Blow in the Bag

 Blow in the bag for freshness

The shed saga continues this week. If you remember I bought a “buyer to dismantle” log cabin from Kill in County Kildare, painstakingly dismantled it and am now in the process of putting the bits back together in the back garden. I waver between bursting into tears and jumping around for joy in admiration of my progress, depending on what stage I am at. I have spent another seven days (10 hours days) working on it and tend to forget to eat and drink, so when I am near to tears I know it’s time to stop for a rest. It’s coming along but I do need to buy a new tongue and groove floor as I couldn’t salvage the old one. It’s a hidden cost, along with a few new panels of wood and thousands of nails and screws and decking planks for the ‘veranda’. It could be bit of a money pit as I have spent a good 300 euro on replacement bits. We had some guests come to visit the other day and although they liked the new blot on the garden they did say that sheds such as this one are usually given away free when the buyer has to dismantle it. Now why didn’t they come to visit me before I had bought it? I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it when it’s up and painted. Another week should see it ready for the electricity to be wired up.

Family Party

We attended a big family party this week, just ten doors down from us and we had lots of relations up for the weekend. The gazebo was set up a couple of days before and all was well until the day of the party, when the wind decided to pick up. These cheap gazebos aren’t meant for any type of adverse weather conditions and when I say ‘adverse’ I mean a slight breeze or a few spots of rain. For the first few hours of the party family members stood by each of the corner poles to stop the white plastic cover lifting off the ground and ending up in one of the neighbours gardens. Thankfully the wind eased off and people could start talking to one another as opposed to waving and smiling at each other from the four corners of the gazebo.

We did our bit for the party food by producing a wonderful salad. I took full credit for the three large bowls of greenery but in reality, barring the stronger leaves like rocket, basil, parsley and mustard, everything else came from Lidl.  There were some trays of lettuce in the shop I have never seen for sale, it was the cut and come again leaves and packaged like cress in so far as the roots were in soil and they grew in their own containers. It was very presentable baby leaves and I had no reservations for taking the credit. “It’s all about timing” I gleefully commented, “planting the seeds 6 weeks before the party so the plants are at their best”.  There was a load left over at the end of the night though, so maybe I will admit to it not being all my home grown produce, most people went for the hot fish chowder (it was a cold day). 

Boiled Eggs

A couple of the bowls of lettuce were decorated with halved hard boiled eggs. I don’t know about you but I think eggs are harder to peel than they used to be when boiled, the membranes seem thinner. Maybe it’s just me being impatient, especially as I had about thirty eggs to do. It was time to do a bit of research and find the best method for removing shells. I found a great video on YouTube where the bloke put the boiled eggs into a bowl of iced water then showing us how the shell just falls off when cracked. He suggested we left the eggs in the iced water for at least four hours before attempting the peel. We left ours for ten minutes as time wasn’t on our side. Needless to say it didn’t work and some of the eggs looked a bit battle scarred.

I did see another video (like you do) as I was looking for the boiled egg top tip. It’s how to keep salad lasting longer. Get a plastic bag, put the leaves in and then fill the bag up with your own breath. The carbon dioxide keeps the food fresh all week. I tried it at the end of the party to save some salad but for some reason it didn’t go down too well. I think big companies use pure compressed Co2 in bottles and don’t get the employees to breath into every bag of pre packed salad on the supermarket shelves. Well that’s what my relations tell me.