Tesco splurge

 

Hair cut day for me today! ✂ I got it all chopped off, much easier to look after.  I grew it longer for the wedding but truthfully long hair is a faff I just can't be bothered with!! 😂 Even my hairdresser was stunned at the length.  Cost me £55 plus tip for a cut and blow dry.  It's worth it for me as I probably won't get it cut again this year, I'll grow it out a bit until I'm fed up with it again!

Since I parked in the Tesco car park for free, I popped in to see if they had any yellow stickers.  There wasn't a great discount off the meat but as their slogan says it all helps.  I've already cooked this mince off with some bendy grated carrots and red lentils.  I got 4 generous portions for the freezer.

I also got some beef strips.  I split the 375g pack into 3 generous portions and froze them raw.  I don't normally freeze meat raw but thought it would be easier to stir fry raw so it stays tender.  I could probably have got 4 portions but I'm really craving beef atm as I rarely have it.

I also bought a cotton dress in their sale, reduced to £20.  It's so comfy and cool with a shirred back which is my favourite style right now.  No faffing with zips/buttons and it stretches to accommodate my expanding girth!!!! 😱😂

I had £7.50 worth of vouchers so that covered the meat.  But the dress was a wee splurge! 

Is this a new thing?

 

Or did I just not know that you can pay your car tax monthly by direct debit? 🚗  It costs £9 extra over the year (or 75p a month) but right now having £180 in my bank account is needed more.  This way I never need to remember to pay it, just like my TV license.  I'm trying to move as many of my expenses over to DD as I can so I can budget each month accordingly.

Luna has 3 days left until she gets the all clear from the vet to resume 'normal' activities.  I got her a surgical suit so I could take off the cone.  It was driving her (and me!!) insane.  She's definitely a bit calmer.  It's a hideous colour/pattern but all I could get in her size 😂

Rhubarb and coconut custard

 

Today's main meal was 2 of the free lamb burgers and half a pack of the Mediterranean veg.  I just chucked it all on a baking sheet and cooked it in the oven.  Oh my goodness, so much fat/liquid came out of the burgers!!  I had to mop it up a few times with kitchen paper.  They were nice but nothing special and not worth the £5 price tag!  Good job they were free!!  I still have 2 more in the freezer so will cook them separately next time.

I really fancied something sweet afterwards.  I didn't have any milk or enough milk powder to make custard so had a look in the storecupboard.  I used half a block of creamed coconut and 400ml of hot water to make coconut milk as per the instructions on the pack.  Then I made custard in the usual way and served it with the last of the rhubarb from the freezer.  It was really good.  I'll def do that again.  I was rather pleased with myself at my ingenuity! 😂😂

A very rare moment with Luna sleeping!!  She's more or less behaving like she hasn't had surgery.  She keeps trying to do zoomies in the living room and the garden 😱  She's wearing her harness all day now as she can slip her collar (and cone) no matter how tight I make it!  She knows when I'm trying catch her to hold her to calm her down and grabbing the harness makes it easier.  She's absolutely furious at being kept calm!!!  She's finished the painkillers but is still on the sedatives.  Frankly they're not that effective...

...except within the first hour!!  She fell asleep mid bite! 🙄🤣

Free (ish) food

 

After dropping Luna off at the vet this morning (she was furious I hadn't fed her!!)  I popped into town as I needed to do bank stuff etc.  The PIN machines in the bank still weren't working after last week's worldwide computer glitch so I got a paper receipt for my transactions.  Not had one of those in a very long time!!  I had a £6 M&S voucher which was my quarterly reward for using their credit card so it's basically 'free' money.  I paid 1p for the above veggies.  Green beans, spinach and Mediterranean veggies for the freezer and broccoli for the fridge.

I went to the community food place and got 4 lamb burgers, mange tout and tenderstem broccoli for free.  I joined their Pantry Club (£2) so I can now shop in the Pantry.  You can shop for 5 items each time for £2 (I think!) but I didn't buy anything today as I had plenty of food from elsewhere.

I went to the Bureau de Change as I found some old US dollars in a wallet.  I wasn't even sure if they still legal but they were!  So my $43 were exchanged for £30.27.  I went to Waitrose (as that's the free car park I use) and spent it on some stocking up items.  There were some yellow sticker bargains!  I got 2 packs of cubed venison (now bubbling away in the Crockpot) 2 packs of sausagemeat and a rump steak as I had no meat or fish in the freezer.  I treated myself to some fresh Scottish strawberries but that wasn't included in the dollar money.

I had the steak sliced and stir fried with some mange tout and broccoli.  It was delicious!! 😋 A real treat as I just don't buy steak any more.

Luna's home and feeling very sorry for herself.  She's still doped up and woozy from the drugs so she's very sleepy and calm.  For now...

What else can Luna get up to?

 

Earlier this morning Luna ate a wasp!  She was nosing and playing with something on the deck then spat it out.  It was a wasp (or similar looking beastie) and it tried to crawl away.  As soon as I said her name she grabbed it and ran.  And swallowed it in the process!  No side effects so far...

Then when we went our morning walk she ate some poo 💩  Some dogs are prone to this but she's never shown any interest previously.  Yet another thing I need to watch closely when we're out!! 

But the best news is for some reason I mixed up the dates of Luna's op and my hair cut.  I did write them on my calendar but it was tucked away in the drawer.  Thank goodness my vet does text reminders of their appointments!!!  She gets her op tomorrow, not in 10 days!  Yikes 😱

And the calendar is now up on the wall! 📅

Standing still

 

It feels like life is at a bit of a standstill until Luna has her op (10 more days!) and can go back to daycare.  As she is so demanding I've stopped all attempts at decorating.  She has so much energy and is the kind of dog the more exercise she has, the more excited she gets!  Last night she had the zoomies, threw herself off the deck at speed and face planted onto the slabs 🙄 It would have been funny if there hadn't been blood!  She's fine but she's got a wee skint chin. And was feeling sorry for herself!

The weather has been very weird here.  It's warm and humid with lots of rain.  I haven't seen a blue sky for ages, it's always cloudy.  My pots are doing ok but this is the first rose to come out.  It's a bit small but it's so pretty!

There's not even a hint of colour on the blueberry bushes and there aren't many berries at all this year.  I picked the first berries on this day last year! HERE.  Other than cutting the grass and keeping on top of the weeds, I've not done much actual gardening.  Especially as the pollen count is very high and my hayfever is really bad.

In the last few weeks, I've discovered a wee bit more about the previous owners.  They haven't redirected their mail 👀  Anything with their actual names on it I've put back in the post with 'not known at this address' on it.  But I've opened the other ones to find out they didn't have a TV license and were being threatened with a final demand before court proceedings.  They had a TV in every room and there's a huge Sky dish on the front of the house.  So they def watched TV!!  There was also an unpaid parking fines letter that said bailiffs would be visiting if they didn't get in touch.  I've had this before in a previous house so I know I just need to show them ID to prove it's not me.  So I'm not worried about it.

I've met a few of my new neighbours and they've all made comments about the state of the house and how I'm getting on with it.  It seems the previous owners were the talk of the street!! 

Rhubarb and custard

 

I had some rhubarb in the freezer from the allotment.  I had picked some on one of the few visits I made this year.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to make jam or chutney so chucked it in the freezer.  Today I thought some stewed rhubarb and custard would be nice.

I knew I had an unopened tin of Birds custard powder lurking in the storecupboard but didn't realise it was a little out of date!!  No worries, I'll be using it any way.  So I made some custard and it's currently cooling.  I'll make a sort of rhubarb/custard fool dessert 😋 Just out of interest I googled 'uses for custard powder' and found these ideas HERE.  I'm definitely going to try the biscuits/cookies!

As I'm a bit limited in what I can safely do with Luna around, I decided to move my bedroom furniture around to create more space.  I moved my bed to the wall that backs on to the semi next door.  

As I was lying in bed the falling off wallpaper was really annoying me.  So I started pulling it off.  It came off in strips and I had stripped the room in 5 minutes!!

I had my bed against this wall facing the window from day 1 but it made the room feel smaller.

The walls under the blue wallpaper had previously been painted cream.  I remembered that I had 3 rolls of Laura Ashley wallpaper with a pink and cream design.  I've had it at least 14 years!!!  I'm going to use it behind the bed as the feature wall and paint the rest cream.  Zero cost as I already have a ton of magnolia paint leftover from decorating the flat.  I'll swap the purple headboard for the leather one I had in my previous bedroom and use the matching chests of drawers.  The cream chests of drawers will get donated and I'll have more space to move around the room!

Orange and blue

 

Here are the almost finished bookends.  I think they need another coat of wax.  The Harry Potter figures are temporarily fixed to the holes but you get the effect.  Pre painted cast iron bed thingies HERE.  The bookends are to hold my HP books which will sit on top of the blue and orange bookcase beside a painting of a niffler.  In case you didn't know, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan!!! 🪄

The bookcase is painted and varnished.  I had the bright idea 😱 to paint the wall behind it before I moved it back into place and put all the books back.  Yeah, that's a much bigger job than I thought!!  It's going to take several coats of paint to get rid of that brown/mocha/coffee colour!  You can see the painting where I got the orange and blue inspiration.

I'm trying to do some 'nice' crafty things in between the hard graft bits so I don't get too scunnered by doing it all on my own.  

Accidental collection!

The 2 green plates in the photo were rescued from my hoarder uncle's house when we cleared it out in 2020.  They were obviously my Gran's and I just loved them.  They're Carlton Ware circa 1950s, maybe a bit earlier according to my research.  I had them displayed in the dining room of my old house and my DIL loved them too.

Last week she found a teapot, sugar bowl and salt/pepper set in a charity shop and messaged me.  They were £12 for the set and she wondered if I'd like them.  I said "get them!" and now I'm kinda collecting them! 😂😂😂

I spent some time last night researching the patterns.  It's Carlton Ware Australian Design on a green background and the flower designs are Primula and Wild Rose.  The surface and flowers are raised.  They were made in green, yellow and white and have different flower designs.  If you look at the salt and pepper set they are actually the Foxglove design.  They're not particularly valuable although a similar teapot and sugar bowl is for sale on Etsy for £45.  I like them because they connect me to my Gran and I do think they're pretty.

So today my DIL was in a charity shop and saw this!!  

It looks like a bonbon dish!  The label said £5 x 2 but the second item couldn't be found.  So she paid £2.50 for it!!

So the collection is already growing! 😁  I have no idea how to display them and I do want to use them (carefully!!) so any suggestions welcome! 

Reality sets in

 

The first few weeks in a new house are always scary and exciting in equal measure as you get to know it's quirks.  Unfortunately most of this house's quirks need money thrown at them 🙄  And the reality of not having much savings in reserve to deal with them is beginning to sink in.  The integrated fridge freezer was beginning to be very erratic temperature wise and was making loud banging noises 😲 So I made the decision to buy a free standing one that will be more energy efficient and will hopefully last a good few years.  But it wasn't in my plan to spend £300 on an appliance so quickly.

My shed is in place!  It took them 45 mins from start to finish!!  The guy said all the hard work is in the construction in their workshop but I was still impressed.

I've started moving all the DIY and garden stuff in already.  Not shown is the new lawnmower I had to buy as the grass was almost knee high in places!!  I've not needed one for over 20 years!  It lives on the right hand side.  I've bought some shelving for the left hand side to store more stuff.  £121 for the lawnmower, £890 for the shed and £35 for shelving.  It's all adding up 😭

My DIL shared a good £1.50 Lidl veg box with me!  She's really enjoying scoring all the bargains 😂

I got the tomatoes, green peppers, a cucumber, the lemon and the carrot.  She also scored a dozen reduced eggs so I got 6 of those too.

I prepped the peppers and carrot with some red onions and sliced the lemon.  It's all in the new freezer now!  I made a chunky tomato sauce with the tomatoes, some onions and seasoning.  When it's cool I'll freeze it too.  I'm going to have to get used to having much less freezer space 🥶 I think more shelf stable storecupboard supplies are going to be the way forward for me.