Unbought Delicacies

Sunday 8 June 2014

Wee bit of vintage glam for a Sunday

Have wanted one of these for a long time, and I'll use it too, to powder my nose..................

At £2.87 it didn't break the bank, and I'll get years of pleasure from it :)

Saturday 7 June 2014

Gone to pot

The gentle and unhurried 'potting on of bits I want to take with me' is ongoing. This afternoon, in the sunshine, I potted up some ransoms and tri-cornered leek, and a lovely wee self-sown elder tree. Rescued several pots of good plants that had been shoved into an unsuitable place by someone, and got them out into the air and light - am sure they can be saved :) A nice package of seeds arrived last week too, to add to my collection. There's a great seller on e-bay that I use quite a lot, with unusual seeds. Funnily enough, he only lives 11 miles away, but I only know him as Derek. I got - sweet lupino beans, gambero verde beans, moth mullein, Egyptian pea bean, Tuscan egg onion, Rapunzel rampion, scuplit, a 'super' cucumber, wild sea cabbage, red-ribbed dandelion, some more kailyard kale and some wild lettuce.

Scuplit is a complete unknown to me. Apparently is a rare Italian culinary herb, hardly known outside of Italy. Am looking forward to having a go at something so unusual next year.

Friday 6 June 2014

So frugal - it's free!

Am getting back into my really frugal habits now - these include entering every free competition and freebie/giveaway I can - providing the prize is one I can use in some way - no interest in the exotic foreign holidays/gadgets/dodgy cosmetics sort of prizes. I've been lucky this week - I won a pile of chocolate Belted Galloway cows in a FB share and like draw, a ticket for 4 to the Food Fair in Clapham (will go to a friend) and a free card/aura reading. Great start to the re-launch of frugality :)
I've also registered and started with several survey companies, so earning a few pounds etc that way too. All free of charge thanks to the internet.
I've also re-joined the local Freecycle group and a couple of similar groups on Facebook. It's all out there if you make the time to search a bit, and have the inclination.

Thursday 5 June 2014

Home again, home again, jiggety jig......................

Got home last night after a few hold-ups with discharge stuff from hospital. Always the simplest things that seem to go wrong, but am here now. Got a week of anti-biotics to go, but am feeling ok :)
Big thanks to everyone for their good wishes and love, helps a lot:)

Just pottering today, as I feel a wee bit fragile, but think it's just adjustment to being home. Have phoned solicitor for an appointment tomorrow to try and get the finance stuff moved forward in the divorce - it's dragging on far too long for my liking - not her fault though. Will see what can be done to shift it.

Managed to more or less stick to my healthy eating plan in hospital, and the smaller portions helped; plenty of water to drink and fresh fruit always available. Had poached salmon on Sunday, but otherwise no meat at all, their vegetarian food is better than their other stuff, and they do very good soups.
Managed to go shopping last night, and have a houseful of fruit and veg now, and lots of salad.

It's a beautiful summer day today, so will go outside and sit for a while I think with a couple of magazines and a cup of tea; have just read of what the weather might do at the weekend here - heavy thundery showers and flash flooding forecast. I'm not going anywhere, so shouldn't affect me directly, but hope people and things stay unscathed by it all.
Packing will resume at the weekend when my hand's a bit better; my latest crochet blanket is almost complete, so would like to get that finished and put away ready. Flowers need changing and there's the biggest cobweb ever in the porch! lol That'll be the extent of my efforts for today I think.

In the meantime, I bought myself a couple of bits for my new kitchen - not expensive, but they cheered me up :)

Hope you are all well and happy :)

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Love

Motherless by choice.....................

Another excellent article from the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-naum/motherless-by-choice_b_5417281.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Sunday 1 June 2014

Travel

I love this :)

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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