It's got cold

After such a mild start to the winter, the past few days have come as a bit of a shock.  The inevitable 'cold snap' arrived here - frost on the lawn all day, puddles turned to ice, hot water bottles at bedtime!  No snow though, we don't get it very often this far south.  We've been digging out extra jumpers, dining on  homemade soup and stews and thankful that we can put the heating on for an extra hour or so when it gets too cold.  

I started sorting through the kitchen cupboards this week and was happy to see that there was very little indeed that had been pushed to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about.  We seem to have a good system working for us; we menu plan, buy what we need, and rotate the stores so everything is used and  nothing gets wasted.  Nothing out of date (although there's the remnants of a packet of cous cous which smells a bit stale, I think that might go just to be on the safe side).  One or two jars in the spice cupboard needed labelling but apart from that, everything was where it needed to be.  I'll carry on with the pots and pans cupboards tomorrow.

I cut my hair this morning, and I feel (and look) so much better!  I now know that a short style suits me far better, possibly something to do with the amount of grey hair around my face ;-).  I actually had my hair cut in a salon a couple of weeks before Christmas.  It was the first time in almost four years that I've had a professional haircut and whilst the stylist certainly tidied up the bit at the back of my neck I can never quite see properly, I was left thinking that I haven't done such a bad job myself and I shall probably carry on trimming my own hair, at least until I have an income again.

What else?  We've been shopping and haven't spent any money - always a bonus.  We've bought ourselves a toaster using some Christmas present money, and replaced the old broken garden fork with a lovely shiny new one purchased with a gift voucher.  There's still a few pounds left on the voucher so we can stock up on new vegetable seeds for this growing season.  We're doing really well eating down the freezer and store cupboards and have managed to keep the house-keeping pretty low so far this month, whilst still eating really well.  

It's a bit too cold for outside maintenance at the moment but I'm making a mental list (which will end up on a proper paper list soon!) of all those jobs we will need to deal with when it's a little warmer.  Most will just require time and a bit of effort on our part, although there's a couple of jobs that will require a bit of money being spent.  However, there is a plan involved and this will be money very well spent.  In the meantime, there is always something to be mended, repaired or given a new lease of life - this week I've put a new zip in a bag, and N has repaired a window catch that was sticking.  And we've managed to get out for a walk at least some days.  

We spotted a chaffinch on the fence this morning, and the goldfinches are in the fruit trees again.  There's a little wren about most mornings, too.  The woodpecker visits from time to time, feasting on the grubs in the lawn.  Plenty of birds but oddly, apart from a very clumsy pigeon, we haven't seen any on our bird-feeder.  The seeds in it have now started sprouting!