Becoming Domestic

My local butcher stocks really good quality meat but doesn’t supply chunks of stewing lamb as by the time he has taken all the cuts of meat from the animal there is very little left to cut into pieces worth selling. For some reason though the supermarket does sell stewing lamb and so when I saw a couple of packets in the reduced refrigerator section I decided to snap them up and find out whether we like traditional Lancashire Hot Pot (we do)…

Some recipes for this dish call for lamb kidney but being a hater of all things offal I gave these a miss and made a simple stew of lamb pieces, 2 sliced onions, 3 carrots chopped into mouth sized pieces, 2 parsnips (instead of turnip which some recipes called for) and finely sliced celery heart (including the flavoursome leaves).

The meat was browned by heating a little vegetable oil to a high temperature then added all the chopped veg and sauteed it all with the lid on for a little while, I added a teaspoon of cornflour to thicken the stew liquor, some thyme and a bay leaf, loads of black pepper and a little salt. I then added just enough water to cover the ingredients. About 3 potatoes were sliced thinly (skin left on) and arranged in a pretty overlapping circles pattern across the top.

I then went to collect the kiddies from school and when I was giving them their tea I brought the hot pot back up to a gentle simmer and the casserole dish was then baked with the lid on for about 1.5 hours at a low-medium heated oven, then 30 minutes before eating the lid was removed, the potatoes were brushed with oil and returned to the oven without the lid so the potatoes could go golden and crunchy on the top.

It was really nice. We had it without any extra vegetables as Bealers was in a hurry to go out to meet someone but I thought it would have been even better with a portion of freshly cooked purple sprouting brocolli.

May 6th, 2008 | Category: Food, Gluten free living, Recipes | Leave a comment

The Willow Den in the background will get much leafier this summer

Last March we bought the willow withies to make a willow den for the children as our garden has no shade after midday during the summer months. Withies can be bought from November-March in the UK when the wood is dormant.

We followed the instructions found in a great book called ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?: Great Gardening for Green-Fingered Kids’ and within a few weeks of planting at the beginning of April, the willow had taken root and formed a superb play den in the corner of the garden.

Now it is a year on and I’ve been asked to show a picture of just how leafy it is. We’re not sure whether the maintenance of tying in the bows at the top of the dome will be an annual job. It may be that using the recommended rafia twine was a bad idea for long term growth as it just rotted during the winter and the vigorously growing willow burst its joins. Bealers is going to use more sturdy non-biodegradable ties when he has the time to bend the open roof branches over again.

Not a very good picture as the plum tree growing behind makes it look very tall! 

May 6th, 2008 | Category: Crafts, Gardening | Comments (2)

I was fed up of watching steel ‘TP’ climbing frames go for more than I wanted to pay on eBay. I’d decided a while ago that a climbing frame would be a great investment in my kids health and had some money given to them for Christmas by their Aunty and Grandma in the giant piggy bank in my bedroom. I was prepared to spend £126.79 I decided but all the TP Challenger Frames near enough to us to collect were being sold for £170. Very occasionally some kind soul would offer a metal climbing frame on Freecycle but was overwhelmed by responses.

I lamented to Bealers that there should be something ‘between local Freecycle groups and eBay’ to which he suggested I try the Malvern FlogIt/SwapIt group. I’m thrilled to have signed up as its is similar to Freecycle in the way that messages are distributed to subscribers but people are able sell things second hand via an email description and can put out ‘Wanted’ adverts too which is exactly what I did. After posting that we were after a climbing frame a local family got in touch saying they would be happy to sell us their frame + slide for slightly less than my top price would have been on eBay.

Both parties are happy as they did not need to go to the bother of photographing and description writing for an eBay sale, they made money from something that had been gathering dust in their garage since they moved and we did not have the stress of bidding against others and watching the price rise. My kids are beyond thrilled and so are we to have such a fine piece of equipment for such a brilliant price. Admittedly I do now owe my blessed husband a day of his time…

The new climbing frame – halfway assembled (it now has a slide & scramble net too)

May 5th, 2008 | Category: Family Health, Frugal living | Comments (3)

Mmm-mm. Whilst sorting out my cupboard I found 3 full bags of red lentils which is a lot for someone who only knows one recipe calling for red lentils. As we are keen to use up store cupboard supplies in light of my recent thoughts on food prices increasing but me being determined not to let any more of our income go on the weekly food shop thought I’d better increase my lentil repetoire.

A quick search on ‘red lentil recipe’ came up trumps as one of the first recipes I found (on the BBC Recipe website) was for a quick, easy and tasty sounding dish, was gluten-free and I just so happened to have all the ingredients for (apart from the cream so I just omitted it). I added a bit more cayenne than it called for too (2 teaspoons instead of 1/2). It was delicious and what’s more the Meat Lovin’ Husband thought it was tasty too. We had it with a green salad with a lemon juice, olive oil, sun dried tomato paste dressing.

Ingredients
175g/6oz red lentils
350ml/12fl oz water
110g/4oz cheddar cheese, grated
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
½ tsp cayenne pepper
a little lemon juice
1 large egg
3 tbsp single cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp butter

Method
1. preheat the oven 190C/375F/Gas 5.
2. Pick over the lentils for any sticks and stones. Rinse thoroughly and cook in a tightly covered pan with the water for 10-15 minutes. Check after 10 minutes in case you need to add more water. The mixture should cook to a stiff purée.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the grated cheese, chopped onion, parsley, cayenne pepper and lemon juice. Season to taste.
4. In a separate bowl lightly beat the egg, stir in the cream and pour this mixture over the lentils.
5. Grease a 450g/1lb loaf tin with the tsp of butter and press in the mixture.
6. Bake for 45-50 minutes until the top is golden brown and the mixture feels firm to the touch.
7. If you are serving this loaf hot, let it stand for 10 minutes in the tin before turning it out. Alternatively, serve cold with a salad.

May 1st, 2008 | Category: Frugal living, Gluten free living, Recipes | Comments (3)

Hmmm. I’ve just been watching the boldest, chunkiest rat while I did the washing up. He/she/it was waddling around the path in the garden, popped up the apple tree and sat looking at me then waddled back down, had a sniff around the drain and the rubbish bin (no lid and generally has refuse sacks containing the week’s waste complete with holes made by a mystery creature) then waddled back to where I presume it sleeps in the ex-outdoor toilet which is now used as a garden store.

Until I came upstairs I thought little of the latest visible wildlife in our garden other than a fleeting ‘Gosh aren’t they sweet looking, nimble and intelligent too’

Turns out they have nasty diseases, nasty habits (like popping themselves up nearby sewage pipes and into one’s lavatory), can cause nasty things to happen (especially if they chomp through household electricity cables) and the only thing to do if you have signs of rats living near your premises are to kill the blighters. The best way to kill them is apparently with a rat trap.

Great. It wasn’t something I had on the to-do list but here goes – better start getting rid of them before they get the better of us and start being really cheeky like coming into the house. I’m a bit scared of traps though as I imagine they would hurt A LOT if it went off on a human finger or toe and with two daft five year olds living with us I guess we’ll have to wait until after their bedtime to set the things up.

The following advice is taken from the very helpful page at King County:

Rats are dangerous! They can ruin your food, destroy things in your home and start electrical fires. Rats and their fleas can carry disease.

Where do rats live outside?* Under wood piles or lumber that is not being used often
* Under bushes, vines and in tall grasses that are not trimmed or cut back
* Under rocks in the garden
* In cars, appliances and furniture that has been put outside and is no longer being used
* In and around trash and garbage that has been left on the ground
* In holes under buildings

Where do rats live inside the home?

* In the insulation of walls or ceilings
* Inside the crawl spaces
* Behind or under cupboards, counters, bathtubs and shower stalls
* Near hot water heaters and furnaces
* In basements, attics and wherever things are stored in boxes, paper or cloth

What foods brings rats into my yard and neighborhood?

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May 1st, 2008 | Category: Bits and Bobs, Country Living, Family Health | Comments (4)

Top 10 Ways to Begin a Downshifted Existence:

Some of the ideas below could help people to feel less hurried, less rushed and less stressed.

See also the recent post ‘Thoughts on Downshifting Two years On‘ for more about the ideas behind Downshifting as a lifestyle choice

1. Become very well acquainted with your finances in order to see where your money goes.
- Examine fixed payments (rent, mortgage, insurance policies, mobile phone contracts) to see if there are any you could live without or reduce. We moved from a London house with a large monthly mortgage to a cheaper rented house in the country. We also said goodbye to several surplus insurance policies, renegotiated mobile phone contracts.
- Identify regular but not fixed payments too to see where savings could be made (eg. the weekly food shop, weekly purchases of magazines or newspapers, visits to the beauty salon, a twice weekly cleaner, eating out or buying take-aways, presents for others)
- Using an online banking facility helped enormously as one is able to download the month’s transactions and the can assign categories for expenditure to help identify areas to spend less on.
2. Identify areas of your spending to reduce with little impact on your overall lifestyle
- I gave up magazines, newspapers and book buying before leaving London as I was horrified to discover how much each year I was spending on them. I now am a regular at the local library for the latest read, they also have a magazine swap box which I use (added benefit being I don’t have piles of old mags cluttering up my life). I also swap magazines with a friend and have a wish list on Amazon.co.uk which I point family towards when they ask me if there is anything I’d like for Christmas. I also stopped buying lunch each day and took nice salads or leftovers instead, reduced spending on things I didn’t need (more clothes and shoes), avoided advertising and window shopping.

3. Stop over committing.
- There is a modern-day trend for packing each and every day full of interesting and stimulating activities. We socialise far more than our parents or grandparents ever did, we have access to oodles more culture (film, theatre, galleries, live shows, sporting events) and endless interesting places to ‘experience’ if we so want to.
- It is now being debated whether lack of actual down-time, relaxation and ‘just being’ is not only a symptom of the hectic way we live our lives today but also a cause of the endemic stress related disorders and general malaise so many people are complaining of.
- Even kids are not immune from the jam packed calendar commitments. Some of the five year old peers of my two eldest children are coming out of the classroom obviously spent and exhausted from the strain of having concentrated all day long, having being in a social situation from breakfast time until late afternoon but then are whisked off to ballet lessons, swimming, drama or music lessons.
- A calendar which is too full of nice sounding things can leave little time for self-admin, to do those little jobs which make one feel in control of ones own life. It can leave folks feeling tired and that they are rushing from one commitment to another.
- Now that I’ve got three kids – one of whom is a tiny baby, a house to run and a part-time role in our growing business I realise that if I say ‘Yes’ to doing more than two extra things (lunch/coffee with a friend) per week then something vital has to slip. I now allow myself just Wednesday and Thursday mornings to do something other than house, job, kids. None of my kids are signed up for swimming, piano, ballet etc as I truely believe they would be irratible and unhappy to do anymore than they already are (going to school and being at home playing with their toys or in the garden).
4. Write down some life goals – both personal and family ones.
-What do you wish you could achieve? What do you want to do in the coming year, by the time five years are up and by the time you reach retirement age?
- Its easy to let the days slip by without doing anything towards the things we like doing claiming we are too busy or too tired yet acutally many goals could probably completed with ease if we just spent a few 30 minute sessions working towards them every so often. By writing goals down you are able to remind yourself at a glance of the things that are really important and personal to you which enables you to keep them as a priority.
My husband recently jotted down his life goals and also commented on how much progress he had made towards satisfying them. Make a regularish date with yourself, your partner/family members to discuss finances/goals.
5. Give up News
- During the last few months of living in London I came across a lovely website called ‘Happy Family‘ which was a simple site dedicated to describing a downshifted family’s overall lifestyle. The owner of the site recommended giving up reading/listening to and watching news. I had just recently worked out that despite getting on the Central Line tube each morning relatively upbeat and positive I was getting off at my destination in a depressed, troubled mood and it was due to the awful stories I was reading each day in the free London newspaper. It resonated with me when Happy Family’s author Sheila spelt out that news stories were generally feeding off other people’s misery and were about things we have no influence over. She believes there is little to be gained from digesting news in its varying formats and much to be gained from giving it up. I stopped listening to Radio 4 in the morning, started reading interesting books or wrote on the journey into the City and made a point of walking away from the tv when news programs were on. I no longer feel overwhelmed by all the nasty things happening in the world. If I want facts on something which interests me I can use the internet or share opinions with friends and family.
6. Have at least one No Television day per week
- On the evenings that I watch tv (only usually when I have my mum staying with me as she loves a bit of telly) the period of time between the three children all being in bed and my bedtime (10ish) seems to whiz by with nothing being done almost to the point of being erased. In contrast, the evenings where I don’t even enter the front room I usually manage to get some writing done, catch up on emails, enjoy a nice meal and a chat with Bealers, put a load of washing on and do some reading or gardening before a quick shower.

7. Go for a walk
- Even a five or ten minute stroll for the sake of a walk can help reduce stress, make one see things with better clarity, notice small beautiful detail in the environment around you, takes you away from your normal surroundings, allows you space and time to just be, gets blood pumping through your body and oxygenates your brain. Walks are nice and good. They help to slow & simplify the way you live. If you work in an office take 15 minutes each lunchtime and go for a walk in a direction you’ve never explored before. Vary your route to work if you can too as your brain wakes up when stimulated by seeing the new.

8. Do some cooking
- Have a list of easy to cook meals you enjoy eating as well as making and add the ingredients to your shopping list. Cooking from scratch is tastier, better for you as you generally don’t add preservatives or artificial colours or flavours to home cooked food. It is usually cheaper than a pre-prepared alternative and you can always make a bit extra to enjoy for lunch the following day.

9. Grow a vegetable plant
- Tomatoes are the easiest by far and provided you water them throughout the summer will reward you with luscious bowls of tasty fruits in August and September. I’m pretty sure it was the three tomato plants given to me in 2004 and again in 2005 which made me begin to wonder what it would be like to have a garden bigger than a postage stamp and more time to enjoy such a space and ultimately initiated our descision to move out of our urban home to rural surroundings.

10. Get enough sleep
- Life always seems more better when a good night’s sleep has been had. In an effort to cram more into our days we are in danger of forgetting that our body’s need total rest in order to function well and make us resilient to whatever comes our way. Brains have such a lot to deal with during the day it is kind to go to bed on time each night and wake up before the alarm clock feeling refreshed and happy.

Downshifting is cool. Downshifting is fun. Downshifting allows you to feel removed from the so-called rate race, less like an aimless automaton running on empty, living for weekends and holidays and more in control of your own time on this planet. Good luck.

April 29th, 2008 | Category: Downshifting | Comments (5)

Almost two years ago to the week we did the simple sums which led us to believe that we could leave our London home and move to idyllic rural surroundings nearer to our families in Bristol, have me be a full-time mum instead of working full-time in a City investment bank and still be no worse off at the end of each month. As I was earning a handsome City salary at the time we had surely done our maths wrong to come up with the radical idea that we could manage without my income. It appeared to be a ridiculous notion.

We were, however in April 2006, spending a small fortune (and generally more each month than our combined net income) on two full time day nursery places for our three year old twins, on the mortgage for our three bedroomed terraced house, on a twice weekly cleaner, on monthly tube passes, on daily Pret a Manger sandwiches, on smart clothing, on dry cleaning, on Marks and Spencer ready meals, frequent take away meals and trips to restaurants (with associated babysitting and taxi fare costs thrown in), on beauty treatments, on foreign holidays, on Christmas and birthdays and on all the ad-hoc daily spending on random items we didn’t particularly need but made us feel momentarily satisfied. It didn’t feel like we had a luxurious existence. It seemed normal. We were, we realised, working hard to pay for a lifestyle we had outgrown and no longer desired.

Within just a few days we were both pretty sure that we had the option of ‘downshifting’, a term which we’d not come across before this revelation but had been coined in the US.

The house we owned in East London was rented out to four individual young professional tennants, a friend was hired as a trustworthy property manager, I was granted 13 weeks unpaid parental leave for both kids which amounted to a 6 month sabatical from the bank in which I’d worked for six years, Darren said goodbye to his partner in the London internet software agency he’d built up from scratch, started a new venture similar to the previous and we found a lovely four bedroomed unfurnished Victorian house to rent in Worcestershire surrounded by fields. We began our downshifting adventure which essentially meant living within our means by setting budgets and sticking to them

The theory was that if we hated rural life, if Darren’s new business didn’t thrive, if I wasn’t keen on being a full-time mother and homemaker (another American phrase we became familer with during our brief period of research) we could move back to London, I could resume employment at JPMorgan and life would continue much as it had been before.

We still live in the rented Worcestershire home (and have planted a willow den for the children and have a huge vegetable garden in operation), the web development business Bealers created is successful enough to have local offices, four full time employees and myself working as a very part-time, homeworking bookeeper/office manager and has plenty of satisfied clients. The London house was sold last Autumn and our new baby daughter was born at the beginning of this year. We remain delighted and amazed that we were able to downshift in the way that we did.

It was a very nice surprise to find out that this humble blog at time of writing comes up 5th in the list on Google when people search on the word ‘Downshifting‘. With that in mind I’ve thought about how people can set about downshifting without having to quit their jobs or homes and move out to isolated countryside to raise livestock, make yoghurt and cheese from their own goat’s milk. By doing a small downshift a large amount of simplification can happen and that in itself can lead to huge satisfaction.

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April 27th, 2008 | Category: Downshifting | Comments (1)

http://www.downshiftingweek.com/

I nearly missed it AGAIN! But once again clicked on Tracey Smith’s wonderful site just in time. Lots of great tips and links for those interested in simplifying life.

April 23rd, 2008 | Category: Downshifting | Leave a comment

I was a bit shocked to see that we had overspent by £175 on our Housekeeping account but it is not yet the end of the month. My initial reaction was to be cross with myself for not keeping on top of the spending, for not sticking to the budget and for not doing things like menu planning. I also assumed that the overspend was due in part to the fact we have had lots of friends and family come to stay recently and on these occasions we tend to cook some special meals and have more beer and wine than we do when are at home alone and had eaten out several times.

I chatted to Bealers about our overspend expecting him to be annoyed but in fact he wasn’t and instead he mentioned the fact that a friend of ours had written about rising food costs

When I read her blog post & comments from others where recent increases in food prices had been noticed by individuals but downplayed by the media I realised that our overspend was not a one off as I scanned our grocery receipts and looked for where the obvious luxuries had increased the food bill but couldn’t actually find any.

If food and other household essentials are to take a bigger part of our monthly income we decided to take the following action steps to ensure that we are still able to live within our means and not nibble away at our savings.

1. Be stricter with our weekly food shop and prepare meal plans in advance
2. Cook simple, low cost meals (shepherd’s pie, vegetable pasta sauces, risotto, omlettes, soups) instead of fancy meals with exotic ingredients (Thai vegetable green curry, pizzas with pepperoni & mozerella)
3. Use online grocery shopping as less tempted by ‘off list’ things and can also tally up the total before getting to the checkout
4. Eat less meat (especially as we buy organic meat which is more expensive than tasteless factory farmed meat) and buy fewer gluten-free cakey treats
5. Buy zero pre-prepared food. Hard as we buy very little but do usually have veggie sausages etc in the freezer
6. Use the food in the freezer, cupboards at the end of the month instead of buying more food (eg. use the bread machine to use the packets of bread flour instead of buying loaves costing £1.10)
7. Have an emptier fridge so we can see at a glance what it contains rather than having things going off at the back
8. Buy fewer convenience foods for the children (don’t buy many anyway but had got into the habit of buying small juice cartons for lunch boxes but the kids take a bottle of water to school anyway)
9. Buy in bulk for things we use a lot of where possible (eg. potatoes, carrots, beer, meat) at the beginning of the month having worked out approximatly how much we’ll need and try to use no more (just like people used to do in days gone by according to Mrs Beeton’s book of household management)
10. Plant and grow plenty of vegetables we use a lot of or ones that can be used for lots of different recipes (eg. tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, parsnips)
11. Explore the ‘Value’ range at the supermarket – already buy Value butter and this week discovered that the kids don’t care about the Value bourbons in the biscuit tin or the Value fromage frais in the packed lunches.

April 23rd, 2008 | Category: Budgeting and Finances, Food, Frugal living | Comments (2)