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!

So the How do we want to live our lives question then?

So the How do we want to live our lives question then?

In an ideal world, Anna would live in a house made with haybales in the middle of a field. In that field would be a goat and a big veggie patch. We would grow our own trees to make furniture and burn to keep warm. We would have a natural spring for water, a composting toilet and lots of solar panels. Jon wants some of this, he does, he really does, he just has trouble fully convincing himself that he does. He kind of feels torn between feeling like he should and could and then the luxurious living. One thing that the pair of us do agree on is that we are not materialistic. We only want to earn enough to live, we don’t want to earn the mega bux because we don’t want the stresses that come with those sorts of jobs. That was the case until now. Now we want to earn just a bit more than we can live in so we can make overpayments  on the mortgage and get rid of it as soon as we can so that we can liver much free-er.

The question of where we should live keeps coming round and round to us all the time. Even more so at the moment as our little two bed home is up for sale. What do we want though? Do we want to go the whole hog, buy a small holding and live in a self sufficient way? Kind of but then kind of no too! Firstly we wouldn’t be able to afford it which is kind of ironic to think that we would need the money to buy it then once we had we would be self sufficient. What we have agreed on is that whilst we are open to hard work, in some cases you have to look at the effort to worth ratio. For example a sack of spuds for us to grow would take a lot of time and effort and a fair bit of land. Spuds for us to buy from the farm shop not a lot of pounds. We could get a couple of days temping a month to pay for our food or staple food. Now it is not necessarily the life that we want but there is no denying that it does make sense to a certain degree. After all we are not looking at living our lives completely self sufficiently not yet at least. 

Oh I am a big old chunk of contradiction.

So do we stay local to St Neots? That is a possibility as our families and friends are here. One thing is certain, we need a bigger garden than the one we have now because after all I do want to grow some veggies again. We used to have an allotment but both working full time we just couldn’t keep up with it and at the time it seemed every weekend was wet so we just couldn’t get down there. Now I have the flexibility of working for myself, I would like to grow some veggies again as part of a feel good factor. I would love to have a goat but is it an option at the moment? If we did we would need to move to the Country. Are we ready to make such a big move and commitment just yet? I don’t think we are. Baby steps are what is needed. Let’s start easy and see how we get on first. I don’t even know if we can do some of the smaller, easier things yet.

See what I mean when I say there is lots of questions! There is certainly lots to think about, it is not just the case of changing your life and home instantly overnight.

Anna's ideal house..... (more to come on that in another blog post!)

 

http://www.simondale.net/house/

 

Easter

I had a really restful Easter and it was lovely. We saw family and we had time to ourselves to chill out too. I guess we are like most people in that it is all to easy to forget what Easter is all about and "the reason for the season". I think we just get caught up in such busy lives we forget to slow down from time to time. I know when I had a full time job I did just that. I was a right stress head most of the time. I used to get stressed that I was tired and didn't feel like cooking so we got a take away which I had to go to work to pay for - the cycle goes on!

These days now I work for myself and came juggle my time I do make sure I take a rest. The only trouble working for yourself is the pressure to feel like you should be doing something. I have to admit I didn't switch off completely but I didn't feel compelled to turn on the laptop and start working either.

It was good and it was needed. Batteries are sufficiently charged now.

For us it was a shame that it was wet over the bank holiday but the garden is looking all the more better for it.

My main reason for this blog post is eggs. Both real eggs and chocolate ones!

Most weekends we sit down together and eat a nice breakfast, have a pot of tea and talk. Make the most of not having to rush around. Easter Sunday was no exception and a yummy bolied egg (or two) was in order. I just wanted to show you this little picture that I took with my camera. The two eggs were in identical egg cups and were lined up next to each other. The smaller one on the left is from a shop. Can't remember which one. The one on the right is from the farm shop Jon goes to near Woburn. Now you can't tell me that is not value for money!!! Free range, local (ish) and independent but above all, big and tasty!

 

We were both very lucky to receive chocolate Easter eggs. I have to confess that I probably ate more than I should have but at the time I enjoyed it. I felt sluggish this morning though and had to work some of it off at Step class. I am so going to pay for that tomorrow!

Anyway, looking at the eggs, it got us thinking just how much packaging is used in Easter eggs. Now as a child, some of the excitement was seeing this big beautiful packaging with gold foil sparkling away inside. As an adult I can't help thinking what a waste and also a bit of a disappointment. The egg looks huge in the packaging but take it out and you haven't actually got that much chocolate. 

We tried to be mindful when purchasing eggs this year of the packaging but very few manufacturers seem to have cut down on the amount they use. Why is this? It seems that it hasn't gone un noticed. Do a google search and many articles will come up. One from the Telegraph caught my eye:

The 2012 Easter Egg Packaging report concluded that the percentage of Easter egg boxes taken up by chocolate had not reduced from last year's amount of 38 per cent. 

That is a lot huh? I guess we are partly guilty for buying but we can't help what we are brought. All we can do is recycle the waste and be good in other ways!

Simply Incredible

Easter bank holiday weekend. We have decided to have a real chill out weekend and spend some good quality time with each other and just simply slow down a little. We have nothing that we need to. Ah bliss!

We decided to pop in to Cambridge today. I had something that I needed to take back but we love just going into the city and walking down past the colleges, people watching and soaking up the atmosphere. I realised whilst walking round just how many chain stores there are. You have to look for the little independents amongst them but when you do, you find some real gems with some beautiful unique items.

The only thing I will say (and this could just be my opinion) is that some times I am put off going in. I am better now I am older and don't mind what people think of me so much but in the past I was always put off by snooty shop assistants looking down on you. Silly I know! What I do think of little boutiquey shops sometimes is that I am put off by going in because I don't think I will be able to afford it or that they won't sell clothes in my portly size. OK so sometimes the size thing has been an issue before but I just think that we have come to accept big chain stores with surly staff and their "if it aint on the shelf we aint got none" attitude and the "pile it high sell it cheap" culture that when we are faced with a small independent store we just think we can't afford it so walk on by. Is that you too or just be being silly?

Whilst we were out we decided to have a nice lunch and went to Rainbow Cafe which is on King's Parade. It was so busy but it adds to the charm of the place and hey, if no one is in there is it really that good anyway? I went there years ago with my Mum so didn't know what to expect. We normally eat at a chain you see! eek!  The menu was so inspiring, such yummy options. It was hard to choose, not because it was bland and nothing jumped out at you but because it was so good it was hard to narrow it down to one. Jon had a chilli and I had:

Jamaican Roti Cups - Fresh banana, rosecoco beans, black turtle beans, coconut milk, Jamaican spices, roasted sweet potato and more, served in a chapatti cup with traditional rice’n’peas.

It was fabulous. I took a little pic with my mobile phone but it really does not do the meal justice what so ever. Every mouthful was simply amazing. I was sad when it was over. It has been a while since I ate out where everything was just lovely. The staff were friendly and helpful, place clean, bustling with lovely atmosphere, inspiring menu, delicious freshly cooked food. I left feeling suitably full but also with a warm fuzzy glow of feeling healthy knowing that I had eaten a healthy meal from somewhere independent and also vegetarian. All boxes ticked! I felt much better than I did the day before. I have to confess I ate a bugger. I felt sluggish afterwards and for the rest of the day. I caved and ordered it because I just couldn't find anything else on the menu that I wanted to eat.

Jazzing up salad

As I have said before I am not dieting I am just being really conscious about the food that I eat and am trying to eat healthier and make healthy substitutes for foods I used to eat.

I have swapped my lunchtime sandwich for salad. I have never disliked salad, just never really found it particularly interesting. I have now though. I have been making my own hummus to give the salad a little bit of something. I even treat myself with the odd pitta bread too. Yesterday I treated myself to one of the flatbreads that I made with the dough from the pizza on Sunday. It was yummy!

My favourite hummus at the moment is cannellini bean and it is so easy to make.  Here’s what you need:

• Cannellini beans
• Springs of Thyme
• Paprika
• Garlic bulb
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Tahini

I whack it in a bowl and wiz it up using a hand blender but you may want to use a posh machine thingy. I don’t measure any ingredients and sometimes I add more or less of some. It really is a recipe that you can play around with until it tastes how you like it. With the liquids, you just need it moist enough to be able to blend nicely.

I think it tastes yummy and I feel nice and healthy eating it too!