Living the simple life I want

Slowly but surely

2012-02-03T20:20:00.000Z

I am slowly but surely making my way toward being debt-free. If I really, really tried hard and barring no further emergencies I could do it by May. But that would put me under a lot of pressure that I don't need at the moment and so I am now aiming for debt-free by July, which gives me a little money to actually spend on things other than the basic just feeding myself. I had a dental appointment on Monday and hooray! don't need to get anything done. Implant, crowns and fillings plus the small amount of, you know, tooth that I have left are all doing well. Long may it last - if I have no more dental issues for four years it would be very good. At that stage full cover under my additional dental insurance plan will kick in and at least financially, dental issues should be less of a worry.

This month I am trying out a variation of the envelope system for budgeting. My budget weeks run from Friday to Saturday and for once, I wasn't so desperately waiting to get paid (last day of the month) that I needed to spend my first week's budget during the first few days of the month before I even got to the 'budget' start of the month the following Friday. Previously I have budgeted for all known expenses (fixed amounts), divided what was left by four or five and that was what I had for the week for food, going out, shopping and so on. Usually somewhere between 40 and 100 euro and often with me spending most of it in the first week or two and having almost nothing for the second half of the month. Years ago I did a variation of the envelope method which involved a set amount per day (I think it was around 8 euro a day) and the goal was to save enough every day to have money to go grocery shopping at the weekend. It actually worked really well for a while. This time round I'm going to try something closer to the generally used envelope method and to do so I'm going to use the waiter's purse that I bought a few months ago in anticipation of doing this. Looks something like this one (picture from a random website called winneu.com), in case you've never seen one:

There are eight slots as well as the zipable bit at the front and the space where the coins are. I have divided my money into categories and on a spreadsheet these categories are broken down further to give me the best chance of properly figuring how much I really do need. I've given myself a fairly generous budget in the hopes that early success will convince me to keep this up even after I tweak everything down over time.

What I realised though is that if I take all the money for an entire month out of the bank at the same time, I will just end up spending it. So I wanted to just take out enough for a week. But some categories are for things I don't expect to spend on every week and the amount divided by four just leaves a strange amount. So I've taken each category on its own merits and will take the cash out of the bank for some of them weekly and for some of them monthly.

Weekly

Supermarket - 10
Farmers' Market - 20

Monthly

Fair Trade shop - 15
Going out/entertainment - 40
Book club - 40
Presents (including postage/shipping costs) - 30
Drink - 30
Miscellaneous - 45

A word about the categories
Supermarket and farmers' market will be fairly fluid and is essentially the bulk of my food expense. The aim is to cook at home and not eat breakfast on the run, to bring lunch to work with me and make sure I'm home on time every evening to eat properly. But any money I need to spend on doing the opposite of all that basically has to come out of those categories as well. My first aim in this respect is to be not spending it all at the weekend so that I already have money to use if necessary during the week rather than to be 'borrowing' from next week's supermarket money. If you see what I mean.

Book club is probably my biggest entertainment expense. We go out to eat and I would usually also have a glass of wine or two and spend between 20 and 30 euro. 40 gives me some leeway and hopefully a bit left over to put towards buying the book the following month (since it's an English book club, it's not always possible to get the book from the library). Other going out/entertainment is for things like cinema, books, concerts and so on.

In comparison my budget for drink might leave you thinking a have a bit of a problem but although I will leave that open to potentially being used for drink in the sense of going out/entertainment, for the most part it's intended to cover buying crates of water as well as juice if I'm in the mood. And to pay for getting a few bottles of wine in so that if invited to someone's house for dinner, or if I invite someone to mine, I don't have to stress about where to find the money to buy something to bring with me. It's nice to have four or five bottles on hand.

Miscellaneous is for things like doctor, dentist, chiropodist, hairdresser, choir music and anything else that may come up. This month most of it will go to the chiropodist.

So that's it. Will see how it goes. I also have one of two larger one-off expenses that aren't included in the above, such as paying a deposit for a choir trip at the end of the year and paying for a ticket to Frankfurt next week as well as the usual things like rent, insurances and money towards annual expenses.

Now all I need to do is concentrate on not spending next week's or next month's money. And in the meantime start trying to figure out things like how much of an emergency fund I should be aiming to save once I am out of debt. Any thoughts on that? I kind of like the sound of 10,000, which seems to be what a lot of people aim for. But on the other hand, if I had ten grand, I'd be trying to use it as a deposit to buy a house. Am very conflicted about the whole thing really.

And now, yet another post about books

2012-01-27T18:33:00.001Z

Some people were wondering what I thought of this, that or the other book that I read last year so I thought I would do a quick summary of that. I'll post in greater detail about some of the other books at another time.

These are the books that I read new last year, enjoyed and will read again:

Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
The Long Emergency - James Howard Kunstler
Dies the Fire - S. M. Stirling
The Little Princess - Francis Hodgson Burnett
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong
A Feast for Crows - George R.R.Martin
Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde
The Gathering Stom - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (RR)
Towers of Midnight - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
Broken - Kelley Armstrong
The End Of Food: The coming crisis in the world food industry - Paul Roberts

These are some of the books I will probably or definitely reread again. But possibly only once more. Perhaps I wasn't entirely sure I enjoyed them, didn't quite "get" them but think they're worth another try or possibly feel obliged to give them another try. For whatever reason, I haven't gotten rid of them yet:

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox
The Pearl Diver - Jeff Talarigo
One Day - David Nicholls
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
A Fine Balance - Robinton Mistry
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
The Book of Dave - Will Self
Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes
The Witch of Hebron - James Howard Kunstler
The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel

And here are some that I thought were mostly just rubbish with apologies in advance since I know that at least one of these has some fans among my small reader base:

Bear Island - Alastair MacLean - a freebie from the box in the canteen near work. Thriller set in early cold-war period, it hasn't aged well.
A Woman of Our Times - Rosie Thomas - I can't remember much about this except that I found it intensely irritating.
Nemesis - Philip Roth - bored me.
A Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde - one of those books that you feel you could probably have written better yourself. I do know that I'd be a terrible novelist but you still do get that feeling sometimes. Bought purely on impulse because the author is a big fan of Georgette Heyer (one of the blurbs on lots of the new reprints is from her)
Goldfinger - Ian Fleming - have you heard people claim before that James Bond is a misogynistic, sexist pig and not a terribly nice guy. Well that's from people who've read the books. A certain amount of comic value but overall just annoying. And boring. Unless you're a fan of golf (which I'm not) and wouldn't mind reading a long description of a game. And of, Pussy Galore isn't really a rabid feminist and lesbian, she's just "never met a real man before, James".
The Cry from Street to Street - Hilary Bailey - I had given this to my sister years ago, still had my name on it. I didn't remember it at all, the writing was terrible, plot implausible and I can't believe I ever thought it was good enough to pass on to someone else.
Into the Woods - Jean Hegland - a post-fall type book. An annoyingly dysfunctional family pre-fall get more annoying post-fall.
My Last Duchess - Daisy Goodwin - just not very good. Romance novels need to make you like at least one of the protagonists because otherwise who cares if they make it through to their 'happily ever after'.
Rabbit Run - John Updike - bored me silly.

A list before yet another post about books

2012-01-27T18:06:00.002Z

I'm completely out of the habit of writing - I may need to start just writing in a notebook every day because for the last couple of weeks I have even logged on here and just completely drawn a blank about what I might possibly have to say for myself. I do miss it though and could definintely do with letting things out so will have to try actual writing with a pen for a few minutes every day at least.

I am generally feeling much better. Better enough to realise that the last time I thought I was feeling better (less depressed etc.) I wasn't really. I'm very nervous of falling back into the hole though. I can feel myself beginning to find enthusiasm for things again when even just a few weeks ago the thoughts of doing things was still enough to stress me out quite a lot. Of course, the danger then is taking on too much and just ending up overwhelmed again. So I want to move forward and I do want to do some things but am trying to bear in mind that I can't do everything I want to and that it's better to move slowly.

In order to at least get most of what I keep thinking is a good idea to start doing now out of my head, I decided it would be a good idea to put together a list. Perhaps then I will be able to let go of some of it and just retain enough to tackle one or two things first. Some of these things also cost money so it's also a case of reining myself in in that respect and remembering that I still have a good few months of paying of my credit card left.

Do a French course - I do have to do some French correspondence now and although I can speak French enough to get by if I really need to, I don't speak it very well and not at all fluently. More importantly, I have never learned any business French. While my French is sufficient for my purposes at the moment as most of what I have to do involves just using the same letter or email that was sent last month, it would be nice to feel confident enough to be able to put a couple of sentences together on my own without reference to any templates. So first I think a refresher course is a good idea to catch up on the basics (which I was pretty good at in school - but I left school 20 years ago this year so it has been a while) and once I have done that, a business course. Also have to sort out what I can get work to pay for and soon since they seem to be heading into another round of cost-saving.
Do a German course - obviously, I do speak fluent German. But again, it has been a long time since I actually did a course of any kind and it would be nice to at least know how I test now. I have tried to leave work early to make it to the local community college on time to do a test several times in the last couple of weeks but it hasn't worked out yet. Will try again next week. I would like to know where I land on the international scale of A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 (A1 is absolute beginner, C2 is bilingual/native speaker) but also to know how I fare in doing a test. Because speaking and writing in a language every day is far removed from a school-like environment. And, to be perfectly honest, I was very lazy about learning the grammar basics in German when I was in school (hated it, loved French, funny how I ended up here), which is the kind of thing that is bound to show up in a test.
Decorate the apartment - got the phonenumber of the friend of a friend who I spoke to last summer about possibly coming in and painting the place. Of course, that will involved moving furniture and things around and I do still keep shying away from it. However, I know I would feel much better if the place were done up. The other thing I'm thinking about now though is to ask him if he also does wallpapering. It's possible some of the paper will need to be replaced anyway - Germans are very fond of what's called Raufaser, a kind of textured wallpaper that you paint over. However, apparently after three or more coats of paint, it can start to peel away from the walls and there have been court ruling (honestly) that tenants at that stage need to replace the paper (tenants are responsible for that in Germany, rather than the landlords - the only time you have a chance to argue the toss about this is just before you move in). But the Raufaser in my not very big hallway is painted a horrible orange colour. In a big bright room, it would be delightful but in the only room with no outside light and barely wide enought for two people to stand side by side in, it is dark and oppressive. I am thinking about something like this - the paper on the left with the leafy pattern, possible in combination with the stripey one as shown in the photo of the room with a pram below, except the pink rather than the green colours. But for the most part I'm fairly sure I will end up painting everywhere white because choosing colours, never mind choosing wallpaper is head wreckingly difficult.
In addition to redecorating I have been contemplating what is quite a simple moveabout of furniture but would undoubtedly actually involve a couple of days work. I have two couches in the sitting room. One I bought (it's a double-bed as well) and one I was given by a friend. While I find mine far more comfy to sit on, I do have a comfy armchair as well and although it's nice to have seating for six people, I rarely have even one extra person in my house so I don't actually need it. In the meantime I am still sleeping on a single bed and stressing about when I might be able to afford to buy a decent double. So I want to move the sofabed into the bedrrom and use as a bed but this time, instead of moving the singlebed/daybed (one of these from ikea) that I currently have in my bedroom out to the sitting room and ending up with even less space, I am going to take it apart, put the metal bits down in the cellar and keep the mattress under the sofabed, available for anyone who might come to visit to sleep on. But that will involve moving wardrobes around in the bedroom and I sort of feel like it would be better to get the place painted before starting all of that.
Save enough to go to Australia on holidays at the end of the year, find a great flight option, read lots about Australia and generally plan a holiday properly for once.
Research PCs vs. macs vs. ipads vs. whatever else there is to come up with a defnite good option to replace my defunct laptop, fill my requirements and last for a long time. Save money for same.
Join carsharing programme.
Try to invite someone to dinner (or breakfast or lunch on weekends) at least once a month.
Try to go to a lecture, play, concert or any kind of event at least once a month.
Keep on top of keeping the house clean and relatively tidy. Sort of getting there again but not qutie there yet.
Start going for long walks at the weekend again.
Start cooking properly again.
Start getting things in place to be able to have a full summer of preserving without being too disorganised.
Start going to the bio-garten again on a regular basis. I think it's a good idea to not go every week at first - I really think I'm going to have to build up to that, not least because it involves getting up on Saturday, not terribly early but earlier than I would get up if left to my own devices and without an alarm clock waking me up.
Go to the library at least once every two months.
Get back to using twitter.
I knew there was something else. The other side of the reason why I want to get my German tested (see 2 above) and one of the potential courses I am thinking about doing is a translators course. Someone suggested this to me before christmas and I said that I wouldn't be able to do it here because as a native English speaker I'd have an unfair advantage and wouldn't be eligible. Coincidentally a few weeks ago a discussion started elsewhere and it seems that actually you do tests in both your native and your second language. Although I'm not interested in a full-time job translating, I do quite a lot of it in work and, importantly to me, it's one job I could potentially do part-time from home and it would be useful to have something like that. You don't have to have a qualification to work as a translator here but you do have to have a qualification to become "staatlich anerkannt" (state registered) and that's what you need to have in order to do things like translate birth certificates, marriage certificates etc. for bureaucratic purposes. So it's definitely something to look into and consider seriously.
More to be added later as they occur to me.

More about books

2012-01-09T13:30:00.000Z

And while we're talking about books, I noticed in someone else's list that they had done a summary as well, so here's mine for 2011:

Books by male authors: 43
Books by female authors: 23
Fictional books: 57
Factual books: 9 - I'm kind of impressed with myself for that. I could do with reading far more factual stuff but reading is my escape from the world and mostly I don't want to have to think too much. But nine books is very close to one a month, which is a number I'd be very happy with. One of the things I want to do now though is re-read most of them and this time make notes and perhaps occasional posts while I'm doing it. Will have to figure out how to do that and yet still have time to read 'new' ones too.
English books: 64
German books: 2 - and that was the two audio books I had. Definitely need to work on this in 2012 but have started off by getting the book club book for this month in the original German.

The Year in Books

2012-01-07T19:14:00.000Z

Clickclackgorilla has made The Year in Books into a carnival. I'm late to the party as usual but if anyone else wants to post a list of books they read during the year, you still have until the 9th of January to get in on the action. Just post, visit clickclackgorilla to do the linky thing and leave a comment there. Best of all, you get to check out who else has posted their lists and who doesn't love to know what other people have been up to!

2011 - the year in books

2012-01-01T15:38:00.002Z

As I did last year, this year I am posting no big list of what the year brought me or what I plan for 2012. Instead, you get just the year in books. Although this year I think the list is more exact because I tried to remember to write it down on a list whenever I finished a book, or at least every three or four. I haven't added the numerous gardening books, cook books, preserving books, simple living and general craft books that I dip into regularly throughout the year. Someday I'll write a separate post about all of them. Maybe it will help convince me to get rid of those cookbooks that I never actually use.

Happy new year everyone!

(BC) = Book club books
(RR) = something I've re-read - there are some books, such as by Georgette Heyer, that I invariably read every year when the escapism of new fiction isn't enough and I want to escape into familiar stories that always make me laugh or cry.

Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck (BC - my choice)
The Long Emergency - James Howard Kunstler
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (BC)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
My Roots - Monty Don
Bear Island - Alastair MacLean
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (BC)
Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox
A Woman of Our Times - Rosie Thomas
Dies the Fire - S. M. Stirling
Nemesis - Philip Roth (BC)
Northern Lights - Philip Pullman (RR)
The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman (RR)
The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman (RR)
A Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde
Smith - Leon Garfield
Haunted - Kelley Armstrong (RR)
Goldfinger - Ian Fleming
Domes of Fire - David Eddings (RR)
The Shining Ones - David Eddings (RR)
The Pearl Diver - Jeff Talarigo (BC)
The Hidden City - David Eddings (RR)
One Day - David Nicholls
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (BC)
Seek the Fair Land - Walter Macken (RR)
The Little Princess - Francis Hodgson Burnett
The Cry from Street to Street - Hilary Bailey (RR)
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
Into the Woods - Jean Hegland
Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong
A Feast for Crows - George R.R.Martin
A Fine Balance - Robinton Mistry (BC)
My Last Duchess - Daisy Goodwin
Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde (my first Flipback)
Friday's Child - Georgette Heyer (RR)
An Infamous Army - Georgette Heyer
Pistols for Two - Georgette Heyer
Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell (BC)
Faro's Daughter - Georgettet Heyer (RR)
The Unknow Ajax - Georgette Heyer (RR)
The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer (RR)
A Civil Contract - Georgette Heyer (RR)
The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer (RR)
The Gathering Stom - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (RR)
Towers of Midnight - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin (BC)
The Book of Dave - Will Self (BC - my choice)
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
Jauche und Levkojen - Christine Brückner (audio book, read by Eva Mattes)
Der Malteser Falken - Dashiell Hammett (audio play)
Dinosaur Planet - Anne McCaffrey (RR)
Sassinak - Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon (RR)
Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
World Made by Hand - James Howard Kunstler (RR)
Rabbit Run - John Updike
The Witch of Hebron - James Howard Kunstler
The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel
Broken - Kelley Armstrong
Hitchens vs. Blair: Be It Resolved Religion Is a Force for Good in the World - The Munk Debates
Dies the Fire - S.M. Stirling (RR)
What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained - Robert L. Wolke
The End Of Food: The coming crisis in the world food industry - Paul Roberts (not quite finished but will today probably)

P.S. Just because a book is on this list doesn't mean it's a good one. I've read some great books this year and some truly, truly awful ones. No responsibility accepted if you pick a name off this list and are disappointed!

Gone again

2011-11-19T12:06:00.000Z

My laptop died a couple of weeks ago so I'm back to just ocassionally spending an hour or two in the internet cafe when I can. So I won't be around much over the next while. My first thought was too hell with debt, I'm going to use my coming-at-the-end-of-November-bonus to buy a good computer (until now I've bought second-hand ones from work, very cheap but they don't last more than a year or so - so in the last three years I've spent 300 euro on three different laptops, just not worth it). But I've spent more time knitting, reading and listening to the radio or music over the last couple of weeks than I have done for months and it might be a good thing to not have a computer for a few months. If I wait until I've paid off all my debt and then save to get one, I know I'll feel really good about it. And if I don't manage to hold out the eight or nine months that's probably going to take, well, at least I can pay down as much of my debt as possible before cracking and adding a bit more back to it. A bit of time might even mean that I research my options properly to make sure I buy something suitable for my needs and that will last a good few years. Anyway, that's the plan at the moment. I am going to buy an external harddrive soon though - my laptop is not quite completely dead and I can get about three or four minutes out of it in one go if it has been left alone in a cold place for a day or so (that trick of putting a dodgy harddrive in a freezer is not just an urban legend - for some problems it really does work althought when I worked in tech support we were supposed to absolutely deny that).

In the meantime I'm contemplating an iPhone to keep up to date with stuff a bit better but I'm very undecided. The only reason I'm considering it is because work have arranged a special deal with vodafone so after a small one-off payment (around 50 euro), I wouldn't have any further monthly costs as it would be covered by the work flat-rate package. When I got the email about it a few months ago I had no intention of getting an iPhone so I just didn't really read it properly. I've heard people talking about it recently though and given that it'd be an easy way to at least have some online presence, I'm going to dig out that email and read it through properly. I think something like basic internet and all calls within the country are covered, which sounds almost too good to be true. But of course there is a downside, in this case the fact that since I would have a company phone, my number would be in the company outlook address book and I would essentially be contactable 24/7. With my old boss that would have been enough to stop me because he would have taken advantage of it all the time. But my new boss isn't like that and is very much into the idea of a decent work/life balance and all that (and really into it, not just paying lip service as so many do). So it's something else to think about. Or I could get an iPad privately - not sure it would do everything I'd need and it would mean tying myself into at least a two-year contract, which I'd prefer not to do. All in all, lots to consider.

For now though I'd better head off to the garden centre/building supplies place and find something to kill moths. Yes, I found the infestation of clothes moths finally. And then another one. Who knows how many there are. I've gotten moth paper and these ridiculously strong-smelling lavender oil yokes for keeping moths away - luckily I already had lavender sachets in my wardrobe and drawers which might have prevented an infestation in my main clothes storage. At least so far I haven't found any there. Where I did find them however was in the cupboard where I keep my craft supplies - wool, material, candle-making stuff and anything else that might be useful sometime. As I've been knitting again recently, I've been using stuff out of this cupboard. And while searching for my giant needles, I dragged out the baskets of felting wool/roving and silk strands ('cos I thought it would be practical to take it all out of the plastic bags and have it in baskets instead - looks nicer and is easily accessible!) and noticed what looked a bit like a big patch of dust. Looked closer and saw one or two moths and realised it was all the eggs that I was looking at. This all happened at around eleven o'clock last Sunday night and I nearly cried. It's a good thing I have been starting to feel better recently because if that had happened to me six months ago, I really think I would have ended up in hospital with a severe nervous breakdown. I risked the wrath of neighbours and switched on the hoover to get rid of what I could see and after struggling with myself for twenty minutes or so I dumped the whole lot of baskets and roving etc. into a big plastic bag and straight out for the rubbish. There would just be no way to rescue it - as soon as I tried to wash it at a temperature that would kill them, it would felt. So, nearly two hundred euro's worth gone just like that. Serve me right for not bothering to use the stuff more often after having gone to the expense of buying it!

Two days later it was the first really cold evening we've had and I decided to take out my patchwork blanket, which was over the other side of the sitting room on the basket which contained all of the ripped up t-shirts that I planned to make a rag-rug out of as well as the Lorna's Lace wool that I won in a competition shortly after moving here but which got all tangled and that I'd ocassionally take out to untangle a bit more. I sat with the blanket snugly around my legs for a couple of hours and it was only when I was folding it that I noticed some 'dust' on one bit, looked closer and could see larvae squirming. Eeeeww. It felt like they were everywhere. I hoovered the first patch of 'dust' I saw and what larvae I could see but it was kind of like cobwebs and as soon as I started seeing them, I just kept seeing more and more. So the blanket went into a big plastic bag with the top tied securely but I just couldn't bring myself to throw it out. Two years of work went into it, not to mention the amount of money the wool cost. I've dumped the basket with the t-shirts and other wool, hoovered as best I can all around and have hung up sticky yokes as well to catch any moths that might already be around. Now I want to see if I can get something to kill the already existing larvae. If I can't I'm going to get a big plastic box with lid and leave the blanket steeping in water with lots of vinegar, which someone suggested might work. After that I'll wash it in the washing machine as hot as I can without destroying it. Or bring it for dry cleaning perhaps - not sure how they'd react to being handed something full of clothes moth larvae. We don't really have moths like that in Ireland, so this is all new to me. If anyone has any suggestions or tips for dealing with the infestation (or indeed on choosing a new computer) please leave a comment. From what I've heard so far I've resigned myself to the fact that it may be months or years before they're completly gone. But I want to minimise the damage at least.

Have a lovely weekend all.

My Dream Farm

2011-11-06T12:35:00.000Z

I'm watching the first episode of Monty Don's series My Dream Farm. The series, according to the DVD cover, charts the progress of six new farmers in their first year of working the land, guided by gardening and farming guru, Monty Don.

I haven't quite gotten to the end of the first episode yet but had to stop it to make a note of what was said at one point. In order to try and capitalise on their resources, this couple came up with several ideas for adding value to the products of their farm. One of those products is sheep and, given that a fleece will only sell for about one pound, they thought about using the wool to produce duvets. They found a nearby mill to process the fleeces and Monty Don was able to arrange for a couple of commercial buyers to come and visit. While both buyers thought that the price was too high, it's this line from the John Lewis buyer which has me seething: "[the price] probably hasn't been considered for a high street environment. I think Dick and Pauline have really approached it from what it actually costs for them to produce one unit." And this, I think, is part of the problem with our entire economy. While allowing that economies of scale may lead to some savings, expecting a price to come down by 30-50% is a bit much, I feel. They didn't seem to be fazed on hearing the news but I note that their website shows John Lewis as one of their stockists now. I know a short DVD spot will never give the full story but I do hope that they were able to sell at more than what it cost them to produce!

Random thoughts

2011-11-03T12:11:00.001Z

What on earth is this all about? 92 year-old refused whiskey because she had no ID proving she was over 18. And this in a country that doesn't even have an official ID card. Reading this article just after having watched V for Vendetta again, it's just a bit worrying.

I've been paying very little attention to the news over the last while so am not too terribly informed about the occupy campaign. But satire is always fun:

Someone just drove past with Come On Eileen blaring out the windows. Loud music in cars normally annoys me but this time it has made me smile and I almost feel like getting up and dancing. But my head is too stuffed up to contemplate that for long.

Read this today on a discussion board: "i really dont have the faith or courage to try a differnt brand"
You might think, fair enough, but what really bothered me might be more obvious if you see the start of the sentence " ive eaten this brand of turkey almost every year since i can remember". Now, I'm a sucker for tradition in many ways but turkeys/meat just shouldn't be a 'brand', each individual animal should have its own taste based on so many different factors.

And a late edit to add that it may be silly, but I think I want one of these. What a shovel! And gotta love the spaghetti western music they've used.

Amazing sounding workshop in (I think) New York state

2011-11-02T14:27:00.000Z

Jenna at Cold Antler Farm is having a workshop on emergency preparedness with one of the two speakers being James Howard Kunstler. Wow, how amazing would that be? Such a pity this isn't happening close to me.

Random thoughts

2011-10-30T16:21:00.001Z

When did underwear start to mean just knickers/underpants/panties? I still think of underwear as, well, everything you wear under your clothes - bra/vest, knickers, stockings/tights/socks. If I hear someone talking about a pair of underwear, it just sounds strange. If I'm talking about writing a list of what to pack to go on holidays, I don't write bras and underwear because that's just saying the same thing twice.
When did all the men on telly start shaving their armpits? The bare chest has certainly seemed to have become more and more common but it's only in the last couple of years that it's occurred to me that much of that is artificially bare and I've realised that because I started to notice how many men don't even have any hair under their arms. What I understand even less than these men who feel the need to de-hair themselves are the women who find it appealing. I find men so much more attractive the way nature made them (women too, come to think of it). I also keep remembering with a smile that bit in James Bond when he's in a Japanese bath of some kind and the Japanese man makes a remark about how the attendants are giggling over the amount of hair on James' chest, to which Sean Connery replies something like "a bird will not nest in a tree without leaves".
For no reason in particular I found myself reading the wiki entries on what exactly baby boomers are, which led me to find out that I'm apparently from Generation X. It reminds me of that old email that did the rounds a bit more than ten years ago about how the current set of people entering college would have been born after 1980, which means they have no real memory of the Reagan/Thatcher era and don't understand the philosophical importance of 'wax on, wax off'.
Someone recently reminded me about the documentary Inside Job - not sure if I mentioned it but it's well worth a look. It goes into the reasons behind the financial crisis and is probably not the kind of film you might expect when hearing 'the latest Matt Damon film'. This is a trailer for it on youtube.
Just came back to edit this post after reading this blog post from sallygardens and clicking through to a trailer for a documentary called Gasland (including someone being able to set the water coming out of their kitchen tap on fire by holding a lighter to the tap before turning it on - mad!). Worrying issue - will have to find out more about this. My first thought is that Ireland is just not a country big enough to be taking any chances with what land it does have.

Budgeting after debt elimination

2011-10-24T19:43:00.000+01:00

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about budgeting and how to manage it once I'm out of debt. The sad fact is that if I'd handled my budgeting better over the last three years (since I moved here) I'd already be out of debt now. Even if I'd been budgeting properly in the last few months, I'd be far closer to my goal of being debt-free by the end of 2011 (which is not going to happen now).

A few months ago I found this budget spreadsheet on the marriedwithluggage blog. I've come across lots of different budget spreadsheets over the last few years of reading more personal finance blogs and websites but never found anything I liked better than what I had developed myself. But this one, I really like. Others have always seemed far too complicated and awkwardly set up for my use and so I have just stuck with what I came up with myself, which I have refined over time (probably to the extent that to anyone else it wouldn’t seem simple at all but that’s the way these things go).

However, having learned quite a bit about money, budgeting and, most importantly, my relationship with money (which is sometimes none too healthy) I have learned that I do need a different way to budget. At first I told myself that I would need a new way to budget because I would be out of debt and would have more money at my disposal and would need to make sure not to go crazy buying stuff I don't need or want. I'd even started writing a blog post about it, very little of which is making it into this post becuase after writing it and after messing around with this new spreadsheet for a bit I realised that my thinking has been flawed all along (given how long I've been in debt, some might say that doesn't come as a big surprise).

Actually, I've changed my mind and am going to include here the bulk of what I started writing a few months ago. Come to think of it, I think this was mostly what I posted in a comment to that blog above. I was obviously so impressed with myself I decided it was worthy of a blog post of its own.

Begin: At the moment I simply can’t budget in a big way for things like eating out, entertainment, clothes or basically anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. I make my fixed debt payments, pay whatever other bills are due, make only slightly higher than minimum payments to credit card and by the time I’ve transferred a small amount to savings to cover annual expenses there really isn’t an awful lot left so it gets divided by the number of weeks that month (four or five) and that’s what I have to spend on everything that week.
By July I will have finished paying off some large dental bills that have really been hurting the last few months (I should have paid them over longer than six months, but that would have involved interest so I decided not to do it) and also have made my final payment on the big loan I took out five years ago. After that I will have some overdraft and credit card debt but plan to have that fully cleared by the end of the year.

So I will need to start thinking much differently about the way I budget and actually budget for what I need in various categories. I must start keeping my daily log again so that in a few months I have a somewhat realistic idea of what I actually need to be spending on the various categories.
End quote.

You see, what I realised after having written that (in April, I just checked) and allowed it to simmer under the surface while I struggled with a massive depression and a bad work situation, is the fundamentally flawed aspect at the beginning of it. "I simply can't" when really the truth is that I simply don't. And now I need to just start doing it.

Since I made my final loan payment at the end of July I haven't done too well on actually keeping to the kind of budget I was. Partly because I'm just so sick and tired of having to be careful. And I've always struggled with that line between what is sensible budgeting and what is sackcloth and ashes budgeting anyway. Sometimes trying to keep myself sane has come before getting myself out of debt more quickly but I made the decision a while ago that as long as I do things consciously then I am okay with that. But I definitely don't want to be sitting here in October 2012 talking about still being in debt.

Using the spreadsheet above I actually played around with how I would do if I was earning different amounts of money (I needed this badly when I had started looking for a new job so that I could figure out how much of a drop in salary I could sustain if necessary). And I found that a big help. I also needed some different categories and, since I have a tendency to need to micro-manage spending at least for a while until new habits establish themself, I broke some categories down even more. For example, I don't have any pets so that section was gone. I replace it with a breakdown of not just food and drink but more detailed. Because I don't just spend my money in one place.

Food became:

Farmers' Market
Fair trade shop
Supermarket
Other
Preserving supplies

Drink became:

Wine
Beer
Water (I buy fizzy water - sometimes I like someting fizzy to drink but I haven't got the sweet tooth for things like coke or fanta these days. It's also handy to have for guests - if a German asks for water, nine times out of ten, they'll mean fizzy)
Other

This post is long enough for now and doesn't quite say all that I wanted it to say but I'm just going to hit publish anyway. If I think too much about this stuff part of it goes away before I can finish. My main point for now is that the type of budgeting I 've been doing just won't cut it if I ever want to get to a healthy financial situation. But it's not just the budgeting that needs to change, it's the way I think about it.

Random thoughts

2011-10-16T19:49:00.000+01:00

I bit the bullet and bought myself a really good pair of shoes. It seems like for the last few years I haven't bought many shoes and when I have it has mostly been of the cheapish and reduced even further in a sale variety. And, as sometimes happens, most of the shoes I do have, have started all falling to pieces at the same time. And I've gone into a shop or two and tried on whatever was on sale but nothing seemed to quite fit right. So this morning I went to the shop which is also the place where the make the orthotics that I got last year. I figured they'd at least have shoes that will offer decent support and would probably know their stuff. I still bought what was one of the cheaper pairs of shoes there but at 120 euro, that's about five times more than I would normally spend on shoes (maybe a bit less than about twice as much as I've spent on hiking boots). They're black boots, just about ankle high (which I wanted because I have a couple of pairs of trousers that are just a teensy bit too short that I'll now be able to wear more often), extremely comfy to wear, my orthotics fit in them no problem and she said there would absolutely not be a problem with getting them repaired or re-soled when the time comes. She spent plenty of time listening to exactly what I wanted, paid attention to it and went looking for what I was after and then afterwards, also spent some time telling me how I can best care for my new shoes. Well worth the money so far. Here's hoping the shoes live up to my expectations now!

And today I remembered one of the really good things about keeping a blog because I bought a red cabbage yesterday and although I cooked this dish quite a lot last winter, I just couldn't remember exactly what I needed for the basic recipe. A quick search and I had all I needed. Just waiting for it to finish cooking now.

Another very interesting documentary

2011-10-15T16:34:00.000+01:00

Saw this a few weeks ago as well and really enjoyed it. http://www.solutionslocales-lefilm.com/en/accueil Just now thought to look for the website - it's a French film and the translation of the title isn't quite what I would have thought it would be but really works: Think Global Act Rural

Do try and see it if you can - there's a trailer on that website too.

Random thoughts

2011-10-13T22:00:00.000+01:00

Some of the (very, very many) films that are almost guaranteed to make me cry, in no particular order:

Love Actually
The Parent Trap (any version of it)
Ghost
Armageddon
Forrest Gump
Terminator 2
The Great Escape
V for Vendetta
The Truman Show

Every once in a while I realise that something from my childhood has had a bigger impact on me that I thought. My dad was a firm believer that your pockets were for keeping money, keys or a hanky in but under no circumstances for keeping your hands in. It was a big no-no for any of the lads working for us (not to mention for any of us kids) to be standing around with their hands in their pockets. I always thought it was a bit over the top. But now I find myself occasionally watching a film or television series (even sometimes just in work or out and about in daily life) and being so incredibly irritated by people standing around in even the most formal setting, with their hands in their pockets. You're meeting the president? Why not walk into the room with your hands in your pockets. About to tell someone they're dying? Sure, leave your hands in your pockets. The things our parents drum into us and those around us often stay with us whether we realise it or not.

Random thoughts

2011-10-09T16:41:00.000+01:00

Still don't seem to be in a place where I feel like I can get back to normal posting any time soon. Part of this is the recurring thought that I have nothing of worth to share. This has been a big problem for me in general during this bout of depression and goes beyond the usual low self-esteem issues I've always struggled with. However, I do have lots of ideas for things I want to post about and quite a few half-started drafts and I will try to spend some time on them over the next few months. In the meantime I'm just going to occasionally post mish-mash posts of random thoughts. I do far too much over-explaining anyway. So here goes:

I've just ordered The Friday Night Knitting Club, a book which I bought (in an airport I think) a few years ago, read, was fairly sure I wouldn't read again and so it went into the pile for the charity shop. Only for me to remember a few months later that I had meant to copy down the instructions for knitting an afghan patchwork type blanket. Following the not terribly huge success of the Blanket Project I would really like to give this type of thing another go. But with bigger squares and an overall smaller blanket. Because while it might not look great and while it may be coming apart at the seams (yes, I really need to learn some sewing/finishing skills) that blanket is made of almost pure wool (this stuff) and will keep me warm on the coldest of days or nights.

A friend in choir told me recently about a new car-sharing scheme in our town. I knew there were one or two in operation and had always planned to find out more and it was great to talk to someone about their experiences. And even better, the closest place the cars are parked to me is the car park just about four minutes walk from where I live. I plan to join up soon but am undecided as to whether or not I'll start using it as an excuse to just start using a car for everything. Time will tell. Need to save up enough for the deposit first.

I've done so little to make any headway with the house since this post. The armchair is full with a pile of clothes to be ironed/folded/put away and the yellow couch is completely covered with stuff at this stage.

I have moths in my bedroom. So annoying and I really need to start dragging stuff out and seeing if I can find any particular spot of infestation. Have only seen individuals ones and am killing any I do see when I see them (or throwing them out the window if it happens to be close to it, which it rarely is). But the place I have seen most of them is in the corner very close to my bed. I've been sleeping on the couch for the last couple of weeks and trying to convince myself it's only because I wanted to spend a couple of weeks sleeping in a double bed again. Have thus far only found one blanket with a hole in it and washed that at 60 degrees so hopefully even if there were any eggs laid on it (in it?), that will take care of it.

I went into a shop the other day because I need to buy a laundry basket. Came out with a small footstool. That's just the way things are at the moment.

Miscellaneous stuff on Sunday evening

2011-09-11T21:21:00.000+01:00

I find it more and more difficult to watch American shows or comedies these days - the absolute horror that comes over people if they see a naked body part (apart from during sex scenes - and even then I still find myself wondering why so many women seem to feel the need to leave their bras on during sex), or if any bodily function is mentioned is harder and harder for me to accept because what used to be an over the top reaction added in for laughs has become so mainstream that it seems to have become the 'normal' way to think. This thought has been brought to mind again recently as I started watching United States of Tara - I realise it is used in part to emphasise the difference between some of her alter egos and her but there have been a couple of parts where the daughter has really irritated me.

I've been to see two films in the cinema this weekend. Long time since I've done that and apart from the heat (most cinemas here, at least the smaller ones, tend not to be air conditioned) I've really enjoyed it. First up was Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three. Some Like It Hot was a firm favourite at home when I was a kid and I've seen The Apartment and Buddy Buddy several times but apart from that haven't really seen a lot of Billy Wilder's films. One, Two, Three was hilarious. "Is everybody in this world corrupt?" - "I don't know everybody."

The second film was Taste the Waste - this is a documentary that was shown on television here a while ago and I remember only finding out about it a week or two later, when it was no longer available online. Either it was just advertising for the film then or it has simply gained enough popularity to now be shown in cinemas all over. Check if it will be near you soon, ask about it if it's not and maybe if enough demand is created, it will be shown all over. Shocking footage (even when you know the facts behind it already) of the sheer quantities of food thrown away every day. And of course, the statistics (yes, we all know the statistics can be made to say what you want but still...): the amount of food thrown away in Europe and North America could feed every starving person in the world. Three times over.

One of my local bakers was in the film too. Knowing his shop, I know that he already offers day-old bread for sale at a reduced price (20% off). Whatever is still leftover after that used to go to make animal feed but is now crushed up and mixed with sawdust to make pellets that he can use to heat the ovens to bake the bread. If every bakery in Germany were to do the same, we'd need one less nuclear power plant.

Anyone else seen any good films recently? I picked up a few leaflets for cinemas and theatres etc. and really want to try and make an effort to get out and do things every once in a while.

Meal plan for week 36

2011-09-03T13:04:00.000+01:00

Sunday
Lunch - Zwiebelkuchen and tomato salad
Dinner - Chicken parcels (roasted on top of slices of courgette and tomato) with boiled potatoes

Monday
Lunch - Spinach and feta tart
Dinner - Leftover chicken and fried potatoes

Tuesday
Lunch - Spinach and feta tart
Dinner - Tomatoes and courgette with pasta

Wednesday
Lunch - leftover pasta
Dinner - tomato salad

Thursday
Lunch - tomato salad
Dinner - I may go digging around in the freezer

Friday
Totally out of ideas - probably whatever of the list above I don't actually get around to making/eating.

How much is a good night's sleep worth?

2011-09-03T12:55:00.000+01:00

Well, today the answer is 60 euro.

I arrived back late last night and after opening all the windows to let some air into the apartment I couldn't resist hitting the computer so that I could update my budget spreadsheet. I had been keeping an eye on my bank accounts while I was away and had even thought to bring my list of codes so that I could do some transfers as soon as I got paid. My overdrafe balance is looking pretty improved at the moment but I have to admit I will need to withdraw money from that account before the end of the month as I have a few more bills due which are just about going to wipe out my current account. I could have transferred less to the overdrawn account so that I was left with enough to cover the entire month but I think I will be far more careful to spend less when I know it's money coming from an overdrawn account than I might otherwise be. I finally got the payment from the financial aid program in work - I had applied for that in relation to the tooth implant I had done last year (which cost 2,800 euro, of which I paid 2,500) and they offered me just over 1,200. Fantastic. It was paid to me with my salary and was partially taxed so I came out with 924 euro extra. It's hard not to moan about it being taxed but really, it was money for free so how can I complain? That money has been put aside to pay for expenses incurred while on holiday and also to pay for our planned choir trip in October.

I also finally received my tax refund, which amounted to nearly 1,500. I have to figure out if that's correct now, based on the assessment notices that arrived while I was away. I can't make head nor tail of them. I seem to have gotten a big payment for 2008 (expected, as that was the year I moved here and I only worked here for five months as well as being able to offset some moving costs), a very small one for 2009 (when I had actually tried to offset some moving costs as well, which I had only received the invoice for in 2009) and then another big refund for 2010 (totally unexpected as I only had a few standard things to offset). Mind you, if the one for 2010 is correct I'd be happy enough because that should be approximately what future years look like. I think I'll need to get up early one day next week and take a trip down to the Finanzamt to check.

When I got back yesterday I saw a notice in the hallway that my upstairs neighbour is having a party this evening. If I had known that earlier, I would have just stayed in my sister's for another day. At least he has given a day's notice this time - he had a party last year not long after he moved in without mentioning it to anyone and I had to go up a couple of times before they finally turned the music (and the dancing) down to a level I could sleep through at two o'clock. Having had a long day travelling yesterday following a lovely but not quite as relaxing holiday as hoped (families are just hard work sometimes!), I had been looking forward to a couple of nights' good sleep in my own bed before starting back to work on Monday. With the prospect of a party raging above my head until the small hours tonight I decided that I really don't care about spending money on something that's a bit unnecessary and went trawling the internet to see if I could get a cheap hotel room for the night. Yes, there is a possibility that I could find a friend to loan me their spare room or couch to sleep on, which would obviously be cheaper. But I've been with other people more or less non-stop for two weeks and I really needed these couple of days to myself (which is why I came back a couple of days early in the first place).

I couldn't find anywhere for less than 79 euro online (for just the room, no breakfast) without having to travel for nearly an hour but when I was walking home from the market I realised that there's at least one hotel on that road that I pass by all the time and barely even notice. I walked in, asked if they had a room and am glad I did, as they did have one and it's all mine for just 60 euro, including a full breakfast in the morning. There's no bath so my idea of making an evening of it and having a nice long soak has been scotched but on the plus side it's only four minutes walk away from home so I won't have to spend half an hour getting there either. Some might consider this a foolish waste of money but I think the hopefully good night's sleep I will get is absolutely worth it.

Preserving efforts 2010

2011-06-05T14:29:00.000+01:00

3-berry jam
Apple jelly
Apple juice (I just found two litre jars of juice that I had shoved in the back of a cupboard that normally doesn't have anything food related in it - very annoyed because one is showing signs of a slightly slimy film on top so I assume the pastuerisation that occurs with the steam juicing still isn't enough to preserve for more than a few weeks. On the other hand, it might be turning into a vinegar mother so I'll have to look up a bit more about that before throwing it away)
Apple sauce
Dried apples
Bread and butter pickles (I really dislike cucumber, one of the foulest tasting vegetables there is in my opinion so avoiding it during the current e-coli outbreak is no hardship - however the pickles I made last year to use up a glut from the garden went down very well with the people there so I will probably make lots of these again in the future to use as gifts and to bring to potluck type dinners)
Broad beans (frozen)
Cherry jam (and now I know there's a difference between sweet cherries for eating and sour cherries for making jam with - not liking and therefore never eating cherries, how was I supposed to know?)
Chutney (made one lot and it burned - thought I had rescued most of it on time but opening a jar several months later led to a tasty chutney with a horribly sulphurous aftertaste)
Redcurrants (dried)
Dilly beans
Kasundi (made at the request of friends - far too oily for my tastes but they seem to think it tasted the way it should)
Peach, nectarine and apple jam
Peas (frozen)
Raspberry jam
Dried strawberries
Frozen strawberries
Strawberry jam
Bottled tomatoes
Dried tomatoes
Dried bananas

Decent start to the week

2011-05-09T20:34:00.000+01:00

Despite faffing around for most of the day yesterday, not getting a lot done (although I did get a second draft of my CV finished) and really wanting to go out for a walk once it cooled down a bit in the evening, I decided before I left to cook the pasta sauce I'd decided to do to have for lunches this week. Of course, once I started doing that, I decided to also make the banana bread I wanted to do to use up the really on their last legs bananas as well. So once I got going, I ended up spending the best part of an hour and a half in the kitchen, it was after eight when I put the pasta bake into the oven and I was so tired I knew I was better to just go to bed early. If I had gone out I would have also felt good but I would have gotten a second wind and ended up staying up late again. I think it was the right decision as I went to bed around half-nine, read about two pages before falling into a deep sleep and slept right through until the alarm this morning. I needed a good sleep.

But, I did get the pasta done. I used two jars of tomatoes with herbs that I bottled in August and had totally forgotten about. Sauteed a couple of chopped up onions and a large carrot for a few minutes, added the tomatoes and as a bit of an afterthought threw in the last handful of last year's broadbeans from the freezer. Let that lot simmer away gently while the banana bread was baking and at the same time let some pasta cook in the tupperware poacher. Put the pasta in an ovenproof dish, poured the sauce over it, topped with some grated cheese and once the cake had finished baking, put it in the oven to finish. Ended up with three normal and two very generous portions of pasta bake, all neatly waiting in their tuppreware in the fridge to be taken to work as lunch (except on Wednesdays, when I eat in the canteen but I will bring some pasta bake for tea before choir practice so it's more or less the same thing). Had one today and it was lovely. So apart from Wednesday, shouldn't be spending a lot of money this week.

I also saw a very interesting post on Food in Jars with a recipe for breakfast baked eggs in a jar - I think I will give this a go as I too feel the need to get back to some more veggie heavy meals. I quite fancy the idea of preparing the veg on Sundays/making sure I cook something on Sundays that leaves me with leftover veg, then taking five minutes to assemble these on a Monday morning and leaving them to bake while I get ready for work. Lovely substantial hot breakfast to start the week and then a cold jar already waiting for you each morning.

Random tip on logging into gmail and blogger with different accounts at the same time

2011-05-08T16:34:00.000+01:00

Not sure anyone else ever has this problem but since I've accidentally found a way around it, I thought I'd post it. Of course, this could well be something that has a much easier solution that I just never knew about and somebody smarter than me will comment to let me know how bad my knowledge of technology has really become.

My problem being that when I created this blog, I was (and still do) mostly using a yahoo email address. At some stage I wanted to create a new email address (I have several, some with my real name, some with usernames from various forums or websites, some just used to sign up for newsletter or something that might potentially lead to increased spam etc.) and I decided to use gmail, which lots of people seemed to have taken to using. I have to admit, I really don' like it but I used that address for a couple of things that have become fairly regular (such as organising book club) so I do need to check it regularly. And if I was already logged into my blog I couldn't log into my gmail account without logging out of blogger first. Which kind of irritated me.

Entirely by accident I recently discovered a workaround though. If I'm logged into blogger and open a new window (or tab), go to youtube and log in there with my gmail account I can then go straight to the gmail site and it will open my email. Without making me log out of blogger first.

So there you have it. I may be the only person that had that problem or found it annoying but that's how to get around it if you need to.

Spending recap - week 18

2011-05-08T13:16:00.000+01:00

Transport 13.50
Food necessities 30.66
Food luxuries 55.82
Canteen food 27.10
Toiletries 0.00
Gifts (incl. postage) 21.85
Clothes 12.00
House/garden 25.85
Medical 0.00
Other 23.70 (12.50 was music for choir)

Total spend this week: 210.48
Total spend this month: 210.48

This week's recap includes two weekends as I did last week's a couple of days early to coincide with the end of the month. And this week includes the final day of my holidays as well, with some slightly frivolous shopping and eating out.

A slight error

2011-05-07T22:43:00.000+01:00

But a very frustrating one. I had planned to use some of the money I am due back from my annual house expenses to pay to visit my sister in France at the end of June (on a side note, when I brought the annual reckoning to the renters' association to get it checked out she said that normally, for an apartment the size of mine they would expect heating costs to be around 700 a year - mine are closer to 200, I'm getting a refund of over 300 - by her reckoning I should normally need to pay an extra couple of hundred every year and I'm very glad I don't need to). As I will only have a few days off work and not an entire week the 8 hour train journey might have been a bit much so although I prefer not to fly, I promised her I would check out flights - the train costs a bit less than 200 euro so there was a chance flying might also be a bit less expensive or even that a flight one-way and train the other might work out cheaper.

I was waiting for the refund to actually arrive (should be any day now) when I saw today that Lufthansa were doing a special offer. Flights have to be booked by tomorrow so I assume it's a mother's day campaign (it's mother's day here tomorrow). I was able to get a flight for 99 euro so decided to go ahead and book it using my company credit card. We are allowed to use these for private purposes as well, as the bill is paid directly from our own bank accounts anyway. However, it's a typical German credit card, which needs to be paid off in full each month. I don't use it often but using my ordinary card would have taken me right up to the limit so I decided to use the company card to be on the safe side. Then I noticed on the booking page that if I used paypal instead of just doing a direct card transaction, I wouldn't have to pay a 5 euro credit card booking charge. So I added my company card to my paypal account and chose that as the payment method. And when completing the transaction got a little mouse-trigger-happy and ended up clicking complete before actually changing the paypal transaction to the other card. I've transferred the money immediately to my card from my Irish account but that leaves my Irish account very close to its overdraft limit. I will leave things like that for a week and if the refund hasn't hit my bank account by then I'll just go ahead and transfer money from my annual expenses savings account to cover it.

I hate having to juggle like that, especially because of a silly mistake on my part. On the other hand I am very pleased to be planning an extra-long weekend with my sister and her family. It will do my soul good to spend some time there and it'll be lovely to see the house they bought and just moved into a couple of months ago.

Maybe it will take my mind off the dentist. I went to the old dentist on Monday to have the repair done on the broken crown. He said that if a bit breaks off again, he will replace the entire crown. Then on Friday I went to my new dentist for the planned cleaning and organising a timeframe for the three onlays I need to get (he did a temporary cement filling to give me time to pay off the crown work before needing to pay out more). After the cleaning was finished (the usual, she said everything looked fine but I really need to try and keep up a more regular flossing habit - I have promised to try harder on that), the dentist came in to have a look. He was not impressed with the broken and repaired crown story at all, particularly when he saw that the repair leaves a big gap between that tooth and the one next to it with no contact point at all. He has told me that I should definitely complain about it and insist on getting a new crown as that kind of gap will just lead to paradontical (periodentical? - sorry, not sure of the English translation and the online dictionary's not helping at the moment) problems. Wonderful. I'm not looking forward to that conversation with the old dentist.

From the new dentist I received the forms to send in to the health insurance place to get their part of the payment organised (but this time it should be organised properly so that I don't have to pay and get a refund, they will just pay that portion directly to the dentist). I'll send that in and in the meantime wonder about how I'm going to find the 1,400 or so I need to pay for my portion. This new dentist doesn't have a fance agreement with a central billing place you see so financing it over six months isn't an option. The assistant told me that if I made fairly big downpayment I could spread the rest out over three months so that's what I'll do, I suppose. Pay 400 when the job is done and then three further monthly payments of just over 300. I'm hoping the health insurance will take a long time to get back to me (and that my teeth hold out!) so that I can potentially push the appointment out to July. Once I've finished with my loan repayments, I can put that money towards the new dental work, so not having to pay anything until the end of July would be ideal. It means making more than small payments to the credit card and overdraft will have to go on the backburner again but it has to be done.

The cleaning I had done cost 50 euro (another change from the other place, where the basic cleaning treatment was 90 and they tried hard every time to sell the 'luxury' package that was about 130). Since I am now paying a whole lot of money for dental insurance, I will phone them on Monday to find out how to claim that back. If I recall correctly, I can claim up to 250 euro in the first year so I will claim for the cleaning and then the rest when I get the onlays done, which will help absorb the downpayment at least. It's costing me a lot every month for that additional dental insurance but given the state of my teeth and the knowledge that they're really not going to get any better at this stage, it looks like I will be making full use of it in the years to come. The amount I can claim increases every year until after five years, I should be able to claim around 90% of the costs of just about any work that needs doing.

Right, not much else to report. I showed my CV to some German people from choir who spent a good hour tearing it to pieces so it has taken me a few days to get over that. It was all well-meant (well, most of it, one guy tagged along who I don't know very well and it was much harder to take criticism from him because I just don't have any basis of trust built up with him) and much needed but was also another reminder that if you ask a German for an opinion, you are very likely to get a very direct answer. No pussyfooting around by any means. Other than that, the only thing going on is that Düsseldorf is gearing up to host the Eurovision Song Contest next weekend and it's actually getting kind of exciting watching the Eurovision coaches passing by and seeing the signs going up all over. I haven't watched the Eurovision for years, since before it was split into the format where there are semi-finals first. But this year I will be finding a pub to follow it in. Not just because it's being held just down the road from me (quite literally - a max. ten minute drive down the road around the corner from my street) but also because the Irish entry is Jedward. And although I found them intensely annoying when they first made an appearance (and was glad I didn't live in Ireland anymore and therefore could easily avoid them) I have actually kind of started to enjoy them over the last couple of months. They keep popping up on discussion board and twitter links and they are, to use a phrase sometimes popular in Ireland, completely for the birds ( here's a sample interview from youtube - they don't come on until about ten minutes in). They've started making an impression here already so it'll be fun to see if they do well in the Eurovision.

But that's enough waffling for now. Off to floss well before heading to bed :-)

Nearly there

2011-05-03T08:40:00.000+01:00

I'm back in work but had to take a moment to check my Irish bank account - it was a holiday in Ireland yesterday so there were no updates. But loan payment has gone out now and finally, finally, after five very, very long years I am down to just two payments left to do. And once that's gone I can really attack the credit card and overdraft. One more step down the road to debt free!

Holidays - day 6

2011-05-01T16:24:00.000+01:00

Got up around nine, ate a proper breakfast (including a newly opened jar of last year's raspberry jam - delicious although my notebook tells me that when I made it I didn't think it was as nice as the year before's jam). Did the dishes and headed out for a walk to a nearby park. While there I saw the May Day (Workers' Day) parade passing, which was interesting. Didn't bother following along to go and listen to the speeches though, just headed back through the park and up an incline, where I sat in the sun for twenty minutes or so peoplewatching and musing.

I resisted the temptation to buy an ice-cream or something nice from the bakery on the way home and once I got here got stuck in to getting my CV finished. Oh my goodness but OpenOffice can be a finicky, annoying program to use. This is why I've kept putting off getting my CV finished - I ended up just starting from scratch as too much of the Word formatting was just getting skewed. Have designed a completely different format based on some a found on the internet - I'd used the same old one for at least ten years and it was getting very old-fashioned looking even to me. And of course I needed to make sure I was using the type of layout popular in Germany, with plenty of space for a photo on the front page etc. Now it's very annoying that I can't manage to re-size the photo properly (for whatever reason it's opening up as a nearly full-page). Sigh. I thought I was going to have to sneak into the office this evening to do it there but as I'm typing this I am remembering a piece of software that was available for free download to do just exactly that so I may see if I can find that. Just need to have something to send in to the recruitment agency I spoke to on Friday and want to send it early tomorrow morning.

And I've caught up on some blog reading, done the ironing, put everything away and swept the floors. Not a bad day's work so far really. Just wish I didn't have to go back to real work. I do still have tomorrow off but since I have a dental appointment at 12, the day is going to be a bit of a washout I think. I'm getting the crown repaired which broke at the beginning of April (yes, the one I only just got at the end of November and which I have only just made the final payments on). But for now on this sunny evening there are strawberries demanding my attention.

Holiday - day 5

2011-04-30T18:25:00.001+01:00

The market was on again this morning and although I'd have enough to last me to next Wednesday I don't usually get to it before work so went to get a few more things to get me through to next Saturday.

Market spend:
164g turkey salami = 3.85 (23.50 per kg)
2 x litres milk = 2.40 + 3.00 deposit on bottles
1 x small yoghurt = 0.89 *
366g cheese = 3.26 (8.90 per kg)
2 punnets strawberries = 7.00 (first of the season - they had some on Wednesday but I was too late so went early today)
1 bunch (a kilo) rhubarb = 1.50**

*Unfortunately they've stopped making their own yoghurt, which was available in re-usable containers and although the yoghurt they are now selling is also from a local farmer and free-ranging, grass-fed cows, it's in a normal throwaway plastic container. So I bought an extra litre of milk and one small yoghurt to start me off and will be back to trying to be organised enough to just make my own yoghurt. And I've told them why I won't be buying yoghurt from them anymore.
** From the florist - asked if they use chemicals or if it's essentially organic and she said they use an absolute minimum of whatever is necessary and since for rhubarb that's really basically nothing, I went ahead and got it from her rather than paying the 4.60 for the same thing from the organic farmer. Sometimes I feel like he is just taking the piss to be honest - I am prepared to pay a mark-up for organic as it does involve more work but rhubarb? That, in my experience, pretty much grows like a weed and doesn't need a whole lot of care - certainly not enough to justify a nearly threefold price increase.

Otherwise, today I have done very little. I didn't make it out to the launderette yesterday evening after all, the storm kept up for a good while so I settled in to watch some internet telly. So I went today and got the other sofa cover and a duvet that I use for guests washed. I also stripped the bed and threw the bedclothes into the washing machine at home and that's nearly dry now after hanging for the last few hours so I'll put the same duvet cover back on this evening, which will save me having to iron it (I don't feel bedclothes really need to be ironed normally but it does make a difference to how much space they take up so if they're going into the blanket box, they need to be ironed). I'll use the summer duvet and then all I'll have to still wash is the winter one I've just taken off the bed. In fact, I am considering heading back out to the launderette now just to get it done and finished with. There'll be a shower and clean nightie this evening, all the better to appreciate the freshly made up bed!

And as promised, here's the photo heavy part. Some pictures of my living room from a couple of weeks ago.

The pile of ironing (okay, it looks slightly worse than it is because underneath all that is my knitting bag too).

Complete with bits of paper on the floor - wonderful. Actually they blew on to the floor because I had the window open to air the place out but having said that, they did sit there for at least a week before I picked them up. There is a name for this which I read about in Tescopoly but I don't have my copy anymore (who did I loan it to?) - basically if there's a house with a broken window, it's more likely that other damage will be done and people will be less likely to keep things clean and orderly. Similarly, if the place is such a mess anyway, what difference does it make if there's a couple of pieces of paper on the floor.

The big couch - not entirely cover in stuff but that's really only because I always kept space clear to sit on. Since the desk was completely covered it has been months since this was the only place I had space to sit and use the computer as well.

And now for the after. There are still areas of not a bit messy but lets face it, clearing the CDs away from near the stereo is never going to last for more than a few hours anyway until the next time I'm listening to something.

Lovely, lovely clear space and my lovely red cover back where it belongs. I do prefer this one so much to the basic cream one.

No more ironing to do! Although I've just put on a wash of what I've used this week thinking I might as well be fully ahead before going back to work on Tuesday. Will iron all of that as soon as it's dry - I love to sit in this chair and read.

Still more to be done but two piles is more manageable than what was there before. Hope to do a few minutes each day over the next few weeks. And more importantly, not add to it, which means getting back into the proper habit of dealing with stuff as it arrives.

Here's something else that I still need to tackle but is just going to have to wait until I have more days off or an unexpected surge of energy - one of the big cupboards in the hallway:

Actually, the towels, tablecloths and so on are a bit more orderly already as I needed to sort them out to fit in all the stuff that had been languishing on the armchair of ironing. I could probably do with decanting the plum vodka into bottles at this stage.

But the lower half of this cupboard needs some serious work. I'm not really even sure exactly what's in there anymore. The white plastic bag is a few bits and pieces I had nowhere to put and needed to get rid of out of the hall before some guests arrived for dinner at some stage and it has just sat there since. I don't know if you can see it clearly but the jar of chutney which got knocked over last summer and leaked all over the place for a couple of weeks before I discovered it is in at the back there - I was sure I had cleaned that all up but apparently I didn't even get around to righting the jar. So I really need to get in and clear that mess up. What's in there is actually stuff from 2009 because since I hadn't actually gotten around to clearing out this cupboard last autumn, I never got around to putting away all of last summer's stuff. That has mostly been sitting on top of the hallway table - covered by a nice piece of material whenver anyone was coming over. At least I've used up a good bit of it now. But long past time to be sorting this out I think.

Spending recap - week 17

2011-04-29T21:07:00.003+01:00

Transport 2.60
Food necessities 20.74
Food luxuries 35.20
Canteen food 0.00
Toiletries 0.00
Gifts (incl. postage) 3.99
Clothes 4.50
House/garden 46.55
Medical 0.00
Other 18.40

Total spend this week: 131.98
Total spend this month: 457.57

Food luxuries and other are high this week due to being on holiday - these amounts include dinner out with book club as well as several cups of tea/hot chocolate and snacks in cafes (I even went to the Starbucks on my road for the first time since moving here nearly three years ago - sooo expensive for a bad selection of herbal teas and a not very nice muffin, really not worth it). House/garden is the money spent in the launderette plus the steam juicer and sage plant I bought.

I've posted this early as it's the end of the month - I generally run my budget (such as it is) from Saturday to Friday but I've been doing these spending recaps from Monday to Sunday so there'll be a slightly too early one at the end of each month. And I can't interest myself in changing either of those two things so it'll just stay that way for now.

Edited to add that this month, I had just eight no-spend days. And I strongly suspect that most of those were just days I didn't leave the house at all.

Food Waste Friday - 29 April 2011 and days 3 and 4 of holiday

2011-04-29T18:25:00.000+01:00

I do have some waste this week but mostly as a result of finally admitting that a couple of things that were in the fridge were never going to be used and just biting the bullet and getting rid of them. Pure waste.

A small amount of wild garlic cream cheese. Why did I not just eat this with some of the soda bread I made last week? No idea. I had to get rid of some of that bread as well as it went inexplicably rock hard within a couple of days - gone to the ducks in the park so at least not a complete waste.

The olives and gherkins have been there since, I think, the end of January. I brought the jar to a friend's house for a potluck dinner and she insisted I take the remainder home with me. I sort of assumed I'd drag them out the next time I had someone over for dinner but haven't had anyone here since then. Although I like olives a lot I really can't stand anything from the gherkin/cucumber family and the olives in that jar have a gherkin taste so that means I have no interest in eating them. If I was starving I would. But I'm not. So I won't.

And finally a small carton of sour cream. Which I bought for a specific recipe that never got made. The expiry date was from the end of February so although it's sealed and it's sour cream (which the internet tells me can stay usable for baking well past the expiry date if it's unopened) I've gotten rid of it. I'm not likely to do anything with it in the next few weeks so will err on the better safe than sorry side.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Other than clearing stuff out of the fridge I've done a few bits and pieces around the house. Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, kept up on the washing and the washing up and otherwise read a lot and went for my groupon neck massage and pedicure then watched a very silly film in the evening. Today I woke up ravenous so the idea of spending an hour doing housework before breakfast did not appeal at all. I ate breakfast and read for an hour then tidied up the fridge, did the washing up and swept and washed the floors. Along with more washing, folding away the dried stuff and hanging up more to dry.

The friend who lived with me last year for a few months left some stuff here, among other things clothes and bedclothes. All of which, although clean, still had the damp musty smell from his old flat in them. So I washed a few just after he left and then forgot about them. But I wanted to start using that wardrobe properly so it needs a good cleanout and I finally got the last of the stuff washed today. I think I've done two washes every day this week to get through it all but as the weather has been warm, it's drying quickly so that's good. I'm packing it away into a suitcase as it drys - have no patience with him taking up my usable space anymore but since I can't afford to hire a car and drive the six hours or so to where he lives, I'm just going to pack it away and let it sit out of sight until someone else is visiting him.

After a nice lunch of bread and cheese with some chutney, I read for another while, waiting for three o'clock to roll around so that I could put the washing machine on again (not supposed to run it or do anything else noisy during half-twelve and three). I also phoned a few recruitment agencies to start getting a move on in that respect. Have to email them my CV and references and we'll see where it goes from there.

And then I started sorting a few things out in the sitting room as I wanted to put away the rest of my bedclothes and they live in the blanket box which also serves as my coffee table. Rather than just moving the stuff off the top of that onto the couch, which I have to admit I sort of planned to do, I just started sorting through it. There were receipts and things from the last couple of times I emptied out my purse and instead of just putting them to one side I took out the folders with my bank and credit card statements and actually sorted them properly, attaching them to the relevant statements and even clearing a similar pile from my desk while I was at it.

That ended up taking far longer than I thought (as it always does) - over two hours. I also sorted and cleared away all of the choir stuff that has been lying around for a few weeks (I was looking for a particular piece of music and ended up starting to sort years worth of stuff out and then getting sidetracked and just leaving it all in a messy pile on the couch - and the concert I needed it for was in mid-March so it was past time to get rid of all that stuff again).

So, all of the bedclothes have been put away - I've taken out a lighter sheet to swich over from using the heavier flannel that it's getting too warm for and will change that tomorrow. Since that meant the big couch was nearly free of mess, I cleared everything else off it too, took off the cream cover (which was only supposed to be temporary while I got the other one cleaned - the one that sat down in the cellar for about a year and a half and only got washed this week) and put back on the newly cleaned red one. Feels good to have things starting to fall into place again. I still have two very large piles of papers and stuff to go through but it has been a good start. I was going to head out to the launderette to get the cream sofa cover cleaned and we had a massive thunder storm with torrential rain. I think the rain has just about eased off now so I think I'll have dinner and do it after that. They're open until after ten I think. Will post photos of my newly cleaned space tomorrow - although it's not raining the clouds are still very dark so I'll wait until sunlight to take pictures. Oooh, there's some more lightning and the thunder is following it almost immediately. Might wait until tomorrow to venture out.

Spending on day 2 of holidays

2011-04-28T08:06:00.000+01:00

Today I went shopping. To make sure I don't have any unexpected cashflow issues at the weekend I used my credit card to pay for some clothes and as that won't be included in my weekly spending recap, which is cash/debit card, I wanted to get it all down now. As soon as I get paid the money I spent on the card will go into my savings account to pay the bill at the end of the month - I do have it but just in case we don't get paid tomorrow as expected, wanted to leave myself that bit of leeway.

What I bought on the card were some much needed clothes for work - particularly needed if I want to go for interviews. I do still need another pair of light summer trousers - I got two last year but one of them has already been repaired twice and I just don't think it's worth getting them fixed again. Will see.

C+A - 3 blouses + 1 t-shirt top = 65
C+A - 1 fleece = 4.50 (this was a totally unnecessary splurge buy, reduced from 19 and won't get used till next winter probably but as splurges go, 4.50 is on the more reasonable scale)
Toasted sandwich, hot chocolate + tip = 7.00
Half a loaf of spelt/yoghurt bread (organic) = 1.55
1 packet of 20 plant clips to send to my brother = 3.99
Bookclub: salad with fried potatoes + eggs, 1 fizzy water and 2 shandies + tip = 17.00

Market spend:
4 x apples = 0.50
1 x sage plant (organic) = 2.50
1 x lettuce (organic) = 1.50
6 x eggs + 3 x large carrots (organic) = 3.07
1x litre milk (unpasteurised) = 1.20 (+ 1.50 deposit on bottle)
148g cream cheese with wild garlic = 2.21
4 x slices cooked ham = 3.82 (18.90 per kg)
2 x slices leberkäse with wild garlic = 0.44 (12.90 per kg) - leberkäse is another type of cold meat, sort of a pate/meatloaf type concoction

The other thing I have spent money on this week is a steam juicer. I had decided while having a bad weekend to do some window shopping on ebay with a view to buying one in the summer sometime. There were two second-hand ones for sale that I was keeping an eye on and when the second one was still at 3.50 half an hour before closing on Monday evening I decided to put a bid on. A new one in the shops, shinier but smaller and more lightweight, cost 69.99 last year. I kept to a bit less than my ebay limit of no more than 20 euro including shipping and ended up being the highest bidder at 11.05 - with 7 euro shipping that's 18.05 for something I know I will use a lot. I'm very pleased and if I'm honest, although I know shopping won't fix things and I need to be careful not to spend money I can't afford, I think that small 'win' on Monday evening meant disproportionately more to me than it should, but in a good way. Small amount of light in an otherwise dark day.

Holiday - Day 2

2011-04-27T11:56:00.000+01:00

Bit of a late night last night - got out of the cinema around half-nine and went for tea and a chat afterwards so it was nearly eleven by the time I got home and then I read for a while before sleeping. Seven o'clock was difficult this morning and it was actually half-past before I got up. Took a while to get going but I started in on the ironing and then just kept going. Stopped for a break to have some breakfast, put a wash on and a couple of time to check emails, as well as finally getting through to the central dental billing place to make sure there's no penalty for paying off the last bill early, but kept going back to it until it was all done just after eleven. That includes all the bed clothes and some winter stuff that has been sitting there since February. Feels good to have it done and the ironing board and iron put away.

I made a quick trip to the market and bakery and am now catching up on some blogs. Need to dig out all the documents I need to bring to the renters' association and will head off there in a hour or so. After my appointment there, I'm going to wander around town for an hour or two, sit and read somewhere for a while perhaps and then head to book club. The days are flying by and I'm trying to ignore the voice in the back of my head telling me how nice it would be to never have to go back to work.

Tomorrow I need to do some serious work on my CV and make some phone calls.

Jersey Shore in the style of Oscar Wilde

2011-04-27T11:12:00.000+01:00

I've never seen Jersey Shore but I looked it up the other day because people do keep mentioning it. And then today Stephen Fry tweeted about this and I have to say it does make me giggle:

Holiday - Day 1

2011-04-26T14:20:00.000+01:00

Trying to move on from yesterday's very bad day (the tears just kept coming sometimes prompted by something, sometimes not - I hope a late appointment slot opens up soon with that therapist, not sure waiting much longer is a good idea).

Anyway, I set the alarm for 7 today and got up at 10 past, after only snoozing it twice. That's progress at least. 7 is the time I would like to start getting up until the winter again - gives me an hour to myself before getting ready for work instead of dragging myself out of bed at quarter past eight and rushing to get to work on time. My hour of housework hasn't quite worked out. It took me fifteen minutes or so to get moving after getting up (toilet, brushing teeth, getting dressed). I decided to just try and get the stuff done that I didn't get to over the weekend, which should have been easily achievable in an hour. But then I started getting stuck into the kitchen properly. I've done the dishes, cleaned the oven, cleared off all the crap that was collecting on the windowsill, finally (nearly a year later!) put the two-ring hotplate that used to be my cooker away and gave the small electric oven a good scrubbing and packed that up as well to go down to the cellar (and it's outside the door already so I have to bring it down next time I leave the apartment). Haven't done the top of the fridge yet though, which is the other magnet for stuff to gather. Still, what I did along with general cleaning and tidying and putting a wash on, took me more like an hour and a half. For the last half an hour I've been checking emails, done some online banking, phoned to make an appointment for a massage and pedicure (a 19 euro groupon, I was supposed to go to the chiropodist soon and that costs 35 so for less, plus a neck massage, an ordinary pedicure will do for now) and checked my diary for what else is on this week that I have to do.

Right, it's after half-nine, I need to do the hoovering and then that is it for housework today. I think I may take my book and head to the launderette with the second couch cover - it's down in the cellar in a suitcase and it's the one I'd prefer to be using anyway. Will take that and the summer duvet and spend an hour reading my book while they wash.

Update at 15.00:
Did the hoovering, got the washing hung up and another one in the machine. Sat and had a nice breakfast (rice krispies, a banana, a cup of herbal tea). Gathered everything up for going to the launderette. Just before leaving decided to move the two smaller aloe vera plants from the top of the veg holder to the newly cleared windowsill. I badly need to repot the aloe veras and thought moving them would remind me. Of course they were all tangled up and I promptly knocked one over so less than half an hour after finishing the hoovering I ended up with soil all over the kitchen floor and newly cleaned windowsill. Sigh. At least I did actually clean it up immediately, even if it did delay me getting out. One newly cleaned (again!) windowsill and floor, a nice long shower and some clean clothes later, I finally made it out the door.

Went to the launderette, stopping in the cellar to get the sofa cover (which was off course at the very bottom of the piles of stuff) and rearrange things there a bit better. I even thought to stop at the bank to get change but of course the launderette is very high-tech these days and will not only take notes in the machine, it will give you change. Unfortunately the XXL machine isn't all that XX so I had to do two loads - at 9 euro each, that is expensive. It's a good thing the cover comes apart into two pieces. I was able to do the summer duvet in one of the ordinary machines, which are still bigger than a normal domestic one. That's 3.50. I did try washing the smaller section of the sofa cover in a smaller machine but it really wasn't clean when it came out so I put it into the bigger one. A waste of 3.50 but good to know for future reference.

Called in to the internet cafe on the way home to print out my groupon and chatted to a neighbour I bumped into for a few minutes when I came back. And made it all the way up the stairs with the now heavy suitcase. The duvet had to be tumble dried but the sofa cover is explicitly not supposed to be (it has that white material as a lining that can't be ironed or tumble dried). I put it through an extra spin cycle but it's still very heavy while wet. Hard to believe that all of that plus getting lunch on to cook (potato cakes with tuna and onion), finding somewhere to hang up the sofa cover (too heavy for the shower rail, which is what I had planned on) and taking the rest of the washing out of the machine as well has brought me up to three o'clock. Actually, quarter past now. Time to eat, relax for a while and then head out to meet my friend for the cinema. Don't have to meet her until after half-six but I may wander a bit on the way and perhaps stop somewhere for an ice-cream.

Overwhelmed

2011-04-25T15:12:00.000+01:00

I've just sent an email to one of the main contacts for the garden to say that I won't be coming back for a couple of months. That decision came a bit out of the blue, particularly since one of the nice things I was thinking of doing this week was taking the opportunity to go and garden during the week, which I normally can't do, but as I was reading the latest update email asking for details on who will do what for the open day in a few weeks I felt a wave of "just can't do it" rush over me. I started to write an email saying that I wouldn't be back to work on Saturday mornings until maybe June and then realised that's only a few weeks away and changed it to June or July. I was going to write something along the lines of 'but of course I'll help out for the open day' and I just couldn't do it. I cried the whole time I was writing the email but to be honest I have been crying on and off all day so far. Something had to give and I had considered giving up the garden for a while but felt that what I get back from it was enough to make up for the effort of going there. But it's better to take a break and go back to it fresh than forcing myself to be up and out early every Saturday morning.

I will try to use these next weeks to get back to some kind of proper routine, perhaps focus on getting a walk or a swim in and starting to lose some weight again. I saw some photographs of myself taken on a recent choir weekend, the kind where you don't know they are being taken so haven't been able to hide yourself beside a conveniently plant or something. I knew I had put weight on again but, based on how clothes are fitting, am not quite back to my biggest but these photos were just shocking. I do not see that fat woman when I look in the mirror and the way I felt when I saw those photos combined with everything else that has happened over the last year and everything in work over the last couple of weeks has just gotten on top of me.

Last year sometime blogger introduced a stats function and since then I check every once in a while. There is rarely a time when someone hasn't landed here because of searching "how not to get overwhelmed", which leads them to this post, which to be honest, will be absolutely no use to anyone trying not to get overwhelmed. And I still don't know how to stop being overwhelmed by what life is throwing at me. Throw in some guilt for feeling like life is throwing too much at me when I know millions of people all over the world and even probably dozens on the street I live on have it much worse than me. But there it is.

I thought I had a point to this post but I've forgotten it if there ever was one. I may need a nap.

P.S. Just as I was about to hit publish on this post, the song below came on the radio/internet (I've been listening to an Irish country station that I always loved when I still lived there). It seemed to fit the moment:

Spending for week 16 and holiday plans

2011-04-24T13:31:00.001+01:00

Transport 7.00
Food necessities 24.45
Food luxuries 37.79
Canteen food 6.80
Toiletries 0.00
Gifts (incl. postage) 0.00
Clothes 0.00
House/garden 1.93
Medical 0.00
Other 8.90

Total spend this week: 86.87
Total spend this month to date: 325.59

Another very spendy week although most of that is actually next week's budget and was spent yesterday on groceries. I treated myself to a trip to the English shop because I had a craving for mini-eggs and the mark-up on stuff there is just ridiculous. It'd be cheaper to fly to England every couple of months and stock up, which is why I only go there once or twice a year (well, I've been there three times so far since I moved here nearly three years ago - generally a taste of what I think I'm missing at exhorbitant prices is enough to convince me I don't really miss it that much - a sample price I noticed that most people can compare, I think, is Arm and Hammer bread soda, a 454g/1lb box costs €2.60/US$3.80).

I did bring my lunch in to work every day except the one day a week that I meet some of the other secretaries for lunch in the canteen. And I ate dinner at home every day too - as well as lunch on the holiday and weekend. Had a real craving for pizza yesterday, which I kept at bay by remembering first of all that I already had the last portion of bean casserole in the fridge to be eaten and secondly, by heading to Aldi to buy flour and deciding while there to get a frozen pizza. In the end I decided on these small pizza baguettes, six in a box for €1.79. They don't taste great but are alright. Next time I'll add a bit of cheese (cheddar from the English shop) and they'll be fine.

I have the next week off work and have a few things planned that will need money so it's not good that I've already spent most of the budget. I was hoping to not spend the entire refund from the health insurance but will break into the rest of that to pay for what's happening this week - need to go to the launderette and get the duvet cleaned and badly need to do the couch cover as well (it has only been spot-cleaned so far - it's nearly three years later and past time). And I need to send my sister her (January!) birthday present. Things like that. I should send my sister in France the christmas box I put together as well but it's kind of heavy so I've already told her I'm not going to and will put the money towards a ticket to go and visit them at the end of June.

Now if could just shake off this horrible depression and get moving on some things. I have a document I promised to proofread for a friend at the beginning of the month but all the crap that has been happening in work (not to mention working every day until after eight) has sent me off in a tizzy again and I am having difficulty coping. My plan for the week's holiday was to spend an hour before breakfast every day completing one task (finished in less than an hour okay, not finished then quit after one hour regardless). Then a nice sit down breakfast with a pot of tea followed by an hour or so sitting in the armchair listening to the radio, some music and/or reading. Spend half an hour on the phone to employment agencies to find out what the job market is like and/or preparing CV etc. Maybe a short walk before lunch and then spend the afternoon out and about, going to museums or parks or whatever takes my fancy. On Tuesday evening I'm meeting a friend at the cinema for an anti-nuclear film and talk. On Wednesday afternoon I have an appointment with the renter's association to check my annual charges bill and then in the evening it's book club. Now just need to find the will to actually get out of bed every day.

Spending for week 15

2011-04-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

Transport -14.00
Food necessities - 40.78
Food luxuries -31.17
Canteen food -36.81
Toiletries -0.00
Gifts (incl. postage) - 0.00
Clothes - 0.00
House/garden -1.99
Medical -0.00
Other -1.60

Total spend this week: 112.35
Total spend this month to date:238.72

A very spendy week with no cooking or preparation of any kind, which is always expensive. Amazing how that happens as soon as the financial pressure is off a bit. I did go to the market today and have bought more or less enough food for the next two weeks (market will be closed over the easter weekend I think).

Food waste

2011-04-16T18:02:00.000+01:00

Quite often on Fridays, I participate in the Food Waste Friday series hosted by the Frugal Girl, in which people blog and/or comment about what food they have wasted and had to throw out during that week. Lots of people find it helps to keep them accountable. I remember telling my brother about it and he actually got kind of angry about the idea that people needed to feel the need to shame themselves - it wasn't the reaction I was expecting because I know he tries never to waste food and hates food waste. But at the same time I could see his point. He has far less difficulty than I do in not succumbing to a lot of the 'normal' behaviour that is 'expected' of good little girls and boys and follows you in to adulthood.

For myself, I find it interesting to make a point of checking my fridge every single week, when before I would maybe only do it every month or so. I'm more likely to use something up before it goes off because I am checking more frequently what's in there.

The thing that has really surprised me though is what some people consider to be gone off. I noticed this when I visited a friend a while back as well. I was completely shocked to watch her go to her fruitbowl and just start turfing stuff onto the counter to go into the bin. Now, I don't generally eat supermarket fruit and veg but when visiting friends I don't turn my nose up at their choices for feeding themselves either so although it was really annoying to see the amount of packaging still attached to some of what she wanted to throw out, I didn't comment on it. But I had to say something about the waste of fruit because even from where I was sitting across the table, none of it really looked bad.

I stopped her getting rid of two bananas, which were just about to start getting brown spots. Okay, I know bananas are a bit of a divisive topic and there are lots of people who won't eat them once they've gone past green. But when I got her to show me the apples, they were absolutely fine. They hadn't even begun to go even a little bit soft or wrinkly. There were a few nectarines as well so although it felt very strange to be eating a nectarine in February, we both sat and ate one there and then and I had an apple as well. Her reasons for wanting to throw the apples out? 'They've been there for at least two weeks I'm sure'. How on earth are we at the point of just not knowing that apples can keep for months and months in the right conditions? I've always known I was weird for not minding eating wrinkly apples but to not even look at them and just arbitratily decide to throw them out because they were bought a certain amount of time ago kind of blew my mind. And we're not talking about a townie like me, this is someone who grew up on a farm.

Reading the blogs of other people talking about their food waste continues to astonish me with what people consider to be waste. From those who won't keep or eat yoghurt or milk if it has been allowed to reach room temperature, to the green banana brigade, those terrified of eating chicken that has been out of the fridge for a short while (okay, terrified might be an exagerration and chicken, especially raw chicken, does need to be treated with care but overreaction seems to be very common) and those who think that if a potato has started to grow 'eyes' it has gone off (the fact that most potato peelers come especially equipped with a bit at the top designed especially to dig out the eyes should be a clue, folks).

It would be easy to just think that there are lots of stupid people out there but I know that's not the reason for most of this. We're talking about mostly very intelligent people who just don't know. I know when I was a young adult I was fairly slavish about best before dates and it's possible I still would be now - I just don't buy an awful lot of stuff that comes with a date on it. And I know I can keep stuff fresh for ages by keeping it in tupperware but sometimes it just feels so wrong that something sitting in my fridge for a week still smells and looks okay that I might throw it out without needing to.

But learning how to tell if an egg is still fresh was one of the best things I ever learned. Realising that chopping the bad bits off something solid is okay and that not everything that is mouldy will be mouldy all the way through was important too, as was finding out that this may not be a good idea for less solid foods, like jam, since the spores are likely to be all the way through and not just resting on top. Knowing that if I did ingest a tiny bit of something that might be slightly gone off, it probably won't kill me is important (and I don't believe I'm the only person who has on occasion been so hungry they've taken a bite from a slice of bread before bothering to butter it and only when they do so look at it properly and realise it's growing something!). I still have lots to learn and I'm very happy that I'm open to it. Of course the biggest lesson to learn in dealing with food waste is to not buy so much. I grew up in a very big family but I live alone now and I still struggle with figuring out how much to buy/not buy purely because I have all of these fixed ideas in my head from childhood of how much space the weekly shopping should take up. Like so many other things, it's time and more to let go of the past - but very difficult.

Service costs refund

2011-04-13T22:07:00.000+01:00

Arrived home from choir practice to find a letter waiting for me with the details of the annual reckoning for service costs in my apartment. Every month I pay rent (called 'cold rent') plus service charges (cold rent plus service charges is called 'warm rent'). These service charges or Nebenkosten (literally 'side costs') don't always include heating but mine do. You pay up every month and then once a year everything is tallied up, divided by either the number of people living in the building, the number of apartments or the square meters occupied, depending on how the costs are allocated, and then they figure out if you have overpaid or underpaid. I didn't think I would have overpaid as much this year as I had my lodger living with me for three months at the beginning of last year and was fairly sure that would have had an impact, not least because he was very fond of using the heating. But I'm actually going to get a refund of a bit more than last year. So there should be just over 360 euro winging its way to my bank account next month. Fantastic!

Spending for calendar week 14

2011-04-10T16:51:00.000+01:00

For as long as I manage to keep up daily tracking, I'm just going to go ahead and post a summary each week. But without reasons or justifications or excuses. Sometimes I'll spend money I shouldn't on things I don't need and I'm not looking for comments on on silly that is, believe me, I already know.

I have several different categories set up on my spreadsheet - I've looked back through the last couple of years and I've changed it a bit but not much. Mostly I just haven't used this part (although around March I seem to come back to it each year - takes the new year vibe a bit longer to kick in for me apparently). I'll see how things go over the next while and consider whether to add or change any categories.

I have food divided into three separate categories: food necessities, food luxuries and canteen food. When my brother lived with me for a while years ago after losing his job I would bring him with me when I went shopping. But I was kind of strict with him most of the time (how is it that it's always much easier to do something to or for someone else than for yourself?) and, for example, wouldn't buy him coke (of the coca cola variety, not the powdery sort obviously!) - I insisted that I would feed him but any luxuries he had to buy himself. And I still think of it that way - any chocolate, fizzy drinks (apart from water, which is about the only fizzy drink I ever do buy), cakes or exotic things that are above and beyond the basics needed to get three meals a day into me are considered luxuries.

Canteen food is if I don't bring lunch to work and eat either in the canteen, at a restaurant or order something to be delivered (including if I work very late unexpectedly and need something to keep me going)

Transport is anything above and beyond my monthly ticket.

Transport - 20.50
Food necessities - 7.17
Food luxuries - 10.21
Canteen food - 24.07
Toiletries - 1.65
Gifts (incl. postage) - 3.00
Clothes - 0.00
House/garden - 3.80
Medical - 10.00
Other - 0.00

Total spend this week: 80.40
Total spend this month to date: 112.37

I also finally got confirmation that the 345 euro refund from the health insurance will be hitting my bank account next week so that's good.

Food Waste Friday - the too ashamed to post edition

2011-04-10T12:10:00.019+01:00

I had to throw out the inedible cake experiment, bread I just didn't bother eating (this week I ended up working 15, 11, 11 and 12 hour days - all after just being sick, it was too much) as well as most of the lentil stew I made last Monday. I ate some of it then, some for lunch on Tuesday but forgot to put it into the fridge, didn't even go into the kitchen on Wednesday and by Thursday evening it was already mouldy - yes, the hot and humid weather is here to stay it seems. I do like winter when the kitchen is nearly as cold as the fridge and you don't need to be worried if you forget to put something away but it can lead to bad habits. I'm also getting rid of the hazelnuts and walnuts I never did get around to using. Or probably anyway - they've been there since September/October and I suspect they may be somewhat rancid by now, at least the walnuts. Oh, and there's about two glasses worth of milk still in the fridge that also need to go but I'm considering using to make something that usually uses buttermilk - need to read up on that a bit more. After last week's disaster I'm not really feeling up to experimenting but I'm fairly sure I read somewhere along the way that slightly sour milk can be a replacement for buttermilk and I know you can add vinegar to milk to get a good substitute for buttermilk for baking purposes and it would be nice to rescue it.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by the Frugal Girl

Peat

2011-04-08T21:03:00.002+01:00

Excellent post from Otter Farm on peat: http://www.otterfarmblog.co.uk/2011/04/yawn.html

Raspberry buttermilk cake - maybe

2011-04-04T20:46:00.001+01:00

Back to work tomorrow. I do feel better although yesterday morning it seemed like a bad throat was going to come back in force. Not too many problems today though so back to the office for me tomorrow. Having said that, I have very little energy, if possible even less than I had last week. I'm just not sure how much of that is down to my general unwillingness to go back.

So, despite not having gotten up and done lots of things today in preparation for going back (small things like ironing clothes to wear, cleaning the floors, changing bedclothes) I have stirred myself to make some lentil stew (just had a taste and it is very underwhelming - disappointed at that), made some whole wheat muffins (as per this recipe although I got 15 bun size and 24 mini ones out of this amount, don't know how big they should have been to only get 12) and have just but a raspberry buttermilk cake in the oven. Except I changed it quite a bit from the Smitten Kitchen recipe I was supposed to be following so I have no idea how or if it's going to turn out at all.

First of all, it is April so fresh raspberries aren't exactly something you are likely to have on hand. But I do have all those pureed and semi-pureed strawberries in the freezer so I thought I could use some of them. Knowing that there's quite a bit of liquid in the defrosted berries I rounded up the flour a little bit (the conversions from cups to grams are always difficult to follow anyway as I don't have a digital scales and non-digital scales show increments of 25 - which makes measuring 130g of flour difficult) and I added a couple of teaspoons of cocoa powder, thinking that might help to also satisfy my chocolate cravings during the week. And as usual I just added a whole sachet of baking powder - I've heard lots of Americans complaining that the baking powder here just never works the way it does at home and so far, using an entire sachet (about 10g) works for me, even if the amount called for is less.

So we're all set, the dry ingredients are measured and mixed and waiting. So I turn to the butter. Only to realise that I used almost all of it up making the muffins and what I have left is barely enough to register on the scales. I remember reading that lots of people substitute apple sauce for the fat in recipes these days and although a quick google tells me that's usually for recipes involving oil and that it's the beating of the butter and sugar which will make my cake light and fluffy, I have no more butter so what else am I going to do? I 've opened a jar of my apple pureé from last autumn anyway to use in the muffin recipe and the rest of it needs to be used up. I spoon some of that into the weighing scales with the butter to reach a bit more than the required amount, which from my quick google would seem to be approximately right. Maybe. This cake is straying ever further from the original recipe.

So I decide to beat the butter (and apple) with the sugar, which I'm supposed to do until it's pale and fluffy. Hmmm, between the apple and the fact that I rarely have white sugar to hand and am using unrefined raw cane sugar, I don't think pale was every going to happen. Finish off the batter and just before pouring into the cake pan pour what juice has come off the strawberries already into it and mix that in too. It certainly smells nice at this stage. Scatter the mostly defrosted strawberries over the cake and realise just as I finish that I never actually measured them. Oh well, it wasn't much more than a cup I'm sure.

Put cake into oven and decide to quickly write this post as it's baking. Halfway through remember that I forgot to sprinkle the sugar over the top of the whole thing at the end. Dash into the kitchen and nearly burn my finger taking the still not quite baked cake out and throwing a bit of sugar over the top. Where it will undoubtedly burn. It was very liquidy feeling still (I have a silicon pan), despite having already been baking for the 20 minutes it seems to have taken most people. I'll give it another five before checking properly. My hope is that no matter what it looks like, it'll at least taste sweet. No-one else but me will be eating it but it's supposed to be stopping me from buying any chocolate I can't afford this week. Here's hoping it's one of those fiascos that turns out well.

Updated to add: EPIC FAIL! Not even edible. Very disappointing.

Another month, another payment

2011-04-01T14:53:00.000+01:00

Well, made it through March. Having been sick at home the last week has probably actually helped since there's been no temptation to impulse shop for something I didn't really need. Sleeping most of the day has a way of really cutting down on your outgoings.

April will be tight as well but May should hopefully be a little easier and then by June I will be finishing paying for the dental work and coming to the end of my loan. So the end is in sight but I am very apprehensive about any unexpected expenses cropping up between now and then. If my old dentist, for example, decides to play silly buggers and doesn't want to replace the crown that has broken, I don't know what I'll do. But time enough to deal with that if it happens, I suppose.

As of today, here's where I stand:

Loan: 1,475.27
Credit card: 3,880
Overdraft: 2,440
Outstanding dental payments: 366.15

After paying all the other bills I have to pay this month, I have just over 100 euro for the rest of the month. I have already put aside 20 euro to pay for dinner out with book club at the end of the month and I do have plenty of food at home already so should be more or less able to eat from the cupboard and freezer. I'm going to give myself 10 euro to pick up a few things I'm running low on or have run out of completely this week (I did already pick up one or two things on the way home from the doctor yesterday - I got some frozen stuff and some beef to add to the rest of the leftover chickpea curry - 20 euro doesn't last long with that kind of shopping). It won't cover all of it but whatever I don't get can wait. This is the list I've been writing over the couple of weeks for things I kept forgetting to get or as they have run out/low:

Tea tree oil (I use this for cleaning - have bought it once since moving here so although it can be pricey a bottle every couple of years isn't too extravagant)
Sunflower oil (can buy local sunflower oil from the market)
White wine vinegar (not very urgent, just want to have some on hand for the summer so I can make tomato ketchup)
Cider vinegar (use lots of this, both in making things like chutney and for rinsing my hair - my stock finally ran out)
Washing soda (use this with soapnuts for washing clothes as the water here is extremely hard - am down to the last one, time to stock up again)
Popcorn (have been craving this recently and discovered what I had on hand was very old and definitely gone funny - but for a cheap, relatively healthy snack it can't be beaten)
Eggs
Spices (garam masala, amchoor, cumin seeds)

I'll probably just get the eggs, popcorn and cider vinegar this week and plan to get some of the rest of it towards the end of the month. My aim will be to have a 'no money to spend this week' attitude for the next two weeks so that the last two weeks of the month will be a bit easier. We'll see how that goes.

Positive thinking

2011-03-31T20:58:00.000+01:00

It appears I may need to start thinking positive or else crappy things may keep happening. The latest is that this morning as I was getting ready to go to the doctor (am now off work until next Tuesday) and brushing my teeth, part of the crown I had fitted in December came off. Fabulous. I haven't even finished paying for the bloody thing yet. Nor gotten the expected refund from the health insurance either.

The worst part is that I phoned my new dentist and they have told me that if I want them to do it, I'll have to pay again. Understandable enough I suppose. To get it fixed (and really, I should from what I gather get an entirely new one) under guarantee, I will need to go back to my old dentist. The nasty one who treated me quite badly and who I never wanted to see again. I really don't want to go back to him but have no choice as I really can't afford to pay for a new crown elsewhere. I'm going to have to see if I can find a friend to come with me - that's how little I want to go, I feel like on my own he will just be horrible again. Obviously still being sick I also can't even go to the dentist at the moment - I have an appointment for next Wednesday at 10.45 (so assuming I am actually better enough to be in work on Tuesday, the second day back I'll also be out for at least an hour and a half - my boss is going to love that).

And then when I arrived home and tried to take the key out of the door it seemed to be a bit stuck. Got it out and put it back into the inside of the door to lock it again and it was just twirling a bit and then again was hard to get out. I seem to have managed to bend it slightly. Just perfect. At least that was an easy enough fix as I have two spare keys but for a minute there I had visions of being locked in my apartment.

I obviously need to start creating some positive energy around myself!

Flu

2011-03-28T17:37:00.000+01:00

I have the flu. Poor me. My doctor is on holiday so I had to go down the road to a neighbouring doctor who was looking after his patients while he's away. Unfortunately that meant a long waiting time to be fitted in among her existing appointments. On the other hand, waiting over two hours was just too much for me and I fell asleep in the waiting room, which may have helped her realise that it might be more than just a cough. Actually, I'm still inclined to think of it as just a cough but I looked up the code she wrote on my sick note and it's 'flu without specific confirmation of a virus from a lab'. She gave me a sick note until, and including, Thursday, which surprised me at first (I thought I might just get today off) but when I looked it up and saw flu, it makes a bit more sense.

She has given me ibuprofen to try and reduce the swelling in my throat and some paracodin drops for the cough, and which will hopefully allow me to get a proper night's sleep tonight. I have also self-prescribed ice-cream to soothe my throat a bit. Just looked up what paracodin is because I wasn't sure if it's codeine or not and it seems to have a very interesting list of potential side-effects of the type that make some people use it recreationally. I don't tend to be susceptible to that kind of thing but I have to admit the idea of the possibility is kind of amusing me at the moment. Maybe the drugs are kicking in after all.

Shopping in surpermarkets.

2011-03-27T17:32:00.001+01:00

Yesterday evening was film club, where I gather with a couple of friends to watch a DVD and afterwards we share a meal, talk about the film and whatever else takes our fancy. It had been postponed from earlier in the month as everyone seems to have had a lot going on recently.

Dinner is a potluck affair, with whoever is hosting cooking a main course of some kind and everyone else bringing side dishes or dessert. This month was going to be Indian and, of course, I forgot all about it until Friday evening. I spent an hour or so on Friday evening trawling the internet for some ideas and found two recipes on one of my favourite websites, Smitten Kitchen, which I decided to give a try. I developed quite a bad cough last week though and so I wanted to sleep late and take it easy yesterday, in an attempt to recuperate (I'm doing the same today but all day this time!). So I decided that instead of rushing into town to pick up the ground cumin and garam masala I was missing, not to mention the amchoor I'd never heard of before from the spice shop , instead of heading to the market for potatoes and cauliflower, then to the greengrocer's if I didn't find them at the market, instead of hitting Jacques for a nice bottle of wine or one of the Indian shops to pick up some kind of raita, that I would just say to hell with it and do what thousands of other people do all the time and just get everything in the supermarket.

Now, in Germany, buying fruit and veg in the supermarket is not generally a good idea - quality tends to be not too great and the selection is limited. But potatoes and cauliflower shouldn't be too hard I thought. I could make my own version of raita if I could at least get some fresh mint and apart from a couple of onions I'd be all set. And I know a huge range of spices isn't really something one should expect either (there are always a lot of mixes but the individual spices are more difficult to come by - as if we're all incapable of choosing our own mix) but I reckoned I'd at least get the cumin and could do without the rest. But all in all, I was happy that I didn't really need that much so it shouldn't be too bad.

However, I have been firmly reminded of how limiting shopping in a supermarket can be and found myself far more stressed than I normally am after a Saturday's shop (normally I feel rushed and a bit hassled but this stress is a different animal altogether). Now, this is not to say that I never go to the supermarket anymore. I do, at least once a week, and buy milk, chocolate and crisps (I've been eating far too much rubbish the last few months) and occasionally something frozen, like fish fingers or perhaps a jar of olives. But I do the bulk of my shopping elsewhere and when in the supermarket mostly walk past most of the stuff without even seeing it.

Buying the veg was only slightly worse than I had anticipated. I was able to get one of the last three packets of organic onions (from Holland so relatively local) - four in a packet and I got the best of a bad lot but wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't known I'd be using three of them immediately. I don't expect the fourth to last long either. At first, I could only see one option for potatoes, non-organic French potatoes, very small ones in a plastic container and covered in more plastic, or larger ones loose and with paper bags available. Luckily I then realised that around the corner there were bags of other potatoes as well so for a less extragavant price I had the choice of three different types of potato (waxy, floury, somewhat floury - the actual type could only be found in very small print) - but only in 2 kg bags. I got a bag of those and finally headed for the cauliflower. There were five left and I managed to get one that didn't have any brown bits on it.

I found some ground cumin after some searching but not, as expected, garam masala or amchoor. Picked up some milk and a jar of joghurt. Realised I should head back to see if there was any fresh mint but found only one very sad looking plant with practically no leaves that weren't already brown and dying. So I picked up some cucumber quark, which would do for a dip if anyone wanted some. And finally grabbed four bottles of beer, thinking that actually it's nicer to drink beer with Indian food than wine.

In general though I had a better look around than I normally do in the supermarket and found myself once again surprised at how limiting it seemed to have to buy everything there. They always seem to be packed to the roof with options but when you look closer you realise that it's far more about bulk than about variety. If you want something you might have a choice between two different brands or even three but mostly that seemed to be about it. And mostly I found myself getting really annoyed about the amount of packaging. So frustrating to see and so much of it totally unnecessary. Add to that the crowds of people and it makes for a not particularly pleasurable experience. On a more positive note, however, I was very grateful that not only did I already have much on hand that I needed, but also for the fantastic choice of nice places I have nearby to shop from and the fact that next week I will be doing so again.

In case anyone is interested, what I ended up making was some chana masala (using chickpeas out of the cupboard and tomatoes that I bottled last summer) and the Indian spiced cauliflower and potatoes at the end of that page. I will be trying to incorporate more Indian cooking into my life I think. I love the way that it feels like I am using far too many spices to every make anything taste nice and yet ending up with just a nice amount of flavour. I think next month's food budget is definitely going to have to include an amount for a visit to the spice shop!

And just for those who like to always have photos to accompany blog posts. Here's a few from my cooking attempts last week.

Leftover bread and some from the freezer, which got chopped up to make croutons, like so;

The tart - wholewheat pastry from the freezer, a few bacon bits, some of my last jar of dried tomatoes, onions and chinese cabbage sauteed and mixed with some sour cream - I put the other half of the onions/cabbage mix in there after taking the photo:

And then had the 'bright' idea of throwing the last few pickled beans from a jar I made last summer and opened sometime in January I think in on top of that to use them up as they'd been sitting in the fridge since then. Note to self: pickles in cooking are probably never going to be a good idea. They completely overwhelmed everything else and made this promising tart into a just barely edible affair.

Looks ok but I really had to push myself to finish this tart - thankfully the taste seemed to fade off a bit so that by the third day after making it I was glad to see the end of it but still able to stomach it.

The blue dish has the croutons in it, to which I added a jar of my bottled tomatoes from last year, topped the whole lot with cheese and baked in the oven. I should have heeded a comment I saw somewhere to not use too much juice as this ended up quite a soggy mess - I will try it again in the summer with fresh tomatoes and a far shorted cooking time I think. Again, it was edible but not half as enjoyable as I thought it would be. We live and learn.

Food Waste Friday - 25 March 2011

2011-03-25T19:17:00.002Z

Will have to add a photo later. I very nearly managed to have no waste this week but was disgusted yesterday evening to discover that the bread I bought at the weekend and which I was planning on using to make more delicious toast for my supper, was already mouldy. We've obviously managed to reach temperatures that will make it necessary for me to keep bread in the fridge again if I want to keep it for more than a day. Particularly annoying as I still had quite a lot left and was plannig on slicing the rest up to go into the freezer for making croutons with sometime. Sigh.

Will have to wait until tomorrow to post the photo as I'm waiting for batteries to charge for the camera.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Edited to add photo:

How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds - Explained (Folding)

2011-03-22T12:07:00.002Z

I saw this on yahoo the other day and my curiosity got the better of me.

How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds - Explained (Folding)

Folding:
How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds - Explained

Since I was did the ironing today (I am feeling very pleased with myself for doing some useful things with my day off, I have to say), I decided to give it a go. Even though I didn't have a flat surface the same size as a t-shirt, I tried it out just on my ironing board and had the bit I was 'pinching' flat on that. It only took me two attempts to get it and the first one didn't work mainly because I let it fall.

I am mightily impressed. I even took photos but just as I wanted to put them onto the computer, the batteries died so I'll have to add them later.

Here's a couple of photos of my first attempts at this. The very first one fell apart completely and this is my second:

Didn't quite get the shake and fold bit right so a small amount of sleeve is still sticking out. But the next one, a much bigger, baggier t-shirt (not sure if that had anything to do with it) was much better.

And here's the view from the back:

It also for some random reason occurred to me that this (once) black t-shirt is nearly 14 years old. I think it's showing its age a bit but given how much I've worn it, it's not doing too badly. It was part of a two-pack that I bought in C&A in Frankfurt (I have ten in my head as the price, which would have been 10DM at the time, so around 4 Irish pounds then or 5 euro) after my bags were stolen from the train I was on and I was left with just the clothes I was wearing and my handbag. Sometimes it's those no time to think and choose purchases that end up being the best value for money.

Frozen strawberries

2011-03-21T12:42:00.002Z

On a somewhat random note, does anyone have any good recipes for using up frozen, pureed strawberries? I froze lots of these last summer to use in making smoothies over the winter. And then my smoothie maker promptly died on me. I want to start clearing out my freezer and am just having a complete block when it comes to ideas for what to do with these strawberries.

Freedom

2011-03-21T11:41:00.001Z

At least temporarily. I have today and tomorrow off work. I know it's only a few weeks since I had ten days off but honestly, within a week of being back at work I knew I needed to get away from it again. My boss has been particularly obnoxious, so much so that last week I actually even went to chat to one of the members of our Betriebsrat (workers' council - every company in Germany with more than 5 employees is supposed to have one). I don't want to actually start any official proceedings against him with HR (yet) but wanted to at least have officially spoken to somebody about his bullying.

At any rate, after being back for about a week I got a note in my door at home that the annual gas boiler maintenance would take place on 22 March. Since that's a Tuesday and coming just after the weekend of my choir concert (which was yesterday, Bach meets Mozart, a Bach cantate followed by Mozart's Requiem - good concert although we alto were not very strong on two important entries, which we will undoubtedly hear about next time we see our conductor), I decided to try and just take the two days and make a long weekend of it.

I organised an appointment with my ear, nose and throat doctor as hay-fever symptoms seem to have kicked in a couple of weeks ago. It's far to early for birch pollen (which is what I have a reaction to) but I had forgotten about cross-indications and apparently hazelnut is blooming now and that's probably what's making my eyes itch (am I the only perosn in the world that gets DRY itchy eyes with their hayfever rather than streaming tears, itchy eyes?). That appointment was first thing this morning so for the first time in a couple of weeks I feel far more clear-headed and have a prescription for more nose-spray which will keep me going for a few months. I also found out that that doctor is retiring at the end of the month. Such a pity (well, for me anyway, he's very happy about it). It's hard enough to find doctors with a nice manner who don't mess you around and for the most part I have so far been lucky in Germany so hopefully the guy who is taking over his practice will be okay too.

I also popped into the bank to move the last of the money from my savings account to my current account. My refund from the health insurance hasn't come in yet and a direct debit is due to come out at the end of the week so although it leaves me with more or less no money at least I know that it's covered now.

So with my essential chores out of the way I now have the freedom to decide what to do for the rest of the day. More chores (fairly essential ones but having ignored them for this long, another day won't make any difference) or just head outside into the fabulous blue skies and sunshine we have today. Hmmm. Tough decision.

I've just had some lovely toast for lunch and I have some mashed potatoes that are going to be made into potato cakes later on with some onion and the last of the bacon bits. I've taken some chinese cabbage and some pastry out of the freezer and will get some eggs while I'm out to make a quiche later. I also want to try out a side-dish mentioned in the comments of a food waste friday post on The Mrs' blog - using up older bread as croutons, mixing them with tinned tomatoes and baking with some grated cheese on top. So I took some slices of bread out of the freezer and will be trying to cut them and the remains of the pumpkin bread I bought last week but didn't quite finish up to make croutons and maybe have that along with my potato cakes later.

I'm so enjoying my day off even though I haven't really done a lot yet. It's one of those days which makes me feel like perhaps I'm not one of those people who is really designed to be at their best in paid employment. Mind you, are any of us designed that way?

Edited to add: coincidentally I've just stumbled across an interview with Kenny Rogers where he said that one thing his mother told him was "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life". Wise words.

David Mitchell deals with Climate Change

2011-03-13T19:05:00.000Z

Food Waste Friday - 11 March 2011

2011-03-11T20:40:00.001Z

Didn't do too badly this week. I didn't end up cooking the red cabbage so that will be done next week - while the cabbage is still fine, I am throwing away a double portion of rice, which I cooked last Monday and deliberately made extra of so that I would have it for Wednesday to have with the cabbage. But I worked late on Wednesday and when I got home just heated up some soup for dinner. Apart from the rice, I'm glad I didn't end up cooking the cabbage as I had more than enough to get through as it was.

The only other thing I need to throw out this week is a very small amount of cream cheese, which I could have easily eaten last weekend but decided to save for an extra slice of bread later that day and just never went back to.

For my first week back into buying and cooking properly, I did alright, I think. I finished all the bread and am having the last small bowl of leek and potato soup shortly followed by my main course of cornflakes. Might quite a gourmet dinner but it'll let me use up all the milk. I'm eating quite late but got gripped with online news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan for almost two hours after getting home from work. One thing to hear it has happened, it is quite another to watch the footage. The pictures of the tsunami in particular seem so quiet and like a gentle flow of water until you see something like a car or house and realise the scale of the thing! My heart goes out to everyone affected.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Need to make some financial decisions

2011-03-07T14:49:00.001Z

My finances are troubling me a lot at the moment. I have been less than disciplined with my money over the last couple of months but mostly I was stubborn about not wanting to finance the payments for my tooth implant and so spreading the payments out over only six months. Longer than six months or starting payments more than one month after receiving the bill means paying interest. Which has meant lots of payments coming together as bills overlapped over the last few months.

I also wonder if I am just being unreasonably stubborn in insisting that I pay off my credit card and overdraft as they are, rather than getting a loan, which would be at a lower rate of interest. But I spent a few years caught in the trap of constantly consolidating and refinancing everything, which is why I ended up with such a massive loan five years ago and I don't really want to go down that road again. So in a way, the higher interest is the punishment, so to speak, for having let so much build up on the credit card again, and the length of time it takes to pay it off is the reminder needed to not do it again.

So basically I am wondering if I should just go to the bank and see if I could organise a loan to cover everything and just take the pressure off a little bit (not to mention allowing the credit card to once more function as my security blanket, only to be used in case of emergencies but actually capable of being used in emergencies, which it isn't at the moment since it's nearly at the limit).

Here's what I am faced with paying at the moment:

Loan payment of 490 euro - last payment due at the end of June
Dentist bill of 60 euro - one more payment due at end of March
Dentist bill of 184 euro - three more payments due, last one at end of May
Credit card - 3,820 euro
Overdraft - 2,415 euro

So what I owe right now is around 8,800. The thing that's getting me is that paying my loan and a bit of my credit card each month is more than enough and having the dental bills on top of that the last few months has really been pushing me to the edge (I've just made the last payment of the previous bill, which was 150 per month for six months - so for the last three months my loan and dental bill repayments have been nearly 900 per months, just too much to leave anything spare). Now, I am expecting a refund of around 300 from the health insurance, which will help to pay two other bills that I've been putting off (actually, I haven't received one of them but if I wasn't worried about cash I would have phoned up by now to remind them to send it to me - the other one is due for payment next week so I'm hoping the refund comes in before then) and I also have the possibility of requesting some input (could probably get around 2,000 euro) from my company's financial aid scheme. But I cannot apply for that until I have paid the dental bills in full, which means waiting another three months. On a side note, I finally added up all the bills for the tooth implant I got done last year and it comes to just over 2,800 euro. I have now changed dentists to one who actually understands my financial situation properly and isn't going to try and persuade me to get the most expensive of anything done (he said any implant costing over 2,000 is really just kind of taking the mickey).

I think I have a severe case of debt fatigue or rather juggling debt fatigue. Which is leading me to think that getting a variable rate loan might be a good idea. If I took out a loan over 24 months I would have payments of around 450-500 per month. But it would allow me to apply for that financial aid and whenever I received that I could put it towards the loan immediately and, for example, if I get a tax refund, that could go towards it immediately too. So that I would still hope to pay it off in full before the end of the year but would give myself some breathing space for the next couple of months. Or else I just need to suck it up and get through the next three months as best I can, hoping that nothing else happens that will require any kind of financial input.

In the greater scheme of things and compared to how long I have now been paying off debts, three months really isn't a long time. Once I've made my final payment for the dental bills I could then apply for the financial aid and put that towards clearing my overdraft, which would leave just the credit card. Just! Ha! But with no payments needing to go towards my loan anymore, I could divert that, plus the little bit I've been using to chip away at the credit card and overdraft as best I could all to the credit card and clear it within a few months, especially if I get a tax refund in the meantime as well.

Any constructive comments appreciated (but please, none about how stupid with money I've been and sometimes continue to be, I know all about that and am really not sure my self-confidence, lacking as it is, can take any more beating). Am I just being tempted with the idea of a loan because of debt juggling fatigue or does it really seem to be a sensible option?

Amazing video re: AIDS patient

2011-03-06T02:00:00.001Z

24 hour panel people

2011-03-05T21:47:00.000Z

David Walliams is currently attempting to spend 24 hours participating in various panel shows in order to raise money for Comic Relief. It is being streamed live here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rednoseday/24hourpanelpeople/ and I have slowly been getting more and more drawn into over the last few hours. It's about nine or ten hours in now and is due to run until midday tomorrow (so 12 noon on Sunday 6 March UK time) so if you have a bit of time do take a look and if at all possible, perhaps you might consider donating to a charity, which I think has done some very good work over the years. You don't have to be in the UK to donate, they take online donations from anywhere.

It is amusing watching these programs live as well as you also get do see some of the bits that are normally edited out (I assume they will broadcast the edited versions on telly sometime as well). QI isn't on for another couple of hours so I probably won't make it until then but I'd really like to see it. Oh to be still able to drink proper tea and keep myself awake!

Meal plan - 5 March 2011

2011-03-05T17:53:00.000Z

I went to the market this morning for only the second time since christmas. I mostly restrained myself but still managed to spend about twenty euro.

This is what I bought:

1 red cabbage
4 leeks
6 eggs
2 pork fillets/steaks
8 slices kasseler ham
10 apples
1 litre milk
1 container of yoghurt
1 full and 1 half butter (the half was for the folks at the biogarten)
2 small wedges of cheese (they sell off the 'awkward' corners of cheeses for a bit less than the full price of buying a nice square bit)
Half a loaf of bread from the bakery

So I have a lot to choose from. The pork was an impulse buy but everything else was what I intended to get. I also called into the organic supermarket later on and bought some washing powder and stain remover - I usually use soap nuts but after years of no problems, the last few times that I have washed white clothes (I don't own many white clothes) I have started to have the same problem others have reported as well, i.e. faint but distinct orangey/brown stains. Very bizarre that it only happens with white clothes and probably worth a bit more research on my part but in the meantime between getting application photos done and performing in a concert that also required white, I actually have a good load of whites and wanted to make sure none of it was ruined.

Back on topic, this is what I have/have the makings for this week:

3 portions pumpkin and lentil soup
Fried potatoes (leftover potatoes from yesterday) with pork, onions and apples
Leek and potato soup
Ham and cheese pancakes
The other piece of pork
Red cabbage with onions, apples and lardons
Cheese and chutney with bread

Monday is a bank holiday here so I will easily be able to be at home to cook.

Saturday
One portion pumpkin and lentil soup (very shortly)
Ham and cheese pancakes (after cleaning the floors, the bathroom and myself, this will be a lovely treat)

Sunday
One portion pumpkin and lentil soup
Fried potatoes with pork, onions and apple

Monday
Leek and potato soup
Other piece of pork with rice

Tuesday
Going out for lunch
Pumpkin soup (last portion)

Wednesday
Leek and potato soup
Red cabbage dish (no choir rehearsal so will be home in the evening to cook)

Thursday
Leek and potato soup
Red cabbage

Friday
Red cabbage
Something random for dinner

Food Waste Friday - 4 March 2011

2011-03-04T20:36:00.000Z

It's been a while since I've done a Food Waste Friday post but a couple of months ago I reached a serious level of self-annoyance at still not getting back into the habit of cooking properly on a regular basis and, having gotten rid of a shocking amount of yoghurt and anything else lurking mouldily in the fridge, I gave it a good clean out and declared I wasn't buying anything else until I was sure I was going to be cooking it.

And so I have mostly been eating bread or toast with butter and jam or cereal when I have actually eaten at home. And I think I'll continue to do the same for a while but slowly introducing the cooking again rather than trying to go at it full tilt when I just don't have the energy or mental capacity at the moment.

Having said all that, I did buy a pumpkin a couple of weeks ago, intending to make soup so that I would have lunches for the entire week. It didn't happen and then I was away for a week but I am happy to report that I actually did take it out of the fridge (I wouldn't normally keep pumpkin in the fridge but because I was going away I figured there might as well be something in there) yesterday before going to work. And a good thing to because I noticed that a tiny bit of mould was starting to develop on the bottom. Luckily it hadn't even penetrated the skin but the thought of it was enough to make sure that even though I didn't really feel like it (again!), I did get into the kitchen yesterday and peeled and chopped it and threw it all into a pot which had a chopped up sauteed onion and some garlic, plenty of freshly ground pepper and water. Left that to cook until tender and then gently mashed most of it, just very roughly leaving plenty of intact bits too. I threw a few handfuls of lentils in next, let them cook and finally added the four mettwurst (sausages) that I had bought on my way home from work. And this morning I got up early enough to heat up a portion for my widemouth flask and had it in work for lunch. It was delicious.

This evening I boiled some potatoes and ate them along with the ball of mozzarella that was only a few days away from its best before date, the end of a jar of chutney and the last slice of ham. Actually, I had put the potatoes on to boil because I couldn't remember what it was I was going to make instead and it was only when I saw the ham I remembered I've been having a longing for ham and cheese pancakes for weeks and that was why I had bought it. Just as well I had already put the potatoes on since I don't have an egg in the house so making pancakes might have been challenging.

So this week, I am very pleased that I have prevented lots of food waste happening next week. And the only real waste I had was the small tupperware container full of popcorn that I had to throw out. I made some the other night, only had olive oil on hand so just used that and tried to convince myself that was why it tasted a bit funny but I know it was just gone off. I definitely brought that with me when I moved here (which makes it nearly three years old) and I actually think it may have experienced my previous house move as well (which would make it at least five years it had been in that tupperware). For a really long time I didn't have a pot with a tight-fitting lid so I had gotten out of the habit of ever making popcorn. Having had some in my brother's when I was there a couple of weeks ago, I may be hooked again so there will be a new packet of popcorn making its way into my cupboard soon, which I will be more conscientious about using, I promise!

As always, Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

I have no words

2011-03-03T22:41:00.000Z

How the dervaes family stole my victory garden

Food you'll never want to buy in a shop or restaurant once you know how to make it yourself

2011-03-03T18:32:00.003Z

Tiramisu
Banoffee pie
Lasagne
Shepherds/cottage pie
?

How to make raspberry wine

2011-02-28T21:43:00.000Z

Was checking out the news on That Roundhouse and saw this video. Lovely stuff. I can only dream of having a space to grow so many raspberries I don't manage to eat them all before getting to do anything else but still, dreams are good... ... ...

EU ban on barren battery cages

2011-02-25T15:57:00.000Z

In 1999 the EU agreed to a ban on barren battery cages, giving a generous 12 year period to Member States to prepare for it. This ban is due to come into effect in 2012 but there are still doubts that it will actually happen, in particular because Poland maintains that as they did not join the EU until later, they have not had as much time as other countries to prepare - a very disingenuous position given that it was still public knowledge and they could easily have been making preparations while doing everything else they needed to become a Member State.

Compassion in World Farming has been running a campaign to try and make sure that the ban does come into full effect as planned. If anyone is living in Europe and feels stronlgy about this, you can send off a message from here to the Polish Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister. I'm never sure that petitions and online letter-writing campaigns such as this really work (I tend to be of the opinion that no politician really cares what I think) but it will take a few seconds of your time and may do something. Of course, it is also important to vote with your purse and not purchase cage-based products to avoid mixed messages. :)

Trademarking urban homesteader

2011-02-24T09:02:00.000Z

Just saw this story about the Dervaes family, who have inspired so many people with their life and path to freedom website. They have applied, and from what I understand on the second round also received, a copyright on the phrase "urban homesteader". I've only read a small amount so far but here is a link to Mrs. Mac's post which has a few links in it, most of which also seem to have further links. One comment I read on clicking through is that so far they are also restricting, or attempting to restrict, a couple from marketing their book called Urban Homesteading, which I find shocking as well. Shame on them. It just seems to defeat the whole purpose of what they seemed to have stood for for so many years.

The two ronnies - Fork handles

2011-02-24T08:50:00.000Z

QI: The audience corrects Dara O'Brien - BBC comedy with Stephen Fry

2011-02-23T21:25:00.000Z

The Mitchell and Webb Situation - Farming

2011-02-14T12:50:00.001Z

This makes me laugh and nearly cry at the same time. For such a simple little sketch I keep finding layers upon layers of thoughts welling up in me. Mostly ending with something along the lines of "don't be so silly, it's just a comedy skit" - but the best comedy is often that which makes you think. What bothers me perhaps, is that lots of people might see this and not think about it at all. Which leaves me pondering if it's worse that there are so many people like that, or, that I may be attaching too much thought to something not intended to be taken at all seriously.

Lifestyle Nutritionists

2011-02-12T09:04:00.001Z

Hard to know what to post after last Thursday, so I'm taking the easy way out and may just post a few silly videos and links for a few days.

No-one I know has ever died in a plane crash

2011-02-10T19:54:00.001Z

About an hour ago, the title of this post ceased to be true for me. I feel very strange. There was a plane crash in Ireland this morning and all day I was kind of half keeping an eye on the breaking news to make sure no-one I knew was affected (my sister's in-laws are from Cork as well as a good friend's family). But since I couldn't really think of anyone who would need to be flying from Belfast to Cork, I wasn't paying that much attention. And then saw the headline and realised that one of the six dead is someone I used to work with. I'm a little bit in shock I think and this is one instance where I am feeling the big cultural difference between Germany and Ireland. Two people happened to be in my office when I read it and, knowing at least one of them would have worked with him on a project a couple of years ago I told them (well, I also said 'fuck' and possibly 'shit' quite loudly when I read it - what can I say, my first reactions to anything shocking are almost always going to involve curse words) so they realised something was up. And I got nearly zero reaction. And then they went off about their business. In Ireland there would most likely have been a bit of chat, "who?", "where was he from, which one was he again?", "oh yeah, I know him"... ... ... kind of like a six degrees of separation thing. And it doesn't matter that you're talking crap, it's all about , I don't know, processing the information and at least spending a couple of minutes talking about the now dead person, which is of course not giving any more meaning to their life but at least it's, well, I suppose, sort of acknowledging them. Or something. Sorry, it's hard to explain and I've never really spent time thinking about it.

He was a lovely guy, quiet and gentle in any dealings I had with him. We sat not too far away from each other for a year or so and then he moved to the Belfast office so I only saw him a couple of times a month when he was back down and looking for a desk for the day. But we'd almost always have a bit of a chat. And the first time I went back to Dublin after moving here, he happened to be there and we had a lovely chat as well. But that's kind of the way things are in Ireland and not so much in an office (at least not in my office) in Germany. That was nearly two years ago and I haven't seen or talked to him since. And yet, I'm still feeling sad. My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one on that flight today. If the way I feel about someone I barely knew is this horrible, I cannot imagine how distressing it must be to lose someone you love in such a sudden, shocking way. R.I.P.

Need ideas

2011-02-10T11:04:00.000Z

Am going to a potluck type dinner with a Spanish theme on Saturday. Main course is taken care of so have to bring a starter, side-dish or dessert but am all of a sudden drawing a complete blank when it comes to ideas. So, if anyone has any suggestion, I'd be very happy to hear them.

How much will I need to go travelling/wwoofing for a year?

2011-02-07T20:26:00.000Z

I recently came across this blog, called Married with Luggage. The couple in question have basically sold off almost everything they own (including their house) and are spending the next few years travelling the world. I'm looking forward to reading a bit more of their blog but what has caught my eye at the beginning is the fact that they seem to go into the financial side of it quite a bit, which is particularly interesting for me.

I have, on and off, semi-calculated bits and pieces of how much I would need to finance taking a couple of years off work. One big issue is that I don't intend to sell off everything I own so will need to find out costs of storing it (possibly trying to make a decision about where I might end up when I come back and putting it in storage there immediately). Having just furnished an apartment, mostly with second-hand stuff, I am loath to have to let all of that go and have to start again after having been away for a couple of years. On the other hand, I will need to carefully consider how much keeping it all in storage will cost, i.e. would it cost me more to keep it in storage than it would cost me to just buy new (to me) stuff when I get back. And there are, of course, all of the resources I have been building up over the last few years such as reference books, glass jars and other preserving supplies.

As I am now too old to qualify for a year-long working visa in most countries (obviously not an issue in the EU but Canada, Australia and New Zealand are definitely out from this point of view), I will not be able to rely on working for a couple of months to finance the next few months. So I have to try and figure out everything that will need paying for and have the money saved up in advance. The main reason I am thinking of heading down under is that my sister is living there. She is currently in New Zealand, which I am very interested in visiting but will need to move back to Australia in a couple of months due to work. So I will have a place to stay but I think I'm restricted to six months visitor visa - I'm not checking into the details too much now as it all may have changed in a year or two anyway. Many of the places I would like to go are within the EU or not far from it so financially, that should be a bit easier as I would, hopefully, be able to pick up occassional bits of work to keep cash flowing a little bit. However, my feeling is that I need to at least have covered the cost of, well, what I'm leaving behind for the full period I head off for (I would love to be able to stretch it towards two years). Plus at least the first part of actual travel money. If I head down under that means a return flight paid for in advance.

Having found the blog mentioned above and read a few comments on some of there posts, it seems like there are lots and lots of blogs out there written by people who are travelling the world. So that's a whole other genre of blogs to start getting to know in an attempt to inform myself about what I might be in for. My trip will differ from many in that I mostly want to gain experience farming/homesteading rather than the more touristy aspects of travelling and it will be interesting to see if that is really true or if I will promptly find a whole load of blogs about people who are wwoofing for a year or more. My list of what I would need to be paying for is not very long at the moment and needs some working on. Please feel free to leave comments on any suggestions for things that will need to be added to this.

Travel costs - return flight to/from Australia and/or New Zealand plus ...?
Pension cotss - I would like to have enough set aside to be able to continue making a small contribution every month to my pension plan.
Phone - I will likely try to bring my Irish mobile phone with me and just top it up every once in a while. Otherwise I'd be relying on call centre/internet cafe type places for communicating.
Health insurance - in addition to ordinary health insurance while travelling, I will need to find out how to keep my new additional dental plan going, if that is even possible. As with many of these types of plans, full benefits don't actually kick in until the fifth year (you get increasing amounts of coverage each year till then) and I would hate to lose whatever I've already built up in time and have to start over again.
Travel insurance
Storage costs

10:10 campaign

2011-02-06T21:27:00.000Z

I finally watched The Age of Stupid all the way through. I first saw the making of it shortly before the premiere but it seemed to be taking it's time to come to Germany. A friend mentioned it to me the other night as she had just seen it (and she somehow wasn't surprised I knew about it, isn't that nice?) so I thought I'd better actually watch the full thing. I have to admit, I did just watch it on via megavideo but I felt a bit bad about that so I went and checked out the website and have now paid for a download of it. At six pounds, it's really not a lot (and there is a facility for contributing more if you have the money for it as well). So please, if you do decide to watch the film, consider downloading or streaming (that costs four pounds) it from the Spanner Films website. I'm going to get McLibel soon too as that's another one I've wanted to see for a long time.

On the Stupid site, there is a link to the 10:10 campaign, which was started last year to encourage people and organisations to sign up and commit to reducing their emissions by 10%. They've extended the campaign to run in 2011 as well and although German isn't listed on the front page as one of the countries where it's being run, looking further through the FAQs etc., I found a link to the German site. Coming so close on the heels of my having gotten my annual electricity and gas readings, it seems like the kind of time when it might make most sense to start and for now, I think my commitment will be to reduce those readings by 10%.

On a side note, I had to laugh at one of the first sentences on the German website. As a lot (maybe even all?) German verbs end in 'en', Germans have a tendency to make up new verbs by adding 'en' to a word, particularly using lots of English words to make new verbs. As a native English speaker I find this kind of annoying because having spent time learning the German words for things, I find lots of Germans now use English words (it's called Denglish) but at the same time, if I use those words, the Germans are often very quick to explain to me what the proper German word is. Can't win. But sometimes it is amusing, such as on the 10:10 website, where you are encouraged to join in and "ten-tennen" your energy use.

If anyone else is interested in watching the film, it's very interesting. Even though the film is barely two years old, I find that the unpredictability of the weather these days is even more apparent given what was being talked about in the film (there are some news clips about the drought in Australia, for example) and what we have just so recently heard about (massive flooding and a huge cyclone in Australia). I'd love to hear if anyone else decides to join in the 10:10 campaign too.

Age of Stupid : "The Making of The Age of Stupid"

2011-02-06T20:58:00.000Z

Half-day

2011-02-04T13:31:00.000Z

I have a half-day from work today as I was invited to lunch with a colleague who is moving to a different office (and I wanted to make sure I could make it to that and not be stressing about getting back to work on time) as well meeting a friend this evening for a singing bowl event in my local fair trade shop (and therefore didn't want to risk being stuck late in work). My plan was to come home and spend the afternoon cleaning up my pigsty of an apartment. It's badly overdue. I wanted to do before and after photos too but I forgot to charge batteries for the camera. Oh well. Can't just put it off because I want to show complete strangers what a mess this place is!

Annual reckoning

2011-01-31T19:12:00.000Z

Just got my annual bill from the townhall for gas and electricity. Smaller refund this year than last but on the whole it's not too bad. I pay 35 euro per month and then the readings are taken once a year. I can get at my gas meter to have a look easily but the electricity meters are locked in a cupboard and calling someone out to open it up would generally involve a charge so I've never done it. I think starting tomorrow I will take monthly gas readings at least and see if that shows me anything interesting in relation to pattern of usage. The heating and hot water are gas powered and I'm fairly certain I could definitely stand to do more to cut down on my hot water usage.

Last year my total for gas was 126.12 and this year it's 133.09.
kWh for gas were 1,403 in 2010 compared to 1,255 in 2009.

Last year my total for electricity was 195.26 and this year it's 209.57.
kWh for electricity were 847 in 2010 compared to 778 in 2009.

So overall not a huge increase. For the first three months of 2010 I had someone else living with me who was very fond of using the heating (it was a cold winter admittedly) and had the computer on watching films or surfing the internet for a large part of every day. Come to think of it, he was also very fond of taking long baths, topping up with hot water regularly.

The other big differences will be the lights that I had fitted in November 2009 (until then I was only using two standlamps) and the cooker, which I got in mid-2010 (before that I used a small electric oven and two-ring hotplate - I definitely cook more with the proper cooker).

So my nice things to have happened today are a refund of 12.23 from the town and finally, finally finishing the rest of that big box of Knusperone cornflakes from Aldi. Never again.

Finally......socks

2011-01-30T20:54:00.000Z

What with the depression and all the sitting/lying around and doing not very much of any worth at all over the last year and particularly the last six months or so, I had put any kind of creativity beyond ocassional blogposts on hold. When I was in my sister's last May, I gave myself the goal of knitting one dishcloth every day. I did actually knit them but then when I got home, threw the bag in a corner and never even got around to taking them out of it to finish them off and actually use them. The closest I have gotten to thinking about doing any crafting is washing some of the material in my stash but to be honest, this was mostly to make up a full load of washing so I'm not sure it counts.

Since actually going to the doctor and asking for help, it is sort of helping me to break out of the vicious circle of depression and last week was slightly easier in some respects than say, the week before. Small steps but each one helps. In the way that these things go the universe seemed to be conspiring to bring knitting back to the fore as a couple of weeks ago in the garden I heard one of the older women say that she was going to organise a sock knitting workshop sometime since a few people had seen her knitting socks and asked her about it. I told her I'd be interested but assumed it could take weeks or months to get organised or possibly not happen at all, as so often happens with these things. But I got an email a couple of days ago saying that she was going ahead with it in the garden on Sunday at two. Luckily, one of the women who was interested in learning is also one of the keyholders so it all worked out very easily and we gathered there this afternoon and spent a couple of hours sitting in the pavilion (it was hovering around zero or one degree most of the day) but with gorgeous sunshine coming in the windows so that we didn't need any light on at all.

And having committed to going there today, it forced me to get up and out yesterday afternoon as well, since I needed to buy the double-edged needles for knitting in the round. And while I was in the department store that sells knitting stuff, since there was such a long queue for the cash register on that floor, I wandered up to the homewares department and happened to see two bottles of lamp oil on sale for half price. So I now have something to use to give my bargain lamp (even more of a bargain than I realised since I noticed that the original price tag on the lamp didn't say 30 but actually 300!) a try. But I am waiting until I have cleared up some of the mess of paper that exists on nearly every surface in my living room at the moment.

Back to the knitting though. I have wanted to learn how to knit in the round for such a long time, known it couldn't really be that difficult and just not trusted myself enough to give it a go on my own. And it really isn't that difficult but I just needed someone to get me started and be there to answer questions if I needed help. And I learned a couple of important things:

Cast on stitches using two needles held together and then before you start knitting just slip one of the needles out - this means you have a nice loose stitch to start with, which makes dividing them onto separate needles a bit easier (casting on on a bigger size than what you will actually be knitting with will do a similar job).

And, if using a rib pattern of two plain, two purl, always use a stitch count of multiples of four. So I am using a total of 56 stitches spread over three needles. Instead of having uneven numbers or trying to divide by three, I have two sets of 20 and one set of 16. The big advantage of this is that no matter what side I am on, I always need to start with plain and from the small amount of rib I have done a part of other projects before, I know this is a big help and should hopefully help me get over that problem of having reversed lines halfway through everything.

So far I have about three inches of one sock done. It's a start.

The difference between who I am and who most people expect everyone to be

2011-01-27T21:26:00.001Z

This is just a short post because I just read a blog post (sorry, can't find it again, it was a link via a link kind of thing) about whether or not facebook and other social networking media have impacted on the number of comments left on a blog and it reminded me of something that happened nearly a year ago that really annoyed me at the time. And it no less irritating now but also fills me with a deep sense of sadness and, in a way, disconnect.

I had spent the Saturday morning working in the garden and it was a fairly heavy duty few hours with lots of shovelling involved. Before leaving the garden I changed my clothes because I was heading straight to the train station to get on a train to go to a colleague's house for a candle party. I met another colleague at the station and we had a nice chat on the way there. The girl we were visiting picked us up at her end and drove us to her house. While we were driving she commented on the big bag I had with me (which had some veg in it from the garden) and I mentioned how getting out in the garden was such a great way to start the day. I was getting into the full swing of describing what it was I had been doing, shovelling old well-rotted manure onto raised beds etc. when one of them said, oh yes, I've done that today as well. And the other chimed in, me too. I was somewhat puzzled, because I didn't know either of them had any garden or connection to a farm and they spent a couple of minutes very enthusiastically talking about cows and chickens and fields before explaining to me exactly what farmville is. Not being on facebook and not being one for online games either, it was the first I'd heard of it. But what really got me was the fact that I was sitting there with aching muscles, dirt under my fingernails but a wonderful feeling of having achieved something and a bag of (probably) cabbage to show for it. And they couldn't have been less interested but managed to spend the rest of the ten minute drive talking about their online farms.

It's a funny old world when the majority of the people I am in contact with in real life on a daily basis, live so much in a virtual world. And yet all of the dozens of people in my life, so to speak, who really live in the real world, digging the soil and connecting directly to the earth (as real as it gets in my view), I mostly only 'know' through the virtual world of the internet. Thank goodness for the biogarten, which at least allows me to know that there really are other people out there in real life, who don't think that clicking twice (or two hundred times or whatever it is) is enough to get a vegetable patch properly fertilised!

Groupon

2011-01-23T10:05:00.001Z

I joined groupon recently (anyone in Germany who might like to join up, let me know your email address and I'll send you a recommendation - if you join up from that I get €6 :-) - I don't think I can get credit for recommending people to other groupon sites) and in the first couple of days purchased two bargains. I was starting to regret it because it seemed like a bad January thing to do, to put myself in a situation where I'd be tempted to spend a lot but after buying those two, which were both things on my must-buy-sometime-when-I-have-money list, I haven't had any problem at all resisting any of the other offers. Especially the ones for restaurants, which tend to be the least good offers in terms of saving and almost always seem to be restricted to dinner for two, and I rarely have someone to drag out for dinner with me.

The first groupon I bought cost 15 euro for a 50 euro voucher for shoes - the shop in question is in Berlin but they also have a website that I've heard good things about ordering from and sell well-known brands so I can check out a few things in shops around town here to check sizes and then order online from them. My hiking boots are very worn down on one side and badly need to be replaced, especially if I want to start actually exercising again. The recent snow, or more precisely, the grit and salt used to try and combat some of it, played havoc with my ecco walking shoes as well and the soles are well and truly on their way to disintegrating so if I don't get something suitable for going hiking or walking in, a pair of proper snowboots is in order.

The second groupon was 29 euro for a one-hour photography session (including make-up) which normally costs 119 euro. The thing is that in Germany it is normal to include a photo with any job applications. It is, of courese, completely illegal for an employer to discriminate based on your appearance and they are not allowed to ask you for a photograph anymore but it is so very much the done thing here that sending an application without a photo would most likely set you at a disadvantage immediately. And we're not talking just any old passport photo booth either. 100 euro would be around the lower end of what people pay for their application photographs here. I've been putting it off and putting it off because it was just going to be so expensive so I felt like this deal was definitely worth while. While I'm not actively looking for a new job I do want to be prepared and this will bring me one step closer to that. I am really, really struggling at the moment and hating my job more and more all the time so it's good to have something to focus on that will make me feel a little less trapped there.

On that note, I also finally went to the doctor last week and asked to be referred for counselling. I'm very nervous about this, my impression is that there can be a real stigma attached to this in Germany and my boss, for example, has frequently mentioned his low opinion of anyone who is "psychisch krank" (mentally/psychologically ill) and how once someone has psychological problems, they're no use in work at all. And although I asked for a list of English-speaking therapists from my health insurer, they all have very German sounding names. So I'm a bit nervous about having to do it all in German (at least I'll have the option of saying something in English if I'm struggling for a word but the chances are my German will be at least as good as their English) but more so because of potential cultural differences as well. I wouldn't have been guaranteed an Irish person obviously but I thought an English or American therapist might be better able to relate to or understand some things without too much explanation. I know it shouldn't make a difference and if they're a good therapist, they're a good therapist but it's just one more thing making me a bit nervous. Anyway, it'll probably be a few weeks before I can get an appointment so I'm just trying not to think about it too much.

As for groupon, well, I think there are great savings to be had so long as you are careful to not get tempted indiscriminately by all the offers - being able to distinguish properly between what is actually a bargain and what isn't saving me any money at all because if I hadn't seen the special offer I wouldn't have bought anything at all, is important.

On a final note, one of the groupon offers today left me musing a bit on life and the things people to in the name of fashion, topics that have been on my mind a lot the last couple of years (mostly in relation to make-up and the need so many people seem to have to remove every last bit of hair from their bodies). It was an offer for the REMOVAL of tattoos, with the tagline something like 'get rid of your sins of youth'. I have to say that my ghast was momentarily flabbered when I read that. A tattoo is supposed to be something permanent, putting a piece of art on your body and living with it for the rest of your life (yes, okay, I realise not everyone might think that way about a tattoo) and although so many people seem to have succumbed to the lure simply in the name of fashion, at least this was one thing you couldn't undo easily (at least not without great expense) and so it required a bit of thought. It just seems now to be one more thing people can thoughtlessly do because if you don't like it, laser it away in the shop next door. And there's just too much thoughtlessness in the world already.

P.S. I don't have any tattoos mostly because I didn't want to get one while still at a very big weight and then ending up with a shrivelled up thing if/when I lost weight. Just in case anyone is wondering. :)

Garden photos

2011-01-16T17:57:00.000Z

I finally, after more than a year, actually brought my camera to the Bio-Garten with me yesterday and took some photos. I'm going to try and do this at least once a month for the whole year. So here are some photos of what it looks like in the dead of winter, when not a whole lot is growing. There is still some curly kale in the ground (have some on the cooker as I type) and a couple of beds of brussels sprouts (which, literally translated from the German, is rose cabbage - that won't make them taste any better but it's a much nicer name I think). Unfortunately the pigeons have been at the sprouts and the one bed of kale that wasn't covered so there won't be much more coming from a lot of those plants.

The view to the right from near the pavillion entrance - tool shed in the distance, large pond to the right with wild meadow area to the right and far left of the path

View to the left form the step of the pavillion - some of the beds in the main cultivated area of the garden

View to the left side of the main cultivated area with more beds and the greenhouse. In the distance you can just make out the bee hives - someone comes in to look after these but there is talk about him coming in to give a seminar or possibly a course on bee-keeping, which would be really interesting.

The tomato bed and cage - a plastic roof is pulled over this in the spring to keep any rain, i.e. the worst of the damp, off the tomatoes in at attempt to stave off blight as long as possible. It's similar to a polytunnel but the plastic only just comes down over the side and then the 'walls' are left free and open for cucumbers to grow up the sides.

The small pond, which is just beyond the tomato cage

The final section of cultivated space (meadow area just in view in the far right

The large pond and meadow area. Behind the pond on the left, is what was supposed to be an alpine rock garden. But apparently when the garden was first being built up (about 25 years ago) there were conflicting ideas on how this should be done/people weren't entirely sure how to do it. So instead of replicating the arid conditions necessary for the kind of alpine plants the wanted to grow to actually grow there, they shipped in a load of ordinary earth and piled rocks on top of it in a very orderly fashion. At a later stage, someone realised that this was not at all 'near to nature', which was what they were aiming for and so set about toppling over some of the well placed rocks and bricks and just let them fall where they would. However, placing a rock garden beside the large pond, i.e. the dampest bit of the whole garden, was possibly also not the brightest idea. So they've never really had the alpine area they wanted but it's lovely nonetheless and they do accept it's impossible to recreate every type of habitat in a relatively small space.

Flooding

2011-01-11T19:36:00.000Z

During lunch today I walked the ten minutes from work down to the river (the Rhein/Rhine, that is) just to get out of the office and get some fresh air. I had been thinking about taking my lunch with me but there was an icy cold wind blowing so I decided to just walk for a while and then go back to eat in the office. I wanted to go and see what the river looked like as I know it has been very high and expected to break its banks, if not already broken them in a few other places. But in Düsseldorf, one side of the river ends in small beaches and just spreads out over the fields as it rises. On the other side, there is a promenade (lower and upper) and even from the lower promenade there is a fairly big drop down to the normal level of the water. So flooding didn't seem very likely.

Photo from state tourist website http://www.nrw-tourismus.de/

Can you see the touring ferries there, with the gangways tilting down towards them? The will give you an idea of how high the walls are. The lower promemade is where all those people are walking along. There's an upper promenade as well, with trees and so on, although it's not very clear in this photo - basically it's about the height or a little bit above the height of the cafe umbrellas. And today the entire lower promenade was under water! I could hardly believe it. The left bank was, as expected, fairly well under water and the water stretched pretty far back (there's no building on the flood plain), with the tops of trees visible above the water. But on my side of the river those gangways are now pointing up (attached to floating temporary docks) at a steep angle. Incredible stuff. Just breathtaking to see it like that and a reminder of how powerful nature is.

Thoughts of art

2011-01-08T18:29:00.001Z

This morning I went along to the biogarten's annual winter outing. Following our gallery tour we all went for lunch in one of the traditional Brauerei (a brewery, or rather the pub attached to the brewery, which also serves traditional German food) in the old town. At the end of the meal there was a sad announcement that one of the former gardeners had died - he was 78 but although he had stopped working in the garden a few years ago, he still called by most weekends for an hour or two to check things out, give advice and generally just be there. So I knew him but didn't really know him, and certainly not the way that some of the others knew him. There are some people there who have been involved since the beginning, nearly 30 years ago and that is a long time to have someone in your life for. He was a lovely man and will be missed.

The gallery tour that we went on was a guided tour of some of the work of Joseph Beuys, Dusseldorf's best-loved artist. It's the kind of modern work that leaves me feeling very much the philistine - if there wasn't someone there explaining the intent behind it to me, I would be thinking "well, it's just a pile of stuff in a cabinet". In fact, a couple of people asked if part of the reason some of the stuff became 'art' was because he didn't want to have to pay for it to be disposed of. That was in reference to the remains of what was a huge installation in a museum in Kassel (consisting of a huge pump in the cellar, which pumped large amounts of honey mixed with water through lengths of hose and where people could come and watch it and talk and discuss with Beuys. A Danish museum wanted to purchase the setup when it was finished but he refused, saying that his participation and interaction with the public was a major part of the work and without that, it would not be the work of art he had created. So he created a piece which basically consists of various parts of that work, laid out on the floor and yes, it really does look like a pile of various mechanical bits, metal pipes, plastic hose and metal drums that he couldn't be bothered to just dispose of properly.
He also drew prolifically but we didn't spend much time looking at any of the drawings.

What I did find very interesting was our guide's description of how his interest extended beyond conventional art and into social reform and how he believed that everyone is an artist. Not in the sense that anyone who wants to can just decide to be a painter or scupltor and be able to do it. But rather in the sense that the perfectly shaped loaf of bread that a baker has made is art, for example. And that altogether all of the people who can create something, contribute to forming our society. That's kind of the gist of it anyway, to be honest, my head has been swimming with the thoughts of this all day and I feel a bit like what I imagine it feels like to be on the verge of an epiphany. It feels like there a very profound something just hovering on the edge of my consciousness.

I also learned a new word today. 'Plastik' in German not only means plastic, it also means sculpture ('das Plastik', the neuter word is plastic and 'die Plastik', the feminine word is sculpture). It may be that we have other words in English that I, in my arty ignorance, am unaware of but the dictionary just offers me sculpture. Our guide explained the difference between 'die Skulptur' and 'die Plastik' (and I'm paraphrasing here): 'Skulptur' is when you take a piece of wood, or a piece of stone or whatever and carve, whittle and essentially remove parts of it in order to make the form you desire - essentially an art of subtraction. 'Plastik' is when you use various different materials to create the form you desire by building it up layer upon layer, so to speak - essentially an art of addition. I'm sure this distinction is something any first-year art student is aware of but I hadn't really ever thought about it before and it's just another thing that is swimming around in my head and making me feel like there is something very profound to be understood there.

And after all those deep thoughts, which I can't quite properly express, I'm going to end on a far more prosaic note. On the way home this afternoon I stopped into one of the bigger department stores and they actually had some small wide-mouth flasks. I nearly didn't buy one when I saw the price of €36.95 but then I realised that since eating lunch out costs at least 6 and usually closer to 10 euro, if I use this flask to bring lunch to work and don't eat out for just one week, I have already made up the cost of it. And in this weather it has been very difficult to persuade myself that a sandwich is what I want for lunch - I want something hot. And now I can have it. So I am happy with that purchase especially since it is a stainless steel one and so won't break after only four or five uses the way the last Thermos (glass) one did. And then on the way home there was a crowd gathered around a shop that has been closed since before I moved here. When I did move here it had a fantastic selection of kitchen implements in the window, including some giant sized potato mashers. But I never seemed to pass when it was open and it took me a while to realise that this hardware shop just wasn't open anymore at all. Then last year all the stuff was removed from the window display. Nothing else happened although I had somehow expected a new and completely different type of shop to open up. It looks like they're moving closer towards that though since today, they were selling off everything that was left in the shop and dumping the rest of it in a skip. Oh how I wished I had more of a DIY clue because that skip was full of perfectly good, very useful looking things (electrical sockets and other bits and pieces). There was quite a crowd and since we weren't actually allowed into the shop it was difficult to see what was what and I probably could have stood there all day and gotten plenty of bargains but I decided to move on. Not before spending a whole 50c on a bag with ten packets of rubber gloves (which kind of feels like a lifetime supply to me) and five scouring pads and handing over 5 euro for a lovely kersene/paraffin lamp though.

No goals is the goal

2011-01-02T17:54:00.000Z

Reading through all the lists of people's goals over the last few days online (2010 achievements and failures as well as plans for 2011) I've been going through a variety of emotions. Writing the list of books I've read has reinforced to some extent what I already knew - I spent most of 2010 dragging myself from one drama to the next, with serious bouts of depression in between and only some very short moments of high points. The books on the list are mostly just the ones I could remember and I think there are probably about ten or fifteen more which should be on that list. That's an awful lot of time spent escaping from the world and not doing any of the hundred other things I want to do or need to do.

And I was sick a lot. I had to cancel singing twice because of bad colds and sang a week of rehearsals and one big concert in August while also really very sick with a cold. I've been getting more and more stressed and depressed since then and really feel like my batteries are empty. I know lots of things I could be/should be doing to remedy that but even the thoughts of doing something are too much and leave me feeling overwhelmed at the moment. Even trying to tell a friend about this the other night and listening to her telling me that I need to just set small easily achievable goals at first was nearly too much to bear.

So I might end up getting back to normal, cooking good meals and eating regularly, getting some exercise in the fresh air, sleeping regularly and getting on with that overreaching goal of living the simple life I want. But I cannot set myself any goals to get towards that because I just cannot handle it at the moment. I have my main goal of trying to completely eliminate my debt in 2011 and that it is. Otherwise, my only goal is to have no goals. Maybe next year.

Dinner for One

2011-01-01T18:52:00.001Z

Here's a small slice of German life. This short film is shown every year on German telly at 7 p.m. on New Year's Eve (with multiple repeats and variations shown over the course of the evening on just about every channel). The link doesn't include the beginning of the original film, which is actually a German man explaining that Miss Sophie is celebrating her 90th birthday and having a dinner party with her dearest friends. Unfortunately as these dear friends have all long since passed away, it's just a make-believe party. Faithful butler James takes care of everything and the narrator finishes by explaining what the important lines are in German - so if a German every says to you 'the same procedure as last year?' or 'the same procedure as every year', you'll know now why they expect you to laugh (even though this film is almost completely unknown in the UK as far as I know. :)

Part 2

2010 - the year in books

2010-12-31T12:48:00.004Z

Inspired by a couple of other bloggers who have recently posted lists of the books they have read this year, I have decided I will too. Only I haven't kept a list so I'll just start off with what I do remember and then add to it as and when I remember anything else. I can't find all my library receipts and the few I have found from the start of 2010 have reminded how bad my memory is (maybe a bit worse in this case because some of the books I've read were so forgettable and/or the memory of them badly needed to be supressed).

I'm going to start with the book club books (I'll put BC after them) although I didn't actually finish all of them - I will eventually. I've also managed to read a good few books from my unread shelf - these are mostly the kind of books you buy for 10 for 1 euro at library sales and flea markets when you see one you want to buy and then figure you might as well get another nine and just grab anything that looks vaguely interesting or is by someone you've heard of. I did that a few times five or six years ago and am still working my way through the pile but at least making some progress on it now.

I will put (RR) in brackets after something I've re-read - there are some books, such as by Georgette Heyer, that I invariably read every year when the escapism of new fiction isn't enough and I want to escape into familiar stories that always make me laugh or cry. I've re-read a lot of stuff that's already on my shelves this year, partly to stop myself buying new-to-me books and partly because I love to read good books over and over.

And finally, I am including some non-fiction stuff which I know I read start to finish but am not including various cookbooks, books on preserving, gardening books etc. that I have dipped into again and again but not necessarily sat down and read cover to cover.

The Women - T.C. Boyle (BC book which I didn't finish on time for meeting but should finish this weekend)
Daddy Long Legs – Jean Webster (BC)(RR)
The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear - Walter Moers (BC - not finished)
The Disappearance - Philip Wylie (BC)
American Gods - Neil Gaiman (BC)
The Deep End of the Ocean - Jacquelyn Mitchard (BC - the one book club book this year that made me wish I had the time back that I spent reading it - where its reputation comes from I do not know)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon (BC)
Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (BC)(RR)
The Omnivore's Dilemna - Michael Pollan (BC)(RR)
Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist (BC)
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (BC)
Frederica - Georgette Heyer (RR)
These Old Shades - Georgette Heyer (RR)
The Foundling - Georgette Heyer (RR)
A Civil Contract - Georgette Heyer (RR)
Cotillion Georgette Heyer (RR)
The Black Moth - Georgette Heyer (RR)
The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer (RR)
World Made by Hand - James Howard Kunstler
Nancy Astor - Derek Marlowe
The Dwelling Place - Catherine Cookson
Kate Hannigan - Catherine Cookson
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin (RR)
A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow - George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold - George R.R. Martin
Food Rules, An Eater's Manual - Michael Pollan
The $50 and up underground house book - Mike Oehler (not finished yet)
In Defence of Food - Michael Pollan (RR)
Bitten - Kelley Armstrong (RR)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver (RR)
Growing Out of Trouble - Monty Don
A Knight of the Word - Terry Brooks (RR)
Angel Fire East - Terry Brooks (RR)
No Humans Involved - Kelley Armstrong (RR)
Brand New Friend - Mike Gayle
Matters of Choice - Noah Gordon
The Rabbi - Noah Gordon
Ninja Soccer Moms - Jennifer Apodaca
The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan (RR)
The Great Hunt - Robert Jordan (RR)
The Dragon Reborn - Robert Jordan (RR)
The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan (RR)
The Fires of Heaven - Robert Jordan (RR)
Lord of Chaos - Robert Jordan (RR)
A Crown of Swords - Robert Jordan (RR)
The Path of Daggers - Robert Jordan (RR)
Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan (RR)
Crossroads of Twilight - Robert Jordan (RR)
Knife of Dream - Robert Jordan (RR)
The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
A Taste of the Unexpected - Mark Diacono
A Man of Property - John Galsworthy
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
Beauvallet - Georgette Heyer
The Film Club - David Gilmour
The Appeal - John Grisham

So much food, so little space

2010-12-26T13:19:00.000Z

I've had a quiet few days but have ended up with a lot of food on my hands. Because of working so late every night last week I didn't cook at home at all so I still had a big butternut squash to use up and because the farmers' market won't be back for a couple of weeks I thought it best to stock up a bit and use the opportunity of a three-day weekend to get some cooking in advance done. But now my freezer is full and I still have things to cook.

I bought two turkey pieces on Wednesday. I wasn't really sure what the English for these two pieces is, it's essentially the entire leg cut into two. I looked it up and am offered drumstick and thigh. Of course, drumstick. My goodness, how quickly you loose words when you're not using them every day. On the other hand, the size of these bits is not necessarily what comes to mind with the word drumstick, which is usually a little thing that a little kid can easily hold in one hand to eat. The drumstick was nearly 900g and the thigh nearly 500g. Big difference in kilo price at 3.20/kg and 5.30/kg respectively but total price for each was nearly the same (2.59 and 2.76). And I used both on Friday to make a casserole. So these were browned a bit in the pan:

And added to leek, carrots and onion:

And topped up with some stock:

And cooked it for about an hour at 150 and another three hours at a bit less than 100. I just sort of left it in on that low heat until I was hungry. Didn't plan a four-hour cooking time but the meat was just falling off the bone when I took it out. So much so that I decided to take the two joints out of the casserole first and strip the meat from the bones entirely. I'm glad I did because as I was doing so it occured to me that it'd be nice to keep some of it aside to add to the pumpkin curry which was the other big meal I wanted to prepare this weekend. So I had a generous helping with some of the casserole and some boiled potatoes (afra, a floury type) and the rest filled up a big tupperware container and went into the fridge. I did have a moment of something like disconnect when I was sorting out the meat as it has been a few years since I cooked a turkey and the only turkey I would have cooked in the last while would have been an occasional fillet from the breast. And somehow we've gotten so used to all poultry being 'white' meat, so the look of this lot made me smile, thinking of those friends I have who would not want to eat it because they only eat white meat.

Not a great picture, especially since the steam rising from the hot meat obscured everything a bit but I left the white-handled knife on the plate for comparison. :) The piece on the right is the thigh, which was almost entirely meat and on the left is the drumstick, which was more meat and less bone than I had actually expected.

I've also made a butternut squash lasagne, which I had a piece of yesterday and what would fit has gone into the freezer, which has left me two more small portions in the fridge for this week. I had some of the squash/cream cheese sauce leftover as well so that also went into the freezer to be used as pasta sauce some evening when I'm stuck for time (I discovered that it defrosts really quickly). For dinner yesterday I had a small piece of steak with mashed potatoes. I boiled a big pot of the afra and mashed them and the rest of the mash is in the fridge waiting to be made into potato cakes this evening.

At the moment I have the rest of the casserole heating up in a pot with some potatoes added to it and some of the turkey put back in. Some of that will be lunch and the rest for during the week. And I still have lots of pumpkin to turn into a curry. It occurs to me that now may be a good time to take some of the pureed strawberries out of the freezer and use up. I put a good few portions in there during the summer, planning to use them for smoothies but then my magic bullet died so I haven't had any smoothies for ages. Book club is supposed to be held in someone's house next Tuesday as a potluck type affair so maybe I could concoct some kind of dessert that would use up some of the strawberries. Leaving me a bit of room in the freezer for some curry. Decisions, decisions.

Wooly blankets

2010-12-25T11:06:00.001Z

A couple of years ago I decided to knit a patchwork blanket for a friend's 40th birthday, which I then ended up barely finishing in time for his 41st! And, being honest, I didn't finish it very well, it was very much a bung it all together any which way kind of business by the time I was finishing. And it turned out to be totally unappreciated by said friend too, who I think barely even noticed it was there and almost certainly never used it. Through a various range of circumstances, it has ended up back in my house with a few other things I am looking after for him and I told my brother (who was completely in love with the blanket and throughly disgusted that my friend appreciated neither the blanket nor the work that went into it) that if it wasn't missed, I would give it to him. I can always knit my friend a jumper or something he might actually want. But a few weeks ago I had visitors who had never seen the finished blanket so I dragged it out to show them. And since then I've discovered it is so much better than any other blanket I have for curling up on the couch with. You don't even realise how cozy and warm you are until you want to get up and the (comparative) chill of the air hits you. I took a pattern for a baby blanket and made it lots bigger which means I hadn't taken account of the fact that it's so heavy it is completely dragged out of shape all the time. And since my sewing/finishing skills are just barely above non-existent it has at least one hole in it already. I will fix all that up sometime as well as perhaps blocking it properly and adding a small border around the edge. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying snuggling under it during the cold weather and my brother may just have to wait a long time before he gets his hands on it.

I read a book a while ago called the Friday Night Knitting Club. Although it was a novel it also, as far as I remember, included a pattern for making an afghan (which was knit by the various characters through the course of the book) out of various squares. I'm a bit annoyed with myself that that book was mistakenly put into the charity shop pile before I had a chance to try it out but given how much I love this patchwork blanket, I can definitely see more of the same in my future. But with bigger squares. Each of those little ones took between 20 and 30 minutes to knit (I'm not a fast knitter)!

Posty surprises

2010-12-21T22:01:00.000Z

I've had a couple of really, really horrible days in work with the prospect of more to follow. I have found zero christmas spirit this year and don't even care. Haven't decorated and don't plan to. Haven't organised to do anything and don't plan to. The fact that the holidays fall on weekends this year means we don't get a lot of time off anyway (if a holidays falls on the weekend here you don't get a Monday off to 'make up' for it), just the Fridays that are Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. I'll head to the market tomorrow to stock up since they won't be back until the second week of January but I don't have any plans for fancy meals either. Just a bit of time at home to cook and enjoy some simple food will be enough.

So with all this grumpiness following me around in work the last couple of days, not to mention the tiredness which is inevitable when you end up working twelve and fourteen hours a day (because a few weeks ago my boss started again on the whole 'make sure you leave on time' thing - so that people will get annoyed no-one is there to help them and he'll be able to justify hiring another person - but what he fails to grasp is the fact that if I am only there for eight hours, I can only do eight hours of work, which means things are left undone and then I have to work like a maniac to catch up), it was even nicer than it might otherwise have been to come home to some nice surprises in the post. First of all was the not so nice surprise that is the (hopefully) final bill from the dentist. Good: it's about two hundred less than his estimate. Not so good: the health insurance won't pay me their part (about three hundred) up-front; I have to pay it first and claim it back from them. Oh well.

But the very nice things were a christmas card from a friend who had a baby in July. I missed seeing her by about a day when I was home and since I'm not on facebook and she kept getting my email address wrong I haven't actually seen the baby yet. So it was lovely to get a photo of what must surely be the cutest baby in the world. :)

And then I got a big envelope from a friend who only lives a few minutes away from me and couldn't figure out what she might be sending me. It's a copy of an essay about a book we discussed recently, which she said moved her greatly and she wanted to share it. What a lovely thing to receive. So it looks like I will have to make time to do something special this weekend after all and make sure I have time to sit down in piece and quiet to read it.

The world's not such a bad place sometimes. And I can always comfort myself further with the fact that hopefully this time next year I will be heading in my notice at a workplace I like less and less all the time. :)

How to waste money

2010-12-19T11:11:00.001Z

Decide that your christmas present to yourself will be something from your list of stuff it would be nice and/or useful to own sometime. In the interests of frugality and not going overboard on buying new (to me) stuff while still in possession of lots of debt, decide second-hand books are the way to go. Forget to notice that one small word at the end of the title (after managing to see it on at least ten booksellers before the one you chose) and somehow assume that because of the price, it must be the big book you were looking for. Be disappointed that after forking out TWENTY-TWO POUNDS (that's TWENTY-SIX euro, for one book! - thirty-four dollars so anyone reading from the US will understand my annoyance), what you receive is not a recent addition of the home canning bible, the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.

While the Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving RECIPES is lovely and interesting and all, it's a reprinted (so only a new edition by virtue of the fact that it's a reprint) 56-page book. Big pamphlet might even be more accurate than book. And frustrating because from what I can see online it is at least forty years old (if not closer to 70, which the following sentence makes me think might be the case: People must eat well to be well, and be well to do the work that must be done for Victory.). And I know I've heard that not all canning recipes from pre-sometime in the 80's are actually safe to use.

And mostly annoying because it's my own stupid fault and I don't have enough money to be doing stupid things with it. Sigh.

Book Review - A Taste of the Unexpected by Mark Diacono

2010-12-12T12:12:00.000Z

Far too many months after receiving a review copy of this wonderful book, I am finally going to share (that is an affiliate link by the way, if you click on it, I get a small amount of reward points from amazon - I think, I'm new to this whole thing). It's not that I left the book lying around or found it so boring I didn't know what to say. On the contrary, I've found myself reaching for it every couple of days to read another bit or re-read something (for a third or fourth or fifth time). I think I've just been feeling the pressure of having promised to write a review. And then felt so guilty about not writing it yet that I haven't even been reading Mark's blog, which I really miss.

So without further ado let me start by saying that this really is a fantastic book and I'd heartily recommend it. The premise of the book is to introduce people to some varieties of food to grow that may not be traditionally grown (in the UK) but which are now more viable due to improvements in varieties coupled with taking potential climate change advantages into consideration. He also mentions a few very traditional but no longer very much in favour things, such as quince and medlars.

The first section deals with choosing what to grow and preparing your space. And I think there is much to be said for his philosophy of letting flavour be your guide, growing some unexpected flavours, growing things that are either entirely unbuyable or very expensive to buy, growing transformers (e.g. spices, where just a little can completely transform a meal).

Then there is a section on growing and eating, which devotes a couple of pages to each fruit/veg/herb/spice/nut - varieties, how to grow and care for it, harvesting and, very importantly, what to do with it once you've harvested it. There are a couple of recipes for each crop, most of which have left me longing to have a garden of my own so I could grow and eat all of these amazing things. Luckily, some of what is listed in the book is already grown in the community garden I volunteer at here so I have some hope of trying a few of these in the foreseeable at least.

You can tell while reading the book that Mark Diacono is passionate about what he is doing. He also seems to have a far better developed palate than I do but despite the fact that I may not be able to distinguish "...a citrusy, lemon sherbet wave that gradually gives way to warm heat...", I badly want to grow my own Szechuan pepper just to see what he's on about. And although I didn't get around to it this year, I can't wait for next year's walnut harvest to show up at the market so that I can make fesanjan, a sweet-sour Persian dish. And that's to say nothing of the fuchsia fruit leathers, the lamb and quince tagine, choclate soufflés with apricot sauce, medlar and apple chutney, nectarine salsa, autumn olive jam, lemon honeysuckle bars, wineberry vinegar, oca saag aloo, carolina allspice rice pudding, cardoon gratin, hot and sour daylily soup not to mention mulberries (which, I am ashamed to admit were for me until now just a very lovely candle scent - I've never seen or tasted mulberries in real life). Hmmm, have to stop now, I'm making myself hungry. No wait, one more fabulous thing, there's even a recipe for making your own Chinese five-spice mix. And I'm not quite sure whether I should be fascinated or just plain scared by the Egyptian walking onions (completely going off on a tangent here but about thirty years ago a friend of the family gave us a Speak + Spell for christmas and that's how I learned to spell both Egypt and onion and it seems strange to write both those words so close together now), which I find kind of freaky looking.

The book finishes up with a directory with some basic information on sowing, tools, planting a tree, a list of suppliers (mostly UK-based obviously) and recommended further reading.

All in all I think this is one of those books that I will refer back to again and again and I can see its pages becoming somewhat grimy over the years as I use it in the kitchen and, eventually, in my own garden. If you're looking for a nice christmas present for the gardener or wannabe gardener in your life, do have a look at the Taste of the Unexpected. It's got enough basic information to be really good for beginners but I think it's also unusual enough to appeal to the more experienced gardener. And the photos are wonderful enough to justify it's existence as a coffee table book even if you don't like gardening at all. I did receive my review copy for free but I will be ordering one for my brother soon and I have several friends who can expect to be getting copies for their birthdays next year too.

P.S. I was just testing the amazon link to also let people know that normally it is possible to just change the country code in an amazon link to get your own country's page for that book (i.e. changing .co.uk to .de brings me to the German site). It didn't work for the US site though and it seems that across the pond the book is called The Food Lover's Garden: Amazing Edibles You Will Love to Grow and Eat. Just so's you know. :)

Cooking

2010-12-06T20:14:00.000Z

The doctor reckons I do have an inner ear problem. These problems are, according to him, brought on by either an infection of some other kind (and since I haven't been sick lately that seems unlikely to be the cause) or by stress (hmmm, wonder if that could be it). I have tablets to take and have been taking it easy on my day off. I'm supposed to go back to him tomorrow if I'm still not well and get a sick note for work but what I'll do is probably go into work first and go to him if I'm finding it difficult. So at least I'll be able to make sure anything urgent is taken care of because honestly, at the moment, I have no idea what is on my to-do list in work. I write one every Friday before I leave and then mostly forget about it until I look at it again.

I have not, however, allowed my illness to give me another excuse to not cook proper food and fall back on the takeaway train. I bought a teeny small pumpkin and butternut squash from the market a few weeks ago and hadn't used them up. The pumpkin was starting to go off so this weekend I bought another one, plus another butternut squash, with the plan of making something with at least one of those things for dinner yesterday. But the friends who were visiting wanted to invite me out for dinner so we went for tapas instead. I did cook the pumpkin quickly yesterday afternoon as I knew I may just leave it slowly rotting otherwise and didn't want to do that. So this afternoon, I chopped up the smoked chicken breast I had bought at the market as well (my friend's son wanted to try all the different things at the christmas markets so we ended up eating lunch out both days as well - which means I had a lot of food to use up), with some onion and garlic, sauteed that lot and then added the cooked pumpkin, a small tin of coconut milk, the same amount of water, a spoonful of kasundi (and promptly dropped the not quite fully closed jar as I was turning around to put it back into the fridge!) plus a chopped up chili, lots of black pepper and loads of curry powder. The result, after a half an hour or so of simmering is a very tasty, not too spicy soupy-puree consistency curry. Very delicious with some rice.

While waiting for that to cook I peeled and chopped the butternut squash and put that on to cook with just a small amount of water in the pot. I also added a good dose of salted mediterranean herbs so that it will be a completely different flavour that today's dinner. Of course I forgot about it being on the cooker for nearly an hour but it was on a low enough heat with the lid left on so the liquid didn't boil off and leave everything to boil at least. I stirred it all around and then added in the tub of garlic and chive cream cheese that also didn't get eaten at the weekend. Stirring vigourously enough to ensure that was mixed in was enough to roughly puree the whole lot and I have to say it looks and smells amazing. I was trying to think of what I would actually do with it but I think a little bit heated up and spooned on top of some pasta tomorrow evening will be just perfect. Might freeze the rest although I'm not certain about freezing something that has cream cheese in it. May just make a small lasagne with the rest of it tomorrow as well. Now all I need to do is use up the salad I also bought at the weekend and despite my visitors not having eaten what I bought with them in mind, I should have no food waste this week.

Spinning around

2010-12-05T11:21:00.000Z

Well, not me. Just feels like the room is. I woke up in the middle of the night and a couple of minutes later had a horrible sensation in my head, just like the room was spinning around or something. It's hard to describe but was very unpleasant. I lay still for a while, terrifying thoughts of "what if it's a stroke" etc., going through my head. Got up, went to the bathroom, checked my eyes, which looked fine and there was no disfiguration on either side of my face. So obviously that's not what a stroke feels like. Back to bed, turned over and it happened again. Couldn't sleep so over the next half an hour or so I lay quietly and tried to turn over a couple more times and it happened again every time. At that stage I got up and woke up my friend, who has come over with her son to visit for the weekend. I was so grateful that there was someone here, I was scared and needed someone to be here. We suspect an inner-ear infection - her mum suffers from vertigo and she said what I described sounds very like it but since it's (so far) only happening when I'm lying down it's probably due to an infection (she looked up stuff on the internet - I refused to since I would have found something to convince me I only had a couple of hours to live!). I did manage to sleep for another few hours afterwards but the same thing is still happening if I'm lying down and turn over. Looks like sitting up or moving around will be a better option for this birthday. I will head to casualty if it gets any worse but I think I'm probably okay waiting to go to the doctor in the morning. Why is it that Saturday/Sunday night is always the time things like this seem to happen.

Apart from all of that, it warmed up during the night so the white landscape we were expecting to wake up to has turned into a damp, grey, drizzly day instead. C'est la vie. Maybe it'll mean the crowds at the christmas markets won't be as, eh, crowded today!

Still here

2010-11-29T18:33:00.000Z

Just been having a lot of laptop problems. After a week of trying to recover what files I could I ran out of space on the few data storage devices I had and decided I would just have to get a new one for the last few things. No big deal, a usb stick isn't that expensive and always useful. We got paid today though, which includes my bonus payment and so I've taken a lot of the money I was going to use to treat myself this month and have treated myself to a new laptop. Or at least another second-hand one from work. Luckily as the entire company has been upgraded to windows vista recently, there were a few available so I got a four-year old machine that hasn't been quite as extensivelz used as the last one I got, which was, if I remember correctly, six years old. So, 150 gone that I wasn't planning on spending, didn't need to spend and probably shouldn't have but I seem to be unable to deal with complicated situations at the moment without having a melt-down so I think it was probably just the best thing to do. I need to get myself sorted out properly with regard to data back-up and that kind of thing though as I cannot count on having money to buy another computer any time soon. Not to mention that work are unlikely to have many second-hand machines for a while now since everyone just got new ones and I have already bought a couple and they started talking about limits today (in reply to which I have offered to bring back the ones that don't work any more to prove to them that I'm not just selling them on or something).

Otherwise, I transferred money to my Irish account (the overdrawn one) and to my annual expenses savings account immediately after we were paid today so at least that is now more or less removed from reach. I knew that I had to do it that way, otherwise it would just get swallowed up by things I need (for which read things I could really do with having but can survive without for another while).

Feeling lost

2010-11-21T11:25:00.000Z

I feel very lost at the moment. I'm struggling with feelings like having wasted my life, not getting anywhere, not knowing where I want to get , not caring (but deep down really caring so much I'm scared to let it all out).

I can talk about my plan to pay off my debt by the end of 2011, save for a few months and then go travelling/wwoofing for a year or two. But at the same time I would really like to be settled somewhere. To have found my 'home', the place where I can put down deep roots and stay. I tend to put down roots wherever I go anyway, I've always been like that. But I haven't yet found 'the place'. And a very, very big part of me cannot get rid of the feeling that it's not actually the place, it's the people that will make that decision for me. Or rather one person. That special man who will complement and complete me and me him. Lots of people say you can have a very full life on your own, you don't need a man to be fulfilled etc., etc. and I agree. And that's the way I live my life. I'm not sitting around just waiting for Mr. Right to turn up so that I can start living my life. And I'm not dolling myself up every weekend and hitting the pubs and clubs desperately going through a long line of frogs in the hopes of turning up a prince.

But deep down in my heart and soul I do feel that I would be better as part of a couple. I feel like I badly need to be loved and, perhaps even more so, need to love. I need to have an outlet for all this love and passion that feels trapped inside me. And no matter how much I love my family and friends or my hobbies/lifestyle, somehow that's a different kind of love and passion or perhaps it's just simply not enough of an outlet. It's something of a paradox to not believe that everyone needs to have a special person in order to be whole while more and more coming to believe that I do. Or maybe it's not. Maybe that's just the most trite kind of thinking. If there's one thing I'm good at it's sitting on the fence and trying to have all things all ways.

At the moment, I'm also questioning my reasons behind wanting to go travelling/wwoofing because I realise that a lot of it stems from the fact that I am not happy in work (changing jobs is not an option until my debt is paid as I am not likely to find a similar salary anywhere else). And I wonder if I would feel more settled here or perhaps would allow myself to settle here more, if I liked going to work every day. While I'm fairly certain I don't want to stay here forever, perhaps telling myself I'm going to move in the next couple of years is part of what is preventing me from feeling at home here.

I don't actually have any point to any of this, no conclusions to draw. Just have to start getting some of this out of my head. We had a 'coaching' session in work on Friday - I work with two other secretaries in a so-called team. Which is to say, I should be with one other secretary working for my boss but because of budget cuts that position wasn't re-filled and so the two secretaries across the hall had to take on part of 'my' work. And one of them in particular is a very difficult person to deal with and also works very differently from me and makes no attempt to hide the fact that she finds me lacking in just about every way. They complained about the "atmosphere" and so one of their bosses organised an external professional to come in and help us work on it. It was a very intense session and really not much came out of it except that they have a very low opinion of me and, in my opinion, a fairly over-inflated view of themselves. There was no practical aspect to it at all, such as coming up with ways to improve things although I was able to slip in a suggestion that we have a meeting once a week to catch everyone up on everything. We're not supposd to talk about our communication or working together or any of it for the next four weeks (when we will have a follow-up session). One thing it did make clear to me though is that although my boss and the rest of the team I work for are extremely challenging and difficult and just sometimes downright annoying people to work for, that's not actually what I hate the most. It's the personality clash with this other woman which makes me not want to go to work every day. My boss told me again on Friday that I am working too much and he is very nervous that I will work myself to a point of no return where I just give up and a few months later quit and nothing will change my mind (someone ratted me out and told him I was there last Sunday). But what is clear to me now is that it's not the amount of work. It's not even the fact that I don't get paid overtime anymore (officially I'm not supposed to do any at all). I like working. And if I go in on a weekend to get some stuff done in peace and quiet, they tend to be the kind of tasks I really like doing and it's fun because there's no pressure on. But what does stress me out and would send me towards that point of 'I have to get out of here no matter what' is a bad atmosphere and unfriendliness and not being able to get on with someone. We'll see how it goes over the next four weeks but I am hopeful that things are getting busy enough now that the budget cut decision from a year and a half ago will be reversed and I'll just get a second secretary working with me and not need to work with those other two at all.

For now, I have a pile of cleaning and cooking to do and I brought a book back to the library yesterday and treated myself to a few silly films on DVD. I have a couple of scented candles lit, the washing up and first general clean-up in the kitchen is done and now I'm going to lie on the couch, cover myself with a blanket and watch a film (I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and sitll have Burn After Reading, The Odd Couple, Pirates of the Carribbean 3 and Stealing Beauty on offer).

Food Waste Friday - 19 November 2010

2010-11-20T20:31:00.000Z

The oops I nearly forgot about it edition. I did go through the fridge this morning and even took a photo but now I can't find my camera so that will just have to wait. I've been sort of distracted by reading bits and pieces of the news from home and although there is some humour to be found (see previous post), overall the whole situation is very worrying. I heard that the army have had all holiday time suspended for the 7th and 8th of December, which is when the budget is due out - possibly an urban legend but if it's an indication of the mood over there, that in itself is troublesome.

Foodwise this week I had not a lot of waste really but annoying nonetheless. Last weekend I decided to make beetroot and chocolate brownies - although as usual I ended up making this in my flower shaped silicon tray so slicing into brownie squares wasn't possible. But it's not as if I'm a purist or anything so that's okay. When it had cooled slightly after coming out of the oven I had a quick taste, even though it was kind of late and I certainly wasn't hungry. It was delicious. The kind of delicious that requires all sorts of willpower to put the knife down and step away from the cake. Had a big slice on Monday in work and it was yum. Had another on Tuesday and the taste of beet was starting to really come through, which I hadn't noticed before. By Wednesday, the smell of beet was quite strong when I opened the container it was in and the taste was stronger again. By Thursday morning, I couldn't even face the thought of it. So while this is a great recipe and really, really good to eat when still a bit warm from the oven, I don't think I'll be making it again unless I know I have enough people around to finish it off straight away. With 250g of butter and 250g of chocolate in it, this is a definitely a speical occasion only recipe I think.

The two beets that I had cooked and not needed to use for the brownies/cake also went out today - I couldn't face using them. Should have grated them and put them straight into the freezer to use when making this some other time but.....hindsight, it's a wonderful thing!

Apart from beets and beet-related stuff though, I have nothing to report.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Ireland for sale

2010-11-20T14:53:00.000Z

Ha!

Ireland for sale on ebay....

Mouldy apple sauce

2010-11-16T21:56:00.000Z

Just noticed while chopping up some apples for the dehydrator, that one of the jars containing apple sauce from a couple of weeks ago has starting a mouldy patch. Picked up the one next to it and it has the same problem. The jars are still on the table because I haven't even gotten around to putting labels on them or filling in the total number to my log. Oh well. These two jars were ones which I didn't process in a water bath so obviously removing most of the juice must also remove a lot of the acid which allowed to do this before. It's a pity as the water bath processing for apple sauce is a pain. However, I've gotten some tips on how to manage it better so hopefully next time will see an improvement. In the meantime I'm a bit annoyed because the two jars that have spoiled are leifheit jars with two part lids and that's just a waste of good lids!

A very German dinner

2010-11-15T20:47:00.000Z

Determined to start incorporating more cabbage into my diet, I've started the week off with red cabbage with onions, bacon bits and apple.

I'd show you a photo but blogger doesn't seem to want pictures this evening.

I sauteed an onion and lots of garlic sauteed in some olive oil, bacon bits added to that and then red cabbage (which I’m sure I didn't chop nearly neatly enough for a proper hausfrau) with a dollop of butter. Steamed that lot for a few minutes and then added a good splash of red wine and another of red wine vinegar with some salt and pepper. And last came some thin slices of apple. Now just waiting for some potatoes to boil before eating. Although I have to admit I was very hungry and a few olives didn’t quite satisfy so I’ve already had a bread roll schmiered with the free piece of leberwurst I got the other day. Very yum indeed. This cabbage had better be nice, I don’t have time to drink the rest of the bottle of wine just to be able to stomach my dinnner

On a completely unrelated note, I just received an email with a link to Fish Fight. Haven't looked at it in detail yet but it seems to be about a campaign to stop perfectly edible fish being thrown back into the sea (dead that is, throwing them back alive is something else obviously). Might be interesting for some people.

Not quite so lazy weekend

2010-11-14T20:23:00.001Z

I'm not sleeping too well at the moment, which means if I get the chance (like at the weekend), I'm sleeping a bit later in the morning. The rain continued all day yesterday so I knew not much would be happening in the garden. I did need to go there though to return a book to somebody. First I went to the market to pick up the suet I had ordered - not there for the second week running. I have to ring the farmer in the middle of the week to remind them to put it aside for me. I bought some beets so that I can make some of these brownies, got some hazelnuts to make honeyed hazels and a couple of sausages to put into a bean casserole this week. Then I dropped a pair of trousers off to be repaired and headed to the garden. There were, as expected, only a couple of people there, having a coffee and a chat rather than really doing much work. I hung around there for an hour or two and was happy to take a few leeks home with me then and took a small red cabbage as well (need to start expanding my range of 'kohl' recipes - let's face it, in this climate eating locally in winter means eating a lot of things from the cabbage family!). But then before leaving one guy went out to pick up windfalls so I ended up also bringing home a bag full of them. Will have to try and find time to do something with them too. I get my dehydrator back from the person I loaned it to tomorrow so will have to put that back in action. And I want to give the chili apple cheese mentioned here a try too.

After getting back from the garden all I wanted to do was soak in a hot bath and get some of the cold, clammy, wet feeling out of my feet but before I did that I decided to put another wash on, then I hung up the washing that was done, swept the floors, washed the floors, cleaned the bathroom and after all that decided a shower was all I had time for before heading out to film club.

This morning I slept late enough then got up, hung up the rest of the washing, thought about doing the washing up and went to work instead. Only intended to stay for an hour or two but got stuck in to clearing out my to-do tray, which was mostly full of already done stuff just waiting to be filed properly. So I didn’t actually get the two things done that I wanted to but it’s a huge relief to have done what I did because it means I’m sure that there isn’t something lurking at the bottom of the pile that I should have done and forgot about. Never mind the fact that it took me closer to six hours either. I have a nice tidy to-do list ready for tomorrow so that’s something anyway.

I ate an apple on the way home but since all I’d had all day apart from that was a käsebrötchen, a few kinder schokobons and spicy peanuts (very healthy I know) I was pretty hungry. But I had bought a couple of bread rolls this morning on the way into work and so didn’t let myself just stop somewhere and pick up a pizza or chips or anything and came straight home. Took the cheese out of the fridge and then decided to just do the washing up before I ate. So now that’s done, I put the beets on to boil, sat down to have some bread, cheese, turkey salami, chutney and a beer. That was about two hours ago, I've been reading blogs and catching up on emails so now I have to get up and make some brownies. And chop up the beet leaves to add to the onions and tomatoes I'm also going to use to make a sauce for pasta. And cook some pasta. Then put all of it into tupperware for lunches this week. And it's nearly half-nine. I must be mad.

Edited to add a couple of photos. It's eleven o'clock now but as well as cooking I also spent 20 minutes on the phone to a friend who phoned and have done almost all the washing up.

Sauteed onions, garlic and the stalks from the beets. Added the three tomatoes from the garden and a tin of tomatoes with some pepper and herby salt. Then added the rest of the beet green and have covered the pan and turned the heat off. The residual heat with be more than enough to steam the greens. I cooked some pasta in my tupperware poacher while all that was being prepared so I'm all set for lunch tomorrow.

The brownies were incredibly easy to put together. They're supposed to go into a 20x25 cm baking tray but I just used my flower shaped tupperware, which is 23 cm across so close enough. Looks good and smells good. And I have two boiled beetroots leftover - I may make another half batch tomorrow :)

Food Waste Friday - 12 November 2010

2010-11-12T20:32:00.003Z

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

I'm not long in from work, bought myself a kebab for dinner on the way home and have no interest in going anywhere near the fridge or tidying up or clearing out in any way. That's the way it goes sometimes. I know I do have a very small amount of cream cheese left - I brought the rest of the tub to work today and bought a breadroll and had it with that for lunch but didn't quite finish it. It was fine though so I think it might do on a slice of bread for breakfast tomorrow morning. Apart from that I don't think there was anything to get rid off. I'm not doing much in the way of shopping this weekend either as I have a few things to get use up and it's just easiser to do that sometimes if you have no choice about what to eat and just have to use what's there.

I do have tomatoes that I bought last week - I still haven't gotten around to making the kasundi relish that some Australian friend asked me to try making. I have great plans to do things in the evenings but by the time it hits four or five o'clock I'm getting so tired in work that I can't even contemplate doing anything apart from going home to bed. It hasn't helped that it's been raining for a couple of days now. At least we're not getting the ferocious storms that are hitting Ireland and Scotland - leaving people without electricity even. Actually I need to get working on figuring out how to light a camping stove type thing. I bought a couple of small ones on ebay last year, even bought a bottle of spirits and since then haven't been brave enough to try it out (with a large dose of I'm not really sure what to do). Wish I knew someone who was into camping who could just come over and teach me this kind of thing. I have plenty of candles stashed in two or three easy to get to places (with boxes of matches also stored with them and in a few other places too) so light wouldn't be a problem if the electricity ever did go out here. But having something to heat up water or cook with is something I don't have until I figure out how to light those camping yokes. Come to think of it, I should buy some replacement gel burning things for my fondue set too, there's nothing says that cheese is the only thing you can cook in that pot. I think living on a main road with lots of restaurants and pizza places and the like nearby means I assume I'd be fine even if something did happen. But it'd be nice to feel like I was prepared myself too.

Hmmm, that was a bit of a tangent there, where was I? Oh yes, kasundi. Well, maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.

So, not much food waste this week and a few tasks tomorrow to keep things under control.

Edited about half an hour later: as soon as I'd written the above I was overcome with an unbearable need to get up and check that I really did know what was in my fridge (I also remembered I still had some milk and decided to drink a cup of that to help finish it off). I couldn't have been more wrong about very little food waste this week. What is the matter with me? I made lovely vegetable soup nearly two weeks ago, have looked in the fridge numerous times since then for various things (including FWF last week!) and somehow managed to do it without even seeing that jug of soup. Ridiculous behaviour!

I also found these:

Some apple/nectarine jam which is starting to mould, some quince juice which looks fine but based on the state of the apple juice behind it, I'm not taking any chances on it. The quince juice was supposed to go toward making some jelly and the apple juice was the leftover bit from my steam juicing efforts and was supposed to be a nice treat for my breakfast the next morning. It got shoved to the back and has been there for over two weeks as well (since I gave the juicer back two weeks ago, it has to have been at least that long). I think I just didn't look at an entire shelf of the fridge at all or something. I'd like to say I just need a holiday but I'm not sure that would be enough. I definitely need something! Honestly, how many other people would have this growing in their fridge and not notice?

Shudder, shudder, shudder. I will be scrubbing out the fridge tomorrow, that's for sure. Eeeewwww. And what a waste of some really delicious food!

It's all connected

2010-11-11T21:10:00.000Z

The muscles in your back I mean. Turns out that I don't only have a problem with my shoulder/neck but also my lower back. When the orthopaedic doctor said earlier in the week that the acupuncture I had been getting was mostly to deal with my lower back pain I was a bit surprised. I thought he had only put that down so that the health insurance would pay for it (I had heard that they don’t always pay, it depends on where the pain is) because when he asked me about lower back pain I just said, no more than usual. At my weight and sitting down all day it’s sort of inevitable that my back gets very tired and sore anyway. So today I went for my first physio session. He asked me to go back to the same place that I went for massage and heat therapy during the summer and it turns out the masseur I had before when I went to this place is probably just the grumpy one because the guy I had to day was lovely. He introduced himself before we got started and asked me questions about where and how it hurt as well as explaining what he was doing the whole time. What a difference.

Anyway, before starting the physio he said he wanted to check exactly how the muscles felt so I lay down and he started poking and prodding. He asked as well about my lower back so I tried to explain about that and then he started poking there..”does that hurt?”…”a bit, not much really”…”does that hurt?”…”nah, fine”…”does that hurt?”…”flippin heck! ow ow ow ow OUCH!. Yes.” So it loooks like I really do have a problem in my lower back as well and the pain I thought was sort of getting better is mostly getting better because I’ve just stopped moving my arm in any of the ways that I know are just going to hurt. He said I’m actually still too bad to start doing physio so today I just had a massage again. He won’t start exercises until the pain has reduced a bit because he said that just causes more damage than good – working through the pain in this case is apparently not worth it. Well, okay then. Have five more sessions over the next two weeks and we’ll see how it goes from there.

I also went to the shoemaker to sort out my new arch supports. He took the box of my foot impressions that I got from the orthopaedic doctor the other day (that was strange, it's like a shoebox filled with an oasis-like substance that I had to stand into) and then I also had to stand on this glass plate set into the floor. It was basically like a fancy foot photocopier. He said that the arch supports I have are actually completely wrong for me, I need softer ones with more support under the ball of my foot. It’ll be interesting to get them next week and see what, if any, difference they make. And at 5.61 I think the price is right, too! The physio/massage will cost less than 20. I may moan about how much I need to pay for health insurance every month but when something is wrong (except, obviously, for dental work) you get what you need without having to worry about where to find the money to pay for it all. And when you've got a pain in your back, you need all the silver linings you can get :-)

Taste the Waste

2010-11-08T21:28:00.000Z

Just heard about a documentary that was shown on telly here a couple of weeks ago (I don't actually have a television so have just read about it online now). Trailer here. Apparently there will a full length film in cinemas next year. Looks interesting and the statistics given in that trailer - no idea where they're from or how reliable they are but they are shocking!

What would you like to know?

2010-11-08T17:44:00.000Z

I have dozens and dozens of things floating around in my head that I would like to write about. I've started some posts and need to find some time/get more organised so that I can actually make writing a proper part of my routine. I've definitely kept up this blog far more consistently (despite sometimes long gaps) and for far longer than any other diary I have ever attempted. Part of the reason for that is, I think, that although I do for the most part write this purely for myself, the knowledge that people might read it, helps to keep me away from the worst of my teenage drama queen self. Trust me, I have on occassion re-read some of the stuff I wrote in the few diaries I tried to keep - cringeworthy stuff, all of it. I have to admit that typing also helps as I can type far faster than I ever could write and so I can have some hope of getting my thoughts down before my mind has flitted away to something else or my thoughts have gone off on a tangent, leading me so far away from my original point that I forget it. That still happens of course, but not as much.

Some day when I have a bit of time I will have a read back through the archives as I have a feeling I am guilty of fairly often saying things like 'more on that later' or 'I'll post an update in a few months' and then never actually doing that. I know I am long overdue for an update on my no-more-shampoo experiences for example. My new plan is that if I ever do write in a post that I will post an update or something similar, I will immediately start a new post and thus have a draft saved and sitting there as a reminder for me. We'll see how that works out.

In the meantime, I thought I might take this opportunity to see if anyone who does read along with me wants to know anything in particular, would like me to expand on something I have already written about, has a topic they'd like me to post about - so, any questions?