Inside and out, this and that, keeping on keeping on, still!

 Hello.

I really am loathe to start with my usual how are you all doing opener. Things are detreriorating with the pandemic in many places just now which is very sad indeed; we really have gone back many steps. I continue to feel very guilty about not wanting to go out more than necessary, yet want the boys to get their education in school as I think that is so important - I can't do a good enough job with the home schooling. I've been shopping and stocked up, sensibly, on top of the shopping trip I made last week so hope to not need going again for a couple of weeks at least apart from fresh fruit an veg if needed until the garden get going with autumn growing.🤞 We're going back a little to how we cooked, baked and ate in the early days of lockdown so I feel this will start to make me feel a little more comfortable. I hope with the nights drawing in that people MAY beginto stay in more and help with slowing the spread of infection but who knows. 

I continue to say we're doing our own thing andTracy at Our Smallholding Adventure talks about here in her latest post, what we are dealing with right now IS right now, normal for the foreseeble and we just have to deal with it - keep on keeping on.

**************

Anyway, here's me cheering myself up with inside and out of my little patch of paradise. 

If you read my last post the week was set to end with some really warm days and it did, however this weekend there was a distinct change. We'd already lit the wood burner on Friday night...

 and on Saturday morning with this lovely ice pattern on the bathroom Velux window.

the decision was made to light the Rayburn; yes, the old girl was fired up!

I feel sooo cosy just looking at this photo and as I type this my back is lovely and warm! We cooked our chicken Sunday roast in and on it yesterday and I'm looking forward to start baking bread and goodies for the tin.

The woodpile has been ready for this moment for a good few weeks now, even having a third extension plus roof so the Welsh rain doesn't ruin Jon and the boys' stacking efforts, so we're good to go for a lovely warm Winter indoors.

On Saturday afternoon the temperature in the poly tunnel was a surprising 32 degrees but I started work on something Jon and I had talked about; just a little project outside in the garden. The sink outside the poly house was cleared and will have new compost added and the sage, thyme and oregano are now housed in one of the tall planters on the garden side of the veg patch.

We plan on putting herbs in all the three planters so I'll need to check which herbs like living together. I know there three are happy house mates but will have to do a little homework reseach - just may ask the lovely Sara at Hawkwell Herbs for some advice.

I'm planning on growing flowers in the sink and toilet so have to move the two mint plants, replace that compost and get my bumbs organised - I would love to have some cutting flowers.

Also around the garden my multi-sown leeks seem to be coming along very nicely so fingers crossed we can have those on Christmas Day - unlike my second cropping spuds as blight has done for them I'm afraid.

  

Looking around I spotted these strawberries in some  planters I've left outside for some time. 

Still seem to be fruiting and just today I saw these others in the poly tunnel. They are some of  the runners I've planted - obviously one pot had some seeds in it already which I didn't realise!

My tomatoes are just about coming to an end. They are finally ripenening and read somewhere that laying the plants down can help with the process so giving that a go.

We haven't had anywhere near as many tomatoes as we would have liked but what we have had have been much better quality than in the past so maybe I'm getting there, finally!

I'm so pleased that the runner beans are really flowering now but not sure when I might get any pods.

I'm really please that the first lettuces I sowed and planted are doing very well so hope for the same with the ones planted later.

Earlier this morning I took a llittle walk a few minutes from the house and picked a couple of things to go with the crysanthymums and gourds I bought yesterday. A taste of Autumn in the kitchen so brighten my days.

That's enough of my ramblings and, as usual, I say stay safe.

Bye for now,

Lou.xx

Cooking On Gas...Well Logs Actually!

I think we are taking it as read, or as lit, that Winter is well on the way as yesterday we fired up the Rayburn; we have managed to leave it until November 1 which is great as we normally light it at the start of October.

I made the most of it I have to say and loved it. I baked a cob loaf which I have decided I can make pretty much every day and I have another baking as we speak. It is a very easy recipe. I made some egg-free choc chip biscuits for the boys as they came home from The Gramps today after being away since last Saturday. (Egg-free as the girls are freeloading a bit at the moment...) So lovely to have the boys home again and we still have time with them until they go back to school on Monday. 

I cooked lunch and tea on and in it, too.

So very pleased that once again we have eaten, heated the water and warmed the house with the old girl. We all squeezed together on the bench with the door open just watching the flames after tea. Fab!

This week I was pleased as punch, or rather as sloe gin! that I got round to picking and preserving some sloes just down the road from the house. Only about 12oz but enough so I popped them in the freezer to save me having to pin prick them all.

After having the gin and sugar added they are now sitting in the cellar being shaken periodically until ready to be strained for Christmas. Fab when you finally get round to doing something you've always fancied giving a go.

Not much going on outside just now; we have had all sorts of weather this last week or so. I've at times managed to dry the clothes on the line but we have had hail yesterday and some pretty heavy rain, too.

I've been doing a bit more Winter garden prep by adding compost to and covering over one of the massive tyres plus one end of the small veg patch. Also breaking news; hubby thinks we need one more large veg patch so we can really do our best to grow as much of our fruit and veg as we can. Its going to be dug out along side the three new planters he built; no pressure there, in fact loads, especially when not everything went as well as hoped this year. I just don't want to fail so we are going to make sure we have plenty of coverings so we do not fall prey to those damn caterpillas, or anything that eats brassicas really; I soooo want to have cabbages and broccoli next year, and anything else I can manage on the list that we really want to eat. Not buying fresh produce is something we really do want to get to grips with. Ok, rant over I think.

Another glorious day here today; a bit of a nip in the air but lovely.

I'm waiting on guests arriving at about 3pm so want to get outisde for an hour or so before then. Just waiting for the bread to finish and have my lunch. Had a morning of doing a bit of admin, trip to the bottle bank with the boys and putting out the washing whilst they stocked up on logs and kindling and done other bits and pieces so have to get some fresh air on this beautiful day.

Right that's all my ramblings.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Brian, Bring On Winter!

Hi!

With Brian on the prowl we are not too bad here just now but weather warnings for Aber have been put out to encourage people not to be near the sea front at high tide, winds are forecast for later, Alfie's football was cancelled this morning, and......

we have lift off. The Rayburn is lit!

 
We were fully operational at breakfast and I love it!

I have also been getting used to baking in it and made, using up yet more apples, another Dorset Apple cake.The boys have their Thanksgiving Service, even though I'm not a church goer I would have preferred it to be called the harvest festival as that title is a bit US of A for my liking. Anyhow after the event we are having a Macmillan Coffee do so taking donations as requested.

Lunch consisted of chicken and fridge left overs soup. Mmmm.

So I am more than happy now and cannot wait until I see that energy bill go down shortly.

Right, I'm off to have my soup and look for a Columbo to watch this afternoon and prepare myself for Sequin Central! Go Strictly!

Oh, one last thing I thought of the other day. I don't think I have shared this with you but when I had my previous blog I was lucky enough to have Ruth Clemens, one of the first The Great British Bake Off series finalists, do a little interview for me - here it is.(Have to say still loving the show even with the changes - it's all about the baking!)

Interview with Ruth Clemens.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Rayburn Re-boot!

Over at Our Smallholding Adventures Tracy and Ste have had a spot of bother with their Aga but thankfully Ste is a resourceful man and has managed to sort the problem. Yay!

Here at Bronllan we, Jon, has been readying the Rayburn for being lit; if the weather doesn't improve it will be sooner rather than later. We have been talking about cleaning out the flu before the re- light. (I have Take That in my head now!)

Rods were brought in from the shed,

and Jon began his best impression of Bert - chimney sweep from Mary Poppins.

An old towel did the trick of keeping a lot of the mess from escaping but I had to put my OCD to one side to allow a necessary job to be done. Because we burn mainly wood and not coal products we understand there was not as much soot as there could have been.

Once the flu was done and the soot cleared away Jon gave the plate, lids and flu/damper a spruce up.

He set a small fire to check smoke was escaping through the flu and out the external chimney as it should be. After half an hour or so she was good as new and ready for the off.

I can't wait to light her again. I've had a Spring and Summer? with a fairly dust-free kitchen but I will take that to have our little beauty lit again; we look forward to it once again providing us with the ability to heat, eat and bathe under our own steam, or wood!

I'm so looking forward to not using the microwave and having the smell of my bread and slow cooking casseroles filling the kitchen and the house. Aaaah, happy days.

Bit Of A Mish Mash.

Hi.

Thought I would post about a few random things. 

This is all of the plant pots which came my way for 99p. Chuffed to bits I have sooo many and that they were all clean barring a couple.

I was in the Poly House this morning and took this photo across the fields at the back of the house.

Didn't need a coat and hardly needed my jumper. I was having a bit of a tidy up re the above but I have now gone off piste regarding my sowing and growing plan! Today I have sown these seeds:

two trays of spring onions
one of Gardener's Delight toms
one including sweet peppers and piquant peppers

The trays are mainly from when I buy chicken breasts; they are a great size so I just pierce some holes in the bottom of them for a bit of drainage.

I have put them in the window sill in the top kitchen and will cover them with something to help the germination process when I get a minute. This window gets quite a lot of sun whilst it is still a little too cool to put them in the conservatory, although it is a lovely day today and quite mild and dry. Yay!

I also emptied the compost that was in the fixed drainpipe in the Poly House. I have put this at the end of the main veg patch as I'm going to add it to this area when I do some digging over; I'm always a bit unsure about whether or not you should re-use compost.

Ah, yesterday two lots of my seed potatoes arrived from Thompson & Morgan,

as you can see they are Maris Piper and Arran Pilot. I need to get them chitting soon, probably this month rather than next.

This is funny. Jon and I love the Rayburn and he decided to have 10 minutes the other night!

Following on from that photo this one is a little self indulgent as it shows just what the Rayburn is all about; fresh bread, sausage casserole tea for tonight and a brew!

Whilst in the garden this morning I nearly squealed with delight. I was convinced I would have lost all my daffs from when we had the garden scraped down with the digger, but no!

Plenty in evidence here and I am soooo grateful because I just loved being able to pick them from the garden to have them in the house!I MUST get the last of my bulbs put in SOMEWHERE!

This is something small that pleases. The last time Jon's Dad came to visit he brought us some lovely rope for the airer in the kitchen; it makes it run so smoothly now, just great.

Well I think that is that for today. Got a few jobs around the house to do now before the boys come home.

bye for now. 

Lou.xx

Bathing, Heating and Eating!

It was suggested to me that I did a little post about the difference the Rayburn has made to our finances. This is a bit lengthy, just to warn you!

When we first moved to Bronllan in September 2015 we had the Rayburn which was run by oil. We would pay approx. £168 for 500 litres so we spent the following in these months:

October 2015     £168   
December          £160.13
February 2016   £157.50

We've never had a gas bill as we use bottles for the oven and hob that run alongside the Rayburn; these are approximately £30 and I think we had five of them which comes to £150. I have not added this into the monthly bills as follows but it works out so far at approximately £12.50 per month for 12 months as we bought them once we were actually in the house.

I switched us from Swalec to Eon in March and they told us our monthly direct debit would be £47.50. In September of this year we switched the Rayburn from the oil one to a solid fuel one. We bought the Rayburn for just £26 and the total spend including refurbishing it was approximately £250.

We received an email from Eon in November saying they were going to increase out direct debit to £74, this was only because it was coming up to Winter and they were assuming we would use more energy. I contacted them and explained we now had a Rayburn which would be supplying our energy for heating, cooking and water and then adjusted the direct debit to the lowest their website would let me in the meantime which would mean our next payment in January would be £46.

So....I think I have this right - with the Rayburn switch-over, the energy company switch, the change in the time of year etc, our electricity direct debit payments proceeded as follows:

They cover the usual appliances; I am making a real effort to use the radiators and the airer above the Rayburn and not the drier, low level lighting "turn that light off!", the pump that is attached to the Rayburn for the upstairs radiators, you get the idea.

September 2015       -
October                     -   
November                  64.00
December                  64.00
January 2016             64.00
February                    64.00
March                        64.00
Refund from Swalec  18.81
April                           47.50
May                           47.50
June                          47.50
July                           47.50
August                      47.50
September                47.50
October                     47.50
November                 74.00

I am quite vigilant when it comes to checking and submitting the electricity meter reading on the first of the month. When I did this on December 1st I received notice from Eon really very quickly that from December our direct debit payment would be....

                                                               £26!

Our last bill showed our electricity charges to be £36.59 which is for the quarter of course. If I could get the direct debit down to £20 I would be really pleased.

So what does all of this mean?

On energy during October and November we spent £232. (In September and most of October we lived in a caravan during the house renovations so we were lucky not to have to pay for the electricity and they also left oil in the tank for the Rayburn.) 

This was our lowest monthly average payment at this point of £116 due to the above reasons.

In December 2015 and January 2016 we spent £288.13 on energy so the average monthly payment was £144.06.

In February and March we spent £294.80 on oil and electricity so the average monthly payment was £142.75.

Taking into account the energy switch refund listed and the electricity payments from April to October we spent £378.79  on energy, plus the cost of the Rayburn switch which was £250 making a total of £628.79. There was a considerable amount of oil left in the tank when we switched the Rayburns over but that was taken out used as fuel in the car and as a trade for some wood so it did not go to waste! Therefore for that period the average monthly payout was £83.21.

- We are lucky that we have never had to pay for wood as we get off cuts from the sawmill and trees from our own field.-

At the beginning of November we bought coal for £90 which will last for the rest of the Winter so can be averaged out to approximately four months supply at £22.50 per month. This added to the November electricity payment of £74 made a total of £96.50 .

Because in December our electricity direct debit will be £26 plus an averaged-out month of coal at £22.50 we can compare our energy "bill"  last December of £144.06 to a total of £48.50 this December. This is a saving for that month, year on year, of..... 

                                                             £95.56!
 That took a bit of doing and I'm quite chuffed. (Maths is not my strong point.)

Think I need a lie down after that but have to roast potatoes for our community Christmas lunch today!

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

What's To Do Wednesday.

Hello! Just totting up what we have been up to over the last few days.

Today is Wednesday and we are in one piece after storm Angus. We just had a really windy day with leaves blowing horizontally but not really a lot of damage.

I saw in my Country Living magazine last month a wellie boot taker offerer! I asked Jon if he could make me one and this is what he came up with....

It is perfect and for a fraction of the cost they were advertised at!

Now today is Wednesday but not sure what day I have done things anyhow I have been getting my plan for Christmas sorted out. I have a calendar sheet for both November and December; nothing much to do in November but make and feed the cake and make the mincemeat.

I have a couple of other lists to keep track of things....

I have my old faithful recipes which I really enjoy making including Delia's cranberry sauce, Mary Berry's pastry for mince pies and a couple of seasonal flavoured cakes when a full on Christmas cake is too much. My mincemeat recipe is sort of my mum's but with a few tweaks of my own.

In and around the Poly House the Pak Choi is about ready to be put in the raised bed; temperature in there the other day was 50 degrees.

The Oca looked as if they had died back enough to be taken up and the sweet potatoes seemed to be ready, too (no photo).

 

However, you can see in relation to the egg how small they both were!! I think this proves I am just not good at growing things in bags as the Oca was water logged - another lesson. 

However on a happier note the raspberry bush is looking like this...

and more closely like this - I think it is coming on well. Not sure but I hope it is a summer raspberry bush.

Yesterday I finally got round to some preserving and pickled the beetroot! I washed them, as I had stored them in moist compost in the cellar store room, boiled them and once they had cooled I donned my rubber gloves to rub off the skins and sliced them up.

I made up my pickling liquid, a simple mix of malt vinegar, water and salt.

I bought my malt vinegar from Charlie's in Aber at £2.75 for 5 litres.

I then poured it over the beets which I put into sterilised jars...

and they are now sitting on the shelf in the cellar store room.

When we first moved to Bronllan there was, to my great pleasure, a clothes airer in the kitchen. However, because Jon had to take the ceiling down and put in a new supporting beam we could not keep it. However, he has finally got round to putting it back up. I admit the nylon rope is not the most attractive but that will be remedied as we need to tweak one side which doesn't move as smoothly as we would like. 

However, I used it yesterday and dried some things moe than effectively.

There is the issue of the Rayburn being lit most of the time and we ARE dust central. However that is the price you pay for NOT paying for most of your heating and eating, if you know what I mean.

When we were in Aber on Saturday we popped into a couple of the charity shops and I found this fab jar; I absolutely love it for £1.50. Jon suggested I put lime, lemons and cherries in a light sugar syrup ready to go in drinks at Christmas so that is what I will do!

So I think we are up to date. I have just given Jake a good brushing as he seemed to get something a bit stinky on him yesterday. As the weather is not that good for giving him a wash/bath outside I hope this will do the trick in the meantime.

Just to say thank you for all the comments regarding my wobble last week. Feeling a bit better now and taking things one at a time.x

Bye for now.

Lou.xx