"Deja Vu"

Well, a misty morning and damp out with a real feel of Autumn..season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness...
I wanted to go to a Bon Marche shop today because they were offering %30 off everything and I had seen some nice long sleeved nightdresses..like a shirt in a blue tartan warm for the winter. Spotted them last week in Ormskirk but didn't want to go that far, so went to the one in Maghull instead. it's only a quarter of an hour away, so went mid morning. Got my nightshirt, and a pair of slippers. Vin got a few things in Home and Bargain and we came home. When I got home I found that I hadn't got my %30 off !!!! What a pain! Vin of course finds it very amusing and will no doubt remind me of it for months to come.. kept looking at me through lunch and smirking..
Anyway since we wanted to stay in tomorrow he offered to run me back to maghull this afternoon to get my money back, well it was worth eight pounds saving!So can't complain. That is where the Deja Vu comes in..the return journey. Quite misty and manky too this afternoon, trees very Autumnal colours, a real misty and going dark very quickly afternoon. Got my refund, was apologised to very profusely, twice, and came home again. Cats still asleep where we left them! What a life.


A nice Autumn picture..I like Autumn pictures. Another from New England.
Tonight we are having:
Moussaka made with assorted vegetables..Quorn mince in the middle, and a lovely cheese sauce on the top.

A Touch Of...

Something in the air today. definitely colder, and Vin had the heater on in the car today as well, for the first time in ages. he rang the chimney sweep this morning and they are coming next monday at 2 O'Clock. At the moment he is lighting a small fire which is the first one of the Autumn/Winter. first of many I suspect. Up till now we have exsisted on small electric heaters, but the fire is nice and does make a difference because it heats the radiators that we have.We use smokeless fuel these days since we had quite a bad chimney fire a few years ago, so Vin reckons there shouldn't be much soot. He has ordered some more coal this morning too so we will be set for the Winter. The cats love the fire anyway.
We went off to Waitrose this morning to get our weekly things,mostly a selection of veggies and a few other things that we had run out of. Didn't go to Crosby because there are roadworks on the road that we use, so we wanted to avoid those.Makes a change to go the other way anyway. Big new garage opened up in Formby on the main road. That's unusual these days, with so many closing down. This one is a Texaco and has quite a big Spar shop with a Greggs and a Costa shop as well. Maybe try it next time we buy petrol.
Meant to put in yesterdays entry that Vin found a bigt rocket in the garden yesterday, must have come from the Hotel's firework display. just shows how far they travel. Seems like the firework display from Taunton Rugby Club is somewhat responsible for the huge crash on the motorway at the weekend. Lot's of investigations going on and some sad stories coming from the names of the people who were killed. I suppose they are looking for the cfauses now.
Tonight we are having:
Escalope since the freezer is full of things that need eating up!
Small potatoes sliced and sauteed,
Carrots and green beans
mushroom sauce.

Bonfire Night..

Last night it was Bonfire night. We were a bit concerned about the cats, but in the end they were fine. the Hotel over the road has a firework night every year, and it is a big one with some extremely big rockets etc which little Rusty hates. Generally it goes on for about three quarters of an hour but it didn't seem so long this year. The two of them were in the middle room fast asleep so we left the television on while we had our tea, and they didn't move at all. In the past poor little Rusty has hid under the table in the corner out of the way, but fine this year thank goodness.
Otherwise quite a quiet weekend.Extremely bad crash on a motorway near taunton, seven people killed and many injured, motorway still closed. They are looking into the possibility that a bonfire and firework display near to the motorway may have caused distraction and smoke, but I should thin k there will be an inquiry.
Today again quite quiet with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Did our crosswords this afternoon which were trickyish, but we got them done in the end, a bit late, so this will be fairly short.
last night we had:
Chinese sweet and sour sauce with Quorn dippers,
1/2 a packet of fried rice
Stir fry vegetables.

Tonight we are having:
Pizza with our beautiful home made tomato sauce,
Portobello mushrooms pineapple courgette and pepper
potato and egg salad
Potato salad for moi and a noodle salad for Vin

Busy morning!

One way or another it turned out to be a busy morning. We set off for Ormskirk sort of mid-morning.Nice sunny day and no traffic along the country roads. Pleasant drive in there. I wanted to park in the car park outside M&S which is in the centre of the town so it would save time, but...we went round and round the park and no joy, so gave up and decided to make our way to the Morrisons car park instead. That was as bad..goodness jknows what was going on today. eventually we got parked, and set off for the town. Called in at the bank to pay some money in for jane to help her out a bit. That is it for spending this month now..need to catch up a bit. Holland and Barratt next which was also busy, but they had three packets iof fishless fingers left so got those before they sold out! Split up then. i wanted to go to Superdrug and Bon Marche and Vin wanted to go to Waterstones. He spent two book vouchers that have been around for ages on a book about Windows7, so he was pleased with that. I got slippers reduced to £6 , I seem to be going through an awful lot of them at the moment, treading the backs down, and they don't last.Got some stuff at Superdrug then we met up again and went to M&S. Big disappointment..no egg salads or potato salads either. At least they did have, but they were on their sell by date. What is it with that shop? Hopeless for salad stuff. Did buy some christmas things though, an offer three for two. Christmas ground coffee a cranberry and port sauce and a spiced damson chutney.
Ended up in Morrisons for our coffee. i was wilting a bit by then, combination of blood pressure drugs and insulin I think. Vin was feeding me glucose tablets. he says he knows when the blood sugar is low because I go "Vacant"...Cheek!!!
Coffee perked me up together with a nice shortbread biscuit, so we then went round the store. Heaving busy today..just what is going on? Got everything on the list, but had to hurry round a bit because the car park time was running out, and the couple in the queue before us were so sloooow..always the way isn't it.
Vin offered to go and get some egg salads from Formby on the way back, so we went back via there. Parked in Waitrose..right outside, and he was FOUR minutes, from parking to getting back to the car. Single minded he is.
Home for a late lunch, and I don't think the cats had moved, they were still in the places we left them! lovely life.

Just an Autumn picture from New England to cheer the blog up. I wonder if their snow has gone by now?

Tonight we are having:
Fishless fingers
Chips..200 grms between us
Mushy peas for Vin and green beans for noi
tartare sauce and a baked tomato.

Tales of the Unexpected! The Banking crisis...

Our own banking crisis that is! We have our own money, Vin has his money and I have mine. that is the way we have always done it, and it works very well. However..we do have a Household Account with the Nat west that we both contribute to each month equally. With our lunchtime post, which arrived at around a quarter past one!! we got a statement about this account, and I repeat I got a grotty letter to say that we had exceeded the agreed overdraft amount so would be charged £6 a day unless we put it right!! So off we went hot foot to Formby again to the bank where i drew out £250 from my account to pay in. At least we are now fine, and there will not be any more trouble with losing £6 a day!
A few things about this...
1. If we had got our morning post at breakfast time instead of lunchtime we would have saved petrol since we had just come back from Formby!!
2 We need to set up Online banking for this account so we know where we are with it.
3. We need to watch the bills, they are all creeping up, and therefore so is the amount going out.
4 We probably need to increase the amount of money that we put into this account each month.
So a bit of a wake up call all in all.
We had been out and about today doing bits and pieces. Vin wanted to return a roll of insulation material to Homebase and look for some woodworm fluid. So he did that, but their woodworm fluid was £18 a tin..look for that somewhere else. i wanted a couple of things from tesco which is opposite Homebase, so we went in there. Only wanted a couple of Quorn things and ended up spending £36 !! Hate tesco's and never go in there but they do have a couple of things that none of the other stores sell.
Then we came bck along the By Pass to Ince Blundell to the garden centre. The other day we had bought some lovely "letters" an A and J for John and Ann and a J and V for us. Unfortunately the J that I bought for the Australia parcel doesn't stand up ! typical..so we took them back for a refund and replacement. big snag..there weren't any more J's. Typiccal!! Why is it always me?So got our refund and came home for coffee. Then the banking letters came, so we had to make a quick dash back to Formby. Did kill two birds with one stone though because we parked right outside the bank...VERY unusual but it was lunchtime, and then went into waitrose car park so Vin could go to the little hardware shop opposite that sells everything. He got his woodworm fluid there for £5. So that was OK.

Bit of a story to this picture. Vin has loaded some more of our new England pics, and we came across this one from sturbridge Village. It is a fantastic place with old buildings and workplaces that are inhabited during the day and is used as a tourist attraction. unbelievably well done. This is the Oxen man who was driving the oxen to their shelter. later on that evening, Vin had gone to the liquor outlet to get a bottle of wine, and came across the "oxen man" working there! He said Hello to him and the oxen man said Sssh don't tell anyone!! Two jobs to make ends meet I suppose.

Tonight we are having:
Cheesey Kievs
squashed and baked potatoes
Mixed green vegetables.

Isn't It A long Day When...

You get up early!! We had set the alarms because i had a Dentist's appointment at 9.30. Not a long journey, he is only two doors down, but the funny thing is that it is often that one that you are in a rush for. The cat woke me up about sixish, I think it was Rusty, balancing on my hip.Anyway it got us going. Vin went down for our coffees, I have a tiny little cup and he has a mug full.
Went in for my appointment which was a filling so I had to have my gum numbed. Funny how it affects you, it was a back tooth and the numbing was my back jaw, my tongue and lip.I was supposed to have two done, one either side but he decided to do one as it would be too uncomfortable to do both, so its back at the end of november for the next one.
While I was in the Dentist, Vin went to get his haircut in Formby. he said he wasn't waiting if there was a queue,and there was a bit of a one, so he went to another he knows. There was a bigger queue there though so he went back to the first one. I got back first at about ten past ten and he came back around twenty past.
He decided to do some more work on his loft, and did the rest of the first layer of insulation. He also wanted to get the old tank down which was a bit of a palaver..(I love that word) Didn't work the first time, so he went for Plan B. He said he realised that the ladder was in the way, so when that was moved the tank dropped down.

Quite abig size to get through a smallish loft hole!! Well done Vin !!
The original cause of the problems was a leak in the front bedroom ceiling, which the plumber thought was the ball valve. It wasn't..which was when vin decided to do the replacement job of a new cold water tank and the pipework. Anyhow as it happens, when he eventually got the tank outside, he said there was a crack in the bottom right hand corner of the tank, so it was that which was causing the leak.
So all that was a good morning's work for him.
Quite cold and blowy today, neither of the cats have been out much, they certainly aren't stupid cats aren't.
Forgot to say that Vin found a bit of woodworm at the top of the loft hatch, which he says will need a bit of treatment. he decided against going to get it because he says that if it's been there for thirty years another day isn't going to matter!! Funny!!!
Tonight we are having:
Pasta bake with mushrooms and tomato and mascarpone sauce.
A bit of garlic bread and a bit of parmesan,
A few carrots to go with it.

Hares and Rabbits..Again!!

Aren't the months flying by! November already and it will be all systems go for Christmas now I suppose. Very Autumnal today actually, quite a nice day with a bit of sun and no rainy drizzle for a change. The new neighbour next door is burning loads of stuff in a Pagoda-ey thing he has in their garden and there are clouds of smoke going up in the air. reminds me of my Dad's bonfires round about this time of the year, and burning leaves.
We have had quite a busy day today, there was a pile of ironing on the chair in the extension looking at me, so i made a start on that, that took a couple of hours with the bedding and the clothing. We also did a big batch of tomato sauce that we use for our pizzas on a Sunday. We used:
4 cans of Heinz chopped tomatoes in sauce, they were on offer somewhere,
1 finely chopped red onion slightly fried till soft
A good slug of garlic puree,
A very good slug of tomato puree
A couple of teaspoons of bouillon powder
Seasoning, salt and black pepper
A couple of teaspoons of mixed Italian herbs.
Method is simple. All in the pan once the onion has been sauteed and leave to simmer till it has halved in amount, and has gone thick.
it makes the most beautiful sauce which we freeze in little plastic pots and will last us about ten weeks.

These are the little pots of sauce, freezes beautifully.

Vin is up in the loft again finishing off his insulation. he went out to Sainsbury's Homebase this morning to get the remainder and the top up stuff, which is in huge rolls.So he is up there getting the topping ready.
We posted a letter to John and Ann this morning too. That was the one that I had to redo because the one that I had been writing had gone with the last computer, never to be seen again, floating around somewhere in cyberspace I suppose. Anyway this one has gone at a cost of £2.02, which i didn't think was bad really.
Tonight we are having:
Toad in the hole
With quorn sausages and a mushroom gravy.
probably a few mixed veg to go with.