Trundling through life

That's what Alexa told me when I wished her Good Morning today.

A A Milne was born on this day in 1882.  He was already an established writer for "Punch" and as a playwright when a teddy bear appeared in poetry from the early 1920's.  The bear's name didn't appear until 1925 and was the used in the "Winnie the Pooh" collection of stories published in 1926.  Winnie was named after the female black bear called Winnipeg who lived in London Zoo.  

I was brought up on the two Pooh Bear collections ("Winnie the Pooh" and "The House at Pooh Corner") with the charming illustrations by E H Shepard which I still prefer to the rather garish Disney jobbies.  These days I still enjoy Alan Bennet's slightly lugubrious readings as an audiobook.  I think my favourite story is "In Which Tigger Comes to the Forest and Has Breakfast" which Alexa often reads to me at bedtime.  Not that I am a big kid, though!

 I'm doing a low spend January and trying to eat some of the stuff squirrelled away in my freezer and cupboards, but today I felt I had to get some bits and pieces.

While I was in Lidl I got one of their Waste Not! boxes.  For as long as I can remember these boxes have been £1.50 but they've recently gone up to £2.  Two Whole Pounds.  Anyway, I bought one and this is what I got.  

That's a bag of potatoes

One avocado,

Net of satsumas.

Three leeks

One cauliflower

One bag of carrots

Two different varieties of tomatoes

Bunch bananas.

 The bananas need to be eaten soon and one of the tomatoes has gone into the bin but still pretty good.   January continues low spend!

Update.  I have costed this at around £12 for full price vegetables.  

It was only when I started to write this post that I realised that I have two "monthly" trees.  There's the tree at Holly Dog's house and the tree in my sitting room.  

Several years ago I bought the tree in the sitting room as a Christmas decoration but it got left out so I decided it could be a seasonal tree with (I hope) something different each month.  In August it was bees.  September I moved on to squirrels, pumpkins and hedgehogs.  They were a bit late up so they stayed for October too but in November I went for a Scottish theme of thistles in honour of St Andrew's Day.   December I didn't show you but it was just baubles as part of the general Christmas decorations.  

But in my stocking I got some little hats to hang on my Christmas tree.  I thought they would be just the job for January.  

As I've said many times, I have a wonderful landlord.  It's a charity which lets houses only to retired Anglican clergy so tenants are very well vetted before they move in!

Anyway, one of the ways they are wonderful is that all houses are inspected regularly so they can plan maintenance and improvements.  Personally I think my house is fantastic anyway: occasionally I have minor niggles but when I complain everything gets sorted.

But yesterday was The Inspection.  It happens about every five years.  I don't have to do anything other than make sure the surveyor can access everywhere he wants to access.  And I make him a cup of tea.  And feel slightly embarrassed as Annie-the-home-enhancer hasn't been since before Christmas.  

For me one of the joys of getting older has been that the world actually feels less critical – or maybe I no longer care so much!  Even when my house is inspected I can’t get terribly worried about it.