Mum

 I had little to say and himself has his nip and tuck tomorrow so i will be glued to him for a couple of weeks at least , so lets do a mumsie update 

Currently shes still languishing in her Elder Care Prison , creating mayhem wherever she can . The good old council summoned us to an online meeting as part of the process of determining her longterm care only to find out that the representative for the carehome was unable to attend due to an outbreak of Norovirus at the home , mother was fine i hasten to add , They said they would reschedule but its been a month and we have heard nothing and nobody is answering calls yet again at social services or the council so shes still getting government sponsored care, Daughter is proceeding on with the application to the Court of Protection . we have finally managed to pin down who is medically responsible for her and its cost us £150 for a letter confirming that she will not get any better and that she has psychosis and dementia  . The next stage is two payments of £ 395  to send the application in and actually review it . I did suggest we porn her jewellery , which was greeted by absolute disgust from the rest of the family , but it seemed practical to me . The jewellery is in my safe where its been since she went into hospital .   None of the family are rich and there will need to be a lot more cash outlay to get the Protection Order which we can claim back from her estate once its granted , but it may take 2 years because there is a backlog .

So if I had one suggestion even if your running round fit as a flea , give Power of Attorney to a family member it costs £85  and can save thousands in the event you become incapacitated , plus it can stop the council leaving your property to rot into the ground till its your last asset and they can then sell it off cheap to a friendly builder they use for next to nothing as its dilapadated . This happens all over the country. 

Prep On

 Hows life treating you in the real world ?   Still reeling from your grocery bill, frantically turning off everything electrical and killing yourself growing your own ?  I was watching a video online from a lady of a certain age ,who was struggling to manage grow your own , why do people still think you have to struggle to grow the traditional veg garden ? No dig is excellent and a great use for the endless amazon packaging they gift you with . I crave another wood chipper i had to sell mine during a cash crisis so my fantasy is an even bigger model the sort you could put a body through , just think of the fertiliser you could make !!  but the simple fact is that if you mulch your plants to death theres little work involved other than the odd bit of weeding needed plus theres much less watering involved . On the mulching front scrounge the neighbours grass cuttings if they dont use lawn chemicals.

I also watched a seriously batshit prepper of the UK variety , but he had a few nuggets of wisdom . People who are transferring cash from the bank into gold and silver . Dont bother you cant eat gold and silver , youre better buying bottles of spirits  to barter with and theres the bonus you could just spend the end of days hammered...lol  My abstract thought was the most valuable item in the event of a serious collapse of society would be tins of babymilk not everyone can breastfeed and it would be a really good barter item .So heres a few things i would like to think most of us would have kicking around if we were a tad paranoid .

A good herbal book with lots of pictures , and a good few herbs growing that you might need 

Jam jars and lids , make sure you store them somewhere dust free its irritating if they get filthy in the shed 

lots of home remedies , diarrhoea pills, antacids, generic hay fever pills, painkillers

lots of herbs and spices , dried or growing 

duct tape and a big mixed jar of screws and nails can usually be found at the car boot sale 

so thats todays list to think about ...lol  Prep On     

Sunshine

 Its that hint of sunshine out come the shorts time of year , im trying a work till i run out of batteries for the garden power tools one day , sit and die unable to move on the second day . This is day 3 of the cycle , light garden jobs , plant out the jewel sweetcorn that himself has requested because he uses so much for his fishing adventures do a bit of strimming and pull out sticky buds from the flower side of things. I also have a pile of mending i need to tackle , himself seems to have spit the crotch of everything he owns and now even son in law is sending his mending ...AARRGGHH will i be stitching up crotches for the rest of my days ?

Another sign of the poverty around here , is the big increase in the amount of scrap men trundling around our usual suspects call often because himself usually has stuff for them , hes promised me that two of the little sheds that are dropping to the ground are going but hes been saying that fot years if they call when hes fishing i may well tell them to empty them and then point out years later that he never noticed . We seem to have vast amounts of window cleaners door knocking , Then theres young lads in vans looking for odd jobs , i got chatting to one last week bless him , he was offering to cut down and tidy up all the front yard , i told him it had taken years to get a mature orchard and nut trees all round just so we have privacy . Then later i got a visit from the neighbourhood watch , ironically one of the traveller community living a few doors away , warning me for encouraging thieves yes we get the odd outbreak of theft once in a blue moon , we have someone at home 24/7  , we have cameras because himself cant get up to answer the door if hes on his own , so im not much worried . I think himself has frightened a whole generation of delivery blokes to death with the disembodied voice shouting at them to drop that parcel as they toddle back to their vans .

Yesterday i accidentally scored a bonus we had to go into town and himself decided he wanted a bag of chips for his dinner from the little precinct at hykeham  i went into the little tesco direct corner shop and they had butter in the dump bin at £1 a pack so i snaffled it all for the freezer, i only went in for a drink and got to watch a smackhead doing his daily shop into his big coat , the staff spotted him shovelling stuff but did nothing, it seems they just film them and forward the video to the police, sign of the times yet again . Have you noticed how many shops are moving all the pricy stuff to the back of the shop , that and security tags on packs of sausages and the like  , baby milk and nappies with security tags .

Time

 Wanders in , before i need to wander out again..lol ..busy garden season im afraid , epic amounts of rain have turned it all into a lush green paradise that i need to control a little .  Between himself being a bit of an epic nuisance , shouting and balling at the munchkin for the whole neighbourhood to hear and the munchkin belting round the garden on a scooter they have resurrected , They are now  performing  an epic rebuild from parts that have languished in boxes for more than ten years of some very expensive pile of rust that he tells me will be his last project .If i believe that i will believe anything .

  He has an appointment for one of his many little day surgery jobs that will leave him helpless for at least a month at the end of the month , hence the frantic gardening im indulging in . Its a good bet i will be on nursey duties for at least a week 24/7 so im really looking forward to this ...and the shouting !!  But at least the munchkin will be here for his school holidays so can help move him. He was supposed to have a little nip and tuck work done last week he turned up and they said it wasnt quite bad enough yet see you in six months . Im not sure if they will do his day surgery either but we will see , he had his blood tests done yesterday and thats when stuff usually gets put back .

So life plods on as normal , trying to shop cheaply gets harder and harder and the total abscence of Lidl cheap fruit and veg boxes is one of the main reasons for expanding the garden back to its pre most of the family leaving home size , im working my way through the bags of fruit in the freezer in an array of pies and crumbles and keep promising myself i will find a vacuum bag sealer at the jumble ..lol 

So heres todays question what little extras do you think we should be looking for to add to next winters food stores ?  mine is powdered egg , its not cheap but it does come in useful with egg supply being a tad hit and miss at the moment .

Shopping

 Busy busy busy , the potatoes are all finally in the first batch planted at easter have just popped up , stirling effort from the munchkin though quite how he crammed the last of them in i probably dont want to know..lol , parsnips and carrots sowed , cucumbers and squash just peeping in the outside propagator need to find something to provide extra ground cover because i need to open the bottom of the garden and digging isnt an option , i dont grow stuff we dont eat so nothing exotic . 

now heres a tale , we have a large upright Indesit freezer 18 months old , last week it started to make a horrible noise , more horrible than its normal weird noises looked online and theyre noted for weird noises , but mine was having a fit and the top drawers were a bit soft . I was now panicking a bit it wasnt more than half full but i couldnt really afford to lose anything and daughters freezer was full , So after much searching online i found a supposed fix , it said i had icing on my evaporation fan so i placed a bowl of boiling water on the very top shelf and shut it for 10 minutes , mopped up all the water and turned it back on at full bore with a towel under the air vents and low and behold it started to work properly . I chucked the bit of seafood from the top drawer onto the bird table the cats got a couple of packs of ham and weve had a weird menu for a few days . The trouble is i dont really trust the damned thing now so im having to change my food stash a little , put the meat at the bottom and maybe just use the top for bread and stuff .

 Meanwhile start to add to the tinned food stash ho hum more expense . This week ive ordered a mixed pack of Grants tinned meat offerings direct from Grants , i have a load of tinned haggis of theres that i managed to get from Asda for the first time in a couple of years at just £1,50 each ,  https://grantsfood.com/collections/grants-foods    I think they may have found it lurking in the warehouse because the date is quite short and this is the price it was 2 years ago , we didnt much like the tinned mince and peas it was tasteless , but i know himself loves the barbecue ribs so i ordered a case and we will try the other stuff and see whether they warrant an order , theyre not particularly cheap but if he likes them it saves cooking . They also had yellow label corned beef this week !!