Charity shops

Ideas, ideas…

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I’ve spent several happy hours hacking up 99p charity shop shirts over the last few weeks, with another quilt in mind, and will be posting a tutorial soon on how to cut up & re-use a shirt with least possible waste, along with some ideas for the “what-on-Earth-can-I-do-with-this?” bits. But some of the last batch were made from such pretty fabrics that one or two other ideas started to creep into my mind. However I’ll need all the shirts I’ve currently got, and more, to complete the current quilt top, so I went looking for more, but sadly it seems that the gods of charity shopping are not currently viewing this project with favour – there were no 99p rails out anywhere and precious few shirts under £3.99. So I started looking at other potential sources of inexpensive fabric. Not that there are many left now, sadly…

Anyway, most shops still seem to let unmatched pillowcases go for 50p, provided they put them out at all – oddments like that don’t fit with the High Street ethos, really – and some of them, usually the older ones, are made from fairly decent & attractive fabric, even if many are terylene/cotton mixes. So I dismembered a couple to see what I’d got. They are usually cut from one wide strip of sheeting fabric, selvedge to selvedge, overlocked along both long sides. If you’ve ever tried to unpick a 4-thread overlock, you’ll know it takes hours and there isn’t much fabric under there anyway, unlike a stitched seam. So I just cut the seams off, very close to the stitching, and ironed them flat. Then I kind of got to wondering whether there might be enough fabric there to make little pinafores… and the answer is, that provided you don’t mind about matching the pattern, or need them to flare out much, then yes, there is. This is my first effort, yet to be tried out on a real child; I suspect I haven’t made the armhole deep enough but that’s easily rectified next time around. In theory it’ll fit a 3-4 year old, but whether one would be seen dead in it remains to be seen! I will report back once I’ve pressganged a passing child, and if it’s a moderate success, I’ll post a tutorial as I make up the next one! And if that’s of much interest to anyone, I might just make up a few in kit form, and see if anyone would actually buy them…

pillowcasepinny

Let it rain!

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Because my chickens now have a roof over their heads again… I spent yesterday re-roofing their run. They’ve been paddling in the mud for long enough! And what’s more, thanks to Freecycle and a very kind lady down in Poole, I have two more of them, and I’m getting beautiful multi-coloured eggs again.

When we first started keeping backyard birds, one of my great joys was collecting the deep brown, pink, blue & white eggs from our much-loved Marans, Faverolles, Araucana & Hamburgh chickens. But over the years the laying flock had dwindled down to 3, two Warren-type hybrids laying perfectly pleasant but very ordinary light-brown eggs, and one gigantic Buff Orpington laying “tinted” (pinkish) eggs when she isn’t broody. There are just two Pekins left, also laying little pinkish eggs, but one of them is raising chicks just now. 2-3 (and possibly a half) eggs a day doesn’t go far between 7 of us! I’d meant to do something about it early this summer, but missed the boat; I wanted a couple of “Chalkhill Blue” day-olds, but didn’t have a broody when they were hatching, and when I did, they’d finished hatching for the year, so she had to make do with some Freecycled eggs and now has two Polish X Frizzle chicks, one of which may not be male.

Anyway, a dear friend had to move earlier this summer & gave me her solitary surviving Marans, Mollie, who lays splendid deep-brown eggs; she was the only survivor of a dog attack. Then a couple of days ago there was an advert on Freecycle from someone desperate to rehome her flock as she’s about to have a serious operation & won’t be able to care for them. I didn’t see the advert until 6 hours after it was posted, so didn’t hold out much hope, but to my delight she contacted me the next morning & said I’d be welcome to take on a couple of them, including – a Chalkhill Blue! So that evening I hurtled down to town & collected two baffled chooks – the other one is a White Star – who now rejoice in the names Faye & Bianca. As my separate accomodation is already occupied by the broody, I had to pop them onto the roost with the others; I was expecting trouble next morning, but I didn’t get it. The new girls were a bit shy to start with, and there was a little bit of posturing, but within an hour they were all dustbathing together and by the end of the day I had two light-brown, one pinkish, one blue and one pearly white egg! And they now have a run that should keep the worst of the weather off their feathers, and a shed that’s stopped letting in water now I’ve revamped the roof. Amusingly, the inside is lined with a red vinyl poster announcing “VIP Marquee” courtesy of the Dorset Scrapstore…

Glorious technicolour eggs!

But it can rain with impunity now for other reasons too. I’ve had a couple of influxes of goodies; one from the local charity shop that sells me the craft-related things they have’t been able to move on themselves, and some interesting items from the tip, as well as some lovely 1950s curtains from the 50p house-clearance stall on the market. I’m going to be busy for days next week, sorting things into saleable & usable, washing things & Freecycling the bits I can’t use. And then there was the very successful raid on the charity shops down in the conurbation, where they evidently do still believe in 99p or £1 rails for the stuff that hasn’t sold; I picked up 9 100% cotton striped gents shirts to slice up for quilting & other fabric projects. So I’d be glad to have an excuse to spend some time indoors; I could even possibly use some of the beautiful threads that were muddled up in the “unsaleable” batch from the local charity shop (pictured below) and the wonderful vintage needles (with decent sized eyes!) that came in a box from the Tip… I may be gone for some time!

Even more technicolour threads!

Driving me mad…

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This post isn’t about recycling. This post is about manners; specifically, about manners on the road. Over the last week or so, I’ve clocked up a fair few miles in the course of business & pleasure, mostly on rural & “A” roads, and I’ve been so upset by the way that some people behave when they get behind the wheel that I have to let off some steam!

Last Sunday I was driving back down from North Dorset when a big silver Audi screamed up behind me and hung so close to my back bumper that I couldn’t see the bonnet of his car. We were on a National Speed Limit road, and I was going well over 50 as I do know the road quite well, but it’s narrow & twisty with high hedges & goes down to one track in places. So as soon as I could, I pulled into a farm gate & let him pass. Within 100 yards a big white BMW had pulled up right on my tail again, and we were into the bit that goes single-track with no place to pull in. And there he stayed for about 15 miles, so close that if I’d had to brake unexpectedly, say for a vehicle coming the other way where’s there’s no passing place, he’d have found himself in my boot; the best braking system in the world can’t stop you within 10 feet at 60MPH. There were plenty of opportunities for him to overtake in the last 5 miles, but he was too close to see past me!

There have been other incidents during the week, culminating in an unpleasant run from Bridport to Dorchester this afternoon. I had a pale green VW far too close behind me from the end of the dual carriageway; at the A37 roundabout he attempted to undertake me, but another car got in his way. Straight up close behind me again, he pulled into the left-turn to Dorchester lane at the next roundabout, signalling left; I was going straight ahead in the A35 lane, breathing a sigh of relief, when I spotted him in my lefthand mirror, having attempted to undertake again. He shook his fist at me when I didn’t slam on my brakes to let him through. At the Kingston Maurward roundabout he shot into the right-hand A35 lane, and careered round the roundabout, still shaking his fist at me, and his elegantly-dressed wife, probably in her early 60s, gave me a V-sign! I watched as they shot up behind the next car in front, kept on edging out to try to overtake despite the oncoming traffic, then caused mayhem weaving in & out of the traffic accelerating up the next stretch of dual carriageway, when there was no need to weave & cause the overtakees to brake, as there was nothing else in the overtaking lane.

Why do people do it? I know I’m not the best or fastest driver on the road, or in the most expensive car, & I recognise that for some people, driving will always be a race because of their competitive nature; they have to be in front, usually driving a car that cost more than a year’s salary for most people. But driving so close that you are putting yourself & other people in mortal danger is lunatic, especially at speed, no matter how good your airbags. Not to mention intimidating; I don’t let it get to me whilst I’m actually driving, and I’m not going to go faster than the limit just because they want to, but nor am I going to slow down deliberately to annoy them because that’s just childish & only likely to cause more problems. I would love a “Back Off!” sign, but I’d also love a “Thank You!” sign for people like the person who was behind me from Dorchester to Wimborne, who kept a sensible distance, or for people who let you out of difficult turnings.

And for the person who boxed me in where I was quite legitimately parked this afternoon; if a Mum with a pushchair, or a wheelchair user, had come down the pavement you were parked half across, they’d have had to go out into the roadway on a blind corner to get past. Luckily one of my friends helped me inch out, but if I’d had to stay put until you returned, you’d have faced the wrath of – well, a very cross middle-aged Mum!

Made crosser still by the fact that some of the charity shops in our area are now charging more for clothes than they cost originally, but that’s another story…

Long time no see…

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I know it’s been a whole month since I posted, but I’m not referring to that – it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to see quite so much of our floor! I’ve been busy, very busy, decluttering like mad. It’s needed doing for a very long time, and bringing all the shop & market stock back here tipped it from something that really needed doing, to something acute – if I didn’t do it, I was going to go under mentally, or break my neck tripping over a pile of something. There are still a few piles hanging around, waiting for new homes, but I reckon I’ve reduced the rubble by something like three-quarters over the last four weeks. Some things have been sold on, although the last vintage market was cancelled, but most have been given away, either to charity or on Freecycle/Freegle, and some even dumped.

It’s interesting that now the kids are older (youngest now rising 17) the resistance to change has diminished. When they were younger, they’d complain about the mess, but often actively derail my attempts to actually do anything about it. But now, they’re helping me clear & deep-clean, and are full of ideas as to how we might redecorate & reorganise; we may not always see eye-to-eye about this, but it feels like a huge step forwards. I think I’ve been too easily discouraged in the past; there was a point about two weeks ago, when I seemed to have been working flat out for two weeks but it didn’t look any different. At that point, I nearly went under & gave up, but thanks to an inspirational thread over on MSE, and having a bit more time on my hands, I kept going this time and now it’s really beginning to look like the home that I’ve always wanted to live in.

Some of the things I’m parting with I’m very sad to see go, but I have to face the fact that one lifetime is too short to do everything I’d like to do & learn everything I’d like to learn, and one household, shared with 6 other people, isn’t big enough for 2 treadle sewing machines and 9 spinning wheels. And I was spending too much time looking after things, or indeed looking for things, to actually achieve very much at all!

But some of my attempts to reduce my hoards have been blind alleys… this morning, I emptied & cleaned the fridge. I’d decided that some of my beloved cultures had to go, too – one of my “endearing eccentricities” as DD1 calls them, is a belief that we in the West don’t eat or drink nearly enough traditionally-preserved or cultured foods, or a wide enough variety of foodstuffs, for optimum health – but I failed miserably! I’d just about brought myself to the point of pouring the milk-Kefir down the sink when DD1 announced that she loved the stuff & would take over responsibility for it. The Kefir a l’uovo smelt gorgeous, so that got refreshed too, and the ginger-beer Kefir is a household staple, much loved & drunk daily by several of us. The sourdough starter’s in regular use & I have some Kimchi virtually every day; that only left the Kombucha, where I’ve had first my old SCOBY, then a newly-bought one, die on me in short order for no apparent reason. So I’d made up my mind that I’d stop making that, but I came across a bottle at the back of the fridge, and I’d forgotten just how lovely it tastes! Oh dear, there’s no hope for me, is there?! But the small amount of work & space involved in looking after my “fridge-pets” pales into insignificance beside the complex, healthy & above all, delicious tastes they reward me with, for almost no money. However, the four half-empty jars of mayonnaise, several “stubs” of home-made jam and three bottles of tomato ketchup did get rationalised…

One positive thing that has emerged from the chaos; I’d forgotten just how nice some of the things I’d accumulated were, even if it’s no longer appropriate for me to hang onto them. Below is a pic of one little beauty that I rescued, looking very sad & with bits hanging off her, from a street market about 18 months ago. A bit of elbow-grease & know-how returned her to working order & decent appearance quite quickly & she’s on Ebay now. She’s not a practical wheel to spin on for any length of time, unless you have tiny feet & a lot of patience, and want very fine yarn, but isn’t she pretty?!

At last…

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I’ve finally thought of a way of using cuffs! On my rare days off, I haunt the charity shops of Dorset, raiding the “Reduced” rails for cotton shirts & pyjamas to turn into patchwork fabric. You can get some very decent fabric, in reasonable quantities, for £1 that way. I’ve worked out a way of slicing them up so that you get the maximum quantity of usable fabric, plus a quantity of “seam yarn” for rag rugs etc., from each garment, depending on how it’s constructed. But I’ve always struggled with how to use the collar & cuffs & generally ended up popping them into my scraps-I-really-can’t-do-anything-with bag. This goes off to a charity shop, where they get paid for rags by weight; every little counts!

But today I cracked it; I found a nice “Next” pink striped needlecord shirt for £1 on Monday, that you’d have to have an incredibly slender & well-sculpted figure to wear. I could see straight away that it’d make several stunning fabric hearts, or possibly needlecases; maybe some of each. As I was cutting it up today, the cuffs fell together onto the tabletop in such a way as to remind me I’d lost my glasses case recently, and suddenly I could see how I could make them into one, very quickly & easily. And 20 minutes later, my glasses had a new home! It even has a useful little pocket on the back, too, that I’m going to make a tiny matching mending kit for. Will post a “how-to” sometime after weekend!

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Well, I’ve always wanted one of those…

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…some days just have a lucky star. It was great to see one of my firm e-friends last night & today; she had to bring one of her offspring down for a university interview, left him with his sister in Southampton & came on down to stay the night and most of today with me. Whilst there were hardly any breaks in the conversation, we did take 10 minutes off from nattering to pop down to the local tip. The manager had saved a tin of buttons for me, bless his cotton socks (buttons are a steady earner for me) and there was a pair of quite astonishingly OTT but splendid red glass beaded chandelier-like ceiling pendant light fittings that simply had to come home with me – irresistible, though I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do with them. They were a little battered so I’ve performed a little delicate surgery to make them look whole again by amalgamating some of the sets of glass droplets. Now all I need is the right setting for them…

But the goodies didn’t end there. There was a nicely-weathered 50’s style green & cream enamel saucepan,  a dinky single egg poacher, an interesting plate, a manicure set which has hundreds of uses (very few of them anything to do with my raggedy fingernails) and, glory of glories, an intact & clean Spong mincer, still with its grating/slicing attachment. A couple of years ago I realised that I needed some kind of manual food mill, and bought a rather elegant tall & slender stainless-steel one half-price in the Lakeland sale. But to be honest, the amount of sheer effort it cost me to grind enough coffee beans for a mug of coffee, or  a handful of oats for a crumble, has meant that it’s spent most of its time with us resting in the cupboard. Then a few weeks back, a battered little old blue Spong appeared down at the dump, which I couldn’t resist rescuing, and in a spirit of idle experimentation, once it was clean I threw a handful of oats into it and turned the handle. Perfect, fine oatmeal, in seconds, with virtually no effort! The only problem was convincing the Other Half and the Offspring that anything that came out of this well-used & somewhat tatty item could possibly be hygienic enough to eat…

So the arrival of this almost-pristine beige one is cause for some celebration on my part. It’s missing one blade, the coarse one, which I can make up from the older blue one, which came with two. There’s a market for these stylish little vintage items, so someone will get a good, working, genuinely-useful bargain at the next Boscombe Vintage Market, and I get to keep the tidier one. As aforementioned, it even has the grater/slicer attachment, with both drums & the pusher. I’d struggle to feed my whole family just with  one of these little gadgets but I do have a bigger, newer mincer that does meat, and this one is lighter & neater for everyday tasks. As well as easier on the eye…

It hasn’t just been a good day, but a good month; I’ve been rescuing things from my mother’s downsizing chuck-out, including a set of battered but still-usable egg-poaching rings – which can, of course, also be used to cut scones & cookies out – and acres of aged, torn sheet-music which has 101 uses in card making, altered art & bookbinding. And I found a few small items in the charity shops local to the vintage market, including a lovely soft yellow flower-printed 70s flannelette sheet which will make a marvellous quilt backing for £1 (in need of a wash, which it’s since had) and a pretty little eggcup which is very much in the style of Susie Cooper, one of my favourite china designers, for just 20p.

There is of course the usual problem – where to store it all? But I’m really lucky; anything that turns out not to be worth the space I’ve allotted to it can be popped onto my stall & sold on. It’s the perfect excuse, and the very best form of “recreational shopping” – I get to enjoy the hunt & spend very little money on items I really do like & want to keep, but if that doesn’t work out, I know I will get my money back at the very least, and usually a little bit more as well. Viva Vintage!

Vintage Finds

The Reclaimed Christmas Project…

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Buttons, buckles, beads...

Following on from my musings in the previous post, I’ve decided that this year I’m going to reclaim Christmas, in more ways than one. I’m probably not the only person who’s had enough of the commercial version; of the endless grimly-glittering tawdry tinfoil decorations which start to appear in mid-September along with incessant adverts for wildly expensive bits of plastic or noxious potions, of giant flock snowflakes obscuring the aisle lables in supermarkets and “this year’s colour” plastic tree. I’ve nothing against fake trees, as I love the real thing, especially where they belong (outdoors)  & don’t like to feel I’ve been directly responsible for the needless death of an entire tree. But I really cannot get my head around people feeling they have to buy a new plastic one every year just so they have the “right” colour… Our current tree was rescued from the Recycling centre a couple of years ago and does a grand job; however this year it may get left in its box as there’s a Lawson’s Cypress in the front garden that needs a good haircut and one of the upright branches of that would make a fine Christmas tree too – it even smells right. Handling spruce always brings me out in a rash, anyway.

I’ve also had enough of spending too much money at Christmas. The retailers have parents over a barrel;  every year there’s a blizzard of adverts for electronic must-haves that every other child in their class will surely be given – and some of them undoubtedly will be – how can you possibly be so mean/inhuman/unloving as to say no? You love your child and you really, really don’t want them to feel deprived/disadvantaged/unloved, especially not on Christmas Day… but it does start to wear a bit thin when said children have technically reached adulthood and could, probably even should, go out & earn said must-have trinket for themselves.

I have a clear idea in my head of what I want Christmas to be; a time of goodwill to all living beings, and that includes the trees. A time to reflect on why we’re here, and a time to celebrate the life that we have. A real feast with family & friends, but not at the expense of going short for the next couple of months. A time to remember those who are really going without, and a time to try in some way, however small, to help. An oasis of goodwill & good cheer, peace & tranquillity in a mad, mad world…

Not much chance of that, really! But there are ways I can undermine the dominant view of Christmas as an opportunity to spend, spend, spend, and indulge, indulge, indulge. Quite apart from what we as a family get up to on The Day itself, I’m going to run the Reclaimed Christmas Project at my shop on Wednesday afternoons from here to – well, mid-December. We’ll be making beautiful & unusual festive decorations, cards & gifts from reclaimed or natural materials. And buttons, LOTS of buttons, thanks to a wonderful find at the Recycling Centre this week. There’ll be plaids & checks & stripes, there’ll be ricrac and lace and possibly even sequins, but there will NOT be overblown tinsel so thick it looks like it could do with a good prune. There’ll be felted wool,  embroidery silks and a little bit of angelina; there will NOT be irritating flashing lights that make you grind your teeth whilst attempting to hypnotise you. Homer Simpson will NOT be featuring; in fact there will not be any blow-up or cartoon characters at all, not even a cartoon reindeer that looks like it’s the morning after a very heavy night before. The only festive icon perching on the roof will be the robin that lives in the bushes opposite. However, there may be gingerbread & icing, not to mention tissue & crepe paper. There may even (shock, horror!) be a little religious imagery, though I shall try not to upset the Thought Police too much. And if there are any icicles, they’ll probably be made of ice. “Keep it simple, keep it joyful, keep it real,” will be my motto!

I’m hoping that even if you’re not able to come & join me, you”ll be there in spirit & doing your own Reclaimed Christmas in your own special way.

And more buttons...

I promised…

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…that the next one would be made entirely with recycled materials. And here it is! Old seersucker tablecoths, and a couple of shirts, to be precise. All gleaned from charity shops or the Tip; the batting is a fleece baby blanket that someone had no further use for, although it was as good as new & could easily have been donated to a charity shop. But it wasn’t…  The thread (two colours only) was rescued from old sewing machines or sewing boxes & was still strong, the backing & self-binding was a length of calico that used to line our kitchen curtains and the ribbon came from a whole roll that turned up in a Freecycled sewing box.  It’s a cot-size “strippy-raggy” quilt, for want of a precise description! Fun & very quick to make, but also very textural & soft from a baby’s point of view.

I had fun with the machine quilting, as you can see, and tried out lots of different “patterns”. Some were much easier than others. Bear in mind that my 1909 Jones Medium treadle is extremely easy to use, but only goes forwards and doesn’t automatically adjust stitch lengths or automatically do anything at all except look cheerful!

All in all I’m rather pleased with it & may have to make several more – if only because I now have a big bag of seersucker strips in a wide variety of colours!

The Dishcloth Files…

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I've been busy...

Life has been astonishingly busy for the past few months. My feet haven’t touched the ground since the end of exam time; I blew a fuse and booked a holiday to Spain to recover, which was most unsustainable but a wonderful, relaxing break in a beautiful, unspoilt spot with crystal-clear water & lots of much-needed sunshine. And cheaper than the area we normally go to, where our relatives live, too. Now we’ve survived the trauma of A level results (they both did really, really well) and are preparing to send two of the Offspring out into the world, whilst “Real Life” continues to whirl past at breakneck speed. And I’ve discovered dishcloths!

I signed up for a dishcloth swap on one of my favourite forums (Creative Living – originally a wild seedling that popped up from HF-W’s River Cottage site) and started looking on Ravelry for suitable (free) crochet patterns. Needless to say, there are hundreds to choose from; I now have a complete file full of intriguing little patterns awaiting a spare moment or two… I picked one that particularly appealed, grabbed a ball of charity shop yarn that I was virtually certain was cotton, and started hooking. About an hour later, I realised that I’d forgotten to translate it from American to English (we call different stitches by the same names) but it was so nearly finished that I just carried on. The resulting item was both pretty & practical and hardly took any time or concentration; an ideal stick-it-in-your-pocket-for-quiet-moments project, in effect. So I hunted up another couple of balls of cotton, one recycled from an unpicked beach bag and one left over from another project, and made a different one, then another – I’m hooked, in more ways than one!

Dishcloths are soooo simple. They only take a couple of hours and they’re an ideal project for using up odd scraps. Each one can be different and you can afford to experiment, as on that scale it only takes a moment to put any glaring incongruities right. It doesn’t matter if they don’t lie flat or aren’t completely regular in shape. And they’re useful too, which makes them a decently thoughtful little gift for anyone who doesn’t like aimless clutter, or already has quite enough of it, like us. I picked up a couple of cones of almost-certainly-cotton yarn at the Dorset Scrapstore (which I’m just about to pick the expert brains over on Ravelry for a proper ID for) and carried on…

There are probably 1001 other things I should be doing or sorting out, but these are keeping my fingers busy, using up oddments, and probably keeping my blood pressure down too. In other words, dishcloths are a  practical recycler’s dream…

And there's more where these came from...

“Recessionistas…”

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Elder daughter & I volunteer at one of our local charity shops, and we can’t help noticing that things have changed somewhat over the last year. Despite all the news reports to the effect that charity shops are hard-hit by the recession, we’ve been having to turn away donations; sometimes the back of the shop is too full to take any more in safely. And what we’re taking into the till has skyrocketed…

This time last year, we were lucky to take £30 on a Monday afternoon, the day we both volunteer. But yesterday we took £189, and today, when she’s also there but I’m not, another £120. Some of that may be caused by the fact that our shop has  been revamped into half-bookshop, our local secondhand bookshop having folded after refusing to have any truck with online sales. But most of the difference as far as I can see, has been in the type of shoppers; suddenly many of our customers are very well-dressed, and spend time browsing & trying things on, rather than dashing in, picking up the first item in their requested size or style and dashing out again. People are coming in in groups, clearly going round all of the charity shops in town together, laughing, chattering & encouraging each other, rather than slinking in & out, terrified the neighbours will spot them. And they’re happy to spend say £7.99 on something fashionable, vintage or classic in good condition, and often buy more than one item. I’ve just come across the word “Recessionistas” – thank you, Tringle – and that describes them perfectly.

Seems to me that this is a very positive thing. For so many years, it’s been considered very infra dig to be caught wearing or owning anything secondhand; I know at least one member of my own family feels that I’m letting society & the economy down dreadfully by not buying everything brand new, and making everything even worse by cheerily admitting it.  But clearly, whether driven by necessity or not, people are beginning to get over the “everything has to be new” idea and are starting to enjoy creative recycling again.

Come to think of it, that means I have competition!

TTW meeting this Thursday, CLaRC, 7-9 pm, everyone…