Winter foraging and more making do!

You may have noticed I completely forgot to say anything about winter foraging in my last post.

Duh!

Just got carried away talking about my Mantras ...back to business!

As we all know there's not a lot around to forage in winter. So this will be short and sweet.
If you are a serious forager  then you will no doubt be able to list all the wonders of the land and sea around at this time of year......As for me..

Nettles....great for making fertiliser...not so tasty just now. Wait till Spring!

Wood....with the leaves off the trees you can see all the dead broken wood. Collect it up for kindling and you may even be lucky enough to find some bigger branches. Leave it to season and use next year. Don't try and burn it if it's wet....smoky mess and no heat!

Pine cones ....for Christmas decorations and using on the fire.

Mushrooms...there are still some to be found. As before pay attention and check out your finds.


Water....you always have plenty if it when you don't need it! Make the most of the rainfall by having lots of collection points. Buy more containers each year...it is an outlay but will pay you back if you have a lot of  produce to water in the summer. Avoid the fancy expensive containers......you can pay hundreds of pounds for these.

You will see a lot of these around France

....not the most attractive things....but if you have a small holding or a lot of land where you can keep it out of sight it does the job. Anyone with access to well or river water can pump water into these containers.

If you are looking for something to blend into the garden a bit better then I would check out the 310 litre Récupérateur d L'eau by GARANTIA at LeRoy Merlin.fr

They are only 28.90 euros ...and they are green and will blend in with the garden! Forget the stand to put them on as it costs as much as the container...just use a few breeze blocks to lift it up to the height you need.


If you dont redirect the rainwater from your pipes you can ...like me.... keep buckets and watering cans all over the garden ... It's amazing how quickly they fill up after a downpour....I then transfer them to the larger containers.

MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THE LID ON YOUR CONTAINER OR YOU WILL ATTRACT LOTS  OF EGG LAYING INSECTS.....ESPECIALLY  MOZZIES


AS FOR MAKING DO......

I really missed having my shelves on the wall for my array of jars.....I tend to store most things in glass jars and then you can buy lentil;s, beans etc loose.  However..as we are in the process of relocating our kitchen I am temporarily using these old wine boxes as my shelving.

In fact...I like them so much I think I will make them a permanent feature in the new kitchen!Just need to acquire a few more as I still have lots of jars in the cupboard ... The boxes  are not easy to get hold of without having to  buy the wine. Unfortunately most of the wines that come in nice boxes tends to be the pricier wines. However a few times a year LECLERC have their buy 2 boxes get 3 free promotions. This way you can get a great deal on the nice wines and get the boxes too.

The other way is if you are lucky enough at a wine cave to catch it  when they are close to selling the last of the bottles of wine in a box. This way you can buy the last one or two bottles and get the box as well.

The boxes are also great to use for making hampers for Christmas and birthday presents.

SO THATS IT

I'm not going to ramble on too much in this post as .the weather is once again being kind ..beautiful sun and temperatures of 14 degrees so I am making the most of it and getting into the garden to begin ground preparation for this years potatoes and onions.

Also I am very excited to announce that soon I am gong to launch my very own WEBSITE

Whoooo Hoooo

You may ask "Why have a website when you have a blog?"

Reason is.....to have in order what  I am writing about and to make it easier for everyone to find something specific they may be interested in

Nothing worse than trogging through a blog just to find a recipe you saw weeks earlier.

I like order and I like ease of use . I'm a bit of an order freak with things like this.

LOOK OUT!!!!    I hope to have it up and running soon.......NO STOPPING ME THEN!!!

Speaking of being order freakish ...last week  I spent a few hours rearranging our wardrobe and drawers. Now....., Kev and I really don't have many clothes so between us ..... we only have 1 wardrobe (which is now shelved due to lack of posh hanging up stuff )...and 1 chest of drawers.  No matter how many times I tried to organise these they never stayed tidy for long.....UNTIL.....

I discovered the KON MARI method of folding clothes

Hubby was a bit sceptical but afterwards I could tell he was secretly impressed...so far so good.  We seem to get a lot more in there  and clothes are easier to find.

I like to call it Feng Shui...Kev just calls it being a neat freak.

Speak soon

A Bientot from Happy Neat Freak x

Happy New Year , New plans and Winter Foraging

Happy New Year

Bonne Année

Meilleur Voeux

Did you make any resolutions? If so.....are you sticking to them!

I don't normally make any.....simply because I know I am hopeless at sticking to them.

I did finish the year reviewing  the "dead list" from 2015..... I know I know ....bit of a morbid streak.
. For those not in the know the dead list is a  list of 50 celebrities most likely to die in the following year. The list is compiled from candidates who are famous enough that their death would be reported by the UK media. Its always interesting to see how many they get right and how many have escaped to be on the next years list.

So..what has this to do with New Years Resolutions.....

The lovely Val Doonican sadly passed away last year....yes for those from my era I can hear you singing Paddy McGintys Goat. One of the real gentlemen of his time.  His philosophy in life was
" to be the best possible Val Doonican he could be" In other words ...be the best person you can be.
I don't think you can go far wrong with that so this will be my Mantra this year rather than a resolution.

This is the saying I have above our bed. This is my next Mantra.
 Make what you do in a day worthwhile and enjoyable. Whatever goes wrong that day stays in that day!


A New Year is always a good time to put your house in order. I like to make sure...
 all my cupboards are cleared out, .......anything not needed or of use  is put in a box to sell at the next Vide Grenier, Larger items can be sold on local sites...Anglo Info or  Leboncoin

Filing and paperwork done ........receipts from previous year put in a file and start the new one. Shred anything out of date ( keep the paper to make your briquettes or bedding for the nesting box for the chucks

House has had a good clean....it's a Feng Shui thing for me

Make your plans for the following year in terms of what you hope to achieve ....learning from what you did the previous year.

As there is very little to do in the garden at this time of year it's a perfect time  to do all of this....

For 2016

I hope to.....


Be more creative....artwork, writing, craftwork. I started paper cutting last year and would like to expand this into something productive as well as a pleasure.

These are some of the cards I have been doing. I find it quite difficult with my arthriticity( Is that a word???)  hands but I just love doing home made stuff even if its not prefect!!

I am also working on a bigger paper cutting  project but that is a surprise gift for someone so no sneaky peeks I'm afraid!!! Thanks to Emma Harrison from Infinite Echoes papercutting for the amazing template she has done for me. Check out her infinite echoes papercutting page on facebook

Make Do and Mend.

It is easy to just go out and buy the new thing you need but first ask yourself

Do I need it?
Do I really want it?
Is there anything these that I can use?

Challenge yourself to make do and mend...
keep a note on how much you have saved and perhaps reward yourself at the end of the year with something that is a real treat!

I needed some new storage boxes which I was going to buy at Ikea..instead I covered these cardboard boxes with some samples of wallpaper that I got free from our local diy store.
Does the job and was free!!!







Develop a website to organise all my information , ideas and to link my blog into

Give freely my advice and time to those that need it and would like it

Spread  time more equally between work rest and play