Making Good Use

50th Blog Post

I can't quite believe it, but today is my 50th blog post.  How did that happen?  Who knew I could find that much to say?  Not me, that's for sure.  I'm not someone who has ever kept a diary or felt the need to express myself in writing, so I've been amazed how much I've enjoyed writing this blog, and how easy I've found it to do so.

Anyway, to mark this 50th post, and because, for a change, the sun is shining, I thought I'd offer a small giveaway. 

The bag is made using all thrifted vintage fabrics - the outside is a lovely summery pattern of vibrant turquoise flowers on a pea green background, and the lining is a pea-green linen-style material.  It's pretty sturdy and would be great as either a shopping bag or a beach bag.

If you'd like to get your mitts on this bag just leave a comment and I'll draw a name at 10.00 pm BST on Sunday 15th July.  I'm happy to post anywhere in the world, and there will probably be some vintage ric rac and trim, and some vintage buttons included in the parcel.

Looking forward to hearing from you, and I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Update - I hope nobody minds but I'd like to extend the deadline for the bag giveaway to Sunday 22nd July at 12 noon BST.  Because I've extended the deadline I'll also be offering a second prize of one of my knitted corsages.  I'll be staying with mum then and she has agreed to do the draw for choosing the two names.  Thank you so much to those who have already left a comment - I really appreciate your kind words.

Life's A Gas

I've dithered over whether to actually blog about this, as I don't want everyone to think P and I are dyed-in-the-wool, knit-your-own-lentils, eco-warrior weirdos!!  Because I promise you we're not, we really are nice, ordinary people - really!!

Anyway, during the summer our aim is to have zero gas bills.  This entails having no running hot water, and no central heating on (not that we would want the central heating on even in this miserable summer).  We did manage to achieve a gas bill of £0.00 two years ago, and I really wish we had framed it.  I was so pleased with our achievement.  Not sure what went wrong last summer but I think we had a gas bill of about £10.00.  This year we're aiming for zero again.

It all came about because we have a really crappy old heating system which still heats the upstairs radiators even if you have it on 'hot water' only.  Two summers ago we found it was just impossible to have warm radiators in the bedrooms in the summer heat so we stopped putting the gas on altogether.  If this was our own house (as opposed to a rental property) we would rip the whole system out and start again.  We'd have something much more eco-friendly installed, probably including solar panels, but as it is we just make do and mend.

It's not as spartan as it sounds as we do have an electric shower so we always have hot water to shower in, and I heat kettles of water to do the washing up, and for any hand-washing of clothes that I want to do.  And we don't stint ourselves if the weather is truly cold in the evening - I think we last had the central heating on sometime in early June.  But we are hoping not to have to put the heating back on again until, hopefully, the end of September.  Oddly enough the water that comes from the 'hot' tap is still noticeably warmer than that from the 'cold' tap, I can only assume that somehow the tank benefits from the sun shining on the roof tiles and heats up the water a little.

I know when I'm staying with my mum next week it will be quite a novelty for me to have hot water on tap again, and I shall enjoy it, but I also enjoy having one quarter a year when we don't have to pay anything to British Gas.  I'm suprised they haven't sent an engineer to check we're not fiddling our gas meter because our winter bills are truly astronomical.

So there we are - confessions from the house with no running hot water - and we truly are sane, normal people - really we are.

And just because a post without at least one picture is utterly boring, here is a photo of one of the lovely roses that dance and sway in the breeze outside our living room window.

Hotch Potch

Today's post is a bit of a hotch potch of news. 

There is a really inspirational article regarding zero waste, recycling, reusing and composting on the BBC website here.  I find the diversity of comments following the article really interesting too.

I've been out in the garden cutting the grass this afternoon - ahead of another predicted deluge.  The plums trees are so heavy with fruit I fear for the branches.

But whether anything will ripen without sunshine I don't know.  I've no idea what to do with green plums - chutney possibly?  I'm sure in past summers I've been picking ripe juicy plums by this point in time.  I think the fruit (and me) could do with six weeks of uninterrupted blue skies and sun.

At least the apples have got some colour on their, albeit miniature, skins.

Perhaps it will prove to be a bumper crop of apples this year.  Mum says she can't keep time with the raspberries from her garden this summer, so this wet cool weather obviously suits some fruits if not others.

P and I have been randomly selected to take part in a National Travel Survey for the Department of Transport. 

We both have to keep a travel diary for a week and then the information will be passed back to the DfT for them to analyse.  I was hoping that it would possibly lead to increased spending on public transport but the chap who conducted the initial interview feared it would only lead to the government justifying building more roads.  Not if our data is anything to go by - we do have a car but did less than 1,000 miles last year (and that included one 300 mile round trip.)

As I'm off to visit my family in the West Country again next week my travel diary will have at least one interesting entry, involving two train journeys, two taxi rides, and a walk to the station - that should give the boffins in Whitehall something to think about.

DN had requested an apron to wear when he is pretending to be a doctor or dentist and is operating on various soft toys (to protect his clothes from all that imaginary blood and gore I expect).  As luck would have it I had this one lurking about (I'd been saving it for some unspecified future craft project).

Not exactly medical images but at least it will remind us what summer should be all about - ice creams, deck chairs, sand castles and swimming - and best of all it's PVC and waterproof, ideal for any medical procedure DN can think of inflicting on his soft toys!!

The Sun's In The Sky - Oh Why, Oh Why, Would You Wanna Be Anywhere Else?

At last, a sunny Sunday morning, which meant that, finally, there was a car boot sale to go to.  As I hoped, this week's car boot was pretty large - I'm sure there were lots of sellers who had been waiting for a dry Sunday as impatiently as I had been.  Funnily enough, I didn't buy any more than usual but I did get some really nice vintage trimmings.

Which included lots and lots of ric rac in various colours and lengths, and an unopened reel of very pretty floral ribbon / trim.  I also got these two large (36 yards) cards of vintage ric rac.

The brown one still has the original wrapping on it.  This was from the first stall I visited at the car boot, and they had a box load of bits of lace and trimmings etc.  These two cards of ric rac were in a bag with some oddments of wool and, very stupidly, I thought I would leave going through the trim properly until I'd looked round a bit more.  Needless to say, I went back a while later and the whole box of trim had gone!!!!  What a numbskull, I don't know why I didn't just grab the lot when I saw it, after all the two cards of ric rac were only 10p each, so it wasn't as if the prices were high!!  I really should keep the old adage 'he who hesitates is lost' in the forefront of my mind when I'm at car boot sales.

On Saturday afternoon I made up a simplified version of this Amy Butler bag.

Simplified in that I didn't use interfacing, didn't add any pockets, and omitted the mobile phone holder.  This is what my version looks like.

And here it is kindly being modelled by P.

The material is from a huge pair of children's curtains which I bought in a charity shop in Rayleigh in the new year.  I really love the cheerful animals and the bright primary colours.  The lining is a red and white cotton material with rabbits on it from a thrifted Ikea duvet cover.

I was really pleased how this bag turned out and it was very quick to make up too.  I'm going to be using this bag next week when I head off to visit my family in the West Country for a week.  It's pretty roomy and should be easy to carry around with the lovely wide shoulder strap.  Just what I need as I never seem to travel light!!

DVD? No Thanks

We did have a DVD player for a few months, but I never really got the hang of it.  The remote control looked like something you would use to fly a space craft, there were always huge black areas at the top and bottom of the screen when we were trying to watch a film, and it was one heck of a palaver clicking through endless options on the DVD just to get to view the film. 

The player we had was not one of the cheapest on the market but the darn thing just never really worked properly.  The final straw came when we had rented two DVDs one Saturday evening (Miss Potter for me, Rocky IV for P) and the flipping thing got stuck half way through each film.  Oh the cursing, the shouting and the gnashing of teeth (and that was just me).  I had been so looking forward to seeing Miss Potter and had really enjoyed the half I did see, so you can imagine my frustration when the second half remained completely elusive.  Poor P had the same experience when trying to watch Rocky IV after I had gone to bed in disgust!!  Needless to say the infernal machine was returned back from whence it came, a full refund was achieved, and we are now very happily DVD-less again.

Most charity shops and car boot sales are now awash with video films as everybody else seems to be converting quite happily to DVD.  Now most videos are priced at 50p I've started buying quite a few of them.  Today I found two films I really like that I haven't seen in ages.

Quadrophenia

which I've only seen once many many years ago - possibly in the cinema when it was first released in 1979 / 1980.  This has a stellar British cast of youngsters, almost all of whom went on to become stalwarts of British film and television - there is Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Toyah Wilcox, Sting, Ray Winstone and Phil Davies. 

I also picked up Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I love this film, and also saw it many years ago in the cinema.  I've seen it a few times since on TV but I don't think I've ever managed to see it all the way through since 1977!!

A couple of weeks ago I picked up The Dish on video

This is an Australian film about the 1969 moon landings.  I had never seen this film as it is quite a new one (2002) but thought for 50p for the video I'd give it a go.  It was a real gem - one of those films I can imagine I will watch time and again.  If you ever come across this film (on video or DVD!) do watch it, its great.

I'm always on the lookout for a couple of my favourite ever films on video - Reykjavik 101 (continuing my love of all things Icelandic) and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (I'm pretty keen on Australian films too).  Both of these are already on videos that I taped from the TV.  However, both have large chunks of the story missing due to my ineptness!!  Reykjavik 101 is missing the first 20 minutes as I wasn't sure I was going to like the film so didn't video it from the start - what a twit!!  And Priscilla, Queen of the Desert has 15 minutes missing in the middle where somehow I managed to tape part of an Inspector Morse episode over it!!  It doesn't stop me watching these films, but I would quite like to know what happened in the bits I missed.

I'm sure eventually P and I will have to succumb to another DVD player (mainly due to the fact that you can't rent anything on video any more) but for the time being we are both more than happy with our trusty old video player.  And I, for one, am looking forward to a mini film-fest this weekend on a format that I can stop, rewind, forward, eject and just plain old 'watch' with no hassle whatsoever.

Thrifted Reading Matter

I'm a fairly voracious reader and one of the good things about buying books second-hand (apart from the price, of course) is that I come across books that I would probably never consider reading if I were buying them new and I've come across some really interesting reading matter lately. 

I've recently  read The Farm by Richard Benson

which tells the story of one farming family in Yorkshire and what happens when they are forced to sell up because big business was wiping out a way of life they had known for generations.  This book was quite a revelation for me as I have never been overly sympathetic with farmers, it seemed to me that they had been bemoaning their lot for one reason or another all my life, but I was really quite moved by this particular farming family's plight and I now have a lot more sympathy for the farming community as a whole.

Next up was this excellent Icelandic thriller, Silence of the Grave, by Arnaldur Indridason.

I do like a good thriller and this was a writer I had never heard of.  I'm also very interested in anything Icelandic (except, perhaps, some of Bjork's more 'avant-garde' work), particularly since P and I had a great holiday in Reykjavik five years ago.  This thriller is set in Reykjavik, and usefully there is a map of the town at the beginning of the book, so I was able to recognise some of the locations mentioned.  It was a cracking good story and I've ordered a second-hand copy of the first thriller in this series from Greenmetropolis.

Last night I started on The Conjuror's Bird by Martin Davies

which had previously featured on Richard & Judy's book club (as had The Farm) and, judging by the few pages I've read so far, it's also going to be a really good read.

The total cost of these three great books was £1.60, the total cover price is £26.97.  No way could I afford to spend that sort of money, and I would never take a chance on spending that amount on books that I wouldn't be sure I would really enjoy.  Thank goodness for charity shops and car boot sales.

Well Said

There is an excellent post about living a frugal life over at Little Jenny Wren today which has got me thinking about how I've changed my view on being frugal as I've got older.

When I was a teenager I can clearly remember thinking 'If only I had x, y or z (insert any consumer item here, usually some item of clothing) I will feel content with myself'.  Eventually I would acquire said item and did I then feel content - no I did not - by then I needed some other 'essential' item to make me feel happy.  And on and on it would go, with me thinking that my key to happiness and confidence rested on some unattainable consumer durable.

When I went to college it was considered really 'trendy' to get your clothes from a jumble sale and I gained a lot of confidence about buying and wearing second-hand clothes.  It is from this time that my life-long love affair with all things 'pre-loved' stems. 

Then I went out to the big wide world of work where I once again felt the pressure to make myself 'happy' by buying things.  I still bought and wore mainly second-hand items as that was all I could sensibly afford, but I felt that these were second best, and really wished I too could go and buy gorgeous little items in Hobbs or Jigsaw or some other ludicrously over-priced emporium of dreams. 

As I got older I continued to frequent jumble sales and, later, car boot sales and gradually I began to realise that I was choosing to live my life like this, and that it was making me happy.  I had grown out of the need to conform with my peers.  Now I am truly delighted when I am wearing something pre-owned.  It is just too easy to go out and buy something new, it's the thrill of the chase in finding just what you need second-hand, and the knowledge that in some very small way you are choosing not to be sucked into the all-pervading shopping / spending culture which seems to be endemic now.

Phew, that was a bit of a 'heavy' post, back tomorrow with something a bit less wordy.

This is the Weather the Shepherd Shuns, and So Do I*

So what to do when the 'Great British Summer' continues on unabated with high winds, heavy rain and unseasonably cool temperatures?  Obviously car boot sales are a total write-off so it has to be Ta'i Chi instead on a Sunday morning.  I'm sure it's very good for me both body and soul, but, really, it's just no match to a car boot sale.

Sunday afternoon it's time to give the new kitchen toy a whirl (a Dualit hand-held mixer) and make an orange sponge cake with orange icing (rather a lot of oranges knocking around the fruit bowl you see).

 

This turned out very well, and the Dualit made making the mixture child's play.

Then there was a bit more knitting.  One purple beanie hat is finished and has been put away ready for sale (hopefully) when the colder weather arrives - probably at the end of August the way things are going meteorologically!

And a purple and grey stripy mohair beanie which just needs to be sewn up and decorated with some vintage buttons.

I'm not entirely convinced about this hat - maybe a little too like a tea cosy or a football supporters bobble hat!  But the stripes were necessary as there wasn't enough of either yarn to make a complete hat.  I'm hoping the addition of a few grey vintage buttons will bring it all together.

*From the poem 'Weathers' by Thomas Hardy.