Lovely evening

Just spent a lovely evening with a friend from the charity shop I volunteer in. She is a young mum of two and does not have many friends and rarely goes out due to financial constraints and lack of babysitters. So tonight I took a bottle of wine to her house and we chatted and had a good laugh whilst her partner was out for the evening. Another friend made through my charity work. Hubby is away with friends down south this weekend so I have asked my new friend over this weekend for a girly night rather than being on my own.

MENU PLAN 27/02/12

MONDAY - Ho fan beef/ prawn and noodles

TUESDAY - fragrant pork rice one pot and homemade bread

WEDNESDAY - Cottage pie/ quorn pie and steamed vegetables

THURSDAY - Paprika chicken/quorn with peppers and rice

FRIDAY - Omelet, jacket potatoes and homemade coleslaw

SATURDAY - prawn or tuna pasta with homemade garlic bread

SUNDAY -  Salmon baked with roasted veg served on pasta

Payday! So my cupboards are bursting and I am trying to start stock piling. I have bought lots of bread flour and plain flour and I think I am going to build up a good supply of these as I think they may rise a lot in price if we don't get much rain for the wheat crops to grow. My freezer is bursting at the seams and I have stocked up on plenty for the girls to be satisfied.

Getting fed up of daughter No3 cooking at school. She has made numerous things and only the lasagne last week was okay to eat. Today she made sweet & sour pork which no one really thought was nice. I always thought sweet & sour was made with pineapple and pineapple juice but her teacher made it with chunks of orange and orange juice. So I will be wasting a lot of the food she made which really annoys me. When she made macaroni cheese the teacher told her to cook the macaroni for 30 minutes! My god, my daughter knew it should only be cooked for about 10 minutes but did not dare go against the teacher. We ended up with a pile of gloop. The birds got it!  I am all for teaching kids how to cook but please get a teacher who can cook  to teach them!!!!!

five things that make you happy

Just came across Kates blog http://katetakes5.blogspot.com/2012/02/listography-top-5-things-that-make-me.html#more  asking what five things make you happy. I decided to write mine. I'm sat here thinking, can I think of five things?

No1   Cuddling my 14 year old daughter, be it on the sofa, in the kitchen when I'm cooking or just a cuddle for cuddles sake. This makes me SO happy. Cuddles with my other daughters are not so intense now; they save them for their Hubby and children and boyfriend. Mum doesn't get the full blown hug she used to. But, youngest daughter has no Hubby, boyfriend or children of her own so only mum and dad get her hugs and cuddles and I cherish them because I know they won't last forever.

No2   Time. Just having some time for me makes me so happy. We live in this manic world, we never seem to take time out just for us. Work takes over our lives. Schedules are followed. Kids have to be here, there and everywhere. When I get some time for ME, I just relish it and enjoy it so much it makes me happy.

No3    Cooking. I loose myself in cooking. I know I lost my vocation along the way but I can still pretend I'm the Masterchef winner, head chef in a wonderful restaurant etc...... We don't have the cash for me to pursue my dream of training to be a chef but I can train myself to some degree in my own kitchen and I LOVE it!

No4     Feeling happy and being content with what we have. Leeds for the majority of our lives was where we were quite happy. But we noticed  people seem fixated on the big house their friends will be envious of. I saw friends in designer lives who have to have everything designer, WHY? To show they have cash to throw about? To show they are in with the fashion scene? I don't know why they have to always throw the cash and have to prove anything. I'm so happy I can be content with what I've got and don't need to splash loads of cash to show this image of what a commercial society believes in to prove they are happy.

No5    Relocation. We moved here 6 year ago on the 19th of May this year and it is the best move we have ever made and it makes me so happy. Both of us were were born and bred in Leeds, West Yorkshire. I in a council estate, Hubby in an affluent part of Leeds.  We bought our own property and lived quite happily in Leeds for the majority of our lives but, after two attempted break ins ( Hubby was well into house security even back then) we decided the inner city was not for us or our girls. We saw how teenage girls were acting so much older than their age. We felt uncomfortable with it and thought we didn't want our girls growing up that quick. Moving to the country was a wrench but oh how it has paid off. This really makes us happy.

I thought I would struggle to to find five things that really make me happy but they came so easily to my thoughts. Do you know, I think I could think of five more but I shall leave them for another day.

What five things make you happy?

Wouldn't you know it

 
Hubby sent me a text last night to say all flights in and out of Guernsey had been cancelled yesterday due to very bad fog and he hoped his flight would be okay for the next morning. Today I had just finished my voluntary job and was walking out the door when my mobile rang. Was Hubby. His flight had been cancelled due to the fog again and he's to wait until Sunday for a flight. Saturdays flights are allocated to the people who's flight was cancelled Thursday! He's not very happy as he had to try and find a hotel to stay in which he said was now quite full due to all the cancellations. He said there's no point in going sightseeing as it's miserable and foggy. So he's been in the hotel gym and watching TV and reading to pass the time. A lot of overtime in next months wage packet :) 

Bought myself a top in the charity shop today. I have not bought any clothing for ages and I just spotted one today which will do until I loose my weight. I hate to spend money on clothes, even second hand clothing when I know I'm going to loose weight but I really needed something else to wear as my wardrobe has depleted drastically since putting the pounds on. Nothing fits! If I loose the weight I'll have plenty to wear. So £2.49 is a bargain if I have to dump it in a month.

Right, time to get ready for work.
Bye for now x

Still no shopping done

Managed to eat this week without doing a shop. Will have to shop tomorrow though as the fridge and cupboards are nearly bare. Girls have moaned every day about the lack of food in the house. I told them they just have no imagination on how to create a meal with very little. I made some soup for my lunch today and have enough for two more meals. I made up a spicy carrot and lentil  soup which I thought was lovely. Daughter No2 was not interested in soup for lunch when offered some." I want something to eat, not drink" was her reply. She ended up eating a bowl of cereal instead. I made my soup as follows and it's very cheap to make, about 42p the whole panful.

SPICY CARROT & LENTIL SOUP

1 onion, chopped
300g carrots chopped
1 stock cube
100g red lentils
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground garam masala
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 small hot chilli
1 litre hot water
Salt & pepper to taste

Just throw everything into a pan and cook for about 20 minutes until veg is soft then blitz.

It made a lovely hot spicy soup because I leave the chilli seeds in.

For our evening meal I found half a block of puff pastry in the freezer so thawed this to make the girls a cheese, potato and onion pasty to have with leftover coleslaw from yesterday and some homemade chips. No picture as they ate it before I remembered about a picture. I steered clear of the pasties and opted for a mushroom omelet with a jacket potato with dieting. So I'm down to two little potatoes in the sack so need to visit the farm tomorrow for another sack of potatoes. Milk should last until I get to the shops tomorrow. Nothing left to really make a proper meal with now. I'm out of tinned tomatoes so can't  rustle up a tomato sauce to have with a bag of pasta I have. Got the grandaughters coming this weekend so I had better stock up on a bit of food to last us until Monday which is payday and the beginning of my March grocery challenge.If I only had to feed myself I know I could live very cheaply and not have to shop often.

Loving the gorgeous warm day we've had today here in Yorkshire. I was actually very warm on my walks with the dog. The evenings are lighter for longer and it feels so spring like today. Hubby sent a  text from Guernsey to say he hopes he can fly back tomorrow because there have been no flights in or out of Guernsey all day.

Shrove Tuesday

Hi everyone, it's Shrove Tuesday that can only mean one thing. Pancakes! I made a pile of pancakes this morning and they are sat in the fridge ready to warm up later. I have squeezed lemons and stocked up on golden syrup, chocolate spread and bananas. We shall enjoy them for dessert.

I had a sort out of the freezer drawers this morning to see what I had lurking in the depths and to give it a good tidy. I placed all bread in one drawer. All vegetables and my veggie stuff in another drawer. Meat products were put in another drawer. I had so much homemade chicken stock and guess what I've got cooking in my slowcooker today? More chicken stock! The bottom drawer was filled with ice cream and fruit. I found a tub of cooked rice with some mixed veg in it. I thawed this to have for my lunch. I stir fried some onion then added the veg rice. I had some egg wash left from glazing some scones this morning so used this stirred into the rice to make egg fried rice. All finished off with some soy sauce.

Are you having pancakes today? What's your favourite topping?

Bad Blogger Me

Hello out there. What a bad blogger am I,  not blogging for nearly a week. Had a lovely week off work and it's flown by.  Back to work tomorrow : (     Been busy  the past week with the girls on holiday from school and college. Had the grandaughters stay two days and daughter No3 had her birthday Friday with a sleepover so I didn't have a lot of spare time to even go on my laptop. But, back to normality today and back to my routine, sort of.

Hubby flew off to Jersey this morning and will be working there and a few days in Guernsey until Friday so  no Menu Plan this week. I am going to use up bits and pieces in the house and from the freezer to clear every thing out of the way for a new start with my March shopping budget.

Last night I went for a couple of hours to a charity do arranged by the manager of the shop I volunteer at and received a text from Daughter No3 at 9.45pm saying she had cooking at school in the morning and we didn't have anything in for her to take!!!  So this morning I was up with the lark toddling off to the supermarket to get ingredients for her to make a lasagne. As she was leaving I told her to make it lovely because that was her tea for tonight. It's a meat lasagne so only the girls will be eating it. I shall have some pasta and tuna sauce that was leftover from yesterdays evening meal. I have a baguette left from the two I made yesterday so shall make garlic bread to have with the meal. That's today sorted.

I started my crafting I want to do for Christmas presents. I have used an old white school shirt for bits of the project. Some fabrics were bought new like the calico I needed and I bought a few bits of material off ebay. I still need a few different fabrics but shall have a rummage in my wardrobe and suitcases of clothes to see if I can find any suitable fabrics to use. This is the stage I'm at at the moment,

It's a cushion and I plan to do one for each of my grandaughters and one for myself. At the moment the applique pieces have been cut out with iron-on bonding on the back and I need to iron these onto the calico then stitch around each one with blanket stitch so that's the next job this morning to get in the loft and look for all my threads. Back later to have a catch-up on all your blogs.

See you all later x

I woke this morning without the alarm. I have an alarm at the side of my bed and I set it every night but I naturally wake each morning before it goes off. Today because the girls are on holiday from school and college i did not set my alarm because I knew I did not have to rush to get up but I still woke early and thought straight away, oh no Hubby won't have a shirt because I didn't have time to iron yesterday. I jumped out of bed and whilst he was shaving in the down stairs shower room I ironed his work shirt. He finished his shaving and I said I had Ironed him a shirt to which he replied, I'm doing an install today so I don't need a shirt. OMG!!!! I got out of bed on my week off work to iron a shirt I didn't need to!

Then, this afternoon I had a pile of ironing to do. and I really fancied watching a film. Now I never watch films or TV when ironing. I just usually listening to the radio. No, I wanted to watch a film so I pitch up camp in the living room and watched a film. It felt quite good watching a film whilst ironing. I hate to waste time with TV stuff if I've got jobs to do. Then I thought about my Hubby when he has time off work. He expects it to be time to himself. Time off work, time to do as he pleases. Why is it when I'm on holiday from work it ends up I still have to do every job I normally do and some? When I take a holiday from work I am going to take some time out to just relax and 'have a holiday from work' and not feel guilty about it. I am going to concentrate on me time. Isn't that what having a break from my paid work is all about and it should mean a break from my mundane home jobs too!

Menu Week 13/02/12

MONDAY - Homemade fishcakes, wedges and mushy peas

TUESDAY - Sausages, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire puddings vegetables and onion gravy

WEDNESDAY - Stir fry and noodles

THURSDAY - Creamy pesto chicken, jacket potatoes, roasted tomatoes and peas

FRIDAY - Daughter's birthday treat, her choice. Not sure what she wants yet.

SATURDAY - Chicken/tofu fajitas

SUNDAY - Creamy tuna pasta and homemade garlic bread

The fishcakes I made last night were a big hit with me and Hubby but not with the girls. Both thought they were too lemony and daughter No2, who has an aversion to veg noticed 'green' bits in the fishcakes and demanded to know what they were. Tiny capers I said to which daughter replied, Don't like them, and proceeded to try and pick them out of the fishcakes. Ah well, you can't please them all. So I have a fishcake for my lunch now as daughter only picked at one and left the other.  I wanted to make a fishcake with more fish than potato so added a whole packet of frozen fish.

Was pleased with this fish I used. It only cost £2.00 for the 520g gram bag of pollock and it was skinned and I found no bones so was great to use in fish cakes. I'm not a lover of frozen fish when I want to eat a steamed or fried fillet but these are great to use in fish pies and the such.

I bought a 300ml tub of double cream in Tesco to have a go at making my own butter. I wanted to see if it was cheaper to make my own rather than buy. The tub of cream cost £1.08 in Tesco. I ment to buy it in Aldi because I know it's cheaper there but forgot.  I have discovered it costs more to make my own butter as I only yielded 162g of butter for my £1.08.

It's very simple to make. Pour double cream into a bowl with a good pinch of salt (if you like salted butter)

Whisk and whisk until the over whipped cream starts to turn yellow and release its butter milk.

Squeeze out the buttermilk and there you have lovely butter. I used the buttermilk to make some soda bread which I had with my butter, lovely. Butter would be great to make if you found any reduced cream other wise it's not worth it.

My turn to be it

I've been tagged by Jo over at http://jo-throughthekeyhole.blogspot.com/ I shall try to answer the questions Jo has asked me.

Firstly, I have to post the rules

1   Post these rules
2   Answer 11 questions from the person who tagged you
3   Create 11 questions to the people you tag
4   Tag 11 people and link them to your post
5   Let them know that you tagged them

Jo asked me the following questions

1   What is your earliest memory?
The thing that always comes to mind is when I was about about 3 1/2 years old and I snook down stairs in the early hours of Christmas day to see if santa had been. I wanted to know if santa had brought a doll I had asked for. I still can remember this scene so vividly it's like it only happened recently. 

2   Who would you hate to be stuck in a lift with and why?
Easy, anybody with body odour. Would be quite unberable to be stuck in a lift for hours with someone with BO.

3   What is your favourite food?
I love pizzas and I love curries. They don't have to be from a takaway or restaurant but I do love them and make them often at home. 

4   What was the first record you bought?
I bought Lena Zavaroni 'personality' I remember my mum taking my brother and myself into a music shop and telling us we could buy a record each. I loved Lena as I used to watch the show, Opportunity knocks and thought it was wonderful a girl my age could be so famous. It was around 1974 and I would have been 10 years old.

5   What's the first thing you do when you get out of bed?
I visit the loo then I clean my teeth. Can't do anything until my teeth are cleaned.

6   What was your first job?
I worked for the  Co-Op Insurance Company on Eastgate, Leeds as an insurance clerk. I  worked my way up to a claims handler until I left to have my first child.

7   Who is your favourite author?
I do enjoy Dean Koontz and Dan Brown.


8   If you could go anywhere in the world on holiday, where would it be?
I have always wanted to visit Australia. My sister-in-law  and her partner lived there for 3 years and the pictures and video tapes they sent us were amazing. Such a fantastic country. We had the invite to stay with them on numerous occasions but we just could not afford the flights at the time for four of us and then they returned to England when the job contract finished so never managed to get there. Our dream is to go there in our lifetime.

9   Do you have a party trick?
No, I've no special party tricks I'm afraid.

10   Will you be watching the 2012 Olympics?
No, I have no interest what so ever in the Olympics. 


11   Do you have any bad habits?
I would say no but my Hubby would disagree and say me flossing my teeth all the time is irritating to him. 

I don't want to be a party pooper but I don't particularly want to tag 11 people because I have seen this particular tag going around a lot on the blogs I follow and it would just mean tagging again people who have been tagged only recently. So I am happy to answer the questions but I don't feel I can bother fellow bloggers with this who have been through it already. 

Meanwhile,  sat at her laptop flossing her teeth after a slice of toast : )  Oops, old habits died hard.

Today daughter No3 wanted to do some baking. She decided on making some chocolate brownies and we had everything in except walnuts. I did tell her we had a bag of unopened pecan nuts so she used these. Now daughter No3 does not really like nuts in her baking so decided to use only 20g of nuts instead of the 50g the recipe stated. Whilst the brownies were in the oven I nibbled a pecan nut and spat it out in disgust. It tasted rancid. I checked the packet and the best before date was March 2011. I don't take notice of best before dates but I think this is a lesson learnt where nuts are concerned. Thankfully we could eat the brownies and they did not taste too bad if you didn't get much nut in your slice. Now what to do with rancid nuts? Wonder if the birds will touch them. I can only try.  

See you all tomorrow, Bye! x

Recipe request

I was asked to post the recipe for the tuna, broccoli and sweetcorn plate pie so here it is.

Enough shortcrust pastry to line and top a dinner plate
About 3/4 pint cheese sauce
Knob butter
1/2 onion, finely chopped
Broccoli florets, boiled for 5 minutes then drained
3 tbsp sweetcorn
2 x 185g tins tuna in oil, drained
1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs

Line plate with pastry. I blind bake mine but you don't have to.
Make cheese sauce. I just combine plain flour and milk in a saucepan and keep stirring until thickened then add the cheese. It saves using butter and saves on calories.
Saute the onion in a little butter until softened.

Combine onion, broccoli, tuna, sweetcorn and herbs into sauce then place on pastry lined plate.
Roll out remainder of pastry and cover the pie.
Bake for 25-30 minutes in fan oven 200C/ Gas 6.

We had ours with roasted potatoes and steamed carrots and peas.

I'm at work at the moment writing this and it will be my last night for 10 days as I'm on holiday. Can't wait. Nothing planned for the break from work but think I shall have to venture to a shopping centre at some point as daughter No3 wants to spend some of her Christmas money and it's also her birthday next  week so will want to spend birthday money too.

A pretty uneventful day today. Managed to get to the charity shop I volunteer in but we hardly had any customers with the bad weather so this gave me a good opportunity to scour the rails for bargains but nothing caught my eye. I'm also on the lookout for festive coloured material or clothing I can cut up and use in a project I want to start. I got a pattern for a lovely Christmas cushion with a reindeer & robin on the front and I want to make some for Christmas presents so thought if I start now I might have them finished for Christmas : ) I did buy some calico off e-bay that I need for the project as we don't have a shop anymore in the local town that sells material. Just need to get in the loft now and find my threads from when I used to cross stitch as I will need some of them.

Right off to sort out my menu plan and shopping list for Monday and do a bit of searching for the best prices.

Bye for now x

What a miserable day

Only been out to walk the dog this morning and this afternoon. Not the sort of day to be out and about so I've had a productive day in. Just sat here with a cup of tea and having the odd glance out the window to see how the weather's doing. We've changed from rain when out walking the dog to sleet at the moment. Just waiting for the next batch of snow to hit Yorkshire.

Well I had my weekly dig into the back of the freezer to see what I would unearth today and it was this,

looks quite disgusting but actually it tasted really nice when I first had it. This is half of a squash roasted with garlic, butter, herbs and feta cheese. Decided to make a soup with it so into a saucepan I added a chopped onion and  veg stock to cook for ten minutes then added the chopped squash. Once cooked I added a couple of teaspoons of cornflour to thicken it a little then blitzed the lot.

End result was a really lovely tasty soup which I sipped from a mug and had with some hot toast. Plenty left for lunch another day.

I continued into the afternoon with prepping our meals for today and tomorrow. I made a meat lasagne and a quorn veggie lasagne. The veggie lasagne was made first and I had a good amount of sauce leftover so this was mixed with a portion of bolognese sauce and a container of leftover fajita veg I found in the freezer to make the meat lasagne. Freezer cleared of a few more containers : )    I then made some pastry and made a tuna, broccoli and sweetcorn plate pie.

My fridges are looking quite empty today and the girls are moaning we have no food in. I've told them we have everything in we need to make all our meals until Monday. If you ask me, I say it's good fridge management because I will have no waste when it's time to do my shopping again and I will have plenty of room in the fridge for the new groceries.

Another glance out the window and it's now snowing and laying : (    Don't like snow when I've to drive in it. I've got my voluntary job in the morning and my night shift tomorrow night so I hope we don't get too much snow.

What happened?

What happened to my brioche dough? Yes I did put yeast in.The bloody stuff hasn't moved all day. guess that's going in the bin. I hate wasting ingredients and there's no way I can salvage the bread so it's bye bye and try a different recipe next time.

I didn't even bother putting it into a tin because it didn't even rise in the bread maker so I just slapped it on a tray. My hot cross buns are as big as the brioche dough. At least they came out lovely they never fail me the recipe's here   Oops, I made 10 hot cross buns and there are only 9 now. Wonder where that went : )

With me hating to waste food I have had a day of eating leftovers and fruit no one else will touch.

Breakfast - Small bowl branflakes and skimmed milk with a manky banana

Lunch - Leftover from Saturdays meal, mushroom & pepper curry and boiled rice
              Toasted hot cross bun, oops

Dinner - Pea & ham spaghetti which I shall have without ham. The meal will use a portion  of ham
               from the freezer.

packup for my night shift - Boiled egg salad sandwich, apple and a cup-a-soup  

Menu Week 06/02/12

MONDAY - Leftover roast chicken in gravy, mash, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots & cabbage

TUESDAY - Ham & pea spaghetti with homemade garlic bread

WEDNESDAY - Left over creamy beef & potato layer(in freezer) with steamed veg

THURSDAY - Tuna & sweetcorn plate pie, homemade chips and peas

FRIDAY - Omelet, jacket potatoes and homemade coleslaw

SATURDAY - Lasagne, salad and homemade garlic bread

SUNDAY - Roast chicken, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, stuffing & steamed veg

Did not manage to stick to £55 this week. It was one of those weeks when everything ran out, washing powder, loo roll, coffee etc so the final bill came to £62.07. Must try harder next week.

Hubby had the day off work today. He wanted to change the locks on our doors to some very high security locks which he had ordered after our neighbours incident last week. He also wanted to fit extra security stuff to the conservatory and do some other bits with the house alarm. It's like Fort Knox here. All he wants to do now is fit a higher gate to the rear of the garden but that will have to wait until next payday.

WEIGHT LOSS

Start weight - 12stone 1.5lb

Today's weight - 11stone 11.5lb

Loss - stayed the same : (

Total loss - 4lb

It's my own fault I've lost nothing this week. I've not been as careful this week and it's shown. Slipped back to having toast and butter on a few mornings and had a few puds last week so got to pull myself together and concentrate. It does not help with it being totm and wanting comfort food. I will try harder but I do struggle with dieting.

Right off to get my boots on and venture out into the cold night to take Sherlock for his walk.
Bye for now x

Snow!

Had the grandaughters stay last night and there was great excitement when the snow started to fall. Hubby was getting a bit worried about driving in the snow as it was coming down quite fast and he was the chauffeur for his mum, dad and aunt last night as they were going out for a meal to celebrate my father-in-laws 75th birthday. Thankfully they were not out too late and the snow had calmed down when he had to go and collect them from the restaurant.

This morning I found grandaughter No1 jumping on her bed looking out of the window at the snow. She was so excited and wanted to go out straight away. I thought 7.20am was a little too early to let a screaming child wake our neighbours on  a weekend morning so we went out at a more respectable 9.15am. I took Sherlock for his morning walk at 8.00am to lovely snowy and foggy views.

About 4-5 inches of snow

The sun trying to peep through the fog

Sherlock's footprints the first in the snow

A beautiful spiders web on my birdtable

We all had a lovely play in the snow except my youngest grandaughter who would not stand on the snow! We cleared the driveway and walked Sherlock in the snow. All this called for some comfort food for tea. I made Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls mushroom stoup from his new cookery book Veg.

It was very tasty and filling with dumplings. All this was followed with  apple crumble and custard, yum. Feeling quite tired now after a busy weekend with the grandaughters. Time to relax now and watch a bit of TV  : )

Freebies

Hi there : )

Passing time away on my laptop whilst at work. Yes I get paid to mess on my laptop whilst working, honest. Tonight is a very quiet night with my patient who is no trouble at all and to compare it with last Friday night at work it is a total opposite. Last Friday I cried all the way home from work then cried again when Hubby asked how work had gone. It was such a mentally intense and draining situation I  was in last week that I would not want to repeat it again in a hurry. It was the longest nine hour shift I had ever done. Don't get me wrong. I am not a softy who gets weepy about my job, when I blubbed all the way home last week that was the first time in years I have done anything like that. So it's a relief to have a shift that is simple and uncomplicated.

So to pass the time away whilst I sit next to my patient I have been looking on Martins moneysavingexpert site at this http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/free-photo-prints I have sorted a card for my son-in-laws birthday and got it totally free!  You don't have to buy a valentine card as the title suggests. If you scroll further down the page you can get a card from Bonusprint for 60p which I intend to do. I'm also going to take advantage of one of the other offers on the page for 50 free prints. I want to have printed pictures of my daughters wedding party from last May and make a little paper gift with them for their first wedding anniversary. Can't beat free stuff.

I worked in the charity shop I volunteer at this morning. I finished at 12.30 and started to walk to the back of the shop and I don't know how I did it but I somehow slid and broke the heel of my shoe! My lovely shoes are now in the bin. My daughter was disappointed when I told her over tea as she wore them many a time to go out in. Thankfully I had my work shoes in the car so wore those to get home. Guess what I'll be looking out for in the charity shop next week?

Off to catch up on some blogs now,
Bye for now x

On guard

I saw a police van at one of our neighbours house this morning and wondered what had happened. About an hour later there was a knock at the door and a police woman was stood there. Apparently our neighbour had been burgled through the night whilst they and their children slept. They had also taken both their cars too! She asked if I had heard anything or seen anyone around lately that looked unusual. I heard nothing and hadn't seen anything unusual over the last few days. She did advise us to make sure we took our keys to bed with us each night. So as of today I am going to leave a container on our stairs into which we shall put phones, purses and keys and the last person upstairs shall bring the container.

I know we are told to never leave our keys downstairs but you never think it's going to happen to you. With this happening so close to home it makes it all so real and you realise it can happen to anyone. So please start this little habit if you don't already do so.

Today I made a large pot of mince and onion in the slow cooker. To bulk it out I added a handful of lentils and a large grated carrot with plenty of chicken stock that I had in the fridge. I made a pie with some of the mince mixture which we ate for tea tonight. I had enough scraps of pastry to make a mini quiche case to pop in the freezer too.

I have a large amount left to have with jacket potatoes another day. If any's left I'll freeze this to use in some other dish another time. Off to eat my tea now : )