Quiet, Pottering sort of Day and more plans

Into the New Year gracefully I go.  I am not working at speed at the moment.  I have a lot to do but, I am taking things steadily.

I was not 100% this morning when I rose initially and chose to go back to bed to have a lay in, which developed into a mega lay in but I do not feel guilty about things.  By the time I did get  up I felt a lot better than I had earlier on.  Really felt off colour and out of sorts.  In any event when I did get up I found that low laying Peterborough had sustained a small snow shower.  It would appear that Winter is starting to take her grip although Winters are nowhere near as bad weather-wise as they were when I was a child.  Everything was still frozen up at 2:00pm when I went out to sort the cats dishes and re-stock them.  It is now another cold night.

I did not feel like cooking tonight and therefore G had cold Beef sarnies followed by tinned fruit and cream and Plum loaf.  I had Beauvale Stilton (think its official name is Cropwell Bishop No 2) which is all nice and creamy on some crackers with some of my homemade Christmas Chutney which is an absolute favourite of mine.  I have this on the list to make this month in readiness for Christmas 2026.I have found that the flavour on this Chutney is marvellous if it is left to cure for a few months.  Yes I know we are only just out of Christmas 2025.  

However there are a few very real reasons for me to do a bit at a time where I can and then squirrel it away for Christmas 2026.  These days I am a lot slower than I used to be at doing things and I find I need the peace and the quiet with no distractions when I am working on something.  The other reason is financial.  I have decided that I am going to try and put a little money away each month to go towards Christmas 2026.  This is really more than anything so that I can go buy the ingredients I need for various things at the right time when they are cheaper.  I will then be able to if necessary squirrel away things into the freezer but also get all the preserves that I want put up on the Pantry shelf in readiness for eating and baking throughout the year as well as having a variety of items available to choose from for Christmas. It covers several areas and each preserve gives different options.  Food in the Pantry is often worth more than money in the pocket.  We have to feed ourselves no matter what.  I have therefore decided to look out for offers on both fresh and frozen fruit in particular moving forward as well as other fresh ingredients for turning into preserves whether these come from a Farm shop, or a supermarket.  Each fill a need.  

The preserving will encompass lots of different preserving techniques and styles wine making, homemade liqueur type drinks, chutneys, pickles, curds, jams, marmalades, bottled fruit etc. etc.  However there will be more on that in some future posts yet to come.

One of my issues in 2025 was that I started receiving my pension as of last May.  I had no idea how things would pan out on the money front and this was the first Christmas for me on pension.  In retrospect I should have sorted things a little earlier but I now know how things will run and I am putting measures in place to counteract this. You only really learn by your mistakes.  This was one of the reasons we were concentrating on food and feeding us over Christmas.  Not only did we eat well over Christmas I had also put away a lot of useful items in the freezer for feeding us throughout the month as well.

There are also lots of other things going on here as well.  I need to complete projects that were started last year and get them out the way with.  Yet again though more on that in future posts.

At the moment I am back in the kitchen.  I have started the deep cleaning and am sorting out storage and re-organising.  The usual plan of attack when I start on a deep clean.  I will then be into the Pantry after the kitchen is sorted and start to sort out that and work out a plan of attack for stocking up various items which have been depleted during the past few months.   Hopefully once this has been accomplished, I will then be able to get back into the rhythm of baking and cooking again.  Saying that though I have done an awful lot of cooking over the Christmas period and we have eaten very well thanks to a little bit of careful plotting and planning on my behalf.  G has been surprised at how well we did overall.

The other reason for concentrating on a lot of jobs that need sorting out is that we want to get down to Cornwall this year for a few weeks and I want the house sorted before we get there and I want to get as much done as I possibly can do.

There was a little job that needed doing yesterday and that was to put in a new net curtain in the dining room window.  It was only a simple job - it needed new net curtain wire and new eyes and hooks.  A big window that is not standard size but managed to get that out of the way with.

We are trying to break some of the work down into segments.  I now have the kitchen window to do the same with and the bathroom and that will be the down-stairs windows sorted.  Can then tackle upstairs.

I am still working on my diary and plans for January.  A post has been started but needs filling out a little more then I will post it and then update as new items are added.  Trying to just keep to the one post encompassing the month of January.

Please keep warm and safe wherever you are over these coming days.  I have the hot water bottles out ready to use if necessary as well as quilts and blankets available.  I never quite have got out of the habit of using or having blankets and always have them to hand.

Take care.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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