Hot and Cold

Hello friends

How are you this weekend? The weather here has been ok, A bit of sun, some cloud, a cool wind and a little bit of rain in the evening.

HOT

chilli sauce

Saturday Morning we went into Blackpool for the second annual Chilli Festival. I rally don't like chillies but M does so we went along to see what it was all about.

chilli honey

Radio Wave

There were lots of stalls selling various sauces, chutneys, mustards, even honey, any many other accompaniments of varying degrees of heat. We were told that the lighter the colour the milder the heat and the darker, the hotter. I tried a couple of mild sauces but they were much too hot for me. M tried a super hot one and then had to go and buy a bottle of milk to cool down the burn.
The local radio station was there and later in the afternoon were doing a chilli eating contest (don't know how it went because we had left by then).
A couple of stalls that were cooking some foods using chillies.  The aroma was so good.
Once you'd had your fill you could wash it all down with some chilli cider.  We were going to give this stand a miss but we spotted M's younger brother there with his partner (J and D) so we popped over for a chat. J gave us a taste of his cider. It was quite unpleasant and I like cider.
L and I felt that there was one stall missing, an ice cream stall to cool the burn.  Will we go again next year? probably not.

COLD
This morning I decided that our chest freezer needed defrosting and reorganising. I emptied everything out into cardboard boxes and cool bags and covered them up with blankets. M came along wearing his thick gloves and carrying a scraper (my cool hero). He scraped off all the frost. Look how thick it is. It's been about three years since I did it last and it took hours for the frost to melt then (man with scraper was working) and my arms are just not quite long enough to reach the bottom.

Once it was all nice and clean and dry I sorted the contents and had to throw some items away because they had freezer burn. I then put all the loose bags of individual items into a larger bag. For example all the veg went into one bag, chicken into another, chips, waffles etc. went into another and so on. I don't know how long it will stay like this but one thing for sure we don't need any sausages for a few weeks. I have enough red fruit to make some jam/jelly. I just need a chicken to cut up and some bread for my freezer shop this week. I have enough bones to make some good stock (Tues afternoon Job). I want to use up some of the freezer stock over the next couple of weeks now that I know what is in there.

I've just enough time to watch the end of Jurassic Park before I start making tea. Thank you for dropping by it's lovely to read your comments and I always look forward to them.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend

Carolx

Twiddles

Hello friends

I'm back. I've been dealing with some personal stuff and I'm starting to come through it now.

I've made another twiddle muff for mum because we want to wash the one we gave her for Christmas. It's been a huge success. Sometimes she will sit for hours straightening all the bits on it. This passed weekend mum was in hospital (she collapsed at day care but is ok and back home now) and dad and I took her old muff in. The ward sister was well impressed and watched mum twiddling with it and thought it was a great idea and has asked me if I could make some for the ward. I have given this some thought and will put this to the craft club I go to as they are looking for a new charity project. The craft club is actually called Craft and Chat and is held at my local library.

In Lancashire most of libraries have a craft and chat group so I'm hoping I can get some of the other groups involved. It is such a simple idea but so affective in keeping dementia patients calm and busy, it also keeps their hand and finger joints mobile.
The first one I made I embroidered a little pillow and attached it to the muff but mum doesn't bother with it so I've not included it in the second one. I have however included button, beads, ribbons and lots of other bits to create interest. I have to give credit and thank you to Warrington Hospital who printed the basic knitting pattern on their website which I came across through the Alzheimer's Society.

Will be back soon and look forward to reading your lovely comments

Carolx