Rainy day work

A light rain has kept me house bound today, but no complaints as it was well overdue. I was thrilled to have accomplished two things from my list. The first was to scrub, and I do mean down on hands & knees 'scrub' my floors to remove the muddy build up that has accumulated on the painted concrete floors. The concrete floors have proved much easier to maintain then the old carpet that was there when we bought the place, however mud tracked in on wellies, and on the many childrens feet that have visited gets stuck in the grooves of the concrete left from the original trowel marks. Although I've swept regularly, and hubby has run the mop over it, it was needing a serious scrub to bring it up nicely.

We opted for the painted concrete because the very old and threadbare carpet just had to go and I really don't know what I want to replace it with yet, not to mention the cost of putting an alternative down. I had bought paving paint originally to paint over the red brick pavers in the spare room & our now properly enclosed back deck area. After living with them though for over a year & a half I've come to appreciate the simplicity of them as they were and presto, this gave me paving paint for my bare concrete. For all those wondering, yes, it's cold, but nothing slippers can't fix and some inexpensive blue & white cotton rugs from Ikea. The rugs are small enough that I can still put them in the washing machine & they come up well each time.

Last day off, I stripped the carpet from the spare room and scraped away the glue residue. Today after a good scrub, I've started painting the floor in here too.

All the while I was in my cleaning frenzy I've had brown vinegar on the stovetop. With sugar added I've slowly reduced two litres to under one, and the result is a beautiful caramelised balsamic vinegar. After one of the girls from work (ex chef) told me how easy it was, I've been dying to give it a go.

Also I'm pleased to see my chickens are also back to laying. It's been sporadic, but one or two eggs a day is a great start. I read somewhere that the chickens normally begin laying again after the winter solstice, so I guess it's true.

From the garden today:

a dozen eggs (collected over the week)

two beautiful large tomatoes

heaps of little cherry tomatoes from self seeded plants

one lone passionfruit

a handfull of small chillies

2 little gooseberries