Backwards, Forwards and Welsh Weather

 

It's not just us that have been going backwards and forwards between houses, of course there are the dogs as well but also the wrapping and boxes.  Over and over we are wrapping things in the same wads of tissues and pieces of bubble wrap and placing them in the same plastic and cardboards boxes.

 

Of course the plastic boxes are standing up well, they are brilliant as they keep everything safe and dry as well as stacked neatly together.  Our truck is known to leak slightly around the joins where the hard top meets the back and if we park it facing the wrong way on our little slanting driveway a neat little puddle forms in the back and in all the grooves on the floor.  So we know now to face it up the hill to drain away any incoming rain. 

 

Even if when we arrive there seems to be no sign of rain we have now learnt that this doesn't mean there won't be any, even in the next ten minutes.  The valley seems to have quick bursts of weather in no set pattern and the only way to see what the weather is about to do is to actually look out of the window.  If you can see the hills, it's not raining, but it might be any time soon, if you can't see the hills it's raining now .  If you can't see the hills or the road but can hear what sounds like a hundred hobnail boot shod albatrosses tap dancing on the conservatory roof ... it's raining very hard.  But don't despair .... in a few minutes the sun will be back out as the clouds pass over and for a brief spell it looks as though there never was a deluge from heaven ... whatever you do don't get cocky and think it's worth hanging washing out in the lovely sunshine ..... the rain will be back before you have time to even find the pegs!!

 

 

The cardboard boxes don't do well against the wet so we are careful where we place them in the truck, no lower levels for them.   We have found that the Approved Foods boxes are brilliant, the small inner ones for books and all heavy things and the larger outer boxes for bigger, bulkier but lighter things.  And of course they all stack neatly inside one another once the contents have been unpacked at the other end ready for the return journey.

 

And as the boxes fill and empty ....

 

... the cupboards are getting sparser and sparser ... and we're loving it.

 

So much so that we have decided on a really good sort out to jettison even more of our belongings, and of course the boxes will come in useful again to store everything that will go to our one and only car boot sale of next year.

 

Sue xx

So Close ..... and .... My Favourite Top Tip

 

 

We are so close to having our forever home, it hurts.

 

Everything is going as smoothly as house buying goes, those of you who have bought in recent times will know exactly how sarcastic I am being here!!

 

There is a frantic push today by our solicitor to get the Building Society's solicitor to actually talk to her, who even knew they were so shy!

 

We will know by tea time tonight whether we will be completing as planned tomorrow, considering we haven't even officially exchanged yet this is worrying to say the least.

 

I have a day of packing boxes to take to the new house tomorrow, of things that we will need to 'set up camp' there ready for the decorating weekends ahead.

 

A box of cleaning supplies, a box of kitchen essentials, a box of food, a bathroom box, towels, toiletries etc and a box of bedding.  We are taking the mattress off our spare bed as this will be able to be stood against the wall during decorating and carpet cleaning and is so much easier than moving a full bed around.

 

I have a busy day ahead, I would say 'wish me luck' but I am wrapped in the warmth of knowing that you do, thank you.

 

If on Monday you see the rest of this picture you will know we are home owners, our very own first home that we will be purchasing together, our Forever Home.

 

I will leave you with my favourite of all Top Tips.

 

Sue xx

 

 

 

Simple September - Top Tip #9

 

A Starter Recipe

 

(or in Jamie Oliver speak  ... the 'Mothership'.... only a much cheaper one than he uses)

 

 

If you start the week with a great big tray of roasted veggies you can eat happily and healthily everyday of the week with the leftovers.

 

Start with a great big tray of veggies, pop some fresh herbs, chilli flakes, garlic flakes, whatever flavourings you like really in the bottom of the dish and drizzle with a good amount of olive oil, or your favourite oil.

 

Throw the chopped veggies on top and then give it all a good mix so that everything is coated in the oil, make sure if you're using fresh herbs that they are buried deep amongst the veggies so that they impart all their lovely flavour to them, (if you have no fresh herbs use dried herbs, it's just as good), the vegetables we tend to use are peppers, onion wedges, courgettes tomatoes and anything else that is looking a bit sad from the bottom of the fridge, this is an excellent way of rejuvenating tired veggies and using every scrap up.  Whatever veggies you roast will develop in flavour so much you will be amazed at the taste.

 

Pop them in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes, taking them out a couple of times to stir around so they cook evenly.  It's a good chance to fill your oven with homemade bread or a nice crumble for dessert, do not waste the heat!!

 

 

If you fancy salmon or chicken with your first meal add them to the top of the dish after the first 10 minutes for chicken or after the first 20 minutes for salmon, use your commonsense, you'll know how big your chicken/fish is and how long it will need to cook.

 

For your first meal serve your chicken, salmon or whatever you laid on top with a couple of tables spoons of the veggies and some brown rice or cous cous.  As soon as the leftover veggies have cooled sufficiently pop them in a lidded container in the fridge.

 

Now you can use your imagination and make meals each night of the week.

 

 

You could have some with freshly cooked pasta, sprinkled with cheese.

 

Or add a spoonful to the top of a homemade or shop bought value pizza and again sprinkle with cheese.

 



 

Or beat a couple of eggs in a bowl add a couple of spoonfuls of veggies to the mix and pour into home made or ready made quiche bases and cook for 20 - 30 minutes in the oven. (Here I did one for use to eat and one for the freezer.)

 

 

You could also take it to work mixed with cooked cous cous or rice to have for your lunch, it's tasty hot or cold!!

 

Of course you can just use them as a side vegetable and serve with a simply cooked steak or pork chop.  It also makes a beautiful base for a sausage casserole, in that case I would chop and fry off half an onion, add a tin of tomatoes and then a few sausages browned and cut into thirds, add a few spoonfuls of the roasted veggies and cook for 20-30 minutes either on the hob or in the oven.

 

 

If you get fed up with eating the same thing night after night, pop what's left into the freezer in a plastic tub, it freezes beautifully. 

 

But we never seem to get fed up with it at all, it's our favourite food. 

 

And now that Autumn is drawing in we start to ring the changes and roast the onions with chunky sliced carrots and cubed beetroot, alongside the courgettes, everything tends to get a little bit pink when you cook it with beetroot but the flavours are amazing.

 

As I said in THIS post way back in September 2011 .... Play with your Food!!



Clearing the decks......

It's been a funny old week, lots of clearing the decks, sorting and cleaning out the cupboards, really sort of a mammoth clearing out and packing session all tied up with a huge spring clean of the kitchen.  The idea behind this is that it should save time when we come to do the actual move if everything is already clean and tidy.  Just a wipe down of the cupboards as we empty them.

All the food that was on the worktop is now comfortably in the cupboards, ready for us to use as much as we can before we move.

The things that were in the cupboards are now all sorted,  excess items either put in the car boot sale box or packed away if we are keeping them, and we are getting rid of anything that we don't use, pretty ruthlessly.

The deep fat fryer is put away, this should be more useful when we move, much cheaper to use this than it is to warm the oven just for a few chips, we don't eat them that often so a few homemade chips is a real treat.

In it's place for now is my food mixer/processor/liquidiser, it's many component parts are now in the cupboard beneath the worktop much handier than it used to be.

All these cupboards now just hold our day to day pans, all things like pasta making machines, duplicate pans and griddles are packed away, we will put all these back to use after the move, in the meantime we will manage with the bare minimum.  

You may notice the dog bed has changed, Suky started off with a neat little shoe box, she is now twice the size so it was getting to be a tight fit, she let me know this by eating it !!  She now has Rosy's old, least favourite bed which she loves, although she loves to flip it over and lie underneath when she's in playful mode and I have to keep righting it when she wants a sleep.

Who me....eat a bed....as if !

I just have the cupboard under the sink to do now and as this is mostly full of cleaning things I will sort through them and get us a cleaning kit together to take with us on 3rd February, which is the day we get the keys and the place is officially ours.  Exciting stuff.

Off to clear a few more decks......

Sue xx

Condensing the packing ....... in a totally yummy way!!

Yesterday while clearing out the kitchen cupboards (yes.....I'm still doing it,. but notice on this photo the now cleared worktop) I came across one and a half bottles of Brandy, just the cheapo stuff nothing to get too excited about, then I found some empty bottles, remembering that I had two 2kg bags of our very own Damsons lurking somewhere in the depths of the big chest freezer, some sugar in the cupboard and empty jam jars rinsed out after making the cakes last week I suddenly had a brainwave.

Why pack all these things up individually when I can condense them all into just the bottles and jars, so this morning, once the Damsons have thawed out they will be left to steep in the brandy in my trusty big plastic containers and then bottled up as Damson Brandy the week we move, the Damsons left over from this will be turned into Damson Brandy Jam a slight variation on Lovely Hubby favourite ever jam Damson Gin Jam. Although I will have to make this in pretty small batches as I've packed away the jam pans!!

*** *** ***

Recipe

450g Damsons

170g Sugar

750ml Gin (or in this case Brandy)

If your Damsons are freshly picked, prick each one a couple of times with a pin, (if you freeze them for 2 weeks or longer  you can omit this stage, just thaw them out overnight before you use them, this will weaken the skins nicely for you). Put all the ingredients into a large container, and shake or stir each day for about 2 weeks.

Leave steeping for about 4 - 6 weeks and then taste, add more sugar if you want it sweeter and leave for another week. Strain into sterilised bottles and store in a dark, cool place until you want to drink it.

The longer you leave this gorgeous mixture the stronger and better the flavour. 

Do NOT throw away the strained Damsons.

Use them to make Damson Brandy Jam, place them in a pan with an equal amount in weight of sugar and a dash of lemon juice, boil until you reach setting point (skimming off the stones as they float to the surface) and then bottle in sterilised jars. 

*** *** ***

We drank only one of our bottles of Damson Gin over Christmas, it was absolutely gorgeous.   We are saving the other three for when our best friends come for supper next week, it should be a very nice final meal together here before we move.

So another busy day ahead.

Sue xx

Packing up the kitchen.......

Well this is it folks, my large farmhouse kitchen in all it's messy glory.  Not tidied for the photos just there as it was first thing this morning when I came down. ....waiting for me to start the great packing up process.  Sorting through all these cupboards and packing away what is not used on a regular basis is my job for today, and maybe even tomorrow as well we'll see how long it takes.

You may be able to guess from the photos that I have already started the process on the display shelves either side of the utility room door.  I did them and put their more decorative contents to soak in the washing up water while I was making my first coffee of the day......see I'm geared up for action already!

You may spot quite a bit of food on the worktops, that's because I just got another Approved Foods order, they delivered a pre-Christmas order to the wrong address and couldn't retrieve it so they credited my account with its value, and as they had jars of Bonne Maman jam at 75p a jar last week I was tempted to put in an order to use up the credit.  Sooooo easily tempted...lol.

In this kitchen I have (using doors as a counting tool) 10 base cupboards, 6 wall cupboards, and a total of 8 drawers (two of the drawers to the right of the Aga are actually a cupboard), 4 open display shelves and a plate rack.

In my new kitchen I will have 4 base cupboards (although 2 are corner ones so go into the corners giving quite a bit more space), 6 drawers, 5 normal sized wall cupboards and 2 smaller ones, one of which is over the cooker extractor hood.  So although a slightly smaller kitchen this will not be too bad.

There is also a built in boiler cupboard in our new house with a bit of space to store teatowels or things that don't mind getting warm and a large built in cupboard that the current occupier is using as a larder, I may use this for all my homemade jars of food.

Here we have an undercounter fridge, an undercounter freezer and a large fridge freezer at the end of the run of units, as well as my beloved Aga,  these will all be staying behind.  In the new kitchen we will have an undercounter fridge, an electric freestanding cooker, a small dishwasher and a large upright fridge freezer.  We have a washing machine in the utility room here and will also have one (it's already there) in the utility room at the new place.  (We don't have a tumble dryer, prefering to let our laundry dry naturally.)

After a good look round and a measure up on Saturday we happily discovered that virtually all of our furniture will fit into our new home, the only casualty will be our large leather corner sofa, which we will advertise for sale soon.  We think our large farmhouse pine table, with it's chairs and bench, will just about fit, so we will take it with us.  If once there it seems too big or just takes up too much of the floor space we will replace it later, fingers crossed it looks okay.

Well I better get to work.  I'll take the same photos when I've finished to see how well I've done.  If I don't make it a challenge I'll never get to work...... well maybe one more cup of coffee and a bit of Blog reading first.......!!

Sue xx

Taking down and packing away.....

We spent yesterday taking down the Christmas decorations, helped by Suky the Pug, cleaning up the living room, and then we went on to finish packing up the books.  We dug up one of the Apple Trees and put it into a very large pot ready for the move, we're taking the heavy work steadily and slowly as Lovely Hubby has a bad back again.  The plant pot and trays etc in the polytunnel were all wiped down and neatly boxed up. It's looking very bare in there, but there are still spring onions, celery and radishes growing away.

It's hard work all this packing away.....a nap was needed half way through for some of us.

The tree was snipped down branch by branch and put on the fire last night, the house smelt gorgeous with the fresh aroma of pine, better than any artifical room freshener.

Now the shelves are starting to look bare.....

... and the stacks of boxes are starting to get tall.

  First thing this morning we had to take Suky to the vet for her second vaccination, on the way back we stopped at Warborough Village Stores for some milk and some Caster and Icing sugar, it's Lovely Hubby's birthday on Monday and it's traditional for the birthday person to take in cakes for everyone. Now this used to involve a trip to the supermarket and the purchasing of many boxes of Mr Kipling delicacies, but this year we're making four dozen Butterfly Cakes on Sunday ready for him to take in on Monday morning, nice home baking, thrifty, yummy and NOT involving a trip to the supermarket.

So although today is not a No Spend day it is a Low Spend Day

Today we have gale force winds, so we are confining our work to inside the house, after finishing this post I'm off upstairs to help LH take apart the large wardrobe in the spareroom that used to hold all my crafting goodies,. it's the only way we'll be able to get it out of the house!

Sue xx