A satisfying week

Happy Monday all. Extra happy because I have this week off work. Shame it's going to be so grim weather-wise but still. I live in the UK and as all Brits know, this is how our summers roll. 😁

So, I succeeded in getting my airing cupboard sorted and looking much better. The rooms look clean and tidy without all the fabric piled up everywhere. I even managed to put everything in piles by size order. I have single, double and king size beds in the house so I keep bedding sets for all them. There was quite a sizeable pile of stuff to go to a charity shop.

Last Monday I also worked out how to do great crackling without drying out the joint. I've tried for years to work it out but never could quite manage it and end up with succulent joint as well. So, I actually looked it up on the internet (and I thought the internet was just for reading blogs and looking at cat memes 😁). Wash and dry the joint thoroughly then score it. Rub on sea salt, especially into the cracks. Slice an onion and pile it in the middle of a roasting tin. Put the joint on top and add 1/2 - 1 inch of water (I used boiling water) carefully to the bottom of the tin. Start off with the oven temp on high 200 - 220oC and then turn down to 160-170 after 20 minutes and cook as normal according to weight. Watch the level of the water and top up as necessary. 

To go with it, I found some rhubarb in the freezer and made a nice tart compote and fnished everything off with a plum crumble. Leftover pork went into the freezer with a few other bits of leftover roast meat, ready to be transformed into something amazing at a later date.

For the first time in quite a while I made a cake, a strawberry/raspberry, vanilla and almond one layer gluten free cake. I very rarely bake gluten-free as the results are usually pretty poor. I only did a little bit of mixture, probably about a quarter of what I would normally do for a Victoria sponge, in case it was a failure and I wasn’t sure how much the fruit would sink if I made one much bigger. It was amazing. Twenty-four hours later there's only one slice left. I should have gone bigger. 

Harvested my first pak choi, which I wilted in a pan with some rocket. I picked it because it was starting to run to seed - I could see the flower spike beginning to grow up in the middle. It was so nice I’m thinking of getting some more seeds going and see if I can have a supply through the winter. 

A few weeks ago we bought four more chickens two point-of-lay at 18 weeks and two young 8-week old cream legbars, complete with little frizzy hair-styles. 

Our existing chickens haven't been so well this winter and they no longer lay with any regularity so we invested in some new ones. The babies have only this weekend got to a size where I'm comfortable letting them out to roam a bit. Baldrick has been catching a lot of wood pigeons lately and the baby chickens were about the same size. I didn't want them ending up a cat snack. 

A few other things happened.

We went to a funeral on Thursday afternoon, which went very well. The deceased was the friend of Martin's I'd mentioned before that was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. They gave him about six months to live but in reality he only managed six weeks. He was a bit of a local character, and if something was going to happen it usually happened to him so there was a lot laughs when his wife shared some of her stories during the service. It was a very light-hearted service and what Martin's friend would have wanted. He was never one to feel sorry for himself. 

A few weeks ago I was surprised to be awarded £150 in vouchers from my firm to celebrate seven years of employment. I asked for garden vouchers and early last week we bought two new recliners for the patio. We got one out to road test and it immediately started to rain. Back into the shed it went and there it has stayed. British summers...😀

Finally, I've got back into Life Below Zero, which is probably my favourite TV series of all time (trying not to binge watch though. Don't want to fall back into the trap of hours of mind-numbing screen-time). I feel a real affinity for the life of Glenn Villeneuve and the reasons he lives out there. He has a child-like innocence and wonder about life that I wish I had. You can tell he has spent a great deal of time thinking about the values he holds dear and then adjusting his life to fit with those values. He is always learning, always willing to accept that there is more for him to learn. It’s refreshing. It's made me wonder how I would cope somewhere like that, if I could survive. Truthfully, probably not. I like a bit of adversity, I enjoy challenge but the uncertainty of the food and water supply, the continual presence of predators, I would never relax or sleep soundly. Frankly, I don't know how Glenn does! Sleep deprived I would make one false move with an axe or a chainsaw and that would be that!