Making Good Use

Bargain Fud

I usually do my main shopping at Aldi (which is practically my 'corner shop' - very useful) with a top-up shop in Co-op for items that you just can't buy in Aldi (things like frozen Quorn or organic milk, eggs and yogurt).  However, every six weeks or so P and I go to the massive Sainsbury's on the outskirts of Basildon to buy such exotic items as frozen sorbet and organic meat which are just not available in our small town.  We always go in the evening and at the beginning of the week in order to avoid as many of the crowds as possible and to find some bargainous fud which has been heavily reduced because it's on date and it's late in the day.

 
Yesterday evening we managed to snaffle A LOT of fruit and veg bargains, including two punnets of apricots reduced from £1.40 to 45p - they've already been stewed up and should be tres tasty with a spot of yogurt or custard on top.  Two bags of organic carrots reduced to 35p, a bag of mixed veg (already eaten with our dinner this evening) reduced to 30p, cooking gooseberries - 40p, a pot of salad leaves - 30p, shitake mushrooms - 60p.

 
In the chilled section I also found a pack of three snack pots of low-fat humous (check out the excellent saturated fat content) reduced from £1.29 to 20p, so that's my lunches sorted for the next three days at less than 7p each.  There was also a Gu chocolate and raspberry mousse reduced to 29p.  I could only have a taste of the mousse as it was too high in saturated fat for me but P enjoyed it immensely and the bit I had was divine (it's the first taste of chocolate for me since January!!)  Sadly, the rest of the shop was pretty pricey but I was very pleased with the bargains we did manage to find.

Trouble Is, I'm Not Really the Satin-Wearing Type

 
I found a couple of Ann Harvey silky / satiny-type tops at the boot sale yesterday.  They were only 50p each and Ann Harvey is a tres tres expensive brand so I bought them with ideas of re-selling on ebay.  I tried on the one above and it is a really beautiful top when worn (despite needing a wash and a damn good iron).  It's a much darker grey than it shows in the photo - sort of pewter-coloured - and the three-quarter length sleeves with frills at the end are lovely.  Though I think it's probably the little bow detail at the side of the neckline that really sells this top to me.  Trouble is, I'm really not a satin-wearing type and I have no idea where I'd ever go to be able to wear it either.  Hmm, I'll have to give all this a bit of thought.

 
The second Ann Harvey top was also tried on but it does absolutely nothing for me whatsoever (and that's an understatement!!), so that's an easy decision - it'll be listed on ebay in the near future.  I don't think it has ever been worn either as there are still two plastic tags hanging from the label. 

Apart from those two tops I found a couple of other tops / T-shirts for myself at 50p each and two little bottles of Body Shop shower gel - also 50p each.  Having recently had a shufty through my stash of boot sale toiletries, it transpired that I was actually rather short on shower gel although am good for the next year or so with shampoo and conditioner.  Practically everything in the stash that I had assumed was a bottle of shower gel turned out to be a bottle of shampoo!

Plum Vodka

 
I've just started off two large Kilner jars of what - finger's crossed - will turn out to be some jolly tasty plum vodka.  I found an incredibly simple recipe on the net - split the washed plums - leaving in the stones - add sugar and top up with vodka.  I bought a 70cl bottle of cheapo vodka in Aldi (£8.27, I think, if anyone is interested) but found that I didn't have quite enough to fill the jars. 

 
Luckily, P and I had, for some unfathomable reason, bought a small bottle of Icelandic vodka on our way through duty free at Keflavik airport.  We probably bought it because a) it was incredibly cheap - about £3.50 if my maths serves me correctly - b)  we had no idea the Icelandic made vodka, and c) we wanted to offload some krona.  We'd also bought a bottle of very cheap Icelandic Brennivin schnapps at the same time.  Wow, that stuff is potent and can really knock your socks off.   No wonder the literal translation into English is 'burning wine!'

Anyway, I've still got A LOT more plums on the tree plus another couple of empty Kilner jars so I think I'll ask P to pick up some cheap vodka in the duty free on his way back from Switzerland on Monday and make up a second batch.  I'm fondly imagining how this'll warm the cockles in the depths of winter and remind us of a very prolific plum season. 

Yikes, What a Price Hike!

I've got a Miele vacuum cleaner, it was quite pricey to buy at the time but as it has given me sterling use for the past 14 years I think it has proved to be quite cheap if I worked out the price per clean.  I'm not overly keen on housework (there's always something much more interesting I find I could be doing,) but needs must and every so often I do vacuum the floors.  Consequently, being a bit of a slattern, I don't actually fill up the vacuum bags terribly frequently.  However, the last time I changed it I found I was using the last one.  Cue my next trip to Billericay (which was this morning) and the need to buy another pack of five Miele vacuum bags.  Last time I bought them - which could be a couple of years or so ago - they cost me £8.25 or thereabouts, today they cost me £10.99!!!!  Good grief, I know the cost of everything is rocketing but, really, a nearly £3.00 increase on a box of five vacuum bags - it's scandalous. 

I am now seriously considering a tip I read years ago in 'The Tightwad Gazette' book.  Apparently, if you're very careful, you can slit the bottom of a full vacuum bag and then staple it closed again and reuse it.  I'm wondering if anyone out there has tried this tip, does it work? or am I in danger of ruining my vacuum cleaner (which I REALLY don't want to do) by being a total cheapskate?   Ideas, tips or suggestions would be very welcome.

Oranges and Lemons

 
The bundle of wooden coat hangers I found at last week's boot sale prompted me to make a couple more knitted covers.  I found oddments of some uber-posh Rowan organic cotton in a rather refined shade of orange in the wool stash (aka a black bin bag jammed under the sideboard, but 'stash' sounds so much nicer.)  This yarn is lovely to look at and soft to the touch but an absolute pain in the proverbials to knit with as it's very very splitty.  Never mind, that doesn't really matter when knitting something as small as this, though I'd hate to embark on a full-size garment using it.  The lemony-yellow buttons were a charity shop find ages ago - I think I had a full set of six or eight of them at the time.

Knitting coat hanger covers probably sounds a bit of a 'desperate housewife' or a Martha-Stewart-gone-mad type of activity but, honestly, it makes the hangers so much nicer to use as things don't tend to slip off them, and it's 'adios' to wing-like protruberances on the shoulders of jersey-knit tops too.  Plus it's totally mindless, do-it-in-front-of-the-telly knitting - which is always a bonus in my book.

Little Bits of Thrift

 
Just two little bits of thrift were found this morning at the weekly 'Coffee and Jumble'.  Some unused Launderette labels - issued by the National Association of Launderette Owners.  Presumably one portion of the ticket was attached to the washing bag and one was kept by the customer in order to collect the washing when it was done.  I've never seen anything quite like them before and goodness knows what I'm going to do with them but for only 20p I bought them. 

The other item had to be pointed out to me and I was asked if I knew what it was.  Short answer, nope, no idea.  Turns out it's a ceramic ink well from an old school desk.  I don't think I'd ever seen one made of ceramic before - in my day the desks either had empty holes where the ink wells used to be or had plastic ink wells - nobody ever used them anyway.  I wonder how many children used this one over the years?

Linking up with Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday.

Unexpected

It was unexpected to: a) find a jumble sale listed for this morning in the local free paper - in my experience, jumble sales are usually held in the winter months; b) find a jumble sale in my neck of the woods anyway; and c) for it to turn out to be actually rather good.  It was certainly worth lashing out £3.50 on the bus fare to get there and to paddle home in the middle of a monsoon-like downpour.

 
There were a lot of plus-size items on the clothing table.

 
I had my eye on this one for myself but it was too big when I tried it on later.

 
It was seeing an 'Ann harvey' labelled-item go whizzing past my nose in the general melee that made me look extra carefully through everything. 

 
This skirt even has it's Evans labels still attached - original price £28.00.

 
I quite like this floaty sheer beach cover-up but am unlikely to be on a beach to wear it any time soon.  This lot will be being ironed and / or washed and then listed on ebay.

 
A pile of vintage linens - all with some damage or marks - but I have a plan for these which involves chopping them up and using the good bits only, so that's no problem. 

 
I also found this Moulinex Mouli grater (they tend to be good sellers on ebay) and a few books that were good for re-sale on Greenmetropolis.  Total cost of this little lot - £2.40.  I was a very happy bunny.

A Full-Figure Gal

Yup, that's me - a full-figure gal - always have been, no doubt now always will be.  I have no problem with being on the large side, although am quietly pleased to have dropped two dress sizes recently due to my low-fat diet.  Maybe I'll lose more weight as time goes by, maybe I won't - either way I'm perfectly happy with my size.  Whilst I appreciate that being overweight is not an ideal situation for anyone, I do get extremely irritated by the constant harping on in the media about obesity, surely now the only human problem / failing that it's still OK to mock / have-a-go-at or make derisory comments about.  I tend to refer to those sorts of comments as being uttered by 'size nazis.'

Anyhoo, I digress somewhat, not only am I of Amazonian stature (yup, I'm pretty tall to go with my girth!) but I'm also a pretty casual dresser.  I like wearing jeans and Birkenstocks and smocky-type T-shirt tops.  Secretly I probably like to think I dress a tad on the bohemian side but the reality is more driven by comfort, scruffiness and a general lacksadasical attitude to looking smart.  However, I've recently come across two blogs written by larger ladies who really put my style of dress to shame - they are both so smart, sassy and well-groomed that it's made me think a bit more carefully about what I wear out in public.  They are both such wonderfully pretty girls with such amazing senses of style that I feel I definitely must make more of an effort.  The blogs are: Frocks and Frou Frou from Australia and Le Blog de Big Beauty who is in France.  I particularly like Le Blog's tagline 'Le style n'est pas une taille mais une attitud'  even with my ungraded 'O' Level in French (yes, I really was THAT bad at French!) I can understand what that says - and I totally agree.

A Bit of a Glut

 
All the fruit trees in the garden have gone into overdrive this summer.  We have a imminent glut of nearly-ripe plums.

 
There are so many plums on this tree that we've had to prop one branch up with a piece of wood to stop it collapsing under the weight.  I can foresee A LOT of stewed plums and low-fat custard on the horizon very shortly.  Don't think I'll make any more plum jam this year as we still have some jars left from the lot I made two years ago. I am thinking of preserving some of them in Kilner jars with port though.  I did that as well two years ago and those plums were very tasty and very welcome in the middle of the following winter.

 
I have never seen so many pears as we've got growing this season.  That's no problem for me though as I adore pears and am more than happy to eat them one by one as they ripen.

 
Even the apple trees are bowed down with the weight of all that fruit.  There'll be a lot of sharing out of the bounty with the neighbours as well as eating lots and lots of fruit in the coming months.  Ah well, at least fruit is good for us - and has no saturated fats either so my gall bladder will be very happy - plus, even better, it's all food for free.

For a While There I Thought it Was Going to Be Rubbish

Lovely weather for the car boot sale again this morning and because of that there were plenty of sellers and buyers already milling around when I arrived.  Several rows in and I had a horrible feeling that it was going to turn out to have been a waste of time going there as I had bought nothing.  All that seemed to be for sale were baby toys and / or clothes, well-worn Primark and Asda tops - usually in a size 8 or 10!! - and a lot of cheap trashy paperbacks and second-hand videos.  No, it was not shaping up to be a good morning at all. 

 
Then, all of a sudden, my fortunes changed I came across a stall selling this unbelievable magenta-pink padded (and my goodness me this puppy is well padded) quilted and embroidered tea cosy.  At the princely sum of 10p I bought it for the 'wow' factor alone.

 
Also on this stall were a large bundle of wooden hangers (I'm thinking knitted hanger covers on these) for 40p.

 
Two rather nice linen tea towels - 20p each. 

 
I'm particularly liking these  1970s graphics and am seriously considering hanging on to this one.

 
A pair of vintage Dents ladies gloves - 10p.

 
 
And, taking my cue from the wonderful Vix, these two 1970s M&S nylon blouses.  They were 50p each and I thought I'd given them a whirl on ebay.

 
I also found two T-shirts for my nephew.  This NBA one is apparently all the way from the US of A. 

 

 They were both 50p each.

 
Also for my nephew a rather unpleasant looking masked Lego figure - 20p. 

 
Fifteen various David Hockney print postcards - £1.50.  I love David Hockney's work and thought these were beautiful images.  They'd look lovely all framed together somehow.

 
And, of course, the usual selection of various toiletries for myself.  £1.00 the lot.  So, all in all, the boot sale turned out to be really good in the end despite the very inauspicious start.

Linking up with Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday post.