I do think it's true that (some) of the best things in life are free - like this uber-stunning sunset this evening. All the wispy high clouds were turned a beautiful peachy-pink by the rays of the setting sun whilst the sky became a paler and paler blue. What a glorious sight and all laid on for free by Mother Nature.
I set off for the Thursday car boot sale this morning in the hope that I'd find a few more tops for my nephew, which I did - two long-sleeve T-shirts, one short-sleeved one and an over-the-head Le Coq Sportif hooded top (all 50p or £1.00 each) and possibly some more toiletries for my stocking-up-for-winter hoard
Which I also found - Slazenger Spa shower gel, Me to You shower gel, and Body Shop Coconut shower gel - all three for £1.00, plus a pot of Body Shop Almond Oil Hand Rescue, brand new, £1.00.
What I had not expected to come home with was a fab-u-lous new handbag for myself. Now, I'm not really a shoes and handbag sort of gal - most fashionable shoes would never fit my swollen hooves in a million years, and I'm quite happy with my Birkenstock sandals in the summer - and handbags, well, they're alright but they don't really float my boat. Except Radley handbags. I just L-O-V-E Radley bags. I don't know what it is about them that I find so appealing - although I think the Scottie dog logo may have something to do with it - plus the fact that they are very stylish and very well made.
So, when I found this little beauty for sale I had a sneeking suspicion it would end up coming home with me. When I first found it I asked the price and it was £20 - which is fair enough for a Radley bag (apparently it had been £25 earlier in the morning). I hummed and haa'd and put it back and carried on looking round. On my way out I went back and asked if the seller would accept an offer (not something I usually do at a boot sale) and we eventually agreed on £18. The seller told me it had originally cost over £100 - which I can well believe as anything made by Radley is tres expensive. I am thrilled with it - although really shouldn't have been lashing out £18 on anything at the moment as my finances are a bit the worse for wear. But, blow it, for once I was going to treat myself and I'm blooming glad I did.
Well, September has started in a glorious blaze of sunshine and clear blue skies - how different from the majority of August - and, finally, my tomatoes are starting to ripen. I only had two small 'patio' tomato plants this year as I kept hoping we'd be moving house before it would be time to harvest them. Sadly, that hasn't happened. If I'd known we'd still have been here in September I'd have planted half a dozen full-size tomato plants too.
The apple tree is groaning with fruit even though I've already used a heck of a lot in apple crumble, apple pie and good old stewed apple. I'll bag some up and give them to the next-door neighbours and I think I'll have a go at the apple chutney recipe Caroline let me have a few weeks ago. I'd also like to go blackberrying sometime this weekend (if this glorious weather holds) and then I could make some blackberry and apple crumble (my favourite) and, perhaps, some blackberry jam.
The plum harvest has been very sparse this year but I did spot a cluster of really nice plums on Sunday when I was picking in some apples. P had to do the honours of getting them off the tree as they were really high up and needed a step ladder to reach them. They've been stewed up and turned into a plum fool this morning.
I'm still cutting salad leaves at a very steady rate although the dank August weather means they're definitely of the 'micro' variety at the moment. Nihil desperandum though, I'll sew a few more seeds of these in the hope that they'll keep on growing up until the first frosts. I have to say I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to start buying salad again - the last bag of salad leaves I bought tasted positively rank compared to my home-grown ones.
As it was a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, the weather was, of course, a tad on the miserable side. I didn't bother going to the boot sale on Sunday morning as the wind was near gale force and it was pretty chilly too. Monday morning was still windy but at least the sun was out so I thought I'd give the Bank Holiday boot sale a try. And you know what, it was quite good.
I found the usual range of shower gel and toiletries for me - a large bottle of Cotton Lavender shower gel, 50p, a Dunhill Fresh shower gel, 20p, and a perennial favourite, Body Shop White Musk shower gel, 50p.
I lashed out £2.00 on this sealed pot of moisturiser which I thought was something quite upmarket. Turns out it was made by Avon so I wasn't quite so pleased with that when I got it home - still cheaper than buying something like it new though.
A pair of tracksuit bottoms by Fruit of the Loom for my nephew and a Nike T-shirt for him too - both 50p. He's quite fond of saying 'Just Do It' so the logo on the front is rather appropriate for him!
A pair of hideously unattractive bootee slippers for me - £1.00. These are made by Cosy Feet and are specially designed for those of us with swollen feet and ankles. I know they're very expensive to buy new so I was pleased to find them and I'm sure they'll keep my hind paws lovely and warm during the winter - I do wish they were a bit more attactive to look at though.
I also managed to find a few books for re-sale, only one of which was any good on Amazon (although it was a VERY good find) so the rest have been listed on Greenmetropolis.
All in all, it was a surprisingly good haul considering the weather.
I've also linked this post to Thrift Share Monday over at Apron Thrift Girl.
I think the recent miserable weather may be responsible for my cooking frenzy over the past couple of days (who wants to eat summery salads when it's this cold and wet), or it could be inspiration after finally seeing 'Julie and Julia' on DVD last weekend - what a wonderful film. Whatever the reason, I seem to have spent a large chunk of time over the past few days in the kitchen.
There's been the trying-out of new recipes - Carrot Soup with Toasted Cumin (from an old Country Lving magazine). Haven't actually tasted this one yet but so far it's looking quite like the photo - which is always a plus with a new recipe.
Baking some old favourites - a Linda McCartney 'Oat and Raisin Biscuits' recipe. These are lovely and tasty and have hardly any fat or sugar in them so I'm assuming they're reasonably healthy. Healthier than any shop-bought biscuit anyway.
Cooking warming casserole-type dishes even though it's only August - tsk, whatever happened to summer? It's the second serving of Jamie Oliver's Beef Tagine recipe which we'll be having this evening (first portion was eaten on Wednesday) with plain quinoa. Last night I made a sausage and cider casserole, but minus the cider as I didn't have any! Instead I used bouillon for the stock and tickled it up with a teaspoonful of Marmite and some Lea & Perrins, and tres tasty it turned out too. And carrying on the warming autumn food theme will be another portion of apple crumble for pudding - using up some of the many many apples we've got in the garden.
I had a lovely surprise this morning when the postman knocked at the door with a mystery parcel addressed to me. When I opened it up I found this gorgeous Make -Do and Mend mug that both my sister and I had been admiring when we saw it in the Imperial War Museum shop. My sister had very kindly ordered one and had it sent to me as a thank-you for their stay with me the other week.
There are four different Make Do and Mend posters from WWII reproduced on it, and my particular favourite is the one that says 'Mend and Make-Do to Save Buying New.' How pertinent that is for today's economic time too.
It's just the sort of mug I like, big and chunky and able to hold a goodly amount of tea (hmm, a bit like me then really). Although at the moment I'm just going to admire it from afar before I get round to actually using it.
I came across the completed front for this little Matryoshka doll a couple of weeks ago (whilst having a very-unlike-me tidy up) and thought it seemed a shame not to, finally, finish making her. (In fact, a quick trawl through past blog posts tells me that she has been knocking around for the past three years!!) Miraculously, I still had enough of the same colour felt to make a back for her, then it was just a case of blanket stitching the two parts together and adding the stuffing. I made quite a few of these little dolls three years ago - and even managed to sell one on eBay - but I think this one will just get put with my small collection of wooden and china Matryoshkas, or maybe used as a pincushion - she would make quite a nice pincushion, I think.
Edited to add: I've linled this post over at Apron Thrift Girl's Make Share. In the spirit of 'Make Share' the floral part of the doll's dress was cut from a thrifted tea towel, the felt for her face is made from a thrifted piece of old blanket and her eyes are two little black beads which came from a humungous bag of beads thrifted years ago.
The thrift pickings have been decidedly thin these past few days. Thursday's car boot sale was only so-so and yesterday's wasn't much better either. Of course, I did manage to find a few reasonable bits and bobs.
Starting on Saturday morning with two balls of Iceland Lopi Wool - £1.00 each - courtesy of the local charity shop, and a copy of Stitch 'n' Bitch Happy Hooker - which has loads of lovely crochet patterns in it (must get on with trying to crochet) - 75p from the local second-hand shop.
Sunday's boot sale yielded a knitting folder stuffed with dolls' dresses knitting patterns, 27 in all, which I paid £4.00 for. These are all destined to be listed on eBay in the coming weeks as I've done reasonably well with selling these sorts of knitting patterns in the past, and I figured that even if they all sell for 99p only I'll still make a nice profit on this lot.
My other finds were strictly of the practical nature - iron hotplate cleaning pads (most definitely something my iron needs), 20p. A ball of string for 50p, which was handy as I've just this past week used up the last of the string I had. And the ubiquitous (for me) shower gel, a rather nicely-scented Lacoste one for 20p.
Finally, this morning I found this small bottle of Charles Worthington shampoo in the charity shop for 25p. I do like the Charles Worthington products so even though I don't need UV-protection on my hair (hah, chance would be a fine thing in the UK at the moment) I thought at that price I'd buy it anyway.
I suddenly realised yesterday, whilst walking round the boot sale, that there are probably only about another six weeks of boot sale season to go - and that depends very much on the weather!! Slim pickings or not, I shall really miss my Thursday and Sunday morning thrifting sessions when the season ends.
Edited to add: I've linked this post over at Apron Thrift Girl's 'Thrift Share Monday' - loads of interesting thrifty finds from this past weekend.
Both pairs of Board Shorts, that I made for my nephew earlier in the summer, needed running repairs. One pair in fact had split all along the crotch seam from front to back!! Apparently the day it happened my nephew happened to be wearing bright red boxer shorts and had to walk all the way home from the park with large flashes of red cotton appearing through the split seam with every step he took!
I'd promised I'd get the repairs done and would send the shorts back down to Bristol ASAP, so this morning I thought I'd get the sewing machine out. The first repair was being sewn up when I took my foot off the foot-pedal and found, to my absolute horror, that the machine was carrying on sewing - and at full speed!! What the heck?? I quickly disconnected the foot-pedal from the machine and tried to work out what was wrong with it. I tried squeezing it, blowing bits of dust out of it but nothing worked and every time I plugged it back in the machine was sewing away like crazy without me even toucing the foot-pedal.
I contemplated phoning the local sewing machine repair chap to get his advice, but then thought of how much he'd probably charge just to come and have a look and thought at least I'd have a go at sorting it out myself first. A quick search revealed the sewing machine's instruction booklet but there was nothing of any use in there. Next I got out the teeny-tiny little screwdriver that goes with the machine and began taking the foot-pedal apart. I figured it couldn't be that complicated inside the plastic box and once I'd finally got the screws out and the cover off (there was a touch of the Krypton Factor about that manoevure) I realised that the repair was pretty simple. As I'd suspected one of the parts had got jammed. I gave the workings a good old dust down with a tiny paintbrush (having failed to find the proper little brush that goes with the sewing machine,) removed lots of fluff and dust, put it all back together and, with huge relief, found I'd solved the problem.
So, finally, it was back to mending the shorts. Both crotch seams were sewn up again - and in some parts triple-stitched in the hope that this time they'll stay sewn up. I even managed to find a felt star in my 'felt bits' bag to cover up a hole that had appeared near the hem of one leg. I think it works quite well.
A rather disappointing Thursday boot sale today. I'm not sure why really as the weather was good, there were masses of buyers and sellers but, somehow, there wasn't much there that interested me. I came back with quite a few books to try for re-sale, but only one of those was any good. I got another large bottle of shower gel - winter toiletry hoarding is now setting in big-time - for 50p.
I also found DVD copies of two chick flicks that I've been wanting to see for ages. The first Sex and the City film and Suzie Gold - a British film, which is always a nice change. They were only £1.00 each which I thought was quite a bargain, especially as the Sex and the City DVD is still sealed. As P is still away until late Sunday evening, it gives me plenty of time to watch these before he gets home.
Oh, and the mahoosive-size top that I really liked from the boot sale on Sunday turns out to have a bit of damage so that won't be going on eBay. Which means I can have a go at taking it in to fit me. I only paid 50p so it won't be the end of the world if my reconstruction attempts don't work, but if they do I'll be mighty chuffed.