Friday 1 February 2019

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMERS, MARKETS & SHOPS.

Yippadee doo day, yippadee doo.

Yes, folks it is the first day of the last month of Winter and although it was mighty chilly with rain pouring down from a dirty grey sky, was she unhappy? Not in the slightest. In fact she went so far as to dig out one of the propagators and the case in which she keeps seeds.

You would think they are sweeties, for she clucks over each packet and smacks her chops at the thought of home grown Persian cucumbers, which I might tell you, are truly delicious and not all like any other variety.

Then it was time for her to venture forth, we have dodged the snow here in deepest Knightsbridge, we haven't even seen a flake of the white stuff, yes, it's cold and damp but that's all.

She looked into the vegetable rack and chilly white larder and saw that we were low on eggs. greens, fruit and meat, so she decided to do her food shop today and went off down to the North End Road.

She bought the fruit and vegetables at one stall, 8 apples, 7 pears, 2 boxes of red grapes, a head of celery, a dark green cabbage and a large bunch of very fresh kale.. all done for £4.60! 

Then it was onto the egg stall, where she bought 2 boxes of large eggs, we eat three a day and these are date stamped 18 Feb, so that was good.

Then into the butcher for liver and kidneys, both of which have no fat and are great meat and not expensive.  She likes lambs liver just as much as calves and as they were out of calves, lambs will do perfectly well for the weekend.

Then it was home again time, she called into see Myra on her way home and walked into chaos!

The whole of the downstairs of the house was full of packing boxes, they had apparently never really sorted out their parents house but had just put everything into storage. Whoops, it made our poor sitting room look quite tidy (which is isn't).

She came away with two enormous beautiful wool blankets which she took immediately up to New Horizons and gave to Simone to sell.

And a couple of gardening books went to be sold as well, for she has more than she will ever need in the way of gardening books! 

Myra asked her where she had been to get such great looking vegetables and she told her that she never buys vegetables in supermarkets but always buys them from Farmer's Markets or a couple of stall on the street market. 

Why should she buy Spanish celery in a supermarket when Peter sells great celery grown in Cambridgeshire! The same applies to beetroots, they come from a farm near West Malling, who also grow his cabbage and kale. 

Yes, she does occasionally go into supermarkets and was very shocked to read this last week that one of the big firms, Tesco, are making 15,000 people reduntant.

They are closing all of their fish, deli and meat counters in order to make £1.5bn saving by 2020!

Very short sighted action I think.. we don't buy any of those products in their stores but we know plenty of people who do and now they'll swiftly move their shopping to either Lidl, Sainsburys or Waitrose.

Or to.. if she has anything to do with it, her butcher and fishmonger on the North End Road!

So our supper was delicious, a lambs kidney with 4 oz of liver together with steamed cabbage, kale, cauliflower and a few tiny carrots, drizzled with olive oil and a shake of a scrummy hot sauce from Bermuda called Outerbridge's Sherry Peppers.

Followed by a crisp Cox apple and some almonds.

She has been given a gift of a theatre ticket! For a play on Sunday which she'll tell you about it on Sunday night, it's on in Piccadilly Circus at the Criterion, a theatre she hasn't been into for many a year!

Now it's bed time, our upstairs neighbours are here for the weekend and the flat was positively toasty warm when she came home after shopping and dropping off the blankets.

Bless their boiler, it keeps our home so very cosy!

GeeGee Parrot.
February 1st, 2019.

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