Bath day!

What an amazing day we have had. It was bath day for the pony and he was super good. I'm very impressed. He also popped a little jump without any fuss for Dd so he is in the good books today. We spent all day at the yard and today will be one for the memory books.

We came home and the kids visited grandparents for an hour whilst GH and I set about getting his car warning light sorted. All fixed now for the decent cost of £10.

I've just made a quick but tasty tea of pasta with tuna, leek, sweetcorn, garlic and mushrooms. It was really tasty and cheap so a great combination.

The great big spring clean is coming along slowly though I think we will need to break it down into more chunks as the house is too big to tackle on a sunny week off. I've still got an inventory of the pantry, fridge and freezer to do. Then tomorrow I'll shop at aldi for a small top up as we've ran out of cordial and dishwasher tablets.

It's a bit chilly tonight so instead of putting the heating on GH has put the woodburner and it's lovely.

End of the first quarter of 2015

Hello dear readers (if there are any).

Well bad news out of the way first.  I failed the exam that I took on Friday.  I needed 700 and got 609.  I'm lucky enough to be able to resit it and in my own time frame so I'm going to do that around September mark which leaves me 5 months after holidays which should be enough time.  I know what to expect now.

In excellent news though, my lovely parents have bought us (well me) a new bread maker for Easter.  It's a Panasonic which was reviewed to be the best by MSE users.

I've got a huge list ready for the great big spring clean and will try to transfer it over to the website tonight if I get time.

GH has taken up a fantastic new addition to his love of wood hobby.  More to come with pictures soon.

Tomorrow and Thursday are work days for me then I'm off from Friday so I've got a few things to pack into work before I finish then I can concentrate on the great big spring clean.  I can't wait!

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.

A frosty start to March

There was a coating of frost everywhere this morning, with some local reports of snow but I didn't see any.  Now I do love snow at Christmas time but once January and February are done, I'm looking forward to Spring.  New shoot, new grass and a healthier glow.

Today my son is off school poorly so I'm working from home in between looking after him.  We are going to have the home made bread rolls for lunch which I must say look fabulous.  The test will be in the taste later today so I shall report back.  For now this is what they looked like when being made then after baking.

Not bad for a first attempt?

The cookies are going a bit too quickly so I've stashed them away - if they are not on display then they should last the expected 3 days.  Flapjacks are the same too.

Shopping came to £35 on Saturday from Aldi and that should last us for the week.  Tonight is chicken and pasta and tomorrow chicken in the slow cooker.  I have a budget of £150 for the month which allows me to make overpayments to the loan and keep the date planned to make the last payment.

I have decided to do a huge Spring clean when I am off work over Easter.  This is going to be a mini project and will be update regularly on the blog.  There are two reasons for this Spring clean, one because it's desperately needed as the house is grubby from the winter and two to de-clutter in preparation for the big move.  There will be another round of de-cluttering too but this is the big push.  So plans are a foot for the great spring clean.

GH has been partaking in a project at the bottom of the garden too, for the same reason of being ready to sell.  We have chickens and their shed has seen better days so we are getting rid of it and moving them into the other shed we have.  We'll have a little move around and get it looking better for when the time comes.  We need to turf and things so I shall post before and after shots in the coming days/weeks.

Happy Monday :)