Lucky!

The missing puzzle piece was bugging me.  

It was an expensive jigsaw (currently £32 incl post), and I was cross with myself fo having lost a piece.    

I'd checked the table, which had piles of stuff on it because we are decluttering (still).  We checked under the table.  I even felt the bag of the Roomba station, to see if it was in there.   While I was down there,  I winced at the "dust bunnies" in the areas that Raymondo can't reach.  

Despite having a splitting headache,  I went and got the dustpan and cleaned them up. I did a thorough jub, underneath the table legs, underneath the kitchen trolley, all the nooks and crannies.  

And my diligence was rewarded - the missing piece!

I'm going to look at the puzzle for a couple of days before breaking it up

Attention all Shipping

I gave up on the cat puzzle.

I started my Shipping Forecast jigsaw, which I bought from the artist Jane Tomlinson a loooooong time ago.

It took me a couple of days to complete, and it is lovely.    I'm cross with myself than I have managed to lose a piece.  It may turn up, of course, but it's just as likely to be in the bowels of the Roomba base station.

It was a lovely puzzle to do. The pieces are interesting shapes, and are really good quality.  The colours are gorgeous

On and On

The (latest round of)  decluttering is ongoing.   We've sold quite a few things, given some away,  got a large pile of stuff to take to the charity shop, and binned stuff. We have passed on many, many boxes and packaging items. 

My dining room table is covered in stuff which is waiting for buyers. Under the stairs has boxes for the charity shop stacked up.    Many rooms are in a state of chaos,  and I am trying, I really am, to get things under control.

I've been very under the weather (tested negative for Covid), and it's taking me forever to do anything.  I've been taking tablets for a couple of weeks to suppress stomach acid. It's helped a bit with the pain, but not the other symptoms.   I was too ill to go out for dinner for my birthday. I managed to fo out for DHs birthday 3 weeks later, but couldn't eat much.  

  My back pain has been quite bad,  I'm sort of at the end of a flare up (which started at the end of September) and it just seems to be dragging on. At least its not awful all the time now, I get windows where it is mildly painful.   I really do appreciate that in the scheme of things, I'm lucky; sometimes it just gets me a bit down though. 

I always try and compare how I'm feeling with how I felt when some things were at their worst;   or what I can do that I haven't been able to do and that usually helps me feel a but better. 

I managed to make quite a lot of Quince stuff.  We had a bumper crop.   I made quite a bit of Quince Curd.  I should have peeled the quinces, as it's a bit gritty, but it tastes OK.   I used the Cream Soup programme on the CookExpert to cook the quinces,  and then made curd.

 I also made quince jelly, pressure cooking the quinces to get the juice.  Catherine Phipps (and her Pressure Cooking books) you are a star. You have saved me a lot of tone and energy 

 Then, I made another batch of Cream Soup with peeled quince,  and I froze it in ice cube trays.  This can go into other dishes.

Finally, i did another load of juicing by pressure cooking,  and froze the resulting juice.  I'll use it to make more quince jelly, when I've eaten the stuff already made. 

We've also had an amazing crop of Medlars.   They are bletting in the summerhouse, and I'll need to deal with them soon.  Probably more curd and more jelly,  I don't have the energy for anything interesting.

In other news, the Girls are doing well. 

I cleaned out the coops today:  the first time in 4 weeks I think, which is awful.    Most of the Girls have, more or less,  completed their moult - apart from Olga, the oldest of the 3 newbies. She's only just started,  and she's being picked on.   I took her out separately and gave her some scrambled egg the other day, and I'll try and do that again tomorrow.     

DH gave the Girls the vegetable beds as part of their free range area,   and they've loved it.  They've eaten everything, turned over the soil, and made a mess.

The new run is fab. We still haven't put the pole up,  we will get it done eventually.  Probably.

Nothing creative done, and it's going to be no cards for Christmas I think.

 

 

The High Life

We reviewed the contents of part of the loft yesterday.  The effort was exhausting.

It started because I had a mahoosive box which needed to go and live in the loft.  There was no sensible space available, so a couple of nights ago I popped up the ladder to see what could be done.

Yesterday, we removed (almost) everything from the very back of the loft, under the watertank.  We found some large boxes which we decided to get rid of;  a kitchen cabinet and some wire drawers for (dfferent sized) kitchen cabinets, which I've offered for free and have been claimed;  a cast iron griddle, which I've sold; the box for the bean to cup coffee maker, which we've brought downstairs so I can sell the machine;  many lovely bottles (including some fab heart shaped ones, which look like potion bottles,  which I'm trying to sell but will otherwise donate (or bin, I'm finding it all quite taxing); and a lovely stovetop espresso maker, which I'll be selling.

We also brought down the box for the CookExpert so I could  put my Magimix food proceesor parts in the it, and then heaved that back up there. 

We took the opportunity of clearing some shelving to move some other bits to that end of the loft. It's not easily accessible, so we wanted to just put away things that we won't regularly need. In this case it was spare floor tiles for the kitchen and bathroom floors.  I've just realised we don't need the bathroom ones at all, I should have brought them downstairs to sell them!  Never mind, next time maybe.

It was a lot of heaving and shunting and snapping at each other.

Downstairs looks lie a hoarders paradise at the moment.  I've got a pile of kitchen things to try and sell next time a particular FB group has a market day.  And I've got loads of empty boxes which I don't want to get rid of until after the market day (but I may have to)

I have to chuckle at the thought of this being an achievement.  

Not so long ago, I would have done half the oft in one go, on my own.  

Chaos

I'm taking a break from the self-created chaos of my kitchen.

Yesterday I made progress clearing the large table so that I could think about maybe sewing something. I need a clear space to get a clear head.

Then I went and collected the food processor.  Then I unpacked it and tried it out.  Then I started to excavate the cupboards to gather the bits for the previous food processor.  I found a couple of other items I decided I might as well try and sell.

Then I sidelined into listing some unrelated stuff for sale on Ebay;  and getting the file which contained the info on the steam room door out of storage, so I could contact the manufacturer;  then  I had a sack of corn and 2 sacks of sunflower seeds to deal with;  and now....  

 ...it's all got a bit out of hand.

I'm resorting to Just One Thing tactics to try and regain control.

Cup of tea. Biscuit. Then one step at a time. 

Never learn

I blame it on being unwell.

The other day I was thinking about my Magimix food processor,   which came with my CookExpert.   

I don't use it.

I decided I was going to gather up all the bits (the bowls, the blades,  the 3 cases of discs) and put it in the loft in the CookExpert box.  There was no point in it having cupboard space, as it was just too annoying to use. 

What's shocking is this is the third* Magimix food processor I've owned,  and I've ended up hating all of them  And that isn't even the "Never Learn" bit that he title refers to. 

*Years ago, when I was working and buying stuff on a whim was not a problem,  I had a Magimix 5200, and I bought a 4200XL instead.   It was a neater size, and had a better feed tbe.  It still had the stupid bowl design (3 bowls, where the middle bowl was useless, and using the small bowl meant that the big bowl had to be washed as well. It's shockingly poor design. ).

I got really fed up with it, sold it, and bought a Sage food processor.    My Sage food processor was a lovely example of a food processor, really well designed and thought out, and very sturdy.   

When I later bought a Thermomix, I didn't really use the Sage very much.

Fast forward a few years,  and I decided to sell my Thermy and my Sage food processor, and buy a Magimix CookExpert.    I thought long and hard about this, as I remembered very well just how annoying the Magimix food processor was.    I couldn't justify having 2 food processors though so, if I wanted the CookExpert,  the Sage had to go.

I love the CookExpert, I don't regret buying it -[ but I hate the food processor.   It has sat, unused, in the cupboard pretty much since I bought it. I did try it, in the beginning, but it just got on my nerves.

Anyway.   While I was summoning the energy to go into the loft to get the box,   I ended up having a conversation about food processors.   And it made me reminisce about the Sage.   And I looked on Marketplace and found one in fab condition and at a good price.  

After a bit of a faff, where it looked like I wouldn't be able to get it,  I  bought it.

I justified it to myself on the basis that it would replace 2 other machines I have on my countertop at the moment,  and the rest of it could live in the cupboard in the space vacated by the Magimix.  

I collected it today, nrought it home, washed it, and had a go.

It is so much better than the Magimix.  It's fast, and easy to use, and does a great job.   I had a go at peeling potatoes, which was OK.  It would be great, I guess, if I was doing one of my mammoth mashed potato sessions.

I then tried  the dicing accessory, for the potatoes I'd just peeled - and that was really very good.  I can definitely see myself using that.

But it still generated a ridiculous amount of washing up.   I'm not sure it will replace both of the appliances on my worktop.  One possibly.    

 I'm not sure how much I'll use it, given the amount of washing up required.

I feel a bit sheepish.   On the plus side, at least I bought it preloved, so if I do decide to sell it, I won't lose too much.