Imagination - Then and Now

Picture from The Optimism Revolution

 

I loved this picture, it brought back memories of playing make believe boats, shops, trains with my brother when we were both small. 

 

 Mum and Dad had saved their money, no mean feat in the 1960's with two small children to raise, and had the built in cupboards and drawers in the large alcove in our living/kitchen/dining room removed to replace them with something not a million miles away from ....

 

 

.... this. 

 

Completely modern in its day and full of useful storage for the 1960's family  Although theirs was a more modern version and totally snazzy in red, black and white.  It must have been heaven for my Mum who struggled to cook and wash up in a teeny tiny room that can only be described as a square walk-in larder with a sink, gas fridge and gas cooker

 

Well anyway the best bit of this for me and my brother was that we were each given one of the lovely deep drawers that had been removed to use as toy boxes.  Unlike the children of today ALL our toys neatly fitted into these drawers and were slid out of the way under our beds, nice and tidy.

 

Well nice and tidy until we discovered that the best bit about having a toy box WAS the toy box. 

 

Picture from Google Images

Similar to ours but ours were more than twice as long.

 

All through school holidays we would tip the contents out push them rudely to one side, except for the teddies that were to accompany us on our journeys and adventures, and play in the boxes.  We used them as boats, trains, lorries, we turned them on their sides and used them as shop counters with my little plastic till and paper money coming into it's own, we begged Mum to stop her baking and be our customer, although usually by the time she came in armed with her purse to 'buy' from us the boxes had been turned into something completely different and there was no shop to be seen.

 

Picture from Google Images

 

I would have loved this - but would it convert to a pirate ship or a delivery lorry!!

 

Our imaginations ran wild, all because of two large drawers and I honestly think that has set me up for life. 

 

When I see something, anything, I see alternatives, I see a million and one uses, a slight exaggeration but you know what I mean.  Reusing, re-purposing, re-planning it all takes imagination and I wonder slightly if with todays children being given everything ready made for them, in garish plastic usually, will they have the same imagination in the future, I really hope so, although in my heart of hearts I doubt it.

 

 

When I bought bargain fish fillets I saw that they came in seed trays, open freezing trays, trays that I could stand six plant pots on and catch the water that ran through.  Trays with so many uses that to throw them away or even pop them in the recycling would have been a crime.

 

 

My fish was wrapped in 'easy-leave' so we can take out single portions or many depending on the need and stored my nice sturdy box in the freezer.  Leaving my new 'trays' to be rinsed and set aside until I need them.  They are currently in the freezer with blackcurrants on being open frozen.   We didn't even know we had a blackcurrant bush it was growing where the old little tumbledown shed used to stand - result, free fruit!!

 

I have to go now and unpack an Approved Foods order that has just arrived much to the delight of the little doggies who always get a treat when they are nice to delivery drivers .... and boy can they be nice to folk when they know there's a treat to be had!!

 

 I wonder what I'll find in there that can be reused and re-purposed?  Perhaps I'll take some photos and show you tomorrow :-)

 

Sue xx

Frozen Treats during Austerity August

On my shopping list was ice cream, we needed some to go with all the fruit crumbles that are in the freezer.  But then I thought well that's not very austere or in the spirit of using things up for Austerity August, and it's not that healthy if we are having so many juices in our bid to get ourselves nice and fit for the hard work of the next few months, so what can I make instead.

 

Yes, it's in a Carte D'Or tub but I can assure you this is very yummy homemade icecream and it took minutes to make. 

 

 

For some reason I always tend to buy four or five bananas when in fact I could probably get away with two or three a week, we don't eat them that often.  Sometimes Lovely Hubby will get a taste for them and suddenly start having one every day and I start buying more, and then as men do, he changes his habits without informing me and I end up with bananas on the worktop going brown and spotty. 

 

Well not one to waste them I started to make choc ices out of them, see the pictures below.  But I thought to myself if they make such good choc ices they are bound to make good icecream.

 

 

So before I went away last week I simply popped the bananas into the freezer, in their skins.   Next time though I will make it even easier and slice them up and freeze them peeled, they freeze so quickly they don't get chance to turn black.  When they were solid I put them in the food processor and gave it a quick whizz, a strong fork would work just as easily though.  Then I added a swirl of toffee sauce that was lurking in the cupboard, but it would be brilliant with chocolate chips or berries if you had them.  Then I scraped the mixture into the icecream tub and popped it all back in the freezer.

 

It's not soft scoop, but you can get it out of the tub very easily, and it tastes divine, and not that bananary (sorry most definitely NOT a word).  It just tastes like a densely flavoured richly textured icecream.

 

Result!!

 

Of course if you have some chocolate that needs using up, you can make Banana Choc Ices which I have been doing with lurking spotty bananas up to now.

 

 

Simply melt the chocolate, either in a dish over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave, but do keep an eye on it, it melts very quickly, then dunk your bananas in the chocolate and lay on some greaseproof paper on a tray in the freezer until they are frozen.

 

  Once frozen pop your choc ices into a bag or box and they keep for ages (if you let them).

 

 

Not the prettiest things in the world, but most definitely very tasty, and half a banana is a good sized portion for one person.  They are very filling unlike normal icecream choc ices which simply melt in your mouth leaving nothing but calories that travel straight to your waistline, at least with these you are getting the goodness of the banana.

 

 

Of course also lurking ready to give us tasty treats throughout Austerity August are our second batch of 'Smoothie' Ice Lollies ....

 

... and possibly the easiest ice cold treat in the world - frozen grapes.

 

I simply wash my grapes when I first buy a bunch and all the loose ones that fall off the bunch are dried on a tea towel and then thrown into an open tub in the freezer.

 

When you need something cold and juicy to cool you down between jobs there is nothing more easy or delicious than grabbing a couple of frozen grapes to bite into.

 

Let's just hope for some more warmth and sunshine to help us enjoy our ice cold treats for a while to come.

 

Sue xx

 



 

 



Austerity August

 

At the end of July Froogs (Frugal Queen) announced that she was having Austerity August (see HERE), well although we are now 11 days into this lovely (up to now) Summery month I had yet to take the challenge and join in.

 

Well here I am .... and it's now Austerity August in our house. 

 

We are using up what we have in store, we really need to empty the big chest freezer ready for the move so we will be using up what's in there, emptying out and eating what's left in the cupboards and making what we can from what we have growing in the Veggie Patch and in the various tubs and pots around the place.

 

We've used up a lot of our stash of non-food items bought and documented on the stand alone page 'I Love Saving Money - 2013' at the top of the Blog, and the cupboard contents have dwindled because of our need to make the £2 Housekeeping Challenge money last as long as possible, so our saviour for Austerity August will be the Veggie Patch, thank goodness for green fingers.

 

 

I've been taking inspiration from one of my favourite books. 

 

 I read this many years ago when the boys were small, I borrowed it repeatedly from the library and read it over and over and it really gave me inspiration for saving money and growing my own food on a somewhat smaller scale.  The weird thing is that re-reading it this week I have discovered that they lived pretty near to where our new place is situated.  And only today a paragraph jumped out at me when they talked about going into Llanrwst for an interview for a job, Llanrwst will be our nearest town for shops, doctors, dentists etc, what a coincidence.

 

Although I am sincerely hoping our new home on the hill doesn't turn into a hovel !!

 

Austerity August has got off to a brilliant start with this lovely crop of potatoes just dug up by Lovely Hubby. 

 

The cost of them .... absolutely nothing!!

 

They are the result of a few potatoes being left in the raised bed last year by accident and have grown wonderfully with only a minimal amount of earthing up and watering.  Food fresh from the garden and totally free what more can you ask.

 

Off to cook some right now, they will simply be lightly boiled and then sprinkled with freshly ground sea salt and black pepper, some chopped herbs and a generous dollop of mayo, and served with some left over tomatoey vegetables and pasta from last night.

 

Tea for free, now that's a good start.  :-)

 

Sue xx



Off on My Travels

Here's the Tin Bath as it was this morning, before I picked lots of the peas for tea tonight.   

 

We've been eating quite well from it and it's been really handy having it close to the house for last minute pickings.  There are still some peas left after my picking session and lots of radishes at the front, there are also the Spring Onions which are yet to really get going.  Maybe they don't like being so overshadowed by the magnificent pea crop we have had this year.

 

 

Herb corner is alive and well .....

 

... and the two sinks are lush with growth even though they are picked through for most meals and juices.

 

In fact everything is looking rather lush. 

 

The rose is slightly past it's best, it looked even worse yesterday but has rallied round after a nice cooling shower overnight, I can't quite bring myself to snip it off when it looks so lovely and adds a dash of colour to the otherwise green jungle.

 

The eagle eyed among you will note the mass of weeds and slight air of neglect, which is in pronounced contrast to my nice neat veggie beds.  I am a veggie gardener through and through and first call on my time goes to the edibles we grow and I'm afraid any flowers, plants and other bushes get left to their own devices.  I used to panic having acres and acres of land to tend, but then I found out that if left to her own timetable nature does it for you.  The masses of weeds shrivel at the first frost and a quick tidy up can then be done to keep the weeds at bay and leave the plants and shrubs to snuggle down for the Winter.

 

It feels strange mentioning Winter, but this last couple of days there has been a marked change in the atmosphere, it's feeling quite autumnal here on our little patch.  The nights are starting to draw in, something we note daily when we pull ourselves from the sofas to go and lock the birds up for the night.  The dampness of the mornings stays around for longer meaning that wellies are called for to let the birds back out of their houses and the dogs come back from their patrol of the grounds with wet legs and tummies, poor little things it must be so hard to be only a few inches off the ground.

 

I am desperately trying to hang on to Summer though, and each day I look for breaks in the morning clouds that will herald a warming of the ground and signal that yes, it will be fine to get the washing machine on ready to fill the line with sheets to dry in the promised warmth of later.

 

I'm off on my travels today, in fact the whole of today is looking very good.  In a while I'm off to visit a Blogging Buddy and have a relaxing coffee and a chat .... put the kettle on Karan, I'll see you soon.  Then after a whiz round the shops and a quick spot of ironing it's time to pack my bags, have some tea with Lovely Hubby and then hit the road to Manchester and Mum's house for a couple of days.

 

We girls have a spot of house hunting to do, Mum's house is sold and now she needs to find her own new place. I do like house hunting,  it tends to include lots of legitimate nosing around other folks houses, and then visits to coffee shops to discuss the pros and cons of each one.  There's lots of moving houses going on in the family at the moment, our niece has also just bought her very own first place to live up in LH's home town of Peebles, so I can see lots of scribbling out and new additions in our address books before this Christmas comes knocking at the door.  Ooops...... I said the 'C' word.  Must go and wash my mouth out with soapy water :-)

 

See you all next week when hopefully I will be able to report that Mum has a new place of her own and is not destined to live in a cardboard box under the arches in Manchester.

 

I know it's extremely early but let me be the very first one to say to you all - Have a nice weekend!!

 

Sue xx

Keeping up with the veggies ......

 

It's that time of year again, when us growers spend it seems all our time trying to keep up with the veggies. 

 

We turn our back for a moment and there is yet another Courgette that has decided it wanted to be a Marrow all along.  Recipes are all around in Blogland for things to do with the vast number of courgettes, we are eating them everyday at the moment, and will continue to do so while the plants are throwing so many at us.  There is at least two in every one of our jugs of juices, whether the recipe says courgette or not we add them simply to use them up. 

 

Last night after drinking juices containing courgette all day we had oven roasted courgette, onions and tomatoes with garlic and chilli oil for tea, it was absolutely yummy.  Mind you since we've been juicing ALL food tastes so much better, we can pick out individual flavours in a medley of items, it's as though our taste buds are super charged.

 

 

The pea pods fill with peas before our very eyes in the Tin Bath and drink up every bit of water we give them.  It's been a bumper crop this year after the disappointment of last.

 

 

The cucumber plants have just started giving us a cucumber a day, and they taste absolutely gorgeous.  You simply cannot beat a homegrown cucumber fresh off the plant with the lightest sprinkle of salt and black pepper.

 

We are not getting as many eggs at the moment, four of the girls have gone broody and are determined to sit on absolutely nothing.  I go over to Chicken World whenever I am passing and fling open all available doors and flaps on the henhouse to try and cool them down and make nesting as unappealing as possible.  Then I forcibly evict them and set them down next to the feeders or drinkers to try and distract them, but usually as soon as my back is turned there is a little line of hens going back up the ramp to once again take their places in the empty nest boxes.

 

It's a good job we have so many vegetables to eat and that we can do without our usual larger quantity of eggs.

 

Sue xx

Yay!! It's Done -The Final Car Boot of the Year

This was our table after the first hour of the car boot sale, I simply could not have got to it any earlier to get a picture.  It was a brilliant sale, other stall holders were amazed at how much they sold in the first hour too.  The weather looked a little bit dull at first and I think lots of folk were worried if they didn't grab a bargain quickly the whole thing would be rained off.

 

But as you can see the sun came out and it warmed up a treat and soon the steady trickle of folk snapped up all our excess 'stuff' bit by bit.

 



 

We were very good, as we were parked right next to a lady under a gazebo selling cup cakes and all sorts of yummy homemade goodies.  We stuck to drinking our green juice though, and snacking on grapes throughout the morning kept temptation at bay.

 

"Last few boxes ... grab a bargain now."

 

Someone should tell Lovely Hubby that even though he is doing very well with his weight loss he still can't manage to hide behind either a cuddly reindeer (in the first photo) or a box of toffees ... if I want a photo of him I will get it.

 

We made a grand total of £163, which quite frankly we were amazed at, after all the majority of our stuff was priced at 50p and 20p with only we reckon about £40 worth of stuff at higher prices.  It just shows how many little bitty bits we actually had.  On the way home we dropped off all the good saleable things into the charity bins in the supermarket car park and a bin bag full of rubbish went in the wheelie bin at the end of the drive.  So the only things that went back into the Man Shed in 'car boot corner' were the empty boxes and the paste tables.

 

A very successful and satisfying day.

 

Sue xx

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

 

We really are getting down to the nitty gritty now.

 

 

 

Finding messy drawers .....

 

... tidying them up.

 

 

Opening more ......

 

... and getting them neat and tidy too.

 

 

Putting rubbish into bins and anything excess and saleable into a basket for Sunday's Car Boot sale.

 

 

This time we are determined to come home with NOTHING. 

 

So for the first hour we are charging good prices for the newly sorted stuff, and then after that we are reverting to our two tables being a '20p table' and a '50p table' .....

 

..... and then to make sure nothing comes home at all the final price of everything will be just 10p each.

 

On the way home if there is anything good left we will drop it off at the Charity Shop recycling bank outside Sainsb*ry's, and then any rubbish will be dropped in our wheelie bin at the end of the drive.  When we pull up outside the house there should be only two paste tables in the back of the car, and hopefully a little tin full of jingly jangly coins and a few folded notes.

 

Fingers crossed now for good weather.

 

Have a good weekend folks, you know what we're up too..... what are you doing?

 

Oh and the penny picture at the top of the post ...... was what I found when sorting through the drawers, every penny counts so it's been popped into our Sealed Pot, hopefully it will encourage lots more to follow it on Sunday afternoon,

 

Sue xx