The Wednesday Hodgepodge #55

I hope you are all having a good week. It's Wednesday, which means it's time to join in with the Wednesday Hodgepodge with Joyce who blogs at From This Side of the Pond! Each week there are 6 questions, we answer and then link up. Simple!

1. What's one piece of advice you would you give a recent or soon-to-be graduate?

Learn how to properly look after a home! It doesn’t sound as exciting as career goals or big life plans but this is the stuff that makes everything else easier. When your home life is running smoothly, everything else feels more manageable! Knowing how to cook a few decent meals is a big one. It saves money, stops you living off takeaways and means you’re not standing in the kitchen late in an evening wondering what to eat. Keeping on top of laundry is important. It piles up fast if you ignore it and suddenly you’re doing emergency washes because you’ve run out of basics. Cleaning doesn’t have to turn into a full weekend job, the trick is doing little bits often. Then there’s managing your bills and general life admin. Setting up direct debits and keeping a budget isn't the most exciting part of being an adult but it needs to be done!

2. May 15th marks the birth date of L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. At this point in time are you more in need of brains, courage, heart, or a trip back home? Explain.

With everything going on in life, it’s not that I don’t know what to do, so I can’t really blame a lack of brains and I don’t feel short on heart either. It’s more about having that confidence to actually do the things I keep thinking about. I’ve got ideas, plans and little goals sitting there waiting but instead of jumping in, I can end up overthinking them. So it comes down to me needing courage or someone to give me a big kick up the behind. lol

3. "There's no place like home" is an oft repeated line from Baum's book. When was the last time you felt the truth of that statement?

During the week when I had been out running errands! The best part about being out is coming home. Shutting the door, taking my shoes and coat off, getting changed into comfy clothes and enjoying the quiet. The day hadn't been stressful in the slightest but at home I can relax without having to rush about, talk to people, being pulled in ten different directions or thinking about what’s next. It was nice for it to be just me, in my space and having everything just how I left it. There really is no place like home!

4. May is National BBQ Month...do you own a grill? Who does the grilling at your house? What's your favorite thing to throw on the grill? What's the last thing you grilled?

We do have a little BBQ somewhere in the back of the garage but we rarely use it. Living in England, the weather is never fully on our side, so planning a BBQ always feels like a gamble. You get that one sunny day when everyone gets excited, burgers and sausages are bought and then the clouds roll in and the rain comes, so we don’t really grill often. Maybe once or twice a year, usually right in the middle of summer, when everything lines up just right and we take a risk with the weather. When we do use it, it’s pretty simple stuff like burgers, sausages and maybe some chicken if we’re feeling organised. My favourites are beef burgers, which are usually overdone a little and they were probably the last thing we grilled.

5. What's a memory you replay in your head when you need a little joy?

Right now, thinking about BBQ's is the memory of when we had a little beach party for Ellie's 9th birthday! It was a bank holiday Monday so there was no travelling to the beach. I made one in our backyard with two little paddling pools. One filled with sand and the other with water. We had a BBQ, pinata to smash and of course, grilled food. It was such a lovely day! The weather wasn't perfect but we didn't let it spoil our fun!

6. Insert your own random thought here.

This is totally random. Scones are a big thing in my family. My grandmother was an amazing baker, so I was told as she passed away before I was born and her sisters, my great Aunt especially, were too. My great Aunt was a big part of my life and whenever we visited her she always had freshly baked scones ready for us. Anyway, my dad has been on a trip down memory lane. He went to visit a relative and was given a ton of photos and they got chatting about my great aunt and her scones, so he has been on a mission to recreate them. He has made quite a few batches and while I was visiting the other day, he whipped up another batch which tasted so good but he wanted my honest opinion, were they as good as Aunty Jean's? They came close but sadly, no. I told him he needed to keep practising and sending any going spare this way.