52 Week Challenge - week by week through 2013

[hollychap]

week 5
made a water butt for the allotment using 1 blue barrel 1 old sink tap ,drilled the barrel using an auger wood drill bit and simply screwed in the old tap . i cut the arm off he old tap to make it a bit more compact. we have water on tap at the lottie through the summer months so only a small butt was needed for a supply in winter

[Ananke]

Week 5

I haven't made wine for over a year now so this weeks challenge was to get started again.

I started with easy juice box wine, Apple and Elderflower and a White Grape and Peach. I'll need to see if I can get some white wine bottles from freecycle.

[julesapple]

How much whey have you got? I think it takes about a gallon of whey to make half a pound of ricotta.

Gosh...maybe not quite a litre. I know I won't be able to make more than an ounce or two, but it would be nice to see if it will work. Today, I've boiled up the whey that I left to acidify. I've done exactly as the instructions say, and I can see curds (tiny, fragile curds) in the cooling whey. Have to leave it undisturbed for a while now. It remains to be seen if these curds are useable.....watch this space!

[veggiechicken]

Week 5
To remove all F1 seeds from my seed stash - 70 packets. I'll grow a few (sweetcorn, strawberries, spinach and mini-toms). The others can go to a Seedswap or in the VSP

[julesapple]

Fail.

Not sure why my ricotta didn't work; possibly because my whey wasn't acidic enough. I did strain it after cooling and, I think, had I carried on I might have made an ounce or so of ricotta. However, as my curds were very fine, it would have taken a lot of straining. I think it would have needed days rather hours because my curds were so fine.

The curds & whey didn't go to waste. We had a loaf of stale bread so I cubed it up and left it to soak in the whey pan. Chooks devoured it this morning!

I do, as consolation, have a good lot of excellent cream cheese though. And it's so much better than shop bought stuff......

Next week's challenge is to get my sewing machine out and complete at least one dress from my vintage pattern.

[Moopmoop]

Plan B was amazing. Week 6 - first full MOT at the doc's tomorrow

[petal]

week 6 now then? my challenge is to stay nice at work whilst surrounded by a bunch of a*******s

[Ananke]

Oops, are we still on week 5? I've jumped a week ahead I think, wee edit needed

[Hazel at the Hill]

Week 5 Challenge

Visit a Cathedral

As one of our school holiday outings when we were little, mum used to take us on the train to Lichfield. We were only a ten minute walk from the station, and it's just half a dozen stops and twenty minutes or so to get there. We used to take a picnic to eat, and go round the cathedral.

It’s high time that I reacquainted myself with this magnificent building, so I picked mum up yesterday morning and we went to see what had changed in the intervening 30-odd years.

From our childhood visits, I remember in particular our picnic spot – mum has a photo of the three of us on the bench (alas no updated photo as although we hung around for ages in the cold, the couple who were sitting on the bench yesterday didn’t take the hint to bugger off); and I remember a marble memorial in the Cathedral called ‘The Sleeping Children’ behind which there was a tragic tale.

Differences between then and now included very helpful and friendly guides, a useful fact sheet to guide you round, a café (obligatory toasted teacake eaten); a Saturday morning children’s choir rehearsal involving small children, gung-ho helpers, and song a with many verses whose chorus had the line ‘she pushed it up the drainpipe’ sung with much gusto and vigorous accompanying actions; and a not-so-discrete donations box.

We went round every part, every chapel, and read all the inscriptions, marvelling at the stone carvings, the brasswork, the monuments, the windows. We saw a small part of the Staffordshire Hoard on display – the intricate work on the gold pieces was astonishing.

And of course the Sleeping Children were still as I remembered them. No photography without a licence, so I bought a postcard of them in the small shop at the exit instead, and having had a thoroughly enjoyable and instructive couple of hours we were happy to contribute to that donations box after all.







So. Week 5 challenge - done.

[veggiechicken]

That's lovely Hazel!! Bet your Mum enjoyed it too

[bearded bloke]

Week 5 challenge ......... Fail despite my best efforts was unable to gather either open or closed seed pods from kapok tree.

Week 6 ... travel M23,M25,M40,M6,M54 journey home (approx 200 miles) without breaking the speed limit (could be a fail in the making )

[Aberdeenplotter]

Week 5 challenge ......... Fail despite my best efforts was unable to gather either open or closed seed pods from kapok tree.

with kapok you were always gonna be stuffed before you got started matey

[bearded bloke]

^^^^^^ Made me chuckle there AP

[bramble]

Did finish my week challenge of updating and printing out my family tree and copying and scanning all the old black and white family pics.
I printed these out and put them in the post to my cousin in England on Friday.
I have to say this was a major challenge for me as it has been on the long finger for the last few years. It feels great to have this done at last.

[Feral007]

Just had to go and see what I had said I'd do in week 5. And yes, I did get most of it done. Well, I may have got all of it done.......but the payroll office finally rang me back after 13 days (ie the day before the next payday and farrrrrr too late to do anything about it if it wasn't right) and told me they wouldn't talk to me, I had to ring my hospital and they had to ring them. She was a tad stroppy when I proved her wrong (ie I would NEVER get as much pay on long service leave as I did at work; but because I've mainly worked fulltime and only a short time on parttime, I actually get more........no really I didn't laugh on the phone, but I think she felt me laughing anyway.) And luckily two other more polite and helpful offices had already told me what I needed to know, AND sympathised with me over it all, so I not only dealt with the difficult, but kept my cool as well.

Week 6 - well.....so many things I want to do this week!

But I will be good and go straight back to - get the office and paperwork sorted. No: 1 priority.
Kick in the pants if I don't do it everyone.