The Thrifty Times Issue Six

So it's been another busy  if not thrilling week of lock-down activities. This was the day I sorted out all my scarves and rolled them so they'd take up less room. I have lots as you can tell, but I wear all of them regularly. Once upon a time I had a striking set of unusual earrings, but I had to give up wearing them when my pierced ears would no longer play ball. The ones hanging up on the back of the chair as gifts from TYM after his stints in Bangladesh and Uganda. I just love the stories they tell of his time out there.

One of the things Mr GBT and I have spoken about is even the simplest decision seems to require so much more thinking and discussing these days. We are on our last toothbrush heads...do we do click and collect from one of the shops in town? risk the supermarket? [not keen....prospect makes me too anxious at the moment] or look online. We chose the latter and then had to research the cheapest way of doing it, as I'm not able to resume work yet so every outlay is being kept as low as possible. Sussed it eventually and we're now well stocked, but we've had the same discussions around vegetable seeds. Not quite so laboured as we've been growing for a while so have already narrowed our choices down...new on the list to try is kale. Then there was compost.....thankfully that particular conundrum was easy to solve....nobly Mr GBT took on the unenviable task of digging out the compost bin, but we had enough to top up all of the raised beds.

Despite my somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards the garden it's all looking quite pretty. As the bluebells and forget-me-nots die back they're being replaced with lots of self seeded columbines and Welsh poppies. Then there was the mass of pretty leaves that I left in situ...expecting it to be a forgotten perennial...I am now proud to say that I have a glorious blooming patch of buttercups!! N'er mind they'll be food for some mini beast or other. The garden birds are also stuffing their beaks. As feeding our feathered friends is a priority for us we dug deep and bought a 20kg sack of seeds. Without wishing to attract rodents or let them get wet we've split it into two bags...the paper one stays inside and I've reused the big plastic bag that TYM's delivery job kit came in. I knew I'd find a use for it!!

We're still mainly cooking from scratch aside from the odd reduced price pizza we buy.. It's good to have a night off once in a while. I risked the Nadiya Hussain's recipe for baked bean felafels with her version of coleslaw. It got the the thumbs up, but I missed out the egg because they would have been liquid otherwise. Also braved a rather unappetising looking bottom of the fridge soup to use the chicken stock and lurking veg...thank goodness it looked marginally less offensive once it had been blitzed!!

Entertainment wise can I just say how taken I am with Grayson Perry's programme over on Channel 4. I've been an admirer of his wife for a long time, but hadn't really taken much notice of him. He talks a lot of sense and is very down to earth around the whole subject of art. Being me I had completely ignored all mention of "The Crown" as we don't have Netflix here [don't watch enough TV anyway under normal circumstances]. However, TYM did subscribe [cancelled now] so before it ran out I binge watched all three series...typical of me. All or nothing. I did exactly the same with Peaky Blinders. I very rarely watch films either, but armed with the stitching below I have settled down well over a couple of afternoons and enjoyed some of the offerings on I-player. This heart is the start of a folk art hanging project I have in mind for our bedroom. It will take shape slowly over time as I want to be sure I'm happy with the end result.

Both of us are missing the live folk sessions we were going to every few weeks at the local folkclub. Listening to a live session over on FB last Friday night with a glass of homemade wine made as good a substitute as possible. It was Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll and the recording is still up on their page if you're a folkie. Here's my very own folk musician...during the clap for the NHS we've discovered that one of our neighbours plays the ukulele. She started off by just strumming chords, but as the weeks have progressed she has moved on to playing a well known song with all of us joining in. Mr GBT had a socially distanced chat with her last week and she popped the chords through our door so he could join in. He'll be performing again tomorrow.  We've said that we're going to throw a street party once we can all get together properly...one to look forwards to eh!

As a final footnote....we treated ourselves to a takeaway last night. TYM heard this week that he's got his degree with the mark that he'd worked so hard for. Mixture of relief and parental pride here at GBT!

Arilx