly with Red Leicester cheese - it's ended up a bit 'orange' for my liking - but I sure as heck wasn't going to waste it.

The rest of the ingredients were store-cupboard items - tinned tuna (natch), half a tin of sweetcorn (the other half was used yesterday to make sweet potato and sweetcorn soup) and dried pasta.   I had bought some spring onions on Tuesday so I used those as the recipe suggested, although I'm sure a small ordinary onion would have sufficed.  It all looks quite tasty in the dish but the proof of the pudding etc etc.  If it is OK then I've got enough ingredients to make another lot next week - which will put off having to venture out into the snowy wilderness for another day.   If it's totally rank we'll still have to eat it up as I don't like wasting food at the best of times and this is definitely not the best of times weather- and grocery shopping-wise.

What's Hot, What's Not

I've been seeing a lot of 'What's Hot, What's Not' around in the blogosphere lately so thought I'd give it a go today.

What's Hot -

Finding my extremely ancient jumper still fits, and is wonderfully warm and snuggly.  I've had the jumper for 15 years plus and my Mum knitted it for my sister before that, so goodness knows how old it is.  I've no idea what the yarn is either - could be wool, could be manmade, could be a wool / manmade mix.  It's no great thing of beauty and I wouldn't wear it outside the house (especially as it has gone into hole under the arms!!) but I sure am enjoying it's all-enveloping warmth at the moment.

Likewise, digging out a hat my Mum knitted for herself, didn't like, partially unpicked, gave to me to reuse the wool, and then finding that I have just enough yarn to sew up the unpicked bits and that the hat fits great, is fantastically warm, and has ear flaps.  I know what I'll be wearing next time I venture out.

The snow.  Here in Essex we've had a lot less than other places, although it is really coming down strongly now.  I don't really like bitterly cold weather but there is always something quite exciting about snow - I think it's the way the light is so different to normal - sort of ethereal and glowing.

Knowing I've got enough food in the house to last us for a week.  If this weather keeps up - and the forecasters can see no end in sight - at least we're good for the next seven days.  After that we probably wouldn't starve but there may be some very odd combinations of food occuring.

What's Not -

Weather forecasters and news presenters talking about the depth of snow in centimetres.  Why do they do that?  As far as I know the EU decided that the UK could keep it's imperial measurements - thank goodness we still travel in miles and not kilometres and in the greengrocers and the butchers you can still ask for a pound of this or half a pound of that (just as well as I'd have no idea what 250g or 500g really looked like!), so why do the BBC have to keep wittering on about 30cm of lying snow and a further 10cm expected etc etc.  I have to keep trying to work it out to know what on earth they're talking about.  There was a classic case of metric / imperial confusion on Breakfast News this morning when the presenter confidently predicted 15 inches of snow were due and the weather girl had to reassure viewers it would be 15cm instead.  That would be quite some difference in snowfall.

My poor Mum who is stuck with only one pint of fresh milk in the house as the milkman was unable to make his delivery this morning and she is unable to get out.  Luckily, she has quite a lot of milk powder in the house but that stuff is really no substitute for fresh milk.  She's keeping everything crossed that Sainsbury's will be delivering her internet order tomorrow but it's not looking too promising at the moment.

The snow.  It's really chucking it down here now and I'm a bit worried about how P will fare getting home from work this evening.

Predicted minus 8 overnight temperatures - brrr!!!

Hamster Kaufen*

With dire 'extreme weather event' snow forecast and not much food in the house - the result of being away from home for two weeks and being ill the week before that - I'm sorry to say that this morning I succumbed to a little panic buying / stock piling / hamster kaufen. 

I called in at the butchers and the health food shop but my main shop was in Aldi where I had a trolley-ful of vegetables (the really heavy devils like potatoes, carrots, swede and onions), fresh fruit, tinned and packet goods that will be very useful at some point it the future (my stocks of tinned goods had gone right down and that's not good when you don't have a freezer), milk, cheese, eggs, bacon, shower gel (for P, not me, I'm still working my way through the summer car boot sale haul of toiletries), loo roll (fairly essential if we get the foot or so of snow that's forecast) yada, yada, yada - I'm sure you get the picture.  That little lot came to £54.00, which is a lot for me to spend in one go but was not bad considering just how much food was in the trolley. 

I knew I'd never be able to get it all home in the faithful shopping trolley so I splashed out and had a taxi. It only cost £3.00 and as I had six really heavy shopping bags I consider that bloomin' good value.  I wouldn't make a habit of it but it was so nice to be able to buy whatever was needed and not have to worry about how I was going to lug it all home.  Now I'm just waiting for the predicted snow to arrive.

*Hamster Kaufen (Hamster Shopping) is what P - a native German speaker - calls stockpiling / panic buying.  If you've ever had a hamster as a pet you'll understand how that expression came about.

And So, Of Course, Money Was Spent

Mum and I went to a new out-of-town shopping place which has sprung up near where she lives.  Neither of us had ever been there before and we both wanted to see exactly what was there.  We weren't disappointed as along with a large Marks and Spencer there was a Next, a New Look, a huge Boots, an Evans and various other large high street retailers. 

I well remember when the whole area - mega 24-hour Asda, massive housing estate, ring road et al - were just fields and lanes, and on spring evenings, when we used to come back on the bus from visiting my grandparents, we'd see rabbits gamboling in those fields.  Oh well, times change and I am nearly half a century old now!!!!

Anyway, I digress, we had a lovely time spending a bit of money and we both got some good bargains in the sales.  I got a summer top in New Look for £3.00 (cheaper than many charity shops) which had originally been £14.00, and a supima cotton fitted double sheet in M&S for £5.00 (reduced from £19.50.)  Mum bought herself some lovely casual trousers reduced to £10.00, a really warm  hooded fleece jacket for my nephew which was £9.00 reduced from £22.00 and, also for the nephew, a pair of pyjamas reduced from £14.00 to £3.00.

It was great to get out and about on such a lovely sunny, if chilly, morning - and to grab some bargains as well - although, secretly, I still wish that area was just fields and lanes like I remember.

Roadkill and Other Monies

Thank you so much for all your kind New Year wishes, I've 'met' some lovely people via this blog and hope you all have a truly wonderful 2010 too.

I thought I'd give a quick update on the roadkill money total for 2009.  It really didn't amount to much over the past 12 months - 14p to be exact - and most of that (10p) was picked up in the last couple of months.  I'll still keep picking up any dropped money I find (naturellement) but somehow don't think I'll ever reach the dizzy heights of Kath Kelly in her brilliant book 'How I Lived a Year on Just a Pound a Day'  and pick up £120 or so from roadkill money in twelve months.

If the roadkill money didn't amount to much, I did make a fair bit by doing online surveys on Valued Opinions.  I think my overall total for the year amounted to about £50, most of which I took in Amazon vouchers in the run-up to Christmas so that I could buy Christmas presents with them.  I really enjoyed doing most of the surverys, they didn't really take up much time at all, and the overall payment really helped keep the cost of Christmas down.  I'll certainly be doing more this year too.

Also quite a nice little earner - if a bit slower to pay out - is completing government surveys via You Gov.  I do enjoy giving my opinion on the state of the economy, or what my thoughts on Gordon Brown, David Cameron et al are - very cathartic - and the £23.50 I've already amassed in my account is not bad either.  Sadly, they only pay out (via cheque) once your account reaches £50.  I'm hoping these surveys will be coming thick and fast in the run-up to the next general election.   Not that I'll be looking forward to the no-doubt resultant change in government but, hey, can they really make a bigger hash of it than this lot have?

Looking Forward, Looking Back

I'm definitely not a Christmas person.  I do enjoy the actual day itself but all the run-up to it - from Christmas cards appearing in the shops in September to frantic food shopping a few days before - really leaves me cold.  I know it's not exactly acceptable to have a 'Bah, humbug!' attitude to Christmas but I do, and I'd be quite happy if Christmas only came round once a decade or so.  But New Year, now that is a whole different story. I love New Year, it's the thought of being able to start all over again with a clean sheet.  My favourite time of the whole year is hanging up a new calendar at the beginning of January - so many blank pages, so many new opportunities, so many chances to finally, this year, do things differently.

2009 was a good year in many respects.  I spent a lot of January decluttering and rearranging the dining room and I'm still loving the little craft space I managed to fit in to a corner.  Although, oddly enough, it doesn't look quite as tidy now as it did then!!

The car boot season started off lovely and early in mid-March and ran right the way through to mid-October.  I had some wonderful finds there - as always.  I think top of my list was the humungous bottle of Vidal Sassoon shampoo that I paid 20p for and which lasted me from August to just before Christmas.  Not only was it a fantastic bargain but the shampoo really suited my hair nicely too.  Also top of my list of great car boot finds this year were some lovely tops in just my size which I got for 50p or £1.00 each and which I have worn and worn, and the £1.00 vintage Christmas Tree  which went on to sell for £22.00 on ebay.  As always, the car boot sales were great hunting grounds for both clothes and toys for my nephew and one particular car boot in August was a real gold mine.

Ebay sales have been pretty steady all through this past year but have really gone well since September when I began to up my ante quite considerably.  Yes, I did get sick and tired of parcelling things up and then having to queue for A-G-E-S in the post office to post them but it was well worth it, as my bank account can now testify.   Not only did I manage to make a tidy sum of money over those three months but I also managed to get rid of a fair bit of 'stuff' from the house in the process.  I'm hoping to keep chugging along with ebay again this year, and I'm also hoping I can declutter the house even further whilst I'm at it.

Making jam was a useful new skill I learnt this year and we've been enjoying the plum jam enormously ever since (which is just as well as there are still A LOT of jars of it in the sideboard!)  I'm even considering trying my hand at a bit of marmalade making in the next couple of weeks - when the Seville oranges are around.  And I'm still thinking about having a shot at making Lemon Curd too.  I'm hoping we have another bumper harvest of plums this summer as well and then I'll be able to make a ton more jam again.

Although I haven't totally got to grips with crochet as yet, I've definitely got much more an idea about what I'm doing since the lovely cupcakes and crochet evening at our local library in November.  I'm hoping to get a little more proficient at crochet in 2010 - which will be helped enormously by the Christmas presents I had - a set of crochet hooks, a book of crochet blocks and a 'how to' crochet book too.  I'm also hoping there'll be another 'craft and cupcakes' evening in the not-too-distant future.

As for my plans for 2010?  Well, who really knows what could be just around the corner.  2010 is one of those 'big' birthday years for me - half a century no less!!  And Mum and I have already got our tickets to see the 'Strictly Come Dancing' show at the Bristol Hippodrome a few days after my actual birthday.  I'm also hoping that I can accompany P on a jaunt around Canada and the US in May.  P's been asked to give a number of presentations at various locations in North America and we thought it would be nice to go there together and make something of a holiday of it too.  We'll see if it ever actually comes to fruition but it would be lovely if it does.

Hope 2010 is a wonderful new year (and new decade) for all of you too.  Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and e-mails during 2009 - I appreciate them so much and am still amazed that anyone wants to read my blog, let alone take the time to comment.  Happy New Year.

Cushions

Mum had a new three-seater settee delivered just before Christmas.  I'd decided to make her some patchwork cushions to go on it at the time she ordered the sofa - luckily some six weeks or so before it was delivered. 

Mum was very pleased with her 'pigeon pair' cushions and they do look nice on her new settee - if I do say so myself.  They were a bit fiddly to make and I seemed to faff about for weeks deciding what material to use and which stripe should go with which etc etc.  Thankfully they were completed in good time otherwise I would have come a right cropper when I took ill the week before Christmas.

The material is a mix of Liberty tana lawn, Kaffe Fassett, Rowan fabric and some un-named fabric.  None of the strips I had were long enough to go lengthwise down the 20 inch cushion pads so I had to have more of a patchwork effect than I'd really have liked - but it seems to have worked quite well in the end.

The back is some Amy Butler material that I've had for quite a while (please ignore the wobbly stitching, that'll learn me to not use white thread for everything!!)  The settee is lovely and comfy and the cushions finish it off really well.  Sadly for us, a certain Maine Coon has decided she also finds the new settee incredibly comfortable.

The Yule Cat

I have a very festive surname - Yule - which is more than a little ironic as I have a somewhat 'bah, humbug' attitude to Christmas.  I knew that Yule comes from the ancient Norse mid-winter festival and that Jul or Jola are Scandinavian names for Christmas but what I had never heard of until recently was the Yule Cat.  I came across details of this Icelandic Christmas creature on the very interesting blog The Iceland Weather Report (which, contrary to its name, doesn't just focus on Icelandic weather - although that is always mentioned - but is an incredibly interesting and incredibly well-written account of life in Iceland in general.)  

Anyway, in Iceland the Yule Cat will eat up anyone who doesn't have new clothing for Christmas - which is an interesting idea but thankfully not a tradition that we have in our family at all.  We always go for really comfy clothing - elasticated waistbands preferably - for Christmas day, so that we can enjoy our Christmas lunch to the full.

I leave you with a photo of our very own Yule Cat - Lily (and, yes, she can be a frightening beast at times too) - and hope everyone has a lovely Christmas, new clothes or not.

 

Why Keep a Nephew ....

.... and wash-up yourself?   He made a wonderful job of washing up the lunch dishes.  So now we're getting him in training for the Christmas lunch washing up!!

 

And I'm Sure You All Know What Happened Next

Yes indeedy, I certainly did succumb to P's dreaded lurgy / swine flu / winter virus.  It was not pleasant and there was a great deal of feeling sorry for myself, lying about in bed and drinking copious amounts of water.  I began to feel a tad better yesterday evening and am much more back to my old self today, if a trifle limp and wrung out.

Here in Essex, like most other parts of eastern England, we have snow.  It fell quite heavily and steadily on Thursday evening and there is quite a good covering on everything - although nothing like the 6 - 8 inches that was being forecast.  It looks quite pretty but, thankfully, we don't have to venture out in it this weekend.  I'm hoping to spend the weekend at a leisurely pace, trying to rebuild my strength for the journey to Bristol for Christmas.