A Jam Full Cupboard (by sarah)

Last year I foraged and grew stuff and was given apples and green tomatoes and so on and I even bought reduced pumpkins after Halloween (which we are still getting through!). I made pies and crumbles and cooked soups, I even made bramble butter for the first time.

And there was still left over food... so me and Al preserved stuff!

We now have a cupboard full of chutney, jams, crystallised and pickled things! We didn't get the drying rack up in time to dry things but that is now in place.

I also now have an empty freezer which I am to fill up with cakes over and fresh produce over the year.

Chickens are laying a stupid number of eggs at the moment so we are selling a couple of boxes a week 🙂

This sort of stuff makes me happy - once I am better I plan to sort out the wine making stuff so I get crack on with that over the coming year.

Also we gave a load of preserves away at Christmas and we were eating them through out the year as well 🙂 Though I did swap some with a friend for different jams and with the neighbours for their cherry syrup!

Frustrated (by sarah)

I am sick 🙁 I got half way home on Wednesday and a stomach bug crashed down on me, I hadn't eaten breakfast as I felt sick, but that isn't that unusual. I had to deviate into the Morrisons and call Al to come and rescue me.

This is so so frustrating because today I should be at college, Al has taken time off work to look after Mary and I can't go. They are looking at puppets and games in science communication this week and I am not there 🙁 On top of that it turns out I've forgotten to sort some of the disability stuff out for college so the stress is on.

From about mid November things have been falling apart - the house due to weather and age of appliances and the kids and Al being ill etc... and I really wanted to be able to focus a bit more on my course.

Mary’s 3rd Birthday – postponed (by sarah)

So I am being a bad Mummy and being stressed - we have a broken home at the moment and budget wont stretch to a party outside the home so we decided to postpone Mary's birthday celebration - she is not old enough to know different.

But we did have a little picnic tea with her - Daddy made her special pizza she can eat and she opened the cards and presents that arrived in the post.

I also made cake pops in the afternoon with her.

She likes cake.

Father and Daughter Soldering (by sarah)

Jeany got an electronics kit for Christmas - her and Al had a great time building it. It was a little musical instrument which she now keeps making me play! I got a different musical thing which Al is going to help me with. I believe this is all his cunning plan to get us both good at soldering as there are now off the shelf units to do the kind of LED lighting I wanted to put in at The Bakery. We've been eyeing up our living room 😉

Plans are to give her a bit more formal programming training now too.

p.s she did do most of the soldering herself but this bit was tricky and she was helping hold things in place.

An Allotment At Last! (by sarah)

Today we went and signed for and paid for a plot of ground to grown things on - it is not an allotment as such but is on a farm - I would still like an allotment round the corner but have gotten hacked off with messages being ignored etc...

In the photo Jean is marking on corner and Al and Mary the other - I'm taking the photo from the apex.

Anyway - it is a large plot if an odd shape and comes with raspberry canes already in situ. They have of course died back now but there was shrivelled blackened fruit which I rubbed to get the smell and yep - raspberries.

Of course everything is water logged around here at the moment - Jean wasn't complaining though. She even got Daddy and Mary to join her 🙂