A Kick up the Backside

I finally got a kick up the backside and some motivation to update my part in the blogging world. I was rather suprised to be honest. I knew i had a handful of followers but it seems the numbers are gathering! Juliet left a comment on my previous post asking me what she could do to get my motivation back so she could catch upon my news. Thank you Juliet, i am really touched. Things have picked up slightly but the depression cloud it still hanging around and swamping life. However, i'd kind of expect that during the festive season. It never seems to be a happy time these days, and we always debate what we're going to do.

There was the idea thrown around about going away somewhere to try and escape the festivities, but we came to the conclusion that you can't avoid it - afterall the shops start Christmas in October! Plus it was a case of we can hide at home and watch TV/play board games or pay to stay in a cottage somewhere and watch the TV/play board games. Needless to say we are staying put although you'd never know it was Christmas other than the cards which are stapled to ribbons hanging on one door of the lounge. I'm not sure how tomorrow will progress but we bought some new Trivial Pursuit cards to keep us entertained when the TV gets truely dreadful.

So what have i been up to since my last post, a shocking 20 days ago? Well from my photos it looks like baking bread and not much else! Time to add some photos and then write around them (reminds me what i want to say and formats easier that way too).

So starting with the bread. i've made about 6 loaves so far, today is the 7th and i think i've finally got the flour and water just about right so the bread turns out at a density we all like.

1st - Spelt. I love the flavour of spelt but using a recipe from the Doves flour website created a loaf that was very dense and a little difficult to digest.

2nd - 100% spelt again but this time i used more water. Again lovely flavour but the crumb was still far too dense for us.

3rd - 80:20 wholemeal:white. I think this was 300ml water. Nice loaf, ok crumb but i wasn't sure if it was light enough.

4th: same flour ratio but 400ml too water....hmmm a bit too holey!

This loaf had 350ml - Just right!

So there we are, i'm a baker too now. There's a book i want to get, it's not too expensive but i've seen it cheaper on ebay a couple of times. Only trouble is both times i've meant to log on at the ending time and i've been distracted and forgotten! However i got a book voucher through the post the other day, so i guess i have the funds now.

I was sitting on the sofa the other day when i heard the familiar thud of, as we call it, a bird splat. Fortunately Little Robin didn't fly at the patio doors as the female blackbird did a few weeks ago. It wasn't such a happy ending for her, although i don't think she would have known much about it.

He was a little stunned though and wasn't bothered by me just the other side of the glass. I started to think i might have to go and get him until he warmed up and came round but as i opened the back door he flew away.

As with the past couple of years, for the festive season once again, we have created a hamper for my grandparents with various homemade items included.

Mum had mentioned previously that she fancied some sloe gin, so once i'd finally found a decent crop of sloes, we got some gin and created magic! But we had a few to many sloes it turned out so we made some more. So thats 2 bottles for mum.

And a personalised one for the hamper.

D had a meeting/party to go to where normally everyone takes a little something for their buffet lunch. A great excuse for me to bake!! Especially with my new found interest in yeast

So i got creative with these flavoured rolls. The flavours were slightly adapted however due to what i had in stock.

Sundried Tomato

Green Olive (which were also stuffed with pimentos)
And onion (from the garden) and rehydrated porcini mushrooms.
Mum kept one for her lunch - and so i could get a shot of the inside of the roll, which turned out to be soft and light. As for the rest of them? who knows..... they went with D to his party and they didn't come back, although by the sounds of it they had so much food the host is probably still eating them!

I haven't really done anything in the garden. I'm not go with even remotely cold weather so the only times i've been out there is when i want to harvest something.
There's still parsnips, carrots, red cabbage, white cabbage, chard and a few tiny onions. Mum's requested a red cabbage for tomorrow, so i've left a larger one out there for her.

More items for the hamper now. I picked up this idea on Martin's Money Saving Forums (the link should be in the side menu). Something personal for Nan this time.

So easy (well almost) and yet impressive. I wanted little chocolate rounds so i decided to melt the chocolate in the silicone muffin moulds. Also by melting the squares in the microwave already in the moulds saved the agro of pouring melted chocolate - less waste too. whilst it was still molten i topped them with chopped crystalised ginger.
One thing to bare (is it bear or bare?) in mind though is that different chocolates have different melting points. For the mix i had to heat the white in one half for a little first then put the dark square in the other half and finish them together. You learn from your mistakes.

At the beginning of December mum and i went to Bremen on a day trip to experience a continental festive market. We left home at 6.15am, the flight was scheduled for 7.40am and we evenually arrived in Bremen at about 10.30am.
The journey from Bremen airport to the town centre was so straight forwards, a tram journey lasting 10 minutes. It was certainly chilly, i think the forecast was saying not about 3 degrees celcius...brrrrr!

Mum sampled the gluhwein in the morning and whilst we were having that drink mid morning she was watching what else was being served and decided that the afternoon's drink was going to be eggnog, although when it came to that her verdict was too sweet and perhaps a little too alcohfrolic!

Lunch was soup (cabbage, carrot and smoked sausage broth style for me and goulash for mum) to warm us up. We picked up a decoration, that is now sat on the kitchen window sill...... A hearted shaped "Frohe Weinachten" iced lebkuchen cookie as a novelty item for the hamper. Some speck and salami for grandpa for the hamper. And finally i too a step out of my comfort zone and got a small Bretzel (german pretzel/bread) to keep me going for the journey home. Which again was without any major hitches, so we were home by 9pm. It was nice to be back where is wasn't attempting to snow, that was a bit too cold for me as it was more like sleet than snow.

Now for the final part of the mini cakes for the hamper. Roughly based in this recipe.

Why is it cake mix tastes so yummy? The cakes themselves didn't bad either once cooked!

I had plenty spare so i took one into town with me, complete with a carefully positioned sticker with my contact details (hint hint!!) but i think he was in so much of a hurry to eat the cake, the sticker may have been missed sadly. Perhaps i have to be less subtle next time, if indeed i do try again....

Anyway i placed a round of marzipan and a round of icing on top secured with marmalade and topped with some clementine slices that i dried in the oven and some dried cranberries.

The board are coasters from sainsburys and with a little red ribbon round the middle i think they look quite cute.

So that's one each for the hamper and an extra one for one of their friends who will be having a stressful time alone attempting to cope with her husband and his dementia and alzeihmers over Christmas. One small problem right now is the icing - made the mistake of putting them in a tin overnight - having now learnt that this make them sweat and the moisture from the cake (of which there is a lot! they don't need feeding) is taken up by the icing. So i can't put the cellophane round them right now as it just sticks to the sides.

And finally something i've been wanting to try for a while - Carp. A traditional festive Czech meal, tescos (and waitrose i have since noticed) have been selling them in the run up to the 25th. Rather expensive at £10/kg, but half price off, so £5/kg at tescos (£8.99/kg waitrose) meant this monster cost almost £10, which i gutted then baked whole and we shared it between the 3 of us. Lovely unique flavour and i think the moisted fish i've ever tasted. Worth trying but i can see due the cost why it would be the special one off festive meal!

Seems as well as a baker, i'm a fishmonger too now! Especially with my efforts at Salmon filleting below.

Anyhow, i hope that will keep you going to a bit Juliet! Who knows what the next few weeks holds, i don't really have any plans, but i'm sure it will include more bread in these credit crunch times.

I'm off to meet mum from work now and hopefully find some lunch in a pub somewhere and later i've decided i want to do the crazy Tescos closing time bargin fight. nothing better than a supermarket scuffle!

Hastings Seafood Festival and Happy 1st Birthday Blog!

Well, amazingly it's a year since i started this blogger blog which means that my little laptop is a year old too. So here's a nice cheerful post to celebrate with.

It was the Hastings Seafood Festival on the 20/21st September and after attending last year i quite fancied going again. Last year the sun was shining, there was no breeze and the place was buzzing. There were restaurant doing sample dishes, mini portions so to speak. I think my favourite last year was a cuttlefish risotto cooked using the ink.

There was nothing else i fancied on offer in the way of hot food so i wandered along to the fish huts where one of the fishmongers was selling cold fish/shellfish. Last year i finished lunch by having some smoked eel and crevettes (oh and a glass of Pimms!)

I sat on a bench round the back of the fish huts soaking up the sea air, being watched by some greedy gulls.

This year mum mentioned she would come with me, and then D decided he'd come as well. So we all set off on the Sunday, travel was fine until we hit the part of the A21 where it narrows down to single carriageway, but the Sun was shining and we still made it there by about 12.30pm. The number of stalls and the size of the festival seemed to have almost doubled since last year, with the crafts stalls and produce stalls in a separate area to where the restaurants and catering stall were. The number of people seemed to have grown in proportion with the size of the festival. As by the time we'd walked from the multi-storey carpark, it was lunch time we decided to find some food for lunch first, so wandered around the catering area. The restaurant that did the risotto last year, had sadly sold out of their only squid dish already, so D and i had a beautiful King Scallop each, complete with the coral i'm pleased to say, while mum had a little boat of battered/breadcrumbed whitebait.

After walking round the rest of the stalls to have a quick look, i couldn't see anything i faniced. Not for lack of choice - there was a fish dish of every type; Indian, Japanese, African, French, BBQ, In a bun, on a Kebab skewer, soups..... But for me the plain cold seafood like i had last year was more appealing, so we walked on to the fish hunts where once again they were selling cold and unadulterated seafood. Mum and D decided they didn't really fancy anything there, so walked back to the main market and got a devilled mackeral each. They then came back to meet me on the bench where i sat last year, however it was in the shaddow of the fishhut so i suggested moving into the sun as there was a bit of a breeze which made the shade a bit too cool to be sitting still in, so we wandered down onto the beach which was busier than i thought it would be.

So we settled on the beach and tucked in. I had chosen a small dressed crab and some crevettes. They were selling the crabs on plates with a slice of lemon and piece of bread for £6 which i though was a little too much, so i decided to look inside the fishmongers at their produce counter. Inside they were selling similar dressed crabs wraped in clear film, the smallest for £4.20 which wasn't too much smaller than the ones they were selling on their catering stall, so it made sense to get one from there as i already had a piece of bread and lemon and a plate from buying the crevettes.

However i was feeling under a little pressure to hurry up and finish my lunch towards the end....not from mum or D......but i had someone else watching over my shoulder, just in case i should decide i couldn't finish my food.....

I don't know why but it didn't seem as exciting as last year, maybe last year it was because it was a spur of the moment thing and a lone adventure that i took on my own. It was still a lovely day though, nothing beats seafood in my books for a meal during lovely day out.

200th Post!! - A Special Day Out

I wanted my 200th post to be about something cheerful, meaningful and special (so I'll catch up with the stories of my tomato troubles later!) and what could be more fitting than a little report on my day out in London with my Nan.

There must be something about when i meet Nan in London that causes bad weather. When i took her to a recording of Ready Steady Cook in January 2007 there were severe gales, so severe that roofs were lifted off and trees blown down in London which of course meant trains very badly delayed back to the south coast. But that wasn't all bad i guess as it meant we had dinner together at Yo Sushi too at Victoria Station while we were waiting for them to start running the trains again. Then when Mum and I met with her and we went to see a musical, i think it was The Sound of Music, earlier this year, it snowed, hailed etc etc and when Nan got back down south she didn't recognise Grandpa's car due the snow that was covering it!!

So of course we almost weren't surprised by the forecast that started appearing at the beginning of the week. By the time i got on at the end of the Central Line the rain had started.

However one on the tube i knew that i wouldn't be seeing daylight for a while, as when i got to Victoria it was straight into the National Rail area and from there we went back down onto the tube and didn't resurface until we reached London Bridge. First stop? Borough Market!!

(I had a little play in photo shop!)

I spotted some yellow and purple carrots, which were £3.20 per kilo. I'd actually brought some of mine for Nan to take home with her - but seeing that price made me wonder how much I've saved by growing my own, perhaps i should do what grandpa used to do and weight every single carrot i get out of the garden to get a total weight (he used to do it with tomatoes and count his cucumbers apparently!).
A few other wonderful sights included some Indian Fresh Water Prawns, although no doubt it's a bit like crayfish - all you get is a little meat out then tail!

And a huge Puffball which had been cut in half and into more chunks.

We reached the market just after 12 so although it had just opened it was quite busy as the first wave of office workers on lunch breaks had descended to get their lunch. But we wondered around for about 45 minutes before heading out in the rain and across the road to Slug and Lettuce for lunch. After a noisy (again due to lunch break office workers i think) lunch of a tomato and mozzarella salad each we headed back to finish looking around the market. I also too Nan into Neal's Yard Dairy. She loved seeing all the cheeses and found some Strathdon Blue that she thought Grandpa would like (wow, it was strong!) and half a small round of Childwickbury which i took home half of and she took the other half (a quarter of a round each basically).

From there we headed to Covent Garden, as that's also the nearest tube to where the restaurant is. I was also hoping that the string quartet that often busk down in the lower section outside The Crusting Pipe. We had a wander around the market then headed downstairs for a drink. when we got there i passed a girl going in the opposite direction with a cello case on her back - bad sign! We got a table outside anyway and it gave us a chance to chat and for me to show her some photos and tell her about the Countess of Warwick show etc.

By the time we'd finished our drinks there was still an hour to go before the table was booked for at Belgo and i knew it would only take us 10 minutes max to get there. So as it wasn't raining i suggested just taking a wander up round Covent Garden, showing her the other branch or Neal's Yard Dairy and the colourful Neal's Yard itself. Before i realised it we were at Shaftsbury Avenue and when i looked down the road i could see the lanterns of the entrance to China Town. So we walked on down and took a stroll through there, stopping at Loon Fung, one of the biggest shops there where i spotted a Thai Mango, something i hadn't tried (which tasted completely different to a normal, more common Mango and wasn't to my taste!) and as we were walking through to pay, Nan spotted some pig's hearts. I think that's kind of a generational thing and meal but she said she'd stuff them with a sage stuffing for dinner on the next night. Each to their own - offal is certainly not my thing!

By this time it was about time to start heading to the restaurant and we were only about 10 minutes early in the end. To my amusement and Nan's too i think, we were taken downstairs in the lift! I didn't even know they had a lift!! I told Nan what i was planning to orderand she said that sounded nice so we ordered to portions of Mussels Provencale, requesting bread instead of chips.

I think alot of the way a meal taste has to do with the atmosphere, the company you're in as well as the cooking of the food and the produce used. The mussels tasted even better than they norally do there, they were large, plump and cooked to perfection, in a lovely tomato, onion and garlic sauce, with a touch of paprika or something slightly spicy, which although was stronger than normal did not detract from the dish at all.

After a bit (ok, a lot) more talking it was time to head back to Victoria to put Nan on a train home. We were going to be pushed to get the 8.06pm but thought we'd try (her train goes every half hour) anyway - she was the last person on and the doors literally closed behind her! But she made it and i felt happy knowing she wouldn't be home too late, and grandpa wouldn't be too late in collecting her from the station. From the message she left on the home phone, she got back at about 9.30pm, by which time i had reached Epping and was walking the 10 minute walk up the hill, back to the car in the steady rain. But driving home the rain was torrential! I was comtemplating just pulling over until it eased off, however its a good job i didn't otherwise i could have been stopped there for a long time! After a long day i made it home at 10pm and despite the weather i wouldn't have changed anything about it at all, and it made me realise i've go to get over my intimidation of my grandfather and see them more often.

The End of the Alphabet

The Great Big Veg Challenge have reached then end of the alphabet and have released a book to celebrate. Ok, so i'm not a mother looking to try and get a child eating vegetables, but i do eat a lot of them myself. Plus, with all the veg in the garden (and now the beans from a neighbour which i am looking after whilst they are away for a bit) i am always after new inspiration.

Also, i just had to have the book, as i had been following their alphabet journey from quite early on in the alphabet on my RSS feed.

The book is wonderful, it has so many funny little stories to go with each vegetable.

To celebrate the book and the end Charlotte was asking for people to email vegetable faces in, as a little competition. So here's my entry:

I wanted to use as much from the garden as i could, so the hair (green beans and rocket), eye brows (sugar snaps) and nose (broccoli) are from the garden.

However, the ears (potatoes), mouth (red pepper) and eyes (mushrooms and olives) are not. i was going to use my few blueberries for the centre of the eye but they are fruit rather than vegetables. But i'm sure you could debate whether many of the others the are "true" vegetables. I always thought a vegetable was something that grew underground, like a carrot, and a fruit was over ground, so technically cauliflower and cabbage would be fruit. Who knows!

Essex PYO Farms - 3 Reviews

I love the summer and the growing season, giving love and attention to my little plants which grow into big plants. Then in return for my nurturing they give me back some wonderful produce which has no comparison to that from the supermarket.

After watching Jimmy's Farming Heroes and seeing his visit to the Pea farm in East Anglia i realised why my sugar snaps taste so much sweeter than those bought from a shop, not just a supermarket but markets and farm shops too. The Pea Co-opperative (a group of farmers who all work together for the harvest) have just 2 hours to pick, shell, wash, blanch and freeze their peas to keep the flavour and also the vitamins to a high enough standard. When i buy sugar snaps from a shop, who know how long they've been there yet last night i picked my peas at about 6.30pm, steamed them for literally a minute as i like them very crisp, about 7pm and had finished eating them by 7.30pm! You can get fresher than that.

However with limited space in the garden, which is pushed to the limits as it is, there are certain things i don't have room for and certain crops that you need a fair amount of plants in order to get a decent yield and crop. With soft fruit and sweetcorn being the main 2 of these, this is where PYO farms play a key role in food freshness for me (and potatoes too but i don't know a PYO that does potatoes!)

I'm lucky enough to have a PYO within 10 minutes driving distance from me, and having visited 2 others in essex i've realised how good my local farm really is, so i'll save the best review until last! The other 2 i've visited are both about a 40 minute drive however they had different fruit that i wanted to try. The 3 Farms are Cammas Hall Fruit Farm, Grace's Farm Shop (brief details here) and Lathcoat's Farm.
Lathcoat's - from their website i could see that this farm was fairly large, with a farm shop on the site too. When i eventually found the place, after giving myself a tour of the out skirts of chelmsford (it is easy to find i just forgot to print the map). They had a blackboard by the little hut which had details of what was currently ripe, or too ripe and how much was left and which patch to pick. When i went, in season were strawberries, raspberries, there were a few redcurrants, the gooseberries were extremely ripe (too ripe for my taste), the boysenberries were starting to ripen, as were the blackcurrants and the first line of plum trees were ready and finally the cherries were pretty much finished.

I was looking for the boysenberries, as i hadn't tried them before, but decided to pick up some plums for mum, as i know she loves them, and some strawberries to keep me going on the long journey home.....

After looking at their map, i set off in search and managed to find what i was looking for quite easily. The boysenberries didn't really wow me, but then thats not the farm's fault - that's just my expectations! What i was amazed at thought was the amount of fruit ripe and ready for picking but not only that the amount that was going to waste. There just seemed to be a distinct lack of organisation and timing. All the varieties of strawberries were ripe at the same time and there seemed to be no rules as to where you should specifically pick. The strawberries were on tables which normally means that they don't go as moudly as when they are on the floor because the ripening berries can hang over the sides. However here there were so many ripe strawberries there were more than people could pick. They also didn't appear to have a team of pickers here to pick for the farm to then sell on to shops and businesses.

They also do a rent-a-tree scheme here with 4 apple varieties but even tho they guarentee you a quantity, there's no guarentee over the quality....

Overall verdict - Too much fruit and not enough people to pick it. Prices were reasonable but seeing all the moudly fruit made feel a little sad that there was so much waste.

Grace's Fruit Farm - turns out they only have 4 fruits for PYO here although they sell more in the shop but you can't PYO. Fruits available for PYO are strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and loganberries. I went here to try loganberries, and although i could certainly taste a different flavour (unlike the boysenberries which just tasted like giant blackberries to me), it still didn't capture my tastebuds enough for me to want to specifically get them again.

The canes were on a 2 hillsides with loganberries and blackberries in one field and strawberries and raspberries in another next to a wild flower field (i presume to help with pollination), The rows were a little untidy, with thistles and weeds growing well in between, which made it rather difficult to get to the canes. There also seemed to be large gaps in the canes, especially in the raspberries which seemed to just trail off and fade out towards the end of the rows. The other thing that put me off here was that the strawberries were on the ground which meant a lot of moudly ones with the damp weather we've had - in fact more moudly than ripe i think! The overripe fruit was not just an issue on the strawberries but also the logan berries too.

It made me realise how much easier strawberries on table are to pick and how used to it i have become. The last time i picked from the floor i just have been about 8 when i was closer to the ground myself! Not only that, but i also thought the rows were extremely close together, meaning there was no room to step in between because the strawberries were hanging down into the furrows were you are supposed to step, so unless you pick from the outside row - which of course most people have already done - you are treading on mouldy mush and trying not to squash any decent strawberries.

overall verdict - lack of organisation, more of a side line business to the farm shop which had more nick nacks than food at any rate. not somewhere i'd rush back to.

and now saving the best until last.....

Cammas Hall Fruit Farm

To get to the fruit you have to enter through the barn where they have the tills and scales and also a supply of ready picked fruit in case you don't have the time (or energy) to PYO. There is local apple juice, last year there were local plums when in season and this year they have also had their own homemade jam. Cammas Hall has both fruit and vegetables for PYO, increasing their different produce each year. The only item that is only available ready picked and not PYO is the blueberries which are under cages. The strawberries are divided into section with about 3/4 rows of tables per section, and they normally have one section set for picking at one time, which gives the other sections chance to replenish and means there is little waste - however it can also mean that supply can be low when the weather is sunny or when the conditions mean they aren't ripening as quickly.
The same strategy applies to the raspberries, however there never seems to be a lack of crop with them. There are a couple of rows of blackberries, blackcurrant, half a dozen rows of gooseberries, a field of sweetcorn, half a field of broad beans and this year they have introduced onions and also french beans.

They also pick, pack and sell to other companies in large quantities which means less waste. The pickers start at the far end of the rows but due to the length of the rows the pickers and the public never seem to meet! the staff also keep the grass cut, they cut off the runners and generally keep the farm extremely tidy and neat.

Having visited those other 2 recently, i realize how wonderful cammas hall really is. i can only hope they keep growing and increasing the types of produce they have, however the main field is now full but i'm sure they own more of the land around - maybe i should suggest they introduce PYO beetroot!!

Farmers Markets are the wrong market

I know i've only done 2 farmers markets now and maybe that isn't enough to gauge whether selling my bottlecaps there will work or not.  But the 2 markets i have done have been complete flops, both Ugley and Newport.  Although at both markets other stall holders have told me that it has been extremely unusually quiet, i still feel that even if it were busier then  it would make much a difference to my sales.

 

Frustratingly this time, as nice as it was to be in the main hall, i was right slap bang in the middle of the hall!

But as i was able to see the whole market this time, i made sure i watched what was going on around me.  so here are my observations;

• General age group: 50+  There were a couple of younger coupler,  and a couple of pregnant women but all the regulars were over 50.
• many came with their own recycled bags and their shopping lists.  they knew what they wanted. they had their regular items that they bought from the market.

Other stalls who sold a lot more were

• The Eggs
• The Fish
• Clavering Pigs (pork)
• The Lamb and Beef
• The Mushroooms
• Mel's Cakes
• The Pate and terrine stall
• The Bread stall

there were only 3 other stall who didn't sell hugely but i think they still sold more than me (yes! i did actually sell something, but the customers were other stall holders)

1. Jams, Chutneys and Sauces
2. Pies and Quiches
3. Handmade soaps

I made 2 sales.  one was a mushroom magnet to the mushroom stall holder and my other sale was to the lady selling beef and lamb.  she liked a cow magnet that was part of a set of 2 and a chicken that was part of a set of three.  she asked me if i'd split them up - well if its going to get them sold then you do what you have to do!

Anyway i'm going to forget about farmers markets for now.  people keep saying "you need to go to a craft market and try there" but what they don't realise if the cost of a stand at those places - the cheapest i found was a market in Ilford for £45 - for my products and prices that just isn't practical.

So all my farmers market stock will now slowly be added to my Dawanda Shop.

Hair Cut for 60p!!!

I debated whether to go into town or not today after feeling so ill yesterday. But as i was feeling better this morning i decided to give it a go, and i'm glad i did.

As i walked into the shopping centre, i was approached by a girl. "oh no" i thought "what's she trying to sell me?" but no - would i like a free hair cut? my initial reaction was no, it was more that instinctive reaction to someone who approaches me in the street. "can i have a few minutes of your time?" or "can i just ask you a quick question?" "do you have double glazing?" etc etc...

plus my mind was thinking "what's the catch?" - maybe i just watch too many programmes on TV like The Real Hustle. but the i quickly turned back as accepted her offer. Why not? i mean my hair couldn't look any worse really, plus maybe it would help me feel a bit better, a little pampering and all. Just one problem - Car parking - i'd only put an hour on the carpark.

So i sorted the hair cut just before my ticket ran out so i could simply buy another hour in the car park (for 60p) and go have a hair cut.

It was at Avant Garde, which isn't a cheap salon. I had a wash, cut and blow dry which normally costs £19.80 with junior stylist - so not only do i have tidier looking hair, had someone wash my hair for me, dry itc etc and i feel better because i saved £19.20!!

not keen on the volumising product she used tho - feel like i need to wash my hair again!!

New Blog and Farmers Market!

I have created a specific blog for Jennyb's Bottlecaps that way those who want to know my bottlecap news don't have to read through my other ramblings too!! there are three sections at the top which show where you can find which products - although i haven't finished sorting the Daisy M items yet! so they aren't in the shop quite yet!

Plus i will be going to Newport Farmers Market in Essex next saturday - 8th March. the market is there for 2 hours from 10am. hopefully it will be more successful than the last one - this time i'm in the main hall though so more people should at least see me i hope!

Recycled bags to use at the farmers market

I was thinking about bags for when i go to the farmers market. now i know i never accept a new bag but little items like my magnets and brooches could easily get lost and i don't think people would really want to put them with food from the market in their bags either.

so i did a quick websearch and thought about all the envelopes mum brings home from work for the food waste bin. i found a template for gift bags made from envelopes!! perfect!!

This has really made my day, because they have worked perfectly. the brown bag in from an A4 envelope and the white from an A5.

however the clear window gets in the way with the smaller one, and also the paper is thicker with the brown one.

so with a bit of double sided tape, i have my bags!!!

If Money were no object....

When i was in town Thursday i spotted this in a shop window:

(click on the photo for more info)

I knew instantly it was a recycled object, so decided to pop into the shop and have a look, with the thought of my bottlecaps in mind too. I had a nice chat with the lady, who said she was just getting back up and running after a family bereveavement over Christmas. She said this shop was a bit of a test to see if the town was ready to become more green in their purchases. She said it wasn't - basically people want to think they are but don't want to pay the prices for handcrafted objects. Well i have to say i certainly couldn't afford the prices but the with the comission she charges to sell things on your behalf no wonder the prices are so high! she takes 30% comission! really not worth it for me if i want to sell my items at a reasonable price.

Mum still think things like my magnets are over priced but then these days you will be pushed to find one for under a pound i expect so i don't think for a hand crafted item that £1.50 is too much, especially as i have to cover my costs and fees, so i probably only get £1 at the end of the day anyway! but 30% certainly wouldn't leave me with anything!

anyway here's a few other favourites from the online shop: