Funny Old Day

 Where I have been a tad on the chilly side, despite wrapping warmly in sweatshirt and joggers which is my usual household cleaning gear, perhaps with the odd old pair of jeans.  If we go out then I dress more respectably but for cleaning and me being me and generally getting messy this does just fine.  They may not be the trendy thing to wear but they keep me warm.

It has been a gentle pottering day, washing, getting stuff dry, getting something to eat midday then going off to Home Bargains.  I had run out of washing powder, stain remover and fabric conditioner.  

Today I bought double quantity of said items as the boxes they had available were not the size that I normally have so I am hoping that they will last me a couple of months. 

Well, that is what I went for but a few more items always find their way into the trolley as well although I do try and keep a lid on it.

I must say that I quite like Home Bargains.  It is a shop that I cannot get to easily and in effect I only manage to get there once every 6 weeks/a month at the earliest as OH has to take me.   I prefer by choice Persil either non-bio or bio, I quite like Fairy and also Bold and sometimes Surf.  You have to go with what you can get though.  Today I was fortunate to get my favourite the Persil. I also bought a big bottle of conditioner and also a separate conditioner.  I also use white vinegar as a conditioner especially if I have done a boil wash as it whitens the whites up.  I also managed to get two large tubs of the Oxi stain remover, which I use a lot elsewhere as well.

I also buy dishcloths (the reusable boilable ones), dustbin liners as the quality and price is still a lot cheaper.

They are also very good with their prices on foil, baking parchment, etc.  Today I located zip locker bags which I have needed, but I was not prepared to pay the prices the Co-Op wanted £2.50 per pack of bags and if you bought three sets of bags you got them for the price of two.  The zip lock bags in Home Bargains are 89p per box irrespective of size.  In the smaller size there are 20 bags and in the larger bags there are 15.  My reason for wanting these is that they are needed for my homemade Pantry mixes.  I would prefer glass jars, but I do not have the room to store them, so for the few mixes I am going to put up for myself, I thought a couple of baskets with the zip lock bags and their contents would be easier. There will be more on this later on.  That is my plan in any event.

I have more or less stopped buying cleaning stuff from the local Co-Op as the prices they are charging have gone sky high and they never seem to have what I am after in any event.

I always look at the food items when I go into Home Bargains.  They seem to have some good offers generally on food all round. Today's bargain for me was the Anchor spreadable butter; The Co-Op and Waitrose have been charging £5 a pot for this.  Home Bargains currently have it on offer at £3.50 a pot.  Therefore, two tubs came home with me.  Two pots at the Co-Op or Waitrose would currently cost me £10.  Therefore, the £3 saving will go towards something else.  Better in my pocket than the supermarket.

Last night I brewed up the Sloes and Crab apples and then have left them to soak.  The colour is now much deeper and the mixture will be boiled up again and then left in a jelly bag overnight.  I have the same to do with Crab apples and Rosehips as well.  They will then get finished off tomorrow evening.

The first photo shows the apples and sloes as I left them to cool last night.

The second photo is the colour the mixture was this morning.  It looks red in the photo, but it is a pinker red colour.  I think it will make a super looking jelly.

Tonight, for tea we have had another old faithful, Cottage Pie.  It has been cold here today and the beauty of this simple food is that it warms you from the inside out.  Comfort food of the highest order.  It has gone down very well, and there is another portion each for tomorrow evening or for midday.

Lastly, I have checked on my wines to see how they are progressing.  They are still working, going plink, plink plop, but not as quickly as they were doing, which shows that the fermentation is starting to slow down.  I shall keep an eye on these and if there is no sign of action. I shall then filter them and change the bottles before leaving for a short while, and then actually bottling up.  The wines all seem to be clearing very nicely and have lovely colours particularly the Blackberry wine.

Surely and slowly therefore things are moving along quite nicely, and things are getting sorted in their own time and motion.

Right am off to potter.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

x