Making Good Use

Festival of Quilts

P's sister will be exhibiting a collection of Embroidered Wedding Blankets from Southern Iraq at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC, Birmingham, over the next four days.  Her article all about them (above) was published in the May/June 2010 issue of Selvedge magazine.  If anyone is going to be at the Festival do pop along and have a look at these beautiful blankets and have a chat with Annamarie who is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about them.  She will be on stand F18 - Gardens of Eden of Mesopatamia.

I'm hoping to visit on Friday as I'd like to catch up with Annamarie and see these embroidered blankets for myself and I'd also like to hear the talk being given by Jane Brocket.

What I Did on My Holiday

I know I wasn't strictly 'on holiday' but having my sister and nephew to stay, and getting to go out and about with them, was nicer than actually going away.  I had a lovely time and didn't even have to pack a suitcase.

Fortuitously, we went off to Southend on Sea on Wednesday, which was a piece of good luck as it was the only warm day out of the six days they were here. 

My nephew just loves Southend and spends hours just splashing around in the sea.  Having had a very quick paddle myself, I've no idea how he can immerse himself in such chilly water for so long but he can, and he really enjoys himself.

Thursday was spent at the Tower of London.  Both my sister and I enjoyed ourselves but my nephew pronounced it 'boring' and said the best part of the visit was the guidebook I bought him!!  Although it was a tad chilly, we were lucky that it wasn't actually raining most of the day - the thought of all those tourists armed with dripping umbrellas would be the stuff of nightmares.  The queue to see the Crown Jewels was just too long to even contemplate standing in it, but the Bloody Tower, Traitor's Gate and the White Tower were all easy to see and very interesting.

The ravens were in place but I was disappointed to discover that they clip their wings to stop them flying away (legend has it that if the ravens ever leave the Tower then England will fall.)  Mind you, with accommodation as luxurious as this I'm not surprised they don't want to leave!

Friday was somewhat monsoon-like weather-wise so we went to an indoor soft-play area in Basildon.  It was a great day for all of us as my sister and I could sit down and have a really nice lunch and a long chat, whilst my nephew threw himself around the equipment with the sort of energy only a seven-year-old can possess.

Saturday was another trip to London - this time to see the well-worth-a-visit Winston Churchill's Britain at War Experience.  We all enjoyed this a great deal. 

There were all sorts of things to interest my nephew - especially all the uniforms he could try on - and wonderful displays and artefacts that my sister and I enjoyed too. 

 

The highlight of the whole thing is the 'Blitz Experience' which was very well done.  Unlike the Tower of London, there weren't too many crowds and it was wonderful to be able to take our time and look around without being pushed and shoved all the time.

A packed lunch was eaten by the Thames with this fabulous picture-postcard view to enjoy.

After lunch, it was on with the 'war' theme of the day and a visit to the Imperial War Museum.  This was just the place for my nephew - tanks, cannons, submarines etc as far as the eye could see.  The building itself was spectacular and both my sister and I wondered what it had originally been - a quick Google search revealed it used to be part of the old Bethlem Royal Hospital, more commonly known as 'Bedlam'. 

There was also a Wartime Farm exhibit in the grounds with live animals (except for the try-your-hand-at-milking-a-cow model - that was plastic), which he also enjoyed greatly.  

Sunday was the car boot sale (see yesterday's post) and a barbecue in the evening and then yesterday I waved them off on the train back to Bristol.  Those six days went by so quickly, we all had a wonderful time and I was really sad to see them go.

Company at the Car Boot

When I go to a car boot sale, I'm usually looking round on my own - which is fine - but this week I had the lovely treat of looking round with other people - and not just any other people, these were my sister and my nephew. 

I was really pleased that my seven-year-old nephew had actually asked to go to the car boot sale again (he went last year and made a bit of a fuss about going but loved it when he was there) and he seemed to enjoy himself a great deal again this year, having come home with half a dozen or so revolting looking action figures (think aliens meet spiders meet dinosaurs type objects) which he was mighty pleased with.  As none of them cost more than 50p his Mummy was pretty pleased too.  We also managed to find him a navy blue tracksuit for PE at his new junior school - the right size, right colour, made by Umbro and only £3.00.  When my sister had said she'd really like to find a navy tracksuit for him at the boot sale I had my doubts that we'd be that lucky but, amazingly, we found exactly what we were looking or.

I found a lovely duvet cover for £2.00.  It was on top of a pile of other linens and when I asked how much it was the reply was 'oh that, it's pretty new but I've been using it to pile clothes on at the boot sales (??), would £2.00 be OK?'  Why would someone use a newish duvet cover for something like that?  Ah well, it's aleady washed, dried and on the bed - and jolly nice it looks too.

The usual toiletries (stocking up now for the coming winter when there won't be any boot sales.)  60p each for the Avon shower gels and 50p for the Next one.

Two Ikea cushion covers - 20p each.  I've done quite well with selling Ikea cushion covers on eBay lately and thought I'd take a punt with these.  Also bought for re-sale were a couple of really plus-sized Evans clothes - 50p for one top and £1.00 for the other.  It's a pity one of the tops is so large as I'd love to wear it myself.  Hopefully, it'll sell well and I can use the money I make to buy myself something else instead.

Especially for Mandma

As I couldn't manage to send any photos as attachments to my Mum (aka Mandma) from our day out yesterday, this short blog post is for her.  Enjoy, Mum!

 
 

Not So Grumpy Today

 

 

 

Several reasons to definitely NOT be grumpy today.  One, this photo of Lily looking particularly stupid (sorry, Mum, but this one does make her look super dopey) which gave me a really good laugh yesterday evening.

 

And, two, my sister and nephew have unexpectedly decided to bring their visit to Essex forward to today - instead of next week - which was a brilliant surprise and will certainly ensure I won't be grumpy for the next few days.

 

 

 

Grumpy

In the past couple of days one or two things have been making me really grumpy.  Perhaps it's my age (I'm well into the 'Grumpy Old Woman' age bracket now,) perhaps it's the thought of summer drawing to a close, or perhaps it's just me.  But whatever it is certain things really been getting on my nerves.  Here are some of the highlights.

There's the fact that the local health food shop had no quinoa in stock ('it'll be in next Tuesday') and only one tin of chick peas on the shelf.  I knew what the answer to my question, 'Have you got any more tins of chick peas in the stock room?' would be - 'they'll be in next Tuesday.'   And that was last Thursday!!  I have to admit to having voiced my disapproval quite loudly on my way out.  Really, are a couple of tins of organic chick peas and a bag of quinoa too much to ask for?  And are they really that keen to stay in business?

Then, also last Thursday, our gas bill arrived.  How the heck can we have spent over £71.00 on gas since the end of April when a) no gas has been used at all since the end of May and b) neither P nor I were at home for part of May and if we had the heating on a couple of evenings the rest of the time that was all!  Gordon Bennett - I wish I'd framed the zero gas bill I once managed to achieve during the summer months.  (And, in case anyone was wondering, yes, the meter was read so the gas usage is presumably correct.)

A very protracted and frustrating fight with the local council to get them to do something about the git who's running a motor bike training school in the garage next door.  We've finally got the council to issue a relocation notice but that doesn't come into effect until 30th October.  So that means another three months of being woken up really early every weekend and Bank Holiday plus having all sorts of noise and unsavoury-looking strangers lurking around practically outside our front door at any hour from 7.00 am through to 9.45 pm.  

If we'd given up the fight after the first reply from the council - 'the business causes no impact on the neighbours and therefore no planning permission is required' (Really!  Try living in our house then!) - we'd have been stuck with them for ever and a day.   As it was, both P and I were so annoyed by the council's ludicrous attitude that we fought and fought to get a different verdict, writing letter after letter and e-mail after e-mail and keeping a diary of the goings on for 10 days (at the planning officer's request.)  Apparently though, we shouldn't celebrate just yet as often people ignore relocation notices and carry on regardless.  Oh joy!!

Then there's the time-wasting ebay buyer who's bought a relatively expensive item and strings me along for weeks, promising payment.  Of course they have sent a cheque but it's not arrived (yeah, right) so now they have to stop the cheque (OK, I'll believe you) and once that happens they'll be paying by Paypal.  Just admit you're not going to pay and let me relist the item you numpty!

To top it all off, I couldn't get to the car boot sale yesterday and keep imagining all the wonderful bargains I missed. 

Apologies for the whinging!!  And the excessive use of exclamation marks. I hope to be in a much more positive frame of mind tomorrow.

Housekeeping

I'm not the world's greatest housekeeper and often let things slide until they become so noticeable that even I can't miss the fact that something or other needs tidying or cleaning.  Several completely different things have really been driving me mad lately - neither of which were tasks I really relished doing but, needs must etc, and I've finally got round to doing one of them and am halfway through the other.

First up was the dreadful state of the loo!!  Despite very regular cleaning there has been a humungous build-up of limescale which has made it look really grungy.  I've tried all sorts of preparatory cleaners to try and shift the marks but nothing had worked.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered an episode of 'How Clean is Your House?'  that mentioned tackling such stains with a wooden spoon. 

So, with great reluctance, this morning I armed myself with old rubber gloves, an old wooden spoon, a brillo pad, a J-cloth and a small glass jar and proceeded to scoop the water out of the loo.  Not a pleasant task it has to be admitted, but not as bad as I'd been fearing.  Next up was a good old scrub with the wooden spoon and some cream cleaner and, as if by magic, the limescale began to come off.  Half an hour later and the loo looked almost as good as new.  I doubt I can stop the limescale building up again as we live in a very hard water area but for the time being I'm well pleased with the result.

The second housekeeping task is much cleaner, if a tad heavier.  It's housekeeping only in the sense of tidying up and double-checking all the books I've got listed for sale on Amazon and which are stored in the large bookcase in the dining room. 

For a long time I've had my suspicions that some of the books stored there are no longer listed and that some of them should be removed for sale anyway.  It's a slow process as it invovles carrying armfuls of books up and down stairs so that I can check them on the computer.  As I feared, a whole load have been taken off Amazon but, on a positive note, I've also found a couple that weren't listed for sale which now have been.  I've also been amending prices - usually downwards - in the hope that I'll actually sell some of the blighters.  After all, they're only gathering dust where they are!!  And don't mention dust to me as there are plenty of areas in the house that really do need a serious dust down.  I'll leave that joyous task for another day!

Rain

For the first time in what seems like weeks and weeks and weeks it's actually raining.  Proper dripping- from-the-gutters rain.  We've had the odd light shower but not enough to stop the grass drying up until it's now just a miserable, dull brown, crispy covering of the earth, and never enough for me to need to use an umbrella.  I've still got a beautiful Shanghai Tang brolly waiting to be used that P brought me back from Hong Kong in March.

And the smell, that fabulous dampening down of dust smell that only comes after a prolonged dry spell - it's so fresh and clean.  If it wasn't raining quite so hard I'd open all the windows just to experience that smell.

I know many parts of the UK have had an incredibly wet and miserable July but here in Essex, although it has been grey skies for much of the time, there has been really no rain at all.  So much so that last week at the car boot sale I noticed that the earth was beginning to crack wide open in the drought-like conditions.  Having lived in Essex for a few years now I can certainly see why it has the reputation of being the driest county in England.

A fabulously violent burst of thunder and lightening has just started up too.  Brilliant, I love a good thunder storm!

Because Sometimes I Am So Dense

I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person but sometimes, just sometimes, I can be so dense I even amaze myself.  A couple of recent examples are:

Why has it taken me so long to realise that it is MUCH MUCH cheaper to rent a DVD from the local library (£1.50 for a week) than it is to rent one from the local DVD hire shop (£3.00 for 24 hours.)  And not only that, the local library has a humungous selection of really fabulous DVDs, and they're all beautifully arranged in alphabetical order by title.  The local DVD hire shop on the other hand, seems to specialise in just flinging the DVDs back on the shelves any-old-how which means you have to spend ages just trying to find something that isn't a horror film, British gangster film, or something else that sounds like only the 'geeks' behind the counter would want to watch.  I can see me dusting off my library card and making a lot of use of it over the coming months.  'Julie and Julia' is top of my must-see list at the moment.

And why, when I have an apple tree bursting at the seams with fresh apples, do I start berating myself for having forgotten to buy a jar of apple sauce to go with the pork chops we're having for tea tonight?  A couple of minutes in the garden with a walking stick ('cos the biggest of the apples are always just out of reach at the top of the tree) and couple more minutes of peeling and chopping, et voila! apple sauce that cost nothing.  (And I hate to say that it took me some considerable time to have the 'brainwave' of stewing the apples from the garden!!)

I think the German's have a phrase for that sort of dimness - Dumkopf!

Sunday Bargains

Another perfect day weather-wise this week for the car boot sale on Sunday, which meant lots and lots of both sellers and buyers.  There were so many sellers that I only really managed to get round about half of the field in just under an hour (my next-door neighbours had given me a lift so time was a tad limited.)  Despite this, I managed to find a few useful things.

Six different T-shirts for my nephew, including this Dr Who one (although I'm not absolutely sure it might not originally have been a pyjama top) - £2.50 for all six.

A Jenga game for £1.00.  Bought this with my nephew's visit in mind but it might be quite fun for P and I to play as well.

A knit-your-own sheep kit.  I know this is primarily for children but I quite fancied knitting a couple of mini sheep for myself - £1.00.

And a DVD of 'The Ship That Rocked.'  I've been wanting to see this film for ages so was really pleased to find a DVD of it for only £1.00.

I also came across somebody selling loads of interesting looking books that I hoped would be good for resale.   I paid £3.00 in total for 10 books, listed two on Amazon straight away and sold one of those yesterday evening for £11.50 - result!  Two of the others are now listed on Greenmetropolis and the others I'm going to check to see if they're any good for eBay.