7 days & Counting....... Food Food Food, Happy Birthday Molly Moo!

Oooh getting excited & happier each day that passes! Can't wait to see my lovely husband again, it's been soooo long :-( Well true to form Nige thinks he can get everything into a small space quite comfortably, until the last minuet when he suddenly realises oh!!! So now he is looking for a trailer to buy in time to pack the overflow & be in Hastings by Sunday. I hope he manages it ok! Everything includes the kitchen sink hahaha. So Nigel has 2.5 days left of work then its, buy & collect trailer (hopefully), pack car & trailer, goodbye meals with children in Birmingham (ahhh), goodbye dinner with my family in Hastings then a day out with my mum then all being ok & ready its a three day trek across Europe to home sweet home! Busy busy time for him! Nigel works so hard & even here it seems there's never a day off for him, always something to do! I know everyone who lives in a Bulgarian village will know what I am talking about, even if your no longer renovating your property its a busy life. Winter is the quieter time out of all the year as it gets too cold or impossible to get out of the village so outside work stops, unless you have livestock.
Winter is a time of indoor renovating & cooking, I love the cooking so much but have put on soooo much weight this year its back to the slimming world philosophy & cook books to see what I can adapt! I need to get in my clothes next year &, more importantly, it's affecting my health!!!!!
I have been doing plenty of jam & chutney making the last few weeks. It's something I had never done before & I really love devising a new recipe & seeing if it works. I have had many disasters with my cherries made loads of batches of jam & everyone ended up in bin or dog, I give up!!! Major successes with the plums though but this was so nice that me who never eats jam has devoured 4 lg jars Oop's!!!!! still loads left & loads of jars of preserved plums too, lovely! I have made some Quince jam but not sure if it's any good I will let Nigel try it if he likes it fine if not I will chuck it & try chutney with it next season! Its all trial & error! I also unfortunately love baking cakes, oh dear, so out of lonliness & boredom I have been baking & eating, baking & eating, baking & eating. Nigel comes home to a freezer full of grape, apple & walnut cakes & various fruit filled muffins hahaha. There are also Soups Bob Chorba, Chili's & crumbles, I ran out of freezer space now just enough room for a few more cakes hahaha.

Success!!!! I have made cream!!!!! Well chuffed, I have been wanting to do it for yonks, I didn't realise just how easy it is, this was whipped too, Mmmm. So next step is to make clotted cream but I didn't want to chance ruining this as its been soooo long :D

It was my granddaughter Molly's 5th birthday yesterday, awe I miss the babes so much, they are growing so quick & I'm missing the best part of their little lives. It was wonderful to speak to her & my daughter Rhea, but sad too! Molly went ice skating & she says she was very good :-) She is also on half term so no school, now in my book that's a bonus but she doesn't yet know that haha. I sang happy birthday to her & she said thank you, oh dear, normally she giggles, but no, now she is a big girl :-(

Molly hasn't been here yet & it looks like it will be another couple of years before they can afford it, totally understandable but sad as she is starting to get a bit too old to really appreciate the ferial nature of village life for a little un, soon she will just be bored!







Well facebook is not working for me today so lots of housework & a rice pudding, problem is I have put my back out! Its a long on going problem I have had for years. The doctor told me exactly what it is but true to form I can't remember, doh, but its something I can get regularly or it can be years. Similarly it can be through doing too much or nothing at all. The only treatment is paracetamol & Ibuprophen mix & complete rest, for sometimes a day or months!!!!! Just have to let it do it's thing & hope I have stopped quickly enough, we will see!