Making Good Use

A Loo With a View

 

Hard to believe,  I know, but this stunning vista is the view from the loo in P's childhood home.

And this one is from the same window but with the camera pointing in the other direction.  Nice, eh?  

Switzerland was, as always, breath-takingly beautiful.  Only downside was, both P and I have come back with awful colds and chest infections.  I'll be back with more photos from rural Switzerland just as soon as I stop hacking and coughing and feeling somewhat scheisse.

You Just Never Know What You'll Find

Our local charity shops have been less than stellar lately - with the exception of the denim skirt I've spent all summer searching for and finally found on Monday!!  As I had to go to the High Street anyway this morning, I though I'd just have a quick nosey as I was passing their doors.  Well, whadda you know, I came across vintage sewing pattern gold.

There was a huge box of patterns and they were only 20p each.  I spent some considerable time going through them and eventually came away with 20.  Quite a few were of the not-so-flattering 1980's variety and some were obviously missing vital pieces but many of them were just gorgeous.

Here's what I came home with - most are from the 1960's but a few are even older - and some never seem to have been used at all.  There are women's, girls and boys patterns and  I was  very very pleased with my haul, I can tell you.

I'm off to Switzerland at the weekend to spend some time in P's home town in the mountains.  Es ist eine sehr schone landschaft (I think that's the correct phrase) and I'll be taking my camera so watch out for lots of photos of mountains, lakes and small-town Switzerland next week.

Simply the Best

Saturday saw the bestest jumble sale in Essex take place at the scout hut in Shenfield.  By gum, those Shenfield scouts always have a humungous amount of items at their twice-yearly jumbles - and an appropriately large turnout of punters in response.  Despite a horrendous half-hour drive to get there - seemed like every idiot driver in the area had taken to the road at the same time as us - it was well worth the effort of going there, as always.

Amongst two huge bag loads of 'stuff' I came away with some much needed face wash and another unopened Body Shop body butter for myself.

A Sammy vintage gents scarf and three pairs of ladies fancy evening gloves - all found lurking in the bottom of a cardboard box that everyone else seemed to be ignoring, so I had a good rootle around in it and was most pleased with what I found.

Another jigsaw for my Mum.  They had piles and piles of jigsaws but mainly of the 1,000 or 2,000 piece variety so this was the only 500 piece one I thought Mum would like.

Some rather nice vintage linens.  I also snaffled a pair of lovely Habitat embroidered placemats for me and a gorgeous vintage Christmas tablecloth which has a bit of a stain on one edge that I'm trying to get rid of.

A pair of splendiferous Danish cufflinks for P which I don't think have ever been taken out of their box.

An unopened Accessorize vest and pants set.

An unopened long stitch embroidery kit.

I also came home with a huge stack of books, four T-shirts for my nephew, a Hackett mens suit and a vintage maxi-length Indian block-print wraparound skirt which needs a teensy bit of a repair before it can be ebayed. 

Then today, as the icing on the cake of a splendid thrifting weekend, I found THE denim skirt I've been looking for all summer in a local charity shop.  It cost me £2.75 and fits like a dream.  Pity it's the wrong season to wear it but it won't eat or drink anything in the wardrobe until next summer!!

Cheerio Cathode Ray Tube, Hello High Definition

After seven and a half years, our clunky (check out the depth of that thing) old cathode ray tube telly finally bit the dust last weekend.  It was incredibly cheap when we bought it and replaced a portable tv that we'd been peering at from across the room, for which you practically needed a microscope to see the screen.  When we bought it we were very pleased as it was a huge improvement on what we'd had before.  But in those seven and a half years tellys have improved in leaps and bounds and for the last three or four years we've been longing for it to finally konk out so that we could - conscience-free - buy a new HD widescreen tv.

Financially-speaking we could have ordered a new widescreen telly whenever we'd wanted to but neither of us felt comfortable with jetissoning something that was still working just for a whim (which probably explains why we're still driving round in a 23-year-old car too!!)  Both of us have the somewhat old-fashioned notion that if it ain't broke, we don't fix it.  Which was fine, but didn't stop us from longing for the telly to break.  I may even have cheered when it became obvious that the 'tube' had finally gone for a burton and was only giving us pictures in eye-popping green and red. 

After four telly-free days when I discovered that you can actually watch BBC TV 'live' on the BBC website (who knew, I certainly didn't!!), and a marathon Rummy tournament (yay, I won!!) which brought back many happy memories of playing cards with my family when I was little, a super-duper, all-singing, all-dancing brand-new HD widescreen tv was delivered yesterday afternoon.

By gum, it's fantastic.  We hadn't realised just how bad the picture on our old telly was until we watched the BBC HD channel yesterday evening - it was a-may-zing.  At long last we get to see ALL of the action, read ALL of the titles and credits and, for P, manage to see the football at ALL times during a footie match.  And, as an added bonus, this new slimline telly even makes our very ancient mid-century modern coffee table - which is what the tv stands on - look likes it's got a new lease of life too.   We are thrilled, absolutely thrilled - it may even have been worth waiting seven and a half years for -  and are now going to (eventually) rewatch our entire DVD collection in glorious HD widescreen technicolour!!

Sweet

For several reasons it's been a really good 'sweet' weekend.  I've had my second best ever ebay sale (only bettered by selling a Christina Aguilera concert ticket that I'd won - and that was some years ago), it didn't rain on Sunday so I was able to go to the boot sale, and there was an unexpectedly good jumble sale on Saturday morning.  I didn't buy a huge amount but I was thrilled with some of the items I found.

Like this 1950's rose-print dress by 'St Michael.'  The label says it is a size 22 but no way on earth would this dress fit a modern-day size 22 - it's more like a 16 or 18.  It is literally 30 years since I last found a 1950's dress at a jumble sale (and on that occasion I found about four of them which my sister then wore for a long time afterwards.)  I rarely come across any vintage clothing but on Saturday I found quite a bit.

There was also this gorgeous Mad Men-esque shift dress and matching three-quarter sleeve jacket.  Somebody handmade this suit and made a beautiful job of it too.  It's also quite a large size so I'm guessing it may have come from the same place as the rose-print dress.

A much smaller sized 1970's Missoni-esque print dress in very eye-catching colours.

And a 1970's Canda (C&A - took me years to work out Canda spelt C and A!!) bubble-gum pink showerproof mac.

At the boot sale I bought a set of five red and white striped ceramic handles / knobs.  They were originally priced at £3.00 for the set and I was tempted but as I put them down again the woman on the stall said I could have them for £1.00 - so I did!!  I've nowhere to actually use them at the moment but they were just too nice to leave behind.

Plus, I bought myself an across-body bag in some gorgeous autumnal colours - also for £1.00.

And, as the icing on the cake of a very good weekend, our crapulous old 21 inch telly finally, finally bit the dust.  We have been praying for that thing to konk out for years so that we'd be able to buy a widescreen TV.  A 32-inch widescreen HD with integrated Freeview has now got our name on it and should be delivered on Thursday.  Yay, at last we'll get to watch the whole of a programme and not miss half the titles and credits and a good portion of the action!!

Still Holding Off ....

.... putting the central heating on.  Thanks to the el crapo terrible weather of the last week or so, it has become more and more tempting to flick the switch and turn on the central heating.  So far we've held out by wearing a minimum of three layers and huddling round an electric radiator in the living room during the evenings.  P has taken to wearing his knitted hat at all times (including in bed) when he's in the house, often with the hood of his hoodie pulled up over it.  I'm going to crack open the winter pyjamas tonight as I've been somewhat chilly in bed recently.  The summer was so bad this year that we never did change to a lighter duvet but maybe the time is rapidly approaching when we'll have to have the double layer of duvet again.

It's not too bad during the day when I keep moving but in the evening it is bl**dy freezing.  And as for showering in an unheated bathroom - well, brass monkeys having nothing on it!!  Of course, no central heating means no hot water in this house (apart from the electric shower - thank goodness for that!!) so I'm still having to boil several kettle loads of water every time I wash up or do any clothes washing by hand. 

Why are we torturing ourselves like this you may ask?  Well, a few years ago now we managed to have a gas bill for the summer quarter which was £0.00 - absolutely zero (still never figured out quite how that worked as the hob in the kitchen is gas but never mind.)  Ever since then I've been longing to get another zero gas bill - though I think the sneaky gits at British Gas have changed the way the quarters run which makes it all the more difficult.  Can we hold out long enough - hmm, not sure really, it all depends on just how nippy the weather gets.  Tell you what, though, if we do manage another zero gas bill, I'll be framing the damned thing!!

Improvisation

It's hard to believe with the amount of food I lug in every week that I could find myself totally out of tinned tomatoes.  But that was what happened late this afternoon as I was about to add what is a somewhat vital ingredient into the bubbling pan of Chachouka (made with ordinary hens eggs and not duck eggs here.)   I could have sworn I'd got at least two tins somewhere but evidently not!  B*ggerations!!

I searched every shelf in the kitchen (just in case I'd erroneously stored a stray tin with the tinned fruit) and then I moved on to search everywhere else in the house that could possibly be hiding a tin of tomatoes (in the large wooden cupboard in the hall, both under and in the sideboard in the dining room - all places where tinned and packet foodstuffs can be found lurking due to lack of storage space in our teeny tiny kitchen.)  Sadly, no tins of tomatoes came to light.  At this point desperation was setting in and I knew it was time for some improvisation.  I found I had two jars of pasta sauce - one specifically for bolognese and one claiming to have mediterranean vegetables.  Having squinted to read the ingredients of both jars (do they have to print those things so damned small!), I opted for the veggie one as that only contained onions, peppers (also a vital ingredient in Chachouka) and courgettes.

Well, it worked OK-ish.  I had to up the quantity of smoked paprika to try and mask the taste of basil but other than that it was alright.  Come Monday morning, I shall be stocking up with at least half-a-dozen tins of chopped tomatoes from Aldi and checking what other vital ingredients I'm low on and adding those to my list too.

Thrifting - It's Not All Flim Flam and Fripperies

I do pick up a lot of fripperies when thrifting - some for me to keep and some to sell on.  There are all sorts of bits and bobs that catch my eye at the boot sale and when they only cost 20p or 50p they inevitably end up coming home with me.  Some I keep for a long time, some I think better of almost immediately and they get donated to a local charity shop.   However, just lately, I seem to have a good run at finding really useful, sensible, practical items.

There was, of course, the wonderfully timely find of a hot air brush a couple of weeks ago which I definitely consider as a useful item (though maybe some would say it is just a frippery!!)  There was also a haul of unopened packs of washing-up gloves (Vileda, no less) at 10p a pair.  I get through washing-up gloves at a fairly brisk pace (I seem to manage to stab the fingers with a fork on a frequent basis!!) so I was very pleased to find those.  Especially as the last pack of three pairs that I bought from Aldi - which I discovered are rather more expensive than I'd realised at £1.40 per pack - had a hole in the first pair I pulled from the pack.  My 10p-a-pair haul should last for a nice long while.

At the weekend I got two large bottles of liquid soap at 50p each - which, when added to stash I've got from the Co-op's current 'buy one get two free offer', means I've probably got enough liquid soap supplies for the next couple of years.

Yesterday at the 'Coffee and Jumble' I found an unopened pack of five zip-up suit covers.  Not something I would have automatically gone out and bought but when I saw them I realised they'd come in very useful as a lot of our 'posh' clothes are getting very dusty just from hanging in the wardrobe.  Also, I've been worrying and fretting about moths getting into my Icelandic cardigan (I've been taking it out every couple of weeks and shaking it vigorously just in case!!) and now it's all nicely zipped up in it's own cover - safe, I hope, from the ravages of the HUGE moth population we seem to have in this house.  I paid £2.00 for the pack of suit covers - which is pretty top-whack for the 'Coffee and Jumble' - but I realised after I got them home that those things cost an awful lot more to buy retail.

Also found at the 'C&J' was a new Venetian blind cleaner - a funny looking object with three furry prongs - which turned out to be wonderfully effective on the one and only Venetian blind in the house.  I'm ashamed to say that the bloomin' thing was so dusty that after one use the - luckily detachable - furry cover is going to have to be washed!!  Ahem!!  That useful object cost me all of 50p.

What sensible, useful, practical items have you thrifted recently?

A Few Bits & Bobs

It was bloomin' cold at the boot sale this morning, with rather a strong wind blowing.  For the first time in aaaaages, I could have done with wearing a jumper or a jacket (or even both).  As there had been no boot sale last week there were a lot of sellers - but sadly not many selling anything I wanted to buy.

There was this assortment of toiletries for me - all 50p each (my 'usual' price for toiletries!!) and all new and unopened.

Two brand-new Hobbs pure silk polda dot scarves - 50p each.  These are destined for ebay because much as I would like to be someone who can nonchalantly wear a silk scarf with aplomb, unfortunately I never seem to be able to pull it off.  Don't know why really, but I'm guessing my very short / practically non-existent neck may have something to do with it!!

A selection of very sweet vintage transfers / decals.  If I remember correctly, I think my sister had some very like these on her cot when she was a baby.  They were 20p each.

A vintage Irish linen tea towel featuring alpine plants - 60p - which I'm thinking I may use in a sewing project at some point.

And another 60p vintage linen tea towel which I think is lovely.  I'd quite like to frame this one somehow as I really like the dolls in national costume print.  I was a very keen collector of costume dolls when I was little and this really reminds me of some of the ones I used to have.

For the first time in ages I've linked this post to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday.

Warm Weekend Weather = Winter Wollens Washing

We had such a gloriously hot and sunny weekend that it prompted me to get out the winter woollens - hats, scarves, gloves and get them all washed and dried whilst the going was good.  Not content with that, I also gave some of the knitted and patchwork blankets a good wash too.

I knitted this patchwork blanket four years ago and it has proved useful time and time again on chilly evenings.  It's just the thing for putting over your legs for a bit of extra warmth - especially on those autumn evenings when it's not cold enough to put the central heating on.  I knitted it up from all sorts of odds and ends of wool that I got from charity shops and it took me most of that summer (and approx. £15.00) to complete.  I love having it draped over me on cold winter days and remembering how nice and warm the weather was and how light and bright the evenings were when I was actually knitting it.

This quilted blanket tends to live on the bed in the winter and is quite handy for giving just a bit of extra warmth when it's really nippy at night.  I think I made this one about three years ago.  The front was made from a pile of patchwork pieces my Mum found in one of her wardrobes, the back is a piece of vintage sheeting that I had in my stash and the 'batting' is an Ikea picnic blanket that I got in a charity shop years ago.  This one cost pennies to make and came together really nicely.  The gorgeous colours and prints warm up any winter's night.