Making Good Use

Appley Dappley

The plums may have been absolute rubbish this year, but the apples are certainly making up for that.

The tree is positively groaning with frut and they are all ripening beautifully in the lovely hot, sunny weather we've got here at the moment.

I picked a large bagful this morning and every one was as nice on the inside (no creepy crawlies like there were in the plums) as they are on the outside.  It's stewed apple and custard for us for pudding this evening (and for quite a few more evenings to come I would imagine.)  I'm also wondering if apple vodka would be a possibility - yum!!

Just What I Needed

Sunday evening the hot air brush that I have had for YEARS (seriously, so many years I've no idea where it ever came from) sadly breathed it's last.  It didn't go out with a bang or even a whimper, it just stopped working.  Never mind, thought I, I'll have a perusal in Boots and get myself a new one - thinking, oh, how foolishly, that a new one would cost about £15.00.  Having searched the teeny tiny Boots in the high street I eventually found what I was looking for (right next to the door - no doubt a shoplifter's delight!!) and was astonished to find that a new hot air brush was going to set me back £44.99!!!!  Say, WHAT!!

So when I got home I thought I'd try a last ditch attempt to resurrect my old one and changed the fuse in the plug.  Unfortunately, still dead as the proverbial dodo.  Having chucked the old one in the bin I set to and had a perusal of hot air brushes on Amazon.  Their prices were much more reasonable - from £20.00 upwards - and I do have £20.00 of vouchers that I can cash in from the Valued Opinions website.  However, being the procrastinator that I am when it comes to spending money, I'd held off from cashing in my vouchers and actually placing an order.  Which was just as well because ....

what did I find at the Thursday boot sale this morning?  Only the exact thing I was looking for, barely used (the woman selling it had very short hair and the brush was too big for her to get her hair round,) complete with an extra brush head, a carrying case and all the literature that came with it, all for the extremely decent price of £3.00.  I don't think I've ever found just what I needed, just when I needed it at a boot sale before.  I was well chuffed, I can tell you!

Applique Labels

Some of the iron-on appliques I got at Sunday's boot sale were a bit too wee for making cards with, so I thought I'd use a few on some plain and boring luggage tags instead.

Having just sold one of my hand-knitted beanie hats to a lovely lady in Oslo (this is third beanie of mine she's bought and I can't tell you how delighted I am that some of my hats will be being worn around and about the beautiful city of Oslo this coming winter,) the little 'cute critter in a hat' label was just the ticket for this parcel.

I bought the 'thank you very much' stamp at the boot sale a few weeks ago.  It only cost £1.00 and I knew it'd come in handy at some point.

A Good Haul

Yesterday's boot sale gave me the best haul of the year so far (and, let's be honest, as it's now September, it will probably be the best haul of the rather dire 2012 boot sale season!!)

A really pretty large Readicut Rug Kit bedroom rug.  It's in lovely condition - though does need a bit of a wash - and I just loved the combination of pinks and violet.  Not entirely sure where I'm going to put it but for £3.00 I wasn't going to leave it behind.  I've got a nice fireside rug in the living room which I bought for £3.00 in a charity shop in Nottingham in 1996.  I hummed and hawed about spending £3.00  at the time but my Mum, who was visiting for the day, encouraged me to buy it and it has been proudly on display in every home we've lived in since.   I do like a nice fireside / bedside rug but they're not easy to find in good order these days.

I also found an unused Anchor embroidery kit for £1.00 (destined for ebay); two never-used oven gloves to replace the disgustingly grubby ones I have been using - £1.00 ; a set of Pecksniff's Lavender and Vetiver toiletries for me - £2.00.

A kitsch-tastic vintage melamine tray featuring the most startled-looking kitten I've ever seen - well worth the 50p price tag for the 'startled kitteh' value alone

Over 30 of these Japanese iron-on motifs - £2.00 the lot.  The stallholder had wandered off and left her husband in charge and he didn't know what price they should have been so he suggested £2.00 and I quickly agreed and scarpered.  These make lovely cards when ironed on to some recycled card stock so I was mighty chuffed to find them.

Then this morning at the 'Coffee and Jumble' I found this 1970's melamine chopping board.  It has had a hard life and I wouldn't want to use it to chop anything up on but I did really like the image and have been looking for something to stand hot saucepans on - and for 50p I reckon this'll do the job nicely.

Would You Haggle in a Charity Shop?

I was recently chatting to someone who was very proud of their ability to get a bargain.  He was telling me how he never pays the full price for anything and that he haggles whereever he can, including in charity shops.  Now, much as I have no problem with haggling on occasion at a car boot sale - though usually only if I'm buying more than one item from the same seller - the idea of haggling in a charity shop somewhat appalled me.

I've certainly been known to moan about the prices in some charity shops  (I recently saw the classic charity shop faux pas where they were selling a Primark T-shirt for £3.00 which had the original £2.00 Primark label still attached - that one made me smile).  I've also been know to bang on about about how some charity shops are trying to emulate upmarket boutiques - with hardwood flooring, smart chrome clothes rails and fancy-pants wooden clothes hangers - with the upmarket prices to match.  I have, indeed, been somewhat flabbergasted lately to find certain chain charity shops charging for their carrier bags - an outrageous developement in my opinion.  But, seriously, haggling in a charity shop? - to me that is taking bargain hunting a step too far.  After all, the clue to why they are there in the first place is in the name - they are raising money for charity.  If I don't like the price of an item in a charity shop (and often I don't!!) then I just don't buy it. 

What do you think, is it just me?  Do you haggle in charity shops? If you work in a charity shop, do people often try to haggle?  I'd really love to hear your opinions and / or experiences.

 

 

Spinach Soup

I'm not a great fan of spinach per se, but when I found a humungous bag of the stuff reduced to 10p in Sainsbury's on Tuesday, I thought I'd have a go at making some spinach soup. 

I had a look for recipes on the BBC Food website but most of them seemed to include double cream and / or brie or parmesan - not a lot of good for me and ye olde gall bladder!  So I sort of made it up as I was going along.  I fried off two VERY small organic onions and two garlic cloves, added a sweet potato (I think a 'normal' potato might have worked better but I was a bit short of those,) and the whole bag of spinach.  There was also 400ml of hot water and a chicken stock cube to cook it all down with.  Finally, just before serving, I added some semi-skimmed milk (as a nod to the double cream that apparently should have been in there), a teensy bit of grated nutmeg and some black pepper.

It was super cheap and very tasty - if a trifle GREEN!!

Bank Holiday Boot Sale Bargains - and a Bird

Let's start with the good bits of the Bank Holiday weekend, I managed to get to two boot sales - one on Sunday and one on Monday.  I got the above selection of toiletries for the grand total of £2.50.  The large bottle of M&S organic handwash was particularly timely as we are just about to run out of the 20p bottle I got at a summer fete in June.  (That particular one retails for £2.03 in Sainsbury's I discovered recently - which made my 20p bottle a brilliant bargain.  Not that I'd have paid £2.03 for a bottle of handwash, but still!!)

Also on the toiletries front were a large bottle of Body Shop shower gel - 50p - and, also 50p, an unopened tub of Body Shop body butter.  As the body butter retails for £12.50, that was a stonking good bargain. 

My favourite find of the weekend though was this Swedish Dala horse for 50p. 

He is a little battered, especially around the ears, but he goes very nicely with the smaller blue one that I found last summer at the same boot sale.

On to the not so good part of the Bank Holiday weekend.  Some half-wit, cretinous, imbecile collar dove / wood pigeon-type bird had kamikazed down our bedroom chimney and wedged itself in there.   Some half-wit, cretinous, imbecial human had, at some point, stuffed said chimney with old black sacks stuffed with styrofoam.  I imagine this was done to a) stop birds falling down the chimney (that was a fail, then,) or, b) to stop howling gales whistling down the chimney in the winter.  Either way, you would not believe the mess it made trying to get it all out to release the bird. 

By Sunday evening we could see both daylight up the chimney and the bird's tail feathers.  Fast forward to Monday lunchtime and the idiot bird is still stuck up there, though we knew it was alive as it kept turning round.  By Monday afternoon it had finally freed itself (along with a goodly amount of masonry from inside the chimney!!) and was waddling around the bedroom poo-ing neon green cr*p everywhere!!  It finally made it out on to the landing where the window was wide open for it.  Did it fly out?  Nope!!  Finally we coralled it in the study (where the windows were also wide open) and at some point during the evening it got out.  But not before it had left another of its neon green 'calling cards' on the study floor - nice!!

This is the second time a bird has jammed itself down the bedroom chimney in as many months - we're sincerely hoping there won't be a third.  At least now I see where the expression 'bird brain' came from!!!!

Invasion of the Giant Plums

The few plums on the later-fruiting plum tree in the garden have finally ripened.  There aren't many of them (though a few more than the paltry twelve the other plum tree produced) and quite a few had already ripened and fallen off the tree by the time I returned home. 

When I went to pick a few for stewing, I realised that these were no ordinary plums - they were HUGE, each of them the size of a duck egg.  No doubt this is the result of our tres rainy summer (yes, even in Essex which is allegedly the driest county in England - even drier than Jerusalem and Beirut according to Gardeners' World - the rain this summer has been torrential and relentless.)   All that rain is probably also responsible for the many manky plums that were on the tree, the branch that looks like it's developed some sort of nasty fungal infection, and the proliferation of small crawly creatures that were inside some of the plums when I cut them up!! 

Aw, What!

Mum has been in a bit of a jigsaw puzzle phase at the moment.  Here's Lily assessing the state of play earlier in the week. 

I too am very fond of a jigsaw though hadn't done one in about 30 years.  I always had a devilishly difficult jigsaw for Christmas when I lived at home and then Mum and I would spend hours in the 'dead' days between Christmas and New Year trying to complete it.  I once came back from a New Year's Eve party to find Mum trying to hammer in the last piece which would not fit no matter how we tried - obviously a mistake had been made somewhere else!  Don't think we ever totally finished that particular puzzle!!

Anyway, after many 'woman' hours spent pouring over this 1,000 piece-er, we finally finished it yesterday evening (I was NOT going to bed until I had finished the tres irritating floral sofa!)  And what do we find ....

Yup, a bl**dy piece is missing.  We were not best pleased (and that's putting it mildly!!!!)

Finds

I'm down in Bristol again for a few days and Mum and I have been having a lovely time checking out the charity shops in Staple Hill and Kingswood.  Today, in Kingswood, was especially good with Mum coming home with four new tops, a jigsaw puzzle and a book.  Whilst I found:

A vibrant vintage single sheet and pillowcase (I have big sewing plans for the vintage bedding I'm squirrelling away) - £1.99; a ball of Artesano pure alpaca yarn (actually spotted by Mum - thanks, Mum) - 40p; vintage pure wool scarf, handwoven in England - 25p; small piece of vintage childrens' fabric - 25p. 

An expandable shopping bag - possibly suede / possibly suedette - £1.99.  I seem to remember my Mum or Grandma having something similar when I was a child.

Rather sweet little embroidered brooch - £1.25.  I've really got into brooches again lately and am kicking myself that I didn't buy a 1950's set of three horses / donkeys (not entirely sure which they were) brooches in one of the charity shops.

And in Staple Hill on Tuesday I found a vintage pure wool cream blanket for £1.00 - with a previous owner's moniker picked out in cross-stich.  It was being sold as a dog blanket and does have a few marks on it but I have been looking for another one of these for ages in order to make a few more cat blankets like the one here and here.  As it will be cut up anyway the marks don't really matter. 

Judging by the label, I'll bet it was a very expensive blanket in it's day.