MIA - again

 It has been such a long time since my last post. I didn't even manage a post at Christmas. Oh dear.

It was a very different Christmas to the one we had planned. We normally spend the day, after church, with one of our children and the grandchildren. This year  our son was having in-law to stays, our younger daughter was also having in-laws, so that left us with out elder daughter and her family. however on Christmas Eve she rang us to say that she had Covid. so we gatecrashed our younger daughter and her in-laws. It was a very nice day even if we were all a bit squashed.

Our littlest grandson was very upset (he is 4) at having his Christmas ruined by Mummy being ill as well as missing out on lots of presents. We planned to have Christmas 2 (as small grandson called it) on New Years Day. This time time it was us that spoilt the day for him as we were both down with a bug. So we had Christmas 3 on the last Saturday in January. My husband was well by then but I was not. I just can't get my energy levels back up and am still struggling now after two months although I am much improved in the last month. We had a bug, not Covid like our daughter, as the tests proved negative. My daughter is still struggling and in under two weeks will be officially classed as having long Covid, poor soul. She is hoping to start back to work part time before the end of March - but we will have to see how she is. At this point, she can manage to sit up for an hour and a half at a time and is wearing a neck brace to be able to do that. On Christmas 3, she and I sat on the sofa and let everybody else do the work and that was quite enough for both of us. Small grandson was happy though : )

I am still managing to go and bake and cook for the church coffeeshop once a week as there is currently no one else to help out. My husband comes and does all the washing up and clearing up and I do the baking. I do a bit and sit a bit and have been producing the minimum amount possible. I am really thankful that I managed to do some extra and put it in the freezer before Christmas. However the stocks in the freezer are getting really low so I could really do with some energy back. All energy producing suggestions will be gratefully received!

Flu jab update

 After various visits to pharmacies and being told that everywhere is out of stock of the vaccine, we finally had a flu jab today. It was a regular appointment at the doctors' surgery and we were in and out again within five minutes of arriving there. It did take forty minutes on the phone waiting  in the queue to make the appointment, though. But we are done and dusted now and just need to wait to be contacted about the Covid booster.

We are lighting the woodburner each evening now and it is so fabulously warm. The cats are rediscovering the joys of sprawling at full length in front of the stove : ) And the laundry is drying nicely in front of the fire as I type. It is always difficult to get the washing dry at the beginning of autumn and the end of spring when it doesn't dry well outside and there is no heat inside. I do have a tumbledryer but I have only dried two loads in it this year. It eats so much electricity that it is now only used in emergencies or if I am ill. When it eventually gives up, I am not convinced that I will bother replacing it.

Jabs and penny pinching

 We got our letters today to say that we can go and have our vaccinations for covid. I am pleased that we have both got them together so that we can use the car once to get both of us done. We went online and looked to see where we can go for the jab and it is miles away. Or we can wait and see where our doctor's surgery sends us more locally. So we will wait a little bit and see what the doctor says. And hide away from people as much as we can.

I haven't been for a walk for a few days so we have seen fewer people than usual recently. I did something to my back the other day and I am having enough trouble getting around the house without trying to walk anywhere. It is a bit easier today so I am hoping that whatever I did is healing now. If I knew what I had done, I would try not to do it again!

I am trying to stretch our food to lengthen the time between visits to the supermarket. My daughter went to Lidl the other day first thing in the morning and brought us round a £1.50 veg tray and also a fruit cake that she had made for us. Lovely! There is not a huge amount on the allotment at the moment and besides I don't want to walk there at the moment. Maybe later in the week I will be able to go and see if the asparagus kale has survived the cold and snow. I do hope so because I have missed it. I really liked the selection of fruit and veg in the Lidl "too good to go" box and it will stretch nicely what we already have in.

Our freezers are quite full and my problem is that I am stretching things too well. Or so my husband tells me. If I get out a pack of mince, for example, by the time I have added oats, grated carrot. onion and maybe a few lentils as well, the one dinner sized pack will probably do three meals. Mince and potato pie, pasties or mince slices, lasagne, burgers, meatloaf, meatballs, cottage pie etc etc. If I am making burgers, meatballs and meatloaf, then I usually add part of a packet of stuffing mix to stretch it. So there is always enough of the burger mix to make a few meatballs to have with pasta and tomato sauce. The meatloaf always makes three dinners. A mince sauce for four portions of lasagne or cottage pie will always have enough for a filling for a pie or slice. So my husband is complaining that if I get out one thing from the freezer, then I am wanting to put more back in. He wants to empty the freezers a bit and I am not succeeding in this. He doesn't object so much if there is something in pastry for him, though, I have noticed : )

Update

We are much better now. The virus has gone but we are just a bit wobbly and totally devoid of energy. And the brain is full of mush. Our son and daughter that live fairly close have been very good and brought us shopping. And our daughter has brought us round some meals as well which was lovely as, being totally without energy, getting up and cooking was a Chore.

Back in (yellowsticker) business

We found another fridge freezer on Freecycle. It is a bit elderly and battered but at least it works. So I can still keep my eyes open for good yellow stickered bargains : )   I just have to remember not keep them for treats. I still get upset thinking about all those pork chops we lost and the whole duck and all the other things too.

Invigilating is finished for another few months. It will be nice when I get paid, though. There probably won't be any more of that kind of work until May now. It is a nice little extra and I am helping our school too.

I was down at church baking on Monday, same as usual. Except that just as I was about to leave, the house, my friend rang up and said she had a pumpkin that she had grown that was on the verge of going past its best and did I want to make soup for the coffee shop. Well I could not pass up a free pumpkin so I only got a little bit of baking done. I spent the rest of the time chopping veg. I made 56 portions of spicy pumpkin and tomato soup and they are now in the freezers at church. I need to find a bit more time to get a bit further ahead with the baking now. My husband is down with a heavy cold which is settling on his chest - not good when you have asthma! If I go down with it, I need to know that there is a good stock of baked goods in the freezer to tide them over until I am well again. The coffee shop had a bit of a run on cake in December with all the Christmas shoppers wanting a break and a hot drink with a piece of cake so I have been starting with a totally empty freezer. It is definitely looking fuller now but there is still lots of space so I can't afford to get my husband's cold! I have been taking lots of vitamin C and echinacea recently......

Catch up

I haven't posted in a while.  This time, however, I have an excuse - I picked up an infection and have been rather poorly.  Health is one of those things which you don't always stop to appreciate until some bit of you stops functioning properly. I am so pleased to be back to normal now : ) 

I am so behind with everything.  I am thankful for a couple of dry days so that I can catch up with the washing.  I am pottering through lots of cleaning.  The kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it when I first ventured downstairs again and is slowly coming back to something resembling normality.  My new vacuum cleaner has been earning its keep. And while I was marooned upstairs, the new tv was in use too.

Being poorly also meant that the elderflower champagne did not all get drunk.  It is absolutely fabulous now and we really enjoyed a glass with dinner tonight. I've finished my lemon cordial and am now on the lookout for some bargain lemons. If you haven't tried making or drinking real elderflower champagne, I can recommend it. So easy to make and just fabulous to drink.

I have some new little hens now so my chickenopolis population has gone to 11 from 6. The new girls are young - too young to lay yet. Maybe there will be more eggs next month. The old girls are taking it in turn to lay so I'm looking forward to having lots of eggs. My farmer friend wanted some new girls too so we ordered them and shared the delivery costs. Doing it like that meant that we saved lots in diesel costs, which is A Good Thing.

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Well-egged

My husband is improving now although he is not sleeping very well.  Problems with the nose means that he is waking himself up with his snoring let alone me.  He had his nose cauterised (yeuk and triple yeuk!) on Tuesday morning which hopefully will deal with all the problems.  He was very embarrassed to discover that the young doctor who treated him was a boy he had taught at school...  When somebody is going to be looking up your nose, it is preferable to have a doctor who is a total stranger...  : )

Exam season is almost upon us.  Years 11 and 12 have gone on study leave now from school and year 13 are going this week.  My husband has started his examiner meetings today for marking/moderating.  After the week we've just had, I was really pleased to have a VERY quiet day today. I had hoped to do a couple of loads of washing but it keeps raining so I didn't.

I've been through the fridge and peered in all the lurking tubs of leftovers and prepared six dinners for the next couple of days and to go in the freezer based on mince ++ and soup. I've also put a couple of (non-food) items in the bin that I was hanging on to "just in case" so I feel quite virtuous.

My new little hens have suddenly decided to up their production and we will be eating lots of eggs this week as well as the meals that I prepared today. I need more customers! Once the spring flurry of eggs is past a couple of the older hens probably won't lay again and the middleaged ones will only lay occasionally.  So after the summer, we'll probably have mainly eggs from the newbies with an occasional oldie.  It is just right now that I am inundated with eggs but it is only a temporary problem -  and it is such a nice problem to have : )

Just two more weeks at school and it will be half term...

Restful long weekend?

Restful long weekend?  I went wrong there somehow.

Saturday was ok.  Pottered through lots of little jobs and popped round to the little Tesco Express to buy some milk to take to church on sunday morning for the coffee after the service.  Happily, I found some nice rolls reduced so I spent 20p on 2 packets.  We were out of bread so I had been going to make a loaf but I didn't need to.  I couldn't make that many rolls for that price for the ingredients let alone add in the cost of the energy to cook them.

Then we practised the music for church for Sunday morning and went to bed but I didn't sleep well.  We went to church on Sunday morning and then called in to Lidl on the way home because I had a £5 off a spend of £35 voucher.  They were out of the half price (weekend special) of cheese and I'm not surprised because it was a fantastic price. However, they had lots of mince at £1 for 500g which surprised me.  So I rang my friend and brought her home several packs to put in her freezer.  That helped me get to my £35 total as did the fair trade tea (for church) at 99p for 80 tea bags which is nice tea as well as a nice price.

When we got home, we were tired so we had a quick sandwich and sat down for an hour to watch a programme we had recorded.  Later, I was glad we'd had that rest!  We did a couple of jobs and then got dinner ready for 7pm.  We had the plates out and were just about to serve when my husband's nose played up again. This is the 10th time in 2 weeks.  He has been to the doctor this last week but the treatment given has not helped.  Last night he had a MEGA nose bleed for 2 1/2 hours.  NHS Direct recommend that after 30 minutes, you make your way asap to the nearest A&E.  My husband was getting weak and dizzy so I phoned for someone to drive us there because I didn't see how I could get him into A&E and park the car in some far flung car park all at the same time.  We were there for four hours and seen twice.  However, he was given an appointment to go to the ENT clinic tomorrow and that is soooo much quicker than if we had to go through the GP.  Our bathroom looked like there had been a massacre ...

I was so grateful not to have to go to work today since it was 1am befor we got to bed this morning.  And it is only just turned 8pm now but I'm off to my bed or I won't be capable of functioning efficiently in the morning.

I've been ailing again so I'm all behind with everybody's blogs. It is quite daunting to see just how much everybody has written in the last ten days - and this feels quite strange when reading these same blogs is something I normally enjoy very much.

I went out to see my hens yesterday for the first time in a week.  I was pleased to see that some of the hens who were moulting have started to grow a few feathers back.  Just as well considering how cold the weather has turned. Between the moulting/feather growing and the cold weather, we haven't had many eggs but since I've been off work and unable to deliver to some of my customers anyway, that has worked out alright.

How did it get to be 2 December already?  I'm sure that it was early October last week : )

Losing last weekend and this weekend from my present making is throwing my Christmas preparations into chaos.  I certainly won't be back at work in the next 2-3 days so I shall have to try and get a schedule planned. My brain is not in good working order so I don't want to try to do too much in case I mess things up entirely.

The best laid plans of mice, men and me......