A little help from my friends

We are great believers in the simple life and making as much as we can ourselves, but we’re not averse to getting all the help we can. Apart from the bog standard conveniences most of us have there are a few other contraptions that have made quite a difference in our lives. I'm not much into gadgets, but I do like machines.

In the kitchen...

The bread machine - Is there anything more divine than a loaf of freshly baked bread? Perhaps, but not much in my book. We bought the bread machine for £15 in the British Heart Foundation charity shop and we’ve had many dozens of loaves. This one, made today, has black olives and rosemary and I can tell you now, it is utterly scrumptious - with lashings of butter. 

The coffee machine - this also came from the British Heart Foundation and cost £25. It was missing the cappuccino jug so I bought that separately on line for £10. Mike is mad for freshly made coffee, which he drinks every day, always strong and black, and endlessly experiments with different types of coffee. I’m more of a tea drinker but do help myself to the occasional diluted cup with lots of milk.

The slow cooker - donated by my brother, who doesn’t like to cook - by any method. I love this machine. It gets a huge amount of use for curries, bolognaise meat sauce and pot roasts. I always make a large quantity and then freeze the extra portions.

The yoghurt machine - bought from Lakeland for £19 and it has been worth every penny. Using a spoonful of the previous batch, a little powdered milk and a litre of UHT (preferably full fat) milk I set the machine to run overnight (on the cheaper band of electricity) and there’s a litre of fresh yoghurt ready in the morning. We both love yoghurt and eat lots of it, especially with fruit and/or honey or home-made syrups - hedge picked blackberries, preserved ginger, that left-over citrus syrup.... Delicious.

The juicer - not the bargain of the century, I bought this on line for £24 including postage. (And then I saw one at the auction on Tuesday that went for £3!) I wouldn’t recommend this brand, not that I can compare with any others, but we have found it very messy and labour intensive. The instructions say you can put a whole apple into the feed, but this is not true as it literally grinds the skin, pips and all into the juice which adversely affects the colour and taste. However, after peeling, coring and chopping the apples, it does make a very fine tasting juice. One can obviously make juice with other fruits so I am waiting for another glut.

And elsewhere...

The wireless headphones - this is just about the best thing we ever bought. Good German brand name and reasonably inexpensive at £56 on ebay including postage, but we then had to buy the special batteries for £20 and a sound jack to connect to the television for another £10 - so £86 and totally worth it. The charger system plugs into the tv and the headphones work remotely. The headset is comfortable and the sound quality is excellent, not just increasing the volume of sound but somehow improving the voice track only. Mike is a little deaf (tinnitus) and likes the television louder than I do. He also likes watching television more than I do. So, when he wants to watch sport (Mike will watch any sport) or one of his interminable war films, westerns or action movies - the more ancient the better - he wears his ‘ears’ as we call them and I can get on with other things. They are especially useful when I am on the phone or have a friend around for a chat without having to leave the cosy fireside. These earphones haven’t quite saved our marriage, but you get the idea.

The GPS sports watch - £74 including postage from Amazon. My nephew came visiting wearing one of these clever contraptions and Mike was so impressed he had to buy one himself. It’s really designed for running, but works equally well for cycling. It tracks your pace, monitors laps, tells you where you are, blah blah, and it’s also a watch, of course. Mike loves it so that’s all that’s important.

* Update on the creature in the compost. The Febreze and/or the well-dug-in slate barricade seem to have worked. No sign of the little darling and it's two days now.