I had porridge for Breakfast this morning. Normally I make it for my dog, when he needs a change in routine from his normal non-meat-related breakfast (he's a stone-former, and so is on a special diet that doesn't include meat). Today, however, I felt like making it for me.
I've not been that well of late, and it was getting to the point where the thought of any food (let alone at Breakfast-time) would result in a groan, and feeling of horror, but after the initial "I really can't face this, but know I have to eat it anyway", I gingerly ate all my porridge up, like a good girl, and now feel better for it.
Assuming I don't run out of rolled oats any time soon (and with a dog that also has it for breakfast a few times a week, it's either never going to happen because I always have it on hand, or it will happen at the most inopportune moment when I've run out / the shop has run out / my supply has been eaten by something nasty and rodent-shaped / weevil-shaped / mould-induced etc), I should be good for a while to come. I think I will continue with the porridge for now, and see if it helps to make me feel better.
With Winter soon upon us here in Queensland, I'm starting to get my house sorted for the cooler days and colder nights. Since I moved house a few years ago, I've noticed a change in the temperatures. When I was living up near the Sunshine Coast, my house was the sort of shape that it was cold in the Winter and hot in the Summer. Added to that, most of the windows in the house were the floor-to-ceiling variety, so in the end, I had to get thermal blackout curtains, not only for privacy, but also to regulate the heat/cold. The one saving grace was the carpets on the floors. It made the house much warmer in the winter months.
Here in this house, it is different. It is a double-brick affair, built on a concrete slab, with lino on the floors (except for the bedrooms, which are carpeted). During the Summer months, so long as you open all the doors and windows before the sun actually gets to the house, and then close them all up again when it does, you can generally get away with only having the fans or aircon on during the middle of the day for about two hours. I tend to leave most of the lights off during the day as well, as they add extra heat to the house (great in Winter, shocking in Summer). In Winter, I leave the house closed up until the sun is nearing the house, then open it up for the day, closing it when the sun starts to go down. Again, there is a lot of floor-to-ceiling windows, (or very close to that, anyway), but when I moved in, there were already half-decent curtains on the windows. I've had to upgrade some of the curtains to my thermal blackout ones I bought while living in my old house, though, and I may yet upgrade the remaining ones. My dining, kitchen and living rooms are open plan, which makes them both hard to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, as the kitchen is in the middle of the house (no external walls or windows). The back wall of the kitchen is also the internal wall of the lounge, which faces the front of the house. The kitchen faces onto the dining room, which has a floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door onto the outside world. Until just before Christmas, there had been sheer net curtaining over this sliding glass door, but my dog took care of that one fateful day, when he got excited because he spotted one of Dad's dogs out in the sheep paddock behind my house, and wanted to go play with him. So now I have new curtains on a proper rod installed, though they aren't lined, and tend towards see-through-ness during the day (though not as much as the net curtaining did!).
Before the extreme heat hit, I had an airconditioner installed in the lounge. This is great for the lounge (though rather cold for anyone sitting opposite it on the couch!), and while it will cool the rest of the house eventually, it does take a while, and you generally have to abandon the lounge room, or you get too cold. It has reverse-cycle heating on it as well. I'm willing to try it on one or two of the extremely cold days we are likely to have this winter. Where I live now we regularly get frost, and it is quite normal for it to drop below freezing, averaging around -2 to -3 C at 6am when I get up. I've known it to get lower than that during the night, though. During the days it gets to about 10 degrees, sometimes higher, so not so bad, I guess, except when you take into account that whatever temperature it is outside, it is usually that or a little colder, inside. No Central Heating for us!
This Winter, I think I will go back to what I have done in Winters previous - I am going to endeavour to heat one room only, and do most of my living there. This was much easier when I didn't have Dad visiting regularly, and leaving all the doors open as he comes and goes, and then asking me why all the lights are off, the house is cold, and I'm holed up in one room. But I love him dearly (even if he was apparently born in a tent), and wouldn't change him for the world.
The last few days, I've hauled the crockpot out (slow cooker), and had some lovely warm food on the go. What I cooked started out life as pork and vegetable curry, but on the second day ended up as vegetable curry with a bit of pork in it, as I added more veg to the pot. What remained has since gone into single-serve containers in my freezer for future meals. Today I had a Bacon & Leek Quiche bought from the store, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to make such a thing. Since I did the cooking for Australia Day, my interest in home cooking has reignited. I now feel the need to make most of what I either cannot afford to buy at the shops, or just can't get. For me, a trip to the shops involves asking Dad to take me either to Brisbane for a few days, where I stay with Mum and get to go out and about in town and do my shopping there, or else it's asking to be taken to the nearest Woolies (Woolworths) (Dad won't go to shopping centres, where there are generally things like Coles, Aldi, Woolworths, Big W, etc) or the local IGA. Because I am on a limited income, I tend to shop around for the best bargains, so that my shopping budget goes further - this isn't something you can do when you only shop at Woolworths!
This Winter, I plan to make good use of my little crockpot, my bread maker, and my stove top and oven. I have a few cookbooks that stand me in good stead all through the year, and that I regularly refer to. So long as I have the ingredients in my cupboards and fridge/freezer, I should get through the cold months pretty well.
It's been a few years since I embarked on the power-saving, and money-saving lifestyle, as up until fairly recently I was still caring for my mum, and then I was sick for most of the last year, and was cared for by my parents until I was better. When you are that sick, worrying about bill-paying is the last thing on your mind. Surviving each day is much more important!
But this year, I am working towards a few goals, one of which is to bring my electricity bills back down - it's not like I use very much anyway, but I've had them lower in the past, and it won't hurt me to bring them back down again, especially with power bills going up, up, up! Also, now that I am at least able to care for myself again, I'm looking forward to a bit of my own home cooking this year. Dad did a superb job last year, with the meals he cooked. They were what I needed at the time to get well, even if sometimes there was more on my plate than I could eat in a week :-)
I recently renewed my interest in all things old, when I got hold of two books about a couple of British TV shows - Victorian Farm and its sequel, Edwardian Farm. They reminded me of how things used to be, and that really we don't do too badly these days. Also that we could actually survive if the power went off, and there was no running water and such (so long as you have a handy wood or coal-fired stove, anyway).
When I was growing up, we lived in an 1890's Workers Cottage in Brisbane. This is a two-bedroom house, with a set of stairs going up the front, onto a verandah, a hall that ran from the front stairs to the back stairs, straight through the house, and back stairs down to the yard, where there was an outside dunny (loo). These houses generally had at least one fireplace, and ours was lucky to have such a thing. I remember Mum would get Dad to nail a single blanket to the hall way opening off the verandah, to stop the cold air from rushing down the hall in the winter. We would light a fire in the fireplace every afternoon, around 4.30pm. One of us would clean the grate first, and then either Mum or Dad would lay and light the fire. Because the house was mostly open plan, the fireplace in the lounge would heat most of the house, especially with the blanket up at the end of the hall. I remember getting dressed for school in the mornings in front of the banked fire from the night before, and that Mum would always sew a little camphor block into an old singlet remnant that she had made up into a pocket, and pin it to the end of the bed during the winter, so that we wouldn't get sick. I remember we got electric blankets at some stage, which helped with the cold, but before than we had hot water bottles put into the ends of the bed to warm it up before getting in. I do remember getting dressed under my blankets sometimes though too.
Anyway, this blog is fast becoming an epic novel, so I'd best stop while I still can!
(Gamera)