Tag Archives: Pound Shop

Saturday 27th August 2016 – I AM NOT ALONE!

There I was this morning, having another major coughing fit, when there was a knock on the door. it was one of my co-residents, asking me if I was OK or if I needed any help or anything. I explained the situation to her and she went away, but it really was nice that there are people who are concerned about me and my health.

But that was merely summing up my night last night, where I had difficulty sleeping due to my incessant coughing fits. But I went on one of my nocturnal rambles – something concerning the Dragnet radio programmes which I’ve been listening to since I downloaded the entire 7 years-worth of programmes from Archive.org along with a pile of other stuff.

The alarm woke me up this morning, which was a surprise, meaning that I must have slept through the 07:00 cacophony. And I struggled to eat breakfast too – so I’m definitely sickening for something. It was disappointing too because we had another loaf of that excellent bread. What a shame to miss out on it.

The heat was oppressive today – probably the hottest day of the year. After my nice relaxing morning doing not very much, I went up into town for shopping. Apart from the baguette and the lettuce from Delhaize, I pushed on to Wibra, near the railway station.

That’s something of an upmarket Dollar Store or Pound Shop, and when I was in there the other day I noticed that they had an excellent line of plastic containers and very democratic prices. I picked up a few – two large ones for my rice and pasta, and a smaller pouring container for the boulghour. And i’ll be back there for half a dozen others too because the ones that I have at home have seen better days.

I struck it lucky too while I was out. There are several of these ice-cream stalls in the city and one of them sells dairy-free sorbets. And so I was really in my element here. It’s high time that I treated myself.

After lunch, I crashed out for quite a while. It was far too hot to do anything else. And once it cooled down I washed and dried the containers and then sorted out the food in here. The place looks quite tidy now, which is a surprise for anyone who knows me.

Tea was rice with a tinned vegetable curry and garlic bread. The supermarket here sells these half-cooked half-baguettes at just €0:39 for two and while they don’t come out as nicely as the more expensive ones, it was still delicious. The smell was enough to entice one of my co-habitants into the kitchen.

Now I’m off for another cold shower and then I’m off to bed. Not that it will do much good in this heat.

and I’ve had no news yet about the studio.

Sunday 2nd August 2009 – LOOK WHAT I’M HAVING FOR TEA!

new potatoes grown les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, new potatoes! And grown with my own fair hands too.

In fact there’s a story behind these potatoes. Readers of my blog in its previous incarnation will recall the sad passing-away of my good friend Liz.

On my way to her funeral I stopped off at a Pound Shop (Anyone who knew Liz would know that she would have appreciated that!) and one of the things that they had on offer was a pack of 12 well-advanced seed potatoes for a quid. So they duly found their way into my garden, and then into my oven.

And right delicious they were too. I’ve been having lettuce from my garden for a few days but today I’m starting on the spuds. Tomorrow it will also be the peas, beans and carrots, with courgettes planned for later in the week.

This morning I had a telehone call that disturbed me from my reverie. It was Francois who wanted to come and inspect the work. And at 10:00 too! On a Sunday! So I hauled myself out of my pit, breakfasted, and showed him round. He pointed out a few faults (he’s a professional roofing carpenter) and I had to agree with him.

Mind you, this is the first roof I’ve ever done and Terry has only ever done one before so it’s only to be expected. Francois also reminded me of the chantier at his house on Thursday – emptying the library before his house goes up for sale. But it’s doubtful that I’ll be there. I’ve far too much on right now.

Once he’d gone I slated the side of the rafters where I painted yesterday. That should keep the weather out nicely. And after lunch I started to cement under the eaves. My cementing is awful and I bet I dropped more on the floor that I stuck to the walls but after a bit of practice it started to hod together – which is a major advance for me. I’ll finish it off tomorrow night.

Once it’s dried off properly I can start to paint the front of the house and won’t that be progress?