The things you have to do

Time is fast running out and I have begun to knuckle down to t he process of preparing to go away for months on end. I contacted the local School who put out the island’s newsletter, to ask if I can get my copy forwarded. I don’t wish to lose touch with my island and I certainly want my December copy, with its enclosure of the Show Schedule for the next two years. My next task was to contact the GP Surgery to find out what I have to do to keep getting my repeat prescription. I’m on Beta Blockers and it is supposedly potentially dangerous to run out, so that’s one important task ticked off.

One thing that I need to do is to clear the larder and freezer. I have long shopped in bulk and now find I have heaps of dry goods, particularly baking items, that I can probably not dispense with before I go. I haven’t been baking because of the unnecessary calories and a warning from the GP that my sugar levels were heading in the direction of a pre-diabetic state. I have no idea why because I tend to avoid sugar by natural inclination; I take my tea and coffee unsweetened, dislike sweet gooey things, don’t drink pop or squash, prefer my chocolate dark and unsweetened… overall my sugar intake is not significant. It seems unfair that I should be heading towards type 2. But here we have it. It is what it is.

Today, I baked!

Almond Macaroon Tarts - sour cherry jam in the bottom
Almond Macaroon Tarts – sour cherry jam in the bottom

If there is one item that I do not intend to waste it is the kilo bag of ground almonds that was sitting in my cupboard. Today I made almond tarts. What I really wanted to do was to make a chocolate torte but there were no bars of dark chocolate in the fridge. It was only when I went to the cupboard for some almond essence that I found my stash of chocolate. Mr L has a habit of raiding my cooking chocolate in times of emergency, clearly I decided to put the choccie out of his eyeline.

Perhaps I will make a torte at the weekend and serve it warm with fresh berries and some vanilla ice-cream or some creme fraîche. Now, that would be good. I’ll make a mental note to purchase some berries on Thursday.  It would not be overly sweet and I’d only have a teeny bit…

So far, Thursday’s list is looking like:

  • Driving licence renewal
  • Dog passport
  • Raspberries

I guess I should make a proper list, or I’ll be forgetting loads.

My life is full of lists just now. There are lists for places we wish to go, sites we might want to stay on, items to pack in the van and there are blog update lists, shopping lists and knitting lists and photo lists and many more. I am using Wunderlist and cannot help but wonder if it just feeds my list mania rather than simplifying the task of writing To-Dos.

One list that I am maintaining is for my Tesco vouchers. I have over £80 collected now. This morning we were thinking about a trip to Ireland. It would be a short trip from Kippford to Stranraer and very easy to spend a weekend in Ireland.  I can exchange my vouchers with the ferry company  for three times their face value and that just happens to work out at about right for covering the entire ferry costs – making it not just an easy trio but a free one as well.  Something of a no-brainer? Maybe, but the idea of crossing the Irish Sea in winter is not an enticing one. Watch this space.

The Two Snails updates are going quite well, though Koken continues to frustrate. I did make much progress yesterday after clearing my browser cache speeded everything up for a while. I am enjoying reviewing the photographs and looking back. I begin to realise that we have already made a significant stash of memories for our old age. There is much still to do and I htink perhaps now I should get on with it. That or my knitting, or Mr L will not have a sweater for the winter.

 

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