THIS AND THAT

Here I am.....it's me-eeeeeeeeee! Did anyone wonder if I'd emigrated or something?

The first thing I want to tell you is that since the last week in April I have lost 16 lbs. I know that doesn't sound like much but it means the world to me! I would like to wave bye-bye to another 28lbs but that may be a bit over-ambitious. I'll aim for 14 and see how it goes. One of the reasons I wanted to lose some weight was to prove to myself that it could be done without going to the gym or taking vigorous walks. Because of my bone condition those things are not possible but on the other hand I didnt want to starve to death either. Some of you will know that I do like my food and a lettuce leaf and half a tomato WILL NOT DO! So there we are, with barely a finger lifted and food aplenty, I've made a start.
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Keith found a fiver (£5) a couple of weeks ago as we crossed the Church car park. Well now, if that had been me I would have handed it in somewhere. You never know, do you, maybe it belonged to someone who didn't have any more. He scoffed at the idea! "More likely somebody off to the shop for a packet of fags." Anyway, next day he was in the paper shop and bought a £5 Lotto with it. And on the Saturday it won! Well, sort of - £40. It was always our intention to go to one of the local village fetes on the Sunday and we did. I was instructed to leave my money at home, he would pay. When he's paying, specially with ill gotten gains, the least they could do is make it expensive! Nope - only £1 for the car park (on foot it was free) The fete was so very English. The Vicar in a straw hat minding his stall. A brass band playing. Strawberries. Candy floss. Ice Cream. Pony rides. Egg and spoon and sack races. Dog obedience display. A warm, sunny afternoon with just an occasional fluffy white cloud.


Of course, I just HAD to have some recipe books. I only bought 2 and they were only little old paper-back booklets from 1960's and 70's. What really interested me were the magazine and newspaper snippets and the barely legible handwritten recipes tucked in the books. Hundreds of them! So my new hobby is going to have to be scrapbooking them all. And the thousands of others that were left by my dear old surrogate grandma Helen.

I do love to let my imagination loose on handwritten recipes! I can just imagine the grey heads put together over church tea "Oh you must give me the recipe for your scones Edith if it's not a family secret dear." One recipe in particular - it's for Victoria Sandwich Cake - is scribbled on the back of a scrap of paper that somebody's husband has been using to work out his finances on. I bet he searched the house for that!

Keith is retiring at the end of October and is really looking forward t it. I'm not sure! He says he is going to start making beer in the garden shed. He hasn't thought this through. The contents of 'his' shed will have to disgorge onto the lawn again and he will begin the painful process - yet again - of journey after journey to the rubbish dump using whatever trailer he can beg from friends while his perfectly good (brand new) one sits unused at someone else's house! So that's just for a start. We have to fire the window cleaner because it's "pointless paying £3 a fortnight". He's going to do it himself. So he says.

AND - now remember I told you this - he says I can use the long service money he will get from the factory to buy a laptop. Huh? You heard it here! I never told you what he is having for his birthday in October. Picture this.....I swear it is what he wanted.....you know how some guys get 2 weeks in Bermuda or somewhere? He's having 3 nights in Blackpool to see the lights. Believe it or not we could almost have had a week somewhere warm for the price of that. Because of my wheelchair we have to stay in decent hotels with accessible rooms so that bumps the price up. No wonder English people don't take holidays in England is there? OK, that's it for now. Hope to be back sometime soon
XXX