I look on my bookshelves and all I see are reference books or biographies or stories of people’s experiences. I truly wish I could lose myself in fiction, I try, but I struggle with it. Nothing grips me like real-life.

A trip to my local library here in Arnold, Nottingham, found me a couple of fab books to start reading

A Green and Pleasant Land: How England’s gardeners fought the second world war

Working for Victory: A diary of life in a second world war factory

and I bought a bargain book for just a pound..

Wartime Women: A mass-observation anthology 1937-45

I’m hoping these will help with my blog, victory garden and the interesting psychology behind the war effort.

Yesterday I was busy in the kitchen making LOTS of mess but at the end of it I had bottled 38 pints of STOUT. I simply made it in a big bucket and with trying to spend as little money as possible, I figure this is saving me 1.25 a bottle and these should see me through until the New Year (theoretically).

Once I’d syphoned off all the beer into bottles, I added 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in each and capped all the bottles. Now I have 14 days to wait..

So OK a kit beer is not exactly 1940’s (although you could readily buy beer) but I have to save money somehow (and still allow myself some enjoyment occasionally) but next time I’m going to brew beer from scratch. I’ve just seen some photos of friends of mine cooking hops on their stove and it looks like way too much fun. I’d better start saving up more sugar!

C xxx