Some Questions For You ...

 

If you don't mind, today I would like to ask a few questions.

I am in the process of setting up a new blog ... it's header is the photo above and it's link is on my sidebar ... for my new and ongoing challenge to eat more simply, and eat fresh and local using wartime rationing as my guide.  Back in the day foods had minimal ingredients we knew what we were eating and we ate simply but well.  It's a well known and proven fact that the population of the UK was at it's healthiest during the war years, and I want to tap into all that with the knowledge that I have picked up over the years.

The reason for starting this next month is to eat more healthily and even simpler than I have over the past few years and in a steady and reliable way, help me save money on my shopping, and to get ready for my retirement having as much money in the bank as possible so that I can retire a year early to coincide with Alan's retirement date.  I have felt just recently that all my previous Challenges have been practice runs for just this scenario.

I have been looking at the statistics for this blog A Smaller and Simpler Life and the figures make for fascinating reading.  I get over 1,000 unique hits each day but I have just a smidge over 300 followers, of the readers of each post recently only something like ten or so people leave Comments.  Over all the posts on this blog ... and there have been lots over the five years it has been running ... there has been an average of 17 comments per post, and considering that around a third of those would have been my responses that's quite low.

So, the questions:

1.  What makes you want to read a post on a blog?

2.  What makes you decide to click on the Follower button?

3.  What stops you from leaving a comment?

4.  Do you prefer a blog that you can't comment on?

5.  Do you like getting a response to your comment when you leave one?

6.  Does being a Follower and a Commenter on a blog help you to feel part of it's community?

7.  If you are a fellow blogger how do you see your Follower numbers, Comments and interaction with your readers?

*** *** ***

I ask because I tend to be a Follower of all the blogs that I read regularly, I leave comments (when Google and Blogger allows me to), and always check back to see if they have been replied to and love being involved in the blogging community.

There's no wrong or right answers to my questions, I am just asking as I am deciding whether to keep my new blog private for just myself, have a limited number of invited readers, or open it for public reading.  

Your answers could really help me reach this decision, thank you.  😀

Sue xx

Early Morning by the Canal, Family Visits and Getting My Ration Head On

It was lovely first thing this morning and Ginger came to tell me as much at 6.20am.  He wanted to go out and looking at the positioning of all my floor length curtains he had had a peep at all three usually available exits before deciding that he needed his own personal door person to facilitate this.  He went out and half an hour later, after a breakfast snack at Alan's he was back to mine to claim his usual morning treat of Dreamies and fall asleep once again on the armchair.

By this time I had put the first load of washing on and was sat clutching a mug of coffee and watching some YouTube.  It was just so nice outside that once the washing machine had done it's thing, I pegged the clothes out on the line and took myself canal side for a walk on the towpath.

The boaters were still tucked up in their huge beautifully decorated metal tubes, the paths were clear and the sun was shining, what a brilliant way to start the day.

I love the stillness of early morning. and as it was still barely past seven o'clock I only saw one other person to say 'Good Morning' to, a lady with two excitable Spaniels.

As I got closer to home the water was sparkling in the early morning sunshine, I have fingers firmly crossed that we have another good day all day today.  Yesterday was lovely, sunny and warm and as Alan's sister came to stay for the weekend we enjoyed sitting in the garden catching up on news.  Earlier she too had enjoyed the early morning towpath, going for a jog in sunshine but getting pretty muddy as she burned up the miles along the canal-side after Saturdays heavy rains.

Later we left all three dogs ... our two and her German Shepherd Tia ... back at home snoozing and had a pleasant wander around the sleepy Sunday High Street, with Alan and Alison comparing property prices between here and Peebles, before stopping for a coffee and a slice of cake in Booths café.

I love that our High Street has shops that virtually all still close on a Sunday, even in retail you need a day off and our shops are virtually all small independents. Of course the supermarkets are open and our new Factory Shop was open although pretty deserted.  Our little town is like a step back in time occasionally ... in a very good way.

And speaking of stepping back in time, it seems I already have my 'rationing head' on, I have started saving my citrus peels and popping them into the freezer, first this lonely little Easy Peeler skin at the start of last week ...

... and then the squeezed out ends from the lemon bought this week for my early morning drinks.  

Once I have added the skins from the other six that I have in the fridge and the cores from the two apples in there I will have a bag of bits and bobs ready to add to some Compost Heap Jelly, which will make good use of my sugar ration when rationing begins at the end of this month.

In the meantime I have been sorting through my food cupboard, donating a couple of things that just won't get eaten and getting things organised on shelves so that I know what is available to eat and when, during my rationing months.

I need to finish my narrowboat book this week and then start reading up on rationing again to get my head in the right space for this ongoing money-saving personal challenge.

What did you get up to at the weekend?

Sue xx 

Making the Most of ANY Sunshine, Freebies and a Sulking Mavis

 

At the moment, like many people here in the UK, we are making the most of ANY nice weather. 

 It was a rainy and at times cold July, and to see it out in style, when there was a brief window of sunshine on Saturday morning we jumped in the car with the dogs and headed to Williamson Park in Lancaster.  

Just twenty minutes away it's a good place for dog walking and enjoying some wide open spaces ... and there's a good little café in the park that sells coffees and bacon butties.

I love big open skies and the view across Morecambe Bay from the café is amazing.

As the clouds started to gather again we headed back to the car, but in a brief flash of sunshine this lovely little park seating shed in it's own clearing amongst the trees and bushes looked magical ... and very hobbit-like.  I just had to stop for a photo or two.

I came home with some freebies in my bag, and we missed the rain completely as it didn't start properly until we were almost home, always a good outcome in my book.

Then Alan had to go away for work for a couple of days ...

... and Mavis sulked!!

She's a good little sulker and she's perfected her art well over the past couple of years.  If she's not sat facing the furniture or a corner, she's right up the end of my hall lying on the doormat, you know when Mavis is sulking!

Sue xx

The Food Cupboard Challenge, Austerity August ... and Re-registering my Ration Card

 

It's the first of August, my gosh how quickly the months are passing by at the moment and it doesn't even feel like Summer.  I've been sleeping under my summer-weight duvet but with an added quilt on top, it's the only way to stay warm.  I've spent most evenings watching television wearing my fleecy jacket for warmth and days dashing out between showers to pick what vegetables are still growing to add to my meals. 

And talking about food, at the top is this months photo of the top part of the food cupboard.

Last month it looked like this.

Suddenly there are proper gaps appearing, helped a little bit by me taking a jar of jam and a tin of lentils to the flat ... not to be eaten together I hasten to add.

I decided that it was now time to look at what I have in the lower cupboard and start to include these things more in the day to day eating to go alongside the freezer stash.

And the reason for this is that I have decided on an 'Austerity August'.

I am determined to spend no more than £10 each week on food, and with that I will get any absolute essentials that I need while I work my way through the foods that I already have.

The fridge is sparse ...

... very sparse!!

After my thoughts and post on retirement the other day, and then sitting and thinking about all the Challenges I have set myself both this year and in previous years, I've come to the conclusion that they were all leading me to this point.  I love that in every single Challenge I have ever done I have learnt something new, either about myself, about how to do things or how to change things going forward.

So, I am giving myself just over eighteen months to get myself to a position whereby I can retire a year early and have enough in my savings account to still be able to draw down a similar amount as though I was earning wages.

When I put together my recent findings about ultra processed foods, my desire to live cheaply and simply, my food cupboard challenge whereby I have been eating down the excessive stores that I had built up, and then thought about my previous limited times living on the rationing amounts available in the UK during WWII, when food was limited and expensive but mostly natural ... it was almost as those had been practice runs.

So I think I am going to go back on rations, and I'm not going to mess about.  

I will have Austerity August to get me in the right financial mindset and start my bank account feeling a bit healthier and then I will go straight back to basics, paying with cash, buying and eating simple foods in the WWII quantities that made us healthy as a nation ... and see what it can do for me.

I guess it's time to register my Ration Card then.

Sue xx

I Like People ... and Have You Seen My Marbles?

 

Sue xx

Frozen Assets ... and Retirement

 

The freezer drawers have been bugging me recently, it would seem with me they are either super organised or a complete mish mash of half opened packs thrown in any available gap.  So I decided to stock take yet again and go from the latter to the former in the space of a few hours.  

I think it was having that perfect new freezer with all it's empty drawers at the flat made mine seem all the more messy and out of control when I got home.

Taking everything out and wiping out the tiny annoying bits of spinach that were stuck everywhere took only a few minutes, so I decided to make a note of what was in which drawer and put everything back nice and neatly.

A proper stocktake. 🗠😀

It's always surprising to see how much food you have when it's usually out of sight behind a door isn't it ... and I've only done two of the drawers up to now.   I have a lovely amount of vegetables in the drawers, enough to keep me healthy for a good few weeks.  Now all I need to do is combine them with the things in the food cupboard and I should have lots of lovely meals at no extra cost to me.

Which is a good thing as we have been talking about our retirement plans over the last week or so, and Alan has finally handed in his necessary 18 months notice, ready for his actual retirement date of April 2025.  

As I am not due to retire until May of 2026 (providing they don't move the goalposts yet again), I would like to actually retire from the day job at the same time as Alan, closing the company down and finally being free.  To be able to do this I need to have a dedicated savings pot of one whole years basic salary, this way I will be able to continue to draw on that for the final year before my State Pension kicks in.

So being able to save money seems even more important just now ... time to sort out the last drawer of the freezer then!!

Sue xx

Ultra-Processed ... Me?

 

So I finally finished my book. 

Over the past few weeks it's been a case of pick it up, read a bit, think about things, check things out for myself, do more back-up reading and generally really let what I have been learning sink in properly.  This was no quick and easy read and I felt it was important enough ... to me anyway ... to read this book properly.

I liked that the book tells you right at the beginning not to throw away all your ultra-processed foods but to spend more time reading their labels and assessing how they make you feel ... and boy have I been doing this.

The ingredients for a simple cheese and onion toasty that I was making one day last week. 

 While the toasty was cooking I read the labels of the spread ...

... and the 'cheese'.

I don't find them horrific in any way but they are things that I have been re-evaluating.  I won't buy this particular cheese anymore but the spread will stay as it is one of the better ones I have found.  I do want to avoid eating so many starches, extracts, lecithins etc etc

Of course I had to look at my chocolate bars too.

Fingers crossed for good ingredients here!

The Aldi white chocolate is delicious and although the ingredients list is long I will still be eating it occasionally, perhaps just a little bit more occasionally than I have been recently.  😄

Overall I have found that virtually all the Deliciously Ella products that I have in my cupboards have been in amongst the best foods and treats ingredients-wise.  Take this chocolate as an example, just four ingredients in the chocolate and all of them very recognisable ... and it's tasty chocolate too!

What I will be doing from now on is keeping the NOVA scale in mind when I'm shopping and eating and just trying my best to cut back a bit on the foods that are in the Ultra Processed Foods category.  I doubt I would ever be as close to the 80 natural/20 UPF aim that I would like but I will be a lot more mindful for sure.

Now it's time to relax with a book that is a lot lighter reading.

Afloat

Sue xx