Promise of what's to come...

Last night Stephanie joined me to walk the dog. I took her on a route she hasn't seen before, she absolutely loved watching all the little bunnies skipping about as we walked. Very soon she spotted some blackberries- they are almost ripe. Must be due to this gorgeous weather we have been enjoying recently. Stephanie couldn't resist picking a couple- she says she likes the sourness! LOL

This prompted her to remember a local area where hundreds of blackberries grow and she announced she can not wait for the summer holidays so that we can go. 

I have also spotted a damson tree so we will be heading there later in the year as well. 

Do you have a favourite place to go foraging? What do you find there?

And SQUEEEEZZZZZZEEEEEE

What everyone has been talking about at the moment is the new budget released by our glorious government.

I was talking with friends the other day and said I feared that this would hit my little family hard when it was made public.
Today Elaine over at mortgagefreeinthree posted a budget calculator link, I had a quick moment to fill in the details. I didn't want to but the sooner I face up to it the quicker I can deal with the outcomes. So a few taps and clicks and I am going to be £1456 a year worse off, so that comes to around £30 a week, Fabulous! I knew it wouldn't be good news.  So as Elaine says 'Bog Girl Pants' need pulling up high (a little warmth perhaps through the winter!)

I need to get into the frugal mindset even more now as there just isn't any 'play cash' now. Just living expenses to only just cover, expect to see a whole load more No Spend Days marked off over here

How does the budget affect you? What will you need to change to survive it?

Evenning walkies

I've been out walking the dog after work this week. It's a lovely way to see and appreciate the beautiful village I am lucky to live in. Tonight is the first night I remembered to take my phone. So I took a picture of one of my favourite views to share;

I love being able to look out across water, it is so tranquil and calming. I have zoomed in on this picture so that you can see the church spire. I used to spend so much time there singing. As I walked around the village this evening I passed many places I spent time as a teenager. It made me think just how lucky I was to grow up here and how rich my experiences were as a result of this beautiful place.

Me and my shadow...

It's that time of year again when my aunt goes on holiday and a four legged fur baby comes to stay at our house.

Yesterday I pottered aroudn the garden, weeding and tidying up.

All is growing well.

Look who followed me around the whole afternoon just checking what I was doing.

When I went up for a bath after finishing look where I found her;

Cheeky dog!

This is your bed! lol

I am hoping that tonight she will sleep better. Despite having stayed with me 5 times previously she is not happy at night time. She hasn't stayed in this house before so that could be unsettling her a little. But I have had 2 nights of no sleep as she has moaned so much. I have left her walk later tonight in the hop ethat a later walk may help her. But she has been lying next to me asleep whilst I am busy working on the laptop so possibly not. I shall wake her in a  few minutes to walk and cross everything that tonight she sleeps. It is worse than having a new born baby!

Something sweet

I really fancy sweet things this weekend. I occasionally get days like this. Hence the cake yesterday. Which Dylan made and is very tasty. I'll definitely make eggless cakes more. Just need to find the recipe off of him.


Then today I still fancied something sweet after having a little slice of cake. I looked in the fridge and there is 3/4 of the watermelon Stephanie asked for the other day. I don't fancy it by itself so I made a drink with some of it;

Water melon lemonade. It was very nice, possibly a little too sweet. I will definitely use less sugar next time. 

This is the recipe I used;

• 1.2kg (2½ lb) cubed, seeded watermelon
• 150g (5 oz) fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
• 120ml (8 fl oz) fresh lemon juice
• 200g (7 oz) caster sugar
• 475ml (16 fl oz) water 

As it serves 8 I divided all of the ingredients by 8 to get a rough quantity. I had a tiny over the whole glass shown above. It is very refreshing. I confess I didn't bother to seed the watermelon just chopped and threw it into the blender. I also changed fresh lemon juice to the bottled lemon juice I already had open in the fridge. It was really refreshing. I will have to make it when Stephanie is home she might like that one.

I have added a new page to the blog to help me to be more accountable for my lack of restraint when spending. There are so many changes happening to my income at the moment (and not in a good way!) I am treading a very fine line to stay on top of everything. Hopefully by putting it there in black and white it will help me to have more self control!

I could offer tonnes of excuses why I am not having the restraint needed but the most honest one is I am tired and I don't want to. However, due to things beyond my control things have to change as a result so do I!

This week has been hot! This has meant that for the first time since Dylan installed it, our water butt ran dry!


Not great when it the garden is going crazy, veggies are really doing well. We have been eating lettuce, peas, spinach and strawberries daily for about a fortnight. There is promise of plenty to come from all of the other plant beds too. So the water butt has been well used. I ended up using the outdoor tap to water the plants on Thursday as I just could not get anymore water out of the butt. I definitely need to save and get a second one installed. Then last night we had a very noisy storm. I wasn't impressed about 2am when the thunder woke me and then the rain absolutely hammered down for ages. It went on so long that I did fall back asleep whilst it was still going on. When I went out to the garden this morning though I realised a very BIG bonus to such a busy storm. The water butt is half full again, So I could water the plants using it again.

I have been saving water as much as I can recently, really taking a conscious effort not to waste a drop. When I run the tap to wash up I catch all of the cold water in the bowl first this is taken straight out and waters the tomatoes growing on the patio area. When I wash the lettuce and other vegetables before making our food the water is left in the bowl so that I can tip it straight out into the patio area plants.

As our income has been reduced further, and promise of further cuts are eminent we are cutting back wehrever possible. Today I fancied cake, but we have no eggs so I thought never mind won't hurt me to go without. I didn't voice my thoughts, no need.

A couple of hours later Dylan came to me and said can I make cake mum? No eggs son sorry. He goes back up to his room, less than five minutes later he came back down. "I have found an eggless cake recipe, can I try it?" So he is out in the kitchen. It smells good so far.

I guess where there is a will there's a way! That's my boy :-)

Preserving

So the other day I went to the supermarket and look at what I got reduced;

That's write punnets of plums for 4p each!

I chopped up 5 punnets and popped them in a pan with some water and let them cook down. Once they were nice a cooked I strained them.

The 'lumpy bits' were mashed and frozen as they will make a tasty crumble later on.

The liquid had sugar added and made some lovely looking jars of jam.

I now have five of these in the cupboard ready for when the current lot run out. 

So I still have a few plums left. So this is what I do;

prick the plums and place in a jar. 

add a little sugar

Pour in the magic ingredient to cover the fruit.

Lid on and shake, shake, SHAKE!!!

Shake regularly throughout the next couple of days. Then place somewhere cool and dark for as many months as you can handle!

Wonder who can guess what I am making now?!