Big Garden Birdwatch & snowdrops

This is the weekend when people count birds for an hour in their garden or park, recording the numbers in the largest group (so not to double count the same bird) of each species.

I cheated a bit by counting the birds in next door's garden (none in mine, but I did have a neighbour's cat in it most of the time). Even so I got only one feral pigeon, one blackbird and 3 house sparrows.

Snowdrops just about to open in the garden. Looking at my perpetual diary I see they are usually open the first week of February, so not much advance on most years despite the mild winter.

"Friendship" cake - oh, the responsibility!

Kate, the clerk of one of the committees I look after, brought down some batches of "Friendship" Cake on Wednesday and I took one. It is a sourdough mixture that has to be stirred and fed for nine days before dividing into quarters. one quarter made into a cake and the other three quarters given away to friends for them to undertake the process themselves.

It's called "Herman the German" for some reason; perhaps this batch orginated from someone German.

The ninth day will be a Saturday. Cat at work has expressed an interest, so I have emailed Kate to see if the mixture will last till Monday. It lasted one day extra this time, as Kate brought it down from Scotland on the sleeper.

I've had to feed the mixture today with flour, sugar and milk. I only had rice milk which was rather thin, so hope that will do. Some Plamil soya milk would probably have been better, but I don't drink much milk (mainly just a little on my breakfast cereal) and soya milk goes all thick at the bottom of the carton and I waste a load.

The cake recipe has eggs, I am planning to use silken tofu (Cat found this suggestion as an egg substitute on the internet) and some vinegar and bicarb. It also has chopped up apple which I will leave out.

As my kitchen scales have their own plastic bowl I rarely using my mixing bowls, so it was nice to get one out to use for this.

Sorting Larder cupboard to cut waste

The tall cupboard I use as a larder needs a good sort out and I am working on it shelf by shelf. This time though, rather than just clearing a shelf, cleaning everything including the shelf, and putting it all back tidily, I am really thinking about what I store there and what is just wasting space.

I have decided to keep dried lentils of various kinds as I use those regularly in my cooking. But other pulses I will just have a couple of tins of to use as and when. I have loads of dried chickpeas, and quite a few aduki beans and mung beans. I am soaking a couple of handfuls each weekend to have with a rice dish I usually use green lentils for. It'll take me most of this year to get through them all!

I also have some dried maize I made popcorn with once. I am soaking a couple of handfuls that to see if it will soak up the liquid. If so, I'll add it to my rice dishes. If not, the wormery will have them all.

I also have a unopened pack of gram flour which I can't remember what I bought it for. Can't think what to use that for so am trying to convince myself that would be better off in the wormery!

I am not too fussy about use by dates on tins but the tin of pineapple rings was ready to blow. I was presumably given this as I don't like pineapple. I opened it, drained the juice into the garden and put the can into the recycling. The "use by" date was June 1996!

Welcome, Frost!

Leyton has just had several days of frost, and I feel "about time!".

Dorothy next door watched a programme about rhubbarb growers who are having problems because the rhubbarb roots need some cold weather. And I have 3 rhubbarb plants (though one I plan to get rid of as soon as I decide what I want to put in its place - it goes to seed so quickly).

I believe garlic needs a certain number of cold nights as well, and I have half a bed of that.

I went on a cycle ride this morning with the frost still heavy in the shade and any puddles frozen. As I needed to get back to get ready to go out I only went 6+ miles. The tips of my fingers were just beginning to warm up when I got back and my toes had just got cold!

heat out the window!

Part of our staff meeting this month was led by the sustainability group who are leading the move to make our building and the work within it more sustainable. We were split into groups and wrote down ideas of how we might achieve this.

My first point was not to have the windows open when the heating was on. I am often closing windows on stairs and landings. I don't believe in paying to heat up the sky!

The first thing my boss does when we are back in the office is to open the window. I'm then downstairs with the HR manager and Jo, who is actually on the sustainability group, and the window between their desks is open as well!

Actually I couldn't blame them - the offices were rather warm. I could have managed without the windows open, but could understand why others could not. So it is the boilers that are the problem.....

No tv, no internet, no i player

One of my committee members up in Ayrshire had 3 days without electricity last week. The electricity came back on, but her internet service provider had no electricity so she still didn't have the internet. She said that without electricity you can manage, though more work and it takes longer, but without the internet you feel very cut-off.

My television quietly packed it in on Friday morning. It is an old, very small, black and white set. I wasn't planning to go digital, and would watch what little (though more than I readily admit to!) television I watch on i-player and 4od. But I haven't been able to get an internet connection all weekend.

Rang up o2 yesterday evening and they are going to send me a new wireless box. Hopefully this will arrive tomorrow and I will get it up and running in time to watch Sherlock Holmes on iplayer. My neighbour invited me in to see it on her tv, but all 3 of her tvs were having problems with BBC1 on
Sunday evening!

I have only had internet at home for 18 months, but I did feel cut off without it over the weekend, and was glad to get into the office and have a quick check before I started work of who had emailed me.

Spring is sprung far too early!

On my cycle ride on Sunday I saw hazel trees covered in catkins and a false acaia with one branch in full leaf!

New Year

I did mention to Hilda, the friend staying with me over Christmas, that the thermal linings of the curtains in the spare bedroom were also blackout ones, However she hadn't appreciated the significance of this.

After seeing in the New Year we'd agreed that we'd get up about 8.30. I was up a few minutes after that, had my shower and hairwash, did the washing up, made an apple crumble (using the spiced apples another friend had made for my Christmas oresent) so it was ready for the oven, brought in some logs from the log pile, and she still hadn't appeared.

I called her - her room was so dark she hadn't realised the time (nearly 10 am)!

We did get our walk, around Hollow Ponds on the edge of Epping Forest, before home for leek, onions and mushrooms on toast and the apple crumble.

By the time she left for the bus just after 2 pm it had started to rain and by mid afternoon was raining heavily.

I'm now trying to get the wood burning stove to light. It seems to be taking my 3 goes most evenings this year!