Good News and Bad

The good news is that DH has work this week as a maths supply teacher at a secondary school in Deal. If he gets on okay there's the possibility of the contract being extended for the remainder of the term. At least we will now have some income this month. We've also received his redundancy payment from the college, but if possible we would like to hang on to that to pay off the mortgage rather than use it for the usual household expenses.

The bad news is our ancient VW Polo conked out at a busy junction on Friday. The engine simply cut out and we lost all power. Luckily we managed to coast around the corner and park reasonably out of the way. Green Flag were excellent and someone was with us within 20 minutes. As we hadn't gone far I walked home while DH went to the garage. Rob, the Green Flag guy gave him a lift home. It's fortunate that DH can get to work by bus this week, and also that we now have funds to finance the repairs. 

In other news I have to praise the NHS. I've been having trouble with pain and discomfort in my left hip for about a year now but it has worsened over the past few months so I finally went to see the doctor last Wednesday. Not only did I get seen on time by a lovely lady doctor who was very easy to talk to, but she sent me to the local hospital for an x-ray, I walked there in 10 minutes, was x-rayed within 15 minutes and back home 10 minutes later. I couldn't ask for more. Of course, now I have to be patient and wait the 7-10 days for the results, but I have already booked a return appointment online for a week this Wednesday. The doctor mentioned the dreaded arthritis and also a hip operation if things got bad, but for now I'll wait for the results and put up with the pain because I'm not just going to sit in a chair and vegetate. I'm used to walking just about everywhere and today I've been out blackberrying on my way into town. Hopefully whatever is wrong can be managed with some sort of medication rather than needing an op.

As we're not sure exactly how much income we'll have this month I'm trying to stretch the pennies. Yesterday I padded out some leftover vegetable chilli by adding a tin of Heinz meat chilli I got from Approved Foods and an extra tin of kidney beans, and I made a sort of cornbread topping using leftover couscous instead of cornmeal. I served it with half a bag of chantenay carrots that are on offer at Aldi for 39p and some frozen broccoli. It was delicious. I love being able to use up leftovers so they don't end up in the bin, and it's amazing what a bit of ingenuity and substitution of ingredients can produce.

I think that's about it for today. Tomorrow is my slimming club and I think I may have gained a little this week. I've eaten too much rubbish with the stress of not knowing if DH would have work. Anyway, we'll see in the morning.

I hope everyone else is well and you're enjoying the lovely weather we've had down here today.