A Free Meal?

I know I could be accused of being cynical but I fully believe there is no such thing as a ‘free meal’. This is doubly so when venturing to the supermarket. I have loyalty cards for each of the supermarkets I use as they all offer money back. This money is of course not due to the supermarkets generosity; I pay for it with every purchase I make. So if I don’t collect and use this money I am just adding to the supermarket’s profits, and Tesco alone made £2.5 (4.9$) billion profit in 2007 all from it’s producers and customers.

Here in France the money you accumulate over the year is wiped out at the end of the year so now is the time to use it up. So when the supermarket had an offer of grain-fed, free-range, non growth hormone pork I cashed in my total. Well for Leclerc Villeneuve at least. The credits you accrue are shop specific so I will go to Leclerc Bergerac over the next month and us up my monies from there.

It turned out that I had 58.96€ to use at Villeneuve and I bought 2 entire bellies at 17.44€ and 11.52€, and a leg of ham for 22.61€, making a total of 51.57€ so I even had a little left to use against the rest of my shop.

I try not to go to the supermarket too often as I always spend far more than I expect to but when I do go it’s because I’ve gone through the publicity material we get each week listing the various offers. Sometimes the offer is just a straight forward reduced price item they don’t usually sell but other times it is a cash-back offer onto your card so I stock up on items when they are on offer. Of course it only makes sense if you would buy the item anyway but even little amounts add up over the year and I’m sorry but I really don’t see why the supermarkets should get even more from me than they already do.

Anyway, enough waffle I have pork to deal with and more posts to follow showing what I’m doing with the meat.

PS Thanks to everyone’s kind thoughts on Snowy; I just want to get her back and cuddle her – only another 4 hours to wait!

Waiting

It was -3°C this morning, Snowy is now at the vets awaiting her operation and I'm counting the seconds until she's back. After 12 years she's like a part of me, I keep expecting to turn round and trip over her :-D

I can't think to post what I've been doing the last couple of days until she's back so hopefully normal service will return this evening.

Vaccinations and Operation

Today, apart from being a dry and sunny day was also vet day. I’d left the cat food low last night so all the cats were hanging round me this morning. The cat-flap was then locked and the cats loaded into the baskets. Cid and Hazel are playmates so they are put together in the double basket while Patches and Snowy are in individual baskets. For various reasons; those two would be very upset to have to share a basket with any of the others. Patches because she’s attacked all the others due to her nerviness so they all attack her now and Snowy because she is top cat and doesn’t see why she should have to share with anyone else.

Today’s trip was for their rabies vaccination. It’s not that we are travelling anywhere but there have been a couple of cases of rabies both north and south of here where people have illegally brought animals into the country that have then turned out to have rabies, plus while there might not be many foxes about they too are carriers here.

While none of the cats were that happy about being bundled into the baskets they didn’t complain much so it was a very trouble free trip and Cid, Hazel and Patches all got a clean bill of health.

So what about Snowy; well I’d been watching a lump on her ear and as I feared it is a cancerous growth. She’s 12 years old and a white cat that loves the sun. I’ve tried sun block on her ears but she hates it. She puts up with it for about a week then she disappears in the mornings and only returns home in the evening. I could put, and sometimes do put, the block on in the early morning but by the time the sun is hot, I know it will be well past effective.

She’s going back to the vet’s on Friday to have the growth cut out so she will lose about half her ear. The growth is unlikely to grow much over the winter but would start to grow again when the sun is back but I though that if I get it done straight away then the scar tissue has the winter to heal. Apart from that she has a clean bill of health too which I’m really happy about.

To Brest and Back

Well not quite but pretty nearly. A 10 hour drive north through the rain and spray and then a 9 hour – I’d beaten TomTom into submission and stopped him from taking me cross country - back the following day, complete with the animal trailer.

No I didn’t just do it for fun, it was to pick up the latest male in my life. So without further ado let me introduce you to Theo:-

Theo was unfortunately left behind in the UK when my other alpacas were shipped over 18 months ago. On shearing just before departure he had been found to have a bad case of mites and wasn’t passed fit to travel. Since then he’s remained in the UK until there was an opportunity to ship him with some others, which finally occurred at the beginning of November. He’s spent a few days with Robin and Linda of Utopian Alpacas in Brittany who are a wonderful couple. My thanks go to them and everyone else who helped in Theo's move to France.

Mother of Vinegar

Since the summer I’ve had a couple of bottles of wine with the dregs left in sitting in my kitchen waiting to grow a Mother of Vinegar. Today I looked in both bottles and this is what I found in one…

The wine has turned to very nice vinegar. I’ve now transferred the mother and the small amount of vinegar to a bigger crock and have added a bit of the cooking wine. From now on, any red wine dregs will be added so I have a supply of home-made red wine vinegar. I’ve followed the instructions on Rhonda Jean’s blog, down-to-earth, if anyone else wants to try.

In case you are worried you won’t know if it’s formed a ‘mother’ or if it’s gone bad, this is what came out of the other bottle. No problem deciding which one worked I think.

Ill Again

It's getting beyond a joke; I have yet another head cold so nothing much is getting done at the present. I was hoping to regail you with pictures of my newly tiled workbench and wall but I can't see properly to finish it at the moment.

So currently I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself. I think it calls for a whisky and green ginger wine to make me feel better. Hopefully I'll be posting those pictures soon.

A Few Dry Days

The rain finally held off again – we’ve had well over last November’s rainfall already this month – and I was treated to the wonderful sunrise above the other morning.

A day and a half of dry weather meant that I could venture out to put the last panel on the new shelter. I really should read the packets better, this lambris was only 7 cm wide rather than the 15 cm of the previous I’d used. I was really thankful for the nail gun since the narrower pieces were more warped than the wider. Even so it only took an hour or so to pin and screw it together.


When G put the hay into the hayloft he brought down some roofing sheets that were there. I’d seen them from a distance but not paid them much attention but I think I’ll use them for this shelter. I need to get some smaller sheets to span the roof with an overhang but once I’ve got those it shouldn’t take to long to get the roof on.

I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the sunny weather yesterday.


I spotted this stripless tree frog by the front door, I hear him quite often but he usually is well hidden.

I also have another companion in the garden; this is the Sussex cockerel who’s decided that he’s not to enamoured with the small world of the chicken run and pops out for an hour or so each day before returning to the flock.