Results of Grand Draw for 5 x £50 Homebase vouchers
Danny here. Fiona opened the Homebase Grand Draw on May 11th and it ran until the end of the month. As she said, “the five lucky winners will each receive a £50 voucher. The vouchers can be used throughout the store. As you know, they have a huge range of other products too.” You can read her article here. This morning I ran the drawing of the prize vouchers. There were 136 entries (including my invalid one), which were comments on her article. One entrant Tweeted and also posted a comment (1 entry). The method of selecting the...
read moreForum software update glitch
Today I (Danny) updated this blog’s WordPress software to the current version. That worked fine – we know because you are reading this! Unfortunately, the forum required a corresponding upgrade that has failed. Hopefully we will get it all working again within 24 hours. Sunday 09:15 it appears to be OK now.
read moreRoast chicken thighs with summer vegetables recipe
Why chicken thighs again? For one thing, it makes a succulent, tasty and economical meal. Also, Fiona split her jam making over two days, which is a great idea because it is then less of a major task. The house is filled with the aroma from the two jam saucepans. One has wild plum and the other is greengage. I am the unofficial taster and quality assurance agent, apparently. So I am giving her a night off from writing. We had this variation on Shereen’s excellent original already this week. I found a large gammon at the CFC on Thursday and...
read moreRecipe to add zest to boiled rice, frittata and other dishes
Simple boiled rice, such as good basmati, or a dish like frittata can be a joy, especially if you add a little something to lift it above the ordinary. In my wilder years, I learned to cook by trial and error after accepting a position in a Chelsea, London household even though I did not have the foggiest idea of even how to boil an egg. Nowadays I would probably be summarily fired after Day Two but this couple were exceptionally kind people. On this blog I call them Smart Wife and Kind Husband. In England, the term Smart means relatively...
read moreNew garden borders and rip-off press adverts
This is Danny writing this evening to give Fiona a break after her hard three days of work on renewing the arid borders in our driveway. Not a single earthworm to be found. Much digging over and adding of compost and manure. This afternoon she was finally able to plant lavender hedging along the edges and perennials within the border. I can’t wait to see the effect next year. It will transform the view from the road. Getting back to my theme today: We do not like these rip-offs Perhaps we should know better but sometimes newspaper ads are so...
read moreForum temporarily unavailable
Hi everybody – Danny here. After installing the up-to-date versions of software early this morning, some problems developed around noon and our server was out of action for about two hours. In order to identify the element that is causing trouble, we have temporarily shut down the forum and other more minor features. We will observe the health of the system over the next 24 hours and gradually reinstate each disabled element in turn. Apologies for the interruption to normal service.
read moreTasty cheap budget meals and cooking plus an update from Fiona
It’s Danny here because Fiona has crashed early following a busy day of cooking for her gate side stand. She is a real trier with a strong enterprising streak, thank goodness. The gate side stand has been very enjoyable and she loves running it. It will never be a substitute for her previous work as a painter & decorator, but it is just one of many small streams of income that she is building up. Some days are good, some average, and there have been three days when it took nothing at all (two of those were Christmas Day and Boxing...
read moreBest quick and easy chicken breast recipe – cheat method
Chicken breasts are so fast and simple to convert into a meal. I once had them just sliced and grilled (broiled) for a few minutes, then popped into a toasted sandwich with mustard and mayo to make a deliciously fast supper. The downside is that they are basically flavourless outside of their natural home in a Sunday Lunch whole roast chicken. The trick is to either marinade them beforehand or add ingredients to add some zest. Danny here on Thu evening, giving Fiona a break after her trip to London yesterday. I touched on this in the...
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