A good start

 It was still chilly in the morning so we started off in the car port, which had become very cluttered and untidy again, making it difficult for me to get to my veggie box and clothes airer, with hardly any space to put the airer up.  How husband manages to accumulate so much stuff and clutter everything up I don't know.  Well, I do - he never throws anything out or puts things away after he's used them.  I had the same problem with my utility room in the last house - husband used it as his extra shed, despite having 2 sheds in the garden.  Drives me nuts, I am by nature very tidy and organised, whilst he's the complete opposite.

Once that was done, the next job was to replace the rotted plank along one side of the biggest gravel bed.  As it was so rotten and warped, it wasn't holding the gravel in, I was fed up with constantly having to shovel up the gravel where it had fallen on the path.  2nd job done.  We stopped for lunch and a short break, then went outside again to carry on, it was a bit warmer by this time.  We dug up a small Acer that was in the space where the new raised bed was going, I put it in a pot for the time being until I decide where it's going.  We positioned the raised bed, ready for us to start filling it today, whilst I got on with pruning the roses and doing some weeding.  A good day's work, we were pleased with progress, although both of us had sore backs last night.  We're ok today though.

So today we'll fill the new raised bed - the bottom layer will be a couple of large bags of rough topsoil which a neighbour was giving away last year, having had some work done in their garden.  Then we'll put in our own homemade compost from last year, with some bought bags of peat-free compost on top.  I need to do some more weeding and pruning of shrubs that I'd left to die back over winter, and start clearing another small gravelled bed that's going to be another flower bed.  That'll be enough for today.  I'm so happy to be able to finally start working in the garden again, it feels like months and months since we last did anything out there.  

I'm doing a rice pudding in the slow cooker today, we'll be glad of a nice sweet treat after the garden work.  Salmon baked in a foil parcel with ginger and lemon, with new potatoes and green veg for dinner, followed by the rice pud.

It's raining right now but is forecast to stop by mid morning and the sun come out, with a temperature of 12 or 13 and less wind, so even better than yesterday for garden work.

At last!

 Do you know, we're actually going to do some gardening today!  It's dry and bright, the sun is coming out and it's forecast to be around 8 or 9 degrees.  There's quite a strong wind though (always seems to be windy here) so doubtless it'll feel a bit colder.  But with a fleece jacket and gardening gloves on, it should be ok.  We're itching to get started on all the jobs out there - even husband is - and got to take advantage of the sunshine.  Forecast for tomorrow is even warmer but no sun!

Obsessions. And THAT is cold!

 Husband's latest obsession is fiddling with the shower controls.  This is a recent thing, just in the past few weeks - prior to that, in both the last house and this one, we had the shower settings the way we both liked them and didn't alter anything, the only thing that either of us altered was the temperature, as we each have different preferences for that.  The shower head has different settings for Eco, flow rates, types of droplets, about 8 settings in all.  Then on the control unit there are temperatures and High or Low push button setting for water pressure I think.  Recently husband has started to change ALL of the settings, even including the height of the shower head (why?  Has he suddenly got taller or shorter overnight?) each time he has a shower, which of course then means that I have to adjust everything back to what it was before he started fiddling with it.  I know not why he does this, I have asked and even he is at a loss to explain why, he just shrugs his shoulders or has even denied doing it - when it's blatantly obvious that he has done it.  Another of his cognitive impairment quirks that make our lives slightly more difficult.  And annoying! 😒

He bought Betty a new mattress pad to go in her bed the other day - it cost all of £4.99, as cheap as you can get it.  It was as cheaply and poorly made as the price suggests - very flimsy material with no removable washable cover, with a filling of very loosely packed cheap wadding, there was no substance to it at all, I told him it wouldn't last and was false economy (I wasn't with him when he bought it in one of the cheap pound shops).  Betty has gone through numerous mattress pads over the years, she does have a habit of chewing them occasionally, eventually ripping a hole in them - the cheaper they are, the quicker they get destroyed.  This one lasted all of 5 minutes - virtually as soon as husband put it in her bed, she jumped in it and chewed it, tearing the flimsy material and pulling out mouthfuls of the cheap stuffing almost immediately.  It was an "I told you so" moment but I refrained from saying it!  He got on the internet and ordered another mattress, one with a thick furry pile and (allegedly) plenty of stuffing, and washable, costing £24.99.  It arrived yesterday - again it's not a removable cover, apparently the whole thing can be washed in the machine, although I'm not sure I'd want to, as the fur cover is indeed very deep and thick and I have visions of it coming out in handfuls and clogging up the washing machine.  It is certainly better quality than the cheap rubbish one and Betty absolutely loves it - she actually slept in her own bed for several hours last night, only coming up onto my bed in the early hours of this morning.  It does look and feel very snuggly, but I have my doubts as to how long it will last.  Still, it's already lasted hours and hours longer than the last one!

It is husband's money out of his own account, to spend as he sees fit (we have a separate main account for all household bills, plus our own personal spending accounts and a couple of savings accounts), but he continues to buy things that are dirt cheap and consequently aren't fit for purpose and don't last long at all.  Waste of money, in other words.  But it's his money to waste.

I feel ridiculously excited at the forecast for higher temperatures this week, from Wednesday it supposedly will be 12 or 13 degrees during the daytime, positively balmy in comparison to the bitterly cold temps of late.  A mixture of sunshine and showers is forecast, but hopefully we'll be able to start getting out in the garden to do needed things like weeding and pruning and getting the flower and veg beds and raised beds ready for planting.  Can't wait.  One of my Canadian readers, Jackie from In the Land of Living Skies blog, posted last night that they were expecting night time temperatures of - wait for it - MINUS 50 degrees!!  Makes me feel ashamed for complaining about -2 🥶😱.  I cannot even imagine what that must be like.  I hope you're safe, Jackie.

A good party dish

 I didn't make a pizza after all yesterday, I changed my mind after seeing a recipe on FB from a Canadian cook called Marie Rayner, she also has a blog/website called The English Kitchen (she lived and worked as a chef here in England for a number of years).  The recipe was for Baked Spaghetti - I have a lot of pasta in the cupboard so decided to make that instead.  It's dry spaghetti in a sauce of tinned tomatoes and stock (I used veggie stock), with fresh tomatoes halved, herbs and grated cheese all mixed together in an oven dish, then baked for half an hour or so, stirring the spaghetti halfway through.  I added sliced chestnut mushrooms and a couple of finely sliced shallots to mine.  Once I'd got the dish out halfway through to stir and mix the spaghetti (I used wholewheat spag), I added the sliced smoked mozzarella on top for the final 15 mins.  We had it with a crusty roll each, it was delicious and I'll definitely do it again.  Husband said he'd like minced beef or bacon in it next time, although he did like the veggie version.  So next time I'll split it in two and put some meat in his.  Although I halved the quantity of spaghetti in the recipe (Marie used 500g), it still made loads and I've frozen another 3 portions.  The full quantity would make a good party dish actually, a big steaming dishful on the table with bowls of grated cheese, cubes of ham, salad and a basket of garlic bread would feed loads of people with little effort required.  And minimal washing up!

Betty's annual jab on Friday really knocked her out, she was sleeping all afternoon and most of the evening, which made for a quiet evening - she normally comes to life and wants to play in the evenings, just when we're tired and want to relax!

Very cold again today but at least it's forecast to be dry, the wind chill is going to make it feel even colder.  I'll try putting washing on the line but doubt it'll be fully dry.  But hooray it's going to be warmer by the middle of the week!

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 😁

A big shop and giant cauliflower

 I think the older I get, the more I hate shopping.  I know I could do it online and have it delivered but I hate doing that as well, and you can't get to look at and choose your own fruit and veg, or easily pick out substitutes of things they don't have.  Nor can you get any yellow stickered things online - I got several packs of meat and fish things yesterday that were yellow stickered, saving me over £14, it all went straight in the freezer.  It was a big shop, we used a big trolley rather than the smaller one we usually use, I definitely won't need anything other than a couple of top up shops for fresh veg and fruit for the next month, we're well stocked in the (admittedly unlikely) event of being snowed in for a month 😂.  So my job for this morning is to do another freezer and larder inventory, and lunch/dinner menus for a month.  

Sometime over the next few days, I want to do some batch cooking of meals for both us and the dog....I got 2 packs of reduced chicken mince to cook up with veggies and brown rice for Betty, and reduced pork mince, diced chicken and cod for us.  I also got a ginormous cauliflower, an extra large one because they looked nice and fresh whereas the normal sized ones had very droopy leaves and were going a bit off colour, they'd obviously been there a while.  We like the leaves of fresh cauli lightly cooked as an extra veg, so I always try to get one that's got nice leaves.  The cauli will make around 8 portions of cauli cheese, even more if I add macaroni to it as well.  Cauli cheese, with or without macaroni, is one of my favourite meals, especially with a jacket spud.  I've got a few apples that need using up quickly, I bought Cox's a week or so ago, they're generally one of my favourites but these ones must have been in storage for a while, instead of being crisp, juicy and flavourful, they're soft and powdery, not nice to eat as they are but will be fine in a crumble.

We were forecast sunny spells yesterday but they didn't materialise, just the unrelenting cold greyness again.  Once again, the local forecaster on the TV said it's colder than average, it should be around 8 or 9 degrees this time of year but is only about 4, and feels even colder than that with the bitter wind.  They do say it should be sunnier and getting warmer - up to 11 deg wow! - from the middle of next week.  We can but hope.

I've just found out (I saw something online) that I'm now eligible for the shingles vaccine, as I'm now 65 - apparently I should have been offered it by our surgery but I've not heard from them yet.  I might ring and ask about it.  We know a few people who've had shingles and they all say it's horrible, really painful.  Husband had his jab a few years ago.

A success

 Well, for a change, both of us got everything we wanted from Matalan, Proper Job and Aldi, so successes all round.  The Taunton Aldi even had my favourite frothy coffees, having not had any the past 3 or 4 times we'd been there (although I did manage to get some from the Bridgwater store when we went for husband's dentist appointment last week), so I bought another 10 boxes.  I now have enough frothy coffees to last me for two or three months, which has pleased me no end.  Husband got the compost - well, a starting amount anyway, we'll need more throughout the growing season - and some veg seeds.  Oh, there was one thing we couldn't get, shallot sets, but I'm sure they'll have them in the local garden centre.  I got a lovely new shower mat and hand towels, plus a nice big fleece throw for my bed - in fact I bought two, they were so nice and a good price.

Sue, I love Dunelm, there is one in Taunton but it's not near where we were yesterday, it's over the other side of Taunton.  Ironically, there's one close to where we had our caravan....in fact, I bought some of the soft furnishings and kitchen bits for the van from there.  Speaking of the caravan, a neighbour asked yesterday if we'll miss having it.....funnily enough I was thinking about it a couple of days ago, a few fond memories of our time there but no I don't think I'll miss it really, it just wasn't the same last year after our friends left and several new people who had loads of dogs between them and didn't seem as friendly arrived.   Both of us ended up not really wanting to go anymore, we were actually quite glad to give it up. 

I think we need to move to Cornwall - we had none of the promised sunny spells here yesterday, just uniformly grey and dreary again, cold and with fine misty rain in the air.  However, my brother who lives in Cornwall sent me a photo of their back garden - with bright sunshine and clear blue sky.  I hate him 😠😂😂  (I don't really of course, and no we won't be moving to Cornwall).

We're going shopping today, I want to stock up on freezer stuff - veggies, fish, meat for husband, plus enough bread and milk to freeze and last for a month.  I'm going to try doing a big shop just once a month, with just a couple of top up shops for fresh stuff every month.  Dry goods, cleaning supplies and toiletries etc I'll try and build up a 2 or 3 month stock of - the theory being that cutting down on the number of times I need to go shopping will reduce spending.

Incidentally, Sue - how coincidental that your son's dogs woke him up for unknown reasons too - I wonder what it was, I certainly hadn't heard anything but Betty clearly did, she jumped up all alert and keenly listening for something and was unsettled for ages afterwards.  Perhaps she saw or heard a ghost!! 😳😂