The Wanderer returns.......

...........or should that be The Very Naughty Cat?

Hello Friends,
Well, a sunny chilled out gardening morning turned into a stressful day as we dealt with The Strange Disappearance of Albert Whiskers. He'd had a nice enough catty morning. A large portion of particularly trouty gunk, two or three hours lazily patrolling the garden, rooting around in his spring den & explaining the concept of hedge ownership to Felix...................... & then he vanished! 
At 2pm, we realised we hadn't seen him since before lunch & commented how unusual it was. 
At 3pm, he still hadn't turned up, & that was distinctly odd, as Tummy Time usually kicks in about then & he likes to stay close to the kitchen in case there's any danger of anyone opening the fridge. Checked the house thoroughly in case he'd found a sunny, hidden little spot. He hadn't. 
4pm. Still no sign. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship went out to check the shed. I checked the washing machine cupboard, as for some reason it has been the lifetime ambition of all the cats we've owned to excavate the furthest reaches of its dank cobwebby depths. 4 hours might not seem like a long time, but this is totally out of character & that's the worry.
5pm. We go upstairs to check over neighbours' gardens as far as we can see. Albert Whiskers is predominantly white. He isn't very good at camouflage (although I suppose he may come into his own when we next have some muddy snow), & he isn't in any of the gardens we can see.
5.10pm. Missing over 5 hours. I can't tell you how unusual this is. If Albert Whiskers isn't fed by 5pm sharp, he starts nibbling our trousers. Or tights. Or actual legs. This is so out of character. Decided to walk the length of our street to call him, trying to look through into gardens at the same time. Absolutely no sign whatsoever. This week is going to be stressful enough with the new clutch/gearbox problem & the multiple ££££-signs this is going to involve, without a lost cat. Trying to get a grip but am now stressing!!
5.20pm. Realised that a neighbour has been cleaning his caravan all day. Visions of furry stowaway. But no, he says he hasn't seen Albert at all today.
5.30pm. I check the shed again, even though it's already been checked & there's nowhere he could hide. I fetch the 'Dreamies' jar & walk around the garden shaking it. I have never known Albert Whiskers not to come running at the sound of the 'Dreamies' jar.....he even thinks cornflakes,  pistachio nuts, buttons, basically anything vaguely small & rattley might be 'Dreamies'. It never fails. But he doesn't come.
5.45pm. I decide to search along the street parallel to ours in case he's got onto that via any of the gardens opposite. But if he did, he isn't there now.
6.00pm Still no sign. There's a roast chicken in the oven. Albert never usually takes his eyes off the kitchen window if he goes outside when there's a Sunday roast in the offing.
6.15pm. Missing for over 6 hours. Absolutely utterly unheard of for Albert Whiskers. 
Then we suddenly spot our other neighbour beckoning us over the garden wall.
All that stress we'd been feeling? The pavements I'd trudged looking for him? The plans to knock all the houses on our street tonight to ask for sheds & garages to be checked.......that worst of all horrible feelings, that maybe we should walk down to the main road to see if he has met with an accident?

"Are you looking for your cat?", said our neighbour, "because if you are, he's in here. He's been asleep all afternoon on a chair & he's refusing to go home".
"What do you mean 'refusing'", we said, "Just send him home".
"Well, we would do", said neighbour, "but he's made himself comfortable on a chair & every time we try to move him, he grumbles at us".
We are now both apologising for his bad behaviour.
"Is he on a cushion?" I asked.
Oh, & guess what? He was! 
"Well, lift it up & tip him straight onto the floor. He can growl all he likes, but he won't bite you".
Neighbour went in (the whole family are there now, it's like a sort of feline eviction roadshow........a mobile phone is produced with a photo showing how comfortable he'd made himself) & a minute later, Albert Whiskers finally emerges onto their patio.
He managed to squeeze through the gap in the chicken fence.......too much Albert & not quite enough gap.....& reluctantly came indoors for long enough to make a dint in his dinner of 'Encore'. Yes, I know he really only deserved bread & water, but we were so relieved to see him.
And after his plateful of One Of The Most Expensive Tins Of Cat Food Money Can Buy, what did he do?
He exited our clearly substandard horrid home via his flap, trotted across the courtyard, squidged through the chicken fence & went to press his traitor's nose up against our neighbour's patio doors to try & regain entry! I am pleased to report that his charm offensive failed & as I write, he is back slumming it by the fire here at 'Hagstones'.
BLOODY CATS!! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!!
Cat stress. Dealt with.
Car stress. Ongoing.
Till next time,
C x

Happy Easter!

Hello Friends,
Just a quick one today to share a few pictures & to welcome in the Spring.

The Easter 'tree' is up & the decomposing white fluffy chick who nearly went in the bin last time has lived to see another year! Despite the terrible weather forecast for Easter weekend, this morning began with promising amounts of blue sky & sunshine, so I had a little walk down the garden to soak up those early signs of spring. So many brimstone butterflies already this year, our old pear tree full of wood pigeons 'getting it on', & judging by the amount of new taddies in the pond, the neighbourhood frogs have been getting it on for some time! The daffodils were blowing brightly, a number of them in my courtyard containers having over-toppled, fetching up in a vase indoors........

......which is when I noticed that all of them are double blooms. I bought a bag of pretty much bog-standard bulbs, so can only assume the garden centre staff had either wrongly labelled them, or a customer had 'helpfully' muddled up the displays. Either way, these are beautiful & have produced 2 & the occasional 3 flowers from each bulb. 

First bluebell buds just popping too.

I've done a bit of baking this morning - just bread, & as my Easter cake was eaten yesterday at our Family Day, I've baked a quick semolina cake filled with home-made raspberry jam, which we've just sampled warm with a fresh cafetiere. Ooooh, simple pleasures! Am intending a day of relaxation & leisure today.......nothing more energetic than reading, knitting & cat-stroking.......
.......talking of which..........

The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship snapped Albert Whiskers enjoying a brief 'Easter moment' this morning:

Eggs & baubles all intact. He is very tired this morning, having had a night on the tiles. There's a new cat on the block......quite a chunky gingernut with a white bib & paws. I spotted him last night trotting past our house, & given the cautious look he gave up our front drive, I am assuming that Ginger Newbie & Albert Whiskers are already acquainted. 
He did raise sufficient energy earlier to enjoy a few 'Dreamies'........

......but apart from that, I am not expecting him to surface until Tummytime.
A very Happy Easter to all our friends & family, whether you are taking part in the Christian festival or celebrating as we do, the return of green & lovely things, we wish you a peaceful & happy time.

C x

Recycled coffee bags

Hello Friends,
Well here we are, second day of Spring, & that glimpse of sun at the weekend has faded back to dismal chilly grey. Plenty of signs of spring in the garden, though, including much amphibious activity in our wildlife pond.

We didn't have any tadpoles last year because a heron fancied a bit of froggy caviar & that was the end of it. All of it! The first tadpoles are just hatching now. The snowdrops have been replaced by narcissus, & I've been busy clearing & replanting my flower borders, making use of all the free self-seeded goodies, such as primroses, foxgloves, aquilegia & verbena bonariensis. 

The veggie plantlets are doing well, but it's still too cold for them in my unheated greenhouse unless they are well wrapped up. I use an old long muslin curtain & plastic bottle cloches to cover them on chilly days, as this lets the light through, but they need an extra layer at night for at least a couple of weeks or so I decided to try making an 'emergency' blanket from recycled coffee bags. I'd heard organic gardener Bob Flowerdew talking about this a while back on Radio 4's gardening programme. Here at the People & Cats Republic, we try to recycle as much as possible, & I do think there is a personal responsibility to think about one's household waste stream, especially for those traditionally non-recyclable materials which are regularly bought & consumed. Ground coffee bags fall into this category. We are both coffee gannets, & unless one buys the more artisan/farmer's market-type coffees, the packaging is usually plasticized film bags which are not accepted in council recycling collections.

OK, plenty of materials. The next job was to turn the bags inside out so that the shiny silver inner is on the outside. Some brands of coffee bag have a much duller grey metallic inner, so I rejected all of those because I wanted this project be reflective for additional heat & light.

This is an emergency blanket 'layer' for baby plants. It doesn't need to win any beauty contests, so all I did next was staple the bags together. I didn't cut them open. I kept the double thickness because even with my limited scientific thinking, it seems that the bag would trap a layer of air & additional insulation. Once I'd constructed a large enough sheet to cover my current batch of seedlings, I tested it out. The seedlings were moved from an upstairs windowsill above a night radiator to our chilly conservatory (unheated when not in use), & covered with their new shiny emergency blanket.

Even cloched as they are with plastic bottles, etc, aubergines, chillies & tomato plantlets can wither in the night-time chill of our conservatory. An early next morning check-in found them still upright & as happy as could be expected. I am now adding coffee bags to this so that I end up with a blanket which will cover the whole of my greenhouse bench. Yes, I could go to the garden centre & buy a big length of horticultural fleece, but there are many things I'd prefer to buy, & there's such a satisfaction in re-purposing rubbish into useful items, both keeping it out of landfill & fulfilling a gardening need. 

I was planning to take a new up-to-date photo of Albert Whiskers today, to include in this blog post, but he's disappeared! He went off in a huff  about an hour ago, because he accidentally gobbled some some of the meat he's been wilfully refusing to eat for the last two days & I think he's really mad with himself. I'd already re-chopped it (fellow cat-owners will know about this) & mashed it up with a spoonful of water in case it was getting dry. No luck. I then tried the often successful 'Dreamies' method: 1) Human shakes the 'Dreamies'. 2) Cat comes running. 3) Two 'Dreamies' are implanted vertically deep into the offending meat. 4) Cat eats 'Dreamies' & meat. 

Well, at first, he wasn't going for it. He studied his bowl in forensic detail before managing to extract one 'Dreamie' while barely touching the meat. Pleased with his ability to see through my cunning plan, he went for the 2nd 'Dreamie' a little too quickly, had a tiny taste of meat, & before he knew it, he'd gobbled half the bowl. Oh yes, Me - 1, Albert Whiskers - Nil. He stomped off through the catflap shortly afterwards & hasn't been seen since. I suspect he is restoring his sense of self-worth by marauding some of the smaller neighbouring cats. So no new photo to share.......

........but here's an old one which never fails to make me smile. 

Hope we see some sunshine soon. Happy gardening......if that's your thing. 

Until Easter,

C x

Yay! Spring rhubarb time!

Hello Friends,
Ha! You thought you were going to make it through this month without me boring you with rhubarb, didn't you? Wrong! The mild winter really put a rocket under the spring rhubarb here. I covered the tiniest signs of pink with the forcing crock back in January, & by the end of February, the stems were forcing up the lid to push their leaves through. It took all of 5 seconds to pop the crock in place - so worth it for some early fresh fruit from the garden. There is nothing like that burst of shocking pink, topped with lime green leaves, on lifting the crock while most of the veggie garden is still cold, bare earth.

Over a kilo of stems, which wasn't bad going considering that I forced it twice last year & also pulled a lot of mature summer stems too, mostly for the freezer. The spring crop has a more delicate flavour & it's a bit of a waste to stew it - not that I don't like stewed rhubarb, it's nice on yoghurt, muesli, for crumbles, etc, but it can loose a lot of its colour & look a bit sludgy. I sliced & baked mine, a la Delia. I just cut the stems into chunks, put them in a large flat dish - I use my lasagne dish - squeeze over the juice of a small orange or satsuma, (I grated over a bit of the zest too), half a tsp of ground ginger, then sprinkle with about 75g sugar. The important thing is not to add any water, so that it cooks in its own juices.

You can see how it goes into the oven, looking really pink. It needs about 40 mins at Gas 4. When it comes out, do you see a dish of brown string? No! It will have kept its gorgeous pinkmongous hues & you will be instantly looking around for a spoon!

You can see from the juices that there is no need for added water. I divided mine up into little pots & froze for desserts, for topping porridge, etc. I only baked the chunky stems. There were a few weedier ones, so in the spirit of our zero food-waste policy here at the People & Cats Republic, I chopped those & made a quick batch of rhubarb & ginger mini-muffins. A dollop of lemon icing on the top & they were good to go......most of them into the freezer, for nice home-baked low-fat little additions to packed lunches, picnics or just for those 'I really, really need cake, but not the 400 calories that come with it' moments!
So yes, I've been playing with rhubarb. The forcing crock has been stood down now until next January, & the rhubarb crown has already started putting out maincrop stems. We have only one crown & it provides ample rhubarb for two people for no expense or effort whatsoever. It gets a few spades of our garden compost chucked over it around November & a can or two of home-brewed comfrey stink during the growing season, & that's it.

Oh, & I've been knitting more socks............

......which have absolutely nothing to do with rhubarb!

Have a good week all,
C x

Cappucino mousse, anyone?

Hello Friends,
I've been meaning to share this recipe since St. Valentine's Day, but somehow the last couple of weeks seem to have vanished in a time-warp of knitting cats, rhubarb, seed-sowing & meetings. 

I love to collect recipes & experiment with cooking new things, but I'm also a great re-visitor of my more 'vintage' recipes - those dishes I used to make frequently in the past, but have fallen out of my immediate repertoire. For Valentine's Day, the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship, no stranger to the kitchen himself, announced that he was cooking a meal & that all I would need to 'bring' was myself & dessert. This seemed a good time to resurrect my cappucino mousses.....a dessert I clearly hadn't made for at least 17 years, as the BHHOTR rather sniffily informed me that he'd never had the opportunity to try one!

There's a delightful kitschness to these, with their sprinkled snowy-swirled tops & little spoons in the saucers (sorry, I went a bit 'Nigella' there, for a moment.....), as they are served in coffee cups. The original recipe suggested using demi-tasse cups, which is essential if you need to serve 6 people, but if you are serving 4, or feel like making a pig of yourself, then standard cups are fine.

I've seen various mousse recipes over the years which seem to involve more la-di-dah fancypants preparation than I usually want to be bothered with. Not this one. Even people who say they 'can't cook' need not feel threatened, as the culinary skills set is so basic. Can you make a cup of instant coffee? Melt chocolate? Use an electric whisk? There's really no more to it than that.

Cappucino Mousses
175g dark chocolate (I use Waitrose or Co-op own-brand (fairtrade), though the well-known alleged tax-avoiding variety also works well. Avoid the very high-cocoa content premium brands for this, as I sometimes find they don't work as well in old recipes compiled before these brands became common-place)
1 tbsp good quality instant coffee granules
3 tbsp boiling water
2 egg yolks
5 egg whites 
60g caster sugar
5 tbsp double cream
142ml (ish) extra double cream to decorate
1 tsp cocoa powder

Break the chocolate into pieces & put in a heatproof bowl with the sugar. Dissolve the coffee in the 3 tbsp boiling water & add it to the chocolate. Now melt the coffee, chocolate & sugar together in the bowl set over a small pan of simmering water. 
While that's going on, separate the eggs & eat the leftover chocolate. You're doing the work making the dessert aren't you? Chef's anti-oxidants. Put the egg whites in a large bowl & the egg yolks in a mug. Check how the chocolate's getting on. 
When the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl from the heat, & stir in the egg yolks. The chocolate is unlikely to be hot enough to scramble the yolks, but stir them in well, just in case. Put this mixture aside to cool for 10 mins.
Meanwhile, use an electric whisk to whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. If you can turn the bowl upside down over your head without them moving, they are probably stiff enough. Rinse the beaters & in a small bowl, whisk the 5tbsp of cream until stiff, & fold it into the chocolate mixture. 
Next take as big a blob of the egg whites as you can fit on a tablespoon without being silly about it, & fold it into the chocolate mixture. Now using a spatula, carefully scrape the contents of the chocolate bowl into the big egg white bowl & fold together gently until everything is nicely combined.
Spoon the mixture into 6 demi-tasse or 4 standard size coffee cups & leave to set in the fridge overnight. 

Next day - At some point before you want to eat them, whisk the rest of the cream until stiff, then pipe a swirl on top of each cup. Dust with a titchy bit of cocoa powder before serving. Pop each cup on a saucer with a teaspoon & let your guests think you have spent ages making something complicated.

Two useful things about this recipe - I like things which can be made the day before so I can get ahead. It leaves more time for a glass or two of wine when, with less foresight, you could have been running out of time. Technically, this should set in a few hours, but overnight is the really reliable option. Secondly, if you have any mousses leftover (i.e you have invited hairshirt-wearing dessert phillistines to your house), they will be fine in the fridge for another day. You might have had a really crap day at work by then, or or spent all day trying to avoid self-servative bozos on the telly, so a little treatypoo in the fridge awaiting the arrival of your frazzled self might be just what you need!
So there we have it - a slightly retro, very lovely dessert that I wish I'd re-discovered earlier. 
Did it go down well with the BHHOTR? It really did (until I suggested that I might serve it in our tiny espresso cups next time!)

Well, for Albert Whiskers fans, this has been his level of industry for pretty much all of today. It's been an all-day mixture of rain, sleet & sunshine, so he managed to blag the sunny end of the sofa & inspected the back of his eyelids for a few hours. However, he's now gone off to continue a Very Important Mission - to try & find the robbing gobbler who snuck through his catflap last night when everyone was immersed in watching the finale of 'Shetland' & stole his biscuits! He has taken an extremely dim view of this, has been over every centimetre of the interloper's route in, & I can only imagine what a pasting he (because it was probably Splodgy) or she (because it could just have been Champers) is going to get when he catches up with them! You'd think the smaller cats would avoid our house by now, as we always adopt these older ex-street cats, but they don't seem to learn.
Oh well, it feels like time to light the fire & put the kettle one.
Have a good weekend, everyone,
C x 

'The Quality of Silence' by Rosamund Lupton

Hello Friends,
Hands up who has missed seeing snow this year! Definitely me! Here in Newark, I estimate that we have seen around 17 grains of the stuff since the beginning of Winter. I was quite excited last week when weather forecasters predicted at least a couple of showers passing over our region, but what a big fib that was! Not a single flake. Admittedly, I do have quite strict parameters where snowfall is concerned. I like it to start on Friday night, create an icy weekend world for walks before conveniently thawing overnight on Sunday ready for the week ahead. This winter, when I've even had hardy geraniums in flower in January (how wrong is that?), I'd have settled for any snow, any amount, any time. Crisp bright cold winters are most definitely my thing. 

Amidst all the grey sogginess, I did read a fantastic book which provided a bit of a 'snow fix'. I thought I'd tell you about it, as I know I have many friends who share my love of reading. It's a novel by Rosamund Lupton, called The Quality of Silence, first published in 2015. The paperback edition is new this year, published by Piatkus, ISBN: 978-0-349-40815-6.

Now, you'll want a steaming cafetiere & a fireside if you're planning on tucking yourself up with this one. This is one seriously icy story. It is also a book I found difficult to put down, so I read it in a couple of sittings. I really detest reviews which contain spoilers, so I'm going to do my best to give a flavour, without revealing plot details:

The story begins on November 24th, when Yasmin & her 10-year old daughter, Ruby, fly out from England to Alaska. They are supposed to meet Ruby's father at the airport, but he isn't there. Instead, they are met by a policeman who says, 'Can't tell you anything yet, I'm sorry'. Information is hard to come by, but there has clearly been some disaster, now shrouded in secrecy. Yasmin won't accept the 'official line' & decides to journey into the depths of Alaska to find her wildlife photographer/film maker husband. It is winter time, & his last known whereabouts so close to the Arctic, that there is no daylight. This is a perilous journey that must be made in darkness in treacherous snow & ice, with a storm on its way. Although afraid for her small daughter's life, Yasmin refuses to leave her behind, for Ruby is profoundly deaf & they communicate through signing & a screen to voice computer programme. Much of the story is told through the voice of Ruby, & the relationship between her & her mother is one of the most enduring features of the story.
Another unforgettable feature is the cold. This is a story of endurance across a frozen landscape of eyeball-freezing temperatures. So strong is Rosamund Lupton's prose, I found I was at one point shivering with cold, willing Yasmin & Ruby to improvise some extra layers to keep them alive, while at the same time, having to pull a blanket around my own shoulders. For this IS a story about endurance. It is also a story about a mother/child bond, which has a strong environmental theme. Ruby's deafness is handled sensitively, & she is such a 'real' & positive character, that on finishing the novel, I felt I'd spent actual physical time in her company - the mark of a good writer, I think.
Without resorting to spoilers, I should add that the novel has many hallmarks of a thriller, for while Yasmin pushes herself to the limits of human endurance to find out what has happened to her husband, there is someone who is working just as hard to prevent this from happening. 
I hadn't read any other novels by this author, but will be adding them to my (endless!) reading list.

Don't miss this one! I can guarantee that once you have read it, you won't moan about having to walk to 'Spar' in the snow to fetch a pint of milk ever again! You may also find yourself signing petitions! I am highly recommending this novel. Beautifully written. I borrowed it from the library, read it, then purchased my own copy, as I knew it would be one I'd want to read again.

Sadly, 3 months of Soggy Grey has meant that I have no interestingly icy garden photos to share from this winter. I've had a root through our files, though, & found some old ones.

You can just make out all the cat paw prints in this one. It's from 2008. Our Resident Fur Friend back then was Willow - my beautiful grey tabby - another adult rescue cat with attitude, & still much missed.

 He didn't rate snow, but it had to be endured, as there were boundaries to check, neighbouring cats to monitor, old scores to settle, so he'd take a deep breath & push himself out through the cat flap into the snowy garden.

Not much snow in this picture, so chilly paws only. He was much less keen when greater snowfall meant it came up to his undercarriage, but he would still venture out. Willow was never someone to let his territory be enjoyed by other felines, even in the worst of weather.

Oh well.......the colder months are about done, so I'm unlikely to get any snowy walks now until next winter. We did manage a bit of one at Rufford Park last month, before it quickly melted away. The gardening season is almost upon me (5 aubergine seedlings up today!) so I shall have to concentrate on enjoying Spring.
Yours Snowlessly,
C x

Snowdrops, sweetpeas & Annoying Things

Hello Friends,
An extremely belated Happy New Year to you all. I don't know what's taken me so long with putting pen to paper. I've already bought 3 presents ready for next Christmas, so there's really no excuse!

The garden here at The People & Cats Republic is looking nicely snowdroppy. They were early this year. They're usually at their peak for Valentine's Day, but some are already past their best, & making way for 'Tete-a-tete' & 'February Gold' narcissus, & the many varieties of daffodil that are now heavily in bud. I braved the possibility of hideous arachnid encounters earlier this week & cleared out my half of the shed. I also finally got around to ordering our veggie seeds, & this morning, achieved my first greenhouse session of the new season. Fab couple of hours - warm sun on the panes & I was serenaded by a pair of bouncy robins. Albert Whiskers helped by staying out of the way, as there was an urgent matter behind the compost bins which required his full attention.

I sorted through my October-sown sweet-peas & removed a few mingers, before pinching them out to encourage stronger, bushier plants. I need them to be as strong as possible, as I know they'll come under attack from the Sparrow Mafia as soon as I plant them outside. Also sowed some penstemon seed. If it gets off to an early start, the plants will flower this year, & will still be providing colour as late as November, frosts permitting. You can see I'm using old CD cases as mini cloches. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship had been having a clear-out & I rescued these from landfill as the completely transparent ones are useful at seed-sowing time.

These are the little strawberry runners I snipped off & potted up before Winter. I wasn't too hopeful about them as some didn't have much root, but with just a sprinkle of water now & again, they've all survived, so that's a dozen free extra plants to add to the strawberry barrel this year. 

More recycling here, as I often like to use big yoghurt pots for seeds, as they can enable a good root system. These are alium christophii, astrantia, sweet cicely & sysinchrium. Apparently they take a long time to germinate, up to 1 year. I don't know if they will bother as the seed is very old. It's so old, & I've failed to sow it for so many years (7, maybe?) that this task made its way onto my official Annoying Things lists.... which are new, motivating & extremely effective at getting rid of longstanding Annoying Things ONCE & FOR ALL!! 
What exactly qualifies as an Annoying Thing? Well, it is the sort of task which if you decided to do it, would probably take you less than half an hour & very probably just a few minutes or EVEN SECONDS!  Despite this, you walk past it several times a day (x days in a week, x weeks in a year, etc) & pretty much every time, you mentally berate yourself for still not actually having bothered to do it. The reason for not doing these tasks is rarely down to logistics, the state of the household economy, or ability to carry it out successfully. No, the reason........& come on, we can all think of tasks we've got at home like this.......is that despite seeing whatever job it is multiple times a day & it annoying me EVERY SINGLE TIME ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT FAIL, I still CBA to do it!! That's the truth of it. 
And so, this January, my Annoying Things lists were born. There are two of them. Annoying Things List 1 consists of all Annoying Things I can solve for free. Yes. Free. Without a single pence needing to be handed over to People with Skills or Purveyors of Goods. Annoying Things List 2 consists of things which involve expenditure of less than £20. Now, in case anyone thinks I'm racing my way through List 2 positively shedding £20 notes with gay abandon, wrong! One of the Annoying Things on this list cost 99p to solve, another cost 50p & one that I'd been putting off for simply ages came in at the dizzying total expenditure of........39p!! 
So, this morning, I was already intending to head down to the greenhouse to sow some penstemons & fanny about with sweetpeas & strawberry plants, so half way down the garden, I made myself turn tail & fetch the 4 packets of ancient seeds for sowing today. Will they even bother germinating after so long? No idea, but plants generally want to grow, so it's only fair to give them a chance. That's another Annoying Thing crossed off. I've already done a total of 25 Annoying Things this year & it really is quite weirdly satisfying! 

Well I shall sign out now, as I can hear some scrabbling around in the hall, which most probably means Albert Whiskers is beating up the doormat again. They get above themselves, those doormats, & need to be taught a regular lesson about who exactly is Boss in the hallway. 
Until next time, when I have a book review for all those who have missed having a 'proper' winter this year......simply the iciest book I've ever read, which on a couple of occasions actually had me reaching for another layer to put on, so great was the psychological effect of excellent writing & Arctic chill.
See you then,
C x