Power out

We had a power cut today. We haven’t had one of those for ages and I was a little lost without my internet to pop backwards and forwards to. I spent a peaceful hour or so in the garden instead; without electricity I couldn’t hear the normal 3 different types of music blasting in competition across the back fences. I managed to actually clear one side of the greenhouse which I’ve been meaning to do for a few weeks now.

I’m pleased with how the moneymaker tomatoes are cropping and harvested a whopping 6 kgs. I’ve washed and dried these and then put 1kg of whole tomatoes into ziplock bags with the air sucked out ready to be dealt with in winter when the dark nights and cold days keep me in the house for longer. Then the smell of tomatoes can remind me of the summer and give a promise of whats to come as the heat from the cooker warms the house.  It sounds very poetic and simply means I’ll get into a mess peeling skins off toms as I complain about frozen fingers and water!

I still have about the same amount of tomatoes left on the plant so I’m shutting up the greenhouse and hoping that they turn red.

I also found this little chappy under the mess and very happy I was to see him too! He’s been very busy this summer as I only found one large slug in the greeehouse which the ducks were very grateful for!

After clearing the greehouse, I planted up my cheap onion sets. There were 25 in each net which were reduced to 20p in Bradley Nursery. As there’s still no where for them to go while we wait for the plot to be ploughed,  I put them into modules which I’ve left outside.  When I came in the house I looked at the moon calendar and today is a root day so hopefully, these should romp away!

As soon as the power was back on, the boom boom of rave music blasted over the fence and the fan kicked in from the “social house” that the neighbours at the bottom of our garden have built so I had pleasant wafts of au de lager and cigarettes drifting up the path. I pottered around for a while but gradually got more and more fed up and frustrated with my neighbours lack of consideration and came in to cook tea instead.

Flip-flops and photography foolery.

What a day today. DFS woke me by ringing half an hour before my alarm was due to go off and it was raining. I’m fed up of the rain. The kids wanted to go swimming so I dropped them off and when I came back I popped over to the neighbours. I only meant to have a quick coffee but that turned into almost two hours leaving me only 15 minutes to get ready to go collect the kids.

I want to save some seed off the hollyhock so when I went home I  thought, despite the rain, that I’d nip out before I had to go and collect the kids to take a photo so I remember what the flowers were like. I grabbed my fleece and a rain hat, slipped on my flip flops and ran outside. It was hard taking pics with my left hand but because of my right wrist, I couldn’t use it properly. I  couldn’t get a picture through the fence anyway so I went around to get closer. Getting soaking wet, aware that I would be late to fetch the kids if I didnt hurry, I stepped into the overgrown grass and felt a sharp pain in my right foot. Looking down I saw the end of the plank of wood in the grass and I knew what I’d done. I went to pick up my foot but the wood lifted too. I tried to pull the wood off with my one good hand (remember my bad wrist that’s been in a support for two days) and realised avplanter of sweet peas was on top of it. So I had to try to balance on my left leg,without moving the right, put the camera in my pocket and lift the planter off the wood with two hands but without bending my right wrist nor taking too much weight with it. Achieving this, I had to pull the wood off my foot. The nail that had pierced my flip-flop and foot was very rusty and bent. I semi-hopped (have you tried hopping in flip-flops), semi-limped, and semi-skidded in the rain up to the house. Then I did my best to clean it but there was now mud that had splashed from the downpour mixing with the blood trickling out of the tiny hole and I now had 3 minutes to get to the sports centre to fetch the kids. Typically, the plaster I put on wouldn’t stick so I had to tape it on! I limped to the car, pulled off the wrist support which was now soaked and tried to get in the landy. Not fun with a right hand I can’t bend – hence can’t pull myslelf up – and a right foot painful to weight bear. And guess waht? The wet floor must have caused some type of suction with my foamy flip flops becuase as I lifted my left foot up to get into the landy, the bottom pulled off the bar that goes between your toe leaving the sole hanging off and getting wrapped around my foot! In frustration I flicked it off my foot and drove bare foot up town in a rush as I was now late. The kids were even later and I sat outside (couldn’t go out with only one shoe and a limp on the other!) for another 10 minutes.

When i got back I realised the khaki cambell drake had escaped and was wondering arounf the garden. I left him out. It was still raining and I wasn’t in the mood to chase ducks.

By this afternoon the rain was coming down in gallons and we had our annual eye tests. I took them up and the same as last year, we were split up – I don’t like that. I should have asked more qestions but wanted to get to see what was happening with the kids but the short version is that I need glasses for both reading and driving. I’m not sure why I need some for driving. I know reactorlite will be usefull for me because I really suffer with bright light but prescription glasses? My reading ones i was expecting because I find myself pulling things further away to focus on them – it’s my age they told me. I will research my prescription to see what it means. It seems I also have astigmatism.

I will put my results here if anyone wan’t to explain then (when I can be bothered to go and get  them!)

My foot’s throbbing now. As my nan used to say. I am in the wars!

I think I’ll save seed from these too:

Hairdressers

Am I the only woman that hates going to the hairdressers? I leave it that long that it’s always a major event and I never know how to have it styled. I’m going tomorrow and I’m dreading it. I’m only going becuase we have a family do to go to – which I’m also dreading.

Beans

I don’t really like beans. It’s probably not a fair statement as the only beans I’ve ever really tried are baked beans from a tin but I’m not keen on those. Trouble is, I’m reading all these blogs and forums and when people talk about them and describe themthey sound lovely. Perhaps someone can recommend some good recipes. I’d also appreciate someone explaining about what I think are different stages (which I used to think were different beans) shellies, haricots, driers, green, snap, flagelot etc etc?! How confusing is that?

I’ve also discovered the many types of beans there are to grow! There are lots of colours; green in varying shades, orange, brown, red, black and white, yellow and even blue. I want to grow them as much for the variety in the beans and the flowers. Again, I’d need to learn. Can I plant them all in my garden or plot and have the beans breed true or do I need to isolate and hand pollinate as I’ve read you need to for cucurbits such as courgettes and marrows?

On a forum recently I was reading about beans and they were discussing different types. When I said that I’d never seen one type of bean they were discussing, one member (TS) pm’d me and offered to send my some in exchange for the stamp and an SAE! Aren’t some people lovely!

I wish I’d been growing my own for years. I feel like I’ve wasted all this time buying and eating supermarket food and I should have been learning how to make our food from scratch and showing the kids as I did. There are so many skills that are being lost. I vaguely rememebr being a little girl and watching my great gran when she had a baking day. We were shoed out of the way but I remember bread and pastries covering the tables in the dining room and she seemed to just throw it together and it came out gorgeous. Sadly these skills weren’t handed down and most of what I cooked and served as an adult was “ready” meals. fish-fingers, chicken nuggets etc . Over the last year or two, that’s changing and I’ll learn but I wish I’d done it a long time ago when the kids were little. Oh well, it’s never too late to learn and hopefully the kids aren’t too old to want to help in the kitchen…

Two rings in one year!

Quick post – to be improved later!
first ring of death (rod) was green and on my xbox 360. lovely Microsoft, repaired and returned with no hassle and little waiting.
2nd ring was blue and was last night. went to get phone when i went to bed; the  lights were on but no one was in as the saying goes but this time literally! There were blue lights around the keys and the camera lense and a red light on the power button but the phone was unresponsive. Tried this morning – same result. removed battery, sim, memory, cleaned and replaced; repeated but no joy. I googled it and discovered BROD or the blue ring of death.
Read that there was a fix using sony’s update so I tried seus – sony ericson update service – and hit a problem: cannot download due to security zone policy? on firefox? another google and I discover a bug so I have to reset the Internet explorer settings that i’d increased due to regular attacks/trojans/popups despite not using the bloody software – another post.
I can then download seus. I  follow the instructions on screen but the phone is not recognised. Thanks again google! I then discover that i need to plug the phone usb into the computer not via usb hub. Ta-da! Phone recognised and currently updating. fingers crossed folks. i can’t not have a phone over yule!
okay, I was typing this and heard the noise xp makes when a device has been unplugged. I went to the update software window and it was showing the starting screen, I looked at the phone and it was dead. I tried to turn it on but got nothing. I unplugged it from usb and reconnected power in case the battery was dead but nothing. I disconnected and removed/ returned the battery and still nothing. I reconnected power started typing this and looked at the phone to see it had a bar going across the screen with “please wait” above it. now it’s gone off… now what?! I’ll try turning it on again. It says please wait in a blue square with a full bar below it. what’s it doing? I need coffee…

it’s turned on.. its lost everything. no contacts, no messages nothing. my best friend moved house and sent me her new phone number and contacts. another friend sent me new number last week – i’m gutted…

two lessons from this

first – back up your phone!

second – don’t buy sony ericsson. this is my first sony phone. have always hated the look of them but wanted the blogging feature – which doesn’t work on this phone/network for some reason and the customer services at orange uk haven’t heard of blogging… but still i’m stuck with this phone for 18 months.

no hair washing experiment ends.

Couldn’t stand the greasy hair anymore – fed up of wearing hats and really enjoyed having bubbles when i washed it! i tried to use as little shampoo as possbible but had to wash it twice to get through grease and even then it could have done with more shampoo. the water that was rinsing it was also dirty so not sure that it would have taken care of itself in the end.

No hair washing day 9

i don’t think my hair is as greasy as it was although it’s still very greasy and I’m still embarrassed about it. I wear a hat and it’s up in a pony tail. I’m going to repeat the wash and herbal rinse tonight

I read herbwifes post afterwards and i made bicarb solution too strong tonight – will reduce next time. I made it 1tsp per pt instead of 1/2 tsp;

turkey curry

03/12/08

Made an ettempt at turkey curry – made lots of changes in last minute. Added 2 more tbsp mild curry powder, added 1 tsp cumin – will find recipe soon and post it

made mixed jam jam tarts and blueberry jam jam tarts with pastry made for pies on sunday

day 6 (&?) no hair washing. hair is so greasy it looks and feels wet. Have taken to wearing a wooly hat if I go out. Thank goodness it’s cold enough to wear one or I’d look a complete idiot. I still brush every day with a natural bristle brush but I am rapidly losing faith that this is going to work.

after the first natural wash

washing” hair didn’t seem to do anything. I wasn’t sure if it was greasy or wet when i went to bed. It’s greasy…

christmas lights switch on

DSK came home tonight and asked if it was ok for him (and us) to go to the local village christmas light switch on. He has joined the choir and they were going to sing some carols. We went last year when DSJ was in the choir. On a side note, she has opted out of being Mary this year at her new school. This is  her biggest part ever as she was always a sheep or something similar at her old school. She is worried because she struggles with her words and stammers sometimes. BAck to DSK, I couldn’t say no to him but wasn’t in the mood. We went at 10 to 6 and were the first there, suggesting we’d got the wrong time, day or any other excuse to go back home. Then someone else turned up and we had to stand about. It was awful. We didn’t know the words, it was in an odd key for me so was either too high or too low and it was absolutely freezing. At 20 to 7 the teached said we were singing the last carol; hoorah, they’d turn on the lights and we’d go home but no. He announces that we’ll sing jingle bells for the second time whilst walking to the church.  Last year, we sang, turned on the lights and then people went on to the church for a drink and something to eat. This year it was backwards. I’d been in the middle of cooking tea when I’d came out; leaving instructions for DSL to finish it off. So, much to DSK’s disappointment, we came home. Thankfully and in a very unexpected moment of thoughfullness, DFS turned up to fetch us in the car. I was frozen and we didn’t even get to see the lights!