Camping

Stephanie, Smudge and I are off camping for a week on Sunday. Dylan and his girlfriend are staying home to look after the house and the rabbit. This is a week away on a budget. I have saved for the last couple of months for this, as it has been planned for a while. My sisters and their families are coming with us. We have a stay in the Peak District booked, I can't wait. I planned out the meals and things we will be eating today, based on what is easy to cook on a camping cooker and what we have int he cupboards already.

 This is what I have come up with:

The main items on this list are in my cupboard and just needed packing. The BBQ food will be taken from my freezer and pack in the cool box with ice packs to keep it fresh as will take us 4 hours or so to get there. We then will need to unpack the car, put up the tent etc etc before we eat. BBQs on the first night are always fun, especially when you meet others there as they are fun social meals allowing us time to catch up as we share.

Excuse the dog's nose- food is around so he's not far away! HAHA

I shopped through the cupboards for the meals on the plan. Then headed to the fridge:

This bits are fruit and veg that we can use for either snacks, or to enhance our meals. Not enough for the week, but once we are settled we will head to local shops/farms to buy the bits we need as we go. we won't have a fridge whilst we camp so we will buy fresh bit as needed.

This is how I keep costs down when we go away.What things do you do to keep the costs down?

Leftovers

 Do you find it hard to eat, or even have inspiration to eat when it is hot? I do. I really struggle to eat in this weather. I love the sunshine but I don't want to eat in it. I have a daughter who is the same, I end up having to find fast simple meals that will entice her to eat as much as me!

The other day I cooked a roast chicken and we had some left in the fridge that needed eating so I made today's dinner using it.

I also found this box in the cupboard.I'm not sure where it came from, I don't even remember buying it. It was quite easy to make, you dissolve the powder into a little water, coat your chicken in it and fry until cooked. Nice and easy, just what was needed today.

I coated my chicken and then popped it in the air fryer for ten minutes. I just needed the coating to crisp as the chicken was already cooked. Whilst this happened, I chopped a quick, simple salad and added some tortilla crisps which were open in the cupboard.

Plain, simple and tasty. Just what was needed on this hot day.

There was still a little of the chicken left. I decided to make a treat for the dog with it. A simple pate, if you were making this for humans you could use butter, maybe garlic and little lemon juice to liven it up a little. As it was for Smudge I kept it plain as he has a sensitive tummy and he will stink us out! Haha

Chicken and a little water and into the blender until smooth.

I should have used a little less water maybe as it was a little runny. It will be fine though as I will be spreading it onto his licky mat and freezing it as a cooling treat another day.

There is no chicken left now so I will need to decide on something else quick and simple for tomorrow's dinner. I'm thinking maybe some pesto pasta.

Dining Room Update

Ok so I have lived in this house for 5 years and have never been able to decide what to do with the dining room. It always looks dark, cluttered and uninviting. 

Then a fortnight ago I came across this awesome wallpaper, I absolutely loved it.

I found it on Ebay, thought perfect I'll put the paper in the recess next to the chimney breast, paint the chimney breast and the other 3 walls. It'll look fab. I ordered two rolls, and had £5 off voucher for ebay so cost £18. Perfect. I thought I have some white paint in the shed so I'll get started whilst I wait for delivery.

Pulled the wallpaper that was on the chimney breast off ready to paint and was left with this:

1 very untidy, needs a replaster chimney breast. Definitely not a quick paint with white emulsion job. I don't have the skills or the money to fix this, especially as this is a rented home and I plan on moving in a couple of years as I aim to buy my own home. (long term plan, details coming soon!)

This means a change of plan- I'll just wallpaper across all of the area you can see in the picture above.

I forgot to take before pictures of this room, that's how much I disliked it! In the alcove on the left of this picture is where I had my freezer (kitchen is too tiny to fit a fridge/freezer in it. The alcove on the right is where I put my dining table and 6 chairs. The opposite corner to where the freezer is, so behind me and to the left where I stood to take this picture is where I had the fridge/ freezer, then the opposite corner to the table, so on my right and behind me when I took this picture is the bookcase and my desk. There never seemed to be enough room and it was not a comfortable space to use. So the whole room ended up a dumping ground.

Whilst I was painting I came up with a cunning plan to fix this. 

All the walls that were not papered were painted white to allow for the room to appear brighter, the wallpaper has potential to make it look dark so I wanted to balance this out.

This si the finished room:

I absolutely love it. I have spent all my time in here/ the garden since I finished it. I smile everytime I walk in. I love how I have laid the space out and it feels less cluttered. I haven't taken any of our stuff out, it's just better organised.

It's not the easiest room to photograph, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how much better it looks.

I did have to buy a third roll of wallpaper, as I was one drop short after having to paper the chimney breast as well as the alcoves.

Total costs:

Wallpaper- 3 rolls= £30

Gloss for woodwork- tin £8- I used half so £4

White emulsion- I used half a of a huge tub which cost £12 so £6

Wallpaper paste £1.

I have used all of our own furniture and didn't buy anything new. I have the light fitting from a previous room decorating.

Total cost for project: £41.00

I'm very happy with that as it has given us a fantastic looking room that we are all now using properly.

Relax

I have kept myself busy over the last couple of weeks making sure I'm using the unexpected time at home to do things. I've started to feel a little overwhelmed by everything going on which comes out in frustration at things that wouldn't usually bother me. So today I decided to have a relaxing day. I got up and made some bread as we are out of it, prepped dinner for tonight, a quick tidy through downstairs then I've done things I wanted. A little weeding in the veg patch and sowed down seeds. Since lunchtime I have been laid in my favourite garden chair with a book. Just what I needed to recharge the batteries.

We have some little mining bees on our garden. Very sweet to watch them about their business.

Strange times

It is very strange in the world at the moment. I am working from home for the majority of the time, just going in a couple of days a week to care for the children of other key workers. We are only allowed out once a day for exercise so I go out for one dog walk a day and make sure Teen-girl comes with us. This means I haven't been running for ages.
The Manchild has taken himself off to his girlfriend's parents whilst this is all going on as his asthma is bad, he has had several chest infections already this winter and with my job I pose a big risk to him. It's very strange without him home.
I have spent time doing up our little house. I have decorated the bathroom, decorated the kitchen and spent time sorting the garden in the effort to have a more productive vegetable garden this year. I am missing a few seeds I would like to have planted; tomatoes, peas, green beans. I might be bale to get some the next time I head into town for food, but I am hoping not to need to do that for a while.
I have planted kale, lettuce, carrots, pumpkins, various herbs, cabbages and cauliflowers so hopefully some of these will germinate although it may be a challenge as some of the seeds I have used have been lurking in the shed for a few years. It's all a bit of an experiment.
The garden is looking tidier, still more to do on it but it is getting there.

Weeding with my helper

Some old seeds planted with optimism.

My helper laying the weed membrane.

What are you doing during this strange time period? I hope you are keeping well.

Garden

While we are distancing from the world I am working to make improvements to our home. I started today with the garden. I have cut the free grass, it was so long it took me nearly two hours but its done now.
.

I then weeded some of the vegetable beds. I built them from old pallets when I first moved here, they are starting to rot now, I'm thinking of removing them and just having them as open beds now they are quite well established. 

Once is pulled the weds out I found some lettuce, I sowed the seeds at the end of last summer and nothing happened but now I have some

Made me feel very happy to find this. 

Tomorrow I need to do some more weeding. I'd like to plant some seeds as well but I have ran out of compost so I'm trying to decide what's best to do now. 

How are you filling the days? 

Rubber chicken update

Today I made our final recipe for this week's rubber chicken-chicken and noodle soup.

It was very tasty, I got 4 portions of this which brings the rubber chicken total up to 12 meals, I'm very impressed to have got this many meals from a small £2 chicken.

*chicken, jacket potato and salad x2
*roast chicken x2
*chicken pie x4
*chicken noodle soup x4

I used every last bit of the chicken, made stock from the bones.

In other corona news it was my day off today, so I wrote myself a list as ir ealsied I had been awake for 3 hours and not moved once lol