Sugru and other squidgy mendy stuffs

I have been quite busy recently with a home made version of Sugru.
While i love the idea of Sugru and think that the inventor is a clever old clog, I cannot warrant spending £8 or £12 on a few tiny little blobs of it when I can make whole blocks of it If I want just by going to instructables or Youtube and typing oogoo into the search box.

Anyway.

Oogoo or Sugru is a silicone based putty  which sets in the air and becomes flexible and rubbery.

It can be used to mend many things and is quite strong and waterproof.
Stands heat and cold well and can be made to be almost any colour.

The official version Sugru  is available in lots of places and comes packed in foil with a 6 months life span or 18 months if you keep it in the fridge.

• I have used my homemade version to mend a dustpan.
• Make it a new squeegee edge.
• Make hooks for the kitchen
• Pan lid holders
• A knob for a saucepan lid.
• A handle for my deep fat fryer
• hooks in the bathroom
• Some washers
• A holder for my wifi dongle so it sits on top of the monitor
• Buffers on the top of our old loft ladder so it doesn't scratch the wall paper.
• A Grip for the flask lid which gets too tight to undo
• Mended the  end of knob on cup rack
• A new cover for a penknife which I found trodden into the mud when we were out.

Future plans are

• More bathroom hooks
• More kitchen hooks
• More pan lid holders
• Tidier way to fix the laptop connector on two of the fixed laptops
• Some rubber stamps for craft
• Fix my yarn winder to be more robust
• Fix the seal on the double glazed sliding door that leaks

I'm sure I will find other uses .
So far that is 13 things mended and 7 planned.
I don't know how many packets I could get through of the commercial version.

If you are interested in using the sold stuff.
Consider looking around the house first and finding all the things you want to mend with it.
Write a list and what colour you would need.
This stuff comes in black,white ,yellow,blue and red which are all the primary colours meaning you can mix almost any colour with them.

The home made version is slightly more versatile because you can of course make any colour you have in paint , including I think gold,silver and fluorescent and with glow in the dark powder, there is that option also.

Better homemade vegan cheese

If you have read any of my other recent food type posts you will know that I discovered I have a milk allergy so have been trying very hard to find alternatives to dairy foods without breaking the bank.

Hooray I managed to make a much more cheese like cheese on my second attempt.

It grates and slices and looks like cheese.
It is softer,like a very firm mousse,not hard and crumbly but it is good on pizza or sandwiches or crackers and I even secretly made Quiche with it and nobody commented that the cheese tasted funny.

The recipe is from reciperenovator.com

1 C cashews
1 1/2 C water
4 teaspoons agar powder
   OR
4 Tablespoons agar flakes
1/4 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C lemon juice
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Soak cashews for 4 hours and then grind em up or just used ground cashews like I did without the soaking.
Boil water and add agar simmer for 5 mins stirring.
Put everything into a blender or food processor and blend it smooth.
add any herbs or whatever(I didn't) .

Oil a bowl or tub to shape your cheese.
Pour in the cheese and let it cool.
Put in Fridge when cold enough.

I did this exactly as above and have a yellow,almost cheddar coloured cheese.
You could add a little bit of tomato paste for oranger cheese or cook a carrot before using the agar in the water.

I might try some hickory smoke powder the next time.

I don't think the cup sizing matters because it is just to get the proportions of the larger amounts right.

Half of this amount lasts me a week so I cut it in half and freeze the second bit.
It thaws out well and keeps its firmness.

Free mobile phone use,broadband use and cheap texting

I have been looking at my mobile phone usage and decided that  I could use Ovivomobile for their freedom package.
I didn't like Orange,they messed up all the time.
The website was buggy and they charged an arm and a leg for data use if you didn't top up your phone every month which I never do,so my credit would whoosh away just for a quick look on a search engine taking only a minute or two.

I already have samba mobile for free broadband on my computer.


[[UPDATED TO ADD OVIVO HAVE NOW GONE OUT OF BUSINESS SO DISREGARD  THIS BIT        MARCH  20TH   2014    ]]

OVIVO supply a sim for £15 and when it arrives and you put it in your mobile phone, it adds £15 of credit so basically the sim is free.
Then you are allocated..

• 150 mins of talk time
• 250 texts 
• 500mb Data

For free each month

Then when your allocated free credits are all used you can still call anyone else who is on ovivo for free or if you are wanting to call other numbers you can top up with real money or just wait for the new months free credits or just go for one of their paid for tariffs which are quite cheap too.

If you port over your existing number by requesting your FREE PAC code from your old supplier they give an additional £3 of credit.
You shouldn't have any trrouble getting your PAC code as they must give it to you by law in the UK.

They also do an ovivo data sim (750mb free a month) which I believe is £15 with the same amount added to your account as credit.

You can have as many sims as you want as you pay for each one so you could have 2 dongles to get 1.5gb a month  or two sims for your phone (would have different numbers of course)or two phones and get two lots of the free phone credits.

 If you use your phone a bit more than I do and have an older phone knocking around, this would work out very cheap indeed over a year...

2 phone sims, £30 one off payment would give you every month

300 mins talk time
500 texts
1gb of data

2 Data sims ,£30 one off payment would give you every month

1.5gb data

That is very cheap over a year  when compared with the yearly PAYG tariffs of other companies.

Of course the longer you use it for ,the cheaper it would be .

So if your uni course was 3 years and you bought two sims of each kind(£60 all together) ,it would be £20 a year for phone and internet.

They don't provide the sims or phones in that price plan .

You can pick up very cheap unlocked phones and dongles on ebay or ask family for their spares.

Ovivo sims work in Nokia's symbian  phones  as well as apple and android and window phones.

The only criteria seems to be a phone that can get 3G and needs to be unlocked.

I have been waiting to change to OVIVO for a while because I still had about £7 credit on orange but then I found FISHTEXT which is an online texting thing. You can pay for the texts with mobile phone credit (eat that,orange) and allocate your mobile number when joining.

Then you can text from your PC or using the app on your mobile and the texts are 2p
International texts are very cheap .
They give you 20p credit (0.30euros)  for joining so you can try it out (10 standard uk to uk texts)
Texts to other FISHTEXT members are free using the PC or a wifi signal on you mobile or the free data from ovivo and their app is very low data usage anyway.

Any replies go to the mobile whose number you have used for your member number.
You can also pay to have a phone number online without needing a mobile phone at all.

The texts are cheap and they can be used internationally with a price guide being shown for each option and length of text when actually texting.

So for a bit of hunting around, I now have a free monthly mobile 'rolling tariff'  with £18 of credit
Plus a £5.20 credit on Fishtext

(£23.20 for the cost of £20) a 16% profit :P

without the Fishtext add on credit £5 it would have been £18.20 for the cost of £15 (a 21.33% profit)

These two things would be ideal for a student who must pay for their own phone and internet.

If you and your friends joined FishText the texts from your pc would be free according to their bumph.
Join Samba mobile to get free broadband to use with it or additionally.
Join ovivo and have free texts and calls and mobile data
Get someone to buy you the samba sim an ovivo phone sim and an ovivo data sim (750MB free a month) for your birthday or xmas  and you will have lots of free broadband and phone data.

Get yourself a copy of joikuspot for your phone and use the phone data to get wifi on either a tablet or PC
Log into samba mobile website whenever there is free wifi available (maybe in a takeaway or cafe,a library with wifi,uni) and watch the adverts to keep your account topped up with data.

Use the dongle or your tethered(joikuspot) phone to run skype so you can instantly message your family at home when you are away. The messaging bit of Skype uses very low data.

Then if after all that, you still run out of calls and texts etc, you can still have your family ring you,because phones work both ways and you don't pay to accept incoming calls or texts,only outgoing.

Incidentally,  I have been topping up my SAMBA SIM every day by watching the adverts I haven't  used the data much, we got it for our ten day trip away in the spring (I think I bought it at the end of Feb for £1 using a code from moneysavingexpert and used an old dongle  I unlocked free)when it was used daily and it has been used about 3 or 4 times when the home wifi was being glitchy. (about 2gb usage all together maybe)

I have 7.8gb sitting on it waiting for my next bigger outing.
If you were going to be off to uni next year and bought a sim now or asked for one for a present, you could accrue a lot of data on it in the time you are at home and avoid paying for the internet when you are away

If you want to get yourself one, you can click on my referral link here to save yourself £2.50
http://www.sambamobile.com/Signup/BecomeMember?memberKey=0x5C0A8DD4F4DDB8E7FC6D4BD659FB8AD5

And the sim will be £2.50 instead of £5 or a dongle with a sim will be £22.50 instead of £25

I haven't got a referral to share for OVIVO because it would be  my name and phone number which obviously I'm not going to broadcast to strangers on the internet.
Fishtext is also not really a referral based thing. click here to get to their page or just search the name

Well that was worth all the hard work!

The flat is already agreed to be let to someone!

They only put it online on Tuesday (photos taken Monday and today is Thursday).
Last Thursday we were still painting and cleaning.
After all that mad rushing around and the non stop work to get it ready we are very pleased.

We have had it for 5 years and it hasn't earned a penny in that time as we were letting to our kids who only really paid for any maintenance to be carried out and the council tax and then in the last 6 months DD was unemployed and the council wouldn't allow her any housing benefit due to it being her parents owning the flat and letting her live there rather than throw her out and rent it out .

They did work it hard and I think that has opened our eyes to the sort of treatment it could face while it is rented out.
A lot of ideas we originally had for making it beautiful were rethought after the kids had finished with it.
We had been going to replace large items with nicer ones but now we will wait till they need to be replaced rather than naively rushing to the shops.

Internet on the go

How does Samba mobile broadband perform?
 If you remember, I said I had joined Samba broadband.
This is a clever idea of theirs.
The company sells you a sim or a sim and a dongle.
You watch adverts on line and the adverts earn you megabytes. Each advert is 3.5 mb.
You can top up with money if you think you would run out but the money top ups are for 30 days straight . The advert megabytes last until you use them. I had just over 1.5 gigabytes in 21 days of membership.

We took several unlocked dongles with us. Samba uses 3 network in the UK.
I used a lot less than I expected due to the enormity of our task and the lack of time. In all,I only used 289 megabytes. This was mainly emails, a few small surveys and some general browsing,I did watch some short videos on nectar adpoints too. I used a Hi link Dongle that can work at 21mbps.

However,despite the comfortable feeling of being able to stay on line, I was disappointed to find that Samba adverts are almost non existent when connecting through their sim.
 I had only one advert for most days and 2 on one or two days.
That meant that although the adverts watched while using the dongle did not deplete the amount I can use, they were pitifully inadequate if I had needed to have more than the small amount of web access I actually used.

If I had only been able to access via the dongle for say a month and we had not been so busy, I would have probably run out with my only option being to top up with money.
 I suppose that one could go into burger restaurants or any of the other places where you can surf with their wifi while drinking a cup of tea and watch the adverts there, to be sure of getting enough to keep your account topped up when no wifi is available but it would need some dedication and determination.

Students would no doubt find this useful and for the very few times that we will need mobile broadband,so will I.
When we stayed at the youth hostel,broadband access was 50 pence for 30 minutes which seems expensive,I would use Samba in preference to that.

They could improve the idea enormously if they had a mobile phone page in which the adverts were accessible as they are on home Internet .
I did try to access their page via my phone browser. UCee browser could access the page but could not view the videos and nor could opera mini or the built in nokia browser(I think based on firefox).

For one thing it is easier to carry a mobile phone with you and you have much more chance of accessing free wifi simply because of the small format.

Secondly, a mobile phone is less alluring to thieves than a laptop would be so turning up in the same spot every day to top up your adverts would be less likely to gain notice .
 I say page rather than App because an App is Operating system specific (unless java or python and still it would rely on a phone being able to handle those languages).
A mobile page can be seen by any mobile browser.

 My other option for internet access was Joikuspot as my phones are all Nokia and that is a Nokia specific app as far as I know. This app worked perfectly although I hardly used it. It was very useful before I got the dongle to see the Samba sim and still go to the log in page (it needed to restart) . I used it a couple of times when I wanted something very quickly rather than find the dongle and let it start up.

My poor DD was about a week without Internet due to having to end her agreement when moving. DH had his phone for tethering (we discovered it is allowed on his tariff ,else he would have used my options).

Back from the north

Well we did it!
The flat is sorted.
It took all the 10 days of constant work to get it ship shape but it is done.

Day 1

When we got there after a 12 hour journey by car (we take turns to drive but still had about 3 hours of sleep stops as there was no rush), the flat was in disarray. There were bags and boxes and 'stuff' everywhere. We sat around for a long while waiting for DD and her BF to get their stuff sorted. They were in no great hurry. In the evening , their guy appeared and about 2 3rds of the pile was removed. We had a take away pizza delivered while we waited for him to come and DH drove one car full of mostly DD's belongings over to her new flat. Then there was a flurry of activity as DH and I began going through the remaining bits to bin as much detritus as possible. We found a backpack full of bits belonging to DS who had lived there for 3 years before DD, including a 3 piece suit and a new pair of shoes.

Day 2

Thank goodness we had bought a steam cleaner.
The Fridge and Freezer were both so frozen that they were ridiculous.
In fact the freezer was frozen with the door open so it was a constant battle between the heating and the freezer.
I am guessing that the two were an expensive factor on the electricity meter. It took a full days work to get both machines back to clean and dry.

We went out afterwards and bought some food to last us the rest of our stay.
The fridge purred back into life when I switched it on and performed well for the rest of the time we were there.
The freezer was left switched off as we didn't need to freeze anything.

 OH began rubbing down paintwork in the bathroom and cleaned and treated the wall and ceiling to remove the mould build up.
The mould was caused by DD drying her clothes in there and her daily shower with the fan left switched off (I believe).

 Day 3

The steam cleaner was again useful to clean the tiling around the bath and restore the grout to something less revolting.
 I also steamed the window ledges and the Kitchen cupboard doors and handles which were grimy and food splattered.

DH retreated the mould areas and when it was dry, sealed the wall and ceiling with PVA. Then he rubbed down the back of the bathroom door which has a full length picture of a bathing beauty glued to it courtesy of the previous owner. We did not attempt to remove it, I have fond memories of removing glued on posters from wood because I worked in the photo exhibition industry and know that glue and wooden panels are a nightmare to clean back.

The cooker top needed only a light steam to remove some built up cleaning cream and as it is only about 6 weeks old, it was a quick job.
 The windows weren't too bad,just a standard clean with squeegee and washing up liquid. Outside is left alone.
The flat is on the 2nd floor and only the main window opens enough to clean both sides.

 Day 4

 More shopping. This time for Mattress covers, a few small tools and scratch restore pens for the floor. I found the pens in poundland. There is a big scratch under the living room door where something had got stuck and it was not easily removable. DH managed to get it out and it was a big piece of grit or gravel. That has been there since we bought the place .

 DH painted the bathroom woodwork and the door. An electrician installed a new extractor fan for us with a humidity controlled timer. He also moved the light in the bedroom so that it was in the middle of the room and not over the wardrobe.
I gave the woodwork a second coat while DH went for fish and chips.

 Day 5

We paint rolled the bathroom walls and ceiling with special paint. While DH gave it a second coat, I started to paint roll the living room. This is a big room maybe 15 feet square with slated ceiling at one side and so a lot of surface area. The ceiling needed doing in this room too.

On fitting a mattress cover to see how it looked, I discovered that it was a little large. This is because the last owner had bought a small double bed which was a non standard size. The mattress is fine and so a cover seemed the best bet. I spent the afternoon sewing the two covers to fit.

 I filled over some holes left by nails and screws in various places and a couple of larger holes caused by careless decorating or removals in the kitchen. One small area needed the wall paper removing and re-gluing as it was almost hanging in mid air.

 Day 6

 The builders came to paint the outside woodwork.
They are cheeky chappies.
 Builder 1 leaned out of the window and rubbed down the woodwork (it is a massive drop if he fell). He leant back in shaking and stressed out!
Then he produced a rope and handed me the end saying 'hold tight for just a wee while' and proceeded to lean a bit further while I held the end.
Obviously if he had fallen, there is no way I could hold his weight but I think he thought it added safety.
His crony, builder 2, appeared on the ladder outside and did the unreachable bits. Later they both came in and worked from inside. I was not happy to see them placing their cloddies all over the cleaned window ledges and even the bed.
Then they examined the concreting on the roof and made a note of what needed doing. We are responsible for the windows and their little dormer roofs .

DH painted the living room with plastic sheets over everything. I am the masker outer so that was all done before hand.

Day 7

The builders reappeared to apply a second coat and give an estimate on the concreting.
I was entertained with stories of terrible tenants who punished their kids by making them use their bedrooms as lavatories. Of tenants who bang up the heating and tape up all the air vents then dry their clothes everywhere resulting in mould(I didn't comment on DD's track record).
One of the builders said that some tenants will use candles rather than replace a light bulb and my mind shot to the candle burn on top of the bedroom chest of drawers and the candle wax that I encountered almost everywhere.

We cleared the bedroom (putting the bed in the living room) and I masked off for painting. The cupboards were filthy and so they got a thorough clean. DH paint rolled the walls to cover up the green .

 I started to paint the kitchen where I had reattached the paper and filled holes.

 Day 8

We finished the bedroom and replaced the bed.
 I cleaned the light shades with bread (it captures the dust and the crumbs disintegrate so it needs to be done over the bin).
The bin was cleaned to remove the food splats.
The kitchen was finished and the carpet was steamed to remove food splashes.

 Day 9

 Mastic day.

 I am the one who does the mastic work.

We had to attach a panel on the wall behind the bath. It covers the boiler and a cupboard above but you cant leave it as an opening cupboard because the shower would be unusable if you did. So it is screwed in place with covers on the screws and mastic is used to waterproof in front and behind the panel.
There was some to do behind the kitchen sink too. We found a tube of black had been left by one of the plumbers and so I filled in the missing 'disc' on the kitchen tap with a little bit to match the black disc on the other one.

 We hung the shower curtain. Fitted a kitchen cabinet with a mirror. Installed a shelf that sits around the basin.
I steamed the whole bathroom floor to zap any nasties hiding around the toilet etc.

 Day 10

 The builders arrived late.
They were there when I got back from the shop (travel food for the home journey).
DH was flustered and red faced.
Builder 2 in stepping on the worktop beside the sink, had caused a cracking sound and DH said the underside of the worktop was cracked. It wasn't visible from above or the sides.
I told builder 1 (the boss) that he should replace the top as they broke it.
He refused.
He told DH where he could get a matching piece to reinforce the counter and said he would pay for it.

 We felt caught out, we needed them to be gone and the work done so that the letting agent would see it finished and give us a price for letting. We were coming back home the same evening.
DH bought the wood and fitted it.
We tidied and vacuumed after the builders had left minus the price of the wood DH bought.

I filled in the scratches with the pen.It worked perfectly.

The letting agent rep came and looked around. He had been a few weeks previously when DD and BF were still here.
That time they had not been able to photograph it due to all the 'stuff' and possibly to the unkempt look of it. This time he nodded in approval.
The quote he gave us was 25 pounds more than the previous one so that was good.
 After he was gone we loaded the car for the journey and then got fish and chips(no washing up) We slept for about 2 hours before starting back.
We were home 12 hours and 600 miles later.

 How much did it cost?

 It was £810 for the builders.
 The petrol for the journey @ £140
 New fan Paint Light fittings
Spares for w-machine(knob) fridge(icebox door) freezer (inner flap)
 Electricity while there and until tenant installed (£35)
grub (takeaway and bought to cook/eat)
mattress covers/under sink shelf/bathroom cabinet
Mirror for hallway
Sundries (screws,glue, rollers, brushes) @ £350
So far around £1300
I haven't added the cost of the electrician as we haven't had the bill yet.
We still need to get a smoke alarm wired in.

The steam cleaner will be used at home so I didn't add that (£30)cost either.
 It was well worth it.
A company hired to come in and do it would have scrapped the fridge and freezer and we would have needed a new washer dryer because the dryer knob(£8 to replace after a little research) was broken.
That would have been a minimum of  £700 for machines alone.
I have no idea how much cleaning would have been and it would have needed at least the kitchen carpet steamed in that price.

*Looking online it seems that an 'end of Tenancy clean with steamed carpets' could be £150 for the size of the flat, I think that is without any clearing of stuff left behind and certainly with no maintenance  or decorating so looks like we made the right decision to do it ourselves*

The estimate for letting was £25 more per month which is £300 over a year

*Actually it was £ 75 a month more and was priced to let  at £50 a month more to see how many bites could be got. If it does well at £50 more,I am happy with that as it is £600 more than we thought it would let for over a year.*

DS is happy, he was reunited with his suit and shoes and the iron he bought and forgot when he came home. We also found one of his old phones, a pair of  expensive gloves,his mini fridge  and his wooly hat.

I brought home 2 towels,a tea towel,a pillow,pillow case, a casserole and a big square pie dish,
the old hose from the broken vacuum which we replaced (it fits my ordinary vacuum and my wet and dry machine).  We also salvaged a wooden venetian blind DD bought in error as it was too small.(its fits our stair window perfectly at home so we bought it from her.These things were not needed at the flat but too good to throw away.

We threw away, 2 chairs (replaced with new padded fold up chairs).
The old extractor (new one is more efficient)
A lamp shade (was awful)
The clothes rack (so people are more likely to use the garden clothes line or the dryer)
and the old round pedestal table which was coming apart(replaced with a nest of 2 pine tables).
The chairs and the rack were left where someone could take them if they wanted to.

megabytes , mobile phones and unlocking

We are soon off to scotty for the big push.
In other words...
DD is moving out of the flat and we can get in to clean it up and put it right prior to letting it.

DD has been there rent free for about 6 months so we have felt no qualms about her putting up with it as is.

I bought a steam cleaner from Ebay to take up with us to make sure the place is thoroughly clean .
I have tried it out at home and it is a good little machine.
The freezer was rather startled to discover it was going to get defrosted for the first time in about 18 months.
We have an old Aqua Vac that we bought years and years ago to cope with all the mess of pets and small kids.
It mostly lives in the shed as it is so noisy that the user has ringing in their ears after using it  which can't be healthy.
Anyway,armed with the Aqua Vac and the Steamer, our freezer became the cleanest it has ever been except for when it was new.

The flat has had new radiators,a new cooker and a new shower.
We are probably going to paint the Bathroom .
I think we will be buying a new mattress for the bed too.
We have a new extractor fan to fit in the bathroom.
A sparky will actually fit it so that it is in compliance with safety regulations.

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While we are up there, we wont have TV or internet access.
We can take our laptops so we will take some films to watch .

I have joined Samba so that I can take one of our unlocked mobile broadband dongles for light surfing and emailing.

I have only just discovered Samba.
It is a company that sell a sim or a sim with a dongle and then you access their webpage to watch video adverts which credit your sim with megabytes.

So far I have been a member for 12 days and have about 900 megabytes for using when we go.


If you are interested in joining them, they are here http://www.sambamobile.com

I bought my sim using a code from moneysavingexpert which allowed me to get it for £1 delivered.
I dont know how long the Code is valid for but it is worth taking a look if you are interested in joining      

OR

I can refer you and we each recieve £3 worth of credit....
My referral is here click here to be referred

The sims are quite cheap once you consider that the credit is free .

Sims and microsims are £5
A sim with a Dongle is £25

You can use the sims in any unlocked dongle or I believe in a 3 dongle as they work on the three network.
The microsims work in some tablets.

You can also add credit using your paypal account or debit/credit card .

Credit that you add with your money lasts 30 days.
Credit earned by watching ads lasts until you use it.

 I think anyone who wants to surf away from home every now and then would find it useful.
If you were hoping to use it every day instead of broadband,it would only really be for very light use unless you were going to top it up .
 3 ads a day  would give only 10.5mb which is enough to view '30 web pages and 100 emails' (quoting their customer service). I have never had less than 3 to watch .



I also have Joikuspot on two of my phones.
It is a wifi access point program that turns your phone into the hotspot.
I wont use it much as mostly I will use the dongle but it might fill in when the dongle is running low.
I'll only use it with K-meleon which is a light weight browser.

These two things together are better than buying another mobile broadband sim with credit on.
I can get some data credit for 50p a day on my phones and will only use it if the samba sim runs out.

To see how much data I will use, I have  Bitmeter on my laptop. You can monitor your connections with it so you dont go over what you have allowed yourself per day.
On my phones I have DataMonitor which does the same but just for the phone.

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I unlocked all our broadband dongles.
We have huawei dongles .
One was a BT dongle and the other three were from 3.
The newest one is a HiLink dongle and I had to find a friendly forum with a person in the know who could give me the unlock code but it worked and all are now unlocked for free.

I have several Nokia phones as each time OH upgraded,he handed me his old phone.
The most recent two are on three because they are the kind that need a machine especially for unlocking. One I use as a camera and calculator and dont keep a sim in. It still works on our home wifi as a browser.
The other is my used phone for calls.
I also have an older version that is unlocked and on a different network.
In my drawer I have an N-gage which I unlocked with an unlock calculator and a 3310 also unlocked via calculator.
The N-gage is unlikely to get much use, its battery is too weedy but it does work.
The 3310 cant use 3g and most networks rely on 3g these days.

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Giving the telly a miss and the freecycle vultures

We used to have just radio when the kids were little.
I preferred it that way.
It meant we could get on with our lives instead of shceduling our lives to fit in between the programmes on TV.
There were drawbacks, conversation at the school gates was invariably about the latest cliff hanger 'soap' rubbish.
However, there were many good points to being noTV.
The kids didn't badger us for fad toys.
We didn't need to think about all the latest new products in the supermarket.
We were quite happy with life without wishing for the artificial lifestyles portrayed on the screen.

OH brought a TV home with him one day much to my disgust and we have had it ever since.
18 years later and he finally announced a couple of weeks back that there was nothing on TV anymore.
This was triggered by his sitting in front of the screen for much of christmas flicking back and forth through endless repeats of Last of the summer wine and then on Christmas Eve the 2 ronnies etc.
All from the 1970's and 80's.

I pointed out to him that we could watch streaming TV for £5.99 a month.
Streaming TV is not live broadcast so if we only watched streaming stuff, we could cancel our TV license (£12 a month) and still watch something each night AND almost every thing we watch will be new to us.

It is a win /win situation.
OH will get to see something every single day that he hasn't seen before, he still can see his old favourites if he wants as there is plenty of choice there
AND
we no longer need to pay for the privelidge of being served up reconstituted TV that we have both seen before and been made to pay for if we watched it the first time round and every consequent time since.
AND
it is half the price of the ridiculous TV license.

Our set top box is going to charity. British Heart foundation will collect the machines from us to sell in their shop.
We have 2 set top boxes for them ,a video and a DVD player.

There will be one TV in this house which belongs to my daughter and that is only going to be kept for her to play DVDs on.

We have a ginormous monitor in the living room so we can watch our streaming films on that and feel like we are watching on a big screen telly.
The monitor was one OH rescued from the rubbish and is 50" wide. It hangs on the wall and the picture comes in through his little netbook which is only about 10" wide.
There is no sound on the monitor so he has a little speaker thing for that.

...................................................................................................................................................................

We were going to freecycle the video machines.
I listed them and then was bombarded with demands .
How rude people can be.
Although I listed everything seperately and waited a few days to be fair( so everyone gets to see the offers)
I had demands along the lines of ...

'I will take it all,where do you live'?

'Is it the such and such model,if it is I want it'

'Give me your address ,I will collect it today'

Then there were quite a few that made me feel uncomfortable  just because they had

'sent from my iphone'  
along the bottom of them.

These 'iphone' messages tended to be followed by others all from the same people with requests for all the other offers (we had 6 things on offer).

While I love freecycle and freegle and will continue to offer and request in the future, I will be checking the British Heart foundations website every time we have anything that is good enough to sell on ,incase they can make use of it purely because of the greedy gannets that sit and wait for their iphone messages to come rolling in .

I know not everyone is a trickster and many people don't mind their offers being sold on but I do mind and they are my things to decide about.

Preserving stuff

I have been harvesting a fair bit this last week.

The dehydrator has been busy every night drying Beans, Kale, Courgettes, and  spinach .
We also have a Vacuum sealer which has helped keep the freezer from overflowing because it compacts things into flatter shaped bags.

Yesterday I decided we needed the bottom shelf of the freezer back (it is only a 3 shelf under-counter style ).
There were 6 Seville oranges and 4 lemons in there waiting to be made into marmalade.
I sorted through the saved empty jars to find enough with lids.
It took about 1 1/2 hours to chop them all up and boil it down in the microwave.

Last week I made Marrow and Ginger jam using ground ginger.
The result has turned out quite sloppy as there wasn't enough pectin despite a goodly amount of lemon juice.
I can see it being mostly used as pie fillings but no matter.

There are about 8 good sized marrows under DD's bed now.
Hopefully they will last w while without needing to be dried or frozen.

Home Haircut day

Todays victim was me.
Not so scary as it sounds because I am my own hair cutter.
If I scream stop at any point during the proceedings, it is instantly acknowledged.
I used a combination of tools for this.

•  The robocut machine that I bought a couple of years ago.
•  Haircutting scissors.
•  A thinning tool and thinning scissors.
•  A hair line guide.
•  A web cam on a USB cable.
•  Mirror and comb.

It sounds like a lot but I have been a self snipper for ages (25 years)and you do tend to accumulate new tools along the way.

First I chop to 2 1/2 inches with the machine,my hair is rarely longer than 3" anyway). I leave the crown part alone at this point.
Then 2" at back and sides.
Next fit the web cam to check the back of my head.
I used the thinning tools to do my fringe (Bangs) and the hair line tool to do a neat line round the back of my neck.
The scissors help here of course and the mirror lets me check the front without having to keep changing the web cam position .
I go round each ear and tidy the edge to make a line following on from the fringe.

I'll no doubt notice a few stray bits that need tidying over the day so the scissors are kept handy for that.
The Robocut layers hair so it isn't just one thickness like it is knitted.

I did DS's hair a few weeks back.
For that I used the wondercomb thingummy that I bought from ebay.
It is a comb with a depth piece that you use to give the right length then you just cut over the comb  with scissors.
I made a similar thing some years ago for our clippers so that I could do the back of mine without needing to see it. My gauge was only cardboard fitted with an afro comb but it worked till the cardboard got too soft and bendy.

OH uses a phillips self clipper I bought him around 4 years ago.
He does his about every 6 weeks and tidies the back with the ordinary clippers as he says you get more of a blended look that way. It saves him about £50 a year to do his own .

I only do mine about every 2 months but a womans haircut is around £20 so it saves me about £120 a year or £10 a month.

DD does her own ,she has long hair and just does the fringe .Every so often she will see an advertisement for a free haircut if she models for a trainee so she does get a salon cut sometimes.She colours her hair herself with Henna .

Free grub just lying there

Yesterday I discovered 2 big mushrooms growing in the compost.
One was about 4" across and the other a little smaller.
I picked them and brought them indoors,got out my mushroom and toadstool identifying book and found the ones that it looks like.
There were 4. One is not really edible but wont kill you, it goes yellow when you bruise it and smells of carbolic if you boil it,the worst thing it does is make you throw up.

I found the right one.
It is called abrupt bulb mushroom.
I nibbled a couple of little bits just to make double sure.
(I wouldn't have done if the 4th mushroom had been fatal,it would all have gone to the rubbish bin.)
We had them chopped up in our chicken stew.
The two mushrooms chopped up, were enough to fill a family sized christmas pudding bowl.

I also added a big bag of Molokhia which grows in our hedge and has done for all the years we have lived here.
I only recently discovered it is edible.

Comfrey

This morning the postman delivered some Russian Comfrey root cuttings.
I already have a couple of plants but didnt want to risk digging them up and dividing, until I had some more established.
A few years back, I bought the first lot, 10 cuttings from HDRA .
I planted them all in the shady bit under the trees and almost all of them disappeared for ever.
The three that emerged eventually,were moved before they too died.

Of course it is raining AGAIN so I have potted them up for now until I can get out long enough to get them a good site prepared.

The reason to use Russian Comfrey is, it doesn't seed itself.
It is only root dividable. Therefore,where you put it to grow,is where it remains.

Plant destruction

Yesterday being only the 2nd sunny day this spring,I spent all afternoon chopping down a rambling rose that used to have a Trellis to hold it up.
The Trellis has sagged to nothing.
There was also an Elderberry tree growing up amongst it and some Sycamore.

The rose was hanging down into next doors garden as well as ours and is a nuisance so needed sorting.

It took me from 12.30 until 4pm to get it chopped down and then another hour and a half of shredding.
I have a huge pile still to shred but we wanted our tea and of course, it rained as soon as Tea was over.

With all this rain, the outdoor jobs just pile up and there isn't sufficient time to do everything when the sun dries it up enough to have a go.

First sunny day for weeks!

It has been dry all day.
This morning I took all the failed pots from the cold frame.
There are still a good amount of plants remaining, except for the Kale so that will be replaced from my resowings which are coming along. Always sow and pot on more than you are going to use because the slugs and weather will soon deplete them .

I kept my fingers crossed for a dry afternoon as the lawn desperately needed cutting.
Our lawn is very big, around 45 feet wide and maybe 90 feet long.
Anyway I got it all cut and composted.
The old strimmer tidied up the edges.

Then I fiddled about with a flymo strimmer that we had inherited from OH's dad and got that working again.
It can flip around to edge the lawn apparently but I had had enough grass cutting for one day so that will have to wait.

No veg garden work today as I was too busy with the lawn.
It was about 12.30 when I started and 4pm when I finished.

Molokhia

We have  Molokhia growing in our garden.
We have always had it but I have only just discovered that it is edible.
Another name for it is Jews Mallow.
It is a bush and gets little yellow pom pom flowers in the spring.

Anyway having discovered its edibility, I picked a good bunch and we had it with rice,chicken,mushrooms and onions for tea yesterday.
It was yummy.
OH who didn't know it was an new experiment , said tea tasted very 'clean' today.
That IS a compliment LOL

Finally Pics of my Jalo Gardener Bracket !

We have had rain for days and days.
Today I actually got out into the garden with my phone which has a camera on it.

I got some digging done with the Trusty Azada.


The junk lying on the ground  is all the stuff I have got covering the 'cleared but not working on at the moment' earth.
The blue thing at the far end,is the old car cover thing that was left here when we moved in 24 years ago.
It is thick plastic and quite heavy.
From there on,is all weeds and trees.


It was quite cloddy but I pesevered.
This more ploughed bit is hopefully going to be for the beans.
The bit of wooden fence was chucked into the garden by a neighbour in the houses along the bottom behind a 6ft fence. I have it for walking across the mud at the moment.

Next I got the new Toy (A Jalo with cultivating teeth/Tines YAY) and gave that a try.
I was looking on Ebay for the tines for my other Jalo and found this .
Often you will see either Jalo or planet junior hoes with various tools very cheaply because they are collection only but I was lucky with this one as the owner had offered delivery too.

The last one I saw with many tools, went for about £90 and there is one up there today with about 5 days to go, that will sell very well despite being collection only I think, as it has every tool that Jalo produced  apart from a seeder.

This one was £27 . I thought that was a bargain because 3 Tines from America (only place selling them new) is about £53. I paid £ 15 for the delivery and it came in 2 days so that was very good value and far cheaper than driving half way across the country to collect it.

The Tines are in very good nick with only light surface rusting which was easily removed with a light rub down and the handle of the machine could really do with a rub down and paint just to smarten it up.




The teeth work well and go quite deeply after the Azada has broken the ground.
I have 5 teeth or tines for it but have only got 3 on it in the 2nd picture as it is so muddy today.
Then I changed the teeth to the plough fitting (which I bought on Ebay a few weeks back for £12 delivered) and ploughed for a while.
I forgot to get a picture of the plough .

Last of all, I got the other Jalo out of the shed to take some pictures of the new bracket that I made last week.



My Bracket made from a  cut down  Satellite dish bracket .

I made this because you don't often see single tools for sale with delivery for the Jalo.
You have to look for weeks and weeks before one turns up and then of
course you must bid for it.
That can push the price up too far.

We have a few wolf multichange tools that we bought before we moved here and I have one or two newer ones ,they are the type that all fit into one handle ,so the bracket has furnished me with all the other tools I might want for my wheel hoe.

The wolf tool handles slide into the rectangular tubing,with a small slither of rubber just to make it a firm fit.
Then just do up the bolt.

It works perfectly and I can fit the wolf tools into the bracket and have it set to any angle along one axis ,so that it can be for deep or shallow use.
That is massively improved on my first bracket which was just a tab to hold the wolf handle steady against the frame.
The first attempt worked perfectly too but I had no depth control except that of lowering or raising the handle angle by holding it differently which was awkward.

The Bracket simply unbolts from the Jalo if I want to use it without.
No drilling or cutting on the trusty old tool.
 

These machines really help with a vegetable garden ,especially if you are tackling the work single handed.. They take a lot of the slog out of the work.
I think it is because you are pushing and pulling like you do with a mower but you are not having to also take the weight of the tool. Even the wolf tools are easier because you have two hands to do the propelling rather than one.

Muck spreading

Well mulch spreading really !
I took a large amount of rotted grass clippings and daubed them all over the fruit part of the veg garden.
My strawberries stand out now and the Rhubarb looks a bit more lively.

My neighbour inadvertently mentioned how well my Raspberries do considering I pretty much ignore them once they have finished fruiting.
It's true *Shrug*. They rarely get cut down after they are finished.
The new canes just grow and the old ones die and snap off.
No point fussing about trying to 'help' them, they know what they are doing.

I bought two full 2.5 kg bags of very small potatoes on Sunday. They were reduced to 76p and I am guessing it was because they are unwashed and golf ball sized.
No-one wants to fuss about cleaning such small veg.
I wont. They are going to be planted as they are ideal as seed potatoes.
This enterprise will happen next week I think once I am finished preparing their resting place.
Hopefully ,all those potatoes will see us through the year from about July onwards.

Cheap grub

Yesterday we had fish pie made with fish and chip shop scraps(boneless cod bits),left over bread made into crumbs and some reduced cheese blended in.

Todays dinner was home made fish and chips with the better bits from the fish and chip shops bag of scraps.
The bag costs £1 and does 2 meals for 3 people.
The chips are almost always home made.
I have a metal chip cutter bought in a boot fair for 50p years ago.
I never bother peeling potatoes,the skin is good for you.
I use a basic deep fat fryer, the kind you sit on the hob and watch till you see the smoke rising.

It really doesn't take very long (25 minutes ?)and no having to go out and get them.

Keeping a heavy purse

This month I withdrew £120 at the beginning so that I could use it to challenge myself to a grocery challenge.
I shop every weekend and then that must last us the week.
Last weekend was the last shop for this week as the Saturday and Sunday of this week will be used to buy next weeks food etc.
I still have £43 in there!

I think that is the best I have managed since before I worked from home.
Back then I could spend £10 to £15 some weeks and have all we needed for a week.
That was when I grew nearly all the veg we needed.

I did find myself thinking of spending a couple of times.
I went to the cinema on Monday but took a sandwich,banana,chocolate and a drink with me. The ticket was from a survey site so the day out cost me nothing at all and I was chuffed that it had not, despite thinking of myself as being a seasoned skinflint.

Lidl had tillers last weekend and I was sorely tempted to buy one but I was there on foot and knew I couldn't carry it all the way home.
At home afterwards, I read about them and realised that tillers are not rotovators, they are more like my push hoe. They break up already dug earth.
The Azada and the push hoe can do that and they don't use electricity.
I also realised I would have had to buy a cable long enough to reach all the way to the bottom of the garden which might have cost anywhere from £30-£50 so not so cheap after all.

Seeds ,knitting and 1st cutting for the grass

It was lovely and sunny yesterday, I couldn't resist getting the mower out.

We have a big hover mower that we bought when the kids were little ,it is a 30" cut with a grass box behind.
The grass was just about cut-able, a bit slippy where the shade was still on it but it managed.
It took me 2 1/2 hours to cut the back lawn and tidy up the edges with the strimmer.
I had forgotten that the cat flap was blocked so had to plug in round by the back sliding doors instead. The local cats get quite interested in our house so we do have to watch out else we find them scampering about inside.
I don't mind the scampering but they are almost always Toms and that means the spraying of acrid pong that goes with a territory statement.

If you remember, our own cat was killed 18 months ago by a neighbouring dog that was not secured properly in his garden,so we haven't really needed a cat flap but as it is a permanent hole in the wooden back door, it is handy for plugging in machines without having a door open.
I block it in winter as it is too cold to leave it.

All the grass went into the new compost bin that my Son made out of the old rotten shed. Usually the grass from one cutting will fill a Dalek style compost bin but this time ,it was only about 8" over the bottom of the new bin!

The knitting loom progress

I finished my knitted socks and am now almost finished one of a pair for DS who has the most enormous plates of meat,like a Hobbit.

Seeds and sowing soil

This weeks seed sowing was
Tomatoes
Cabbages
Spring Onion
Lettuce
Cucumber
Courgette
Pumpkin
Runner Beans
Early Peas
Main crop Peas

Last weeks were

Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Leeks
Kale

I still have left to sow

Radish
Carrot
Chard
Beetroot
French Beans
Cauliflower

As usual I made the seed compost myself

I sieve compost and then add equal amounts of Earth and Sand.
This gives a nice light soil without too much water retention.
The pots are reused every year so cost nothing.

Next to do is make the Bean frame after clearing some ground for them.

Cheesy Grins

OH noticed that the co-op have reduced cheese when he is on his way home sometimes.
He has been keeping his eyes open and last week brought home 7kg
We used to buy Cheese in a huge block from Costco but we aren't members anymore because we found we weren't really recuperating the cost of the membership once the kids were finished school and with the Dartford Tunnel being a Toll road and petrol having soared in price.

Anyway, the cheese was all half price and we buy a KG about every 2 weeks so this is a very nice saving.
It will keep fine in the fridge as long as it is kept  airtight.

Who needs criminals when we have the utility providers?

We have been with BT Broadband for a number of years.
We get their Broadband and telephone and also have a TV box ,although we got the box to watch freeview only, we don't pay for any programmes on it.

The hub which is a fancy name for their modem,is glitchy.
It cuts you off in mid telephone call.
It turns off when you are surfing the web.
It leaves you watching buffering on the TV screen.
It displays an unsecure network when it actually is using encryption.

After many ,many moans, including the OH being quite insulting more than once to the telephone 'customer service' in far off India, we finally got the operative to admit that we have a fault on our hub.

'Oh right' says OH, 'so finally you agree it is the hub that is broken'!
'Yes,it is the router' says the operative.
'When will you be sending out a new one'? says OH.
'No it is your responsibility to get the new one' she says.
'You must take out a one year contract and we will send you a new one'.
.........................................................................!
'Okay' says OH, 'so what you are saying is, we are not in a contract any longer and so must either...
Sign up with a new one year contract where you will supply us with a new modem,everything else remaining exactly the same ...
OR
Not sign up with a contract and not be able to get your services which we are paying full price for...
OR
Sign up with another provider for £200 less a year, get a new phone and a new contract with them and they will give us a new modem'.

Decisions decisions!

Can you guess what we chose to do?

The operative had a long think and then said, 'no you are in contract'.
'Oh' says OH 'so when will you be sending us our new replacement modem'?
'No no',she says, 'we cannot give you a new modem unless you sign up for a 1 year contract, if you are not in contract, we cannot help you'!
ARGH!
This conversation went around and around until she admitted she was wrong (or right Hee hee) and we were no longer under contract.

Just then the phone cut out rather sealing the deal and we just laughed.

We decided on a new provider.
To connect with a new provider we had to ring the old one to request the MAC Code ,something like migration agreement code I think, so we can keep our phone number.

A smug sounding Brit came on the phone and asked very treacle voiced ,why on earth we should want to leave.
OH who is a bit gullible sometimes started to explain but I said 'look just ask for the wretched code'.
OH said he would get his wife to talk to the operative :P
He handed me the phone and I said 'We aren't interested in listening to offers any more, just give me the code please'.
He tried to talk over me but eventually the code was read out over the phone and we rang off.
His last words were ' we will be sorry to lose you'!

YER RIGHT!

Who was it told us to like it or lump it?....

I think the phrase is 'We will be sorry to lose your revenue'.

The new contract is all signed for and paid for etc and we are awaiting the new arrangements.

Incidentally , the TV vision box will not work once we don't have power to a BT Home Hub, they have it hard coded so that while it can connect to their servers, it will update its EPG(program guide) and allow recording schedules but as soon as you are not paying them, your free free-view box is a piece of Junk.

Shrug, who wants to be shackled to them just for a free-view box?
We have a new one on order to replace it with as we are not going to subscribe to TV with the new provider.
The new box should do exactly what the old one did without the need to be plugged in to the faulty home hub.


The new provider works out as £60 for the year for Broadband and £147 for the phone line with the free evening and weekend call package (same as BT eve/ weekend calls),so £207 all together.
Instead of £272 for the broadband +£159 phone=£431

Saving      £224

I decided to use some Amazon vouchers to buy a new free view PVR box.
It was £69.74 including delivery.
That still leaves us £154.26 richer.

Tablets

Whinge Alert!!


OH really liked my e-reader when he saw me using it.
He looked on Ebay and couldn't find one as good for the money (no shit sherlock) .
So he bought an Android tablet second hand(70 odd pounds).
It didn't work properly so he sent it back and was refunded.
Then yesterday, the new replacement turned up.
This one is brand new and was over £100.

Needless to say, I am not impressed.
I mean I love it, it is small and neat and clever and can do lots of things but why?
He has a Netbook ,a laptop and an android phone.
There is no reasoning with him,he just doesn't bother to answer if he cant justify an expense, he will look on silently until I shut up.

I thought about it for a bit and wondered if I could say the same about my having bought an e-reader.
Was I just being silly and impulsive?

But I honestly can justify my reader.
For a start it was cheap because I mended it myself.
The money to buy it was entirely from surveys.

I already had lots and lots of free books that were on my laptop but were awkward to read because I
couldn't have the laptop on in the bedroom at night in bed. (It is one I got from DD and I  mended by  wiring through the battery connection so it cant work without being plugged in).
OH of course shares the room and has to sleep in the bed  too and a 17" laptop is in the way however you position it.

It can display PDF which is handy as recipes are often put online and I  can print to PDF then take it into the kitchen to follow the instructions which is awkward with a laptop  and takes up loads less room.
I have used it every night since Christmas Eve.

Hobsons Choice

Anyway , it makes me reluctant to spend my squirreled pennies on anything  in which I don't have full choice .

I had planned on buying a new front door from ebay with survey money but when I mentioned it to OH a couple of weeks ago, he went browsing ebay and as usual looks to the absolute top end of what we could afford and then thinks about adding on extras like finishing ,then looks at me as though I am going to say ,okay I will save £ 600 so that we can get the one you choose . Well that is NOT happening.
It would take me more than a month to accrue enough just to get a door sealed for *****s sake,what is wrong with buying the door and sealing it ourselves?

We could buy a new hardwood glazed door for under £200 but shrug, that ain't going to happen.

I give up.

My survey money is going to reestablish itself as mums pin money and that is that.
That doesn't include money saved from the housekeeping of course, that is family money and gets used for unexpected bills and saving.

Always look on The Bright side of Life

Good things that have come from stopping the self employment.

I now have pin money that is considered to be mine,it is trickle pennies but I don't care .
Earnings from self employment were not mine and the choice as to what to spend it on was mysteriously lacking too.
I can stay in bed till 8 am instead of getting up at 6 am.
I get breakfast away from the computer.
I get a lunch break and eat away from the computer.
I have time to cook from scratch every day.
I can sit in the living room and watch TV in the evening.
I get a Saturday and Sunday and if DS wants company into town during the week, I can go.
I am back to bargain hunting when Grocery shopping.
It is cheaper when I go shopping for food! A lot cheaper, less than half the cost of sending OH.
The Garden can get back into production and we will have cheap,organic,fresh fruit and veg.
I have time to exercise every day.
Answering the phone or the front door do not have me doing mental sums to work out how much time/money it  is costing .
We have our dining room back and can eat like civilized people without dropping food down ourselves and being bombarded by the bloody Television. Absolute Bliss!

Getting ready for the new year of growing

I went into town yesterday to post off OH's Ebay parcel, he wasn't selling, he had bought a not quite working tablet and wanted to return it.
Easy ,since I have no paid work now, I can always get down to the post office.

Anyway, on the way there, I thought I would pop in to the pound shop and see what seeds they had.
I already have 10 new packets but no Brussels or leeks, so I checked the shelves.
They had leeks in a combination pack but no Brussels.
After posting off the parcel (over £5 without extra insurance!!), I went to the 99p shop and they had different packs of seeds.
I bought 1 pack with Leeks included amongst others and 1 pack with 3 types of Beans.
As I was passing the pound stretcher store I thought I would just pop in and check on their seeds.
They didn't have much of interest but then I saw the fruit trees.
These are about 4 ft tall and they had apple,pear,cherry and plum so I selected a cherry and a plum and parted with the money.
I got a few interested glances as I walked back through town with a tree in each hand.

We have 4 fruit trees already, 1 pear and 3 apples.
2 of the apple trees were from woolworths
The other 2 trees were from wilkos and were about 18" high when we bought them,they had a good crop last year.

The new cherry tree is a Morello cherry, they are quite bitter but you can cook them and they make excellent jam and pies.
The plum will replace the one we cut down about 8 years ago . That was a heavy cropper but was over 25 years old and got very heavily damaged in a storm.

Superscrimpers

This is a program on Channel 4.
It is supposed to outline different ways of saving money or at least, not spending unnecessarily.
The family featured , spent £200 a WEEK! on food for a family of 5(one child,the youngest  looked about 9).
They were challenged to spend only £50 for a week and they went off to Tesco and spent almost all of it.
Their bill showed they had made a saving of about £1.80 so they probably did spend all of it but incorporated a multi buy of some sort which brought it down.
Their dinners were planned out on paper and seemed to be chosen absolutely randomly based on how nice it sounded.
Their Sunday Dinner (they called it lunch) was beef and all the trimmings.
OH and I watched it with disbelief.
According to the presenter, they had 'managed' to produce dinner on Sunday for £16 !
What a Laugh!

Apparently the £50 was to cover only dinners or so I have heard.
That probably means school dinners and maybe breakfast club  for 3 kids and the adults both eat bought food for work.

Our Sunday Dinner this week was Chicken,potatoes,greens and carrots with gravy.
Mondays Dinner was 1/2 a bag of cod pieces from the fish and chip shop (50pence) made into a pie with a cheesy breadcrumb topping, rice and vegetables.
Tuesdays was Chicken stew with Barley
Todays will be Chicken bolognaise and tomorrows will be chicken and ham and pineapple pizza.
Fridays will be left over bolognaise for 1 person and curried left over chicken stew for the others.
There is left over cooked rice or cous cous for the curry eaters.
Saturday will be home made fish and chips using the other half of the bag of fish and chip fish bits(50p) and home made chips with whats left of a bag of mixed vegetables and baked beans.
Bread for lunches is home made at 30 pence a loaf and fillings are typically sardines,baked beans,spreads
we drink tea mainly with milk

Chicken was £5
Greens around 80p
Carrots around 78p
Barley (half pack)40p
Pasta 25p
Cous cous 1/3rd pack around 30p
rice 1/2 pack 20p
Small amount of frozen veg 30p
baked beans 60p
Sardines 50p
Cheese £2.50/ half kilo
puree 25p
tin of tomatoes 38p
Reduced ham 80p
Marg about 1/3rd tub 33p
tea 90p a packet (lasts about 2 weeks)
Milk carton of uht is about 50p so around £1
Oats for breakfast about 80p
Raisins for breakfast 25p at the moment
Bananas around 1.20
Fish bits from fish and chip shop(easily enough for 8 portions but we made it into 6)£1

£18.09......our whole weeks food comes to only a little bit more than their one sunday meal
But be fair OSD
....I will divide it by person
we are only 3 at the moment as DD is away at Uni so it comes to £6.03 per person
They have 5 people so 6.03 multiplied by 5 is £30.15
They should be eating like kings on £50 a week for only dinners but they weren't given a lot of guidance about actually cooking from scratch or choosing less expensive brands.

Rip off UK again 

There was also an article about extended warranty on electrical goods.
The presenter stood under a market awning with a collection of goods ,the price and the extended warranty price,alongside each other.
She pointed out that there are insurance companies that will cover your pricey electrics for less than these , however, she didn't once mention inbuilt obsolescence which the electrical industry is guilty of in this country.

The dirty truth is that in the rip off UK ,your washing machine is built to last 5 years and no more.
Once the parts are unavailable,you are screwed because how will it be mended?
Extended warranties are offered for .......oh yeah 5 years but the price tallies quite closely with the cost of a new machine .
It is like paying for a lottery.
Your machine goes wrong within the time and they will mend it or replace it, mending it isn't going to give you  a new machine, it is the same machine with one less 5 year life-span part. If it doesn't go wrong within the 5 years, you get nothing at all even though you have paid enough for a new machine.
If they replace it ,you won the lottery and we know how likely that is.

We stopped buying these warranties when our last washing machine but 2, died exactly at the 5 year and 3 days mark.
The warranty was useless and we had to scrap the machine because you could no longer get parts.

Our last bought one , died as expected and we replaced it with a free-cycled machine for free,the person who gave us the machine was getting a new one as the part for her one was going to cost almost a new machine, funnily enough, our machine was the same make but a lesser spec so we could remove the part needed to mend hers,scrap the rest and have a higher spec working machine .

I thought I would sign up to the super scrimpers challenge.

So far it is only day two.
Yesterdays challenge was ..have a no spend day.
I didn't,I had 5 no spend days last week.
Todays was...find somewhere where you can get your hair cut as a model, free or cheap.
Hmm, I cut my own, I use mirrors and scissors and for the last year I have been using a Robocut but I can do it without too. I haven't had my hair cut outside our home for about 3 years and then it was a free cut using a voucher from a newspaper.
Previously to that it was around 12 years ago and my kids said it looked just the same as when I did it myself.

OH is the same. I bought him a phillips self cut type hair clipper about 3 years ago and he cuts his hair about every 6 weeks.

Blood from a stone

Last mights meals was one of those miraculous, nothing in the fridge jobs.
I took the chicken carcass from the previous weekend, and a frozen wing of turkey and bunged them in the slow cooker in the morning.
They bubbled away in water all day.
Then at tea time, I stuck 1 and a half cups of rice in a bowl,covered it with stock from the slow cooker and put the bowl in a knotted carrier bag, then zapped it on full in the microwave for 15 minutes.
The meat bits that came off the bones (a good 2 cups full) were added to 2 cups full of mixed frozen veg and heated through thoroughly with a stock cube added.
The cooked rice and meat and veg were then combined in the pan that the meat and veg were heated in .
It made a big bowl of chicken and turkey risotto.

Not wasting Bread.

We tend to cook a loaf in the bread maker then cut off an end. The end is put aside and we cut enough for lunch time sandwiches.
If it is just DS and me, we can make a loaf last 3 days.
IF OH gets there, he can polish it off in one day.
The end bits and end holey bits get left,so I collect them and put them in a bag in the freezer.
When certain people are on the hunt for toasting bread, they are much less fussy about end bits and holes and so the bits get eaten after all.

The thick end bits are nice for eating with stew or soup.



Thickening soups ,sauces and stews .

A grinder is a handy Gadget.
I use mine to grind lentils into powder.
This powder is excellent for fast thickening.
You can add it to most savoury things where you might thicken them with cornflour or even gravy powder. It has nothing added to it as gravy powder does and isn't as finnicky as cornflour or flour, you just sprinkle it on and stir it in when the food is hot.
A couple of minutes and it is done.

Our grinder also makes rice flour from rice which is handy for shortbread.
It grinds down porridge oats to give a more instant 'ready brek' effect when you add hot milk or water.
You can grind sugar to caster or icing sugar fineness.
You can of course grind coffee beans.
If you dehydrate veg or fruit,you can make powders from them too.