market forces

london 11.38am 21.4C sunny wednesday 2016 the night temperature has been 19C throughout. i think it is very mild.

i went to lidl again this morning to buy peaches. they change their value 6 fruit and veg  every thursday and i think i must have caught them over the changeover. the marked price of the peaches are 59p for 1kg, yet when i went to pay, i was charged 49p for 1kg.

so it looked like these ones i got are meant for tomorrow.(i shall see if tomorrow the prices reflect this) they are smaller so there are more of them in the pack, and just about ripe… which means they should be eaten quick. maybe that explains why they are cheaper. at these prices you can buy 2or 3 packs easily and many shoppers in lidl are, like me, doing that. ( i have just eaten 3 of them, one after another. they are that easy to eat and just ripe too. haha. )

i noticed they are from spain. perhaps with the £ going down, these peaches are not being bought in the normal advance purchase so they have been lying around not sold , until now when they become so ripe the producers  are forced  to reduce their wholesale prices so that they can be sold  and lidl is able to get to grab this bargain.   certainly this year peaches (and nectarines too because they too are on sale in lidl for the same price)have been the cheapest i have seen and all because of lidl.  the other supermarkets are still selling their peaches at higher prices.

this should be the normal way , when there is a glut during summer they should sell these fruits cheap so that we all can taste them… but it does not happen because the market controls the sale, and regulates the supply . this year that mechanism must have been thrown out of kilter from our brexit, and the £ dropping so much.

so far tomatoes are not cheap… so i wonder who is controlling their supply. but tomatoes are a tricky fruit to grow. they are very fussy growers. simon tells me his mum grows them in her garden and some years they  get a glut other times nothing or they dont ripen.

while i imagine fruit trees will continue to put out fruits. haha.

 

 

a lovely long border of these flowers, which are weeds really but the gardener has planted them. its near the swimming area of the lake in hyde park.. taken by ian, that is why they dont enlarge to a bigger size.

peaches

london 7.10am wednesday 2015 17.1C sunny

i have eaten ripe peaches last week, bought from aldi, 50p pack (of 5) and they were so delicious that i went back yesterday to buy some more . this time they were larger and so 4 to a pack. i have forgotten how delicious peaches can be. though u have to wait till they ripen. when the flesh falls off the stone seed that is the time to eat them. peaches have such a strange looking skin. the label says they are ‘sweet love’ from spain, white flesh.

here is a link to 10 strange and rare peaches.

Digital StillCamera

disliking someone on first impression

London
There was a tv program about a survey finding 50% of people living in uk find it difficult make ends meet. Someone said, don’t go shopping.
I find it very true.
I went to the aldi thinking of buying just the peaches that are in their special 6 items, I got 4 peaches for 69p which is rather nice, though as usual, the reality did not come up to expectation. I remember peaches I bought in capdagde that were juicy and sweet but these were not… maybe too unripe at this stage and I should wait for them to ripen some more.
I can understand people spending more to buy ready to eat peaches. it takes the wait out of the eating. It is difficult to know when the peaches get ripe enough… u wait too long and it becomes too soft…

and ended up spending £4.50. Granted it is buying things that I will want in the future, or being tempted by grapes 400mg for £1.09… but still… I got giant frozen prawns which at £2 each is the cheapest anywhere. Prawns are my favourite, as they go in everything and are quick to cook, and now it sits in my freezer. I go through these 200mg packs very quickly.
They are ideal for a quick meal. and now that asda is selling ramen noodle  back to 11p each instead of 15p, I shall be using a lot more of them in the instant noodle meals.
Last month I used up 3packs of these frozen prawns !!

But it just goes to show if u go to a supermarket u do end up buying things. I know others will not be so disciplined as I am and end up spending lots more than me.

So I think this may explain why so many find it difficult to make ends meet.

Also, they borrowed money in the past and are still paying it off… because one thing I have found out when u borrow, it is real difficult to pay it off piece by piece… the interest keeps raising the amount u owe, so that u will be paying 3 times more than you borrowed by the time u finished paying it off.

Simon told me of it. I happened to ask him how come he don’t go to phuket much , like he used to. I was surprised when he said he is still paying off his debts. It seemed that last time he went about 2yrs ago, he borrowed money, (and then lost it on his way there, silly fellow) and it seems he is still paying it off.

It amazed me, why he is still paying it off after so long…

He is hopeless with money… I think his soul wants it. I figured even if he pays off his debt he will find some way to get into debt again… maybe start gambling and incur triple amount of debt and make things worst. As it is , I guess u could say this debt is keeping him from spending more. He is the kind of person who just don’t have the discipline, and so need this kind of enforced discipline to prevent him from getting into worst debt.

U might be asking how come he cannot save and pay it off. He smokes and he drinks. Enough said. haha.
I bet anyone who said they cannot make ends meet you will find they have these two habits. The drinking habit is the one that destroys their savings.

I am very tolerant of others, otherwise I doubt we can be together for so long. i daresay he too is tolerant of my foibles, (glad that he too dont mind no central heating and  me not even switching on the electric heaters in winter.haha. though of course he could switch them on himself, but he does not)

I figured his life is what it is… no point getting angry at him, making the excuse that anger is for his sake. Haha. no, i dont do that… imposing what i think he ought to do , onto him. 

My feelings is that everyone has their souls desire, and if his soul desires this kind of hand to mouth life for him, so be it. Haha.

I live my life, and so able to provide shelter and a stable life for him, and he can come along for the ride. I like him around and being with him, whilst letting him do his own thing, and he let me do mine. And we get along very well and enjoy our life together. i hope i give him a sense of perspective, that you can be very happy with very little money and that money is not everything. get into debt if u like, manage it,  but dont let it overwhelm you and not see that life is really very wonderful.

Talking of tolerance, I got an email from a friend who gives parties, telling me he is not accepting another friend of mine to his parties. I introduced them to each other, as the other friend wanted to be invited to the parties.

But my party host said he did not like what he said, and more importantly how he said it.
I don’t know what they said, must ask my friend about it , but I do know that this friend don’t give a good impression when u talk to him over the phone or on email.

When he first contacted me, I felt the same too. Haha.

But he kept in touch, and after a hiatus, which I thought meant he too was not keen, he called me and told me he had a broken rib, and was out of commission that was why he had not been in contact.

Well, it might be an excuse , but we arranged to meet, as we had said so long ago when he first contacted me, and finally we did meet.

He lives in a nice house in Mayfair, inherited from his parents. He lets two rooms to mon-fri lodgers, who are straight. That way he gets income as maintaining a house can be expensive. With a flat , the cost is shared amongst all the other flats, but not if u have a house.
That is why if u are a pensioner, get rid of the house and buy a flat instead or like him , rent out rooms.

He is an older guy and set in his ways. As I suspected, he has views and they are very firm views. He likes this and not that, he wants this and not that. Quite a common thing with most people, but especially the old.
(or rather, let me qualify, if it happens in a younger guy or a good looking guy, we all forgive it.haha. Looks and youth can get u everywhere . don’t believe those guys who say otherwise. If it is an old guy, we are less tolerant of it. A sad fact of life )

I am used to it and tolerant of this; and let it slide. But I guess it might rub my host friend the wrong way.

 

 

 

 frozen prawns200mg are from aldi £1.99, ramen is from asda 11p. (i have noticed even i can be fooled. it used to be frozen cooked prawns at that price. but now i see from the picture that it is raw prawns. hmm not as good value as cooked prawns. i wonder if they have cooked prawns and i picked the wrong one. still maybe raw prawns have more flavour when cooked?)

added.8.8.13 i have eaten all the prawns. raw is not as nice as cooked. with the raw prawns, after cooking they shrunk, unlike the cooked ones. the prawns look big when u take them out of the pack, but after cooking they shrank a lot ,whilst the cooked prawns remain quite big after cooking. i shall buy the cooked frozen prawns from now on.