Gluten Free Blueberry Pancakes (frugal and quick desert)

I really wanted some pudding today after my lunch and while everyone else was eating banoffee cheesecake and cream I had to go without.  I did try a bought lemon cheesecake from the supermarket's free from range a couple of weeks ago but it was awful, expensive and everyone complained!  So back to letting them have the regular deserts as why should everyone else suffer.
After about an hour my sweet tooth got the better of me and I decided to make something using what I had in the fridge.

Blueberry Pancakes.

 I didn't measure anything out as it is not necessary with stuff like this I feel, so here is what I did.

I used one egg and cracked it into the jug, added a splash of soya milk and whipped it up a bit.

I added one teaspoon of sugar and about five level desert-spoons of  GF flour (plain). Next I chopped up a handful of blueberries, heated some olive oil in a pan and poured in the batter.  I waited until the bottom had caught a bit then spread out the blueberries, turned after a short while and it was done.

To serve I added some plain Alpro yogurt, a few more blueberries and a drizzle of syrup, it was very nice.

It was a decent size serving so you could use this amount and make four or five small thin ones to have with ice cream if you can eat that (I can't).  There is a really good cheats ice cream though that you make using frozen bananas and peanut butter. You can find it here Dairy free ice cream

Pancakes are quite useful as you can put savoury fillings in them and they are cheap to make and a bonus is they are one of the few GF recipes that taste just like the regular version.

Frugal Bathroom Blind revamp/makeover

I redid the bathroom blind last year or was it the year before? Using a bit of fabric from Ikea but as we have recently redone our bathroom it no longer went with the colour scheme.  As it was so easy to do on the cheap last time I had no intention of paying out a ridiculous amount of cash to get the look I wanted.  Lets face it a roller blind is just a bit of fabric with a channel in one end for a bit of plastic and it is attached to a mechanism on a cardboard tube!

Here it is...

This is what I did.
As the bathroom is a damp place and my window is right next to the bath I decided that this time I was going to use the coated fabric. You know the kind you use as wipe-able table cloths, so we went and had a look and found this...

It has little pebbles all over it which will go really well with two pictures I have in my bathroom.

This is the lovely orange one I took down, but don't worry that fabric will be washed and pressed and I am sure it will come in useful for something in the future.

It is a great design but it does not go with the current neutral colours.

All I did was remove the old fabric by taking out the staples from the tube, I lay the new fabric over the top to get the right size and then stitched a new channel at the bottom for the plastic to go in (the bit that weights the bottom down).  If you are starting from scratch you could just make this from a bit of dowel.  I didn't even need to hem the sides this time because the fabric being coated it does not fray.  We just made sure it was lined up straight on the tube and stapled it with an electric stapler.  I'm sure strong glue could probably be used for this bit.

I showed my mum the fabric and she said she could do with something like that as things get splashed on her blind and she has a hard time keeping it clean. I told her to have a look for something she likes and we will do her blind up next.

Summer and Books

It has been a strange summer, the weather has been pretty good but with the absence of any caravan travel it has not seemed complete somehow. The bathroom was finished, well there is just the blind I need to make but I have the fabric for that and it will be a quick job, just need to find the staple gun out.
Plans for the pond changed as my husband decided he wanted fish again, he made some repairs, built a new filter set up and refilled it.  Then he went out and bought 20 very small koy carp that someone was selling really cheap as they had too many and I have to say they have really grown in a few weeks.

This was a few weeks ago they have grown a lot since but they are so friendly up near the surface when you come to the pond, that I'm a bit worried the heron is going to spot them and steal this lot as well. Hiding caves have been made and there is talk of a pergola to go over it to disrupt the bird from swooping straight down.

It is nice to go out and watch them again and I suppose the idea of a seating area would have only been used occasionally, how many seating areas does one garden need.

The lilies were also relieved to be moved back into the big pond as they gave this gorgeous display.

The time at home has given me lots of opportunity to read while it has been quiet and enjoy being outside.

Reading on the tablet is not so easy in full sun!

We complain about the weather in England but on a good day you can't beat it.

I have read few books while I have been off work, this one The Anchoress I just picked up at the library in a rush and it was so good!  A strange subject matter a young girl being locked in a cell to live her life as a living death to serve God and the village where she is contained. However wow! really gets you thinking ( mainly about why would you do such a thing!) and the characters are so believable.

This week I have been reading Forgive me, Leonard Peacock.

I read this one over a few days after initially thinking after the first few pages it was depressing and I wouldn't continue.  I did continue and I was really glad I did, I wanted good things for Leonard.  This is one to check out and don't be put off by the beginning. ( If you are like me you might think it's too dark at first)

Currently I am making my way through Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner, I have been trying to learn Spanish for years and although I know loads of words and phrases as soon as I hear someone speaking it all goes out the window as my brain can't keep up with trying to make sense of it all!  Spanish speakers appear to talk very fast but then I'm sure that is how English speakers sound to others.  So I bought this book and I'm trying out the tips, but to be honest as I never get the opportunity to try out the actual talking part I'm not fooling myself to think I will have anything more than a knowledge of the language.  I will continue (forever probably) because I can only improve no matter what the pace. I think you really need to live somewhere where the language is spoken daily and you are forced to respond, that is the way to become fluent, but it doesn't hurt to learn as much as we can in our own environment does it?