Non-Valentine flowers

 Husband doesn't observe Valentine's Day, he told me very early on in our relationship (even before we married) that he thinks it's just a made up thing to force people to spend (waste) money.  I think the only time he got me a card and flowers on Valentine's Day was many years ago when I had flu, so he felt sorry for me.  So it's always been a normal day for us - I don't have to get him anything either as he also told me all those years ago that he doesn't want me to!  Fair enough, although I have made him cards occasionally throughout the years.  This year was no different, except that a week ago he bought me 2 bunches of carnations, completely out of the blue and for no reason.  They were in tight buds when he brought them home, but are in glorious open flower now:-

How lovely are they?  I can't remember the last time he got me flowers, for any reason - he used to buy them regularly but it's a rarity now.  So I'm counting these as Valentine flowers 😁  Carnations are one of my favourite flowers, they're so pretty, come in so many colours and are such good value for money as they last for ages.

When I get up in the mornings, I open several windows straight away, I like to get the rooms aired.  Within half an hour yesterday though I had to close most of them as it was so blimmin cold - a freezing wind was making the house feel chilly, even with the heating on.  Aren't we all just so sick of cold, grey, dreary days?  And it rained yesterday, with more today.

Yesterday morning I broke up and whizzed up the stodgy cheese bread from the other day, resulting in a lovely big pile of cheesy crumbs, which I froze.

I made a chicken and mushroom pie filling, heavy on the mushrooms and other veg - onions, chopped red pepper and peas, with a can of chicken & mushroom soup, thickened with cornflour, as the sauce.  Instead of putting it in pastry, I used one of those large Yorkshire puddings as the base, topping it with some of the cheesy breadcrumbs and putting it in the oven.  We had half each, it was delicious with tenderstem broccoli on the side, and very filling, I couldn't eat all mine (husband finished it off).  Loads of filling left over, I froze it.  Today we're having homemade pizza, I'll make a scone base and top it with a little smoked bacon and lots of pineapple (yes we like pineapple on pizza!! 😂), mushrooms and tomatoes.  I got a ball of smoked mozzarella when shopping the other day, never had it smoked before, that'll go lovely on the pizza.  We'll have half with salad tonight, the other half will be lunch tomorrow.

Took Betty to the vets yesterday for her annual jab, claw clipping and ear check, all fine.  Well, her ears are a little inflamed but no infection right now, the vet said to give them a squirt every couple of days with the ear cleaner spray he gave us last time and she should be ok.  I had to pop into the supermarket whilst out, I forgot to get any custard when we did the big shop and husband does like custard with his apple crumble.  I had a quick look on the reduced shelf and was glad I did - I got 2 packs of 2 salmon fillets and a small beef joint, all half price.  Husband loves beef but hasn't had it for ages, he was really pleased about it so I said it was his Valentine's present as he got me flowers 😁