Books . . . I have been BAD!

I have just had an Amazon moment.  I only went there to order some printer cartridges too.  Then I couldn't remember what was on my Wish List.  So I went and checked.  I looked long and hard at Judy Kendall's Poet to Poet (Letters between Edward Thomas and Walter de la Mare.)  My finger hovered . . .  I noticed that it was being offered at almost half the price (2nd hand) than it was new.  That did it, and I put it in my basket.  I am laid up with an unexpected? - unwanted certainly! - bout of Bronchitis? now, which suddenly came on 3 days ago with a bonzer of a temperature - I couldn't stop shivering violently or teefs chattering, and went to bed with 6 quilts and a hat on . . .  Off to Doc's this afternoon to see what he advises other than Ibuprofen.  Update - it's just a viral infection and keep taking the Ibuprofen.  That's a positive. 

Anyway, that is all a preamble to the fact I am sofa-bound with a good book.  I am re-reading a Phil Rickman I got from the travelling library this week (To Dream of the Dead).  I thought I would just . . . check . . . for the ones I haven't yet read whilst I was on Amazon.  I was . . . merely checking.  Anyway, The Smile of a Ghost just happened to find its way into my basket too . . . at a knockdown price.  Which more or less levels out with the two collectable books I sold on Fleabay this week, and those sales covered the cost of the ink cartridges AND the two books and delivery.  So let's call it quits . . .

I have been SO GOOD with going through our books recently and have dozens to slowly sell.  We are going the right way in that department anyway.

Anyway, I may drag my husband off to do the grocery shopping in a minute, as there is nothing in the house I feel like eating (feed a cold, starve a fever, how TRUE!)  I have had two apples, a small bowl of tinned Mulligatawny soup and a thin slice of Ciabatta bread today (and not a great deal more yesterday).  When I went into the kitchen just now I smelt the soup and felt quite nauseous.  How odd is that? - I'd just eaten some for heaven's sake.  Anyway, what I do fancy - what I REALLY fancy - is Jacob's Peak Frean cheese biscuits.  I can just taste them.  I just hope my disarranged senses of smell and taste enjoy them when I buy some (I have a nasty suspicion they may not).  I certainly can't manage anything sweet at present - my home made Cornish Fairings yesterday (ginger) did NOT hit the spot.

Local flooding

We had to pop across to Ammanford yesterday afternoon, after we'd viewed the auction in town and I took a few photos on the way. This one is the view across the Towy at Dryslwyn Castle, where it regularly takes to the flood plain (remember recent photos?)

Our river in spate - it was a couple of feet lower than it had been earlier in the day.

It's been worse than this on a lot of occasions in the past.

From my favourite vantage point on the bottom lane.

Looking across the Towy valley from a hilltop . . .

From Dryslwyn Castle car park.

The watery setting sun made for atmosphere.

Looking downstream towards Carmarthen.

Black Mountain is already snow-covered, and of course the Brecon Beacons generally are under a good covering.  If the weather abates sufficiently for us to go to the big Fleamarket at Malvern on Sunday, I shall take photos when we get to Brecon . . .

Dryslywn Castle watches impassively - a scene it has seen hundreds of times before . . .

One of my favourite photos - the sun was being very obliging!

So, if all goes very quiet here, you will know we are waiting for BT to restore our line . . . AGAIN!  Let's hope this hurricane they have promised us side-steps our bit of West Wales, but looking out of the window I have my reservations . . .

Keep safe everyone.

You can only spend it once . . .

The big de-cluttering continues.  We have found stuff we had forgotten we had.  A lot of "stuff" we didn't need.  What we do need is a spare room which is going to be called the Library instead of the Junk Room (!) and it's nice to have some money back on these unwanted possessions.  So we took a car full off to auction yesterday.  The auction was very very busy last Saturday, so definitely the best time to sell our stuff.  We don't want to spend weekends trying to sell it at car boot sales either.  We need to spend our time more realistically, as once the house is back on the market it has to look its best at all times, and the garden takes a lot of hard work in the spring and summer.

Meanwhile, I am still diligently writing down all our expenditures, day by day, keeping meter readings, pruning the outgoings to the bare minimum and using up the contents of freezers and storecupboard.  I am listing my collectable books on eBay, along with various other possessions which I am hoping will sell better on eBay than at auction.  Put it this way, I'm not willing to give these things away for a pittance.  Unwanted books and unfashionable china are another matter and will have to find their own level.

In the kitchen, I am using the heel end of every loaf - if not for toast, then blitzed in the blender and dried to breadcrumbs in a slow oven for home made stuffing and coverings for fish or chicken breast.  Vegetables we can't use up quickly enough, get turned into soup, or frozen before thhey reach the stage of needing to be used up.  I hate waste.  My daughter used to have me grinding my teeth when, back in her student days, she would tell me what her house-mates had been doing - chucking out last week's loaf as they bought this week's fresh one (cheapest supermarket white pappy sliced - yuk!), chucking out unopened packets of perfectly usable pasta or rice just because "they'd been in the cupboard a few weeks now".  And there was my daughter, seeing unopened packets of stuff on top of the bin, removing them to use herself!!

Leftovers are religiously used up - last night's meal for me was the last portion of 4 day old curry, which had improved with keeping, flavourwise.  My husband had beans on toast and some ham on the bone which had been reduced in the supermarket yesterday.  You don't have to have an exciting specially-cooked meal every night - sometimes you need to slum it!

There's an old saying from my childhood, something along the lines of not having BOTH butter AND jam on your bread - it was always one OR the other.  A fact some folks would do well to remember in these leaner times.

In the meantime, we watch the scenes of the flooding on television and feel so sorry for all those people, so desperate, and worried sick about their homes (at risk from looting, as much as from the flood damage) whilst the powers that be are saying sagely, oh well, you chose to live on a flood plain, or we won't play the blame game at the moment, (Cameron), let's just deal with the job in hand.  It seems that they can't even do that properly - my husband says because of the severe shortage of Armed forces available to help.  I think with more weather on the way and the wettest winter for 250 years, it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Try HERE for photos of recent flooding on the Somerset levels, where things are getting worse rather than better.

A Day Borrowed from Spring

That was yesterday.  I CANNOT say the same of today, as it is blowing a gale and we have a whiteout of Hailstones coming down outside . . .  I am glad I enjoyed yesterday's sunshine so much now!

Drifts of snowdrops are such a joy at this time of year.

As I set off for a gentle stroll up our hill, I noticed the first Crocus shyly appearing.  I expect after today's gales and hailstones and torrential rain, it is now MUSH!

In a dry spell last week, I planted up some  Primulas by the gate.

This farm track runs parallel to our lane for a while.  Before now holidaymakers have mistaken it for the proper lane (which is equally covered in mud!) and ended up in the wood, or in a nearby field.  This week it was the turn of a new bin man, who ended up on our doorstep when he had got stuck in deep mud half a mile further on! The Council had to come and haul him out again . . .

Navelwort on the canyon wall beside our paddock.  When we first moved here back in 1988, the nearest this was growing was 600 - 700 yards further back up the hill.  So we can trace the speed of its colonization.

Looking across the Park field.

Shining Cranesbill leaves tumbling down to the little rill at the side of the road.

Part of the Upper Hill colony of Navalwort . . .

Unfortunately it was still shady-sided in the canyon, which was annoying as I was trying to take photos of the Fairy Forest of lichens . . .

 

I think you get the idea by now!

I went very steadily, as I am SO unfit (never been this bad since I was 22 and nearly died of Flu). But just to prove I made it, here is Black Mountain with what looks like white highlights on her flanks - we've been having hailstorms the last couple of days - I think Black Mountain had a sprinkling of snow (or lots more hailstones than us).

A lovely tree outline to admire.  I think it's an Ash . . .

 The lane onwards and upwards - saved for another day as that bit of hill has two arrows on the map and is seriously steep!  Much worse than it looks here!  Note - bright blue skies to the West, but in the photograph above it, LOTS of clouds nipping round the corner and heading Eastwards.  Photos just taken minutes apart, if that.

I was immensely cheered to find I could climb the hill and I am looking forward to getting plenty more walking done when it isnt blowing a force 8 gale and lashing down with heavy rain or hailstones . . .

Frugal shopping

I had orders to do a frugal shop this week.  "See if you can keep it under £20" my husband suggested.  Whilst we didn't need a great deal, I could see problems in keeping it that low as we had just run out of bird seed and I  felt the birds were still very reliant on what we were putting out.  Another month and I might have been able to not feel so guilty.  At all events, I have been cutting back what they get and they just have half a measure morning and evening, when they are hungriest.

Anyway, the shop started at the greengrocery outlet at Abergwili.  We spent £7:

20 Cox's apples (6 1/2 lbs weight) £2
a box of mostly still green bananas (6 1/2 lbs weight) £1 (for quick sale)
a tub of cherry tomatoes 50p
a cucumber 50p
2 sweet potatoes £1
Bag of onions (just over 2lbs) 50p
11/2 lbs carrots 50p
7 Mineola tangerines £1

We had some vouchers to use in Tesco (though we don't do much shopping there as a rule, just odds and sods), plus a "spend £20 and get £3 off" which is worth having (better than Morrison's spend £45 and get £2.30 off anyway).

My shopping list was written down over the past week as I got low on things:

Bacon
Rapeseed Oil
2 bottles sparkling Mineral Water
AA batteries
AAA batteries
Plain Flour for baking x 2
6 tins cat food (whatever's on offer)
Salt
[Apples]
[Oranges]
[Bananas]
[Salad]
Broccoli
[Carrots]
[Onions]
(Butter) - could wait until next week, and so it has been put on next week's list.

Extras were two lots of Cheese, a bag of OO grade flour for home-made pasta, some French beans and a can of Diet Coke as my brain was feeling like mush by that time, as I have been awake 5 a.m. or earlier all this week.

I had some vouchers which needed using up so added a couple of extras to what I bought - venison steaks on offer at £4, plus I had £1 off;and milk at £1 less 35p off; 25p off a stirfry pack, which then cost me 75p,  plus the £8 coupons, and 40p off the multi-buy cat food as it made sense to buy 2 packs and have one spare, thus making a saving on price.

The dearest thing of all was the batteries which cost £3 per pack (£6 in all).  Normally we would get them from the £1 shop, but were going on to view an auction, so didn't have time.  They cost TWICE as much as the venison steaks!  Crazy.

My indulgence (for £1) was . . . 

this magazine, which had several recipes I liked the look of, and gave details of how I could get £25 for submitting a recipe, which appealed to me!  Fingers crossed they use one of mine when I get them sent off.

Total Tesco shop was £27.47 after reductions, which allowed a little towards the birdseed at £11.50 from Charlies in town.  (Cheapest place).

I was awake at 4 a.m. this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  So I crept downstairs and blew the dust off the sewing machine to turn a bit of spare material (I think it was 50p worth in Brecon one time) into a cover for my breadmaker.  The bias binding was in a £2 box of sewing bits from auction, so cost pence too.  Job well done!

Moving on . . .

Looking out on yet another grey wet miserable day, I need some sunshine and SPRING thoughts, so I thought I would put a couple of bluebell wood pictures up.  This is Castle Woods at Dinefwr.

I have seen the Consultant now.  Not the best of meetings, as he seems to think my problems are COPD, and seemed at one point to be denying I even had a chest infection in the first place!!! though how he worked that one out, I really don't know after test results came back so hugely positive on that front.  I shall just sieve out the good things which are that I can stop taking the steroids (5,4,3,2,1) so by next week I shall just be taking my regular Seretide inhaler, and even that without the bedtime top-up which my GP had advised, and that I can get back to walking.  My body will be glad of that.  It was even gladder last night, when I allowed myself an Aspells' Organic Cider, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which helped me get a decent night's sleep.  Hooray!  Onwards and upwards now.  I know I was able to improve my peak flow levels before, through walking, so I shall endeavour to do so again.

I need to start walking daily again, up hill and down dale, rather than always on the level and just across town in recent weeks.  The weather is hardly encouraging, but this is for me, and at least I will be able to note the first tiny signs of spring as they appear from the dreary winter landscape.

I have been busy listing things on ebay and two have sold already - one was a Welsh blanket, so that has provided a big chunk of spending money for when T and I go to Florence next month.  I am allowing myself to start getting excited now!  Ever since seeing a film of Romeo and Juliet which was set there (I think it must have been the late 1960s) I have wanted to visit Italy, Florence especially.  I am preparing my mind by reading E M Forster's A Room With a View!

I can now look at my garden (awash, like everyone else's) and think, yes, I can sort it out now.  When it dries up a bit.  A little bit at a time though, as I am Couch Potato Unfit in a big way.

I was hoping to get to the Craft shop in King Street yesterday, to get some Kapoc stuffing for the Clothkits Peacock cushion, but I was waiting an hour between tests and seeing the Consultant and so we ran out of time, so I shall do it at the weekend.  I need to get some pretty paper for relining a little wooden box I got at the car boot sale last weekend.  That will transform it.

Now, onwards and upwards.  Hopefully I can leave all this ill health behind me, and move on.  I have been preoccupied with it far too long - not difficult in winter, when it is hard to even step outside the house because of the weather (and we have scarcely had a rain-free day since early December).

Confidence returns . . .

This photo is to remind me that the wheel is turning, and summer WILL be with us later this year - if only we can stay afloat in the meantime!

Today I have had not one, but TWO very gentle walks.  The first, between showers, was mostly on the flat with just a little short hill, up the valley, for just ten minutes.  I felt grand after that.  Then my husband suggested a stroll down the hill to the bridge and as he knew that I was worried about getting up our long steep hill, he would pick me up in the car.  So that's what we did.  Then he said he would have a short run along by the river, so I wasted time by walking up towards the Chapel, and spotted some Lords and Ladies just poking their leaves through the soil, and then I noticed the first Cow Parsley flowers were coming out!  I've seen plenty of leaves on the banks hereabouts, but this had suddenly shot up into a plant and to see those little white dots of flowers unfolding really lifted my spirits.

I wandered round the corner,  and the sun was shining so brightly on the steep banks of Allt cwm Perrott, highlighting a Buzzard that swooped overhead on fixed wings.  I began to very slowly climb our hill, having realized that this was what my husband had plotted - he would hang back and prove to me that I WAS able to get up the hill.  My confidence was at rock bottom, and I had needed a little push. But I made it - very slowly, because I didn't want to overtax my extremely unfit lungs - but I did it, and with no real distress either.  Now I am on SUCH a high : )

I have just been relisting things for sale on eBay, and feel more motivated to do things again.  Danny's room next . . .

My healing session, I hear you ask.  Ah yes, that went very well and I feel it helped me.  I had crystal healing and another form of healing which also helped.  I am open minded - there are more things on this earth we have forgotten than we can ever begin to understand again and never underestimate the power of the mind.  There was only an upside to it - it either helped or if it didn't, it wouldn't make me worse.

Now the sun is out and the birds are singing and I may, just may, try to trim a few dead flower stalks in the Herb Garden, but stopping the very MOMENT I get any twinge from the Pleurisy, which I am hoping is also 95 parts mended now.  Thank you all for your comments and support, which have helped immensely in recent weeks when I had begun to feel perhaps I wasn't going to get better without a week in a Hospital bed hooked up to intravenous drips - or worse!