The above photo is by The Kilted Photographer, a stunning aerial view of the Wallace Monument yesterday. The same monument I see from my allotment plot 😊
It's been a very cold icy week here (-9 degrees C at times) We had a burst water main nearby and the school was closed for an afternoon as we had no water. I had reduced water pressure but many houses were without water for a few hours. The burst pipe pumped out 1000 litres of water per minute for many hours. Then it all froze solid!
It snowed for the first time yesterday. Snow lying on top of ice made for very dangerous driving conditions. In fact, I had to walk to work as I decided my wee car just wouldn't make it safely out of my drive, down the hill and then back up another longer hill to get to the main road. It's normally a 25 min walk but took me about 40 mins to trudge through the snow. I was late for work for the first time ever! I enjoyed the walk but the really cold air has aggravated my lungs and I've got my non stop cough back! 🙄
I got a few decent yellow stickered bargains earlier in the week when I popped into Tesco. These ones were for my son and DIL.
These were for me! The chilli chicken was very nice (did 2 meals for me) and we're trying the Chinese sauce on some duck fillets and prawns I already have in the freezer for tomorrow's meal 😋 It's just luck when trying to get yellow sticker stuff but I've noticed when the weather has been bad there are more bargains!
I've been experimenting with cooking stuff on top of my woodburner. There's not enough space to put a kettle or large pan. But there's room for a couple of our small pans to boil water. Here I put some sliced peppers in a bit of oil and they sizzled nicely until they were cooked! I also tried a wee enamel pie dish with stuffing mix and it cooked beautifully too. It was interesting to see on the news that many folks are trying to get a woodburner installed to save money on heating bills. There's a waiting list until March apparently!
I got my Christmas dinner meat and fish delivered from Wild and Game HERE I've used them before. They're expensive but their stuff is ethically sourced and afterall, it's Christmas! My son and I are having the 3 bird roast and my DIL is having the wild halibut. I think I'll do the venison for New Year's day. I got the pate as it took my order up to free postage!! It's been a while since I've eaten pate but it's rather delicious!
I now have 2 full days and 2 half days of teaching left. I'm hanging on for dear life. At the moment I'm wondering if they'll be my last days of teaching full stop as I'm so burnt out. We'll see 💔
It feels like the world and the weather are out to get us all, I slipped on the ice the other day and all through the journey home in Alan's car all we could hear were the wails of ambulance sirens as they rushed to others.
ReplyDeleteI do hope you can make the decision about your teaching and that your other opportunity comes to fruition. There's nothing worse than total burn-out.
Lots of sirens here too :-( It's the icy conditions rather than the snow that's the worst. I've not moved my car since Thursday as my hilly road is just too slippery. I'm quietly making plans for any scenario if I decide I just can't teach any more.
DeleteWe've gone from black ice, yesterday, to flooding today. Not sure which is worse.
ReplyDeleteCan you go part-time? Hang on and enjoy the Christmas break.
It's very worrying this rush to wood burners. Many people don't know how to use them properly. We're already seeing increases in call outs to chimney fires in our area. Apart from the fact that burning trees at a much faster rate than they can ever hope to grow is a bad idea, the air pollution from poorly run wood burners is terrible. I live in a valley and when the air is still on winter days you can see a visible pollution layer. It doesn't seem like progress if more and more go back to that.
Not sure if part time would suit me as I would be used to cover classes when staff are absent, often at very short notice. Just as stressful! I think a lot of folk think burning wood is free. It might be for some lucky folk but most of us have to buy it from somewhere and it's not cheap!! Even if you have a free source you still need to chop, store and season it for at least a year. And of course pollution is definitely an issue depending on what you burn!
DeleteWe dug out once, need to dig ourselves out of the snow a second time, before the next storm hits. You are making good use of that wood burner.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I've learned from past experience when I lived very rurally that if you don't dig yourself out when you can, you will get snowed in for weeks at a time!
DeleteI didn't even make it to the end of term! I was off sick the last 2 days! I felt so unwell, haven't felt THAT bad for a long time and still not right!
ReplyDeleteI love bargain reductions- we get some good 'orange sticker' deals in our local coop!
Oh no!! So many bugs and viruses going round again. My work bestie has Covid for the 5th time!!!!!! Hope you feel better soon xxx
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