New breadmaker, poorly dog & Easter holidays.

It's Tuesday and GH is back to work so it's just the kids, me and the animals.  We have had the loveliest time off together so far.  Sunday we went to Raby castle together and took Buddy (our black Labrador).  He really enjoyed it being out and we loved walking around the grounds and seeing the deer.  We didn't go to the castle itself as we didn't want to leave him in the car alone, plus it was cheaper not to.  We have been inside before though and really enjoyed it.

Beautiful.

4 out of 5 looking the right way!

Buddy's head with deer in the background.

Poor Buddy had a haematoma in his left ear though today.  It happened a couple of days ago and now the vets is open I'm heading over to see what we can do.  He's had one before and they do self heal but this has come back worse than the first and is causing him discomfort.  I'd like to find out the root cause which is why he's shaking his head which results in the haematoma.  We already know he has allergies but depending on what the allergy is (expensive to find out and requires a GA) there may be nothing we can do anyway.  So I'm going to find out and pick up his latest prescription of steroids (which he has to control the allergies).  Wish me luck.

In other news though, my lovely parents bought us a new bread maker for Easter and after a tester loaf, I now have one in for them as a thank you.  It'll be done in four hours so a late lunch maybe.? It's a Panasonic SD 2500 and looks great.  It will see us through our time in this house and hopefully beyond.  The first loaf turned out a bit light.  This was done on rapid bake for a large loaf.

 

Tonight I will post he pictures of GH's new adventure, he is doing great with it but I've just not had time to upload them yet.  For now I am off to the vets, then on with the great big spring clean, stables, tea and relax.

4 more sleeps until The Great Big Spring Clean and 10 days off work

We're on the countdown to the Great Big Spring clean!!  To me, that's 10 precious days off work with my family and animals.

Lots of cleaning, cooking, baking, time out, family time, organising, taking stock, selling, walking, riding, mucking out, hacking out and anything else we feel like adding.

A quick update as I need to go and menu plan.  My bread maker has given up the ghost so I'm gutted and I also didn't pass my exam, double gutted.  The third thing was I handed my notice in for the second job as I just can't keep it up.  They were fantastic about it and I'm sad to leave but glad I did.

Today made up for it though, we had a lovely family lunch courtesy of moi, slow cooker beef and all the trimmings followed by crumble and custard.  Seriously yum.  Then horses fed and dog walked and now we're both flaked out and the kids are in bed.  Losing an hour last night played havoc with them and they have been very short tempered all day but we did enjoy the lighter night whilst we had it.

Happy Sunday and have a lovely week ahead.

Goodbye February, Hello March

Spring is definitely in the air and it's lovely to feel.

Today I have been to the stables with my daughter and enjoyed seeing her ride her pony and a friend's pony too.  Following this we all went to the father in laws for a lovely Sunday lunch.  This afternoon has seen me take inspiration from notjustgreenfingers' blog and whip up some chocolate chip cookies, flapjacks and currently in the bread-maker is a dough to make rolls.  Following her advice I will slice them and freeze ready to make up for the packed lunches.  Great idea!

I've been making bread in the BM weekly now when we run out of shop bought.  At the moment, we rely on shop bought to see us through the beginning of the week and I top up with homemade.  Eventually I may get to homemade 100% of the time but for now I'm happy with the balance.

It struck me the other day how far we've come since our journey had it's initial, dim spark.  I say dim as it's taken me a long time to start living a more frugal lifestyle but the fact is, we've come so far.  We don't buy things that we don't need, we make do and mend, make the most of free activities and generally live a happy yet frugal lifestyle. 

So this coming week I have my meal plan done, shopped yesterday to get everything I need for it and have the treats made to fill up the lunch boxes and after tea requests.  I'm going to make some rice pudding later in the week.  I think I will use the slow cooker as I've never done rice pudding in the slow cooker before.  That will be or Friday's soup and pudding night.

Two years time we will have our house up for sale and the farm will be in our sights.