organising – where the journey takes me 2

May 5, 2023

dear diary ~ pantry, preparations and pottering

The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse again and it has reverted back to cold, wet and windy. The garden doesn’t seem to know if it is coming or going and it will delay any chance of putting some bedding plants in.

Yesterday as we walked back from the dentist to the car we went past the Range and I couldn’t help but notice the bedding plants on sale outside were in a very poor state and some barely alive. It was the same on Wednesday in Sainsbury’s…. rack after rack in a sorry state – why are these places buying in plants just to let them dry out and die on the display trolleys? We will be paying for this loss of profits on our groceries or other products no doubt but how sad to have paid someone to set the seeds and tend the plants then transport them at huge costs (I am thinking C02 emmissions here) and then through lack of attention and watering let them shrivel and die.

I did go outside in the afternoon to start on sowing the seeds but somehow got diverted (story of my life) and ended up moving some pots around and clearing up the corner by the viburnum to create a more pleasing arrangement as DH says. We had missed the brown bin collection for the garden waste whilst we were away and it is full to the brim (and so is our compost bin) so DH took the additional 5 bags of garden waste I had generated from prunings and weeding down to the local tip and dropped in our four postal voting forms at the polling station as it was too late to post them when we got home. Later he helped me put the bunting up across the open porch that runs along the front of the garage and front door and together with my 2 small flags this will be my contribution to the pageantry tomorrow.

Today we should have had the pleasure of little Freddie but it has been decided that Saturday would be a better day for mum and dad to have some time for themselves. We are all feeling the mix of anxiety and excitement now as the due date for the new baby is only a couple of weeks away. Of course Freddie has no real understanding of what is about to happen and I hope that whether a little baby brother or sister he will be just as excited when they arrive.

So I have made alternative plans for today and will concentrate on catching up with the ironing and some paperwork. I have also to contact a few friends and arrange a day and time for meeting up with each of them.

This morning I busied myself pottering in the pantry again – refilling jars and containers and generally tidying up and wiping down the shelves and worktop. There is nothing to organise or reorganise much in here as everything has a place and is just where I want it and this way – even DH can find his way round or put the shopping away.

It is the smallest room in the house but the most important – the phrase ‘my heart sings‘ everytime I go in here is quite relevant to how I feel when I have a well stocked pantry and especially one full of bargains.

All the dry ingredients are in air tight jars and I stick the best before date underneath the lid to remind me of when an item needs to be used by. Most dry goods are OK even if they exceed this but can often result in a stale taste.

We have a couple of shelves of the usual standbys – tins and jars and packets – baked beans, mushroom soup in case we don’t get to make our own, prunes in case I run out of fresh fruit for breakfast and evap milk and ready made custard just in case we have an unexpected pudding!

And of course a few little treats…

I wonder who the Jelly Tots are waiting for? – I shall need to remove these from sight before little Freddie’s arrival – one or two at a time his mum won’t mind but not a whole tube.

I find it quite funny that all my grandchildren love to go in my pantry; it fascinates them like going into a toy shop and quite often it is just to have a look rather than to find anything to eat. They love to see all the jars lined up like in an old fashioned sweet shop. I expect most houses these days, like theirs, don’t have a walk in pantry – I grew up in houses with a pantry (when my dad built their last house it was the main thing my mum wanted).

One of my grannies had a large understairs cupboard in the kitchen, with no window in there it was rather dark and a bit foreboding to me as a little girl. The other granny used the cellar head of their terraced house and it was where grandad attempted his only DIY of a lifetime and put up a shelf for her – it sloped so much all the tins and jars would slide down to one end causing the fixing to give way – but ever resourceful grandad propped it back up with the broom handle. And there it remained for as long as I could remember. Eventually the weight caused it to drop off the wall altogether but luckily my dad was there to save the day and stepped in to fix it…..but grandad never attempted any other jobs again and gran wouldn’t have let him!

I thought I would make the quiche base today for Saturday. I am perhaps one of many bloggers making the Coronation Quiche or at least a version of – although I do like spinach I will be substituting the spinach with watercress – only because I have some that will need using and I don’t have any spinach – and for your information…. I love broad beans and they will be going in the quiche! The lard most definitely won’t be though.

I shall bake too – I don’t think it will be fondant fancies….they do look rather pretty but far too sweet for me with all that icing (I often notice how they cover everything in the bakers in Scotland with pink or white icing). Instead I might make a plain sponge tray bake and top with a layer of the cherry curd I bought in Booths sprinkled with coconut and cut into dainty squares. I shall make fresh fruit scones too and maybe indulge in a trifle.

The house feels like it needs a good clean again but it will only get a quick flick around with the duster and when DH is out of ear shot I will get the hoover going. Ever since I met him and that is well over 40 years ago he has always had an aversion to the sound of the hoover (well who hasn’t? a machine that is used constantly with enough decibels to bring on later life tinnitus – we must be mad, but there is little alternative in the modern world – who would prefer to go outside and beat carpets over the washing line!). So I try to work around this and where possible hoover when he is out or outside – this is increasingly more difficult now we are both at home together more but I know he would be just as considerate towards me. As it is raining today I shall have to entice him into the kitchen and close the door or search out the ear defenders.

Oh….I have just noticed the sun coming out – could the forecast for more rain be wrong again – I might just have to abandon the plans and go in the garden!!

Have a great day x

January 3, 2023

dear diary ~ back to busy

Yesterday was a long hard day. DH was unwell with a very bad sore throat and swollen glands – whether it is a strep throat or not we will have to wait and see, but it is quite bad and swallowing very painful and I don’t think he is just being a wimp. As usual he didn’t really jump on it soon enough and it has taken hold. If it had been me I would have dosed myself up with Vitamin C and zinc, hot orange and honey and been gargling away with salt water at the mere suggestion of a sore throat but DH tends to wait until it is far worse before finally jumping into action.

So I was doing all the ‘action’ yesterday whilst he laid prone. I sent him to bed for a while mainly so that I don’t have to follow him around the house continually wiping doorknobs and banister rails with dettol wipes as strep throat is highly contagious and I certainly don’t want it; I feel I have had more than my quota of illness last year.

When there was a lull in my nursemaid duties I took down all the Christmas decorations around the house and the baubles from the tree – but left the lights on the tree, mainly because it is too big and heavy for me to move and I didn’t want to look at a bare tree for a few days until DH is recovered enough to remove it. I haven’t packed the baubles away yet as I usually give them a good clean with a cloth or soft brush and do any repairs before putting them back in their boxes – so that is today’s job.

I had to pop down to our local co-op for a few necessities, plain yoghurt and milk and picked up a packet of toasted tea cakes to have with a hot cuppa on my return. Luckily, I had two offers on my co-op card – one for milk and one for the yoghurt so it reduced the bill from £5.30 to £4.60 (which is still an extortionate price for 3 items in my mind). I enjoyed the walk – we are not far from the village centre – it was pleasantly warm in the sun but there was still a bite in the air and I was glad of a hot drink and a toasted teacake when I got back home. Once I had thawed out a bit I hung the two throws I had washed outside in the sunshine – it is the first day since Christmas that I have put in any washing and hung anything outside.

We just had a tin of Heinz mushroom soup for lunch as it was easier on DH’s throat being quite creamy and for tea I put a meal together from bits and pieces we had in the pantry and fridge – some baked potatoes which we had with a little butter and grated cheese and I roasted the last two parsnips, some leftover cherry tomatoes, a few chestnut mushrooms and half a red pepper in a tin whilst the potatoes cooked. I made a nice creamy rice pudding too whilst the oven was on – I always use brown pudding rice, rather than white and a tin of evaporated milk, rather than ordinary milk for extra creaminess.

No matter how poorly DH is he never fails to eat, unlike myself as I usually can’t face food if I am ill. Eating always makes him feel better and there was a glimmer of hope that he might have improved a bit and be on the turn by bedtime last night. Maybe the rice pudding clinched it!

I have eggs to use up so I will make some plain sponges for the freezer today in preparation for the upcoming birthdays. I am not sure how to make a Paw Patrol cake for little Freddie though and will need to approach my friend Google for some ideas. If Sainsbury’s or any other supermarket do one already then my daughter might buy one instead; the sponges won’t be wasted, they will always come in for another birthday another day.

After a difficult conversation with mum last night (complaining the carer had refused to take the recycling down to the bins – however, when questioned further it turns out the refusal was merely the carer saying it didn’t really need doing – mum can always be relied upon to make a crisis out of a drama) I sorted through my collection of wool and found a pattern for a little baby jacket. Our fourth grandchild is expected in May so I am starting early and making the 6 months size in the hope I can finish it before baby grows out of it! As the sex is unknown (both my daughters have always wanted surprises – which is fine by me) I will have to make the fronts when baby arrives as the buttonholes are on different sides depending on gender.

I found a lovely knitted bag pattern going for 10p in a shop that was closing down last year and I am hoping it will use up some of the leftover DK wool I have, I also fancy making myself a bobble hat if I can find a pattern.

So on with the day today – there is a lot more clearing and cleaning to do around the house before it will look anything like tidy and if I am lucky I might get the decorations back into the loft or at least back into the boxes.

Better get on with it then….

August 29, 2022

dear diary >> busy doing nothing

Well I know I was busy all day but it felt like I had achieved very little. But….the pastry did get mixed and we now have some lentil pies and a quiche base in the freezer – I could have made more but silly me had not noticed the plain flour jar was running low. To compensate for the shortfall I added in some spelt flour and it has made a nice pastry. I used to prefer wholemeal pastry but it is quite heavy on our digestion these days so I switched to Doves Farm organic white which is unbleached. We don’t have pastry very often these days as too much of it does seem to take longer to digest.

I should have titled this post a ‘Tale of two candles‘ as I spent a good two hours in the broom cupboard trying to accomodate my excessive amount of assorted candles (many of them I inherited from my daughters) and make a ‘pleasing arrangement‘ as DH would say.

As always when organising storage there is always the odd thing that just doesn’t quite fit and in this case it was the very annoying two tall pillar candles. Too tall to stand upright on the shelf and just a smidgen too long to be contained in any receptacle that I have. In the end all I could do was lay them on their side -but this is not ideal as they roll about a bit.

The short stubby ones and the tea lights all fitted quite nicely into the 3 storage boxes and I found the best way of storing the long thin ones is upright in glass jars. To make room for the candles I had to adjust the three shelves in the broom cupboard so the top shelf had a larger gap to fit two stacked storage boxes and the bottom two shelves had a narrower gap. But whilst solving this problem I unknowingly created another and when I came to close the cupboard door the contents of the storage container fastened to the door were now too tall for the narrower gap between the bottom and second shelf and the handles of the cleaning and bottle brushes no longer fitted comfortably between the shelves when the door is closed but hit the shelf and stopped the door closing.

So now I have removed some of the taller cleaning brushes and will have to find a new home for them….argh!

I am quite pleased with the result though and all my candles are now in one easily accessible place. The two infuriating pillar candles will be lit as soon as the evenings draw in a bit more. I don’t really want it to feel like autumn yet as I think it is going to be a long, cold winter – what a shame we cannot bottle this summer heat.

My next task is to re-house the coolbags as I would like to get rid of the old kitchen cabinet in the garage where they currently reside. It is a base cabinet and sticks out a long way but does a good job of storing the cool bags and keeps them dust free. They would fit in the cupboard that has all our cleaning products like car shampoo and oven cleaner but I think the smell might spread into the coolbag over time. I am not sure I would want my picnic sandwiches to taste of metal polish or patio cleaner!! Another storage problem to mull over.

DH was busy ironing again – his reward was spending time at the computer (his favourite pastime). He also mounted the second water butt on some bricks with a slab on top which is much more stable than the plastic feet that come with it. This butt is not connected to a drain pipe but we pour in the ‘run off’ water we collect whilst the hot water is coming through in the kitchen. It is surprising how much you can lose down the drain. We are also keeping a bucket in the shower to collect any clean water there when showering. It rained…only a little yesterday early evening – I am hoping just enough to top up the water butt (as we have a hose pipe ban here now) and freshen up the borders and planters and save me having to water today.

Today we /me/or he is making Leek and Potato soup to use up the plentiful supply of potatoes I have and the remains of the leeks. If I have chance I will prepare the tomato soup ingredients at the same time.

This afternoon we are downing tools and going up the road to see two friends of ours K&R. R has recently come out of hospital after an operation and at the moment cannot drive so they are both stuck at home as K had to give up driving because of a macular problem. We have been taking K with us when we go shopping to help out as she is well in her 80’s now but today we are just visiting and having a cup of tea and a catch up chat.

August 28, 2022August 28, 2022

dear diary >> a matter of opinion

DH and I agree on most things, but it is of no surprise that we have a difference of opinion when it comes to what constitutes ‘pottering’ and how long it should continue for. He thinks two hours of minimal activity is all I should be doing at present and of course he is right but I am an all or nothing person and once I begin a job I can’t bear not to see it through.

And I get sidetracked easily.

I am a great supporter of the Lean method where continuous improvement is part of the approach. I am always looking for better ways of organising and storing things and often have a move around much to DH’s dismay! Sometimes, even I have to acknowledge a task will take far longer than I have time for in a day, but if I stop what I am doing then I know it is going to end up as another project on the unfinished task list as other urgent housekeeping chores call for my attention.

Yesterday, I maybe overdid it a bit. I only intended to sort out the collection of small plastic plant pots in the greenhouse, that I had washed before our holidays, and keep only the useful ones. Dobbies, one of our local garden centres, have a recycling point for old plant pots so I have put aside the ones I don’t want to drop off on our next visit.

We have quite a useful space at the side of our house behind the shed where we can keep our wheelie bins and bags of potting compost tucked away from view. I also put the old mini greenhouse here as it is a sunny positon but much cooler away from any direct sun which is great for potted cuttings and hardening off. I keep the larger empty plant pots here too and anything a bit unsightly but the whole area was a bit of a mess because DH had not been able to get to his ladder easily and after he put it back in position the objects he had to move did not quite make it back in their place (need I say more…). So I started tidying up this area and as I went along I found a few problems that required a little DIY from DH whilst he was doing other bits and pieces in the greenhouse and now the area is looking much cleaner and quite tidy.

Before our holidays DH put in some ‘Christmas potatoes’ – I am not sure if they will actually be ready for Christmas day but they are growing well and needed earthing up. My few outdoor tomatoes are at last turning red – it has been a long wait. I haven’t grown this variety before, a dwarf stocky bush tomato that does not require the removal of side shoots called Totem. They are very sturdy plants that stood up well to the strong winds we had a month or so ago. The Zinnias in the top photo have been battered by wind and then scorched by the sun… but are holding on, they are such beautiful rich colours and one of my favourite annuals. I have more in the front borders and they are mixed with a rather lovely colour called ‘Green Envy’. I was quite pleased to see that Carol Klein recommended this variety on her Summer Gardening program (I just love her enthusiasm for plants it is contagious) it is such an unusual colour but looks good beside the vibrant reds and purples. The plants that have done the best this year on the patio are the geraniums – they seem to thrive in hot dry weather but then they do grow an enormous amount of them in France and Italy.

Today I must, must, must make the mushroom and lentil pies to freeze and the quiche bases (I know I have been saying this all week!). I will rub up the pastry mix this morning and then do the filling in the afternoon. If I get chance I have had an idea for storing those candles I mentioned. I need to gather them all together in Marie Kondo style to see what I am dealing with in terms of space required. I do have quite an assortment of candle holders too and maybe I don’t really need all of them. We shall see.

I am hoping that DH will be doing a bit more fixing and mending. When we got home from holiday I found my watering can broken. It is a Hall’s plastic red one with a long bar attached to the spout that you hold to carry it and it had snapped clean in two as you can see in the photo…..rendering it unuseable and there was no way it could be glued back together. It seemed such a shame that it would be of no further use and would end up in landfill at the tip. However DH to the rescue – he came up with a solution…..

…… a bit of a Heath Robinson fix (just like his dad) using this strong metal strip of rust proof aluminium and some screws or maybe they are rivets. I am delighted though and so pleased it could be repaired – in fact it should be stronger than before even if it does look a bit strange.