Tennis and tomatoes

Usually Wimbledon tennis is on at the same time as gooseberry picking or haymaking but with the first of those almost finished and the second waiting for more settled weather I seem to have more time to watch than I've had for years. Which is a treat that I'm finding  difficult to get used to. I keep thinking I ought to be outside doing something. Although knitting dishcloths is useful I suppose.

We had some showers overnight  and some heavier thundery downpours this evening but most of the day has been cloudy which was ideal weather for getting into the poly tunnel for weeding (me) and tying up tomatoes (him). Later another good lot of raspberries were picked and we even have enough tomatoes to put a couple of punnets of small plum shape ones out for sale.  I had a look on the supermarket comparison site to see how much toms were selling for this year. Did you know that Mr Ts supermarket has 15 different ways to buy fresh tomatoes!  Although I bet if I went into our local shop there would only be three or four, which is probably enough I guess.

C decided to put some floor paint on the concrete shed floor rather than PVC so I wasn't able to move in today after all. Tomorrow hopefully. 

I was looking through a folder of Suffolk Smallholders Society pages that I wrote for the newsletter for several years and I came across this poem that I wrote in  1995 as an entry for a competition. It was just a few years after we moved here. The poem won the competition which was sponsored by a local Building Society. I think I won £40 which was handy for us as new smallholders.

Recipe for a Successful Smallholding

Take a 1 x 5acre smallholding

Untidy and overgrown.

The buildings sad and sorry

The weeds and grass un-mown.

Add a 1 x 5 people family

1 small, 2 medium, 2 big,

3 cats, 3 goats, 5 sheep,

Some chickens and a pig.

Mix then all together,

Add sunshine, snow and rain.

Many hours of backache,

Some sweat and tears and pain.

You'll need some extra money,

Some patience, love and trust.

A pinch of caring and

a sense of humour is a must.

Allow to rise early in summer,

But not so soon when it's cold.

You'll need to add new skills,

Some friends, new ideas - be bold!

Allow three years to settle,

Take time to stand and stare,

Enjoy yourself each moment.

Then you've made it, You are There!

Bloglovin' has finally let me see who the new followers are so welcome to Rosemary, Julia, Kate and Liz, hope you enjoy reading about our quiet life here.

Back Tomorrow - perhaps something exciting will happen!
Sue

January stores and January Weather

 Up until the spring of last year I wrote regularly for our local Suffolk Smallholders Society monthly newsletter. One year I did a page each month called " Country Days and Country Ways". I used  information from some of my many ( too many!) books of  weather sayings and country traditions.
I thought it would be fun to do the same now and again on the blog during 2014.

So here's a weather saying for the start  of the year

The first three days of January foretell the first three months of the year.

We shall see. 

 Yesterday as the weather was so wet, cold, grey and windy,  I made a start on my plan to clear out some things from the craft room. I filled a boxful with cross stitch kits that I will NEVER do, card toppers that I will NEVER use and other bits and bobs that have been lurking for years. The result only made half a shelf of less stuff. But I felt better! The box has gone upstairs to join our collection of things for a car boot sale.

After lunch, egg collecting and packing. I looked to see what was on TV....... Nothing. Old films and more old films. So when Him Outside came in I suggested we have our first game of Scrabble of the winter.
At the end it looked like this

We use a scrabble dictionary and cheat by looking up words in it before we lay the tiles. It's full of strange words that don't appear in The Shorter OED. We've now discovered that we have a letter Y missing. I think I'll have to make one from something.
 Despite my QUAIL on a triple word, I only won by 1 point.
We need some practice in case we get a chance to play a game with Him Outsides' sister - a demon Scrabble player!

It was good to make the first entry in my new diary - which is just an A4 note pad, I don't like the constraints of a normal diary. ( Although I keep a week to view one in the kitchen for reminders) I need blank pages for planning things, lists etc, and I like to start at the front and at the back!
Yesterday I made a list of all the food of our own we have available here on January 1st.
It looked like this
From Store - Beetroot, potatoes, onions, squash, cooking apples, eating apples.
From the garden - Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, leeks, parsnips. A few lettuce, radishes and salad leaves, a little chard and some golf ball sized swedes. ( + Sprouting broccoli soon)
From the freezer - Broad Beans, sweetcorn, peppers, pears, cooking apples, raspberries, gooseberries, cherries. Plus a few redcurrants and plum tomatoes.
In the kitchen cupboards - Jam - Marrow and ginger, Summer fruits, Plum, Greengage, Gooseberry, Strawberry and Gooseberry.
Chutneys - Pumpkin and pepper, Beetroot and Ginger, Hot tomato, Sweetcorn relish,Green Tomato,Onion Marmalade chutney,Gooseberry and date, Marrow and apple.


 Today after lots more heavy rain overnight, the weather is completely different  with bright sunshine and a clear blue sky and  I soon had  two loads of washing blowing on the line.
 Him Outside was working for the County Council this morning and I was in the kitchen making pies with the remainder of the beef stew we had for dinner yesterday. I cooked up a 2 packs of the meat ( 3 packs stewing beef for £10) used some value carrots from Tesco, and leeks, onions and swede from the garden,  added  stock using a couple of beef oxo cubes, hot water and a can of beer. This was simmered on the Rayburn, thickened with Bisto. We ate this last night with dumplings and Brussels Sprouts. The remainder has made 3 pies, each serving the two of us.  One for tonight and 2 for the freezer. We rarely eat beef so this is the best way to stretch it as much as possible.
Then I did a lot of hoovering and more tidying after which it was lunch time and egg collecting all over again.

I'm feeling a bit left out today as most people in blogland seem to be embarking on New Adventures and New Challenges.  Whereas here we will just be chugging along in our normal simple way.


 Although I do have a cunning plan to save any spare housekeeping towards one of these!

 

The iconic ‘Revival’ DAB radio is a nostalgic 1950s style retro radio with advanced DAB features.


I shall let you know how I get on.

I keep forgetting to say Thank you for lots of comments over the last few days, apologies for not replying to everyone individually also welcome to follower number 115 in the pictures and a couple more people on bloglovin.

Back tomorrow - Keeeeep Frugaling!

Note to self--- stop preaching

After posting yesterdays blog I was cross with myself for turning into some sort of sanctimonious preacher. I thought about deleting it but Him Outside said "don't, as people have already read and commented and would wonder where it had gone".
So I left it.
I don't want to preach or become a sort of goody goody person, there's enough of them blogging already!
I will NOT do it again.

Anyway, back to normal.

Many years ago the Suffolk Smallholders Society had regular monthly meetings, so that even if you were stuck on the holding on your own all winter you knew that once a month you could go out and meet other like minded smallholders. However the SSS is now mainly a training group with no regular meetings. So when someone wrote in the newsletter last winter that they were feeling a bit isolated we decided to offer our kitchen one morning a month for anyone to come for Coffee,cake and conversation. There are 250 families who are members of the SSS. Today was the first get together and 1 person came - hope November is better!

Other than nattering, today I've been tidying up, putting peppers into the freezer, fiddling about reading blogs, collecting and sorting the eggs and writing my shopping list for the months food, Christmassy bits and other things.

I have most Christmas presents made or bought already. But need to shop for one or two others plus fruit for making the puddings and cakes. There were some good ideas for presents to make hampers of one of the new blogs I've been reading, but I can't remember which one!
 I must have a look through my Christmas cupboard and see what's there in the way of small presents for putting into crackers. Cards were bought at car boot sales, January sales or home made. Tags are homemade, wrapping paper from a car boot sale. I will wait until nearer to the day to ask our children and their partners what they would like.
When we go to Ipswich next we will need to find Him Outside some new trousers. He has lost weight this summer and all his old ones are too big. When I say New, I mean New to Us, as we will do a tour of the charity shops first and only as a last resort will actually buy new.

I also spent half an hour finishing a library book as the library van is due soon and it's wanted back. I was a bit disappointed by it, it just skimmed the surface of subjects, and there are  lots of repeated sentences and mistakes which I find very annoying, whoever did the proof reading wasn't very good!

  I won't be looking out for it secondhand to add to my WWII collection.
 I forgot to say that one of the books I found at the charity book sale last Saturday was a book by Dorothy Sheridan, called Wartime Women. I had read it years ago and forgotten about it. Bought for 50p I was pleased to find a copy to re-read and keep.

Going back to Christmas things. I'm hoping to do a blog about what sort of things frugal smallholders like and( more importantly) don't like for presents, to drop a hint to all our relations who read the blog!!

It seems lots of the country has wet weather today - it's still dry here. 4 months now with hardly any rain.
Back tomorrow.

Buying and selling books on a sunny Saturday

We've had an in and out day today.

As you know I LOVE secondhand books and that was what today was all about.

 First we went cross country, through lovely Autumn sunshine and scenery to a small village in the wilds of high Suffolk. There are a whole group of villages collectively called "The Saints" and in St James they have an annual secondhand book sale in aid of the church. I don't know where they get all their books from but the village hall is always packed full of books and people.
I found a few but didn't spend a lot as they only charge 50p or £1.

 Many years ago when we had livestock on the holding I found I had collected 10 books on goat keeping. Now nobody needs that many goat books, so one year we booked a stand and took all our spare unwanted books to the Suffolk Smallholders Society annual show. This grew year by year so that we were spending lots of spare time hunting charity shops and sales for Countryside, Livestock and Smallholding books and taking them to several Country shows every year.
Once the SSS stopped having a show and books got harder to find we stopped buying and selling until all we have left were about 4 boxes of books which this year we took along to the SSS AGM to see if we could finally get rid of them all.
 We are honorary life members of the SSS as we were very involved with the Society in the early years so we try to go to the AGM when we can and there is free food- always a bonus!
We sold a few but came home with 4 boxes still full. I shall have to have sort out and pass them on to a charity shop or anyone I can think of who might like them because we really don't want to take them anywhere ever again.
After such a busy day which we have become un-used to recently, I think we need a rest.
Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow  to tell you we've done nothing all day!

Get on yer bike!

Ever since I was little I've always had a bike, I prefer cycling to walking any day.
 In one place we lived I cycled with two children on the bike. The little 2 year old fella on a seat on the back and the 4 year old daughter on an adapted crossbar seat between me and the handle bars. Often M would fall asleep and I'd be biking one handed with a hand behind me propping him up. This was done 2 miles to playschool and back simply because we couldn't afford the petrol for the car - Happy Days!
 For many years here we had just one vehicle which Him Outside used for work everyday, so it was either cycle the 2 and a half miles to Saxmundham or Leiston or stay at home. Since he packed up full time work  I've not been biking so regularly because he was often going to the builders merchants, garage etc I would go along with him and get the shopping. This summer it's been his endless trips to doctors that have made cycling to town unnecessary and my bike has only been used for the once a month trip to the library van. I've really missed getting on my bike.

So as things in the garden and campsite are slowing down and I had a bit more time I dusted it down and cycled  to Leiston for the bank, building society and to get some milk. The weather was lovely and I saw all the things that you don't spot when driving.Now I'm back on my bike I hope to carry on all through the Autumn.
(Though  it will be a while before I catch up to my friend A in a village in Essex. When they took on an allotment 6 miles away from their house they started cycling there everyday and reckon to have cycle 1000 miles in less than a year. Wow!)

And while I was in town look what a bargain I found in the Hospice charity shop

Crocs - the smallholders best friend apart from wellies. Proper Crocs not the cheap thin imitations that let thorns through. My size and only £3 you won't believe how quick I was into the shop after spotting them in the window!

Look over there on the right- I'm now up to 66 followers ( not counting bloglovin followers), I'd love to reach 100 by Christmas so click on and follow. Welcome to new followers and lovely to see new folk leaving a comment. I don't always get around to replying individually for which I apologise, it's because I'm always in a rush to get on with the new days blog. So much to tell you!
Back tomorrow with lots of news about the Suffolk Smallholders Society.