A delightful few days away.

We had to cancel our planned Italian holiday, so have been having days out and days away.

Last week we had three lovely days in Stratford Upon Avon.  

Our hotel was just five minutes stroll to the town.

We stopped each morning on the little bridge to watch barges going through the locks on the way to have breakfast at Carlucci's,

an Italian café that over looked the river.

In the sun sitting outside, we could have been in Italy!

When we lived in Coventry we visited Stratford quite often and it still holds its charm for us.

Lots of visitors there all visiting Shakespeare's house.

It always looked pretty with the pelargoniums; the floral displays were beautiful throughout the town. We mooched around, stopped at a cafés, drank lots of coffee, ate lemon cheese cake and scoffed a bag of fudge, did some shopping and bought a winter jacket each. All in all we did what we liked and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The sun shone and it was warm, even though it poured with rain as we drove there, by the time we arrived the rain and black clouds had gone. I said probably because we had forgotten our sun glasses and I had bought a mac!!

 It was nice to get away. and what I needed because  I saw a specialist on the Wednesday before we went and the news on my arm was not good. My bone has not healed, and he said it might never heal.

The brace was taken off and a new one put on.  I am to start ultra sound treatment on my arm, he advised multi-vitamins and calcium tabs. I really don't need them, as we eat a very healthy diet and I drink at least half pint of milk and eat two yogurts daily, but I have bought them and am taking them. Anything to get back to normal.

On Tuesday it will be September 1st, our first day of Autumn, I feel I have missed the whole of summer with this arm!

XX

 

Gifted Gorgeousness ( Sorry ....A day late!)

Ingrid gifted this chart to me a couple of months ago and  a lovely stitched pin keep, which said 'Believe in yourself, Follow your heart.'

 

The chart is 'La foret Enchantee Printemps' by Tralala. Isn't it pretty, I loved it as soon as I saw it. It is going to be one of my blogaversary gifts. So watch this space, it will be to celebrate 7 years of blogging, which not only do I enjoy, but I love to read other very talented women's blogs.

The little I have stitched has taken me several days, but it is getting easier each time I try. It is now 19 weeks since I broke my arm, so I should hope it would get easier to use. I have a lot of people praying for me, so I know it will mend in God's planned time.

Thank you for all the good wishes, it does give me a lift to read all your comments.

Happy days!
 

 

Back on The PLAN !!

At last we have had some real rain, just what the garden needed. Thunder and lightening last evening and still raining this morning.

But the rain  had stopped by 9 and we had glorious sunshine.. I wore my cardi out and was sweating. When we got back from shopping DH went for his Dr app. and I was left filling the fridge and I  found mushrooms galore so......we had mushroom soup for lunch and it was delish. I hadn't made it before but  there were loads of recipes on line. I nearly fell at the first hurdle because I couldn't turn the key in the garage door to get an onion, so used a red one we had in the cupboard! I also couldn't chop it finely so just chunked it. It all whizzed up ok and I managed to cut small sprigs of thyme because I couldn't cut the woody stems. This broken arm stops me doing so much and my left hand  is hopeless with a knife or scissors. Anyway it was lush for our lunch.

 

We are also using up our tomatoes as they are all ripening fast, in this warm weather, so tonight we had a super pasta meal with roasted baby toms, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil. (recipe in the Waitrose mag. ) Perfect for my slimming world food plan, and this last week I lost 3 pounds!! At last I am back on plan and eating some delish meals and losing weight again since my Dr has upped my thyroxin dose which was suddenly too low. No wonder I was sleeping every time I sat down!

Happy days even with my useless right arm.

Trying to be frugal?

Last week I blog hopped and found some very interesting blogs of people that are trying and succeeding to live frugally. They made me think of how we shop.. we are the traditional shoppers, we do one weekly shop and in the same supermarket each week. But it has made me think of what we buy. We do buy the cheapest tinned tomatoes because we use them as a base for soup, curries and bolognaise sauce or whizzed for a passata, but for everything else we buy the brands we know and like. But we are savvy and don't always buy so called bargains until we have done a quick calculation,  to check if 2 small packets of the equivalent weight is cheaper than the 'bargain' larger size. Thank goodness for the mental maths lessons of our generation!

 I have always grown tomatoes and we have a veg patch where we grow salad crops,  beetroot, radish, carrots, chard, squash, courgette and runner beans. Then in pots and bags we grow potatoes, more carrots and more tomatoes. So we do have a lot of veg from our garden.

An early morning view of our small but productive patch.

A lunch of a ham and mushroom pastryless quiche (frittata) with our own veg.

And from one of the blogs, I hopped to a recipe site and made these rustic herby crackers, using chickpea flour (besan flour) and ground flaxseed and my own rosemary, sage and thyme chopped up finely. We had them for lunch with my own sweet Sungold tomatoes, picked from the plant and warm from the sun. Absolutely delish! The pate was from Mr Waitrose although we normally we would have my homemade salmon pate..

So probably not frugal but do you know, I felt as though I was 'saving' money because I never really thought about how much we grew in our modest sized garden.

Of course at the moment I am limited to what I can do one handed but I can still sow seeds and prick out seedlings so not totally useless!

Thank you for all your good wishes and comments on my Five on Friday.. and welcome to my three new followers; perhaps when I am back to normal I will write about what I can do with two working hands!

XX