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| Image from www.borealis2000.com © Dirk Obudzinski 2000 -2010 |
Ok I'm a bit bummed today, I missed the aurora borealis (northern lights) yesterday night, I was tucked up in bed asleep or at least worrying about the water. BAH!!! They don't happen very often, but more than other areas of the UK - so I hope they'll turn up again soon!!!!! Better luck next time, bah bah bah bah bah. They are named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, and Boreas, Greek for "northern wind," the aurora borealis is more commonly known as the "northern lights."
Anyhow before I missed the northern lights - I managed to get to one of our local supermarkets here after the veggie gardening class on Thursday night - which is always good to go to a bit later, like many other places they reduce the food in the evening - so we tend to go then and get some bargains.We call the lovely person who does the reducing 'the 10p lady' because mainly they reduce things to 10p at that time of night - but I think there are 10p men and 10 ladies................
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| I love the 10p lady - she reduces all the food and gives me alot of bargains. |
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| Lots of 10p bargains................bread, apples and tatties |
Anyway, sometimes you don't get much of the normal things you'd buy, so you have to really think, do I actually think I'll use this stuff - but if you can be a bit adaptable and go a bit later - you can bag alot of bargains. Tonights 10p wonders are bread, milk, apples, parsley in a pot and chestnuts. The bread and milk are always useful, the parsley I can split up and pot along outside, for 10p I'll get about 50 baby plants from one of those supermarket pots. Tatties, we eat alot of those - so they won't go amiss. Now the most unusual purchase this week is chestnuts, I love chestnuts but I never buy them as they are quite expensive and a treat, but for 10p I can enjoy them all the more! And, by buying things you'd not 'normally' eat - you can be a bit more adventurous. Anyone got a good recipe for chestnuts!!?? Oh look at the tray - I'd best be careful, those colourful birds might eat them!
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| Chestnuts for roasting - 10p - woo hoo! |
I'm pretty glad that I went and I'm so pleased with my stash of bread and milk in the freezer, I don't think we've paid full price for a loaf of bread in over 2 years, almost the same for milk. We've a big chest freezer we got on Freecycle which we keep our milk/bread stash in - the kids laugh about how much bread and milk can be in there sometimes, but as it indirectly helps to pay for extras in the house by saving the money on the food bill. I guess the 10p lady might be glad she's helped us out so much!
This helps hugely with our budget - I try to not take too much when I find alot of 10p bargains - there are alot of people out there who could have some of these bargains too - no point in being greedy - be bad karma I think - best to take a few bits and leave some for others. I'm sure the 10p lady would approve, we're making sure its used and not being greedy!
Ok we've still no water, no idea when it will be fixed but aside the fact that its a bit inconvienent - we're not really struggling too bad - we might need to venture out to friends for a shower and to fill up the spare water bottle, but we'll live. Thankfully the rain stopped earlier - or I think the house may have floated away. And, my word were the hens wet - the silly creatures, they never go into their shelter but they are still laying eggs for us, so they can't be that unhappy!
Ok we've still no water, no idea when it will be fixed but aside the fact that its a bit inconvienent - we're not really struggling too bad - we might need to venture out to friends for a shower and to fill up the spare water bottle, but we'll live. Thankfully the rain stopped earlier - or I think the house may have floated away. And, my word were the hens wet - the silly creatures, they never go into their shelter but they are still laying eggs for us, so they can't be that unhappy!
Hard to beat roasted chestnuts at the best of times, and when you only paid 10p for them?! Genius shopping, I never get out to the supermarkets at the moment, too ill to drive, but always hunt the bargains in the on-line shop and work out what to do with it later. Necessity as mother of invention and all that, I don't remember the last time I shopped from a list of "ingredients I need for the meal I plan to cook", always a case of working out what to cook with whats around. Do you have a slow cooker? My new best friend, cheap to run and turns cheaper cuts of meat into meals of utter delight...
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you're too ill to drive, I hope you get better quickly () - but you're right can't remember the last time I worked from a 'list' of ingredients - generally just see what we've got and then make something to suit. It does save heaps - we've a slow cooker - I'm not too adventurous with it - but I must try to be. We can't online shop here - not one of the things we can do - have you tried a place called 'approved foods' http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/ its one of the online discount food places they do end of lines etc - usually tonnes of bargains on there - delivery up here is too much for me to use it, well we can't have it all good eh?
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