More than a spoonful of sugar

Today I decided to go into the centre to get a few bits and pieces I need for the weekend because the weather is supposed to be very wet and windy tomorrow. One of the things I wanted was some more marmalade so in Tesco's I had a look and reading the labels, I was shocked to discover just how little fruit is actually in it.
This was quite an eye opener because the amounts varied from just 20g of fruit in each 100g of marmalade to 47g of fruit per 100g marmalade. This means that the extra was mainly sugar and other additives. Then I went on to read the labels on the jars of jam, only to find the same thing applied.
As I didn't think that any of the products offered very good value for money, I thought I would go next door to Marks and Spencer thinking I would get more fruit for my money in there. I was very wrong because after standing in there for a while reading all the labels of their jars, I found that there was only marginally more fruit and still the same additives. In the end I bought a jar of marmalade and came home very disillusioned.
Many years ago, I used to make marmalade in January when the Seville oranges were in the greengrocers but as there are no independent greengrocers anywhere near me now, I have to buy it and besides, I don't have anywhere to store food. I remember that the ingredients I used to use were just oranges, sugar and some water. Because I like a nice bitter marmalade I used to use more oranges than sugar, although in most recipes the quantities were equal, but it always turned out alright and tasted good too. I also did the same with jam and never had any problems with that either and the only one that had anything other than fruit and sugar, was strawberry which had some fruit pectin added to enable it to set.
Next time I go to the big Tesco, I will have to get some of the French marmalade that is only made with oranges and sweetened with grape juice but it is a bit pricey, or else I might try on the farmer's market. I have bought some there in the past but that too is quite expensive but it was beautiful marmalade and I must admit it was well worth the money because it was home made and had more fruit than sugar.

Button memories!

I needed to find a button to sew onto a cardigan that had lost one today and I was sure that if there had been a spare one when I bought the cardigan, then it would be in my button box. So I tipped all the buttons onto the floor and got down to look through the buttons and fasteners but I couldn't find one.
Now my button box has built up over the last forty odd years, especially from when my daughters were very small and also when I had my own dressmaking business. Looking through the buttons today, I found that I could remember nearly all the outfits that I had made for the girls and myself just by looking at the buttons as I always put the spares in the button box. It's also quite amazing just how much simple things like buttons change with time.
I well remember wet afternoons as a child when my sister and I would ask Mum for the button box to sort through. We thought it was full of 'treasures' and it would stop us squabbling for an afternoon if we couldn't go out to play. There were allsorts in there, real glass buttons, pearly ones and I can even remember some little wooden ones which were in the shape of a dutch girl's head and they were painted so that she had a royal blue hat and yellow hair. We used to see who could get the most 'sets' of buttons and to do this, we used to close our eyes and choose six buttons. Then we had to see if we could find more of the same and the winner was the one with the most buttons in each set.
Mum didn't mind because it kept us quiet for a couple of hours!

No problems getting up!

Well, today I think I'm beginning to lose it! The alarm woke me up as usual but when I put my hand out and pushed the switch for the radio, it didn't work. Still only being half awake, I came down to make a cup of tea and thought I would try again when I got back upstairs.
Luckily, I have an ordinary radio in the bathroom which I got and put it in the bedroom so that I could listen to the news. Then I had another go at trying to get the clock radio to work but again I didn't have any success even after trying all the buttons and switches.
There was nothing else for it, I would have to get another one when I went into the centre to get some shopping. So that's exactly what I did. When I go home I set the new one up in the kitchen and then took it upstairs.
When I picked the other one up, it slipped in my hand so I had to put the other hand out to catch it and in doing so, the wretched thing started to work because while catching it, I had knocked the on/off switch!
Normally, I never even touch this switch because I leave the unit switched on all the time and use the various buttons to turn the radio on and off and to set the alarm. Perhaps I knocked the switch off inadvertently when I stuck my hand out to stop the alarm, but I have never done this since I bought it about nine years ago. Never mind! I now have a spare clock radio if anything goes wrong with this one!!!

Hooray for the boy scouts!

A friend that I used to work with runs a boy scouts and cub scouts group fairly locally and a couple of times a year they hold a 'jumble sale' to raise extra funds so today, despite a migraine, I have been sorting out the cupboards and wardrobes for things to send.
Unfortunately, I can only work at slow speed with a migraine so consequently I have only achieved a fraction of what I wanted but nevertheless, the bags of jumble sorted so far look fairly substantial. Another reason for doing this is to ensure that if the right property becomes available nearer to Sarah and my grand-children, I will be ready to move straight away. I have decided that I don't want to be surrounded by useless 'clutter' that requires dusting and an annual wash, instead, I would rather have the time saved so that I could participate in more pleasurable activities!
One thing I did realise when I was sorting through the wardrobe is that some of the clothes have what I call 'wardrobe fatigue'. This means that they have become crumpled and tired looking so from this week, anything that I haven't worn recently will go through the wash and then, when clean and pressed, I will pack away the lightweight summer clothes and T shirts and just keep the winter clothes hanging up. This will give me more space in the wardrobe so clothes will have less chance of looking creased and will also save time if I am able to move.
I am so glad that the scouts have these sales because it saves me a lot of hassle trying to get everything to charity shops as my friend collects everything and it also helps with the scouts funds.
Tomorrow, it's the drawers under the bed to be sorted and then the kitchen cupboards!

Shaken but not stirred

I've had a mixed day today and fortunately I have Eden with me which helps a lot. It started at 5:15am this morning when I was woken by my neighbours yelling at each other again and I could not get back off to sleep.
The arguments carried on intermittently until 8:45am when she went out. I have to say that she is probably an alcoholic and I don't think he's much better but also seems to be sinisterly quiet and controlling and he's also much younger than her.
Anyway, we went out shopping after having breakfast and returned about 11:45am so I went into the kitchen to make some soda bread for lunch and also some minestrone soup. It took quite a while to chop all the vegetable and I was waiting for it to cook then at around 1pm I could hear this banging. He was really attacking my fence which is a six foot high larch lap panel fence which looked as though it was going to collapse so I yelled out and it stopped.
I was straight on the phone to the police and a bit later the local beat manager came round to see me. After I had told him what had happened he said that he would go round and speak to them. He was aware that I was very frightened and shaken especially after I had told him that I had experienced problems with excessive noise and other anti-social behaviour in the past which had become so unbearable that I had complained to the noise pollution and anti-social behaviour department at the council.
He wasn't sure whether this incident may have been directed at me because of that but I said I was not going to be harassed, intimidated or threatened in my own home and he agreed. He went next door but a few minutes later he said that they were either out or not answering so he came back later but still got no reply.
He is going to try to speak to them tomorrow but if I have any further problems I will certainly get in touch with the police immediately and from now on, every time I am disturbed by yelling, screaming or other noise, I have to get in touch with the emergency phone number at the council anti-social behaviour department.
This whole episode has been very upsetting particularly because I always try to be so quiet so as not to disturb anyone. It seems other people are not as considerate.

A hot supper for a chilly evening

Sorry there's no photo of this one because Eden and I just ate it!! I'll make another one sometime and put it on the recipe page too!

Sausage Casserole

1 lb good sausages

2 tablespoons olive or sunflower oil

2 onions chopped

1 each of red, yellow and green sweet peppers

de-seeded and chopped

4 oz mushrooms sliced

1 pint vegetable stock

1 teaspoon paprika

half teaspoon each of sage, parsley, marjoram and grated nutmeg

1 tablespoon tomato puree

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon cornflour

1. Fry sausages until browned all round and put to one side
2. Put olive oil into same pan then gently sweat the onions until soft but not coloured
3. Add peppers, mushrooms, spices, tomato puree and stock and cook for about ten minutes
4. Mix the cornflour with a little water then mix into the vegetables to thicken
5. Cut each sausage into three or four chunks and add to vegetables
6. Put into a very large casserole then cook in oven heated to 190C/375F for one and a half hours

This makes enough for 4 or 5 people. If you only need enough for two you can divide it before cooking and freeze it. It's great with a baked jacket potato but goes just as well with potatoes and a green vegetable such as broccoli or beans. Chilli can also be added for a kick and if you want to make it a favourite with children, leave out the chillies but add a tin of baked beans!

Getting ready for winter

I've started to put in a few bedding plants ready for the dull, drab days of winter when there is usually very little in the way of colour in the garden. The cyclamen are always a pleasure to see and this old sink is at the top of the garden so when I look out of the kitchen window, I can see it with the bright shades of pink which become almost luminous when the sun shines on it.

Pansies always fascinate me because some of them appear to have faces and others look as though they have a dark butterfly sitting in the middle. I chose these with their yellow bottoms and blue tops because they looked so different and will brighten any dull winter day. I have another pot with some delicate apricot violas which are smaller versions of the pansy but flower as profusely.

There are still a few plants flowering which I haven't cut back because they are still going strong. The Michaelmas daisy or aster has plenty of flowers still to come on it but although it has a support frame, I find it still gets flattened every time we have wind and rain. The gaura in front of it has done exceptionally well, I think it's called claret, but it has flowered continuously all through the summer. The flowers on their long slender stems always remind me of little butterflies especially if there is a breeze which makes the stems sway around.

There are a couple of other plants still flowering too, the perennial osteospermum and the astrantia and one of the really robust ones is the gaillardia (goblin), which will probably continue until the first frost.

Somewhere hidden in areas of the garden are crocuses and also hyacinths which hopefully will come up again next spring. I haven't got any other bulbs at the moment because I hope that one day I will be able to move and it doesn't seem worth going to the trouble of putting them in if I won't be able to see them and anjoy them.

Waiting for fashion to change

Yesterday I went shopping to the only shop that sells clothes for 'ladies of a certain age' and that don't cost the earth. They had a 'bonus day' for bonus cardholders who could get a 20% discount and as I have one of their bonus cards it seemed like a good opportunity to save a little bit of money.
Luckily, I did find some basic long sleeved cotton T shirts which will do for now that the weather is turning cooler but apart from that, there wasn't anything else that I really liked. They seem to have some very strange colours and I also think a lot of their clothes are for 'old ladies' and I'm certainly not one of those!
As I have got rather large and am finding it very difficult to shed the pounds (but they are going, albeit very slowly), I'm not really interested in buying clothes. When I've lost a bit more weight, I should be able to get into some of the clothes in the wardrobe which fortunately are what I call 'classic' styles and sober colours.
As fashions seem to go out and come back a few years later, I'm waiting for the 'big' shirts and loose fitting jackets to come back. At my age, I can't be doing with tight, stretchy, skimpy, low cut clothing in flimsy materials that go out of shape once they are washed, I want smart tailored clothing with ease built in and made from good quality fabrics including wool mixes and natural cotton. I don't like all this synthetic stuff like polyester because it doesn't feel nice against my skin.
Years ago, before I got arthritis in my hands, I used to make all my own clothes and many years ago, I even had my own dressmaking business too. I have a feeling that I shall be returning to the sewing machine if I can't find the clothes I like.

Gourmet squirrel

I was beginning to think that the new squirrel that has been coming to the garden was suffering some sort of confusion but now I just think he is extremely clever!
At first he was quite timid and shy and he had no idea where all the peanuts that he could smell were hidden! So he explored and first he found the ones for the birds that are in a wire mesh hanging feeder on a pole. I came down one morning to find him precariously hanging upside down with the feeder in his front paws while the pole swung threateningly from side to side. That also explained why I had come home from the farmer's market the day before to find the pole lying on the ground because the prong doesn't go in very far and my soil is very light and sandy.
Then I thought that if I put a few peanuts on the shelf of the squirrel nut box, he would soon realise where they were. This I did and at the same time I put some sunflower seeds that I had harvested onto the bird table to see whether or not the birds would eat them.
When squirrel next came into the garden he started at the bird table and scoffed all the sunflower seeds, then hung upside down and discovered the peanuts. He had a couple of attempts to get at those in the box but the perspex front baffled him, then he found out that if he stuck his head under the lid, he could get as many as he wanted.
Now his daily routine when he comes into the garden, is started by polishing off the bird seed (I buy the ready husked which also has a lot of sunflower seeds) then he has some peanuts from his box. For 'afters' he climbs the pole with the bird feeders on and has discovered that if he holds tight to the nut feeder then turns and twists, he can undo the lid of the mesh holder and drop it to the ground. He has a few of these nuts before moving on to my water lily tub for a drink before going home fit to burst!

Perhaps one day.............

Perhaps one day I will get down to sorting out all the recipe cuttings and my own scribblings and put them in order in a book.
Perhaps one day I will find that 'safe place' that I put things until they're needed!
Perhaps one day I will have my dream bungalow with a garden and maybe it will be big enough for me to grow my own vegetables and all the plants and flowers that I love.
Perhaps one day I will get around to writing the instructions of what has to be done when I'm no longer here.
Perhaps one day I will write all the short stories that are stored in my brain!
Perhaps one day I will be able to walk in a country lane and stop to watch the cows and listen to the birds sing.
Perhaps one day I will master the art of kneading my bread without getting it stuck all over me and the kitchen!
Perhaps one day I will be as slim as I was when I was in my thirties.
Perhaps one day I will wear a dress.
Perhaps one day I will find a pair of shoes that I like and that fit perfectly when I try them on.
Perhaps one day I will wake up to find that my hair has stopped getting thinner!
Perhaps one day I will master the art of 'knife sharpening'.
Perhaps one day my prayers will be answered.

Even the best laid plans.......

Yesterday started as planned because I woke up early to make my usual monthly trip to Tesco for supplies. Later on, I had planned to take the car round to the garage for a free car wash then fill up with petrol. When I got home, I could make some bread then plant a few pansies in my pots.
The first part of the day went well, I got back with the shopping and put it away before having a late breakfast. Then I decided to read the newspaper before getting the car washed because they don't start until 10am and there's always a queue, so I usually go between noon and 1pm. About half an hour after breakfast I thought I had a cold coming because my throat felt a bit sore and my nose was stuffy.
Anyway, just after midday, I went to the garage but there was no sign of the young man that usually does the car wash and it didn't look as though there had been any done so I thought he was probably on holiday. I decided to go to the petrol station and fill up, a journey of about a mile, then I got stuck in very slow moving traffic so the journey that normally takes ten minutes took half an hour. When I got back, I cleaned the car myself and went in to make the bread.
By this time, I still felt strange and got on with the bread but after kneading it for about ten minutes, it didn't feel 'quite right'. It was then that I realised that I hadn't put in the dried yeast so I sprinkled it over the dough and gave it a thorough kneading for another ten minutes then put it in the tin to rise and kept my fingers crossed!
The pansies got planted but the bread had still not risen much after an hour and by then I was aching all over so dozed for about an hour before going back to see what was happening. It had risen a bit more so I decided to bake it although I knew it would be dense and heavy which it is.
I haven't got a cold but today I still feel 'not quite right' so I have abandoned all plans that I had for today and I'm having 'a day off', that way, nothing can go wrong!

You'd better watch out!

Next year I'm thinking of abandoning my principles and using some pesticides and other sprays in the garden. I like to be organic but I think because my back yard is the only one that has a 'proper' garden in the immediate area, every pest and plant disease heads straight for it! Perhaps I should have done the same as all the neighbours and had the lot laid with patio slabs and a few pots around the edges.
But I can't do that because I love to see flowers in the summer as they attract bees and butterflies. This year they have also attracted plagues of ants, greenfly, earwigs, whitefly, capsid bugs, green bottles, fruit flies as well as the usual slugs and snails.
Not only that, I've had some black spot on the roses too so I've had to prune them back hard and get rid of the leaves and prunings. Most of the pest control that I've used this year has been the usual organic stuff that works well under normal circumstances, but this year the sheer numbers of pests have overwhelmed what I've used.
So, if any of you wretched pests and plant diseases are reading this, watch out, you have been warned! Next year will see me in early spring, before the bees become active, togged up in protective clothing and armed with spray guns full of chemicals to deal with anything that is a threat to my plants!

The height of fashion??

This morning while doing my cleaning I was listening to Woman's Hour on the radio and they were discussing this season's fashion. We are all supposed to be wearing things like aviator jackets and camel coats. Team these with flat brogue shoes that have pointed toes and animal prints, while trousers will be longer (to the waist and the floor) with wider legs. Suits and dresses will have a more tailored look with cinched in waists with lots of floral and swirly prints! We are supposed to be moving away from 'the eternal teenager' look with the skinny, low rise jeans and high stilletos.
Oh yeah! Just who are they kidding? Ladies such as myself who have clocked up a few years, had children and have little disposable income for clothing will not be wearing the latest fashions....or will I?
My winter coat is black and will be for many years to come (unless it gets attacked by moths) because I rarely wear it unless I'm going somewhere special on a very cold day so I re-cycle it every year. Besides, I don't like aviator jackets and I would love to have a really nice camel coat but they are far too expensive. As for the pointed toed, flat brogues just forget them. I don't like my feet squeezed into pointy toes and it hurts my back to walk in flat shoes. Give me a pair of clumpy lace-ups with soles like tractor tyres any day!
As for the trousers, I never did do the skinny jeans, I feel far more comfortable with something that comes up to the waist and has sufficient 'ease' in the legs for me to stand, sit or kneel without cutting off the circulation. Cinched in waists? They've got to be kidding! That's something I have never had, a waist that is. I have always been straight up and down and at the moment I still look the same from the front and back, it's just the sideways view that I have a problem with because there are too many lumps sticking out in front that really shouldn't be there (must go back on a diet!).
As for floral and swirly prints, I would love to wear them but sadly I stick to plain colours because I rarely find anything else that I like.
But wait a minute! I do have something fashionable in the wardrobe, an animal print chiffon scarf! The only problem is, I haven't got anything that goes with it!

Blown away!

For the last couple of days we have had some very strong winds which is quite unusual for this time of year. Yesterday the gusts were so strong that the wheelie bins began moving along the road on their own! In order to stop mine moving, I place a brick in the empty re-cycling box and wedge it up against the wheelie bin but if the gusts are very strong from a certain direction, I tuck the bins away around the corner of the house so that I don't have to run off down the road to retrieve them!
This morning when I was going across Castle Green to the farmer's market it was still very breezy and as I walked I watched as a young man chased some papers he had dropped but every time he got near to them, the wind caught them up and off they went again. Eventually, he caught most of them but unfortunately one sailed high up over the wall and gently floated down onto the river when the gust had subsided. I had to smile to myself but I felt a little sorry for him and hoped that the paper he lost wasn't that important.
As I got further up and walked around the front of the church, I saw that the sweet chestnut trees had shed some of their nuts and there was still the odd one falling to the ground. I watched as two squirrels busily picked up the fallen nuts and scurried off to bury them, eating the odd one just to make sure they were alright.
The breeze was still very strong this afternoon because I went out to put in the bedding plants that Eden and I had bought at the weekend and every time I emptied a flower pot or tray, the wretched things blew about all round the garden. Then, every time I bent down to pick them up, they blew away again! Next time I'll do my planting when there's no stiff breezes.

'Rubbish' bin men!

We have re-cycling collections that are made weekly so we have a black box for paper, bottles, cans etc. which is emptied early on a Tuesday morning and then later we have the collection of food waste, for which we have a brown lidded box, and cardboard. The black wheelie bin is for general rubbish that can't be re-cycled and is emptied fortnightly. I take things like clothing and plastic bottles to the re-cycling bank at the supermarket.
Last week however, my food waste bin wasn't emptied (this is not the first time the bin men have missed either), so I rang the council number and told them. The young man on the other end took the details and assured me it would be emptied within two working days. I told him that they had said that the last time I was missed and nobody came to empty the bin so it had to wait until the collection was due again. He said that there was a note of that on his computer but this time they would come to empty the box.
Well, they didn't so I rang yesterday to let them know and was told that it had been done last Wednesday. I told them it most definitely had not been emptied because I had been putting vegetable peelings and cardboard in every day and it was now pretty well full but due to be emptied today.
The young man made a note and asked if he could get the area refuse manager to get in touch with me when he had looked into the matter so I gave him my number.
Today when the bin men came I was in the kitchen so came through to the front and looked out of the window to see that they had picked up the garden waste sacks so I went out of the door only to find the food waste box had not been emptied!
I had no choice but to lie in wait for them to come round the block then go out and yell at them as they went past. Well, that brought the lorry to a halt! I made them empty the box and told them that it was missed last week too but they said all boxes were emptied and I had probably forgotten to put mine out! B****y cheek! My box lives outside the front door like everyone elses' because there's nowhere else to put it. I just can't wait for the area refuse manager to contact me!

Union leaders need a good slap!

Just who the hell do the union leaders at the TUC think they are? They are now threatening strikes and civil unrest in response to the governments' intended cuts. It was their beloved Labour Party that got us into this financial mess and everyone has to accept that there must be cuts and yes, we will all suffer.
Perhaps the problem with these wretched union leaders is that they feel they must do something in order to justify their existence to their members (and to keep their salaries) when in truth, the union memebers will be amongst those who will suffer more if they agree to strike because they will lose pay.
The unions in this country have about 7 million members, just a mere drop in the ocean compared to the sixty odd million people who live here so why don't they wake up and take notice that they do not represent the views of the majority.
When I was working I joined one of the biggest civil service unions and I can tell you that their representatives were b****y useless when we complained about bad working practices and it was a nationwide complaint that they did s*d all about.
Any action that unions take will inconvenience a lot of people who will not necessarily share their views so I think they should 'put up and shut up' and let this government get on with things. They may not be what we want but you never know, perhaps the combined efforts of two totally different parties just might work.

Chilling out and having fun!

I've had Eden with me this weekend and we've had a great time, with lots of laughs but we don't seem to have got very much done and I even missed my blog yesterday!


When we got up yesterday, we went to get the paper and stopped in the garden centre on the way back to buy a few spring bedding plants for me to put in later this week when I have cleared some more of the annuals that have finished. When we got back home and put the plants outside, I put a few peanuts onto the shelf of the nut box and Eden asked why I had done this. I told her that I had to teach this new squirrel where his food was so that I didn't catch him hanging upside down again stealing the birds' peanuts in the wire holder! Anyway, it worked because he now eats the sunflower seeds that I put on the bird table for him and he has peanuts for 'afters' from the nut box.


While I made bread, Eden finished a homework project that she had brought with her and after we'd had lunch, we sorted out the glass cabinet and packed up a lot of the glasses so that her Mum could have them. I am still 'downsizing' bit by bit because I know that if I move to a much smaller place (this is only a very tiny house), I will not have room for anything other than the necessities. I feel sad that I have spent a lifetime scrimping and saving to buy bits and pieces that didn't even cost that much, but now I have to get rid of them.


Today we've had more fun in the kitchen making cottage pie and lemon meringue pie ready for when Sarah came to pick her up. The cottage pie is something we have made on many occasions in the past but today Eden wanted to 'do the top' herself. She smoothed the potato completely but I said she needed to make the top look as though the potato had been piped, then she spent about fifteen minutes doing some fancy fork work on the top.


The meal was very good, Eden and Sarah have gone home and I've done the washing up so now I'm sitting here in the quiet

Another day yelling at the radio!

I think I will have to write to the BBC and ask if they will let me sit in on the 'Today' programme when they are discussing topics that the interviewers (and sometimes the interviewees) know nothing about. That will certainly save my vocal chords and also save me from throwing the radio at the nearest wall!
This morning they were talking about the cuts that the government have planned for those on certain types of benefit. Both the interviewer and the politician being interviewed had absolutely no idea what they were talking about and after a couple of minutes of them talking out of their backsides I was compelled to turn on my hairdryer to drown them out.
After working seven years in a jobcentre I think I have more knowledge than both of them put together. What they didn't mention is that successive governments for many years have developed the 'benefit culture' that we now have and it will probably take several generations to undo the mess. In our jobcentre we used to have three generations of some families who had claimed jobseeker's allowance and no-one in the family had ever worked. I used to be an adviser for the long term unemployed and very often I would have someone sitting in front of me who had never worked since leaving school and were now in their mid-forties. They would go through the motions doing only what they were expected to do in order to get their money with absolutely no intention of ever really making an effort to find work and after going through the New Deal programme they would sit in front of me or another adviser six months later because they had to do it again. They knew the routine and some of them continued this for the whole seven years that I was advising. Many of them were not very well educated and I believe some of them deliberately made themselves unemployable if they ever did get near to an employer.
Employers here are not too keen on taking on someone who has been out of work for a very long time so we had a stalemate situation.
Another problem that started in the seventies was with young girls who got pregnant either while at school or soon after leaving. They soon found that if they had a child and no husband, they would go straight to the top of the housing list and they could also get financial help with buying things like furniture and carpets etc. while receiving income support so they didn't have to work. This didn't only happen in deprived areas but very soon caught on all over the country. Many of these girls went on to have even more children, usually with different fathers (who were rarely named and even more rarely contributed financially for the child's upbringing), so consequently spent their whole lives being kept by the taxpayer.
In most cases when the youngest child reached sixteen, the single mother was expected to look for work (although that age has been brought down a lot now) but you would be amazed at how many of these women managed to get pregnant when the youngest child was fifteen by saying that they thought they had gone through 'the change' and didn't think they could get pregnant! Oh, and it was a one night stand or they couldn't remeber the name of the father!
Some of these women are now over sixty so technically 'retired' but they have never lifted a finger to work and put some money in the pot. They have been kept by the taxpayer and now get exactly the same amount of pension money as women who have brought up their families without any help from the state and worked all their lives, sometimes in two or more jobs at once.
Is this a fair system? No. It is one nurtured by successive governments in order to massage figures especially when elections have been looming.
I could go on even more but at least I feel better for getting this off my chest!

Sunflower seeds galore!

Because the weather has been good today I have been out in the garden doing a little bit more tidying up. At this time of year there is always plenty to be cut back even though the garden is very small and there are also plants that need dividing or re-potting.
A couple of weeks ago I bought a large plastic cauldron which can be used as a hanging basket but it looks equally good standing on the ground so today I planted it with a couple of pink cyclamen, a small variegated ivy and white pansies for Sarah to put on her patio. This should give her some colour for the winter and I can do my pots later.
One of the other things I did was to re-pot my dwarf agapanthus which I have been meaning to do for the last two years but never got around to. The roots were really packed in tight and they had almost become part of the pot. I know they prefer to be tight in the pot in order to flower but that was taking things a bit too far so it should do better next summer!
This afternoon I pulled up some more sunflowers but still have plenty left for next week. I know that you're supposed to hang the heads upside down in a dry place to dry the seeds out but I have nowhere to do this. Last week I pulled some up and left the heads on the patio to dry in the sunshine and when it rained I bought them in and left them on the dining room table for a couple of days. When I rubbed the seeds out, I was surprised at how many there were so I spread them on some newspaper and left them for a day or so then I thought I would put some on the bird table to see if the birds would eat them. They would have to take the outer black husk of these because the ones they get in their seed mix have already had this done (the whole seed mix has been treated this way as it makes less mess).
The birds didn't get a look in though because when I looked out of the window a little while after I had put them out, the squirrel was sitting on the bird table really tucking in to the sunflower seeds. When he had finished most of them he explored the nut box which has peanuts in and he was trying to get the peanuts through the perspex front. It didn't take him long to realise that in order to get the nuts, you have to lift the lid and stick your head in!
So, even if the birds don't want to eat the sunflower seeds, I know someone else who will and as I've got so many they should see him through most of the winter.

A bit of whistle blowing

Well I'm afraid I can't keep my mouth shut any longer! In fact I was left really furious yesterday morning when I heard a news item on the radio about the main civil service union banging on about "protecting the rights of civil servants' redundancy entitlements".
The leader of the union was saying that 'most of our members are only on national minimum wage'. That's a lie for a start, I spent seven years as a civil servant and I don't think anyone in our office of about forty or more people across all grades was on the national minimum wage. Those with families and earning under a certain amount also received extras like child tax credit and working tax credit so were nowhere near the breadline.
What the union want to protect are the redundancy packages that were built into contracts many years ago (the mid 1980's I believe) where someone being made redundant would receive so many YEARS salary depending on length of service. Most of these people by the way, are currently receiving pretty good salaries, some even exceed the national average wage which is quite high. Even people employed in private companies don't get those kinds of 'golden handshakes' for losing their employment regardless of how long they have worked for a company.
The civil service pay scale was a mystery to me because some of the wages in our grades didn't ever get to the top of the grade regardless of how long you had been there or how well you performed. It seemed to be down to whether or not your superior liked you and put your name forward and then it had to go up through goodness knows how many managers (many of whom had never heard of you) before someone decided whether you should receive more money!
A few years ago when I was working as a civil servant the powers that be wanted to cut the number of civil servants by thirty thousand and there was quite a buzz in our office as some of the people that had worked there for twenty years or more since leaving school, worked out the enormous payouts that they would receive if they took voluntary redundancy. The figures were mind boggling and strangely enough, none of these people were particularly good at their jobs despite having worked for DWP for so long and some of them were downright lazy. These are also the ones who will receive the largest pensions too because the 'final salary scheme' was closed when I started work for the DWP. Anyway, nobody was made redundant because a couple of months after that they were taking on more staff due to the economic downturn.
I never found the union to be much good anyway because all they were interested in was fighting with the government about our wages and they weren't even very good at that. When we wanted them to tackle the management about our poor managers and bad working practices, they didn't do a thing despite crowing that they were 'fighting for us'.

Lights out......Yes please

So the councils and other departments are going to have to make big cutbacks in order for the country to balance the books and get us out of the mess the last government got us into. One of the things that some councils have planned, is to turn off the street lights at certain times in order to save money.
Hooray! I totally agree with this because when I was young all the street lights were switched off between 11pm and 6am. Most decent people were in bed not long after that anyway. There wasn't a huge amount of crime just because it was darker, it's far worse today, and there were not a greater number of accidents either, so I'm all for it.
Unfortunately, a lot of the population don't agree but then you will always get the whingers that grizzle when their toys are taken away. The councils are doing this to save money, that is money that has been paid by us, the public at large, in the form of local taxation and for that reason we should all be grateful that they are trying to save some of it.
As for crime and accidents, the savings will mean that they won't necessarily need to cut back on the policing of our towns and cities and as for accidents, that's down to each and everyone of us being more careful and less selfish when we are driving on roads that are unlit.
There are also a couple of other extra benefits too. Firstly it will help to reduce carbon emissions and secondly, we will all be able to see more stars when we look at the night sky with less light pollution.
When they've done that, perhaps the next step would be to introduce some new by-laws to compel businesses that don't work at night to switch their lights off too instead of leaving empty buildings lit up like Christmas trees. If they are afraid of being burgled, the money they save could be used to install state of the art burglar alarms!

Fire drill

A couple of years ago the landlady had to have some electrical work carried out on the house and there are new regulations which state that rented properties have to have fire alarms installed. So the elctrician put one downstairs and one upstairs.
Now I don't mind because I'm all for safety precautions and I used to have battery operated ones anyway. These wretched things are an absolute pest because they go off at the least little thing and I'm sure it's not smoke, but smell that they react to.
I only have to put a couple of slices of bread under the grill and the one in the hall starts screaming before the bread has even turned a pale shade of brown. The biggest problem is that I can't shut the kitchen door so that the wretched thing doesn't get a whiff of my toast and end up waking all the neighbours within a hundred yard radius.
As for grilling meat, fish or anything else, that's out of the question altogether. At least with the battery operated one, I could take it off the wall and put it under a cushion while I grilled food and then replace it when I had finished.
The other thing that sets it off is when I have cleaned the ovens, even if I only use soap and water on a scourer. I daren't let them get too splattered with grease as I feel sure that will get them going too.
One of these days I might be tempted to knock the darned things off the ceiling but the problem is, I can't reach. Perhaps I need to find a very tall boyfriend instead!!!

All washed out

Today I had intended to clear out some of the annuals that have gone over in the garden but we have had quite a lot of rain and I haven't been too well so I got on with my bird bath instead. It's almost finished now but I had to give up this afternoon because my hands were cut where the tile pieces are so sharp. Eden saw it the other week when she was over she thought it was 'awesome' so I really must get it finished.
The other reason I want to get it finished is because there has definitely been another squirrel in the garden. I'm pretty sure the others were shot by someone with an air rifle over the park because they had been coming almost every day for a good few years and there have been successive generations too. As they don't have any predators except for man, I think that is how they met their end because they all just suddenly stopped coming. The PCSO's are aware and keeping their eyes and ears open because children use the park and so do people exercising their dogs. They did tell me that they knew some youths that weren't local had been using the park too.
The little squirrel I saw yesterday was very shy and timid, not at all like the others and I know he's been back because the peanut that I wedged under the top of the nut box had gone and there have been the tell tale signs of something eating the peanuts today.
I wish I had seen it but I have been in the front room and not the kitchen. The other thing I did was to swop the bird feeders over too but the little devils have still only been taking from the grey one wherever it has been hung and ignored the bright yellow one! I suppose it will just be a matter of time before they go to the new one because the same thing happened when I bought the grey one. It's predeccosor had been green and it was several days before they used the new one. I didn't realise that the sparrows would be suspicious of some thing new or be able to tell the difference in colour!

Fussy or what?

Yesterday I bought a new seed feeder for the sparrows because there are about forty that come over all at once so I presume that they are still out to fool the sparrowhawk. On the original feeder there are only four feeding holes so I thought that if I bought another one then twice as many could feed at the same time.
The problem is, the new one is a bright yellow colour! Now, I don't know if sparrows see in colour or not (the other feeder is grey), but they haven't been on the new one yet. So I'm still putting seed on the bird table too because I can't bear the thought of them coming over to see me and then going hungry because they can't all feed at once. The only problem with putting food on the bird table at the moment is that there are a couple of collared doves that eat everything and the wretched wood pigeons see them then they try to get a free feed. The wood pigeons always do great big poops everywhere so when I go out of the back door, I have to watch where I put my feet.
Perhaps tomorrow, I will swop the feeders over to see if they go onto the new one and keep my fingers crossed!
Just another little note, this afternoon I was going to do some gardening but as I went out the back door, I saw something move on the wall. It was a squirrel, but not one that I had seen before and it was very shy, so I came back in and hopefully it will come back. I've wedged a peanut under the lid of the nut box so I shall know when it's been there.

They need to learn the lesson

In the news over the last couple of days there have been a lot of stories about the state of our schools. Obviously this is because they have just returned after the summer holidays so of course it must be a good time to wheel out the same problems that were facing parents, children and schools at this time last year.
Firstly, there are not enough places for children who are just about to start school and many of them will have to travel considerable distances in order to attend a primary school. This, we are told is due to a sudden increase in the number of children of school age. Oddly enough, when I had my daughters (yes, I know it was a long time ago) I was monitored by my GP who kept records, then by the clinics who also kept records and we also filled out census forms when required. The births were registered and I received a child benefit payment book (although in those days it wasn't very much money), so someone, somewhere knew how many children were born in each year because of all the records that had been kept and so there were adequate places in the schools when it was time for my girls to start. Now, someone needs to check their maths because the answer seems quite simple, if you find out how many children are born in a particular year there will be another four and a half years for councils to ensure there are enough places to accommodate these children when they are ready to start school!
The other thing they are wittering on about are the 'poorly performing schools'. Well, excuse me but if a school is performing badly it's down to the teachers. If teachers are inspirational then children will be motivated and will be eager to learn which in turn will manifest itself in better exam results, so the school and also following generations of pupils will benefit. It doesn't matter if the kids come from a deprived or unconventional background or from a stable environment, social status is no measure of intelligence and if teachers can demonstrate their enthusiasm for their subject and make learning fun, the children will learn better and schools will reap the rewards.
We had teachers that were very passionate about the subjects they taught which made us all want to learn so we all did very well and the other thing was, we respected them too. Perhaps today's teachers could take a leaf out of their books especially with the dress code. Our male teachers wore shirts, jackets and ties or suits and the women all wore smart dresses or skirts, shirts and cardigans whereas today's teachers look as if they've just dressed themselves from the Oxfam shop or are just about to start decorating the house! Dressing down is certainly not the best way to get respect from students.
Perhaps the new Minister for Education could take note and come up with some solutions!

Watching mummies!

I am watching a programme on TV about a 'lost' Egyptian Pharaoh Queen, Hatshepsut and these documentaries are done particularly well by channel 5. How much of what they have discovered is 100% true is really something we will never know, but I do find it absolutely incredible how much can be discovered by using modern CT scans and even DNA technology. Even more surprising is the remarkable quality of preservation of the mummies, most of them from the museum in Cairo.
Ancient Egypt and the Pharaoh dynasties have always been one of my interests and I was fortunate enough to have a quick visit to the museum in Cairo some years ago when my partner and I had a holiday in Cyprus. We went on a mini cruise which gave us a day in Israel where we went to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and visited the church of the Nativity and then we had a day in Egypt where we had a fleeting visit to the museum after travelling down from Port Said along the banks of the Suez canal, and then we went to see the pyramids.
The museum was somewhere that I could have quite happily spent a whole week in and I was staggered by the jewellery and other artefacts that have survived over the thousands of years since everything was made and packed into the tombs because it looks as though it was only made yesterday.
Perhaps one of my regrets is that we didn't study any of the history of Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs when I was at school, but I know that my grand-children have because I was able to help them with some of the homework and provide some of the photos that I took in the museum.

Rescued!

I'm in the process of sorting out the garden because quite a lot of the summer flowering annuals have almost gone over. This year they have served me extremely well and really have flowered their heads off so I have had my money's worth.
When all this is finished, hopefully by the end of the weekend, I will put a few pansies and winter flowering cyclamen in the large pots just to give the garden some colour through the winter months.
On Monday as I was returning from the garden centre with a bag of compost in my trolley, I stopped to chat to a man at the end of the road as he was sorting out his garden which had been badly overgrown for some time. He said he was going to have a vegetable patch down one side and wanted to put some perennial flowers in the bit he was working on. I told him that I had some plants which needed dividing and that as I had just started, I would let him have some.
The rudbekia has spread like wildfire so I have to lift a lot of that anyway and I have also noticed that a long flowering geranium, Wargrave's Pink, has seeded itself in the pot where the parsley is, so I can separate that out too.
There are one or two other plants I can let him have if he wants but today I rescued a lovely specimen of gaillardia, garden goblin, which had pushed up through the packed tarmac and rubble at the side of the house. It must be a really strong plant because it was one I had planted a couple of years ago in the garden that the landlady had removed in December so I think after all that effort, it deserves a place in a garden where it can give joy and pleasure, and be admired!