Feeling the Summer Vibe (at last)

I've definitely been feeling the summer vibe just lately, for the first time this year.  This week, I've even managed to break out a skirt or two from the depths of the wardrobe, which is unusual for me, as I haven't worn one in I don't know how long.  I seemed to have gone right off wearing them.  For some reason, I just felt like wearing them again this week and it was good to add a bit of colour to my daily outfits for a change.

I think my mindset has changed too. Instead of hating the hot weather, I'm trying to embrace it.  That doesn't mean that I'm sat out in the garden soaking up the sun, I don't go that far (partly because gardens here are back to back and not that private).  Long gone are the days when I could lie out all day on a sun lounger turning redder and redder.  Unless I'm next to a swimming pool where I can cool off, it's just not my bag these days.  I think I've inflicted enough skin damage on myself over the years, I'm a lot more careful now.

I had a bit of a potting session in the garden last night and this morning.  I potted up the rest of the tomato plants into larger pots that are now huddled around the greenhouse.  I figured that I may as well try and grow as many tomatoes at home as I can.  I also potted on some pepper plants, so that they'll grow big enough to plant out at the allotment once all of the potatoes come out.  I always need to keep some plants in reserve to fill in gaps and keep the plot as fully cultivated as I can.   I think that will be it for this season, it's just a case of waiting for everything to grow now.

One sad thing to report from the garden is that our apple tree seems to have succumbed to some sort of disease.  It's not looking good and may have to be chopped down this autumn.  It has been in the garden since we moved here 7 or 8 years ago, so it will be sad to see it go, but I must admit I do need to completely replant the side of the garden that it occupies, so that will give me an interesting project this autumn.

On a completely different subject, this morning I let the dog take me for a walk.  Sometimes, she just has her own ideas about where she wants to go and if I'm not in a hurry, I just think why not.  We had a lovely long walk and I took some water and a small foil dish to pour it into at intervals because of the heat.  It seemed to work well and I felt like a responsible dog owner for once. She had a hair cut last week, well she had her coat stripped, as she was getting far too hot.  She looks so different.  We much prefer her with her scruffy long coat, but she was really struggling with it. Happily for us, the dog groomer didn't strip it back quite so hard this time and her coat is already starting to grow back well.   Here's a picture of her new look.

Talking of new looks, I could do with a haircut myself.  I'm still currently debating whether to grow the colour out of my hair and possibly colour it more naturally with henna or something similar.  If anyone has any experience of using henna, any tips would be welcome. In the meantime, I may just get it cut, although the roots do look awful. Maybe I should just wear a sun hat all summer and and a beanie all autumn and winter, and hide it that way until the colour has grown out!

When I got home from the dog walk, I enjoyed reading thrift deluxe's post today about my home city of Hull. She took some beautiful photographs of some of my favourite places and it was lovely to hear someone singing the city's praises, as it tends to get quite a lot of bad press.  Check it out if you haven't already.

A Mixed Bag of a Day

Wednesday here was really mixed bag. The day started off well enough with my aerobics class. It was the last class by our current stand in teacher as she has other commitments, but we will hopefully get a new teacher next week, although none of us know who it will be yet.

On the way home from the gym, I had to pop to the doctors to get a blood test, as I'm having a thyroid review appointment with the doctor next week and I thought it would be useful for them to be able to see my current levels.

Then I had to call at the library and return some books that I'd borrowed a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the library was closed, so I had to kill some time doing a bit of grocery shopping around and about before going back later when it opened. I took out a new book.  This one.

It has some interesting healthy recipes in it.

Particularly this one, which is similar to something that I have recently been having for breakfast or as a dessert on quite a regular basis, using chia seeds and almond milk. There were a couple of differences, one being that this recipe is made the night before and left in the fridge overnight to set, as well as being whisked to prevent the chia seeds clumping together. The other is that there are a couple of added ingredients that I don't normally use, such as vanilla extract, maple syrup (I used agave syrup) and nutmeg (the recipe stated cinnamon, but I prefer nutmeg).  I made some up that evening and looked forward to seeing how it turned out.

The next morning I added some sliced banana and it was lovely, much better than my usual attempts. Here's a picture of my version, which I will definitely be making more regularly in future.

I've come to really enjoy this breakfast and after not having had it for a few days whilst away, I relished it even more.

Anyway, back to Wednesday.  When I got home from shopping and the library, I opened a bank statement that had arrived for me, relating to my business account.  I was horrified to see that I'd been charged nearly £100 in bank charges for going overdrawn.  I was so shocked.  I have never gone overdrawn on my business account and don't have a facility.  I immediately rang the bank and explained that I was very surprised at the amount of the charges and that I'd never been overdrawn before and luckily they very kindly offered to waive the charges.

Basically, I had purchased something for my business on eBay and Paypal had taken the money directly from my bank account, instead of it going on my business credit card as it normally does.  It is the first time that this has ever happened and hopefully it will be the last.  The £12 or so I was overdrawn then accumulated £8 per day in overdraft charges over the subsequent 12 days.  I should have checked my account earlier, but as things have been very quiet lately, I didn't think there was any need.  How wrong I was.

Anyway, hopefully thanks to the bank being very reasonable about it, things have now been resolved and my panic is over, but it has taught me a very big lesson for the future, namely to keep a regular track of my business bank account and to pay very close attention when paying on eBay to avoid this ever happening again.  The day could have been a lot worse.

A Useful Little Harvest

Tuesday morning and I headed off to the allotment.  I wanted to make sure everything was okay and do a bit of watering.

When I got there the onions looked more or less ready to harvest.  The odd one was starting to flower, so my first job was to pull them all up.  They may not be the biggest specimens I've ever grown, but on numerous occasions on a previous plot, I've lost crops to rot, by leaving them in too long.  Even in this harvest I found some with rot and had to discard them.  I'm hoping that the remaining ones will be unaffected and there will be plenty to keep us going for a couple of months.

Once pulled up, in their place I planted out a few more courgette plants that I'd taken with me.  This means that I can now give the tomato plants the room they need in the greenhouse, which was just in time as they were now growing beyond the level of the shelves above.

I harvested what ever else there was to harvest - quite a bit of lettuce, a few broad beans I'd managed to salvage from the black fly ridden plants (these will be nice in a salad or eaten raw), a few potatoes and a few stalks of rhubarb.  I also harvested a few artichokes which I never do, to see if I can cook and eat them.  After seeing someone eat some on YouTube, it's made me want to give it a go again and see if I like them.

Here's my harvest in it's entirety, definitely worth a visit.

And here's how the tomatoes are doing with more room to grow.

Cleaning Up

After spending a couple of days in a lovely clean and minimalist villa at Centre Parcs, coming back home the house seemed incredibly grubby.  In all honesty, I was feeling this way about it before we went away for the weekend, but just couldn't find the motivation to tackle it.

Back now, suitably rested and with two weeks until the summer holidays, I've decided to tackle the house and try to clean as much of it as I can and get it in some sort of order. I'm starting with my desk at kitchen table.  Today, I'm going to do as much of the paperwork as I can, significantly reduce my pending pile and will then get started proper on the cleaning.

First on my list will be the bathroom. It definitely needs a clean and a burst of cleaning will have the added advantage of using up more of the non-natural cleaning products I have left. There's something wonderful about having a clean and pristine bathroom. A relaxing bath in one feels much more relaxing. I must admit that since I've been using more natural bath products, the bath definitely doesn't seem to get as dirty as it used to. I think perhaps it's the bicarbonate of soda in my bath bombs, that seem to leave it cleaner than when I get in it. An unexpected advantage of changing to more natural products.

I can't really say the same for the bathroom sink, but we are still using some regular products here, i.e. soap (my last regular bar), shaving foam, toothpaste, LB's facial wash, etc. It does, however, seem to take a little longer to get as dirty.

Sometimes I just feel like I want to look after my home and the things in it and giving it a good and thorough clean is my way of languishing a bit of love on it. In a world where there are so many more interesting distractions, I probably don't do it often enough, but when I do get the urge I just have to act on it before it recedes.

A Little Break

Apologies for not posting for a few days, but I've actually taken a full 3 days break from the computer (save for watching a movie) and it was really therapeutic.

OH treated us to a weekend at Center Parcs and as LB had a day off school on Friday for staff training, we headed off to enjoy a weekend of relaxing, reading, exercising and generally getting away from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

On this visit LB had a friend with her, so it was great for her to go off with her friend and exercise some independence.  They had fun making new friends in the pool and enjoying the slides and shutes.

We took lots of food with us to minimize costs and also took bikes to enable us to get around the site. The dog didn't come this time though, as we found on our last visit that off lead dog walking opportunities are minimal because of the wildlife, so it isn't so much fun for her.  She had a weekend with the dog sitter and had a holiday from us, spending time with some of her doggy friends which she always enjoys.

Whilst away, OH spent time in the gym and I did a couple of classes and we managed to play a good few games of badminton together which we both enjoyed, as well as getting extra exercise cycling around the site. It was a lovely relaxing weekend, but we have both returned with various aches and pains, on account of using muscles we don't ordinarily use in our normal everyday life.  It's all good though and we wouldn't have it any other way.

We're back home now and trying to get back to reality.   There's just two weeks left of the school term and two weeks before OH heads off to the Alps for a weekend to cycle part of the Tour De France route. Needless to say he's quite excited about it.  LB and I won't be joining him on this trip, so we'll be having a girly weekend at home, all being well.  I've promised LB that I will help her to repaint a couple of walls in her bedroom this summer, so we may make a start on that.

I'm also trying to get organised and order LB's school uniform for next year before the school closes for the summer.  I'm so looking forward to the summer holidays and the break it gives us all from school routines.  We haven't got much planned thus far.  Our family holiday will probably be booked and planned last minute, which is always the way with us.  We are intending to pay a short visit to family in Yorkshire at some point in the holidays too, but other than this and our annual get away, we will be relaxing at home and enjoying some down time.

A Bit of Retail Therapy

I've been pretty good for ages now and haven't been out shopping aimlessly in a long long while. One day last week, however, I needed to get out of the house and get a few groceries from ASDA and because of I was feeling a bit low, I found myself craving a bit of retail therapy.

I'd had something on my mind for a few weeks and it had been causing me quite a bit of worry and stress. It involved a situation that had arisen at the gym, usually my place of refuge, but not recently, at least on one day of the week.  I won't go into details here, as the situation now appears to have been resolved, but for a while it weighed heavily on my mind and I found myself fretting about it quite a lot.

Now, going shopping when you're feeling a bit emotional isn't really a good idea, but I just needed a break, so I headed off to ASDA, where I treated myself to a set of three new jars for the food cupboard for £3.50.  (A little more expensive than at IKEA, but they saved me driving over 10 miles to my nearest store and they're very similar)  My only criticism of these when I got them home, is that I can't stack two on top of one another and fit them on my cupboard shelf, so I have had to mix and match stacking them with the IKEA ones to utilise the space fully. This will influence any future purchase of these.

I also treated myself to a glass ramekin to hold my earrings, which I reach for daily.  It cost £1.

On leaving ASDA, I decided to just go 'for a look' in TK MAXX nearby.  I should have heard the warning bells sounding, as 'just looking' in such a store is virtually impossible and it wasn't long before I found something that I just had to buy.  I didn't have a current candle to burn and I saw this one. It is called Clean Mist, is a lovely fresh scent, comes in a lovely large glass jar with a metal lid, fits with the decor in my living room and was only £6.  I'll call it a little treat to myself to cheer me up. Dangerous habit, I know. I figured that once I've burned it down, I could wash and use the lovely jar to make another one myself, which I would like to try to do at some point.  I've seen new purpose made much smaller jars of a similar design, on a website recently costing £4, so with the candle included I thought this was a good price, especially if it could be reused.

Finally, I also bought a new pair of flip flops.  I saw these on sale for £4 and they are Gandy's.  This isn't some high end luxe brand, but a social enterprise company that was set up by two brothers, who, orphaned in the Boxing Day Tsunami over 10 years ago, decided to set up a company that gives 10% of its profits to help orphans of natural disasters.  I remember reading about them in a magazine and admired their courage and positivity after such a tragedy. I couldn't think of anything better to spend my money on and I got a lovely pair of grey flip flops which double up as summer slippers. Win,Win.

So, it wasn't a totally mindless shopping binge, I tried to stick to things I needed, I didn't spend too excessively, I had an eye towards re-purposing and an eye towards buying ethically and charitably, as well as using less fuel, so this did help to lessen the guilt a little.  It could have been far worse, had I not reined myself in tightly. A bit of relapse, but sometimes shit happens and controlled treating of yourself when you're feeling a little fed up, can be very therapeutic.

Making Progress on Zero Waste

Things have been going much better on the zero waste front in the last couple of weeks, which has been making me very happy.  I haven't been consciously trying as hard as I could and probably should, so it does show what can be done without too much effort.  I managed to reduce our recycling down from two bags to just one bag for the past two weeks, for the first time in several months.  It may not seem much of an achievement, but to me it feels like progress and I'm happy to be going in the right direction once again.

Our landfill waste still remains at one bag per week, so I'm still working on that issue, but I'm happy for the time being to make small inroads into the amount we throw out.  In addition, the black bin liners that I am currently using are quite a bit smaller than ones I've used in the past, so I probably have made progress here too, but it is not so obvious.

There is a lot more I can do and I do need to pay more attention to buying things with less packaging on a more regular basis to  reduce the recycling further.  As I've been making lots of changes in my food and toiletry shopping habits in the last couple of months, this particular issue has taken a bit of a back seat, but I think perhaps I may be buying slightly less and the products I am buying are packaged with more thought than some regular grocery items, which is all helping.

Bea Johnson, author of Zero Waste Home, posted an interesting video of her zero waste lifestyle on her Zero Waste Home You Tube channel this morning, if you fancy taking a look.  I couldn't help but watch it before I rushed off to the gym this morning.  It's great to see how the experts manage it on a daily basis.  I've still got a long way to go and a lot to learn, but I'm enjoying the journey