Christmas, Cakes and Cawl

Good afternnon.

On Sunday I got the Christmas cake baked. I use an American recipe I found on the internet where you boil most of the ingredients before adding the flour and eggs. Fool proof as far as I am concerned. I'm really miffed because I'm not able to put photos on my blog at the moment so apologies for the plain text until I get it sorted.
 
It is now sitting in a tin in my newly prepared Christmas cupboard until I feed it with some form of alcohol next week. I normally use Gluvhein, is that how you spell it, so hope Lidl have the equivalent to the bottle I used to buy from Aldi. My youngest said the cake mix smelt like mince pies so I siad they would be coming soon, too, but not just yet! 

I've also tried my hand at baking Welsh cakes. The first batch have come out ok I think. My youngest just loves them and I normally cannot go into the shop at Bont without picking up a pack, hence giving them a go myself.

Little heads up. If you have an Asda near by or you normally order on line they already have the fabulous Pierre Darcys bubbly on offer, £10 instead of £18 and this lasts unitl the new year. I bought a total of six bottles over the festivities last year and it is great to make sure you always have something decent in the fridge, good to take if you are popping to see somebody and just because, basically! I will be ordering my supplies when the Drambuie is on offer as that it my husband's tipple. Personally Christmas isn't Christmas without a proper Snowball made with Advocat, plus it is fab poured over your Christmas pud - that is in the cupboard already as one left over from last year.

The reference to Cawl was that I thought I might make my soup into Cawl as I learned to make it at the cafe, but I think I will leave that to another day. 

Hope everybody is well. xxx

A Little Update

Hi!

I just thought I would update you a little on our situation.

We have not exchanged or completed on our house but we are in the process of getting to the point where the house will soon be ours at the beginning of December with any luck. We haven't had much of that recently but things are definitely on the up. Not to go into too much of the financial detail but we have made arrangements regarding our house we were selling in order to release funds to buy our Welsh dream home. To be honest it doesn't matter how we get the house as long as we get it!

It was five weeks on Friday that Jon started on the renovations in the house and he is just putting down the floor in the bathroom and then we are DONE! Apart from the cellar rooms but they will wait until Jon has gone back to work and be finished in the evenings and weekends but I don't expect that will take him long. During the past five weeks he has taken down, put in new joists, replasterd and painted four ceilings, re-configured our youngest's bedroom for more space, painted the TV room and bulit a stand for the TV, taken out a nasty wardrobe, re-plasterd one wall and painted our bedroom, painted our oldest's bedroom and built cupboards, plastered one wall and painted all of the bathroom.

I am so very proud of him because we have saved SOOO much money with him being able to do the work himself.

I don't feel I can share much more about our life at the moment because my aim was to start my new blog when we moved into the house. Although we have been in the house about three weeks we will not feel it is ours, of course, until all the paperwork is complete.

However, I hope to be able then to share and tell you lots of things about our new life, and in time for my preparations for Christmas which I am so excited about this year, not much change there really!

So I hope you will hang in there and keep an eye out for my new blog posts. 

Take care. xxx

 

Harumph!

I have just one thing to say today, well nearly, you know me I ramble a bit. 

I am really missing not being able to bake properly. 

The caravan oven is just about able to cope with our family meals, as long as I start everything an extra 30 minutes early! 

Now the house kitchen is out of commision completely until we move in I cannot even pop anything in there.

Never mind, I will have a right old time of it getting used to and using the Rayburn very soon!

 

Mmmm what a situation for us!

Hello

I have been absent from my posts for a couple of weeks but unfortunatley not for the right reasons so settle in for a few minutes!

We moved ourselves to Wales on September 5 under the impresion that exchange would take place within a couple of days.

This has not happened, yet!

Our vendors had agreed to us camping out on the land at the back of the house until the exchange and they are still more than happy for us to be here doing that. They are the most lovely and understanding people.

We have had issues with that I will not go into but, although I have lost count of the number of times we have said this, we hope today that after a change of solicitor we will have some news.

We have not started work on the house, we have been in the caravan for just over two weeks and are full of anxiety, worry, stress and any other word you think fit.  However, we are also very angry because we have done everything we have been asked to do by Estate Agents, buyers, vendors (although everything is good to go on our purchase) but we are still in a bit of a mess.

I truly hope when we speak to hub's dad tonight that he has some news. We only had our Broadband and landline connected last Wednesday and we have no mobile reception from the house for about 2 miles so communication has been very difficult at times therefore he is helping out with the whole thing.

All this aside, the village is wonderful, we have met some very friendly people, the boys are in classes at a local Learning Centre and coming on in leaps and bounds with their Welsh after only a week there. They leave home at 7.45am and are home at 4pm.

We marvel at the scenery and, even after heavy rain over the last couple of days, it is a glorious place and we are never leaving!

I have today gone for a little chat at a local cafe in Tregaron and hope to start a job there maybe next week. Very strange trying to get into work after so long but it is something I am familiar with due to our business we owned when first married.

Well, this is not the first post I had hoped to write after we moved here and feel really quite sad about that. However I have a new blog all lined up, just tweaking it a bit and trying to remember how to put some of the same things I managed to do on this one!

Wish us luck for the next couple of days. I had so hoped to celebrate my birthday in the house but that is not going to be as I thought either.

Will be in touch soon in a more positive mood I very much hope.xx

Uh - Slight Glich In The Proceedings

Hi!

A little setback with some legal requirements but hopefully it won't drag us into too much trouble. Means we cannot exchange contracts today, but whatever the issues the boys WILL be in school on Monday. It may mean we don't get everythihg to Wales until Saturday but we will manage - I keep telling myself that. 

The packing has gone really well and everything is downstairs now but we are at that point where I am washing things to pack, I have to pack some things into the caravan for when we get there and I just HATE the idea of having random things in random boxes. 

I am a little OCD so it can be tricky for me at times but I just have to breath and know that all that matters is getting everything, and us, to the other end. Once the boys are in school on Monday I can spend the day getting properly organised so we have food, bedding/beds and the necessities where they should be for the time being.

Wish us luck, again.x

Back To Plan A

Morning

V. quick post just to update. 

We have been very fortunate in that a family member has offered us a two-birth caravan plus awning for sale and we have taken it. This means we can stay on site at the new house whilst hubs does the work, the boys can go to school on the bus and everything is much better. Making use of the outbuldings I can still use my usual frdige/freezer, slow cooker for when the nights start getting to casserole-time and the washing machine will be plumbed in down in the cellar.

Feeling much better about getting organised when we get there which was always going to be a bit stressful for me. Aaah.

Not sure how much I will be blogging in the next couple of days as we are planning on moving on Friday! Also not sure how long it will take to get the Broadband connected so may be a little while before I am able to post some photos of the new homestead after the move..

Wish us luck on our exciting new venture.xxx

There's That C-word again.

You may remember back in June I posted about Christmas Savings Plan. This is just a little reminder and an update. 

Now and again I have thought to myself "shall I tell hubby and use it for this, that or the other?" But then I think to myself that I have managed this far, which is three months, without too much trouble and it will be fab when it comes to November when I can tell hubs I have saved £1001! 

So far I have saved a bit over £400 and I love seeing the amount increase each week. I have started a list of things I intend to buy starting with 6 bottles of bubbly! But I'm also leaving plenty for us to use on special things for us and the boys over the festivities and the New Year. 

Do any of you have a savings plan?