Thursday 30 November 2017

Quick project

Too cold for gardening, no DIY projects to start, no cooking plans so I went out to my hobby cabin to tidy and find something to do.  As I refolded my stash of fabric I found a carrier with material cut out for a tote bag from a piece of curtaining 3 houses back; I had put this by for some time.

I was just preparing the handles when I saw a scrap of fleece jacket material on the bench; leftover from the rag rug making. Thinking about how uncomfortable thin fabric handles can be I fiddled around until I had achieved a nice soft lining for them.  I added a smooth silky lining to the bag too from my stash of plain nylon/rayon fabrics someone had given me.

The really nice button I added to make a fastening was brought some years ago on Bristol street market and was economic support project.

At the time I was working on unemployment projects in a near by county and thought we should be doing something similar.

This is a pretty bag, I may use it to give a Christmas gift.


Tuesday 28 November 2017

Rag rug

My rag rug is completed. Its a nice thick one.  8 feet by 2.5 feet.

What went into it?
3 zip up fleeces - grey, black, blue
2 pullover thin fleeces - maroon, navy
2 thin green wool jumpers
1 green long floaty cardigan
1 pink jersey material nightdress
1 pink wool scarf
1 pink jersey T shirt
1 multi floral jersey material blouse
1 brown short cardigan
1 husband's grey sweat shirt
1 red button up cardigan with a high neck

The fleece materials could be cut into 1" strips, the jersey more like 3" wide as it rolls into itself and the knitted wool about 1.5" to 2" depending on its thickness as it folds into half and plaits nicely.

I found the best combination for plaiting was 1 strand of fleece, 1 strand of woolly material, 1 strand of jersey.  This also allowed for more colour combinations.

Got some thin strips left but no more fleece. I am going to stop there as I wanted the thickness and stability of the fleece material. Stitched it up with very strong thread.


Monday 27 November 2017

Meal planning

Having now restocked the dry goods cupboard I popped down to the next village and spent £32 on
various meats, 1 kg of fresh fish and a tray of eggs.  I then spent the afternoon on dividing it all up to last over the next two weeks.  I have 17 main meals and 10 lunches where some meat is included.

Some is to be cooked in big batches - a mini roast lamb joint that our butchers sells for £2.90 and will last at least two main meals. Sometimes a bit also left for a lunch.
I also got a pack of shin of beef. Stewed in the slow cooker with beans it makes lovely meals for 2 days. I try to be good and restrict the addition of dumplings to just one day.  But its cold and I could weaken and have more. Weight loss will have to wait a bit longer.

The rest was all weighed into 200grm portions which is our shared protein for our main meal.

A bucket of fresh vegetable collected from the veg patch will help the week's meals.
Some weeks ago I was reading a blog of someone who used up odd shampoos for other cleaning.  Having got annoyed with how poor my supermarket own brand shampoo was I thought I'd use the rubbish up on cleaning up the stove top.  Great results!

No wonder it was doing nothing for my hair!

Sunday 26 November 2017

Christmas craft ideas


DSCF7005

Have you seen this lovely blog from  Very Berry Handmade blog?  (on 22 November)


Really good instructions.

Saturday 25 November 2017

Weekend

Contiguous reality TV, freezing temperatures, and run out of library books...... what could be worse?

Nothing else for it.  Break open the first demi jon of summer fruit wine.


Ahh...... that's better.

Sugar harvest completed

The massive field at the back is now harvested, ploughed, harrowed and seeded. Probably spring wheat.  It has taken 4 days, 10 men and they have used about £1million worth of high tech machinery.
It has been a bright and dry day, bit cold at 6C, but we cycled up the road to see the results of their work.
This is one of three piles of beet that will be collected later by road lorries. They bring a whole new load of machinery to each heap. A small loader, a conveyor belt and grader.  On a cold clear day you can hear the thud of the beets landing in the back of lorries.
Only puzzle to us is. The council have closed one lane on the town bypass between us and the nearest sugar processing plant for 9 months. After they have passed our hous
e which route will they take? Because we need to go the other way!

Friday 24 November 2017

Early Christmas present

There was a bit on local radio this morning about what not to buy women over 50 for presents - flowery soap, pots and pans, slippers.

Look what I got for Christmas. Early.  A dish washer.  Next stage of the kitchen refit.


My husband did a temporary join to the old pipes but left buckets there in case they pop off. The electric means unplugging the kettle and using an extension.  It works well and though it is only small it should suit us. He is hoping he can rip out the sink and we will be able to cope with washing up for a few days while he fits the cabinets and plumber/electrician do their bit.  I will need to think carefully about meals for that week - think I need to get a lot of pre-cooked stuff into the freezer!


Thursday 23 November 2017

Sugar beet harvest


How sugar is made - Sugar beet crop


The massive field of sugar beet at the end of our garden is being harvested this week.



Massive machines - very specialised and complex.
This trundles by. The two tractors and trailers join in to take away the big lumpy beets. Then comes a big tractor with caterpillar treads and a very big plough to immediately turn over the field. Then comes an another tractor with a complex harrow preparing the earth for its next crop. I am just a little disappointed they are not leaving the beet stalks for the migrating Brent Geese  - but this farm does not seem to be part of that wildlife scheme.

At 6 pm they are still at it, in the dark, with all the lights on looking like a moving town scape, and they seem to have done a quarter of the field.  Back tomorrow by 8 am.  We are fascinated.

We are going to walk up the road to see how big the storage heap is going to be. Because over the next two months its all going to be loaded into road lorry conveys which will go right past the front of out house on its way to the sugar factory.

I hope all you readers are supporting this whole industry and buying British grown sugar!


Wednesday 22 November 2017

Best bit of the budget!


Image result for take away carton

20. Reducing single-use plastics waste

The government will seek views on reducing single-use plastics waste through the tax system and charges. Disposable plastics like coffee cups, toothpaste tubes and polystyrene takeaway boxes damage our environment
source:  www.gov.uk
We have reduced use of carrier bags by 85% apparently. I personally will welcome a countryside with 85% less of these things tossed in the verges!

Winter food supply

The garden is still supplying us with fresh veg - carrots, parsnips, sprouts and red cabbage. Our store of potatoes, onions and garlic are holding out well and should last till spring.  In the freezer it is surprising how quickly space appears - the drawers were jammed packed till a few weeks ago now pulling out packs of fruit for puddings two or three times a week is creating holes.   I can now buy meat in bulk to last a fortnight and freeze some.  This will save time and petrol going to the super  butchers in the next village.

The weather has warmed to 13C so I have started to clear the poly tunnel.  Cutting down the tomatoes and turning over the soil today; next time I must take in a step ladder and cut all these strings off the supporting frames.  Spiders and bugs like to weave little nests and sacs where the strings are wrapped round.



Taken the green tomatoes in and hope at least some will ripen. The green peppers do gradually go red but you have to be careful they don't go off just sitting there.

After all our autumn visitors the food cupboard was disorganization and very low.  Action needed.  I made a list of all the standard things we have in store and actually use - no treats, no speculations, no I might use it one day.

I used this to do a really big bulk buy on line (£100), thus avoiding delivery charges that week, and I also went for big sizes.  Like 1 kilo of cornflakes, spaghetti, pasta shapes, etc which meant I got a cheaper price per kilo.  These are all things we will use up over the winter.

I will use this list to check what I need each time I shop and to keep an eye on offers.  I am really interested in the bigger packs of things - you can buy all sorts of sizes in cornflakes but only one size in flour?


Tuesday 21 November 2017

Upgrading our conservatory

We started up grading our conservatory some time ago by having new window units fitted.  We have had a few wet and cold mornings recently so over a couple of weeks I have been painting the brick work.  Mostly I was keen to use up half a pot of masonry paint hanging around in the shed.
Being a 1930's house there ware plenty of nicks and holes. After the first coat I had to fill quite a few with polyfiller. It has taken 3 coats to give a reasonable finish.  I have seen those TV make over house and garden programmes where they paint brick walls and make it look a 5 minute job! Don't believe them!  Its hard work and takes ages.

Least I got to listen to quite a few episodes of Pride and Prejudice on Radio 4.


Day out at country show

Went to Sandringham estate last weekend for a Christmas craft fair.  Much against my principals as I am very much against the royalty and "upper crust" hereditary system. But it was a sunny day, the surrounding countryside was very pretty and we have done a country show for some years now.  We were desperately looking for a present for our friends 70th birthday weekend country house party we have an invite to.

At first we were unimpressed by the commercial "tat" on sale but we eventually found some marquees with artisan products.   This plain cardboard pack looks very boring. 

 Then you pull it's flap down and a box opens!
The seller added the words for me. £3.   
We brought a purple glass necklace made locally but by an eastern European lady who was very chatty.
The only other purchase were 6 children's books for £5 which will be great stocking fillers for the two three year old grandchildren this Christmas.

Luckily getting in and out of the site proved to be quite easy, somehow we missed any the traffic queues.  Not impressed by the loos and the food marque had impossibly narrow aisles which were worse than a London tube train at rush hour.  

If there is a feedback on the web site I think we may give it a 3.5 to 4 out of 5. 


Monday 20 November 2017

Kitchen refit progress

Next stage of the kitchen refitting has been to take the doors off the sink unit and take out the shelves. Now my husband can measure and study the plumbing.

It might be some weeks till it is completed so I fixed up a curtain using an old bit of curtain wire, some screws and some charity shop curtains.

After three tries in the last year we finally got our water company to turn up (long, frustrating story) and agree to put in a water meter under the sink.  Apparently, we can't have an outside meter as we have a shared supply through a neighbour's garden with the stop cock in his drive. But all the 13 other houses, built the same  way, have outside meters.  We kept quiet as we did not want to ask too much and question any logic in the water board ways as the last worker ran away when questioned too much and nothing got fitted!! Anyway the person is coming early next month to fit the meter in the kitchen, and another one on the outside loo.  Neighbour has not got one of those in the adjoining outside building - we again kept quiet just in case we were stirring up things for him!

Ah well, we got the freebies for water saving.  Nice new washing up bowl included.


Thursday 16 November 2017

Three in, Three out

We have been invited to a Country House weekend next month by friends celebrating a 70th birthday. Very posh.  So I went to the most upmarket charity shop in town last week to see if I could find something  to wear.  I purchased  3 new jumpers - two are lambs wool so need hand washing.

So 3 worn out jumpers had to go.  I am very strict as I am trying to reduce storage areas - what is the point of filling up valuable space with clothes you don't wear (out of date, no occasion to use, wrong size, worn out)?

So 3 worn out jumpers joined the worn out fleeces in being prepared to be made into a rag rug! 


Now the evenings are dark it is a comfortable activity stitching the plaited "worms" together sitting in front of the log fire.  I need about 20 of these - they are about 6 ft long! There is nothing much on TV needing full attention so I will be pleasantly occupied till Christmas.


Thursday 9 November 2017

Norfolk Rocks

Have you heard about this latest craze? Is it happening in your county?  People are painting stones and leaving them in public places to be found and shared, and replaced by their own creations. We found one on a wall by the path to the castle in Castle Acre last week. They have their own Facebook page too. 
Our library was offering a half term workshop in painting!

Our two eldest granddaughters collected some stones from the drive. I varnished them to seal in the acrylic paint and this brightened the colours.


Wednesday 8 November 2017

Busy Tuesday

A really busy day here.
Late start so housekeeping took up to 10 am - sweep kitchen, mop floor, was breakfast dishes, feed birds, stack firewood next to stove, put yesterday's washing away.
10 am  take delivery of Belfast sink for my kitchen renovation. Move chairs from conservatory so it can sit in corner till needed.
10.30 = sow some winter veg seeds for the poly tunnel.
11-1 1 = help husband fill raised bed he has just created using railway sleepers from the top soil heap further down the field. About 12 wheelbarrows needed.

1- 2.30 lunch (home made minestrone soup) and collapse.

2.30 to 4.00 - bonfire! Son  and daughter in law helped us take 15 ft off two elderberry trees when they visited recently and take them down the field. They reasoned it was better than a gym session and cheaper than their London gym fees! Wind was from the south today so with the (trusty) wheelbarrow filled with scrap wood and some firelighters we went to have a go at the resulting piles of branches.  Great success.


4 - 5 - tea and collapse

6 pm Dinner  Shepard's  pie, fruit sponge and custard and collapse for the evening. Legs and arms dangling from our armchairs.



Monday 6 November 2017

60p cushion

I had a terrible time with the numbing at the dentists this week, I could hardly see straight for about half an hour. So I went for a wander round the shops (trying not to dribble) to calm myself before trying to catch a bus home. (some buses were just not turning up - the 20 min between buses turned into nothing for 50 mins and then 3 bus loads tried to get on).

In the local fabric shop I could not find any thing to suit my fish pattern project but I found a piece of material in the bargain bin.  My husband has an oversize cushion on the settee, leftover from eldest son's settee about 8 years ago, which was nearly worn through.  The fabric square was 60p, the zip was from my stash of recycled bits and the backing fabric was left over from another project.

I put the zip in first as the fabric could be kept flat, left a couple of inches unzipped while I then went round the seams. Half an hour at most and the cushion was back on the settee looking bright and breezy.



Sunday 5 November 2017

Thank goodness for rag rugs

Last winter I spent time making a rag rug with cotton/polyester dresses, skirts, table cloths, old cushion covers, duvet covers, etc.  It is in the conservatory replacing an ordinary shop brought one my grandson had vomited on when he arrived for a visit at Xmas.

Luckily, most of this week's visit's vomit in the conservatory landed in the shoe tidy, missing my trainers, and only a bit on the rag rug. A quick sluice off and a quick wash at 30C in the machine and a hang on the line overnight in a Force 6 wind and the rug was back by lunch time!


That said, I will be glad when he grows out of this!

I have an idea for another rag mat. I have accumulated quite a lot of old fleece coats and tops which I am cutting into strips and joining into long lengths on the sewing machine.  These are very worn and thin, reinforcing the current eco concern that the fleece fibres are entering the world's water courses. (see  link to  Guardian article )
So I will not be washing the fleece mat; but how will I dispose of it if the fabric is so toxic?