ramtops

Another month (almost) without a post! What an exciting life I lead …

Christmas was quiet, just as we like it. Although we don’t go overboard at all, we were left with a mountain of food, which we are slowly working through (details on Reactive Cooking). We went for a walk at Easington on Boxing Day, somewhere – astonishingly – we hadn’t been before. Nice beach, but the wind howled as it usually does on the East coast! We had a lovely New Year’s Eve, cooking dinner for friends, and then going round to another friends to see in 2012.

Then we went down to Norfolk to spend 24 hours with my daughter and her son, which was entirely splendid, and we built a Lego crane. I knitted him a Ron Weasley sweater – my first knitting in about 30 years! – and it only just fit; he is a Long boy. So I’m remaking it, but I ran out of wool, and Boyes didn’t have any more. Another (huge) ball arrived yesterday, so I can proceed.

We don’t buy Christmas presents for each other, instead we buy things for the house. This year it got a “Keep Calm and Drink Wine” sign, which is on the wall in the dining room; we feel it an excellent mantra. Also, an electric blanket (warmz! fab!), and a Truecall call screening device. We are plagued with spamming telephone calls here, and this has stopped them dead in their tracks. Highly recommended.

And now it’s January again. This time of year is a bit depressing, but we are off to the Peak District at the end of the month for a Morris dancing thing – there’s about ten of us going, so it should be fun.

Happy (belated) New Year, all!

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

Attentive readers (if there are any) will recall that we installed a woodburning stove last year – a thing of much joy, and much smaller gas bills (even more joy). We have been acquiring cheap wood all summer, and even scavenging from the tip, in preparation for the threatened freezing winter that awaits us, to the point that our little back yard was overrun with bits of timber waiting to be chopped up – but nowhere to store it.

We were keeping our bikes in a bike tent, which was not, shall we say, the most durable of shelters, and it died completely during the gales last month. So we measured up, and got the local shed place to quote us for building a bike store plus log store, to go all along one wall of the yard. £790, they quoth. So when we’d picked ourselves up, we googled a lot, and ordered a wooden bike shed off t’internet for £159, and a log store similar for £200. They arrived this week, and Pete manfully assembled them; the bicycles are now ensconced cosily in their new abode, with the bike trailer and various other bits and bobs, and the log store is now not quite where we planned, but in a more convenient place. This entailed trimming a bit off the kitchen window sill, and taking the log shed roof off and cutting it to shape, but this didn’t seem to phase ‘im indoors, and up it went.

So yesterday and today, between us, we have split pretty much all the logs we bought cheap a couple of months ago, and stacked them in the woodshed, and have chainsawed up all the other bits and bobs of salvaged wood, and we have space for another trailer load, which I have reserved for a hundred quid from the bloke we bought the last trailer load, and that will be enough to see us right through the winter, $deity willing.

There’s also about six bags’ worth of logs in the house, in the log station and stacked round the fire, and several bags of rubbishy (but very cheap, or free) bits and bobs that came from last year’s skipful, or salvage, or whatever. So at least the living room will be warm, even if we can’t afford to heat the rest of the house ;)

And the gas direct debit is now £21 per month, which is nice (although I bet it won’t stay there).

In other news, I have new glasses – my prescription had changed a huge amount, to the point where I needed less strong lenses (!), so I now have rimless ones for the first time ever, and I’m really pleased with them. And I can see properly, which is a bonus – no longer have to take my glasses off to read my phone! Also got a pair of photochromic ones in cool Gok Wan frames, and tempted to give up contacts all together for now, as they’ve been playing me up, but then of course that might be due to the script change, I guess.

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

On Wednesday, we looked at the wreck of the house, kept telling ourselves how lovely it would be when it was all done, and realised that the dining suite we bought for £1.47 (yes, really) when we moved it really wouldn’t do any more. I had a quick look on eBay, and found an extending solid oak Ikea table, with six leather(ish) chairs, for £185 starting bid, stuck a bid of exactly that on it, and expected to be trumped. But no – we won it. Which posed a bit of a problem in the short term, because there is NO BLOODY ROOM anywhere in the house right now, and the old dining table has a microwave and pans and a plugin hob and god knows what else on it.

Thankfully, some friends came to the rescue, so on Saturday we took two trips to move the table and chairs in the GermanBarge over to their garage. The stuff is vair nice, although the table is a little bigger than we expected, but it’ll all look lovely. Brian and Lesley fed us firstly with coffee, and then with a lovely impromptu lunch, so thanks once again for your assistance!

We went home and resisted the temptation to just light the fire and slump; instead, we finished emptying the kitchen cupboards, and dismantled them, stowing them all in the aforementioned GermanBarge; the only thing left in there, cupboardwise, is the sink unit, and it’s empty, and we’ve blown the bloody doors off. Martin the KitchenMan will be coming to do his working survey at the end of this week. We had sossidges for supper from fabulous Fields (did a quick detour while in Anlaby collecting dining set), the final run for the old gas cooker, which the plumbering man will be removing when he does the plumbing. I’ve also ordered the dishwasher now.

On Sunday morning, we took up the carpet tiles and lino, and found some really rather nice floorboards underneath. The rest of downstairs has sanded and sealed original floorboards, and we keep wondering whether this would be practical for a kitchen. But probably not. We added these to the boot of the car, and trundled off to the tip; Hull City Council tip staff are fab, and help you with anything bulky, so it was a quick trip. Thence on to Wickes to look at paint (two tester pots bought), and a sausage, egg and mushroom roll for breakfast from the very excellent van in their car park.  Then home via Tesco for cat fud, taking down the old cooker hood (already gone on Freecycle), and then a hot bath each, and a slump.

Up early again this morning, as the gasman cometh, and again tomorrow when he returns with the relevant parts. Still, at least we’ll have reliable hot water then. Won’t we?

Documenting of the kitchen is here on Flickr, should you be interested.

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

We had a woodburning stove installed on Christmas Eve – thought we’d never get it done before the holiday because of 4 weeks of snow, but the builder was a hero and went up on the roof in -5C to do the necessary, ghod bless him.

As you may see from the video, our tradition is to hang a big branch from the wall, so we trundled over to the old cemetery on 23rd and brought a selection of branches home, and then selected one to hang and decorate. This caused the fire installer to bang his head a bit, but he didn’t mind too much.

And then we just … vegged. Lit the fire every day about 10 a.m. and just sat on the sofa in front of it. Watched a stack of DVDs, a little television, and barely left the house. It snowed on Christmas Eve, which was remarkably seasonal of it.

We didn’t even go for any walks, as we’ve both had this horrible viral thing and, indeed, I’m still suffering from it 3.5 weeks on.

We woke up a bit around New Year, and had people round for nibbles and home made wine on the 30th, then a grown up dinner party on 31st, with eight round the table. Two delightful evenings, and we shall make them new traditions, I think – must get more wine on the go for next year!

Then we had the weekend off to recover, after which we had two small boys (and their mother) over for tea on Tuesday, so we’ve only just taken down the decorations – they’re in the loft now until next year.

Consulting the database (yes, I know), we watched:

Which doesn’t actually look all that many, but is for us. We also saw The Snowman with the aforementioned small boys.

So … that was that. This year holds a likely trip to France to a friend’s 60th birthday party (which we shall do via the Hull – Zeegbrugge ferry), a kitchen makeover in Feb/March (we frightened ourselves to death today in the granite worktop shop!), and further decline into badgerdom.

Happy New Year, all!

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

How on earth can it be July 2010?  I don’t know where the century has gone …

Nothing too exciting this weekend. It was punctuated with visits to feed, water and entertain Starsky the rabbit – we have a reciprocal agreement with his Blobs; we rabbitsit, they catsit. On Saturday morning we cycled over to Anlaby Road to return the bike saddle I bought last week, and exchange it for a saddle bag. It was exceeding hot, and we decided to do no more cycling that day. Instead, we took the car (shock horror) to Makro to return the inkjet printer we bought just before Christmas. However, I cannot lay my hands on the receipt, and their invoice query system was down, so that was a wasted journey.

On Sunday, after checking on Starsky we went over to Walton Street Market, and bought some of their cheap plants – there’s now a window box of geraniums, and two pots of ornamental grass and marigolds, under the front window. After lunch, we continued on with the Avenues Open Gardens, and bought a load more plants while trundling about. The gardens have really inspired us to get on with our back yard – it’s not a bad size, and if we clear it up and plant it nicely it will be transformed. Especially if we get rid of the sodding palm tree that Gavin planted – anyone know how much a tree surgeon costs?

Spent a couple of hours when we got home getting stuck in – between us, we removed the huge fern, grubbed up most of the yellow poppies and other unidentified general Stuff. The composter is now officially full, and there are two more containers of garden waste to dispose of. Pete also cleared out all the weeds that are growing between the paving slabs – this is an endless task, so we’re going to plant some thyme between the cracks. He popped over to deal with Starksy, while I swept and tidied up, and did the watering, then we had pasta with mushrooms for supper, and slumped in front of Julie and Julia – didn’t finish it, but I think the Julia bits are much better so far.

Not sleeping well due to the heat, and we have Pete’s mum’s funeral in Sussex this week.

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

• finally planted the remaining ten hyacinth bulbs - the nine outside ones have gone in an pot of three and a pot of six, and the last indoor one is in a square glass vase filled with pebbles


• checked model numbers and URLs for some of the stuff I want to sell on eBay


• briefly entertained the secretary of the Rural Branch of the local LibDems, who hadn't received my e-mail about cancelled deliveries. He brought his 6 year old son, who was fascinated by the Tribe


• took a stack of stuff, including plastic bottles, dead freeview box, Le Creuset frying pan whose handle had fallen off, to the tip, and on the way back stopped at the hardware store at Backwell. We have driven past this shop dozens and dozens of times, and never gone in, and it was a positive treasure trove. We bore away two sorts of draught excluder, some white spirit, a hook for hanging a basket from the ceiling, a pack of curtain hooks (see later), two very interesting gadgets for cleaning glasses and phones (1 for upstairs, 1 for down). It was a real old-fashioned shop, and smelled of paraffin as is entirely right for such emporia. We shall visit again.

• perlmonger put up the portiere rod in anticipation of the arrival of the door curtain today. This should have been a swift job, but Sod was well to the fore. He had to move the doorbell box, and put up a batten, and cut the rod, and and and, but after a couple of hours it was up. He also put up a mug rack in the living room for the holding of Hats, which looks quite nice


• I got a load of stuff listed on eBay - there's still some more to go, but it's a good start. I hadn't anticipated just how *long* it would take. The amp, mixer and keyboard all had to be unboxed and powered up. The keyboard had to be consulted on how to make it do a couple of things, as I'd forgotten, and thought it might be broken.
  
  They all had to be photographed, and looked up on the intertubes, and descriptions written. Gah. And the Gaggia ice cream maker has a pinhole in its bowl, so I can't list that and I'm vexed. God knows how that happened - we've only used the bloody thing twice.


• I cooked half a gammon - in ginger beer, with an orange cut into quarters, half a cinnamon stick and some star anise. That's this week's lunches sorted


• cooked a piece of silverside as a pot roast - with port, mustard, shallots, carrots, all spice, balsamic vinegar, splash of fish sauce, bouquet garni. Cooked it very slowly, and it just about fell apart by dinner time. Served with red cabbage (from the freezer), sprouts and mash. Nom nom nom


• spilt vinegar all over the floor while I was cleaning


• lost the Ektorp sofa bed I was following on eBay :(

pastas, pulses and pickles
Originally uploaded by ramtops

• All pulses and similar enjarred (apart from some odd pastas, where I simply ran out of jars).


• The the shelves above the cooker - everything taken off, the shelves cleaned with bicarb, then steam cleaned, then new and different and more appropriate Stuff put on them. This was horrible, and involved me standing on a stool, which surprised perlmonger somewhat, as i get verdigris if I'm anything more than 12" above the ground


• the crockery cupboards were reorganised - all the bowls and jugs were sorted, and moved to a different cupboard, while the everyday plates were shifted to a cupboard of their own, where they should hopefully be more accessible


• the shelves by the kitchen door were completely sorted, and now hold only "spare" stuff - all current foods are now properly organised into appropriate cupboards. I also found room on there for the bits of the Kitchenaid food mixer that I rarely use


• moved said Kitchenaid to the other side of the kitchen - meaning that the Magimix is far more accessible, and the mixer is more usable

perlmonger