Monday 14 July 2014

But what do you DO all day?

But what do you DO all day
Someone said this to me once.
They couldn't imagine not getting up and going out to work. They had no idea what someone could do at home to fill those long hours between 9 and 5. HA!

Here's what I did today
6.45 Up and outside to put the eggs out for sale on the stall, let the chickens  out from their 3 sheds, top up 3 lots of water and collect eggs that have been laid early. C having his breakfast and washing up.
Come back via garden to open poly-tunnel doors, cut cucumbers and courgettes for selling.
By which time it's 7.15. Pick climbing French beans and bag up + tomatoes which C has picked, courgettes, cucumbers, and put out on the stall along with bunches of beetroot and onions which C has pulled and tied up. Bag up the best of the potatoes dug up by C and put those out too.
Around 7.45 by then. Feed the cat. Do the wiping up and tidy kitchen .
Mix up 3 batches of bread dough and put them to rise. C has gone to work at our neighbours at 8am.

Outside to pick raspberries, the ones in the fruit cage are still  too wet to get amongst them to pick after yesterdays rain  so I just do the row in the garden. None are good enough to sell so I sort through them putting them into bowls for lunch, Cs dinner desert and a few for his breakfast muesli. Some are OK except for one little black bit so it's a fiddly job and I'm reminded of Elizabeth West in Garden in the Hills doing the same thing.

 Scrape some of the scabby  potatoes that we can't sell ready to cook up a few for C to have cold for lunch with his salad.
9 O'clock time for a coffee and my breakfast,and a bit of Sudoku puzzling.  C comes back from Neighbours as the battery has gone flat on the hedge cutter again. He goes back to our neighbours after a cuppa  to use the other hedge cutter for a while.
 Dash out to get some mint to go in with potatoes and decide to get a few flowers in too,

  postman arrives while I'm outside - mostly junk mail.
Bread has done first rise so I shape it to 10 rolls and 2 loaves and put to rise again.

Just after 10.30am Delivery from AF ( they had bread flour at 50p a bag so I stocked up on 4 months supply and a years supply of Tea bags and several bags of skimmed milk powder) unpacked and put away. Also a lucky box of 7 various packs of cake mixes for £1. Decided to whip up one of the cake mixes.
Popped cup cakes into cook while the oven is heating up for the bread along with a some chicken thigh joints which will do us for dinner and for sandwiches during the week.
Wash up the bread making stuff.

Cakes out to cool and oven turned up a bit for bread. Bread rolls in first.
Check what's sold on the stand, tidy up egg boxes someone has left. Pull up a few weeds from the shingle out the front on my way back in.
Bread rolls out and bread in.

11.30ish Clean the campsite loos and shower while the bread is in the oven. C is back from our neighbours and does the dustbins.
Bread  and chicken joints out of oven

12.15ish we get some lunch and sit down for an hour

By quarter past one I've seen enough of the news so I pack the cooled bread rolls away then out round the field for egg collecting, checking the water, putting fresh hay in any of the nest boxes. C is washing up and I wipe up when I come in. C is working in the garden and on his trailer all afternoon.

Then I remember I haven't picked the other raspberries so out to pick them and there's enough for 2 punnets to put out for sale.

Sort all the eggs,clean them - lots of muddy ones after yesterdays rain, box up.

Get things ready for preparing rest of dinner tonight, pack the cooled bread, tidy up the kitchen

By which time it's heading towards 3ish time for a cuppa, a sit down and Countdown on TV.

Sweep up around the kitchen and hoover up in the living room

Water and bathroom are both nice and warm from sunshine so jump in for a quick shower.
Clean up the bathroom
Go and say hello to campers who've arrived on site, they've been coming every other year or so for the last 20 years so we know them quite well.

Sort out several jam jars ready for tomorrow, make sure they've all got lids to fit.
Get strawberries and gooseberries out of freezer.

6 15ish Dinnertime.
Just about to eat when cyclist with tent arrives for one night and the motor-home for one night also arrives - nice surprise.  1 caravan, 2 motor-homes and 2 tents on site tonight.

C washing up while I wipe up, tidy up kitchen.
Feed the cat
Outside to water all the poly-tunnels and bring in a bunch of un-sold beetroot

I've also
 Picked up the money that's come through the letterbox for stuff sold about 3 times. (Total of £14 for eggs and £16 for vegetables and fruit.)
Told Polly the cat off twice for sitting outside the old shed door and worrying mummy and daddy wren.
Been bitten by something while picking the raspberries
and done my back exercises.

By which time it's nearly 7.30. Better do this blog!

Then it's reading time

Oh, so that's what I do all day!

Back Tomorrow
Sue


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