National Trust Hanbury Hall

Gosh I had a look and it seems like it has been a whole week since I blogged and I thought I had better put this right , well since my amazing recipe last week I have been to a National Trust property which obviously is no surprise and it wasn't even at the weekend .It was on a Thursday so put that in your non smoking pipe it was full of and these are the words of my husband "the blue rinse brigade"
National Trust properties where there is danger and not just because you might get tripped up by a rough Wethers original on the floor left by the older generation but by the fact that their are Scone traps.I have noticed an increasing problem at National Trust properties in that they lay these traps you might just thinking oh it is just a harmless cream tea but ooh no it is a human venus fly trap and it is mortally dangerous.









I think this is my favourite object from Hanbury Hall ( I did leave it behind ! however tempting it was )

The Lament Of The Past

Lamenting is the past is something people do for example when I was catching the bus the other day into town and don't even get me started on bus journeys ! There was a gentleman lamenting about eh past


"When I was younger all this was fields "


He continued on with "Don't you wish you could go back to the past ?"


And the lady he was having the conversation with said "You mean when you had to chisel of the ice of the window in the bathroom or go to the toilet at the bottom of the garden !"

To which he replied "You had a garden ?! you were lucky , we just had a strip concrete "


( It did very much sound like a Monty Python sketch "


"Wouldn't it be nice he said to go back to the past but with modern plumping " he said


It is both the good times and the bad that we hang to those times with perhaps something in those bad times that made it all the more bearable in order to survive.I myself didn't have the easiest of childhoods especially when my parents divorced and there wasn't much food in the house and I had at times had to eat the cats coley! But I loved my cat who was called Boots and that is what made those very tough and tumultuous times easier to get through.


Cats are very useful like that and my current cat is a great sort of comfort to me now when I have been through stressful times of late.

The Glory Of The Rose

Though you're weary and faded

Your glory isn't gone

The colour of your beauty survives

It falls like an autumn

Your head once held high tilts a little now

Summer days just a memory when the gently breeze thrilled you

You surpassed them all

Surviving the elements

You are the Queen of all you survey 

Charred Sweetcorn , mushroom, chard, courgette noodle thingy

Thanks to my neighbour giving me some goodies from his allotment for mowing the grass verge outside his house.It was easier than I thought to actually get the corn off the cob and I shall be doing it more often. So all these enabled me to do a noddle thingy.

Ingredients 

Sweetcorn

Mushrooms 

Chopped chard

Chopped courgette 

Prawns 

Sweet chilli sauce 

Noddles ( for quickness I used ready to go noddles ) 

Method 

Heat the oil it the wok then add a couple tablespoons of brown sugar let it go caramel ish . Then go onto to stir fry the mushrooms , peppers and Sweetcorn for 3 mins until they start to blister. Stir in some curry paste then add the prawns ,chard , courgette and mushroom stir fry for a few minutes then add the ready made noodles and heat through / serve immediately 

Helping your parents to be financially prepared for retirement and beyond

Helping your parents to be financially prepared for retirement and beyond

#AD

 

Seeing your parents getting older and needing help can be tough, especially because you may have always seen them as the ones who looked after you and made sure that you were okay. 

But chances are, at some stage, you are going to have to give some extra care and assistance to ensuring that your parents are safe, protected and financially stable. 

If your parents are at the age when they are beginning to consider retirement, or perhaps they have just retired, then it might be worth sitting down with them to go over a few topics that could really help them in the future.

Here are a few ways that you could help them out…  

Talk openly about money 

It might not be an easy topic to venture into for many of us,but having an informal chat with your mum or dad about their finances could help them to consider certain things that they might not have thought about previously. 

Chatting about different savings solutions, pension plans and monthly budgeting options could open their eyes to opportunities they might not have even been aware of. There are so many financial apps available that make budgeting and money management much easier nowadays, so spend a bit of time helping your parents find the best apps to suit them and give them a handy demo of how to use them. 

Make sure they are living in the right place 

Your parents may have been living in the same family home for many years, with spare rooms (just in case you ever needed to move back home!), but now’s the time to assess whether their home is right for their current and future needs. 

If their home is in the middle of nowhere, might it be better for them to re-locate to a town centre where they can walk out to stock up on groceries without needing the car? Do they really need a four-bed house, or could they move into a modern two-bed apartment, which would be easier to upkeep and much cheaper to own? 

Assess their monthly outgoings and subscriptions 

Just like many of us, your parents may have ongoing monthly payments leaving their account that they set up many moons ago. But occasionally, it’s a good idea to sit down with them and work out if all their outgoings are still necessary. 

They may still want to pay for Sky Sports — especially now that they may be spending a bit more time at home — but perhaps they no longer need their landline (in favour of a mobile only), their work-related magazine subscription or their monthly Oyster travel pass. Sit down with the last three months’ worth of bank statements and highlight payments that might no longer be relevant. 

 

 

Don’t let them fall for scams 

It’s a sad truth, but many fraudsters and con artists prey on the elderly, who they deem as being vulnerable and more likely to fall for their lies and scams. Therefore, it’s your job to be there for advice and to ensure that this doesn’t happen to your parents. 

Warn your parents about bogus callers and tell them never to give away any financial or personal details over the phone.Also advise them about unsolicited emails from organisations that appear to be their bank or insurance provider, but who turn out to be scandalous thieves. Perhaps suggest that if they see an interesting deal or email offer that they send it over to you first to research and inspect, so that you can investigate whether it’s genuine or not. 

 

However healthy, happy and in-control your parents may seem at present, there is no harm in helping them to plan for an even happier and healthier retirement. Now is the time to step in and offer your best assistance.