I’d not heard of this company before, but I like the site because it’s free and it works! You can buy or sell just about anything as well as advertise a job.
they also have a good music self help community that is worth a look!
Mobile Phone Deals: Ongoing quest
This is another of my research pages. Feel free to add any sources that I’m not monitoring, and I’ll.. get round to it- possibly- one day- maybe.
Virtual High Street: Rusty’s Chocolate Shop
Hotel Chocolat provide luxury goodies to your door, as do The Chocolate Tasting Club
There are also a lot of nice hampers available from various suppliers here
Meanwhile, Amazon’s latest deals are
Bargain Groceries: An ongoing quest.
I am getting lazier, and am having more and more stuff delivered, but you often have to buy large quantities to get the best prices. This page holds a lot of my research widgets- tools that scour various sites for bargains. Feel free to use it for yourselves.
First, Food
Next booze
now cleaners etc
Finally for now, Pet Food
Playing with pastry!
I’m not a great pastry chef, but I know my limits, and I know that the pastry I make myself is a lot nicer than the pre-prepared stuff the supermarkets sell.
Pastry is one of those dishes that does require a bit more than just skill- you need a ‘feel’ or a knack, so don’t be downhearted, just learn from those who do it better, and keep practicing.
I’ve only ever tried simple shortcrust pastry, and it works well for what I was up to this time. I was making leek and Gouda quiche, and jam tarts.
A quiche is mostly filling, as are the tarts, so my clumsy pastry has places to hide. I make my pastry in my food processor, and its ideal for such basic baking.
I learned quite a lot from this cooking session, and the next gouda and leek quiche I do won’t have gouda in it– more likely emmanthal, as its a better taste with the eggy goo and the leeks. I also learned that its a good idea to arrange the strips of leek in a way that makes wedges easy to cut. Plonking them in randomly looks great, but makes the dish hard to serve.
The jam tarts taught me nothing I didn’t know, but as usual I had to be reminded about how much hot jam can burn!
So, there is a a full recipe on the way, but I have to play some more. That’s where the joy is, in experimentation and learning. Share what you learn, and enjoy it too.
Please play- If we were professional chefs, it would be ‘practicing’, but we just love food and enjoy seeing the people we cook for happy, so get covered in flour and water and practice your pastry. You’ll make your loved one happy- in the long run.
If it all goes a bit wrong- feed it to the dogs and try again.
Virtual High Street: BHS or British Home Stores
BHS are perennial shopping favorites!
Enjoy their latest offers!
Feed the Birds!
We do enjoy feeding our local birds- or at least we enjoy the bird feeder in our garden, but bird food is expensive- a bit more than tuppence a bag!
I’ve been hunting around, and what I’ve found knocks spots off B&Q and the like.
There are some bargains on Trade Doubler, but these change daily, and watch out for crafty postage costs.
Lillebro Wild Bird Food – 3 x 4 kg is another option bought to you by Zoo Plus Online Pet Store
More than 7000 Pet Products
Free Delivery on Orders over £19
www.zooplus.co.uk/pet_store
There is also Pet Supermarket
But the cheapest seed per kilogram seems to be ‘Amazon’ at the moment!
I’ll be buying this next week– race me too it!
Meanwhile— if its Fat balls
The following photos were all taken in our garden! If we can do it, so can you.
Virtual High Street: Bargain Crazy
Bargain crazy are one of the Internet’s biggest clearance outlets
Please find below Bargain Crazys latest fantastic voucher codes valid until midday Monday 20th February …
Free delivery on orders over £30 – WDELIVERY
10% off everything – WTEN
Save £5 when you spend £20 – WSAVE5
Allotment update: 13th Feb- the first day of the year!
Happy new year fellow allotmenteers!
It’s time to start all over again. The circle begins here and now. Ok, I know things never stop, and there is chard, rocket and artichokes to harvest, but for me, the year starts the day I set my tomatoes, and this year, that’s today.
No celebratory drinking though, as I’m taking Beth to and from her darts match, and tomorrow we’re marking Valentines Day with a walk by the river then a visit to the plot to dig and set out the sweet peas followed by a big feed of Steak for me and chicken for Beth.
We’re not Christian, but St Valentines day is fun. Nobody actually knows which of the fourteen ‘Saints Valentine’ we are commemorating, and typically the Catholic Church only agreed on the date in the late ’60′s as a card retailer was in danger of secularizing the sacred memory of one or all of the saints. Other churches still disagree.
Little is known of many of the ‘Valentines’, but as of 13th February 2012, the Saint Valentine Wikipedia page tells us
The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine, the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner – until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor – whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.
Anyway– I’m digressing, I suspect St Valenting is going to make it into ‘366 Reasons to Party‘ however.
This blog is about growing stuff. My tomatoes are now set, and will be ready for pricking out in a couple of weeks. My year has started.
I’m growing two varieties,
and
The plan is not to use grow bags this year, and keep stuff outside as much as possible so we’re not tied to the green house- we shall see.
I’ve also set my Butternut Squash. Conventional wisdom has this planted under glass in April, but I’ve yet to get the plants to fruit, so I’ve put them on the bedroom windowsill six weeks early- watch this space!
