Best made plans
Mavis was ill today: Tummy ache. I hope it wasn’t my flapjacks! The bread machine coughed up a perfect French loaf which provided breakfast, with delicious organic butter and a cup of filter coffee in my magic cup. I bought the cups, well mugs really, from Lakeland and they are brilliant for making a quick […]
The Plan
Well, this is what I think: I want to help keep the countryside safe and retain traditional farming methods by supporting small producers and avoiding supermarkets and brands sold in supermarkets. To do this I will need to pay more for my produce so to counteract that I will make as much food as I […]
Lifestyle Change
This weekend has been the first in my attempt to make as much of what we eat as I can and eschew mass produced foodstuffs from supermarkets in preference for more naturally made products from independent stores. In some ways, what I plan to do could be seen as a retrograde step. Women have had […]
Social Intercourse
I have tried many ways to keep track of family commitments and appointments. I used to have a kitchen calendar which had so much written on it that it looked as though a spider had walked all over it wearing muddy boots. Then as my mental faculties deteriorated I moved on to the ‘bonger’. This […]
Domestic She Devil
As a woman in her early 50s I have heard many of my contemporaries companionably share how relaxing it is to be ‘comfortable in your own skin’. I tell them I agree with them but at the back of my mind is a little voice saying “Here’s an example of you not being comfortable in […]
Mango Chutney (This used to be free on Slimming World, now it has some syns)
Always check the points and syns as diets change. Spray and Fry 1 chopped red onion 1 chopped dried chili 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped 1 inch root ginger finely chopped 1 large mango peeled and diced – this makes 100g flesh. When cooked down, it may weigh less than that but 100g […]
On Vets and Miaous
Last night Verti discovered a lump in the cat’s neck. Those of you with pets will know what I mean when I say that this information was received with mixed emotions. On the one hand there’s our poor cat, maybe with cancer, on the other there’s the vet’s bill. Immediately I was wondering how much […]
Horace’s 18th
I’m getting over the weekend. Horace was 18 on Friday and requested a family dinner party. How lovely, you might say, she wants to spend her special time with her nearest and dearest. Yes, lovely, until you realise that there were a planned 22 diners. Actually, thanks to the rather feeble constitution of my cousins, […]
On Gerbils
Mavis is a disadvantaged child. Well, at least in the pet department she is. Horace, for reasons of guilt, me having a full time career, had a sequence of pets which survived for limited periods. We had: A rabbit which was truly enormous – a New Zealand Blue – with an overwhelming desire to escape. […]
On the Theft of a Purse
I once had a job (one of many different jobs which one day I will attempt to list on this blog) as a Media Analyst. This rather grand sounding job involved reading endless articles from newspapers and measuring how many column centimetres about a given organisation were devoted to particular subjects. The data was then […]