Manic Monday

Jobs for today:

• Yet MORE washing!
• Food shopping - carrying on from Thrifty Saturday this involved a variety of stops.
• Cook beetroot and rhubarb (which I brought on Saturday)
• Visit Granny & Grampy
• Continue with the potty training

Jobs which crept in but were not on the original list

• De-heading the roses in the garden
• Digging up the potatoes and putting them carefully in a cardboard box in the garage
• Tidying the house and cleaning the bathroom.

Roses from the garden

Mike dug up a potato in the shape of a heart .

Its been a bit of a manic Monday.  Having started my blog a few weeks ago I am finding it a particularly inspiring part of my life.  I love all of the other blogs I have found, but all this inspiration means that I have lots of creative ideas for both Mimi and I and not enough time in the day to complete everything.

Having got up early by the time I had sorted out all of the washing, got Mimi dressed several times and run to the toilet too many times to count we finally managed to be heading out of the door at about 9.30am.  We had a variety of shops on my hit list today - TKMAX as I wanted some cushion blanks for my chair renovation and some jars for my chutney.  They didn't have what we wanted so we ended up at Dunelm Mill where we managed to get the cushion blanks some jars and a photo frame for my next project for Mimi's bedroom.  

By this time we were running a bit close to lunch so we stopped for a coffee before heading off to Lidl.

Lidl became a firm favourite when we were in France after stopping with G&A.  One lunch time they had the best ham and I was shocked to discover that it had come from Lidl.  After shopping in a few in France I thought we would give it ago back here.  Some stuff was cheaper although I thought that some things were more expensive.  So after collecting the things we wanted we headed off to the till.  I found it a little disconcerting that the length of the till does not give you much time or space to shovel all your things in to your trolley.  Then after being told the amount I put my card in to the machine only to be told in a very disdainful voice with a look as if to say are you totally stupid we don't take credit cards.  Trauma over we got back to the car where I sorted my bags out, then off to the farm shop for vegetables and then home.

I since feel as though I have spent the afternoon glued to the kitchen trying to cook Mimi's tea which has disguised vegetables, and all of the other little tasks I have set myself such as making chutney 2 different types plum and red onion I found the recipe on the internet although I halved the quantities. (I didn't get round to both), cooking and pickling my beetroot (I discovered today that you can use beetroot juice to dye rice pink!), making leek & potato soup for tomorrow, sorting out the rhubarb for rhubarb crumble and the endless trips to the toilet and the little voice shouting OOOOOhhhhhh No I have done WEE WEE Ohhhhhh NO! 

Cooking the beetroot 

OOOO it dyed everything including my hands.

I forgot to add that we also managed to squeeze a quick trip over to Granny & Grampys and Mike finally managed to book himself an appointment at the doctors about his hearing.  I have been on his case for ages and I am sure that it is getting worse but according to the doctor there is nothing wrong with his hearing.  I have concluded that he must just tune out to my voice!

Garden is doing well, we have our first ever crop of Blackcurrants, our first Tomato of the season and a Butternut Squash.  I am very proud of my squash as I attempted to grow them last year but something ate it from the roots up and so it never materialised.