Not as bad as we thought...

Thank you for comments.  The new starter motor is being fitted today, and the cost is reasonable, so much better than we expected.  I do tend to think the worst when things happen, but then it's a pleasant surprise when they turn out to be not as bad as first thought.  Better than the other way round, I guess!

Having seen lots of empty shelves on my brief run round the supermarket the other day, and the queueing measures they're reinstating, clearly expecting hordes of people to start panic buying again, I thought I'd have a look at doing an online shop for delivery.  I expected slots to be booked up for the next couple of weeks but, to my surprise, they weren't at all, there were even a few slots for next day delivery.  Although I did notice the delivery cost had gone up.  So I might do a couple of online orders to cover the next month or so.  

Has anyone got a Food Warehouse near them?  They're basically Iceland frozen food shops on a much bigger (supermarket size) scale, but also do fruit & veg, chilled and store cupboard food, as well as some homewares.  They do frozen foods in bigger package sizes at a very good price....eg, 2kg bags of frozen sweet potato fries for £3 (they're generally around £2.50 for a 500g bag in the supermarkets), and big bags of fishcakes also £3.00.  I do like to buy British where possible, meat especially....a lot of their meat isn't British though (sorry but I'm not buying chicken from China!) so have to read labels and be selective.  Another bonus is that they have wide aisles and the shop, on the few occasions we've been in, is rarely busy.

They also do dog beds for £5!  and seeing as Betty likes to chew hers sometimes, I don't mind buying one there regularly.  She used to rip her bed apart a lot when she was younger, but doesn't do it nearly so often now.  And buying a £5 bed even once a month means I don't have to keep trying to stuff it in my washing machine.

A new big Aldi opens in the town next week....we do have an Aldi already, but it's small, tired, decidedly scruffy and limited with stock.  So that'll be good, I don't like sticking to just one supermarket, I like a choice as you can get different stuff in different places.

Funny old weather again, sunny one minute, chucking it down with rain the next.  It's definitely autumnal now though, got a lot colder.  And it's so blooming dark in the mornings when I get up, and seems to take hours before it gets light (well, it would I suppose, seeing as I'm up between 04.00 and 05.00 most mornings).  And dark earlier too, of course....I'm putting the lights on around 7 pm, even earlier yesterday as it was so gloomy.

I've been trying out a few watercolour backgrounds for cards, not really got the hang of it yet but will keep trying, it's quite fun trying things out anyway.  Husband's not done any more on his new wood carving hobby, he's been a bit preoccupied with other things, like the car and clearing stuff out of his garage, and digging up finished veg plants.  He's got the tools now though, so the hobby will be there for him during the winter.