Yet another cold grey day

I'm sure some parts of the country are warmer than us but here we have lit the woodburner tonight as it is just so blinkin' cold. And to make a grey day even worse Rafa is out of Wimbledon in the first round, that's not good!
I took Him Outside to the station early so he could go into town to pick up the van and files for the monthly inspection job. He hasn't many to do this month so will take the van back tomorrow after he has done all the reports on the computer.
At home I have been doing some baking and cleaning - not very exciting.
We've have one caravan arrive on the campsite- one of our regulars, but sadly his wife, who had been poorly for a few years, has died since they stayed last year. He is venturing out on his own for the first time, that must be a difficult thing to do.
That's my news today, and I'll be back tomorrow with more riveting updates to the progress on strawberry and gooseberry  picking! I didn't do either today - too cold to stand still picking fruit.

Bleary eyed on Sunday!

The very loud music from the party at the second home started up around 8pm, stopped for a HUGE firework display at 11pm and then it was thump,thump,thumping away until after 3am. As we had been pre-warned ,we shifted ourselves into the  spare room where the window faces in the opposite direction and slightly quieter and might have slept OK except for the mattress feels really hard and solid, which is what the children say when they are visiting and sleeping on it. So may have to find some sort of mattress topper for that bed.
Luckily some visitors in a caravan on the campsite down at ground level, and sheltered by hedges, didn't hear the music until just before it finished. So didn't feel disturbed at all.
VERY windy again today, it doesn't feel right for June but we have had some good showers of rain which will help the fruit and vegetables.
So another delicious bowl of strawberries have been picked

And then I decided to start the mammoth gooseberry picking job and put 8 punnets out for sale,  and a couple of hours later they had sold so I picked another 6 punnets. Probably about 180 punnets still to pick!
Here they are on our stall at the gate

The remainder of the day has been spent watching the Athletics on TV and resting after our disturbed night.

What a lot of WIND!

The calender says that today is 22nd June, but we have a really strong wind whistling around the house and first thing this morning it was definitely chilly.
Two visitors leaving the campsite today after a few days stay- both said it was a lovely site, which is nice to hear. I turned the page in the diary to see who is coming in next and realised we have NO BOOKINGS for most of July! Now this is really odd and must be due to the iffy weather I suppose. Surely we haven't spent all that time and money on the shower, new toilets and Recreation room for nothing.
This morning we popped 4 miles up the road to Snape Village Hall where the W.I were having a Table Top sale. Lots of very nice things, but nothing that I needed. ( and I was 3 seconds too late to nab a big earthenware jug for £2) Then I spotted this bag, brand new, for £1 and decided it would brighten up every shopping trip.

Our next stop was just up the road to Snape Maltings Concert Hall and Posh shopping destination for all the people who have second homes in the area. This is the link if you want a peek.
www.snapemaltings.co.uk . We had a look around but you have to be well heeled to buy there. Lovely stuff though! What we were there for really was just to pick up some leaflets about The Aldeburgh festival and Snape Proms which take place every August. This year they are celebrating Benjamin Brittens centenary, so lots of extra things happening. The Aldeburgh Festival was begun by Britten way back. Here's what they have happening if you like that sort of thing.
http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/events
There are lots of walks along the river and a boat trip too and today being a Saturday everywhere was very busy, so we just picked up lots of leaflets to put on our information shelves in the recreation room and then we  came home again.
I may be grumpy tomorrow as we have just found out that some Londoners who own a second home two fields away are having a HUGE 21st birthday party for their daughter tonight.( These are not the people who Him Outside is grass cutting for but they are their friends so now we have to be nice and smiley about it!) Last year they had an 18th party for their son and from 5pm to 5 am the music was so loud it made the house vibrate! We got no sleep and found out later that someone in the village had called the police who couldn't find the source of the noise! We could have told them! People don't realise how sound carries in the quiet countryside.Just praying it stays wet and windy so we can't hear them!
What a mean grumpy old woman I am!

Jam Today

I started the day by using up some odd bags of fruit that were still in the freezer and made some jars of Summer Fruit Jam. I used 2lb gooseberries, just under 2lb redcurrants, a small bag of raspberries and a few fresh strawberries that we didn't eat yesterday.

Then I stretched half a pound of mince to make a cottage pie for today and a spaggi. bol. to put in the freezer for next week.
These jobs made lots of washing up by which time it was almost lunch time. So I nipped out to pick a few more strawberries and found that the sun yesterday had ripened lots more so that we had them for dinner too.
A bit of a wander round with the camera to take some garden pictures.

And finally, after  all the usual egg and campsite jobs, time for a Friday afternoon sit down to finish another good book.
A new discovery spotted on the shelves of the mobile library last Friday.

Turns out to be 5th in a crime series set in 1733. Now I need to find the earlier books and order them from the library ready for me to pick up next month.
That's my Simple Suffolk Friday. Cost = nothing. Satisfaction = Lots!

PS. Just editing this post to say that I've just found some comments from blogging friends on a blog a couple of days ago, that I didn't know were there . So apologies for not replying before, will do it now!

A Poem Wot I wrote!

A couple of other blogs recently ( plus talking about writing a life story for the children to read) have reminded me of growing up in the 1960s. I looked through a some boxes of odds and ends to find this poem which I wrote several years ago as an entry in Knodishall Flower and Produce  Show - 'Poem of up to  12 lines about childhood'. As I have not much to blog about - it's been a quiet day here of bread baking, weeding, hoeing and catching a little bit of sunshine. I thought I would share this with you

CHILDHOOD

Red cherryade in a dolls teapot

Sixpence to spend at the travelling shop

Aunties and Uncles coming to tea

These are the memories of childhood for me

Visits to Grandma, in town, once a week

Cousins who came and played hide and seek

Sunday School outings by bus to the sea

These are the memories of childhood for me.

Hot sticky traffic jams all the way to the coast

Softly boiled eggs and buttery toast

Long summer holidays, so good to be free

The fifties and sixties were childhood for me.

I think I won a prize for this, probably about 60p! Which reminds me that show schedules for this year are available down at the shop and I must pop in and pick one up.

3 hours of Summer?

It was actually HOT and sunny for a while today, then it turned hazy and humid, then cloudy.
 I made a double batch of Tomato and Herb bread rolls, helped tidy up all the tools and odd bits of wood left laying about after the path work, took the secateurs and a wheel barrow around the garden to cut off things that were sticking out, dug some potatoes and picked strawberries. At last there were actually enough for a few each for dinner tonight.
Him Outside did some strimming over the road at our neighbours and then after lunch went off to the second home for grass cutting.
Apart from all the usual egg collecting, sorting and boxing up, toilet cleaning on the campsite  and dinner preparations plus washing up etc. That was all I did today.
Which should have  left some time for reading some more of this- 5th in a series of modern Police crime set in the wilds of west Scotland.Well written with a bit of an edge to them.

 But then I remembered that I hadn't finished looking at and sorting out the haul of car boot craft stuff, so decided to do that instead. My problem is that I really need a proper way of storing all my various backing papers and card toppers so that I can find them easily. I think a company called Storage4crafts do lovely shelf and box units BUT as they are several hundred pounds each I shall be managing without one of those!
Lazy cooks dinner tonight - fish fingers( on special offer last week) new potatoes, mixed frozen veg ( broad beans and sweetcorn are our own, peas are not). And those very delicious strawberries for dessert. Costing even less than yesterdays frugal meal = 40p each

It's Monday again.

I trotted off to the dentist this morning for a filling- Oh what a horrible experience. Yes, I am a wimp when it comes to sitting in that chair with my mouth open for what seems like hours. It's a toss up as to which is worse  - Dentist or smear test!!  I've made an appointment for this time next year and hope nothing goes wrong in the meantime.
Yesterday being Sunday we went to the local car boot sale as per usual. one lady had a box of craft stuff,  containing a new cutting mat, papers, sheets of pearlised card, card mounts, card blanks and peel offs which I was sorting through, to pick out the bits I wanted, when she offered me the lot for £8. As there were loads of sheets of "funky" alphabet letters, which are probably a £1 a sheet I thought I would take up her offer!

  We also found a few more plates and dishes matching my Johnson Brother Summer Chintz everyday stuff which I've had for YEARS. ( they are prone to chipping quite easily so if I spot spares going cheap I'll get them) With the plates were a set of matching cutlery - I didn't even know that Viners had produced cutlery to go with the china, so we had the lot for £5. When we got home I had a look on ebay to see if they were unusual or not. There were several sets on there, the boxed ones selling  for silly prices . Also loads of dinner and tea plates etc, all going very cheap - they must have produced masses. But what amused me was that some people are now classing them  as 'Vintage'.

 After the car boot we went on a trip to the Suffolk Showground where there was a Antique and Collectors Fair. We had never been to one before but as we are usually eating lunch when Bargain Hunt is TV we thought we would go and have a look. It was much smaller than advertised and very much smaller than the ones on TV. I got Him Outside a late  birthday present of two prints that were originally in the carriages of the L.N.E.R train company. They need the frames repairing or maybe re-framing, but luckily we have a friend who will do that for us for the cost of the materials and some fruit from the garden.

After the dentist I helped with shifting rubble as we  started getting the other bit of path ready for concreting in July and then Him Outside went off to do some strimming at the second home. They are back for one night at the weekend so he needs to get it tidy for them! I stayed at home and did the boring ironing.
Dinner tonight was part of  one of the packs of Co-op Yellow sticker chipolatas done as toad-in-the-hole, new potatoes from the garden, carrots (still using the value pack from the fridge) and Hip Hip Hooray! - the first of the pointy cabbages from the garden. The egg for toad in the hole is free as we eat the odd shaped ones that we can't sell, value flour used, so total cost probably less than 50p each. Our main evening meal is often less than 75p each and that is how we manage to afford my spending on craft stuff at car boots!!