July 2011 – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 2 August 2011 in goals, less than 12 clothes challenge, low spend 11, meta | 2 comments

So here we are again, at the end of another month (or rather the beginning of the next one because I’m a bit behind). I can’t even remember the start of July – I was busy with drama stuff on the second weekend but even those shows feel a lifetime ago now. The month hasn’t dragged really, or been super busy (apart from that drama stuff) so I don’t know why it’s felt so long … at least I got my money’s worth out of it I guess!

Goals in 2011 progress

We’ve had quite a bit of food from the garden this month – LOTS of courgettes, some potatoes and other bits & pieces. I’ve not done the “whole meal” but we’ve had a number of courgette & eggy things so that’s part way there ;)

Aside from that and just about hitting my at-least-once-a-week baking target, I’ve not really done anything else goal-y. I didn’t have any mini-goals in July as I didn’t have anything pressing, so I can’t even say I was busy doing those. Since June was equally unmotivated/lazy, naughty Louisa, naughty!

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

I’ve actually bought something! I bought my first item of clothing in 2011 – a charcoal lambswool/angora woolly hoodie from a charity shop. It is exactly the sort of thing I like and was only £3, and I suspect I will very, very much welcome it next winter. I didn’t buy any new woollies at all last winter and was struggling a bit by the end of the season. If I don’t shrink it the first time I wash it, I think I’ll probably live in it from November-March ;)

That purchase seemingly opened a mental “I want to buy clothes!” flood gate. Mid-month, I spent *ages* looking for stuff online and started looking more closely at clothes rails in charity shops … but couldn’t find anything I liked enough to warrant buying. However last weekend, I bought a pair of jeans on eBay (the same size/brand/style I always wear, so they should fit fine) and nearly bought a top too but got outbid. The jeans aren’t desperately needed as I already have four pairs but they were a bargain and I wear them all the frickin’ time, so they’ll be very useful all the same.

I also bought a couple of things from my exceptions list: I bought a five-pack of cute but basic knickers, and two everyday bras. These were replacements as I cleaned out my underwear drawer the day before and had “retired” two bras and 29 pairs of knickers – it was looking a little empty after that!

So my “12 in 11” total is now at a grand 2!

Growing & Chickens

Yorkshire Day – five reasons why I love living in West Yorkshire

Posted by louisa on Monday 1 August 2011 in meta | 4 comments

Today is Yorkshire Day, the totally made-up day of celebration in my adopted shire. Like most people, we don’t celebrate it in the slightest but I thought it was a fitting day to post some Yorkshire-centric thoughts I’ve been musing for the last few weeks.

I moved to West Yorkshire in 2000 – my then-boyfriend had a place on a teacher-training course in Leeds and since I had nothing keeping me in Liverpool (or driving me anywhere else), we moved to Leeds about a nanosecond after handing in our last essays at uni. We rented a house in Armley — the house that I went onto buy and finally sold last Friday — but I wasn’t particularly expecting to stay there or around here in general. Now though, I reckon I’ll probably stay – we might cross the border into North Yorkshire but unless we emigrate, I can’t see us leaving the land of the white rose. (I’m deeply sorry my 300+ years of Lancasterian ancestors but that’s the way it is ;) )

1. There’s lots of green space

For a metropolitan county with a population of over 2 million, West Yorkshire is bloomin’ green. And I’m not just talking about the rolling hills of farmland and moorland in the more rural bits: there are parks galore (including Roundhay Park, one of the biggest city parks in Europe) and acres of woodland mingled throughout the cities. We’ve always got fun places to walk the dog, forage or just enjoy the hills & dales.

(The photo below is John in Roundhay Park. For some reason, it is the only photo I have of Roundhay Park and doesn’t really show anything of the park but I think it’s funny so thought I’d use it anyway ;) )

2. Everywhere is close enough together than it can be treated like one big city

I know some people in Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield consider it an expedition to go to Leeds, and people in Leeds NEVER visit Bradford, Wakey or Hudd but to me, it’s just all one big blur of a conurbation. Bradford city centre is better for some things than Leeds; Otley, Hebden Bridge or Halifax better for other things than the cities. It’s easy to mix and match.

3. It’s well connected

One of the reasons I can treat it as one big city is because it’s so well connected. The public transport is much better than most people credit – sure, the trains and buses are as busy and expensive as anywhere, but the chaos in Leeds after the train station’s electrical failure last week shows how well it usually works! From the two main roads near our old house, we could get direct buses to just about every town & city in the west of the county, and we nearly always fly from Leeds-Bradford airport – so great to be just 10 minutes in a taxi from home at the end of a holiday.

Away from public transport, there are plenty of easily accessible motorways nearby to get us across or up and down the country – or if we aren’t in a hurry, A-roads for prettier, winding drives through the countryside.

4. There are loads of lovely buildings & places to visit

We used to live about a mile and a half away from Kirkstall Abbey – the ruins of a 12th century abbey, in the middle of Leeds (picture above is our shadows in the old nave); now we live a few miles from Saltaire, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Harewood House and Temple Newsam are just on the other side of Leeds, and further south in the county, Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a lovely place to visit on a sunny day (the picture at the very top is YSP on a lovely sunny day!).

On a less grand/showy scale, all around there are lots of pretty Yorkshire stone cottages and Victorian homes from the days of the textile boom. A lot of people complain about the lack of good architecture around here, and all I can say to those people is look up. For example, we were sat in the Wastefield urban “garden” in Bradford city centre last weekend and (admittedly because that whole city-killing misadventure knocked down some awful 1960s concrete monstrosities) we were awed by the buildings of Little Germany and thereabouts.

5. It’s deliciously diverse

Some people make a big deal about the ethnic make-up of the area, and while I do very much like the various different cultural influences on the area, that’s only half the delight of the area’s diversity.

The city centres and small market towns. The brand-spanking-new towerblocks and the lovely old cottages & mills. The remaining heavy industry and the moorlands. The ever-fluctuating super cool areas and the ones that haven’t changed for years. The progressive hippy enclaves and the old school uber-conservative villages.

I’m not saying West Yorkshire is unique in any of these ways or that it’s objectively the best place in the world ™ – just why I like it around here. And I had to limit this list to just West Yorkshire, and not South, East and especially not North Yorkshire because if I included all the things I like about those places too, I’d never finish. Basically, the long and the short of it, I heart Yorkshire ;)

Fellow Yorkshire dwellers, what are your favourite bits?

Impromptu long weekend

Posted by louisa on Monday 1 August 2011 in meta | 1 comment

We had a bit of an impromptu long weekend here – and it’s been a good one.

On Friday, we FINALLY completed on the sale of our old house in Leeds. I’ll write more about it in detail at some point soon but basically **does the happy dance**. We’ve been trying to sell it since we moved here in September 2009, although for one reason or another it only went on the market a year ago – a year ago to the day pretty much. We’d had a few offers but it took until now for one to go anywhere. Anyway, on Friday morning, we had to clear the very last things out of the house (mostly stuff we’d offered to leave but they said no) and handed over the keys, then spent all afternoon hitting “reload” on my online banking to watch the money appear in my account … just kidding ;)

Actually, what happened in the afternoon an invasion of sorts – John’s uncle & aunt who live in Hong Kong visited with their two kids, and then John’s sister & her two kids, and his mum arrived. The kids from Hong Kong met our chickens on their last visit to the UK last summer and apparently have frequently spoken of them since then, so they were keen to have some hen time on this visit. We spent a lot of time hand feeding the birds, and they enjoyed learning how to hold the hens too – I think the chickens quite enjoyed it as well, they happily sat in the kids’ arms for ages. I was reminded about the lovely comments people left when our other nephew met the chickens – about how we’re giving them childhood chickeny memories :)

Today I…

Posted by louisa on Monday 18 July 2011 in DIY, meta | 10 comments

Today I slept late because we were up til the early hours putting the world to rights with a friend. When we’re elected supreme rulers of the world, things are gonna be sweeeeet. ;)

Today I sanded and re-primed the bathroom door frame – we did all the woodwork in there yesterday but the door frame “alligator” cracked so I had to start again rather than getting on with the first coat of the actual paint. Note to self: use the right brush for cleaning your teeth.

Today I filled in various cracks/holes/seams in/around the bathroom woodwork and in the coal hole-turned utility room. I heart decorators’ caulk.

Today I “supervised” John making doughnuts for the first time in reaction/protest to everyone going on about the new giant chain doughnut shop that’s opened up near the motorway. They were pretty good for a first try but have lots of ideas on how we can make them better. However we’ve not sure we *should* make them better – too much temptation.

Today I wandered over to Homebase (our “convenience” DIY store, although we prefer to get major stuff from better/cheaper places further afield) to buy a tile trowel and ended up buying in addition to the tile trowel & spacers: a little pot of green enamel to revamp some lanterns (reduced from £4 to £1), two 3-exposure photo frames (reduced from £10 each to £3), two mini succulents and a mini cactus (to be potted on together for John’s desk), a Calla Lily (pictured above) and some sort of stripey-leaved red Bromeliad — the latter two because I want some more houseplants and specifically at the moment, some colour for the bathroom. Naughty unplanned spending though.

Today I bumped (literally) into the same guy three times at Homebase. It got embarrassing by the third time.

Today I used my new tile trowel with my bought-super-cheap-at-Focus-the-other-week tiles to make a splashback in the former coal hole/now utility room. The tiling gods were smiling down on me for my first spot of tiling in 12 years – the corner to edge of the wall cabinet was exactly four tiles plus spacers, and the corner to the edge of the wall the other way was exact three – no cutting required!

Today I sat down at my computer to do a bit of work and didn’t realise how much tile adhesive I had stuck on my arm until it all dried and flaked off onto the floor. Another note to self: sweep that up.

Today I sanded the bathroom door frame AGAIN because the second coat of primer had cracked in the same way as the first. I decided to get really aggressive with the sand paper and ended up peeling – in pretty big sheets – three layers of paint off the door frame. It seems that somewhere down the line someone really skimped on the prep – the newly exposed level was perfectly glossy. I sanded that back though and primed it for a third frickin’ time and so far, no cracks. Woohoo.

Today I was grateful that John volunteered to cook a big batch of pasta sauce for the freezer so we could have that for dinner rather than me having to stand in front of the stove this evening. He’s serving it as I type this. Final note to self: type faster!

What have you been up to today?

June – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Thursday 30 June 2011 in goals, less than 12 clothes challenge, low spend 11 | 5 comments

I seem to have been writing a lot of review-type-posts lately – all very introspective (sorry!) but I do very much learn from my past mistakes so it’s good to think about them. So then, June….

Goals in 2011 progress

We’re finally starting to get good food from the garden so I could see myself easily doing “full meal from the garden” thing in July. I haven’t made any provisions for the off-grid stuff though.

I’ve been starting to take cuttings of various herbs and will continue to do that – and I’ve come up with a way of measuring success of that goal — a list of things I’d like to successfully propagate this year (and a few things I’d like to try to overwinter – since that’s a similar idea).

My making stuff with wood has slowed down – boo – and aside from a little embroidery, haven’t done much craft stuff either – no outfit sewing either. Inspired by this tutorial though, I’m going to set aside a day in July to do a bit of sewing and I’m also tempted to join the Crazy Aunt Purl holey jumper KAL — that would be my first knitted jumper (and, um, actually my first knitting since I fell in love with crochet nearly two years ago!).

No more fishing progress – boo again – but I might try to get us a day booked in before the main school holidays start – I think I have a week window between being busy with drama and the holidays so better get a move on!

Not really baked that much, not made cheese, not done any cold-smoking and not met any internet people. Been a bit lazy recently really! Recapping that here make me feel I should be a bit more motivated in July!

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

Not bought anything this month – so my clothes buying tally is still zero (with just a few second-hand/BNWT bras from my exception list last month). I can’t believe I’ve not bought any clothes for over seven months now!

A year of The Really Good Life

Posted by louisa on Friday 24 June 2011 in Featured, meta | 10 comments

Well what’dya know, it’s a year today since I started this blog!

My first posts were about growing salad leaves, pickling wild garlic seed pods (which is something I’ve been meaning to do again this year but haven’t got around to it), some bargain batch-cooked dinners and about getting our first chickens – and our first egg.

What’s happened in the last year?

• We got the chickens – and got more but then lost two. But still ate a whole lot of eggs.
• Made fresh pasta from scratch for the first time – a big deal for pasta lovers like us!
• Made my first jams & chutneys – a whole cupboard full

• Made things from wood
• Learnt how to make soap
• Assist John in making his ultimately explosive cider ;)
• Learnt loads about making cheese
• Cold-smoked cheese and other things – yum

• Baked a whole lot of new stuff
• Refined some of my favourite recipes while trying to write them up
• Added a new (small) room to the house – will post pics in a couple of weeks when it’s decorated
• Had a “no spend” almost-month and kept a spending diary since the start of this year – which has made me more conscious about casual spending
• Surprised myself by not buying any clothes for seven months and counting

• Had some growing successes in our first year here – and our second year is off to a good start
• Planted lots of fruit trees and bushes/li>
• Made lots of new internet friends :D

I think the main thing that’s happened in the last year though is that between writing about things on here (and getting feedback – thanks for all the comments, guys!) and reading about all the exciting things other people are doing (both in the comments here and on their own blogs), I’ve been inspired to try things I’ve long wanted to try and experiment with other things that I didn’t even know I wanted to try!

Basically, it’s been a really good year :D