Making Good Use

Bottling Up

Today seemed a good time to bottle up the four Kilner jars of plum vodka that have been quietly marinading in the sideboard since the end of July.  I was very surprised by the number of bottles I managed to fill with the gorgeous pink vodka.  I'm still not sure how two large bottles of vodka plus half a very small one and a whole pile of plums, turned into two large and three small bottle of tres tasty plum vodka - but I'm certainly not complaining.  Good job I'd saved both the original vodka bottles as well as the three organic cordial bottles otherwise I'd have run out of suitable containers.

The smaller bottles are ear-marked as Christmas presents for various people, whilst the two large bottles are for P and I to enjoy over the winter.

The colour is glorious, and the taste is pretty good too - there has already been a small taster session this afternoon.  I'll certainly be repeating this experiment - hic!!

I'm Looking Forward to ....

.... The Ultimate Guide to Penny Pinching on Channel 4 this evening.  I'm hoping I can pick up a few more useful tips in the quest to save a bit of cash, although I'm not sure I could go as far as to eat roadkill - which apparently one of the penny pinchers featured does!!  Anyway, in the spirit of penny pinching, I thought I'd pass on a couple of very useful tips my Mum has given me - and they both work a treat, I can guarantee that.

1.  If you use the 'steam' function on your steam iron, it will conk out in no time - use a mist bottle filled with plain water if you need to 'steam' what you're ironing,  I went through three irons in very quick succession before I realised that my Mum was spot on, it's the steam function that seems to knacker them totally - don't know why this is but it's certainly true.

2.  Always wash underwired bras by hand to stop the wires snapping.  Again, it took me A LOT of broken bra wires to realise that Mum was right, we think it's the tumbling and banging they get in a washing machine that causes the wires to snap so if you wash them through by hand it's a lot more gentle on the wire.  I only have two bras and they both get washed by hand only, so far they've lasted me about 2 and a half years without snapping,  I really should buy a couple more bras but I'm so awkwardly shaped - extremely broad back but only need a B cup  - that I put off buying bras for as long as possible.  Plus, they're expensive little blighters to buy these days.

3.  Finally, a penny pinching idea that was all my own - although probably patently obvious to everyone else - ignore the 'rinse and repeat' nonsense on shampoo bottles and only shampoo your hair once.  Took me, oh, about 45 years to work that one out but it really does work just as well as shampooing twice.