1 year and still going …strong? – Saturday – 07 February

Today is Week 52 of my blog entries so I’m really happy that I made it for a year. Yah me 🙂

This time a year ago I was living in a cold gite with my husband and cat, waiting to hear if our official offer on our house had been accepted (basically getting the signed paper work back). I will admit I never want to go through that experience again. Being cold, lots of travelling searching for houses, trying to keep our business going, intermittent internet and other bits and pieces, it put a little bit of strain on our relationship. Not our happiest moment.

Today, one year on, I’m sitting in my warm kitchen, the cat is outside terrorising whatever hapless creature he can find. The puppy is curled up on her cushion (not the sofa) asleep. The central heating is on (well it’s minus 1 degree outside) and my wonderful hubby is upstairs at his desk pottering away. Basically all feels good with the world. Maybe the good feeling with the world has to do with the giant chocolate muffins that I baked on Sunday? Who knows? And I don’t have a photo as they were eaten way too quickly, maybe I’ll have to make some more.

I have continued with my ciabatta making, which is becoming quicker and easier by the day. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it previously but Pat and I have decided to try and cook something different each week. Something for dinner that we just haven’t made before, or for a while. Last week I did chicken pie this week Pat did a shoulder of lamb based on a Sephardic lamb recipe, obviously we had to make a few alterations because of my diet, like celery instead of onion, but the herbs and spices made it very, very yummy.

The other thing we have decided to do this week, after looking at what we had spent on shopping in January, is that this week we will be cooking from what we already have in the house. We will buy some fresh fruit and veggies, but that is it. We don’t think that it will be that hard, which means we have way too much in the freezer and the pantry. However, I have recently seen a tv program where families are trying to bring down their food bills, the first family (of 4) spent £13,000 the second family (of 6) spent £16,000 a year and we are concerned about spending approximately €5,300 a year (approx. £4,000), makes us realise that we don’t really overspend.

This week I’ve also started a new watercolour. I’m hoping that it will work out. We have also finally had snow here which is lovely. Everything has now turned to ice, I will admit it is very cold here, most days we might get above zero if we are lucky. The thermals are on, even Pat has dug his out.

My plan was to try and get the entrance hall of the house painted this weekend. Unfortunately that is not going to happen as I’ve got a cold, so far it’s mild with a sore throat and a little congestion but I’m going to try to make sure it doesn’t get any worse. To that end, Pat is off to puppy class today by himself, so that I don’t have to be outside in freezing temperatures. There is however sunshine outside so that hopefully will be nice for them both.

Until next week.

PS. Just noticed that I’ve gone over 1,000 for the number of visits to my blog – yah, thank you all for reading.

Garden from the back window as the snow was starting.