What I’ve Read – October 2016

Posted on November 9, 2016 by nicdempsey

October has not been a reading month. No real reason, I’ve been sick and or busy and while generally on work days I read for about an hour a day, the weekends have been busy with allotment, nephews and rescuing my flat from coughing related neglect. I really need to get all of my library books read and back to the library and work on my TBR pile, it isn’t growing much but I would like to make more of a dent in it by the end of the year.

Uprooted – Naomi Novik (library book)

I wasn’t sure about this and then it just clicked and I really enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed that she learns to stand by herself and that the resolution was complex but at it’s heart really simple.

City of Mirrors – Justin Cronin (library book)

Finally got around to this. It’s the last book in the trilogy and I had found the middle book a bit of a slog. I liked this one better, there is a proper resolution and some of them are open ended. Do I think it would have taken thousand years for society to rebuilt itself, nope, I think it would have taken longer but it was a satisfying end to the story.

The Leopard King – Ann Aguirre (borrowed)

I really enjoyed this but having set up that the hero has basically been mourning self destructingly for three years, I found he got over it all too quickly as did the heroine. Either he didn’t love his wife as much as he thought or you know the magic of regular sex. I wasn’t convinced but other than that, I enjoyed it and I’m up for reading the next seven planned books.

Using the Plot: Tales of an Allotment Chef – Paul Merrett (library book)

I used to own this book and I gave it away as I didn’t think I’d use it. I enjoyed the first half of the book which documents Merrett getting an allotment, actually I know where they are as they’re local to me. I didn’t find the recipes as useful. I really want to know what happened next. Do they still have an allotment? Did having an allotment change his cooking? I need more information.

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Food and Budget Update: 29/10 to 04/11/2016

Posted on November 8, 2016 by nicdempsey

I start the week so well and then slack towards the end of the week!

SHOPPING

I shopped on Friday afternoon. The shop was light on vegetables because I had lots left from last week, I was short on lots of staples and needed to start to re-up them. img_5228I also bought dried chickpeas which aren’t pictured, the total was £14.51

I also bought a bunch of baking supplies for baking for the Halloween Pumpkin Trail. Some of that will make its way into my usual cooking but I bought it so I could bake and sell the cakes so I’m not counting it in my weekly budget. I accept that it’s a bit of a fudge but so is the produce from the allotment, food that I buy for family lunches and alcohol that I don’t count. I’m very lucky that my £15 budget is a self imposed limit not an absolute one so sometimes there is a fudge so I can have a life. I’ve never claimed otherwise but I don’t want anyone to think that I’m claiming it’s all completely possible to do do everything on £15 a week, its a very interesting challenge for me but I can (and do) go outside it but it’s not how I have to live, which is a whole other thing. It’s good for me but not an example of how people with little money should or can live. I also don’t work out how much electricity I use or the cost of my cooking equipment or note that I have more time to cook because it’s just me, or that I work a 9 to 5 job so I’m not trying to work around difficult hours or have any health issues that make cooking as much as I do difficult.

I think what I’m trying to say is that I’m not a great example of how to live on a very limited budget, if these updates are helpful and make you think about food and cooking and budgets, great but don’t use them as a club to beat other people or yourself…

Anyway, baking stuff came to £8.87 and I didn’t take a photo of the eggs…img_5230

FOOD

On Saturday morning, I ate yoghurt and granola for breakfast. Saturday was a busy day and at about 2pm, I realised that I didn’t eat lunch so ate pasta with crispy sage leaves.I was at the allotment for the pumpkin trail. I ate a hot dog and a cake while I was there, I got home at 8pm-ish and was absolutely shattered, fortunately I wasn’t hungry because I was too tired for food.

On Sunday, I ate granola and yoghurt for breakfast. Ma came over for a quick trip to the allotments and lunch. We had tomatoes and pasta, my version of this.img_5286Monday was yoghurt and granola for breakfast. Lunch was chickpea soup and homemade bread.Dinner was a bit of a disaster. I came home and put some rice on to cook, then I went to do something in the living room. A bit later I smelt burning rice. Proof that I am my mother’s daughter! After I’d thrown the rice away and rescued the pan, I had a toasted cheese sandwich!On Tuesday, I had yoghurt and granola (don’t mess with it if it’s working!) and for lunch, courgette and mint soup with added roasted vegetables, half a sandwich and some raw vegetables. Dinner was rice with courgette caviar, black beans, roasted vegetables and cheese

Wednesday’s breakfast was an egg roll (the picture is from Friday morning!). Lunch was leftover rice and raw vegetables.img_5308There were work drinks after work and I also had a meeting about the allotment website that evening so dinner was a bottle of beer, some crisps and olives and a mini mars bar. Yeah, I know I’m setting records for sensible eating here!

If Wednesday night was bad, Thursday morning was worse. I was really busy at work and I had a coffee and started on what I needed to do and just got caught up. Then at about 1pm, was wondering why I was feeling off. So I ate my breakfast (egg roll and veg again). Dinner was sauted vegetables on toast (aubergine, courgette, onion and pepper)img_5314Friday was a repeat of Thursday for breakfast and rice for lunch. I was so busy on Friday, I didn’t eat dinner so no Friday night pizza!

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Life Happened: Into November

Posted on November 7, 2016 by nicdempsey

This was the first week after the clocks went back. I always find this difficult but it was easier because I was ready for the week, the flat was tidy and I’d reminded myself of the things that help which boil down to be organised, get to bed at a decent hour, take a multi vitamin and go outside at lunchtime. I did those things and it seemed not to be too bad, I am a bit gloomy and teary but better than expected.

So the week passed as the work week does, with work and trying to get enough sleep. I knew that I’d be out all day on Saturday, so did food shopping on Friday night and cleaned the fridge and bathroom because if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room!

So on Saturday, I went to Kensington to keep Christelle occupied while Mike had surgery. We went to the V&A and waited.img_5337 Although Saturday was not at all about me, it did drag up some November gloom that caught me by surprise. Basically it’s November and it was Kensington and hospitals and I just got taken back to waiting for Stef and how that felt. Fortunately, the news was good on Saturday and on Sunday morning, Mike was awake and although recovery will take a while, the news is all good.

On Saturday, I also found out that L broke three fingers in goalkeeping accident and Ryan was in hospital with a colitis flare up. November working it’s ‘magic’ again!

All of which is an explanation of why I needed some time on the allotment and the company of my mum on Sunday. We weeded and I admired my garlic.we finally cleared the courgettes and marigolds and there’s not much growing right now but you can see it all taking shape. The garlic and onions have started to come up, the raspberries are doing their thing as is my tiny little strawberry bed.The dill and coriander have set seed and are starting to die back.I really needed the couple of hours we spent there to centre me and get my head straight.

That done, it’s onto a new week. This week is busy at work (big meeting) and into another busy weekend!

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Little Goals – November 2016

Posted on November 5, 2016 by nicdempsey

So November. Traditionally, I loathe November, it’s miserable and dark and my SAD really kicks in. I also had the best November ever last year because I was required by doctors to stay indoors and not overdo it. It was glorious, unfortunately I can’t have this November off so I need to grit my teeth and work out how best to get through it.

So first up the Thankful project. I stole this idea from Krissie, years ago and it’s always helped so I’m going to do it again this for this November. I’ve experimented with lots of ways of presenting it here and rather than have an entry daily or weekly, this year I’m going to have a separate page for this. I’ve already started so you can go and have a look!

FINANCE

No specific tasks, just staying on track and being mindful. More of the same, I have 2 birthdays in November (Oli and Christelle) and I’ll like to sort out presents for Ma’s birthday in December, this month.

HOME

Clear out the messy cupboard.It doesn’t look anything like this tidy now and I’m going to need to locate the Christmas decorations next month so I might as well declutter this space now!photo

BODY AND MIND

Stretching. Every day because my knee is playing up again and it helps

Going for a walk outside in the daylight. It’s dark, I get SAD, I need to start a lunchtime walk habit.

ALLOTMENT

Burn one of the piles of weeds and organise the compost area (yes I have an area, it’s a mess!).

New raised beds, order them and get them in place

Sow broad beans and poppies

Carry on with tidying the edges of the plot before we can’t work on the plot at all.

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Friday Links

Posted on November 4, 2016 by nicdempsey

I was gutted to hear about Farm Terrace and she’s right. This ruling puts all UK allotments under threat.

Church apologises for role in adoptions in 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Good it should, it behaved badly. However, one of these women was on the Today Programme on Thursday morning and it seems to me that she was projecting onto the church organisations, feelings she didn’t feel she could aim at her family. Because these women did have families, their families let this happen too. I’m in a privileged position here, this didn’t happen in my family. It could have though. My paternal grandmother gave birth to my uncle in the same home in Ireland that features in the film Philomena and what I remember from the book, is that her brother and father both refused to help her or take her back unless she gave up the baby for adoption. I’m not saying that overcoming the stigma of a baby out of marriage was easy but I keep coming back to the fact that that churches behaved badly because those women had been abandoned by their families. We can’t deflect from the wrong-doing of the churches, they, of all people, should have been more compassionate, but it wasn’t just them, it was families and neighbours and society that allowed this to happen and we do need to acknowledge that too.

Bashing romance novels is another form of slut shaming. I’d never thought of it that way but Sarah MacLean makes a persuasive argument.

‘Do not brand me a failure. I’m a survivor. All unhappily childless people are’ I’m struggling a bit with this piece. It’s not that I don’t get it, I would have loved children and it hurts when people say tactless things to me, I’ve written about it here and here but my problem is the tone of the article. I get the feeling that you couldn’t say anything to the author about children or childlessness that she wouldn’t be angry about, which is no way to live. Also, I’m not a ‘survivor’. Yes not having children is sometimes painful and sad but this kind of melodramatic language to talk about wanting children not getting what you wanted doesn’t help the cause of getting others to be a bit more sensitive. This isn’t at root about not having children it’s about a breakdown in the idea of society. If there is no such thing as society, only individuals and families, then somehow not making a family becomes less respectable. If we recognise that society needs ‘the village’ then being childless becomes another way of being…

Mark Steele on Toby Young’s stupid review of I, Daniel Blake.

How I built a life abroad, with banana bread. This is just lovely.

Are you an Anne Shirley or an Emily Starr? I’m probably an Aunt Elizabeth or Marilla but I love both of them.

The different stakes of male and female birth control. Well quite…

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Soup Season

Posted on November 3, 2016 by nicdempsey

So when I say I’ve not been cooking, what I generally mean is that I haven’t been cooking anything new. I’m still making myself something to eat every day, it’s just that right about now, as the nights are drawing in and the weather is getting chillier, my cooking takes a turn for comfortable and that means things I know how to cook that don’t require too much thought from me and are comforting and easy to eat.

Which is why I’ve been eating quite a bit of soup. Soup is such a forgiving food, it’s pretty easy to make and generally good for you.

The soup I’ve been eating the most this year is courgette and mint. Not really a surprise, given the embarrassment of courgettes the allotment supplied me with this year. The original recipe is Claire MacDonald and I can’t find it online to link to. Basically, take 2oz  butter and melt, add 2 chopped onions and fry for a bit until the onions are soft. Add 2lbs of diced courgettes and a big handful of mint leaves and cook for another couple of minutes. Add 2 pints of stock (recipe says chicken, I use what I have or veg stock), simmer until the courgettes are cooked. Blitz in the blender with another handful of mint leaves, add salt and pepper to taste.

These are my current favourites.

Spiced Chickpeaimg_5189-1

Lentil SoupDSCF2022

French Onion DSCF3330

The ugly but easy, tasty and good for you Freezer SoupOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

There’s also accidental soup, borlotti, pancetta and spring green soup, chicken enchilada soup and the every vegetable that’s left in the fridge soup.

 

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Allotment Adventures: Halloween Pumpkin Trail

Posted on November 2, 2016 by nicdempsey

The Halloween Pumpkin Trail was a success, we think we had about 2,000 people and we raised roughly £4,000. Plots were decorated, cakes, mulled wine, soup and hot dogs were sold and everyone seemed to be supportive of the allotments.

Here are some of my photos.img_5241 img_5249 img_5251 img_5254 img_5256 img_5258 img_5261 img_5263 img_5265 img_5270 img_5273 img_5278img_5281-1

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Food and Budget: 22/10 to 28/10/2016

Posted on November 1, 2016 by nicdempsey

Because my menu plan begins on Saturday, a lot of whether my food week is successful depends on how the weekend goes. Fortunately, I had a good weekend full of energy and enthusiasm for food, cooking and food prep! Also after a couple of conversations about my food budget, menu planning, cooking from scratch and ‘you can’t make healthy food with so little money’. I’m been instagraming my desk breakfasts and lunches. If you read these posts with any frequency, you’ll know that I tend to eat the same breakfast and lunch all week so they won’t happen very often but if you want to follow along, you can see them in the sidebar or follow me @nicdempsey

Generally, I thought this week was pretty good, until I looked at it as a total. Dinner was completely absent on two of five evenings. Whoops! Sometimes life goes that way and overall, it was pretty good, I wasn’t not eating because I was denying myself food, I wasn’t not eating, I just didn’t eat a sit down meal with vegetables. Must try harder on the vegetable front next week!

SHOPPING

img_5154img_5163Last week of the month, I do need lots of staples but there is a lot of food in house and the fridge so I just went for olives and produce in Sainsburys and Tesco for a total of £4.03

Not much coming off the allotment.img_5171but I was also given two patty pan squash by an allotment friend.

FOOD

Breakfast on Saturday was leftover pizza and dinner was a rice thing, this is based on the Chickpea and Spinach Rice Pilaf from Budget Bytes with some amendment and garlic flatbread.img_5172We also had plum crumble using the gin soaked plums from the plum gin.img_5174 Sunday breakfast was poached egg on toast.img_5177Dinner was lentil pasta bake and green beans, the pasta bake was leftover from one of last week’s dinners and green beans from the allotment that I froze in the summer.img_5183Back to work on Monday so food for the day was rhubarb compote, yoghurt and granola.Lunch was chickpea soup and a salad (pepper, carrot, cucumber, olives and quick pickled red onion)For dinner I re-heated the leftovers from Saturday night, mixed them up with one of the patty pan squashes and added a poached egg.img_5192On Tuesday breakfast was a black bean burger and cut up carrots.img_5194I’m trying to use what’s in the freezer and there were 3 of the burgers hanging around, so I made them into a basic sandwich with three of the rolls I made last week and some ketchup. Heated in the microwave for a minute when I get to work, they make a surprisingly good breakfast and will be going on the rotation because they can be made up and frozen for breakfast/lunch when meal planning fails!

Lunch was a repeat of Monday. Dinner was a baked potato with black bean and corn taco filling and a salad.

Breakfast on Wednesday wa s  a repeat of Tuesday. Lunch was supposed to be a repeat of Tuesday with a smaller potato, except I forgot the taco filling part of lunch so it was a baked potato with salad and this is why you should always bring a back up salad!img_5202I didn’t eat dinner on Wednesday, I left work with a headache that felt like the beginning of a migraine. I took one of the new tablets given to me by the doctor and spent £2.09 on a can of diet coke and a packet of treat size fudge bars. I drank the coke, ate 4 of the fudge bars and then drank a pint of water and took a sleeping pill. This stellar example of what I eat when I have a migraine coming on was followed by bed.

12-ish hours later it was Thursday and I felt better. Breakfast was the last of the breakfast rolls and lunch was a baked potato with the right topping and salad. I met Christelle and Mike on Thursday evening and we shared a bread and olive and a meat platter and two bottles of wine!

Friday was a work half day, breakfast was compote, yoghurt and granola and lunch was chickpea soup. Dinner was supposed to be pizza, however, I was really busy and dinner didn’t happen, I ate a treat size fudge bar and a courgette and chocolate muffin and that was it!

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Life Happened: Pumpkins Exploding Everywhere

Posted on October 31, 2016 by nicdempsey

Last Monday marked a year and a day since my osteotomy, so on Monday 24 October 2015, I started the day about 8.30am, by moving from my bed to my sofa via a wash and a change of pyjamas. Yes, my foot was a bit ouchy but I still think that that was nicer than having to get out of bed in the dark at 6:30am and go to work!img_5199Having said that, the beginning of the last week was the first time I felt well and woke up knowing that everything was perfectly organised in about two months. Having a happy, productive weekend really does lift my mood.

Monday to Friday passed without much incident, I met Christelle and Mike on Thursday evening for a catch up. The last day of the work week dawned brighter than usual and for some reason I woke up convinced that it was November. November 28 will mark my fifth anniversary at work, but it wasn’t the 28 November on Friday, I was having a senior moment!img_5225 and there was a work fire drill on Friday morning.img_5226Friday afternoon is when things got really busy. I made cake, did both food shopping and monthly ‘I just got paid shopping’ and laundry and house cleaning.On Saturday, I decorated my plot with Halloween things…
img_5273and oversaw the ‘yucky dip’ and then the cake stall for the Halloween Pumpkin Trail, it was an amazing day, we had so many visitors and it’s reassuring to know so many people love the site and value it even if they don’t have a plot or aren’t on the waiting list..

On Sunday, I woke up at 7am, it was actually 8am but like a small child, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I arsed about at home, housework, changing all the clocks, food prep, repairing the shelves in the bathroom that were coming off the walls and finally getting around to removing all of the wax from the candles on the fireplace, it’s all looking very clean and tidy…
A late lunch with Ma and a trip to the allotments to take down my halloween stuff and pick up my cool boxes and collect possibly the last three courgettes from the allotment and that was Sunday done and I was ready to start the week again.

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2016 Goal Update – October

Posted on October 29, 2016 by nicdempsey

It doesn’t matter how much I try, I still don’t like the slide into Autumn that happens in October. This year the month was marked with ‘the cough that wouldn’t die until we realised that it was asthma and I have to take drugs for it to get better’. I also got a new boiler, some time with the nephews and my act together. The later happening all in the last two weeks of the month, when I was sufficiently well enough to be really irritated by my lack of organisation!

FINANCE

No specific tasks, just staying on track and being mindful. I spent a fortune on prescriptions this month, I would have had a better month without the various trips to the chemist but I’m still within limits.

HOME

Chest of drawers clear out. The big clothes one in the bedroom and the little ‘junk’ drawers in the living room. They just need attending to and de-cluttering. I’m re-setting this one because it’s the work of a couple of evenings.  Done. I had help with the big clothes chest of drawers (thanks Ma!) and we also sorted out the boxes on top of the wardrobe and the wardrobe. Inspired, I also did the ones in the living room and the other drawers in the bedroom. So tidy…img_5182img_5178

Defrost the freezer. Planned for the weekend, so I’ll just get it done by the end of the month!

BODY AND MIND

Stretching. Every day  50% success rate with this, more towards the end of the month because I was more active and enthused about life and needed the stretch

Dealing with the cough. Done. It was asthma, there’s a lot I don’t know about this around how long I’m going to have to take the steroids and what sets it off. I have an appointment with the doctor on Monday to discuss but within two days of taking the preventative drugs, the wheezing and most of the coughing had stopped. So that I’m calling a win

ALLOTMENT

Burn one of the piles of weeds and organise the compost area (yes I have an area, it’s a mess!). It’s been too wet but it has to be done by the end of November! It’s just looking untidy now!

Get shallot sets and garlic bulbs for planting in October. We have planted some garlic but we need to do some more.  Done, they didn’t have shallots so we did 150 onions and another two garlic bulbs!

Get the rhubarb up and re-sited.

img_5164

Measure out the areas for shed  Done, weeded and covered in weed fabric.

Sow wildflowers. Not done yet but planned for the weekend!

Dig over the empty beds, plant green manure. Half done, at the bottom end they are dug over, weeded and covered with weed fabric. The old runner bean and cucumber beds have been dug over and weeded but will need doing again and I hope to get to the old tomato and courgette beds tomorrow, I don’t want to dig up the marigolds though because they are still flowering so I may leave them and just weed around them.

img_5168

Set up for Halloween Walk (lights, pumpkins, ghosts etc!). I’m doing it today as this post goes up!

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