To keep or not to keep?

We are having a difference of opinion in our house!

This is some of the boxes of stuff I have packed already and there are a lot more to come!

The pile at the front has three equal sized piles behind it......

I see this move as the perfect opportunity to only take what we need or love and shed a lot of the things that are simply and often mindlessly gathered over the years. Mr D however is not of this mind set. We seem to be battling over every single item including five (one broke) hideous plastic garden chairs bought almost 25 years ago!! Books he hasn't looked at for approximately 20 years are being taken because he likes the look of a shelf of books. Now I would love a library corner if we had the space, but we don't so I have passed on almost all of my books to the charity shop except gardening, craft, DIY and some cookery books. Our bookshelf will look rather one sided with a predominance of sporting autobiographies!
My eldest daughter, who's room is in the loft, has been doing a sterling job sorting though years (she is not far off 24 and she has three younger siblings) of memorabilia. She came up with the brilliant idea of photographing the more interesting items and will then make a photo collage on her laptop. I even suggested that we could make a memory photo book for each of our children. I am 100% convinced that they would rather be presented with a photo book than three plastic crates of tatty paintings and slightly battered paper mâché puppets when they move into their own homes!

Sadly I think we will still have a loft and cupboards full of stuff that won't be looked at for another 20+ years. I have done the best that I can despite constant resistance, but I am planning on having another sweep through when we get to the other end in the hope that a few more items might be donated to charity.

How do you all feel about stuff? I know I'm not particularly sentimental which helps. Mr D however doesn't even have a photograph of himself as a baby from his childhood, which I think adds to his need for keeping hold of stuff. Would you have sympathy for Mr D? He could do with some backup!

On another front, Jet seems to be turning a corner. He is having his stitches out this morning and is a bit brighter. Hopefully we may have found the correct antibiotic to nail the infection this time! When he stayed at the vets on Saturday, they didn't put him in a kennel. He was so quiet anyway that they brought him a blanket down to one of the treatment rooms and he lay there instead so he could have visitors and fuss occasionally :)
The cat however disgraced himself again by peeing in the ensuite so he is very much on his last warning!

Proper poorly

Thank you for all the lovely comments yesterday. It's going to be great to share the excitement with you all :) 

Beachcomber kindly asked how Jet was. Unfortunately he isn't too good at the moment. He had his second elbow op about a month ago. The op went well, but he then developed an infection in the wound. He was then put on a course of antibiotics, but the wound wouldn't close back up again so they had to debride it (scrape it out to expose new tissue) and restitch it. We were then on our second lot of antibiotics. The wound has healed nicely now - just waiting to take the stitches out on Monday. However, he still has some issue in the muscle below the elbow joint. They gave him another longer term dose of antibiotics, but 48 hours later, the leg is no better and he is being sick and is lethargic with a temperature. Back to the vets AGAIN! They are keeping him in today to monitor him and try him on much stronger antibiotics. The poor soul is such a stoical dog - never complains, always tries to wag his tale. He still pulls to go into the vet despite them thrusting thermometers up his bottom (he almost sat down whilst it was up there on one occasion!) and poking and prodding him every time. 

We specifically had the op done so he would be well recovered by the time we move, but he's not been able to make much progress with this nasty infection. Let's just hope that over the next three weeks we can get on top of the infection so he can start walking and physio in earnest. 

Meanwhile one of the cats decided to pee on my duvet for the first (and last hopefully!) time. I have no idea why he thought that was an appropriate thing to do, but I was not amused. I had to drag my huge feather duvet down to the bath and try to shower and shampoo the affected area. Of course we haven't exactly had the right weather to get it dry either. Perhaps he senses something is going on? Mind you he might not need to bother because if he does it again I might carry through with my threat to leave him behind!! (Only joking) 

Some of the chickens seem to have developed alopecia and are shedding feathers by the bucket load. I can't quite decide if it's mites or if one of them is yanking them out. Maggie doesn't seem to be affected at all, so perhaps she is secretly making all the other ladies look ugly? 

I think we are all looking forward to a fresh start!  

We have exchanged!

At long last, we have, today, exchanged on the house in Shropshire. I am so relieved to finally have some certainty. The present owners haven't managed to exchange on the house they are buying yet, so may have to move in with family in the meantime, but they knew we wanted to move out of ours and in to their's simultaneously, so have 'broken the chain'.
I now feel I can share some photos of the house. I didn't want to jinx anything before. I can also truly start to get excited :)
So here, for your delectation, are some photos of the garden and house we will spend the next stage of our lives in.

Front of the house from the garden

Looking down the main section of the garden

To the side of the garden is a stream, pond, chicken coop, small barn, greenhouse and small vegetable garden 

The main lounge 

The other lounge, which we will use as a snug and music room 

The 26ft kitchen/dining  room 

The utility room 

The view over the garden towards our field from one of the front bedrooms 

Thank you so much to all of you who have patiently stuck with my little blog through this rather dull time. I am very much looking forward to sharing some of my excitement with you all in the coming months.....for now, I will continue packing :( 

It's been a long time...

... Since I last did any drawing or painting. I used to quite enjoy it in my teenage years and have doned  few small paintings for family members as gifts over the years, but I haven't sat down and put brush to paper for simply ages so I thought I would break the fast, as it were.
I used watercolour pencils (borrowed from my daughter) as it was quite fine work and my eyesight is not what it was. Once the picture was completed, I used a fine brush dipped in water to soften it all together.

Not too bad for a first attempt in a long old while. I might try a robin next?

We collected Jet from the vets yesterday. He has had his second op which went very well. He is now lying on my feet with the cone of shame on his head feeling very morose! I suspect I may be glued to this seat most of the day. Mr D was meant to be off today and tomorrow so we could share the babysitting duties, but he was offered an extra 2 days of work. We could hardly say no considering the scary vet bill we have just paid! The vets have been good at keeping it to a minimum, knowing we were paying direct this time (last time the insurance paid for most of it), but the veterinary hospital  seem to like spending our money willy nilly- they gave Jet pain relief which costs £120 for a few drops on then back of his neck! As our vet said, it's good stuff BUT there are many other far cheaper options, so she took that off our bill and will fight it with the hospital direct. She also took an extra 10% off as we are regular customers. It all helped but it was still over £3000. Hey ho, we have a titanium filled bionic dog now :)

Terrible photo but the light is so grey :( 

I had a day of phone calls yesterday! It was my volunteering day, so it's the only point in the week where I have 2 hours when I absolutely DO NOT look at my phone. I had 8 missed calls, two voice mail messages and two texts. I don't normally get that in a week. I then realised my emails weren't working. I tried BT but (as many of you will know), they were more chocolate teapot than help. I still cannot get on to my emails this morning despite being told I would be able to log on after the 12 hour suspension. It's bloody inconvenient with all the solicitors using email to communicate.
I think we exchanged on my Mums house and our house sale yesterday...I would know for sure if I could get to my emails...BIG SIGH.
We are no further with our purchase though. This is going to take some heavy pushing on my part. We get paperwork sent through from their solicitors that is partially complete, some that is not compliant with what we need and some that is incorrect full stop and it all seems to take forever. This could take a while, but if it doesn't tie in, it won't be for want of me trying. One question for those of you with more rural properties.....did any of you have restrictive covenants on the property and if so have they been an issue? There are some with this property which I don't think should worry us, but is a new thing for us - semis in suburbia don't often have covenants attached.

Tuna crisp crumble

Another non vegan, non GF recipe I'm afraid, although it could easily be adapted to be GF at least.
This is a store cupboard fallback meal which my mum used to make quite regularly. You could use tinned salmon instead of the tuna.

To serve two:-
1 tin tuna, drained and flaked into small chunks
1 tin condensed tomato soup (I couldn't find any, so had to use normal tomato soup - runnier end result but same taste)
1 cupful of frozen peas

Place the above into a shallow oven proof bowl

3 tbsps flour (any will do)
1 tbsp butter
3 small pkts ready salted crisps, crushed whilst in their packets.

Rub the butter into the flour as you would for a crumble. When it resembles crumbs, stir in the crushed crisps and a good grind of black pepper. No salt needed of course due to crisp. Use this mixture to sprinkle over the top of the tuna mixture.

Place in a hot oven (200c) for approximately 30 mins until golden brown and bubbling.
Serve with salad and crunchy French bread .... Well that's how I serve it! I guess it would also be nice with green beans or stir fried courgettes..

It's such an easy recipe and doubles or triples easily if you're feeding more. One note of warning though - it is BURNING hot when it comes to out of the oven and stays that way for quite a while.

Easy Saturday tea and miracle worker

House stuff still trundling... Slowly. What a dreadfully tedious process the whole thing is!

Meanwhile, life also continues inexorably onwards. ....

I don't know about you, but we tend to have an easy tea on a Saturday evening. Saturday's are often a day where we catch up with errands, so we are out and about, so a quick tea is in order.
We used to have 'sandwich tea' pretty much every Saturday, which is terrifying considering my eldest daughter was being exposed to all that gluten every week! Yikes.
This recipe is a deviation from my norm as it is neither vegan nor gluten free (well it could be GF if you used GF pitta breads), but it is extremely easy and quick to prepare, so I thought I'd share it anyway.

Coriander chicken, hoummous pitta pockets

Chicken breast cut into small strips
1 tsp each of ground cumin, ground coriander and turmeric
Juice of 2 lemons
The finely chopped stalks of a small bunch of fresh coriander

Marinate the chicken strips in the above ingredients either overnight or for a couple of hours depending on when you realise you have no chicken in the house!

Mix hoummous (either home made or shop bought) with some natural yoghurt to thin.

Chop the coriander leaves and mix with other salad leaves - whatever you have to hand.

Fry the chicken strips in a little oil to cook. They need to be still tender but cooked through. Serve the chicken with a good dollop of the hoummous mix and pitta breads

Delicious :)

On another note, my brother and his wife went down to Mums house this weekend to sort out the garden. I had dealt with the house, so he was charged with getting the garden back under control before handing the house over on 22 June (fingers crossed). He has worked an absolute miracle on it. Here are the before and after photos. Bear in mind he arrived Friday morning and took the after photos on Saturday evening - when he gets going he works like a thing possessed :) He has been known to be banging fence posts in in the dark with just the light from a head torch to help....

Before rear garden 

Before rear garden 

Before front garden 

After front garden 

After rear garden 

Sad as I am to be letting go of the home I loved  most during my childhood and young adult years and the home I  got married from and brought all my children to on 'holiday', I will also be very relieved that it is no longer my responsibility. 

Inching forwards

Firstly, a warm welcome to Michelle - a new follower (and sister-in-law to a good friend). Hopefully you'll overlook the fact that you have joined at a rather sparse moment :)

Quick update on house situation.
Mum's house is proceeding well and they hope to move in on 20 June. My brother is going down this weekend to attack the garden and get it into a more presentable state and then bring back the last few bits from the house. I have then organised for a house clearance company to deal with the rest and then may ask my mums old cleaner to pop by for a quick wipe round.
It's been a year since my Mum died this Thursday. I can hardly believe that a whole twelve months has passed by. It's a funny thing grief. Most of the time now, I recall the funny bits and enjoy remembering back to some of the more ridiculous sides of my mother's behaviour (she wasn't easy!) with humour and fondness. As the anniversary approaches though, I feel greater sadness at missing her and the fact that she isn't here to share my news. Then, I realise that she wouldn't have been able to process any of my news anyway without it getting all confused and muddled and probably instilling panic. All in all, as harsh as it may sound, we are probably all better off with the situation as it is. I still miss the Mum she was though :(

Our house sale is also proceeding and contracts have been signed now. They are hoping to move in here early August... We have started a more earnest clear out of sheds and loft, but the main house packing will have to wait a while yet. We have had a few quotes for removals firms, but I have to say none of them inspired me much. Also why do they all talk so much?!! For heaven's sake, I don't want to know your life history, I just want you to look round, work out how big a lorry we need and tell me how much it will cost. If you have any recommendations of national firms, feel free to let me know!

Finally today (6/7 weeks after we made the offer) we have had the initial paperwork for the house we are hoping to buy. There are a few niggles and queries, but I finally have a sense that it might actually happen. I know the sellers have had an offer accepted on a house, so they might be a bit keener to move now. I have my secret 'assassin' in situ to drop subliminal messages to the present owners about moving out early August - my sister-in-law has got to know them, so is a good ally to have on the ground :)

In other news, Jet is going in for his second op on the other elbow on 14 June. We hate having to do it because he has recovered so well from the previous op and is the happiest and fittest we have seen him, BUT he needs it doing or he will have terrible issues later in life and this way he will be mostly recovered enough to enjoy his 3 acre playing field!
We took our male cat to the vets on Saturday. He's a feisty customer and took a great chunk out of Mr D's wrist when we put him in the cat carrier. We warned the vet...ha! For her he was sweetness and light, allowing her to do anything whilst he purred sweetly at her. He even hopped back into the carrier all by himself when she'd finished! Fickle or what?

Anyhow that's it for now. Nothing to write home about and no lovely pictures, but I will make it up to you soon. Thanks for continuing to pop by and leaving nice comments - I appreciate it :)