The Glorious Twelfth

Today is the Glorious Twelfth. And if you understand that, then you know where I grew up. As a child, it was simply a day with celebrations and parades and bands marching. I don't even know if they celebrate like that any more. There was nothing overtly political about it - just a good excuse for a holiday.

Today we celebrated by going to see our daughter and her husband and our little grandson. It was fun. My daughter and son-in-law also sorted my phone out because it was misbehaving. My phone threw a wobbly recently, deleted a couple of apps and refused to let others work although I could make and receive texts and calls with no problems. The phone also deleted my ring tone. and said that the SD card was corrupted.  This is all way above my technology skill set! Apparently there were some photos that were corrupted and this was the cause of all my problems. Anyway, they have sorted me and my phone out and I am happy again - until the next time...

It was lovely to see my little grandson and play in the garden with him. On our way home, I had a phone call from my son who asked that we call in at their house as he had something for me.  It turned out that they had been to an Asian shop and bought some real samosas with tamarind sauce and a carrot salad garnish. And, bless him, he had made sure to include enough for me. Yum! guess what I had for tea last night - as soon as I got in the door!  My husband won't eat them in case of meeting something spicy. I left him to do himself egg and beans and sat down and enjoyed mine : ) It was about seven hours since a light lunch so I was ravenous.

Yesterday I went to church for a morning service with a difference. Church but not as we knew it! We were sat in family groups all spread out across the sanctuary and there was no singing. And all of us wearing masks. It felt sooo weird. At least we can meet together for worship despite it being so different.

We have not harvested any different food from the allotment this week but just more of the same so I have not added to my list. My gooseberries are ready to pick but I just want a dry day for that.

Strange times - week 1

We, like everybody else, are trying to keep away from other people. It feels really strange because we lead really busy lives with the church and suddenly not seeing people is just weird. And no coffeeshop to cook for, do shopping for etc. I am going to have to do some cleaning and housekeeping because I have no excuse not to : )

We (and others) are trying to sort church out. Most of the congregation have computers so we will have a service on /Sunday morning which we will follow along on the computer. Some of the oldest folk won't be able to join in but it is the best we can do right now. And of course there are the finances. Sunday giving will drop a lot but there are still salaries to be paid etc...… Hum...….

Like many people, I have quite a good stock of things in the house but we may have some quite creative meals because I can see now that there are a few gaps in my stocks. We'll cope, though : ) I have always bought things when they are on a really good offer and stashed a few extra away. But if things did not come up on offer, or at least, not for a long time, that is when the gaps happened. I called in to Lidl yesterday, my first time in a shop in over a week and the shelves were not as empty as I had expected. Of course, they had none of the things I wanted, just the things that I would not have bought anyway.....

My grandchildren are all gutted. Their parents are key workers so they will have to go to school when all their friends are off. I suspect that they will really enjoy it once they get used to some of the differences. Five months is a long time to fill. Not all parents are able to help their kids learn at home. I saw one parent of a primary schooler on the news looking at the sheet of work and saying "phonics? what are phonics?" Hum.....

It is December now

Well it is December now and five minutes ago I was saying that it was almost December and now Christmas is nearly here. I've been to one grandchild's school concert and we are going to another tomorrow. I missed one on Friday when I was in school all day invigilating. I spent most of last week in school again and felt like the red queen in Alice in Wonderland who had to run just to stay in the same spot. To progress, she had to run even faster. I only had a short morning to bake at church for the coffee shop. And guess what?  All those Christmas shoppers came in for a cuppa and went and ate all the cake I had made and all the cake I had stashed in the freezer. And I did not really have time to go down and make more. So I went down early for the church service on Thursday evening and got some traybakes in the oven and then nipped out to the kitchen halfway through the service to take them out of the oven. After the service we stayed to ice them and finish them off. We left at 10.45 so we got to sleep really late and I had to be up shortly after six. It takes several early nights to make up for lost sleep these days, I find. And tomorrow I am back baking again because they ate all the cake on Friday and Saturday that I had made on Thursday. It looks like I am going to have to put in a bit of overtime in the kitchen after Christmas to get a little bit of stock in the freezer...

Catch up and looking forward

It has been a little while since I posted. I could say I have been busy and it is true, but I seem to say that every time I do post. And I could not believe how many spam comments there were waiting for me to delete. I do enjoy it when I find that a real person has commented but these spam comments are a nuisance and I find them really irritating.

We have been to Cambridge for my husband's meeting three times since I last posted. Thankfully, we are not usually so well travelled. It takes a lot of effort to get my coffeeshop cooking ahead enough to go away and then I have to play catch up when I come back too. And our minister has been ill in hospital so my husband has been filling in for him as well. And then there is the exam marking which takes over life at this time of year....

My new little hens took a long time to learn to go up the ladder to the perch area to go to bed but thankfully they have now all learnt. The last two are obviously bears (well, hens) of little brain. They used to sit at the entrance to the run and wait to be shown how to go up the ladder to get to the perch area. I don't know why they just couldn't follow the others. It would have been so much easier for everybody.

One of my new little hens was obviously older than the others and has been laying for almost a month now. Just little tiny "fairy" eggs but very tasty just the same. The other girls are showing no signs of being ready to lay yet a while but I keep hoping. My older hens are not laying many eggs at the moment as we are approaching winter. The youngest of that lot are very middle aged now and the old ones are very old. My oldest is eight years old and she is lovely - a real character but I am aware that we are probably on borrowed time now. She moulted very heavily in September/October and has grown a really lovely coat back. Very pretty. I am always amazed at how warm a hen is. I really shouldn't wonder at it because I would be cosy too if I wore a feather duvet all day, every day : )

I have not got around to making any marmalade yet this year so I need to get to it soon to be ready to go into Christmas presents. I have a couple of people who would be disappointed if they did not get any homemade jams and marmalade from me. I often do a batch of sweet orange marmalade and a batch of Mamade marmalade and mix them at the "boil to a set "stage. The sweet orange marmalade does not have a good set but does have a lovely flavour. Mixing the two batches deals with the problem of setting but still leaves a good flavour.  The Mamade is quite expensive but the cost is offset by a net of yellow stickered oranges for the sweet orange part of it. But I need to get a move on before life speeds up even more with church things in December as it always does.

We are planning a big family Christmas this year and there will be 19 of us this time. We have booked my daughter's church for the afternoon after the Christmas Day service. We did this once before and it worked very well although dinner has to be just a little bit later than we would all like. Everybody is assigned a dish to bring which just needs to cook or reheat. My daughter will do the turkey and just rush it up the road in the car when it is at the "resting" stage. I am really looking forward to seeing everybody on Christmas Day and watching the grandchildren open their presents. The youngest one will be 20 months so old enough to join in a bit. Being at this church works well because there is a room with tables big enough to be pushed together and seat us all. There is also room enough for excited small people to run off a bit of that overexcited energy and space for we older ones to sit on comfortable chairs and watch. I've just got to get those presents organised now...

Celebration week

Last week at church we ran a holiday club for 3-10 year olds. We had over 80 kids signed up. I was working in the under 6 group and we had between 34 and 37 each day. That is a lot of small kids! They did great and we all had a good time. We were taking them through the story of Joseph with stories, crafts, drama,  action songs and lots of other little activities too. We also put on a bbq for the kids and their families on the Friday which was well attended. The last day of the holiday club was actually the Sunday which included the usual service. I'm not sure the normal congregation knew what had hit them! suffice to say that the adult leaders slept well last week...!

This week is celebration week in our family. My son's three children all have birthdays in August, exactly one week apart, so they are having a grand joint celebration on Saturday with all the family and all the children's friends invited to a bbq. That will be a busy day and I hope it remains dry because that number of excited kids are not going to fit inside the house... Also, it is our wedding anniversary tomorrow. Not a special one this year, but my husband is actually planning to take me out so that will make it special : )

At church, we have had a girl from Slovakia staying for the last month. She has been helping a lot in the coffee shop and has been making Marlenka - an Armenian honey cake. It is absolutely beautiful! She has written out the recipe for me so I shall have a go at making it.

Feeding folk in February.

It is February now. I've made lots of soup and baked six cakes for our church coffee shop and iced two cakes. Our coffee shop manager usually does most of the baking but she was ill and you can't have a coffee shop without cake. So I got summoned. Last week I made five gallons of soup and made and iced two cakes and I was quite tired at the end of that day. This week my husband was free so I got him to come along and help with the chopping of the veg and washing up. I wasn't nearly so tired at the end of that session but my husband was : )

We've been having a really good go at clearing out things since Christmas. I've lost track of the exact numbers but several hundred things have gone - either to the charity shop, in the bin, been recycled, given to family or on Freecycle. It is a very good start but there is a long way to go yet.

For the last few years, our church has been helping Operation Christmas Child. One of our members used to work for them and we have been a collecting point for our area for people to bring their filled shoeboxes to. This year, however, the charity has put up the money that you have to include to help pay for shipping. Last year it went up from £2 to £3 and this year it has gone up to £5 per box. A lot of people at our church feel it is a worthwhile cause but that the charity is pricing itself out of the market. It can cost quite a lot to fill the shoebox and then another £5 on top now. I've always kept an eye out for bargains through the year, the same as I do for family and friends' birthday and Christmas presents so that the cost of filling the shoebox(es) was kept down. And I knitted the hat, scarf and mittens usually with wool bought in a charity shop. We also found out that the head of the charity is earning a six figure salary. Yes, he has a big job because the charity is international, but people who live on just a pension felt that perhaps some of their money might be going to help pay his big, fat salary......  So now we are looking round for another worthwhile charity that will use our collective talents.

I've been knitting hats since Christmas because we have a local charity that uses them. Lots of them are stripey because I have a really big bag of oddments. I like having some knitting in my hands when I am watching a film on the tv. And these colder evenings are great for sitting in front of the woodburner and watching a film with my knitting in my hands. I recorded a stack of films over the Christmas period and am working my way steadily through them.

I've had one of my cats at the vet this last week. One of the cats in the neighbourhood has been terrorising my two. One of my two is of a particularly nervous disposition and he is obsessively cleaning himself and pulling out fur. He has quite a few bald patches and the skin is practically licked off in those areas. So the vet has given him an injection and we have bought another cat flap which is activated by the chip in the cats' necks. So Nasty Cat can no longer come into our house when he wants to, as he was prone to do. I've even found him in my bedroom on the top floor! But what I really objected to was his habit of spraying in my house, particularly in the kitchen. I didn't like starting to do some cooking and finding that he had sprayed up my saucepan rack...... I'm sure you quite understand that! So we just have to convince my two that they are quite safe in our house because Nasty Cat can no longer come in.

I've been to babysit my two youngest grandchildren this evening. Their big brother was playing the cornet in his first concert this evening and mum and dad wanted to go and see/hear him. I am very pleased that some of my grandchildren are turning out musical. I do so enjoy singing and playing and I'm glad the tradition is being carried on : )

Advent is here

We must have got on well enough at my daughter's school a couple of weeks back because we have been booked to help with a school trip to Kenilworth Castle in March : )  I am sure we will sleep well that night with chasing around after three classes of Year4s at the Castle.

We are now in December and the Christmas round of busy-ness has started. Last week my husband and I cooked a Christmassy three course dinner for 60+ at church. We had a "Rudolph" starter which was a piece of melba toast, spread with pate and decorated with half a cherry tomato and a slice of cucumber cut in half and positioned to be ears/antlers. It worked very well and lots of people were seen smiling at it. They need to be spread with pate as close to serving as possible so that the crackers don't go soft...  I'm always looking for new ideas for starters that are economical, easy to produce in quantity and look nice. - and can be served on side plates so that we don't have to wash the bowls before pudding.

This morning at church we had the christingle service and this afternoon we have a group of elderly people coming in to have tea. They mostly live alone and have few friends left so we are doing a carol service for them and more christingles. We do this on the first Sunday afternoon of each month and the folk who come are always delighted to have an afternoon of chat and fun and perhaps a craft activity - and sandwiches and homemade cake. Hence the carol service today which is early in the season for it.

I have hit this year's target for things gone from the house. I'm very happy about this and it feels so much better to have hit a target of 500 than to miss a target of 1000 by a mile. I think I am going to continue next year. It will only take me another 50 years or so to have a tidy house... : )

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A good day

It was a lovely day yesterday. My husband had been asked to preach at a church about 20 miles away. They are a small church family and no longer have a fulltime minister. A lady who was at our church for over 30 years retired to this little town to be close to family. So this church asks my husband to preach each year in the run up to Easter. They are a lovely fellowship and we enjoyed our morning with them.

Then we drove on another four miles to a Countrywide store and bought ten sacks of hen food. I reckon we saved about just over £30 on the price that we usually pay at our nearest feed merchant. The fun bit came next. We found a very small lane and parked in the least muddy field gate - and ate a picnic in the sunshine. Oh I did enjoy that! It was so warm that it could have been early summer instead of mid-March. It is amazing how much better life seems on a dry, warm and sunny day after a long wet and grey spell. I had made bread rolls which turned out really well and we ate them with cheddar and salad and cherry tomatoes and followed by some homemade banana cake with chocolate chips. We went for a wander along the lane and picked a bagful of goodies for my rabbit as we went and enjoyed the sunshine.

On our way home, we passed the big Tesco and called in to see if there was anything interesting in the rugby scrum that happens just before closing time and they mark down the chilled goods to silly prices. We managed to find enough meat for 11 dinners for the both of us (ie 22 portions) for an average of 11p per portion.  Those portions are unstretched and there may well end up being a few extra portions when it is served. I also brought home a bagful of goodies for my son and for my friend.  There were so many things on the bargain shelves that people took everything they wanted and there were loads of things left over.  I would like to know what happened to them and hate to think of them being thrown out.

When we first arrived at Tesco and had just parked, I spotted my friends from the farm just getting back into their car so they said to call in on our way home . They had their first calf of the year born on Friday and it is just beautiful.  Mum is a medium black Dexter and dad was a red Dexter and the little heifer is a beautiful red. Mum is not doing too well on the milk producing front and the little calf has to have supplementary feeds and, well, somebody had to do it : ) 

What a lovely day.  A good service at the little church, a really enjoyable picnic in warm sunshine, lots of hen food and Tesco goodies which have saved us lots of money and gladdened the hearts of three families and a cuppa with some good friends to finish. And the icing on the cake was giving that beautiful little heifer a bottle of milk.  This day was good from start to finish and I shall look back on it and remember it with pleasure.

This isn't a brilliant picture but it will have to do.

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Busy non-stop days

I've been doing lots of "busy" things recently.  We've tidied up the allotment so that it looks a bit more presentable and have picked more fruit.  This means that I've made more jam with Christmas in mind as well as our year's supply.  So far I've made raspberry, blackcurrant, gooseberry and elderflower, and gooseberry and redcurrant.  There is still plum to come as the little damsonlike purple plums are not ready yet.  My husband's favourite jam is raspberry but mine is damson so we are both catered for.  I'm not sure if the tree is really a damson but the fruit are small and more like a damson than a plum both in size and in flavour.  A kind squirrel planted a plum stone in our garden border and we transplanted it to see if it would grow - and I did and produces a nice crop each year.  I want to have a few bags of stewed damson plums in the freezer for the winter because one of my favourite puddings is to serve them with a dollop of greek yoghurt. Yum!  I've also made lots of marmalade and it should be enough to have some to put in Christmas presents and to keep us going for most of the year.

I'm still beavering away on the tidying and aim to do a little bit each day.  I find the whole process quite stressful so a little bit each day is enough.  Many a mickle macks a muckle, though, and it IS necessary. I'm not at all sure how to spell that phrase but I'm sure you've all heard it said and can understand : )

We've built one and a half more sheds in the garden to house things and now there is a lot less grass available. When I say "we", mine was the managerial role... We were given two sheds for firewood o whatever.  My husband managed to replace the rotten parts from our stash of useable wood and has made them useable again.  He and our son have also rebuilt a trailer which was borrowed from a friend so that our son could use it to go camping.  Three children and a tent plus equipment won't all fit into their car and the top box any more. However the owner said that we would have to repair the rotten piece of wood to make it fit and safe to use...  It turned out that every bit of wood have some part that was rotten so they stripped it down, repainted the metal frame and replaced all the wood - from his great wood stash. (And he has been known to comment about the quantity of craft stuff I have.......)  After a couple of coats of wood preservative, the trailer looks pretty much like new.  The owner came to have a look and took a photo to show his friends at work who have now all asked if we would like to borrow their trailers too : )

Last Saturday was my grandson's birthday.  This Saturday is youngest granddaughter's birthday and the following Saturday is middle granddaughter's birthday. So there is a grand party this Saturday for all three.  Then we carry on into the evening to celebrate our wedding anniversary which is a rather big number. We have about 60-70 guests coming to that and I am surrounded by lists and time sheets to enable me to cater.  I have the feeling that I am going to sleep well after all that.

This week is Holiday Club at church - Polar Explorers. We said that we couldn't help this year but they had a couple of leaders with hospital appointments etc on Thursday so we've agreed to help on Thursday only.  And we've got to go to the bbq for families on Friday.  Well, we don't have to but we feel that we ought to.  And then Sunday is the final holiday club meeting with a revamped service so we'll be helping with the music for that.  So I'll get my good night's sleep on Sunday. I'll certainly need it.

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End of term : )

It has been busy again recently.  Term has ended and I took in the last batch of eggs for my customers at school.  I hadn't quite enough eggs so I had to "subcontract" (as my son likes to call it) and bought some eggs from my friend who got hens at the same time that I got my last lot.  It was easier than explaining to all my townie co-workers that I didn't have enough because I only have what my hens lay.  They just don't get that - after all Mr Tesco always has eggs...

I'll have fewer in future too since Clementine managed to break the wooden flap that covered the join between house and run and became dinner for the fox.  She was a really reliable layer. My other hens are either very middle aged or positively elderly so there is not much hope of them laying many eggs during the coming autumn and winter.  I'm not sure that I have enough space for any more hens until some of the existing flock have gone. I shall have to drastically cut my customer list. This situation requires thought and probably a lot of twisting of husband round my little finger : )

This last weekend, we had a church weekend at home.  For the last few years, a large chunk of the church has gone away for a weekend together and this year we decided to be different and do the same but staying at home.  So we met for breakfast on Saturday and stayed there doing various activities until about 8.30 in the evening.  Then home to bed and back to church for breakfast on Sunday morning, followed by a music practice for some of us and the morning service and then a picnic in the park.  The sun shone but there was a little bit of a breeze so the picnic was lovely. On Saturday, I was at Lidl waiting for them to open so that I could buy them out of baguettes.  I bought a few part baked ones too to make up the numbers.  I put out the baguettes that I had split,  ham, cheese, salad and fruit and a few other bits and pieces and people made themselves a DIY ploughman's.  It worked really well as people came out of the different morning groups in dribs and drabs so there was never much of a queue but people could fill the baguette with their choice of filling. For dinner, we pre-ordered fish and chips from the local chippy who gave us a good deal because it was a large order. Everybody had a really good weekend but I have to admit that I slept really well on Sunday night! People who would have found it difficult to pay for a weekend away were able to take part so I can see this event happening again.

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