TARRAGON & THYME

I started this post last night but got interrupted.   Saturday It has been very cold here today in Peterborough. Autumn has landed in a rush and I just do not know where this very peculiar year has got to.  Lets just say it has passed me by a little bit to say the least. For many months I have been in my own little bubble not needing or wanting to do much just being on my own with OH which has been less stressful for me in many respects but it has thrown up other issues lack of self worth, not counting, having no real purpose. I have been trying to heal myself in a gentle fashion but also trying to re-discover who and what I am and what purpose I have to play in this mortal coil.  Self-doubt and lack of confidence as well as not feeling 100% have not helped. I am a natural loner it is how I am built.  Every so often I become totally overwhelmed and need space and time for myself to heal and regain some equilibrium.  This is time out and something I have to ...

I overslept and have not been able to get on in the dining room again.  Partly because the boxes I need to pack stuff into are dripping wet outside despite being washed and dried yesterday. The weather has been proper-back-endish here today. It is cold and damp and is currently raining with the wind getting up and then dropping again.  I think we are going to have a colder winter than we did last year at this rate.  We walked Missy and it was really cold when we were out and grey. The Rosehips clearly stood out from the bushes against the grey.  I need a dry day to go and collect them though. I need to do my yearly stock of this.  I deseed the pips, chop them in half and then dry them in the dehydrator. They are then ground down to form a powder and a little added to home made Mussli.  Alternatively, to make wine you can dry them with a slit in the side in the oven and then use to make wine when they are dry.  These are long-keeping. Come along better ...

 Slogging away in the dining room.  Slow going.  This evening I have managed to empty out a large storage container of all small tools, get them all washed, found some bits I had forgotten about.  I have been hanging my nose over a Kilner hand coffee grinder.  Oohps good job I have not ordered one I found it this evening.  I also have the butter churner, and the cream whipper.  Would quite like the hand press for small quantities of tomato sauce and ketchup.  I am most definite that I do not have that.  Found a few other things as well.  So it will be an early start tomorrow as yet again I have a lot to do. Predominantly washing out one corner of the dining room, and then it is back to sorting stuff out again.  Must keep at it. As I found the coffee grinder, I bought some beans to grind my own so that I can for a change have a small Cafitiere of coffee with my breakfast. We went to the fish shop in Ramsey this morning rather than go...

I am in the throes of cleaning out the dining room and I am finding all sorts of things I had forgotten I had in there including my big box of Hex Bottles.  They will have to go into the shed which is also destined for a clear out as there is a lot of preserving stuff in the house that really needs to go back into the shed.  It therefore looks as though will have to down tools and get the shed sorted and cleaned out first, in order to get things sorted in the dining room although I still have the two defunct fridges in there.  Local Recycling Centre are still not doing collections. I have nearly 20 demijohns that need to go in the shed somewhere along the line.  Fortunately I do have some deep plastic tubs which they can be stored in on their sides. However I cannot get them in there until the shed is sorted. I also found one of my jelly stands in the dining room and there is another one somewhere together with my older wire ones which I am still keeping.  They ...

I am busy at the moment collecting a few bulbs together in order that I can in the first time for many years have some spring planters to cheer up the outside of the house.  I need cheerfulness around me - something that smacks of bringing in the new, new hope, new promise; it all speaks of positivity, and the dawning of a new day, new year, (and hopefully better year for all of us) new time period but most of all flowers for me promote cheerfulness and if the plants are scented all the more wonderful.  On a grey day, flowers are always vibrant and uplift you. This is something I can do for myself.  With these uncertain times upon us and this pesky, nasty pandemic we can take nothing for granted and so I am where I can putting stuff up so that I can grow some seeds and some flowers.  I had mentioned earlier in the year that I wanted to start a small cutting garden, so seeds, bulbs and plants fit very nicely into this plan. The bulbs are at the moment, ironically squi...

I managed to find reduced tomatoes during the week.  They are now being processed in the Dehydrator to make tomato powder well for this batch at least which can be added into stews, breads etc to give more flavour. I also have two lots of eggs = 24 eggs which I have whipped up and popped into the freezer in fours (6 x pots).  I intend to add to this as a store for future baking and in particular, Christmas baking.  Building it up bit by bit, means that I will have eggs available to me for use (a lesson learned from these unusual times).  We have also picked up a tray of small eggs today a couple of which will be used with my smoked haddock which I am having for tea.  The rest will be day to day use.  By the end of the week if there are any left they will be making it into the freezer as well.  Better to be hands on and practical with our food to save any waste. I also have plans to pickle a couple of trays of eggs in readiness for Christmas. ...

A brand new book with plenty of new pages in. That was the plan, Then I had time to think about it and re-evaluate.  If I used a book I would be restricted on space.  I must tell everyone here and now - I hate restrictions of any kind with a vengeance.  I like to be able to expand things if I want to.  Having that little bit of wriggle room makes all the difference moreover it gives you options.   In retrospect I thought if I changed this to a Lever Arch file this would be easily expandable, especially if the recipes, clippings etc. were contained within plastic sleeves.  This would not only keep the recipes clean, I would also get a clear visual of the recipe and be able to work from it in the kitchen.  The beauty of plastic sleeves and Index cards is that they can be re-arranged if the need arises, re-calibrated, re-Indexed if needed.  I would be able to locate them when I wanted to or re-locate under another section if required. As I...

 We went off in a bit of a hurry but I did better with the things I took to do this time around.  I had popped some hexies into a bag and this time round I was able to sit and start hand-sewing some of these together.  Technically I started this two years ago, but so far I have 12 central panels sewn together.  I am pleased with how they have turned out but I still have a long way to go.  I found that I could not concentrate when the littlies were around so did this when they were out and about.  I intend to use a lot of cream fabric to surround these panels as at the moment I would like these little panels to stand out and "pop" a bit. Here are the little panels I worked whilst away.  It was good to have something in my hands to handwork again and once I got into the rythm of hand sewing the little panels soon grew.  No I need to try and sort out some more cutting before we go away as this would be ideal for me to take.   I also started a cr...

 Is it me, or is autumn quietly slipping in a little earlier than expected.  The Holly tree in the front garden has masses of berries on it already, a country sign that we may well have a cold winter this year. Despite popping off for holidays (we are extremely lucky in that OH has retired) and he wants to see more of this country, I have been gathering things together. Like layers in a spider's web, I am doing things slowly so that I will be able to draw all the layers together and start the preparation for Christmas.  I want to make sure that I am reasonably stocked up compared to last year and I want the puddings and the cakes done with before we go on holiday again in September. At this time of year I predominantly always start stocking up on baking ingredients and dried fruit.  Usually there are offers on which makes it cheaper to do bulk buys. At the moment I have not seen any. I am talking predominantly about ingredients for Christmas cakes and puddings. ...

We are back from our travels and have arrived home just before a horrendous thunderstorm happened just after we got in.  Has come through the back door as was torrential rain and the guttering could not cope. Have had a very interesting break which nearly did not happen for a multitude of reasons. The first was me losing Bumble. The second was my step-daughter's dog has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He came with us as he was supposed to do, he picked up once daughter went to see him and started eating.  He is stable at the moment is on medication and comfortable. He will tell her when he has had enough- or if he is in pain.  He is a lovely gentleman, very gentle and a Staffie. The third was we were all piled in the car+, caravan was packed ready to go and the cable to the tow bar failed.  We nearly had to go home get an engineer out and leave the following day/  Fortunately they had a replacement socket at the caravan suppliers and OH ended up rew...

  Very unexpectedly last night I lost Bumble, brother to Tinky Two.  He had been okay eating and drinking yesterday out of the blue he fitted and passed from this mortal coil, two weeks to the day his sister passed.  He had not been the same since losing her.  RIP little boy you gave so much love and were always sweet natured and always into mischief. You will be missed x

We had a very chilled out day. It was muggy and warm.  OH decided to investigate the fishing and I went with him for a very short while. I then came back to the van with Missy in tow.  She has really made herself comfortable in the van a very spoilt Jack Russell.  She really seems to like it.  Here I have caught her where she should  not be.  The grey cushion to the side is her bed! When I got back to the van I started looking at some of my needlework kits that I had bought with me.  I have covered these in a separate post entitled One thing I did not get right.  I will therefore not duplicate that particular post. I must say that it was really nice to play and be focused for a good four hours or more.  I did go wrong several times with a new kit I had started and run out of thread on the other.  It was a warm day in any event and I had to open up the windows to let the fresh air in and also to cool things down a bit. Whilst I was workin...

Next year will be the year I get sorted properly with the garden.  I say this every year, however this year has been the best so far. However in the interim and very Squirrel like I am popping up lots of bits and bobs for the shelf from ingredients sourced from local shops and supermarkets.  Even though my Pantry has not quite been sorted out or decorated yet but I am getting there. Earlier in the year I had made Rosemary salt to put on my homemade chips.  However a little furry creature called Tinky 2 (recently sadly deceased - although not as a result of spilling the salt) decided to go climbing on one of my dressers where it was stored, knocked it off the shelf, scattered the lot and to add insult to injury broke the vintage glass storage jar I had stored it in.  Grhh little monster. I did love her so though. She was only following her curious nature! I therefore needed to make some more which I have started off from the fresh Rosemary growing in my garden today....

OH had planned on doing maintenance work with electrics today.  Yesterday he had had a successful day with putting in a Membership application for fishing a lake, plus a passport application, taking photos and then doing the applications himself by email.  I was seriously impressed as he normally yells for me to assist.  My little pep talks seem to be sinking in, in that I cannot always do everything.  So carrying on in the same vein he decided to tackle some electrical projects in the house.  I will not touch anything to do with electrics.  We also needed to go to the caravan so on our way we went.  Did what we needed to do and on the way back home the car cut out and shutdown.  Fortunately OH has RAC cover, but getting hold of anyone via mobile phone (we are with Virgin) but the cover in Eye is impossible.  We ended up leaving the car and coming home by taxi.  OH then rang RAC from home and they have promised someone within 90 minutes....

Monday was indeed caravan weather  It was wet and horrible and we put the radio on and listened to Gold station.  I had forgotten to take CDs and DVDs with me in all the palaver we had before going on holiday, but I am going to sort out the missing bits and put them in a stash to take down to the van during this coming week. I don't know about you but I love listening to the radio; I believe my brother does too.  It is a family thing, we tend to have it on for background whilst we are working away at other different things. After checking that the cats were okay (I was anxious about them especially in view of the loss of Tinly Two, but it turned out that they were more than okay.  Well stuffed and being spoilt. Monday was a quiet day because of the weather; we had planned on doing relatively nothing and to use it as chill out time.  We also kept ourselves very much to ourselves; not wanting to impinge on anyone else's personal space. As the weather changed from ...