Sunflower Smiles :)

Our first sunflower has bloomed - isn't it beautiful ? These photos were taken at dusk in our garden, hence the slightly hazy, gloomy background.

At work we're lucky enough to have a river immediately behind our building and there is the largest group of ducks there I have ever seen in one place. It's quite common to have to wait for ducks to cross the road before we can pull into our car park ! Well one of my favourite things is to hear the ducks quacking from where my room is. And today the ducks sounded like they were laughing ! It really made me smile :)

I have one more day of work and then two blissful weeks off with my lovely hubby and the babies. I can't wait... In some ways I think this is the best part of a holiday - the day before it all starts when you have all the anticipation of what's to come. Once the holiday starts the time seems to just fly. But I won't think about that. I'll concentrate on how wonderful it's going to be and the adventures we're going to have. I'll be sharing those adventures with you all very soon.

Fiona x

Jam Making, Cake Making & Bargain Hunting !

This week for us has been all about preparing and preserving our allotment produce in readiness for the coming winter. The first picture shows all our jars of sweet-pickled beetroot, blackcurrant jam, whitecurrant jam, gooseberry jam, and rhubarb and ginger marmelade. I spent this morning after my acupuncture making the pretty cloth tops and writing up labels. For my birthday this year my friend gave me a pack of fat quarters (squares of pretty patterned material) and they came in really useful. I do think the jars look far more enticing once they have been "prettied up". So all those jars are now in our outbuilding which acts as part coal store and part pantry. 

Our friend/neighbour gave us two freshly skinned rabbits so my husband spent a good few hours making a wonderful rabbit and vegetable stew in the slow cooker which was then portioned up into four containers for four separate meals. Not too shabby for food which was given to us for free.

We also did pretty well on reduced items at Sainsburys on Saturday afternoon, getting 6 marinaded chicken legs for £2.20 ($3.36), some diced pork to make a slow cooker stew for £1.69 ($2.58) and two packets of eight sausages for 75p ($1.15) each !

As we had been too busy cooking and preserving over the weekend I decided to make chocolate cornflake cakes to take to work on Tuesday so that we all still have some sweet treats to get us through the week. It was a good way of getting rid of some cornflakes which, again, we were given (I don't know about you but if I have cornflakes for breakfast I am ravenous by about 10:30am so I like to stick to porridge for breakfast which keeps me fuller for longer). I'm glad I made two batches of cakes - one for work and one for us to eat at home - they're delicious :)

In our garden we now have nine sunflower plants which are six foot tall and still growing. Only one of the plants in the back garden looks as though it is about to flower, as shown above. These beautiful orange "daisies" (they're not daisies but I don't know the name of them) are also still going strong. They are such a stunning colour. 

Last weekend we treated Lucy to a new bed, as her old one was falling apart after being chewed to pieces by Whiskers. Lucy sleeps in a bed on the floor next to me and Whiskers sleeps on our bed next to me. Lucy likes her own personal space whereas Whiskers has no concept of personal space at all and I often wake to find her head on top of my face and her whiskers tickling my nose.

Although the new bed did kind of break the bank for us (£65.00/$99.00), it was worth it as it is extremely well made and the cushion part which Lucy lies on is really thick, supportive and warm. We make sure that Whiskers doesn't go anywhere near the bed as this way it should last Lucy for the rest of her sweet life. Lucy is very happy :)

In order to compensate for that expense, I did find some new clothes recently on Ebay which were a total bargain.

This lovely purple and mustard yellow cotton tunic top from M&S which had never been worn and which only cost me 99p ($1.50) plus postage (!!!!)

And this lovely acrylic jumper, again from M&S and only worn a handful of times for only £4.00 ($6.11) plus postage. The photo doesn't really do it justice, or convey the true colours which are dark teal blue and navy stripes. It looks great with my navy trousers for work.

I also bought a new winter coat but it's currently being dry cleaned so I have no photos to share with you as yet.

One last photo I want to share with you today is the starlings feeding on Aldi ginger biscuit crumbs we put out this morning. We had the biggest collection of starlings at one time and they couldn't get enough of the biscuit crumbs !

We will be going to visit Mum and Dad soon for the last visit before Christmas (sorry to use the "C" word) so I'm busily preparing everything we have to take, including their gifts so that they don't have to be posted at much expense nearer the time. As we don't have much money to spend on Christmas this year, most presents will be home-made. I've made Mum and Dad a Christmas cake which will mature nicely in time for December and this afternoon I am going to be making them some crackers to have on their table over the festive season. They will also be getting some home-pickled beetroot and home-made jams.

Enjoy your week, friends x