Shopping with Rachel and Rebecca

So this receipt is from when Rachel and Rebecca came over and quizzed me for hours, and then took me shopping. (They know how to show a girl a good time.) This is kind of my monthly shop(not weekly, I don't have time to shop every week, and besides I would spend far too much money on stuff I don't need), were I would get all my staples like breakfast cereal, tinned goods, tea, coffee, sugar etc. And then washing goods, and household cleaners. Then there are things like deoderant, shaving, shower gels and shampoos etc. Basically everything that doesn't come from the farmers market, or delivered by a man.

I must say, it is rather bizarre going to the supermarket being flanked by two young ladies. It's not the fact that to an outsider we seem so dim, it obviously takes three of us to push a trolley around the supermarket, but the seemingly unsupermarket like questions that we seem to be discussing, that raises an eyebrow or two. But hey, I've never been the shy and retiring type, so it doesn't much bother me.

Anyway, you know what I bought, and why. You were there, but here's the receipt to remind you. Oh by the way, anytime you fancy babysitting, let me know. You where both very good at occupying small ginger children. Although we have yet to test you on the slightly larger variety.

Receipts Four

26th Sept had a bit of a hankering for pastry. Bought myself some courgettes and creme fraiche (see receipt) and took them home. Fried up the courgette with some chicken, a bit of garlic, and added a little lemon zest and fresh parsley. Squidge it all together with some creme fraiche. Roll out puff pastry nice and thin. Slop courgette/chicken mix down the centre of pastry. Cut ribbons in sides of pastry and curl over courgette/chicken mix, meeting in middle. Egg wash over top. Bang in oven. Cook till nice and golden brown. Feed to husband with new potatoes and broccoli. Makes two chicken breasts go further. Two meals for two people, rather than one. Pastry is dirt cheap. Get's you loads of brownie points with husband. Job Done.

Tip:- Use low fat creme fraiche in cooking. I use it in everything I need a creamy addition for. (Soup, curry, etc.) For some reason, the full fat stuff goes really runny when it warms up. The low fat stuff stays thick. And there's less fat, so you can feel self righteous, or just have twice as much.

A Handy Jack.

So, I told you about my car crash, but did I tell you about the gas leak?





No? Ok, here goes. Bear in mind that my husband is virtually on the other side of the planet, being smoozed by loads of Chinese business men and women, life in Haddon Drive continues its roller coaster journey with great vigour.





I woke up early on Monday morning for a change, and decided to have a shower before the children woke up. When I came out of the bathroom I could smell gas upstairs, so I knew it must be pretty bad downstairs. After opening every possible window I could, I then started to panic a bit. What do I do now? Alex isn't here, I can't ring the gas board, we don't have any money to get them involved. Maybe I should just switch it off and Alex will sort it out when he gets back. The kids were eating their breakfast by this time, complaining that they were very cold, and why were the windows open? I couldn't leave the gas off all week, they would freeze, and have no hot food. Then I thought I could ring Frank (Alex's dad) as he would know what to do. The phone rang and rang, then it went to answer phone. Shit. Now what do I do? I put the phone down without leaving a message. I need to speak to someone now, not later.



Then it dawned on me, what if he was still in Spain? Alex had told me the week before that his mum and dad had taken Nonna to their apartment in Spain for a holiday. I had no idea if they where back yet. I didn't know what to do. Ordinarily I would phone the gas board and let them sort it out, and then stump up the cash afterwards. But we have no way of doing that. How can you get someone to do some work for you that you have no way to pay them for. I don't have any credit cards, nothing for emergencies, no stash of cash in my mattress or nest egg for a rainy day in the bank. I suppose if the worst comes to the worst, I could phone my mum but what could she do? She's 200 miles away, and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want my dad to know that I can't look after myself at the age of 37.



Luckily, with all this running through my mind, only a couple of short (although that's not what it felt like) minutes later, the phone rang. It was Frank. Thank God. I was so relieved I burst into tears, and started sobbing hysterically down the phone to him. He said he would send Jack round to have a look and told me to switch it off. It all seemed so very simple now. Within a couple of minutes it was all sorted out. As it happened, Jack couldn't come over until the next day so we had a very cold day and night, but he came the next morning and fixed it in no time. A very simple problem. A connection behind the cooker had come loose.



I felt like a bit of a moron. I had got hysterical over such a small thing, but the fact of the matter is, that when something like this happens, it is the amount of readies that you have in your pocket that colours how you deal with things. If I had a credit card, or a wad of cash in the bank, would I have stressed so much? I doubt it. I would have done what everybody else does, and in fact what my neighbour did only a few weeks ago when they had a gas leak, phone the gas board, let them do their thing, then moan about how much it costs afterwards. Luckily, and I really do mean it, I have a fantastic father-in-law that is a builder and has an army of workers of all descriptions at his beck and call to do his bidding. Actually, I only need the one. His name is Jack, he is Polish and he fixes everything. If I wasn't married (and neither was Jack) I would marry him.

Receipts Three

So, more recepts from Waitrose. I think I shopped there so much, because I was waiting to do my big shop with Rachel and it just put me all over the place. I didn't have anything at home, so I kept shopping at the most expensive shop in the world!

Anyway, some more bits and bobs. Looks like the kids had a pizza for tea one night. Usually I make my own pizza bases and then add stuff to them, but I must have been in a rush, as I bought ready made pizza base, and some garlic bread. Ah I remember, the kids and I made fridge cake, so we bought mixed dried friut, butter, digestives and chocolate. Some other lunch stuff for Willow and Oscar and a recipe card holder for me. I bought this because I thought it was really good value. There is one in the Phoenix Cards catalogue that I love. It's a box and you put little cards in it, but it was £15. I bit pricey. This one from Waitrose is a ringbound book that you can stand up, so you don't have to take the cards out and they will keep clean. You get 60 in there, and also it takes an A4 sheet folded in half, so if I print reciped off the internet, which I do quite regularly, I can put them in there too! A bargain!

The other receipt was for a potato peeler which I bought as a present for my daughter. An odd gift for a seven year old you might think, but no, not really. You see she is a very helpful sort of child and likes to help out in the kitchen. She has recently discovered how easy it is to cook a roast dinner, and likes to peel the vegetables. My potato peeler unfortunately she finds very difficult to peel with, so I bought her a little novelty Y shaped peeler she can use when she helps mummy in the kitchen.

Food Snobs

My daughter does ballet. In fact it would be fair to say she loves ballet, and would do it ALL the time if at all possible. Her best friend is also in her class, which helps a lot. So suffice to say that I spend a lot of time waiting around while she is in her lesson, with all the other mums in the same boat.
We were chatting away one day last week when the conversation turned to food and cooking and then to shopping. One of the mums mentioned that she shopped at Sainsburys, which I do, but where as I had gone up in the quality of supermarkets, (from Tesco) she pointed out very loudly that before she had children she used to shop at Waitrose all the time, and now she had to slum it at Sainsburys. Another mum made a joke about Asda, and then the first mum announced quite loudly that she wouldn't ever dream of setting foot in that shop and if you ever found her in there, you would know things were really dire indeed.
Now, don't get me wrong, I shop in Sainsburys too, but not because I'm slumming it. There are many reasons.
1. I used to shop at Tesco Kings Meadow. Huge shop, lots of choice, great value. But got disillusioned with the staff as they were unhelpful and rude.
2. I used to shop online with Tesco until they moved the store they used to get my shopping from Kings Meadow to Wokingham (tiny shop) so my wide choice narrowed considerably as the store was smaller.
3. I wasn't happy with the quality of the meat that I bought from Tesco.
4. I wasn't happy about spending that amount of money in a supermarket that seemed to be swallowing up the country. (An ethical choice.)

So I moved to Sainsburys because:
1. The local store is small but still has a wide variety of choice and I can get everything there that I need. (Apart from the really weird stuff that I buy from the Oriental Wholesalers).
2. The staff there are very polite and very helpful.
3. When I buy online, the shopping comes from Calcot Savacentre, which is ginormous, and never seems to run out of anything.
4. Although the price is a little more, I usually buy supermarket brand anyway, so there isn't that much difference, but the quality is better.
5. Sainsburys seem to have much more of a family feel about them. They appear to be much more nurturing and concerned about the environment and ethics, which sits much more easier in my life.

The biggest reason that I personally don't shop at Asda is because of our local store. Whenever I go to visit a friend of mine who lives in Swindon right near a very new and very big Asda/Walmart store, we always go in and have a look. I actually do like Asda, even though it's been taken over by the biggest company in the world. But my local store is old, and dingy. The aisles are cramped and it is very busy. The toilets aren't even in the store, so if you take the kids, they invariably need a wee half way around the store, irrespective of when they last had one. You have to leave your trolley in an aisle somewhere, not quite sure whether it will still be there when you return. Whenever I go in there they have moved everything around and it takes me forever to find anything. In fact a few times I have been in there with the kids, I have got so frustrated I have just dumped the trolley and left, to save my sanity, and to stop me screaming at the children.

If I had loads of money I would shop at Waitrose. So does that make me a food snob? I guess it does. But, my brother in law, who is the biggest food snob in the world does his regular shop at Asda, so it's obviously not the quality of the food that is the problem. But then he like me gets most of his meat and fresh veg somewhere else.

So what is a food snob? Am I a food snob really? I don't buy all my food branded, (which you can get in any supermarket and I am reliably in formed that a packet of Kellogg's cornflakes tastes the same in Asda as it does from Waitrose) so that can't be it. Maybe I'm just of an age to realise that you can make a difference, however small, to your own life, those around you, and what you put in your body affects your mind too.

Oh how philosophical!

Receipts Two

So here are the next set of receipts. Ok so it was ages ago, but I'm a busy woman with an erratic network connection. What are you gonna do?

The first receipt is dated 23rd Sept, so I bought a few things for a 'Pampered Chef' party I was having that evening. Kettle Chips, multi dips, and then some items for something that would be made at said party... an onion, carrots, puff pastry and the gruyere. So all things I wouldn't normally buy. I love gruyere, it's really nutty, but quite expensive. Then a couple of packets of crisps for me and Oscar to have with our lunch, and some kitchen towel. Again, we went to Waitrose because it's quick and I was near there.

The second receipt is from the next day. I was obviously making spaghetti bolognaise! The ingredients speak for themselves. Maybe Oscar asked me to make it for him. Whenever I make it, I make loads of sauce and then save some. I also bought a gammon joint to make some ham. This was the last time I made spag bol, as my daughter who has proclaimed spag bol as her favourite meal of choice from the age of one, now has decided she doesn't like it anymore. GGggggrrrrrrrr.

Some You Lose

It seems there has been a spate of uselessness in our family recently, my mum also had a car accident where she pulled out of a junction in front of a car that was indicating to go down where she was coming out of and therefore would miss her, but he wasn't going down there, just pretending he was. So I really don't want to tell you this, as you are now going to make the rash assumption that everyone in my family is a bunch of morons, but I also had a car accident yesterday.

I pride myself in being the one that caused the least damage, but I did reverse into a stationary car, so that doesn't say much. But in my defence, I have never put in a fault claim in my life, and I have been driving for twenty years. It was dark, I was reversing out of a very small car park round a very large and stupidly placed skip, and reversed into a car that I was actually trying to avoid. Duh. Luckily, it belonged to someone I knew, although what luck had to do with it I have no idea, because if I was lucky I wouldn't be writing this.

Anyway, joking aside, I now have the very real problem of acquiring £250 for my excess. I have no magicians hat or pot of gold, so I guess we will be raiding the kids savings accounts again. Which means that the Christmas present money pot will be considerably smaller than it should be. My children are destined never to go to university, just because they won't ever have any money.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Luckily I'm not religious.

Ha ha! The irony of it all.