Life. Is it just a game?

Game of Life?

My Mum and Dad have been having a bit of a sort out of bits and pieces and the other day gave me some bits they thought that I might like. In it was the 70’s could even be 80’s version of “Game of Life”. I used to love playing that game as a family. Of course I was going to keep that and I bought it home with me and put it in the spare room.

A few days later it was early evening, it was bright but had been raining, we had eaten our dinner and were sitting on the sofa. Jon said to me, “what do you want to do this evening then”. Not a question that was out of the ordinary but one not often said. I guess like most of the UK, our evenings are largely consisted of eating dinner, having a small conversation and then vegging out on the sofa watching TV, little cause for discussion or negotiation. When the weather is cold and grey in the winter this can be a comfort but now the nights are getting lighter it can become seemingly boring, like you are striving for something else to do. Thing is I work from home and life, work wise and my days are not that taxing so I don’t like to push Jon into doing anything after he has been at work all day. I know how draining that can be let alone the 45 minute drive home so I kind of let him chill.

Anyway, we decided to have a TV free evening. We decided to expand the mind and have some time to talk and actually spend time with each other. It has to be said though that we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do. In the end I said “let’s play Game of Life”. So we did!

We actually ended up playing two games. I know steady huh! It was a bit of a laugh, we had fun and we really connected. We had what I would call quality time and the evening seemed really long. We did sneak half an hour of TV in but it was a DVD actually.... an episode of “The Good Life”. If anything this seemed the most appropriate AND it is our all time favourite TV programme ever and I mean like EVER!

After doing our talking and soul searching, we agreed that we should turn the TV off more. We don’t really know why we watch so much, we just seem to get sucked in really. We have decided to have at least one night a week where we watch no TV whatsoever and we do something together, either go out or stay in but what we do we do it together, to connect and to have fun. All suggestions are welcome! I have a few ideas and we have agreed to be open and try new things and be open to each others suggestions. Who knows what we will end up doing but I am looking forward to finding out anyway.

As a side note the “Game of Life” tickled me abit, although it is fictional, there are elements that do transfer into everyday life. Jon ended up not that wealthy but with a wife and three kids and a comfortable home but he had done things alone the way. Me, well I was a high flyer career person, had a racehorse, Rolls Royce, Villa in France, Mansion but had no kids and the only reason I had so much money to buy expensive things is that I missed out on doing other things through my life. Was this trying to tell me something or was it purely coincidental? I don’t know, I will leave that one with you!

Carrot Chutney and a not so domestic Goddess!

OK so as I said I am going to independent shops for most of my groceries and this is going well. I haven’t quite got to grips with my dairy items yet and some household goods (although I have been given some leads to follow up on which I will do soon). 

I went into town and went to the green grocers for my veggies and Health Food shop for everything else. I am actually enjoying the experience of trying different shops out and you know what everyone has been so nice and so friendly. Ray in the Health Food shop is such a nice man, really helpful!

Now household items like loo roll. There is a shop in town that sells such items but they are not recycled so I am choosing to go to a Supermarket to get these. Here I figure that recycled is better than shopping independently.

I went to Waitrose this week to get loo roll and diary bits. Whilst I was in there, I noticed that organic carrots were on offer, in fact they were less than half price. Now I do like a bargain but I also thought that it was better that I bought them then let them go to waste, un purchased. I hate to see food wasted. Also I remembered seeing in one of my Mum’s vegetarian magazines that I was borrowing, a carrot jam recipe.   So I bought them. Several bags of them actually. And later in the day I decided to get-a-making!

I tell you it was certainly good eco fitness making the jam and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a good deal of sweat in it too! The carrots needed to be finely sliced, you know when you use the slicer thingy on the grater, that thin. Man my arms ached doing that. I put my soul into that I really did. Of course the rabbits and guinea pigs were grateful that I had bought the carrots and was making jam as they helped to dispose of the peelings and ends that had been cut off. Everyone was happy.

Now being a domestic goddess type person is not as easy as it is cracked up to be. Nigella makes it look so easy and so sexy. I just looked like a hot dirty mess, with a dirty kitchen surrounded with carrots and peelings and sticky-ness! I did not even feel all homely when stirring it. I did when I started all enthusiastically but my enthusiasm started to wane.

Picture credit: Daily Mail article on Domestic Goddess becoming a thing of the past. 

 

My jam did not turn out as jam more of a chutney. Part of the problem was too much liquid. Oh, something I need to say now which might help is that I NEVER follow a recipe whole heartedly. I only ever use it as a guide and am totally up for experimenting as I go along. Ask my poor suffering hubby, he will tell you this is true. Sometimes when he comes home he asks "what's for dinner?" and I say "well it was supposed to be....". This was no exception. The blooming thing would not set and it seemed to be bubbling and boiling on top of the stove forever. It was not a glamorous look. I was not wearing a little skirt and pinny. To be quite frank I was fed up. 

Well I kept with it and you know, the jam turned into chutney and whilst it was wetter than I would have liked, it tastes good. I put it into jars and it looks all striking and orange, it looks good and yummy. I have made enough for us, a lot for us in fact and I am even going to inflict it onto my Mum and Mother in Law. I like to feel generous and it does make me happy to give gifts especially home made gifts.

At the time I wasn’t entirely enjoying the experience, it was hard work and frustrating but now I look at the jars of loveliness I am so pleased with myself and now feel all domestic like!

If you would like to try this recipe for yourself here is my (adapted) recipe. Go on try it, I am sure you will like it. It tastes yummy with crusty bread, cheese and salad. I will let you know when I find more uses for it as I am sure there will be more. We have plenty to experiment with anyway!

700g Sugar

400ml water

800g carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

Juice and zest of 2 oranges

Juice of 1 lemon

50ml rose water

100g flaked almonds

Bring the water up to boil (I find the kettle most economical then transfer to a pan) and add the sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved add the carrots and the orange zest and leave to simmer until the liquid becomes more like syrup. This takes up to 10 minutes but I wouldn’t advise going too far away just in case. Then add the rest of the ingredients and allow to simmer until the liquid has reduced and becomes thicker and stickier. This bit takes the experimenting with the time skills. It is about 10 minutes though sometimes more. Once it is ready transfer the chutney to sterilised jars and seal to form the air lock whist still hot. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Lovely weather for Ducks!

As the old saying goes, isn't it "lovely weather for Ducks". If you haven't heard of that expression, it basically means that it is wet and / or pretty miserable. It has just started to brighten up here but is still pretty wet. It is what we used to call "rainy day play". The pigs and buns are stuck inside as am I. I don't feel hardy enough to go outside today, I am preferring to be inside with a nice warm cup of tea, comforted in the knowledge that nothing really needs doing in the garden, it is all just silently growing away.

I find human nature and the pysche quite interesting in as much as you might not have needed or wanted or planned to go out anyway but as soon as it is raining and you feel like you can't you get all depressed. I don't think we are all that good these days of entertaining ourselves and thinking of things to do. This made me think of the 80s, I remember we used to have lots of power cuts, as a child I used to find it fun, then tedious. Luckily we haven't had a power cut for ages but I wonder what we would all do if we had one that lasted all evening long.

So anyway I am inside, looking out at the rain and thinking of my water butt outside slowly filling.

Taken with my mobile phone - rain drops against my window!

We have a small slimline butt in the garden which collects the rain from the car port. We then transfer water from there into a much larger butt that we have stored in the car port and when they are both full we tend to fill buckets up. This may seem excessive considering we don't have a particularly large garden and lots of veggies but it is surprising in the hot summer months just how much water you can get through. We use it up in no time and then look to using the bath / shower water.

When you start saving water in this way it makes you think alot about how much you do actually use, when it comes out of the tap it is all too easy not to realise just how much you are using.

Growing what we can, where we can!

We used to have an allotment. We loved our allotment, it was a lovely retreat for us after a hard working week. It was quiet and peaceful and still. Bliss. The only thing is we had a rather large plot, far too big for us really. 

When we took it on it was totally covered in weeds and we took it on in the spring so we had our work cut out just preparing the ground before we could even start planting. I will show you what I mean.

This is the state of neglect that we took the allotment on. In hindsight it was too big a job to take on really!

Here we go then, begining the "big Dig"

It seemed to be that we took the allotment on at the wettest time imaginable and every opportunity we got to get down there, it was raining. 

We are getting there - one strip cleared.

Looking good. Now this was only the bottom half of the allotment and as you can see 2/3rds now clear!

Sufficed to say, the weeds took over and we lost the battle. It was not long after that we were asked to leave as we were not keeping the allotment to the standard required. It is a shame and in some ways we miss it greatly but in other ways it was quite a burden and it became more of a chore “having” to go there all the time and the house suffered and our quiet retreat became an errand which is not good.

Top half of the allotment taken from the bottom half. As you can see we were loosing the weed battle!

 

Our idyll, is to have a house with a big enough garden to be able to plant our veggies and do our bit there. We are not talking “The Good Life” kind of drastic by digging up the whole garden, not at all. Well hang on maybe. I could see myself doing that actually. OK let’s wait and see!

Anyway, our house is up for sale, we hope to move soon. In the meantime we are compromising between growing a few veggies and herbs but still keeping the house and garden in an OK enough state for house viewings. We don’t want potential buyers who do not share the same interests as us being put off by it all.

We have stuff hidden all over the place. Herbs are the easiest as they smell so nice and look pretty so we have them outside the front door in a nice border and in pots all over the back garden. Of course it is even harder for us, having four small fluffies who are very partial to the herbs and veg. We have to be careful where we put things. 

Out the front in the shrub bed, Jon has made a discreet little clearing that you can’t really see from the road and planting in there is spuds and lettuce in between the spuds. He was so sneaky I didn’t know he had done it, he actually had to make a point of showing me!

The sneaky pots hidden next to the drive in the shrub bed!

We have stuff in pots everywhere we possibly can. This year it is going to be a case of making do with what and where we can and just hope that next year we are in a new house with land that we can do more with. Fingers crossed. Of course I will keep you updated with veggie growing and with house selling!

I saw this photo on Facebook and thing it is a fabulous idea for those like us with not a lot of space!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eco-Village-International-Network/107895505948237

 

 

 

 

Want to grow a salad garden but have no room? Try gutters! Affix them to a fence, slope them for drainage, and voila!

 

Over Packaged!

Over packaged! What to do with all the packaging!

I ordered some items online; I know there are eco issues concerned with this in terms of the mileage and delivery. I find it a bit of a hard call between buying something unique and shopping from an independent person versus the eco concerns of the petrol etc in shipping it to me. I think as long as I am looking at other areas that we live in a more eco way, I can justify this. I did quite a big shop as I knew I would need some items further down the line so I did a bulk buy to cut out the need to order again so I think in my head that I did the right think. I hope so anyway.

When it arrived it was a different story though. I opened the door and the courier was carrying quite a big box. To start with I was not actually sure that the parcel was for me. The box he was holding looked far far too big for the items I had ordered. I was not wrong though it was for me. When I opened the box I was confronted by polystyrene chips. Lots of polystyrene chips.  Then even more polystyrene chips. 

I finally managed to did my items out and I would say without exaggerating that a good two thirds of the box was full of chips still. 

Two things

1. What on Earth am I supposed to do with them? Can they be recycled?
2. Do I let it go I do I contact the supplier with my concerns? I don’t know if that makes me a bit of a whinge bag or not. The items I ordered were perfect and the delivery was immaculate. Do I say anything?

I started to get my thinking cap on and realised that I could do the following with the polystyrene:

1. Put them in the bottom of a plant pot to aid drainage
2.  Keep them for moving house and packing
3.  Give them away for people selling things
4. Get really creative and make random craft projects with them / junk modelling

I would really like to know if there are any other ideas out there. I am going with the keeping them option at the moment. Don’t know what else to do really. All I can say is, just as well we have a car port we can store them in!