Shattered.

Where has all my energy gone? I should really be doing the ironing at the moment, but I'm shattered.

I've been quite productive in the last few days, cooking, baking, that sort of thing. I got my next box of tomatoes from the fruit and veg co-op and learned a valuable lesson. Make tomato sauce in the tomato season. Even from the co-op, a box of tomatoes (all be it lovely ripe vine tomatoes) cost me £11. Bloomin' expensive sauce this time around, but, with inspiration from the lovely Sophie Dahl, and a few adaptations, I made the best sauce so far. Barely any chopping, no blanching or peeling and no stirring or simmering.

The result was a vat of rich, chunky, tasty, healthy, Syn free sauce that is actually a splendid soup also. Jars of it. The best ever.

Yesterday afternoon was spent in my very good friend Helen's garden, chatting, putting the world to rights and generally catching up. Of course, when expending that amount of energy, one needs sustenance, so Hels provided the jam and ever-so-naughty clotted cream, I made the scones, and I'm pleased to say, they were delightful. And my special secret ingredient worked a treat. We had BOTH saved up our Syns for that, teachers! But I'll definitely get a F- for getting sunburned. My arms are rather red, to say the least. Made me think that I need to look at some decent sun cream for this year. I will invest in one good bottle, instead of several cheap ones.

Our neighbour who has the birds and I were talking yesterday (I'd taken a couple of scones out for Hubby to try and he happened to be in the right place at the right time!) and we arranged a swap. He had a surplus of eggs, I had a surplus of ripe bananas. So today I baked a couple of banana cakes, I daren't just make the one, and we swapped. Now I have eggs up the yin-yang (I'll be sharing with my Step-Mother) and Chris has a yummy still warm banana cake. Hubby has already eaten half of his, and I think the teenager has just been in the tin too.

I also had a surplus of carrots. We'd bought a couple of bags from Aldi for Madame, presuming she'd troff them like no one's business. She does like them, but there's an awful lot she likes more. So I used up some of my supplies that I froze a few months ago and the veggies I had a surplus of and I made a lovely carrot, leek and celery soup. It's REALLY tasty. Syn free also. An I'm going to sterilise it in my big kilner jars for the cupboard. Money's pretty tight at the moment, so I'm pushing the boundaries of usefulness even further than usual.

Hubby's been out on the mountain putting in the hours on the mountain, but today he has been doing something different. He has fashioned an insect/bat box for the side of the goat house, hopefully to keep insects out of Madame's way. Really he just wants Bats, though, and I can't say I blame him. I'd quite like a few more Bat boxes if it works. I think they like eating slugs too, don't they? Photos to follow!

I've got a backlog of stuff I should be doing at the moment ...need energy and more hours in the day please. Can anyone help with that?