Old remedy

On Monday, the Fox was standing talking to me as I showed him my jigsaw, when suddenly his nose started to bleed. He hastily found a tissue. However, by then a blob of blood had landed on our mid-green carpet. I did my best to wipe it off with a wet cloth & let it dry.

Come the evening, the carpet had dried but there remained a dark patch. I thought we were stuck with it.

As I woke on Tuesday morning I remembered I’d bought a book long ago on how to clean everything. A quick look under “blood” & there was the answer. For carpets, make a thick paste of an absorbent material such as cornflour or talc & apply to the area. Once our home care had left on Tuesday, I put such a paste on, left it to dry, vacuumed it off the next morning & sure enough the patch is almost the same as the rest. So much so, if we didn’t know it was there, I don’t think we would even notice it.

When I told my carer what I was intending to do, she looked at the vintage of the book & commented it wouldn’t work. We inscribe our books when we buy them with name, date & where purchased. I’d actually bought the book on our honeymoon nearly 43 years ago. It goes to show some of the old remedies still work as well, if not better, than some of the new chemicals.

Burn them ?

I find myself half looking at an advert for a weed burner. I wonder how effective they are. I’m not thinking of relying on such an item all the time. Rather I’m contemplating for those not so easy to get rid of weeds such as mare’s tail.

Unfortunately we have a neighbour whose front garden is just a forest of mare’s tails. Inevitably their roots spread into our garden. So far they’ve not got through the concrete driveway. However the gravel edges is a different matter. They’ve now started to come through the membrane under the gravel. It’s an almost daily job to keep on top of them. It’s hard on fingers & nails. You know you’ve only taken off the top of these prehistoric trees. The roots can run for miles. They are so armour-plated they resist chemicals of all sorts & boiling water. Just nothing seems to stop them. Would bursts of thermal heat do the job? I wonder. Is it worth spending £40 to find out?

Food thoughts

The sun is shining. It’s another warm day ahead. We’re set for another salad day. This time the Fox is making a variation of the Tuna & Bean Salad we often have. It has the advantage that all the ingredients are store cupboard items – tin of tuna, tin of beans, usually kidney beans, an onion, homemade vinaigrette (olive oil & wine vinegar) – usually added to with some jarred beetroot & some fresh tomatoes if we have any in. This time we’re thinking of adding some sweet peepers which we have left over from another meal.

As a result I have a quiet morning until my carer arrives. Or the lad arrives to do the shed floor.

I’ve already had a rummage in the freezer to locate the left over roast lamb which I will be getting out tonight for tomorrow’s dinner. That will turn into croquettes, nice & easy to fry up come the evening. I also found a few other items that are near the top of my freezer list to use up

I’m half thinking what to do with the minced beef that is next on the list. Before I cook that I will be going to the supermarket so if there is anything necessary for the meal I can get it then.

It never ceases to amaze me how much time is spent just thinking about food, deciding what to cook when, what ingredients are necessary. However, the result is that we have a varied diet, rarely boring, plenty of new things as well as old favourites. What is more we rarely throw out things bought but untried, making the cost reasonable. That usually happens only when supermarkets insist on selling fresh items in too large quantities for one meal for two people.