Sometimes I just don’t believe R. I’ve lived with him for nearly 30 years but he still never ceases to amaze. Consistently over the years he has asserted many many times that he doesn’t like tartare sauce. Yes he has definitely, definitely tasted it, and he definitely, definitely didn’t like it. So I never served […]

This is the cats on Mother’s Day. Saphy and Amber are on an old stone wall in our garden, which is actually the only remnant of the previous house on this site. Lucky is disappearing through the gate, so only his tail is visible – my guess is that he is in hot pursuit of […]

The frogs are back in the streams and our pond. With them comes the usual contingent of herons. There was also an egg shell by the side of one of the paths Sad to say, there was another sign of spring. A trail of feathers down the hall led to R’s bed and the dead […]

I was fully prepared for us to have to buy a new cooker, but the local electrician managed against all odds to fix the existing one. The reason for the short was very clear. This one was under the cooker and had been there for some time as there were quite a few poos in […]

Today is Sunday so this was my take on Sunday lunch without a cooker. Chop an onion and two large carrots. Add 500g stewing steak in pieces and a packet of high quality sausages cut in half. Take some potatoes and par cook them in the microwave (I use my microwave steamer). Put all the […]

So following last week’s cooker explosion, we are currently “cookerless”. Many people would have given up and lived on ready meals and sandwiches. but not me. We have a microwave, an air fryer and a slow cooker, so I have been experimenting with making full meals without an oven, hob or grill. A complication is […]

My Mum has done well on present choosing of late. As well as the brilliant rice/slow cooker she gave me for my birthday, she also gave R a great beanie for Christmas (note to the elderly this is an American term for a bobble hat). You may wonder why I am enthusiastic about the hat […]

This was the first day this year we made more solar electricity than we drew from the grid (i.e. the day Octopus pay us money rather than us paying them). You can see that we use a lot of electricity – around twice typical consumption for a four bed room house (although we effectively have […]

Lucky is distinctly overweight (R calls him Fatass). Unfortunately when we brought him in from his stray existence, we tempted him with food, and he was so ravenous that he was eating in excess of six pouches of cat food a day, plus copious amounts of milk. This has had a bad effect on his […]

It has been a while since we had sheep in our garden, but this small flock (three ewes and a ram) have been here a few days now. I wish they would stay as they help to keep the lawn under control. We are really going to have to decide what to do about the […]