I’ve not blogged for a while. Everything upside down here as we’re getting various jobs done on the house. Having reached the conclusion that we’re not going to be moving any time soon, we decided it was worth making the kind of improvements which won’t add any value to the place but will make living here a whole lot nicer. So the garage which cast a shadow over half the garden has gone – or at least it will be by tomorrow, when the final skip is taken away. As the garage was packed with garden toys/ tools and stuff that wouldn’t fit in the house, this means we’re in a state of total upheaval, boxes everywhere. We’ve also had the loft boarded as part of the same project, so much of what was in the garage is now up there, and a new shed is next on the shopping list (to be located in the shade of the tree at the end of the garden, where it won’t obscure any of the sunshine now flooding into our plot) .
What you really need, as a parent and home owner trying to co-ordinate various jobs being done on your house, whilst getting the family to work and school, is a range of quick and simple meal options. Sausages, chips and a tin of sweetcorn kind of meals. What you don’t need is the kind of ‘what the hell are we going to eat?’ anxiety caused by taking on daft challenges like giving up supermarkets for Lent. I mean seriously, whose idea was this?! (yeah ok, I know) Frankly, I’m fed up. I agree whole heartedly with the principle of promoting rare and interesting vegetable varieties, but the organic bag delivery last week contained NO vegetables that the kids will eat. Yellow carrots, purple sprouting broccoli, beetroot… all rejected. And the fruit portion – normally a good mixture – consisted mainly of a pineapple, which 3YO won’t touch, and 9YO will as long as it’s carefully carved and trimmed of all excess woody bits so that it’s actually more like tinned pineapple … which of course, we haven’t had time to do (see first paragraph) so it’s still mouldering in the fruit bowl.
Never mind, at least we live in a city that’s still got a fabulous indoor market… I do love the market, and 3YO and I have been enjoying our regular trips there. It means we can stock up on the kind of vegetables that the kids like, which the organic box scheme doesn’t provide. They may not be organic, but they’re reasonably priced… or so I thought, until I got home from today’s visit and worked out that the carrots I’d bought from the stall advertising them at 35p per lb weighed only 11oz and had cost me 70p…. Husband laughed at me for being so gullible; apparently when he used to work near the market and buy fruit at lunchtime, his approach was to pick up a banana, hand over a 20p and walk away.
I’m sure that supermarkets have some fairly sharp practices which you might find out if you scratched below the glossy marketing, they’re just not quite so blatant about ripping you off. Maybe becoming more of a savvy shopper is part of the learning curve I’m on. And in fairness to the independent sector, we’ve had some very tasty food and some great chats with friendly shop keepers. Oh, and some fantastic Scottish beer from an independent off-licence, which Husband reports actually had their beer displayed geographically, so that the Scottish beer was on the top shelves, the stuff from Kent down at the bottom… how cool is that?! So I will grit my teeth as I chew on my overpriced carrots, and carry on … how much longer is it till Easter?
kirstwrites 