The dresser actually got cleaned and decorated yesterday.
Just very simple as I forgot that I gave our huge box of Autumn and Halloween decs to DDIL last year and it had all my fall leaves and lights in it.........
My tin signs stayed because I love them and didn't want to put them away and who wouldn't love homemade apple pie and hot coffee on a cold Autumn day.
It looks much nicer at night when it's darkish at that end of the kitchen and the flickering tealights are on.
It's a bit of an in and out day today.
Andy and I have already been out to do a small top up shop and then DD and I will be off to visit DDIL tonight....it's her birthday today but she has a busy day so we'll pop down when she and the girls get back from Trick or Treating.
Hopefully we'll get back in time for part two of The Accident on Channel 4.
There is a lovely beef stew simmering away on the stove for tonight's meal. I just need to make some dumplings for Andy.
I make them as healthy as I can for him by dividing the mixture into balls and placing them on a plate sprinkled with a little water, covering them with a plate cover and cooking them for three to four minutes in the microwave. You would be shocked at how much fat drains out of them onto the plate. They then go into the stew for the last half hour and hopefully don't add much more fat to the stew.
Usually I would make the stew the day before we eat it but Andy requested it last night for today so no time for that this time.
Well today has flown by.....and I must get off and write on a birthday card and wrap a gift.
Hope you are all having a lovely day.
Sheila-x-
It's so beautiful outside again today....blue skies, sunshine and chilly.....just how I like it. The only trouble is that it makes me feel like cleaning......what is that all about....lol.
I will be sorting out the dresser in the kitchen and prettifying it a bit with some lovely miniature pumpkins and some battery tealights....not Halloweeny which I was going to do but as Ruby won't be here today I'll just go for Autumn. That will stay then until I do the village scene late November/early December for Christmas.
I did have plans to make chicken pie today and make the pastry top into a pumpkin face for Ruby but I've left the chicken in the freezer and we are having bacon, egg and tomatoes instead.
Nothing much to watch on tv at the moment so I am watching a box set on iPlayer. It's called Bodies and is a hospital drama. It's awfully gory but brilliant.
I think I'm going to have a coffee and read the papers before I start any more jobs.
Hope you are having a lovely sunny day.
Sheila-x-
The last few days have felt a bit strange. I have had absolutely no energy whatsoever....not ill.....just totally flopsadopsical.
I think Andy cured me of it yesterday when he took me for a ride out to Dagfields in Cheshire and we walked around in beautiful sunshine, went for a gorgeous lunch and then topped it off with a walk around Bridgemere garden centre.
So....today I feel much better. I think I had just been suffering from a bit of cabin fever as I hadn't been out for a couple of days with the weather being so nasty.
Today is laundry day and I swear the neighbours have been posting theirs through the letterbox again as I seem to have mounds of it although some of it....DD's old uniform can be bagged up and burnt as she has new uniform for the new job she starts next week. It sounds a bit wasteful but there is nothing to be saved from it. All the tops are faded and the fabric wouldn't make good dusters. The trousers are ripped and very tatty so the burning bin is the only place for it.
That will reduce the piles a little bit.
Tea today is some lovely pork and apple sausages with mash and veg. All I have to do is cook it as Andy has prepped the veg for me.
Next thing is a quick nip into town for a birthday card for DDIL and some Halloween treats for the girls.
How is your week going so far?
Hope you are having a good one.
Sheila-x-
We didn't go to the Christmas open evening last night as once DD had got in from work and had her tea she couldn't be bothered to get ready to go out again. Instead we snuggled down and watched the new drama on Channel 4....The Accident.....very good so far.
Andy and I have been up and had a wander round the displays this morning. I am not overly impressed to be honest. There are some nice things but lots of very odd things too.
Nothing bought for Christmas but Andy did treat me to a few more DMC threads for my collection and I purchased a tube of black chalk paint.
I was going to make a start on the laundry when I got back but the weather is so filthy that I can't face having to keep going across the yard to the dryer. There will be plenty of time to get it done over the weekend along with a job or two off the big job list.
Hope the weather won't ruin any of your plans for the weekend.
Sheila-x-
The one day in October that I loathe most of all is the day I have to go to the eye clinic and have drops in my eyes so that photographs can be taken inside my eyes. I always end up with either a rotten headache or a migraine. So that was my day yesterday...tested and then spent the rest of the day with the headache and super sensitive eyes....yuck.
Today was blood test day and I also ended up having my flu jab which felt like it had been done with a horse needle.
Good news though....blood pressure was fine and I had lost another kilo.
Tea for today (chicken curry) was cooked yesterday so all I have to do is a pan of rice and then after tea we may all go to the Christmas open evening at the garden centre. I have already seen the Lemax village which is my most favourite thing but I expect there will be lots of pretty things to look at if they have managed to get all of the displays finished.
It's cold and mizzly here today so now the jobs are done Andy and I are relaxing for a while before I have to get the tea ready. I'm rather liking having him at home 😀
Hope you are having a lovely day.
Sheila-x-
It was lovely to get a message from DDIL on Sunday night to ask if Ruby could come for tea yesterday. We hadn't seen her for nearly a fortnight and she had said that she was missing us....bless her.
I have missed her hugs and kisses but I got plenty to make up for it last night.
We had a naughty tea of egg and chips as I hadn't had time to make the chicken pie she had requested when I thought she would be here on Wednesday. She finished off with some chocolate mousse and was a very happy bunny.
Today Andy and I are pottering....well I am batch cooking a chilli and he is doing the washing up as I go along. Now we are just going to get ready and go for a ride out to the farm shop and have a coffee. While I am there I may look to see if there are any bits I can pick up for Christmas gifts.....I may as well make a start as it is coming no matter what....lol.
Hope you are all having a fabulous day.
Sheila-x-
Lovely trip to the cinema last night. Maleficent-Mistress Of Evil was really good and I fell head over heels in love with one of the little mushroom creatures....oh my word it was soooo cute.
We had thought about taking Ruby but I'm glad we didn't as it was quite a bit darker than the first film. We'll wait until it comes out on DVD and then she can watch it at home where it can be switched off if she doesn't like it.
It's a lovely morning here in Staffordshire. Sunny and bright and just a little bit chilly which I don't mind as the oven is on roasting a rather large piece of beef. We will have some for lunch today and then I will freeze the rest in gravy for another two or three meals.
It will be a later lunch today so there are no plans for going anywhere after it. I'll just finish off the laundry so that there is none to do tomorrow then Andy and I can go for a ride out if we want to.
Now that I have had a little holiday I need to take a look at the big job list which has been woefully neglected, get myself into gear and tackle some of it over the next couple of weeks.
I also need to work out a timetable for myself to get some crafting done as I have not touched anything since Andy retired. My quilt is still half finished and I have other things I want to do too.
.....and on that note I shall get off and go and whip up some batter for the Yorkshires and have a look at the beef.
Have a lovely day.
Sheila-x-
.....and we are home.
We had a nice time away and we absolutely loved our hotel at The King Arthur's Arms in Tintagel. The room we stayed in was huge and had everything in it you could have needed and even though it was a shower....and you know I love my bath....I was very taken with the wet room.
The bed was very comfortable but I had a slight issue with the way that it was facing and I couldn't settle very well at night.
Tintagel was as beautiful as I remember. Very busy during the day with people coming in to visit the castle and still at this time of year....lots of coaches. Night time was lovely though.....very quiet and peaceful.
We visited Boscastle a place we had last visited before the devastating flood 15 years ago and I was so happy to see it looking as lovely as it had then.
There was also a trip to Bude. What an absolutely beautiful place that was. I would like to go back and spend a bit more time there.
After breakfast on Thursday we decided we were ready for home although we should have been staying another night. With all the walking about I had had to resort to using my walking stick and my legs, back and shoulders were giving me such pain that I couldn't face walking anywhere else so home we came.
I am now catching up with laundry and later tonight we are off to the cinema to see the new Maleficent film.
Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.
Sheila-x-
Well the case is packed and we are ready for off in the morning.
DD has just trimmed my hair and I am just about to go and have a good soak in a hot bath to see if I can chase away the lingering pain from the migraine that came out of nowhere yesterday.
I won't be able to blog while I am away so see you all when I get back on Friday.
Have a lovely week.
Sheila-x-
Thank you all for your comments on my last post.
What a filthy day it is today.....absolutely thrashing it down with rain and quite windy.....I am having to put a coat on to nip across the yard to the tumble dryer. Luckily there is not much laundry to do as I am just washing some bits we need for our few days away.
Had to have a slight rethink on the packing because the weather forecast looks awful. The best day of the week will be the day we travel home...bloody marvelous.
Perhaps we should have gone abroad....lol.
Hopefully DD won't starve while we are away as I have cooked all week and filled two shelves of the freezer with enough evening meals for her. All she will have to do is remember to take them out in a morning and just pop them in the microwave when she gets home.
I am so looking forward to this little break. The last time I went away for any length of time was when DD and I went to New York six years ago and Andy last went away in 2016 to visit his brothers grave in Johannesburg. The last time we went away together was I think 2004 when we went to The Lake District.
Just laughing at Andy who is at last attempting to put together a Meccano type kit of a Lancaster Bomber which I bought him two years ago. Lots of muttering and chuntering going on. He is just now putting it away before he takes a hammer to it he says....lol. He has absolutely zero patience.
Anyhoo I have a washing machine and a tumble dryer beeping at me so I'll go and sort them out.
Hope you are having a wonderful day.
Sheila-x-
It seems like Andy and I are already getting into a nice routine with our days together.
Monday is our day for a wander out and a bit of lunch or a coffee somewhere. We don't go far but it's lovely.
Today I am doing laundry and cooking a huge batch of chilli for tomorrow's tea and the freezer and he has done all the washing up for me and pottered around doing odd jobs like filling up the bird feeders and doing bits and bobs to the car....don't ask me what as the only interest I have in cars that they have four wheels and a cd player....lol.
If I can keep him busy I may not have to kill him after all....lol.
If we get a few nice dry days the garden path needs sorting out as with the heavy rains we keep getting it is now flooding regularly and if we don't want to paddle we have to walk on the lawn which is an absolute bog in wet weather. It's a job we can do together.
It's a pretty decent day today but with the odd shower of rain so I don't think we will be tackling it today.
I won't be seeing my Ruby now for a fortnight. She has dance practice and various other things going on. She's a busy girl.
I'll miss her so much. Roll on two weeks tomorrow.
Off for a cuppa and then I have to go back into the kitchen and do something with the huge cauliflower that's sitting in there. I'm thinking cauli in white sauce and then we can have some tonight with the lamb meatballs in gravy I made yesterday. The rest can go in the freezer.
Hope you are all having a lovely day.
Sheila-x-
For saying our weather forecast was for rain throughout the night....which we got....and rain right through until teatime today it's not a bad morning out there. It's quite windy but the sun keeps peeking through the clouds now and again to brighten things up.
We had a lovely time with The Doodles yesterday. It was lovely to catch up with DDIL as I don't actually see that much of her. Her work days are long and busy so when we drop Ruby off on Wednesday evenings at around 7pm she has probably only just arrived home and is ready to spend an hour with the girls before they go to bed.
I have finally persuaded Andy that 1pm is a good time for lunch on a Sunday. It's taken me forty odd years but I got there in the end....lol.
This afternoon I will read the papers and then I may well do some sewing as I haven't touched my quilt squares for a couple of weeks and I want to get on with it now.
Not much on tv that we would all enjoy watching so DD picked up two series of Happy Valley yesterday. Two episodes watched last night and so far so good. We'll watch some more later and then stop for Millionaire. I just love Jeremy Clarkson as host on it.
.....and that's about it for today.
I hope you are having a lovely weekend and doing some fun things.
Sheila-x-
The smells coming from the kitchen today have got me sniffing the air like the proverbial Bisto kid.
I have pickled the red cabbage so there is still a faint smell of vinegar and there is also a beef stew simmering on the stove for our tea tonight......it smells gorgeous.
I decided to do the stew yesterday as it was just so cold.
Today it's not so bad but as the meat was out and defrosted we are going ahead with it.
DD had some wonderful news yesterday. She had applied for a new position within the place where she works and she has been offered the job. She will now be based in an office with occasional work outside rather than being out in all weathers.
She has loved the job she has been doing but with staff shortages it has become increasingly difficult to do her job as well as she would like.
She is looking forward to October 28th when she starts her new position.
I am looking forward to afternoon tea at the Doodle House tomorrow. I'll be baking some nice fresh scones to take with us as all of us Olivers are partial to a scone with some jam and clotted cream. Very naughty but very nice.....lol.
Not sure if there is anything planned for Sunday as yet. There is some beef in gravy that I can hot up to do a roast beef lunch which will make it a quick one this week so we will have time to go for a ride out if we feel like it. It will depend on the weather.....I've not looked at the forecast yet.
Hope you are all having a lovely day today.
Sheila-x-
Thank you very much for your comments yesterday. It was indeed a lovely day with my Miss Doodle.
I'm so happy to see that some of my favourite bloggers have taken to posting again.
Welcome back Jane and Suzanne.....you have both been missed.
I've had a good and productive day today starting off by pickling the bucket of onions Andy peeled for me and chopping up a huge red cabbage which has been salted and left to drain. That will be pickled tomorrow.
I really wish we ate more in the way of relishes and chutneys but we just don't any more so I don't get to have lovely cooking sessions making those now.
After that I was upstairs rooting out the old airing cupboard. A bag full of old towels has gone to the vets and one or two tatty duvet sets have been put by for covering car windscreens on frosty nights.
Duvet sets still in use have been folded neatly and put into one of their own pillowcases along with a matching sheet....much easier to pull one out now without disturbing everything else.
I still have the bottom of the cupboard to sort out and the sideboard on the landing but I feel like I have done enough for today....my back was starting to hurt and I didn't want to push it too far.
Can't remember if it's Channel 4 or 5 but there is a crafting programme on at 8pm tonight which I quite fancy watching.
Anybody else going to be taking a look?
Hope you have had a lovely day.
Sheila-x-
I do so love Wednesdays.
As usual Ruby will be here for her tea so there is a cottage pie in the making. I am just waiting for the potatoes to boil and it will be all ready to go into the oven when she gets here.
There is a lovely ritual when she gets home...racing up the path with a shout of...Ganma and straight into my arms for a huge hug then into the house to dump bags and coat, uniform off and into one of my t shirts before she even thinks of having a drink and telling me all of her news.
I love every teeny tiny second that she is here.
Andy has kept himself busy this morning going through mounds of paper work to sort out what needs keeping and what can be thrown away and he peeled the potatoes for me....I loathe peeling potatoes so I was very happy about that.
Tomorrow he will be cooking as I will be upstairs having a major sort out of towels, sheets and duvet covers etc and trying to restore some kind of order to the cupboard where they are kept.
There is also a sideboard on the landing which has become a dumping ground for anything that doesn't have a home of it's own so that needs sorting too. I'll enjoy that.
Once it is clear I will be mucking it all up again at the weekend when I want to fetch all of the seasonal decoration boxes down from the attic to have a good sort through those. Basically I just want to see what we are like for Christmas cards and wrapping paper so that I can gather new supplies if needed but if we have enough I won't be spending any money them unnecessarily.
I want to be totally organised this year.
Andy has gone to fetch Doodle out of school so I will go and mash potatoes, peel carrots and make some gravy.
Hope you are all having a wonderful day.
Sheila-x-
I just had to show you the pie I made for Andy's birthday.
It was a whopper and just hilarious with the bones sticking out of it.......
I have to say that it was very, very tasty. The recipe was followed to a 't' apart from the pastry which should have been ruff puff but Andy prefers suet crust.
If I ever made it again (which I doubt I will) there are some tweaks I would make such as replacing the haricot beans with extra veg as they just seemed a bit odd to me. The gravy in the pie as made to the recipe seemed a bit watery too so I thickened it with some lamb and mint gravy granules which worked a treat.
It was a great hit with the birthday boy and I am so glad I made the effort for him.
His first day of not having a working week to start yesterday and he dragged me all round the Wrekin.....farm shop, town and pub for a lunchtime pint and not a flippin' thing done in the house at all.
Day 2 and I have set him on peeling the sack of pickling onions I picked up yesterday. It's keeping him quiet....lol....apart from the sniffling as the onion fumes get at him.
I have only just started this week's laundry and am wishing the rain would go away as I have to keep dashing across the yard to fill and empty the dryer.
Andy went into town for papers this morning and says that the road has started to flood and it hasn't stopped raining since he got back so I can only imagine that they are getting worse now.
Starting to think a little bit now about starting some festive shopping so I must ask DDIL if there is anything the girls need or want. Ruby has told me a couple of things from her wish list but that is all I have at the moment to work on.
Well....that is another load finished drying so I will go and empty it out and put another load in.
Hope you are all having a good day despite the weather.
Those of you in areas predicted to have it really bad....stay safe.
Sheila-x-
