Reflecting on my week #104

Well, the coronation chickpeas were a success, so much so that MOH even commented on how much he liked them. That was a shock, especially after the face he pulled as I was making them - they are easy to make, and are chickpeas mixed into a sauce of yogurt and mayonnaise flavoured with curry powder and some sultanas thrown in for good measure. I skipped the raw red onion, thinking of our work colleagues, but they’re on the lunch things to make again list (which is a list I just made up).

Well, sort of.

I’ve also been looking out for some vegetable accompaniments for lunch too, as salad isn’t really cutting it right now. On that list is roast broccoli with a soy dressing, roast kale, and green beans cooked with cherry tomatoes, and my all time favourite squash puree, or even roasted chunks of it. As well as adding to our five (or however many) a day, it’s a good way to fill us up.

And better than salad.

The weather has turned in the last week hasn’t it, but thankfully there’s been more crisp, clear days rather than the grey, drab days and my walk to work through Greenwich Park has provided plenty of breathtaking views, and plenty of leaves.

At home we’ve been on boiler-watch. It’s become a regular task to replace them while the boiler is on. The engineer came on Friday and in the end it was fixed, but there was a bit of a hiccup along the way. After he left we’d had the heating on, but the house wasn’t getting any warmer. Checking the boiler we quickly realised it was overheating and a phone call from the engineer helped MOH resolve this, by turning the valves back on and allowing the heating to work as it should.

With the temperatures dropping, having our heating working as it should was very well timed. There was a bit of a frost Friday morning too, so that called for a quick dash out into the garden to cover up the pizza oven with an old blanket and a tarpaulin. And then dash back inside again - we have become fair weather gardeners.

Then on Sunday out came the sun, and this cat was making the most of it. And who could blame him?

I’ve a feeling though that the sun’s appearance will be short-lived, but then again next month I’m off to Barbados, so it’s not all bad!

Reflecting on my week #103

For most of last week we’ve been debating whether or not to watch the Rugby World Cup Final at home, or to head to the pub. Up until now we’ve watched all of the games at home, mostly as they’ve been fairly early. The one that was scheduled to be later, was the one that cancelled. In the end we didn’t make a decision until Saturday morning, after a fair bit of research during the week to identify the most suitable pub. That turned out to be one almost at the end of our garden (and over the road), which I’ve never actually been in before.

And so at 8.30 on Saturday morning after a very late decision we found ourselves queueing with plenty of regulars to get into the pub. And shortly after the rugby started we were armed with a pint of Guinness and a bacon roll, and a couple more of the former followed during the game too.

As you’ll know the result wasn’t quite the one we were hoping for, especially after the game the previous Saturday, but the best side on the day won. And we found a pub that we’d happily go back to, and not just for the Guinness. The weather for most of the weekend, bar Sunday morning, has been pretty awful. At one point it looked like the big, free local firework display might be cancelled. We’d decided not to go this year, and I was pleased about that when I looked out the window.

Instead we spent much of the weekend indoors catching up with chores we’ve had little time to do during the week and some forward planning. You’ll know how much I like a plan, and it’s no different for our meals during the week. We have plenty of food in, and through meal planning, we’ll make the most of it for lunches and dinners this week and some for the freezer too, which during busy weeks are an absolute life saver, and it means we eat well too.

This weekend alone there’s now a slow cooked blade of beef chilli and some sag paneer in the freezer and for lunch respectively, added to the beef and butternut squash stew that’s already frozen and ready for when it’s needed. For lunches this week there’s already some buckwheat groats cooked to go with the leftover sag paneer, and some coronation chickpeas (think coronation chicken, but with chickpeas). There’s some plum crumble leftover too, which I’m sure will disappear quickly, and while the oven was on I roasted some beetroot which we’ll have with our lunches too.

We’ve branched out on our TV watching too; usually it’s plenty of home-type shows, Salvage Hunters and GBBO, other cooking shows. and sport. I record much more, but we tend to stick to our old faithfuls (or the same old c**p as we call it). Over the past week or so we’ve lightly-binge-watched The Widow, which it turns out was on ITV back in April. It’s the one with Kate Beckinsale, Alex Kingston and Charles Dance, and I suspect we’re the last people to actually watch it!

I’ve plenty more long-time recorded dramas to catch up on too, one day…

Our neighbour has finally started his building work, which will create a small, outside space for his first and second floor flat, on the top of his bathroom’s flat roof. It’s a challenging build, not least for the scaffolding, as he doesn’t have any ground floor access at the back. All of the scaffolding has come up the front, through the roof void, and down the back, and our view of it at the rear looks like this:

There’s a lot more scaffolding than we were expecting, but it’ll only be there for a month or so (we hope). It’s out the front too, and I’ve not quite got used to the view of the workmen arriving for work and heading past our bedroom window.

We’ve a couple of domestic woes too. Through the process of elimination, we’ve confirmed our boiler is leaking. We initially thought the water only appeared when it rained heavily, but that’s not the case. We now know that it leaks within fifteen minutes, which isn’t good news, so our plumber is due to come back.

The second is wasps. And not in gardening gloves this time, but in our study. Each time we’ve been in the room we’ve discovered one or two wasps climbing up the window, and so dutifully we’ve let them out. Keeping a tally, we realised it wasn’t the once or twice off we’d both thought. Yesterday we took a closer look, MOH was convinced they were in my craft supplies (they weren’t) and with things moved out of the way we’ve worked out they’re not inside, but are more likely in the mansard roof, somewhere, possibly behind the slates.

Of course, while I’ve been on wasp watch, none appeared. Talking to our neighbour (the one with the scaffolding) he too had noticed an increase of dozy wasps, and thinks they could be in the ivy growing on the ground floor flat’s walls. They could be, but it’s a really good time for there to be scaffolding up, not that I’ll be going up it, or anywhere near it in fact.

The joys of having a house hey?

My garden in October

I know, just like buses. There’s no in my garden post for a while, then in two weeks you get two. Most of these pictures though were taken on two trips out into the garden, although when I was out there this weekend I was wondering why we’d not been out there more (wasp incident aside).

Our mini cyclamen have gone into overdrive. When they flower they’re quite pretty, and actually the leaves are pretty spectacular too, so that’s not such a bad thing. MOH gave the lawn its final cut this weekend, and a couple of cyclamen also got the chop, as is his want.

The cyclamen isn’t the only one with pretty leaves, the heucheras are also getting in on the act. This is one of the many plants I’ve acquired from dad which are all going strong, and all very purple.

I’ve had a bit of a light catastrophe though. I hadn’t managed to bring them in before all the rain started. It turns out these “shades” were paper, and very popular with the snails. Whoops.

The shades went, but the lights still work. I’m sure I’ll find a use for them in the garden next year. I say next year as our garden’s being put to bed now. Now that the wooden garden furniture is finally dry, it’s under the tarpaulin along with the metal table and chairs. We’ve still to move the pots into more sheltered places, but hopefully the frosts are a little way off.

At the back of the garden I was pleased to see my new sage plant thriving. And even the sage I thought was on its last legs is doing well too, a bit leggy but still full of sage. I’m thinking I’ll harvest some and freeze them so they’re on hand over the winter when I’m even less likely to want to head out into the garden in search of herbs.

I’m a sucker for ferns and luckily they grow on part of our wall. I’m forever (or it seems like it) sticking them into pots, and it’s always nice to see when they survive and grow into proper sized plants. MOH isn’t a fan of these ferns, but slowly I’m winning him round to the whole free plants thing.

See, more ferns. The larger leaves are Lords and Ladies, the ones with the orange “hand grenade” as MOH calls them. He’s got alternative names for most things, some of which I can share here.

There’s still some summer bedding plants in flower. These geraniums over-wintered last year and are still providing some colour, though the pale pink looks more washed out than it did previously.

In the greenhouse the lights are drying out, usually I’d bring them into the conservatory but this year they’re a bit too mucky.

Nearer the house there’s more colour than we usually have at this time of the year. There’s a lot of berries on the pyracantha which I discovered and uncovered last year. Which when you think about it is quite worrying, we’ve lived here since 2002!

The fatsia continues to be a favourite plant in our garden, and one completely unknown to us before we moved here, but still a plant I’d have in future gardens. At the moment it’s preparing to “flower” - and it looks quite brain-like, don’t you think?