A Bit more Faffing and Memories

 in the Pantry.  Locating stuff from the Dining room and popping it in the Pantry out of the way for use in due course. Last night in the Dining room I found my Menu Planner which  I have had for several years but not really used.  I need to get some chalk and decide where it is going to be hung.  I think at the moment on the back of the Pantry door (however that could change).  I have little free wall space in the kitchen.  I am still liberating items as I find them though.  I must say it is lovely walking into a tidy Pantry again.  Now over the next few days or weeks to get this Pantry how I want it or what I can do with what space I have.

Over the years I have acquired items and objects that can either be re-purposed or re-used for my home and I have been building Pantry items for quite some time.  Upstairs somewhere in the back bedroom I have a collection of old Sweet tins etc. all of which will in due course play a part in the Pantry everyday. I always plot and plan for things, gathering as I go. Once the Pantry is finally sorted after all the additional decorating and clearance work has been completed I hope to get some of my lovely and useful pieces into the Pantry to perform the tasks they were bought for.

Growing up in the countdown before Christmas when I was a child, Mum and Dad used to buy into the "Club". This was for a Christmas Hamper for some goodies for Christmas eating and also drinking like so many families did during the sixties as things were very different back then. It was what it was a means to an end to have a few treats. There was no such thing as credit then - you had to pay up front. The Club would often be Littlewoods or a company like that, where you would make a weekly payment towards what you were ordering and then once you had paid for it, would be delivered on a designated date just before Christmas.  Often there would be a tin of biscuits in with the Hamper and the tins for those baskets over the years used to be re-used for putting cakes or pastry in, for storage within the Pantry.  Old habits and rhythms die hard with me habits of my Nan and my Mum still being perpetuated even to this day.  I have many "Treasures" lurking and I am trying to liberate some of those as I go along and using what I have in-house to do that.

The Pantry (well my Nan's Pantry) also housed all sorts of China, glass, cooking pans and useful kitchen equipment that were not used regularly.  My Nan's Pantry was long with hooks on one side of the wall for hanging stuff and then shelving four deep down the other side of the wall to about just above the waste.  There was a large meat safe located at the bottom of the Pantry.  Hers was white and red outlining on it. Jars, bottles and full and empty Demijohns also used to be stored on the floor the same side of the shelves. There were also hooks on the ceiling for hanging meat (they used to cure their own meat when I was younger). There was a practical terracotta tiled floor as well.  Shopping bags (not plastic ones) proper straw baskets and bags used to be stored on hooks on the back of the door.  No space was wasted.

However the Faffing is the icing on the cake bit for me.  I love this side of homemaking, and making things look nice. There is always so much potential waiting to be discovered and liberated.

Last evening as well as some Faffing, I also set too and did a few more kitchen tasks.  I have prepped up some more dry bread for making breadcrumbs.  I also "rubbed" and bagged up the last batch of Black Peppermint which was hanging on the Dresser.  I also set too and trimmed the dried stems down as well as they are destined to go into some fire lighters which I hope to make shortly from odds and ends.  They have also been bagged up.  I shall look to see if I can get another picking of mint out of the garden tomorrow. Just a couple of little jobs that take place, but often just happen on a regular basis in the background.

I am still continuing to put items into the Pantry out of the way. The bulk of it is tidied but these items will be sorted more thoroughly when the under-stair cupboard has all been sorted out.

Current Plans

The Dining Room is a walk through room often used as the dumping room and currently houses my ironing pile.  There are also other things in there which need sorting and I am slowly starting to tackle those items.  The ironing has been started but need to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully that will be tomorrow evening for a couple of hours.  I have in the interim bagged up the ironing to be done, (I then re-use the bin bags elsewhere when empty) but it helps when there is a lot of ironing as I work through bag by bag and it does not overwhelm as much as a big heap does!

Tomorrow I plan to go under the stairs and start emptying this out so that G can lay the new flooring later in the week (realistically probably at the weekend may be after). I will work at it until it is clear (no time limit at the moment) and then we can set too and renovate that and tidy it up a bit.  I plan on patching up the plaster, rubbing down and painting it to tidy it up.  The shelves will get covered with a PVC vinyl. G can then do his stuff with the flooring.  I can then sort out and restock my preserves.  This includes moving the bottles and jars from the Main Pantry. This hopefully will make everything clean, tidy and more accessible long term and means that I will be dealing with items and sorting them out as I go along.  

Looks like the kitchen is going to be messy and tidy, messy and tidy for the best part of the week.  Once the under-stair cupboard has been "renovated", will be back to the main bathroom.  This week's project (or just over) the under-stair cupboard will take as long as it will take.  I am pleased and grateful for the flooring having been put down in the smallest room and also the Pantry this week.  It has cleaned things up beautifully. The Pantry has also been cleaned and stuff put back in there but feasibly cannot do more until under-stairs is completed.  It is a great start though.

Going on in the background is the constant whirr of the washing machine. I also need to use the Tumbler which is in the dining room for some items, and so that area will also need clearing so that I can access this. Indirectly and on top of this the Dining room is being "tidied" in stages and hopefully the clearing will enable me long term to then strip this room, decorate out and put new flooring down in here as well. That is a way off at the moment though.

Now to get stuck in again and see what another fine mess I can get myself into.  

Catch you later.

Pattypan

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