Over site - extension works continue

Right where were we? It's been six weeks since I last posted, the builders have been and gone already and I'm only just beginning to tell you about it!

Footings dug...

More BIG piles of soil on our drive...

Here comes the ready mix...

And we are out of the ground at last!

I had to sit back and watch the garden get trashed - diggers, wheelbarrows, piles of bricks. At least the garden didn't look to smart too start with. 

Out the front of the house there is a small extension to the lounge, to bring the whole of the house in line. It kind of looks like it's not worth the effort, but will make a big difference when it's knocked through inside. 

Inside the house is chaos too. The one bathroom has been ripped out completely, and the toilet in the other one taken out too. The shower in that room is still there with some temporary pipe taking the water down through the ceiling, into the downstairs toilet and out through a hole in the wall! We have a toilet still downstairs, but upstairs now there is only a portaloo - with strict instructions for night time use only and definitely no number twos!

Did you spot the iPad in the photo above, propped on the sink? He pretends he's busy, but secretly he's watching the football!

The bath was so heavy OH had to smash it up so we could haul it downstairs. Boy was it noisy when he was doing that, it was like someone ringing church bells in the house - good job he's already got tinnitus as I think that noise would have started it anyway (he did wear ear muffs, but it was still loud). We left the pieces in the front garden and it soon disappeared. I won't name names, but there are certain people who patrol the area looking for scrap, and are quick to take anything off your hands. I would have taken it to the scrap yard myself to get something for it, but it was too heavy and big to manhandle into the car!

I'll leave you with some cheery photos of the daffodils in the garden, taken in April but I forgot to show you 😊. I'm going to try and get at least one post a week done, as I'm just so slack at blogging at the moment but have so much to say. Too much to do and too little time to do it. I think we need a four day week don't you, or an extra four hours a day. 

XxXx

Let the building commence!

We have finally got some builders sorted, so it's all systems go! OH dismantled the old conservatory a few weekends ago, and cut it up so I could take it to the scrap yard. Only got £54 for the steel but better than nothing I guess. 

Do you remember the mystery oval shape in the soil we discovered when we removed the gravel from the patio? We thought it looked like a pond, but thought surely it couldn't be as it was built right over the main drain. Well I guess it must have been a pond, as can you see the electric cable running from the conservatory to the pond....

Then it was time for the builders to come, to break up the old conservatory base and divert the drainage...

Little Boy enjoyed having his own personal digger show in the back garden!

The original drain ran in a straight line which would have gone under the edge of the new conservatory footings, so it had to be diverted meaning two more manhole covers in the patio. 

The pile of soil on the front drive gradually got bigger, then the grabhire lorry came to scoop it all up. The disadvantage is it makes a big mess piling up all the soil somewhere, but the advantage is it is much much cheaper than hiring skips. 

At least the weather stayed fine, so we didn't have a wet, muddy pile!

XxXx

Toilet roll and milk

I only went to the supermarket for some toilet roll and milk....

I wasn't expecting any good deals, as I was there earlier than when they normally reduce things right down. But I was in luck, and I think this has to be my best haul yet. £67.11 worth of goodies, for only £11.06!!!!

The biggest saving was on flowers. I picked up my weekly bundle of £1 daffodils, only to spy some reduced flowers and went to investigate. 19p a bunch! A £12 hand tied bouquet of flowers for 19p! So three bunches of flowers with a total full price of £24 cost an amazing 57p. 

I spread them all out, trimmed the ends and rearranged them to make two lovely new bouquets, one for the lounge and one for the dining table. That floristry course I did many years ago paid off. 

Just to finish off the day even better, I had a free dinner! Our lovely neighbours have gone away on holiday and instead of wasting their fridge contents decided to offer them to us. We had loads of lovely bits and pieces, and I used the chestnut mushrooms, chillies, tomatoes and  free range eggs to make a yummy omelette. 

Hopefully tomorrow I will do a post on the building works progress. 

XxXx

A pheasant visitor

My sister came to visit a few days ago, and when I went to answer the door she pointed out a pheasant wandering outside the neighbour's house. We live on the outskirts of town, and have many acres of fields and woodland surrounding us, but it seemed strange that he had decided to have a wander around a built up residential area. I went and got some bird food and sprinkled it on our lawn, then we went in for a cup of tea. 

A little while later I thought I would just see if he was still around, and got a shock when I opened the porch door....

He was stood there, waiting to come in! He looked very indignant about being shut out, and you could almost hear him saying, "I've been stood here for ages waiting for you."! He didn't even seem scared, and only moved away when I actually opened the front door. I put some more food out for him, and he spent quite a while out there tucking in, before jumping up on our fence and flying away. 

We enjoyed watching our unusual but friendly visitor. 

XxXx

Bargain plants

You can get plenty of fantastic bargains if you shop at the supermarket at the right time of day, but I don't ever tend to look in the plant section. However I have been treating myself to a weekly bunch of £1 daffodils, and when I went over to pick one up I noticed a reduced section. How could I resist! They had some house plants in terracotta pots, and my first thought was never mind what's in them, I'll get some for Big Girl as she has a large collection of cacti and they would look great in them on her window sill. At only 19p each, how could I say no! I got four of those, and also a pot of spring bulbs (narcissi, hyacinth and primrose) for only 9p. 

There was nothing wrong with them, they were just looking a little sad and needed a good drink. I used another of my bargain buys, brought at the end of last year from the garden centre, to give them a boost. It's called Top Defence, and I think it's mainly used when transplanting plants, but it said it could be used at any time a plant was stressed and I thought these guys needed a boost. 

So after a good drink, a tonic, and a trim I think they were a bargain way to prettify the house. 

Mind you, it wasn't until I had finishing tidying them up that I looked them up online and realised I should have worn gloves. They are primula Obconica, which apparently is also known as the Poison primrose because of the effect it has on those with sensitive skin (causes irritation) on contact. Oh dear, good job I'm obviously not a sensitive soul!

The bulb pot is keeping my amaryllis company. I bought this one and potted it up last year but all I got was leaves. This year it has reappeared and finally produced some lovely blooms. Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, I have already beheaded two flowers when I shut the blinds 😩. 

An update on the sweet peas I showed you last time. Not a great success I don't think. The most successful one was the 'normal' variety, the two special ones, including a lovely blue sweet pea, only produced a few shoots out of ten seeds sown. I even pre soaked the seeds so don't know what went on there. 

As long as the weather isn't shocking we have a busy weekend ahead. We finally have a builder sorted but he is really busy, and wants to start in a few weeks - eeeekk!!!!!!!! That means we have to dismantle the old conservatory so it is ready for them to dig out the new footings for the extension. You may have spotted OH in the picture above, outside shovelling up the gravel before the builders come. If we left it it would just get mixed up with the soil when they dig out for the footings and wasted. So we are bagging it up and will hopefully find a use for it. 

Speak soon,

Claire

XxXx

Healthy new year, healthy bread

The start of a new year generally means we try to eat more healthily after the indulgences of Christmas, and one thing I decided to do was to try making bread using wholemeal spelt flour. It's not a flour I have ever tried before, and previous attempts at using wholemeal flour to make bread have ended up with a dense, heavy loaf. Surprise, surprise, I ended up again with a brown brick (if anybody can enlighten me on where I'm going wrong that would be great).

But all is not lost. I sliced a piece off and offered it to Big Girl to try. This is a child who only ever ate white bread, who wouldn't go near wholemeal, granary or anything remotely brown coloured. However since turning not only a teenager but also a vegetarian she is more open to trying new foods. And she thought it was Deeeeelicious!! She had two slices with her tea, then after eating pudding asked if she could have another slice!

I think I will persevere, after all I still have half a packet of flour to use, and maybe I will throw my tin of yeast away and get a new one. It's within date but does say not to use after four months once opened. I can't even remember when I used it last, so it must be more than that. Let's hope my next loaf is light and airy, but either way, I know someone in the house will tuck in!

I had another cake  baking session this weekend. I asked OH what be would like and he requesterd viennese whirls. Mr Kipling's viennese whirls are a favourite of his, but he does find them rather small. Let me introduce you to my whirls on steroids!...

They are that big I can only just fit them all in the cake tin! You may have noticed some of them look a little bit well done. I have a valid excuse for that. I put them in the oven then remembered I had to pick Big Girl up from riding which took a bit longer than expected, hence the 'well done' look of some of the whirls. 

I dont think I better eat too many, I dread to think how many calories are in one of those babies. Enough to feed a starving African family for a week I would imagine. I think whoever invented calories should be ashamed of themselves for stripping me of my enjoyments. I absolutely love Battenburg, and can quite easily polish of a quarter of one. Have you ever read the back of a Battenburg wrapper. Do you know how many slices they allow for in that teeny tiny cake? 12. Seriously?! Who are they feeding - the Borrowers?! So that means my quarter portion should actually feed three people 😩

The cake at the front in the photo above is an orange and chocolate cake. Its called a Jaffa drizzle loaf, and you can find the recipe here on the Good Food website. Yummy! 

The cake that was hiding behind the Jaffa cake is Davina's sugar free fruit tea bread. It is sweetened with maple syrup rather than sugar, and is a good recipe to use up all the dried fruit lurking in the cupboard - figs, dates, apricots, pears, sultanas, currants. That was another recipe using the dreaded wholemeal spelt flour but this one turned out okay (well taste wise ok, but it wouldn't win a beauty prize hence why it is hiding in the background in my photo).

On a completely different topic, did you notice the row of yoghurt pots in the background of the first cake photo? We get through a lot of yoghurt in this house, and I buy the big pots and decant into smaller reusable pots for everyone to take to work/school. So I got to thinking, what could I do with all those pots? Then I had a lightbulb moment - they make great mini propagaters! I planted sweet pea seeds as they like a nice deep pot, planting ten to a pot, popped the lid on (with a few holes poked in for ventilation) and wrote the variety on the side in marker pen.

I'm thinking I might give some pots to the children, so they can plant grow their own pumpkin and courgette seeds. I think they look prettier on the windowsill than a bunch of brown plastic pots, and I'm doing my bit for recycling 😀

Speak soon,

Claire

XxXx

Happy New Year!

A belated very happy new year to you all! I was doing really well in December, with Elvis the elf visiting I was doing a daily post. Now I am ashamed that it is already mid way through the month and this is my first post of 2017.

Well the forecast snow on Friday 13th came and went in a few hours. What a disappointment. I didn't think it would come to much but I still got a little bit excited, just in case. Don't you just love it when it has snowed during the night, and you open the curtains in the morning to find a white blanket? Even better if you get to see it before any feet or car tyres have spoilt the pretty picture. 

On the house renovation front, we are still waiting for a builder (surprise surprise). The ones we have been in contact with are either too expensive or haven't got back in touch. So we decided to get the ball rolling on the weekend and started clearing the gravel from the back patio. 

It's all being bagged up and hopefully re-used somewhere, possibly in the bottom of the raised beds we are building around the lawn. I'm hoping a combination of membrane and a layer of gravel will keep the darned ground elder from invading the beds, at least for a few years.

We were a little surprised to uncover what looked like a pond shaped hole, filled with rubble. Rather worrying if it had been a pond, as the drains run along underneath there! Somebody suggested that it may have been a soak away that went wrong. Maybe we will find out when the building work finally begins. 

Speak soon (hopefully, if I pull my finger out and make an effort!)

XxXx