Friday Five!

   I'm happy for you and hope you get a chance to enjoy that garden. I googled lining paper and nothing I saw looked like a good idea!

The word "cowboy" and "cheap" has been thrown around a lot about various works that have been done on the house. Probably £15-20k over the next few years to get it to a nice place, and we currently only have half of that. This is what happens when you refuse family help while viewing houses... and it's going to make me quite sick in the meantime. Doing the essential stuff first, but even the carpet was just laid on top of concrete without proper insulation or vapour barriers. But, it's ours, and it will be a decent home again sometime.

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One step at a time, and you'll get there. Try to focus on the positive bits about the house - like, it's yours and you can do what you want with it. And that lovely south-facing garden.

Happy Friday!!!!
Been ages since I did this, but yeah, why  not!!!?!!

1.)  Had this week off work, which was really nice. Did all kinds of odds and sods and brewed a batch of beer 

2.) Going to Edinburgh this week.  Hopefully catch the Xmas market, though that's not the reason we're going 

3.) Made vegan cheesecake today 

4.) Christmas gig season starts in anger now. No rest for the wicked. 

5.)  Going to the US for Christmas for the 1st time in 10 years. Fun.

5.)  Going to the US for Christmas for the 1st time in 10 years. Fun.

  Wait till you try to use your credit card to pay for a meal!  I hadn't been back many years and literally had no idea what to do.  I was asking but with my American accent everyone just thought I was an actual moron!    The want to take your card away, then bring you something to sign where you add a tip and then give you back your card?    I never actually figured it out

I have been back to the US , just not for Christmas itself in 10 years. But I absolutely agree on the credit card thing! It’s so weird. Just bring me the card reader and let me tap my phone. And no, I don’t want to tip you for just handing me a coffee.

My Friday Five were basically we are caring for the guinea pig, who had to have surgery over at Cornell in Ithaca on Tuesday.  She's coming along, but the incision looks awful.      I'm told it's normal, but it's a lot bigger than I expected.  She's eating and drinking, and on meds for pain and an antibiotic. Loving her hot water bottle, too. So, knocking on wood, all is going well.

Glad we drove back with her on Wednesday - they had a hell of a snowstorm Wednesday night & Thursday and we'd not have made it out.

Long time since i've done a Friday Five! 
I've got a really quiet and peaceful life (some might say boring?) since i've moved to the countryside.

1.  Planning to go along to the bowling club tonight and enroll for a social membership.  I've no intention to play bowls, but with a social membership you can use the clubhouse and more importantly the bar!  It's the only place to get alcohol in the village (no pub here), so even if i don't use it often, i think it will be worthwhile at £20 per year.

2.  Taking my new dog to meet the gang in the pub tomorrow (in Glasgow... i will have to drive, so no drinking).  She is the friendliest big dork... she just loves people, so i think she'll be in her element.

3.  I'm trying my hand at growing stuff for the first time ever, really (my early 20's in California doesn't count).  I've got 2 kinds of tomatoes, courgette, red peppers and cucamelons on the go just now.  They're getting a bit too big for their pots at the moment, so hopefully this weekend (bank holiday) I will re-pot them into some bigger containers.

4.  The other thing i really want to do this weekend is painting an interior wall.  I've got a really nice print i want to hang, but need to get the wall painted first.

5.  Unwelcome news in the post this morning... i've been caught by the cameras in Glasgow City Centre, driving in a bus lane a couple of weeks ago.  I remember that day, and i was literally in the bus lane for about 15 seconds before i could change lanes to get out of it.   £50 for the privilege.  RAGE!!!

What about you??? 

Sounds like a very sensible thing to do, Albatross! (Joining the Bowls.) Enjoy Glasgow! I still miss it a lot. The weather here lately is very much like it was in Glasgow, which is totally weird, but it's some consolation for the insanity going on over here. Good luck with your garden. Sorry to hear about your bus lane ticket. I got one the first time we ever visited, as I turned the wrong way and then couldn't get back out of the turn lane. Expensive lesson, that!

Friday Five:

1) I am planting the last of my seed potatoes into grow bags on my balcony in a moment, and will take them to my allotment in a few days. It's been pouring on and off (we had a Nor'Easter yesterday as well) so I don't want to slide down the hill over there with the bags. Will wait until it's dryer.

2) I spent six hours over at the garden one day earlier in the week tidying and weeding and trying to get my anemic garlic (it's really stunted this year) to grow. Tried dried chicken poop fertilizer, as it's supposed to be great for the plants. We'll see. The garden was in good shape when I left it. I'm sure it'll be knee deep in weeds when I get back there when the rain stops.

3) I am going to make tomato sauce this afternoon from the last of the tomatoes I canned last year. I have a bunch of 1940s cookbooks and there's a recipe in one that's very different, but very nice. Has cloves in it instead of oregano. Also need to put the bread machine on again as we've been having a lot of tomato soup and cheese toasties lately. I'm turning into "Suzy Homemaker", which is ironic beyond words, really.

4) Found a shop that sells British goods. I now have a bottle of Branston Pickle, a tin of golden syrup, and spent way too much on bisquits and candy. Had a lovely bottle of ice cold Rose Lemonade on the drive back home, too. Polished off the last of the McVitties Jaffa Cakes with coffee yesterday.  All were way overpriced, but with the tariffs and the cost of importing them, I can't fault the shop owner for what he has to charge. And I am really enjoying them.

5)  It could be a worse day, really. It could be broiling hot, which thankfully it is not.


PS  - Yes, if I sound familiar. Safety concerns and too easy to ID under the old account.  Would appreciate the continued new anonymity. OL   

Nice one OL 

I remember ON a Friday. That's probably a first.

1) The garden is coming along. It's been alternately extremely, brutally hot and humid, and not. Today is tropical.  Some evil thing ate the backs out of the roots of all my beets the day before I was going to harvest them this week. Half the root of each plant. Right down the row.  Got a good load of garlic in and replaced it with pinto beans. Never grew those before so fingers are crossed. This year seems to be the year for yellow squash for me. Not quite sure why. Other than I planted it in a pile of dead weeds and compost, and had a drip irrigation on it while it was young.  Very Prolific Plant. Running out of ideas of what to do with it, as far as recipes.

2) The daughter is still employed, but was given an Aug 4 date as of when they want her back in the office. On the other side of the country. Where it's chaos, unaffordable, and the budget is imploding in a rather spectacular fashion and will almost assuredly result in staff layoffs at her institution.  Uhhh....

3) The daughter made a batch of pesto yesterday with stuff from the garden. It was spectacularly good. I traded a few yellow squash and some mint to another gardener for what turned out to be a trash bag full of fresh basil.  Makes all the difference, having it right off the plant. Trying to sort out what to do with all the rest of the basil. I guess I could hang it up and try to dry some of it?  I tried in the food dehydrator last year and it was tasteless.

4) Listened to the ag radio report early this morning (I seem to be waking at 4:30am, unfortunately) and beef cattle are in short supply, so beef prices are rising in a spectacular way, with the increase moving down the distribution pipeline like a tsunami.  Ranchers are worried as, although herds have been being culled due to drought, the price of buying replacement cattle when things improve may be unaffordable for them.  On the flip side, farmers are expecting a record-high crop of corn and some other grains,  have no place to store it all, and are being forced to sell at less than half the cost to produce it. It used to go overseas. But not now. There are going to be a lot of farmers going broke - thanks to the fearless leader.  Anyway, our local grocery store had top round steaks on for $4.99 a pound, so my freezer now has a good supply of them. Hamburger is going for $5.99 for 80% lean on a very good sale, so it was quite a find on the steaks. We had one earlier this week, broiled with mesquite salt and fresh, just dug-up potatoes and it was really, really good.  I don't think I'll see them that cheap again for a long time.  Wish I had a bigger freezer.  Chicken, on the other hand, has gone up by 33%. Next sale I see I'll buy quite a bit and put it up in jars via the pressure canner. It works well in soup, curries, chili, etc., when canned. And will last a couple of years, if needed.

5)  Ticks. OMG. We seem to have had a biblical explosion of ticks locally.  I was standing in the garden, holding the watering hose that I have attached to a big 50-gallon barrel, and watched what seemed like military ranks of ticks parading in formation up the barrel towards the top. I have been spraying my clothes with permethrin, but washed all my garden stuff recently. I think I'd better reapply it.  I've already dealt with them twice this year and that's more than all the other years we've lived here combined. I really, really hate ticks.

None of which distracts from the Epstein files. Although there are some similarities to item 5.