Yesterday we visited the town that Elder Daughter now lives in, and after a trot around the delightful shops in & around the pretty medieval High Street, we walked down to the Castle Garden Centre, which boasted the Christmas Display that’s been voted the best in the UK. It was indeed glorious! Much bigger than we’d expected and brilliantly done. There was a smashing big working model railway layout, animated animals, & assorted little dioramas amongst the acres of lovely and very reasonably-priced decorations on sale, in all sorts of styles, from the traditional glass & tissue paper decs, the down-home American ones in gingham & string, through highly individual illuminated ceramic cottages, to the intricate & beautifully-made German wooden woodland scenarios, many of which lit up or were animated. And the whole space was also beautifully lit, with miles of different LED chains, that you could also find to buy. Absolutely magical, free to enter – and not even a hint of a hard sell, which instantly made it necessary to find something to buy!
As we went in, the very first diorama was a lovely Nativity scene. Quite big, and absolutely traditional, complete with the new parents, the baby in the manger, shepherds & sheep, gently lit with flickering candles & elegant mirrors. The lady of the couple who had entered alongside us looked at her husband and said, in loud disappointed tones, “Well, that’s not very Christmassy, is it?”
Oh dear… I think they may have kind of missed the point!
With a bit of luck & a following wind, in the next few days I’ll be posting a top-level page showing this year’s Christmas “makes” which were inspired by an earlier visit to the National Trust’s Stourhead. But just in case life gets in the way once again, I’m wishing you all an utterly enchanted Christmas and a happy & prosperous New Year!
Yesterday I had a small revelation. Washing my hair, an undetected jagged fingernail caught my scalp, and suddenly I was 8 years old and lying in the hairdresser’s chair with my head back over the basin, as her scarlet talons dug viciously into my scalp underneath the steaming, scalding spray. I knew that in moments, she’d be wrapping my head in a towel twisted so tightly I could feel my hair ripping out, and possibly even snipping into the tops of my ears, which happened more than once. Always passed off apologetically as an accident, a moment’s inattention, perhaps I’d wriggled…
No wonder I hated having my hair “done” which, sadly, my mother saw as the ultimate luxurious treat. For years I’ve wondered whether my total indifference to the art of coiffure was as much down to some “mildly autistic” trait, as to being “blessed” with thin, fine baby hair that’s never grown down past my shoulders and can’t hold a style for more than ten minutes. But that unpleasant memory, & others like it, was added internally to that of the young gentleman who in 1977 plastered my scalp with eye-watering “perm” solution, then wandered off to the next-door bookies for half an hour or so, leaving me to go off to university for the first time in a strange country, topped with brittle greenish frizz and a scalp that was gently leaking blood in several places.
No wonder it takes wild horses to drag me into a salon now! I’m very grateful that my darling daughters will occasionally consent to snip an inch or so off, though sometimes I’d like it to be more, but they’d rather like me to keep it longer. And I have braved the hairdresser’s chair once or twice lately, just for a trim prior to one or other of my older boys’ weddings. But I’d really rather ignore the stuff altogether to this day.
Looking back, I see now my mother’s earnest wish to treat me & get me interested in matters of style & personal appearance, rather than scrambling up trees and braiding grasses. The hairdresser who likely saw the “rich, spoilt” kid from the big house couldn’t have known that we were actually pretty much penniless & that Mum would have fed us baked beans for a week rather than “let the side down” by ever appearing in public without her hair carefully coiffed, lipstick applied and her stockings & panty-girdle on. To her, and probably the vast majority of her fast-disappearing generation, keeping up appearances was literally a matter of life & death socially, rather than a statement of who you really are. I can’t watch the old sit-com “Keeping Up Appearances” without wincing sometimes!
I think what I’m trying to say here is that sometimes, what we see as a huge treat, and possibly even a necessary rite of passage, is actually an ordeal for the “lucky” recipient, for reasons that we’re not aware of. I’m very glad that in some ways now we are more willing to let children be children, rather than trying to turn them into miniature adults “for their own good” or our own social standing, and to try to make them fit a mould they may not be suited to. And I do hope that we have at least begun to learn the lesson that there’s a huge difference between “socialising” children and the kind of in-their-own-interests cruelty that led eventually to, say, foot-binding, or FGM.
And I can begin to forgive that hairdresser who seemed so sadistic to the child who was me. She must have seen a child who absolutely failed to recognise how privileged she was, to have a mother who could pay for this “treat” and was interested enough to do so (IIRC the poor girl had been raised in a children’s home) and who was not in the least bit grateful for her undoubted artistry. I’d never realised the burden of distress and anger I’d been holding onto for so very many years, which has led a daily comb-through being about as much as I can stand.
Not that that’s likely to tempt me back into a salon any time soon…
Pic of Jinxi in a vintage “vanity” case as cat tax!
My teacher told me I have two left hands”… Madam, you are around 70 now; that long-gone teacher has been sitting inside your head, telling you you’re useless, there’s no use even trying, for over 60 years… Obviously, I can’t say that! But I can, and do, think it, all too often. Some of my teachers did that to me, too, though ultimately it didn’t stick. (Which is probably why I was beyond furious when my eldest’s DT teacher slapped him down for daring to think outside the box and come up with a entirely-workable alternative to the standard “tumbling acrobat” project. Luckily it doesn’t seem to have blighted his creativity, as has been done to so many children over the years.) Why do we so easily believe it, and as parents, put up with it?
I’ve just done another one of those events where we are basically challenging people to think about how they choose their clothes, and what effect their choices will have on the world our descendants will have to live in. Last year, I did really well at the same event; lots of people were open-minded, willing and able to access their innate creativity. But this year, many attendees just seemed to want to buy the handmade/re-made/upcycled look, so although I was delighted to sell a few handmade trinkets, most of my lovely vintage fabrics remained on the stall. It was still well worth my while, and a delight to be trading alongside so many talented makers & menders, but ultimately a little discouraging, in the sense that so many people don’t seem to see any point even trying to make, mend or re-make their own garments no matter how much they love them, or originally paid for them. A button missing, a hem coming down, and it’s off to the Tip or the ragman, via the charity shop – who do not mend things, or put anything damaged out for sale.
I clearly hit a nerve with one or two, who reacted as if I’d suggested they became a slave for a day; how did we come to associate creativity – sewing, cooking, gardening, for example – with drudgery? From my point of view, making stuff is a delight, something I’m very lucky to have time to indulge in, even if I can’t afford brand new equipment or supplies. (That said, by now, I simply wouldn’t want to – I prefer to work with things that have had a previous “life” and clearly come with stories attached.) But I can understand how frustrating it can be for some, if they try and continually fail at whatever they wanted to do; at least they did try. Because normally, if you don’t do well at something on the first try, you should try, try and try again, as someone who appreciated spiders as much as I do once said. None of us will be masters the first time we try something; making mistakes is how we learn. Things get easier; you learn tips & tricks, you talk to people ahead of you on that path and learn from them. You try things out (easiest if you haven’t spent a fortune on supplies) and go with what works, remembering what doesn’t, and working out why.
Sadly people tell me they just don’t have the time. I sigh for them and agree, but can’t help thinking of a young Eastern European single Mum I’ve come across, who makes & sells stunning macramé items in the evenings, after she’s finished work, cooked the supper, and her child has gone to bed. She learnt to do this from YouTube videos on her phone, initially using garden string. She just tried, with whatever came to hand, persevered, & succeeded. It won’t make her a fortune, she’ll probably never be able to ditch the day job, but she does make useful (quite possibly essential) pocket-money from doing something she enjoys and her customers genuinely appreciate. And no-one would have blamed her for just sitting down & watching TV…
Making & mending with textiles, yarns & fibres is not for everyone, I do know. But I also feel that there’s a vast tranche of people out there who could, and would, if only they had the confidence to try, and it wasn’t so very much easier not to…
Six months between posts? It won’t do… but there you go. I just didn’t feel I had anything interesting to say, but I did have far too much to do, as usual. And here we are, at the end of a cold winter that seems to have ground on and on; my head thinks it’s time to start planting this year’s food, yet my heart misgives me, as another, vastly more talented, writer once put it. Instinct tells me we’re not quite there yet… though the signs of spring are slowly increasing with every passing day. My propagator is full of things that need a long growing season, like tomatoes & chillis, but it’s still too cold to transfer them to my little greenhouse.
All sorts of interesting thoughts have wandered across the wrinkled surfaces of my mind in the last six months; most of them have promptly exited stage left, never to be seen again. (Can you tell we went to the theatre last night?!) Today’s random distractions are the scenes depicted on old Japanese china, some of which has ended up in this household; I’m not in the slightest bit interested in financial value, and these battered old bits probably don’t have any. But what are these guys (and gals) doing? How are they doing it, and why? Are there well-known & familiar stories being depicted on them, or are they just pretty scenes dreamt up in the artist’s imagination? Enquiring minds (well, this one, anyway) wish to know! More images will follow…
Who are these guys? What are they up to? One of three pictures of them on this broken vase.
What else has happened? On the creative front, I’ve made a number of items; from new-bought material this time as I’m struggling to find secondhand stretch fabric that’s sturdy enough for re-making. I was very fed up with not being able to find tops that fitted & suited me, in fabric I liked, so when I found a pattern that had the right neckline, the right mount of simple shaping, and variable length sleeves so a sensible result was actually possible, I leapt into action, visited the fabric shop down West, purchased some good-quality stretch cotton jersey, and have duly made myself two ¾-sleeve tops, and two short-sleeved. Plus three simple nighties that might last longer than a couple of months, cut out round an existing one that fitted well but was long overdue for ragging. Three straightforward vest-tops from the (ample) offcuts; the nighties were cut from the edge or the fold & there was a lot of fabric left in the centre. All the fabrics I used had enough left over to make some more “underthings” too. I’ve started another rag-rug on the twining loom, using up an old favourite duvet cover that had worn very thin. I’m continuing to reduce the mess in my sewing room; I shouldn’t have “rescued” so much stuff when my mother went into her care home two years ago, as I still haven’t managed to sort it all out & move it on!
Padded jacket from old curtain fabric…
I’m currently working on some “visible” mending projects and have made another simple jacket from an old curtain, a cheap throw & a duvet cover. So yes, still busy on the upcycling front, and back trading every now & then.
Embroidered bees hide stains on a beautifully-soft child’s pure wool jumper.
Off now to hunt for some more intriguing scenes from old Japanese china! Here’s one from a lovely necklace created by a friend:
What’s going on here? Are those “prayer flags” hanging from the “washing” line, on their way to Heaven? Is the presumed supplicant asking the probable-scholar to write a prayer for him? And – which volcano is that, erupting in the background?
In a lull between the heavy, thundery showers that are our lot for this week – and don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for the rain! – I dashed out for a walk this afternoon. I’ve signed up for Step Up September 2022, because no-one should have to choose between heating & eating in a civilised society, and yet so many do, even here in our apparently-prosperous community. I’m privileged to have a warm, dry roof over my head, enough to eat and the means to grow some of what we need; many are not so fortunate and if by giving up a little of my time & energy I can help, it’s the least I can do. In the end I walked beside the river for an hour and a half, because I’d been busy yesterday & the day before, and at the only times I could have slipped out for a walk, it wasn’t so much raining as monsooning. So I hope I’ve caught up with myself today.
Two worlds… seed-heads and reflected storm clouds.
I was lucky and the rain held off; the fields are full of seed-heads, the hedgerows bowed down with fruit for the birds and the air’s still warm despite the brisk wind. I may have caught a couple of glimpses of the otter who’s often seen under the bridge, but can’t swear to that; just a few flashes of fast-moving brown fur amidst the ripples, too far away to be sure & far too quick to snatch a pic.
And on my way back over the bridge towards home, I spotted that the roadside apple tree on the southern side has excelled itself this year; it’s literally dripping fruit. Sadly the ponies who used to live in that field and munch the apples (which are tasty enough, but rather dry) have moved on now & it’s obvious that no-one fancies eating the apples from a tree so close to a busy road. Though to be honest, most people have probably never even noticed them, except as a wasp-attracting nuisance. I adore random roadside apple trees; my family can attest to my squeaks of delight whenever we’re travelling and I spot the billows of pink blossom in spring or the autumnal blobs of ripening fruit in shades of yellow, green, orange, pink and red, like early Christmas baubles, festooning a sea of green foliage. Wherever people have randomly dropped or flung their lunchtime apple cores, Nature takes over and produces diverse & often delicious fruit!
Random roadside apples, growing unnoticed alongside a bridge, on a main road. More power to the pips!
My walks tomorrow and on Friday will be around our little town, getting in food for the next week in the local shops or at the market, and the weather forecast is for yet more heavy, thundery showers. But it looks to be brightening up for the weekend; perhaps I’ll get a chance to go out foraging & look for more random apple or crab apple trees…
On Wednesday of last week, I was so pleased & proud of the contents of my little greenhouse that I even took a couple of pictures; it all seemed to be going so well this year, after last year’s cool, damp spring when half the seeds I’d sown didn’t even bother germinating. I’ve had much better luck this year, even from the same seed packets.
Happy productivity…
On Thursday – devastation. Utterly wrecked. It looked as if a bunch of pirates had held a wild, wild party in there; the little plants had been trampled, been pulled up & strewn around, had their heads bitten off & left lying, grazed off. Random holes had been dug in seed trays, pots knocked over and tray lids sent flying in the quest to consume or just obliterate the contents. I could have wept; the devastation was pretty much total, except for the peppers & chillis on the top shelf & for some reason, the peas & beans. 2 trays of beetroot seedlings (my husband’s favourite) more than half of my tomatoes, aniseed, Russian Blue chives, Tuscan egg onions, Magentaspreen, Russian Tarragon, agapanthus, agastache, my daughter’s spinach & named-variety sunflower seedlings – all gone, or damaged beyond hope of survival.
Devastated beetroot, trampled agapanthus…
But it seems it was very much my own fault, if not my own doing. We’ve suspected for a week or so that we might have an unwanted rodent-shaped guest, as well as our friendly local hedgehog population; an ominous hole has appeared down under my work shed. Since the lockdowns began, I’ve picked up the poultry food bowls at night & keep them in a heavy-lidded metal box (not that there’s usually anything much left in them) so as not to attract trouble. But the seed for the wild birds is much harder to round up; it gets dropped all over the place, not necessarily just below the feeders, & there are sunflowers springing up in every crack in the paths. There’s a heavy-duty sonic deterrent on its way to us , but it hasn’t got here yet; I won’t use poison, because of the cats and the hedgehogs.
So why did the rascally rodent run riot in my seed pots & trays? My younger daughter pointed the finger firmly at me when clearing up the fallen bird seed. “Mum, did you deposit a load of cooked rhubarb under the apple tree?” No, I didn’t – but I did empty a bucket of last year’s failed rhubarb champagne there, then got distracted, went off to do something urgent and failed to remove the vastly over-fermented “fruit”… My tiny plants have paid the price for my failings; they’ve literally been danced on & devastated by an inebriated rodent! I can’t help hoping he had the mother & father of all hangovers…
I do know that this is no laughing matter, and that I need to take serious & urgent action to protect our friends and neighbours & our pets; if the sonic deterrent doesn’t work, I’ll be straight on the phone to the pest controllers. But I have to say I’d never have realised just how much damage could be caused by a rat-arsed rat…
A long time ago, in the early days of the WWW, I was a member of an inspirational American website & online community, Frugal Moms. There didn’t seem to be anything like it UK-based, although that, of course, has changed since. Everyone’s favourite book was Amy Dacyczyn’s Tightwad Gazette, and our battlecry rapidly became her iconic phrase “Do the math!” Just as appropriate here in the UK, even though we’d need an extra “s” – meaning, always sit down & work out whether it is actually worthwhile to do or buy something.
That doesn’t simply mean, “Can we afford it?” That’s a sensible question in its own right, but this goes further; I’d interpret it as, “Is it worthwhile affording it?” whatever it may be? As a very simple example, when we were looking for a new cooker, I insisted on quite an expensive make, rather than just one that fitted the space, did what we needed (to be fair, given a larger family, most modern cookers don’t) and looked the part. I put my foot down & insisted on a make that’s known for reliability and ease of acquiring & fitting spare parts, supplied by a firm with a good reputation for customer service. Which we’ve never needed so far, touch wood. We’re about 10 years down the line now and it continues to do the job well and without fuss; previously, no cooker had lasted us more than 5 years, and most had had engineers called out several times during their stint with us. Time is an important element in deciding whether something is worthwhile; your own time surrendered in paying for it, but also saved in using it, plus the length of time it’s likely to last you set against the initial cost.
Two more examples have come into focus lately. The question has been asked, post-Covid, whether it’s worthwhile for me to continue with my market & emporium stalls; after all, we “coped” without the extra income during lockdown. And they do take up some of my time & energy, and of course, there are costs involved. But as far as I’m concerned, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” – psychologically I need to have a little independent income, and I enjoy what I do, despite the hauling round of heavy stuff and inevitable mess while I clean and restore it. As far as I’m concerned, reclaiming worthwhile tools and materials is an excellent use of time, and I have lots of lovely, creative customers who I very much enjoy meeting. We couldn’t live on what I bring in, but it has for some years paid for extras. There will come a time when it’s no longer practical or possible, but – that day is not this day, to paraphrase a well-known fantasy film.
And is the allotment worthwhile, in purely financial terms? This has not been the most productive of years, thanks to a very dry spring, a mud-bath in May leading to a weed explosion which I’m still battling, and a cold grey August which led to stalled growth for the leeks and cabbages, the dreaded tomato blight, and an almost total lack of female flowers on my squash plants. However, quoting from a post I made on MSE’s forums:
“Another 850g of raspberries brought home this morning, along with a bag of just-popped-up spuds, enough beans for a meal for 5 and a courgette, plus a load of cabbage outer-leaves for the Girls (the chickens, rather than my daughters) from my neighbour, who’s clearing his plot for the winter – he will be rewarded with half a dozen eggs! I keep my plot producing over winter where possible, feeding the soil with mulches rather then resting it, and am currently planting mooli, overwintering onions and broad beans, with garlic yet to go; the kale, leeks (if they ever get any bigger!) and chard will keep producing right through.
In response to a question from my Other Half, I was also working out whether allotmenteering is financially worthwhile; the plot rental is £50 per annum. But I don’t think a single week has gone by over the last year without me bringing home at least £5 worth of produce, at normal prices, and actually I’m growing without chemicals, so organic prices might be a better comparison. I’ve brought home over 5Kg of raspberries over the last few weeks; at W8rose prices of £3 for 300g, i.e. £10 per kilo, that’s the rent paid even if I hadn’t grown anything else! Of course there are some other expenses; I’ve bought some netting, some secondhand water pipes & a few seeds this year, but most of the tools & equipment I need have been sourced secondhand or free.”
Well worthwhile, in my view. Add in fresh air and exercise, meaning I don’t have to pay gym fees to stay active & relaxed, and for me, it’s a winner, though I’d still rather be growing it all in my own garden! (But sadly, that isn’t big or sunny enough.) I know I’m very lucky to be capable of maintaining it, albeit not all that well or quite as the site managers would like to see it (i.e. bare earth, neat rows) but I’d urge anyone who has the opportunity & the time to take one on to get stuck in & give it a whirl.
I’d also urge them to “do the math” – everyone’s situation is different. What pays off for me might not pay off for you, if you paid the plot rental but then weren’t able to keep it going. (Or if you bought lots of expensive tools and equipment, then gave up after a couple of years, which does seem to happen quite a lot.) The right cooker for our reasonably-sized kitchen and more-than-reasonably-sized family wouldn’t be the right choice for a singleton, or for someone producing food for sale. Some tools pay for themselves very quickly, in financial terms like a sewing machine can, or in terms of time saved, and some add so much to your quality of life that they’re worth every penny spent, but others – don’t. I’m reminded of the expensive food processor that just moved the work from before the meal to afterwards, because it was such nightmare to clean!
Anyway, enough rambling. I’ll leave you with some pictures taken at the allotment today…
A bee enjoying one of my daughter Sarah’s sunflowers.
…and I’m going flat out in the garden and at the allotment again. It’s still too cold put much out, and now what I have planted out is in danger of drowning, but our little greenhouse is full to bursting of tiny plantlets waiting to gallop into their full potential when conditions allow. There’s plenty of infrastructure work still to do up at the allotment to get ready for them, but I’ve hurt my back so will have to wait a few days more before I can get on top of that. In the meantime I’ve been cooking up an idea for a self-built “tomato-house” in an under-utilised space round the front…
Seedlings ready to go in. But not into a bog…
But whenever I’ve wandered over to the allotment to tend the potatoes and brave seedlings that have poked their tiny heads up (Yay! Parsnips! For the first time ever!) I’ve been saddened to walk past several “landscape gardeners”‘ pick-ups parked outside people’s homes, with shredders going full blast and branch after blossom-laden branch being fed into the chippers. Rootballs & whole shrubs chucked onto the lorries, bag after bag of rich topsoil going to the dump & sterile sand being barrowed in, followed by rolls of astro-turf. Massive, expensive plastic-rattan suites & flimsy “gazebos” are being delivered to take up half the outdoor space and blow-up hot-tubs to cover the rest. And the big new “executive” houses going up in the new estates all round our little town have tiny pocket-hanky gardens. It’s left me wondering how most people see gardens these days; do they just want their outdoor spaces to be a place to “be” in, or entertain in? Our local estate agents seem only to see gardens as potential building plots.
I do know that people are very stressed and don’t want to have to bother with “work” in the garden when they finally get home after queueing in traffic for half an hour to get through all the roadworks caused by the new builds. I know that the supermarkets have plenty of fresh produce you can buy for pennies, so why bother to grow your own? I know that to many, wildlife is something that lives “out there” and any living thing that shows up in your space is a pest or potential danger that should be got rid of; toads are slimy, hedgehogs prickly, bees, wasps and anything that looks vaguely like them might sting or bite, birds may poo on your expensive rattan suite, bats get stuck in your expensive hairdo, and so on. But don’t people have any idea what they are missing out on?
Some non-supermarket produce entertaining me…
When the sun shines, our little garden is a bit of a sun-trap, and there’s no greater blessing than to doze gently in a chair, listening to the hum of next-door’s bees coming in to drink at the pond and pollinate my crab-apples. We have a small solar-powered fountain, bought for a few pounds in an online sale, to keep the water clear & fresh for the tadpoles that will grow into frogs and toads that will keep the slugs at bay. The antics of the two hedgehogs whose “range” includes our garden amuse us hugely after dark, and we’re privileged to have one of them “nest” regularly in the lesser-visited recesses of the garage. The scent of the pittosporum at dusk in spring, and the roses all day in summer, are a constant delight. And the taste & texture of home-grown produce just beats any samey-same affordable supermarket vegetable hands-down. Ah well, perhaps I just belong in an older & kinder version of the world…
In other news, I’ve been making-do & mending as usual, and would love to share a little project with you all. Elder daughter had a favourite pillow-sham for many years, one of those nice M&S patchwork ones in pretty shades of blue & pink. I forget where it came from originally, but it’s lived here for at least ten years. However since about Christmas it’s languished at the bottom of the “putting-away” pile of clean washing, and when I looked more closely at it, I realised that it had actually disintegrated past the point of no return. But she couldn’t quite bear to rip it up for rags or just chuck it out.
A worn-out pillow sham…
So the parts that aren’t too worn are now two lavender-stuffed hearts, to scent her wardrobe or pop under her pillow for a good night’s sleep. There are two tiny bits left which might make a pin-cushion. Sometimes you don’t have to harden your heart & chuck out items with fond memories that have “had it” – it’s always worth thinking, what might they be next?
…becomes a well-stuffed lavender heart – a fitting end?
…we have a son returning home! Son no. 3 has spent most of the last ten years studying & living away, though he’s been home for holidays when in the UK. But he’s finally run out of stipend, hopefully having completed his thesis, and will be returning to the family fold imminently. And the bedroom required for a 28-year-old academic is not the bedroom that the 18-year-old student left behind…
It’s a different room, for a start. He used to have the smallest bedroom at the top of the stairs, but now the bigger, downstairs room that’s functioned as the guest room for the last ten years is more appropriate. He has a large collection of academic reference books to accommodate; my poor husband has already remarked many times that our elder daughter & I should just go & live in a library, so there isn’t much spare bookcase-space available. He will be job-hunting and keeping up to date in his field, so the room needs to work as a serious study as well as a bedroom.
He sent through a plan of how he thought it could be laid out, and as a little joke, included a wing-back chair, Sherlock-Holmes-style. It just so happens that I am always rescuing a certain make of old wing-back chair for an upholsterer friend, who re-makes them into the most fabulous, desirable & comfortable chairs going. But alas, all my usual sources are closed just now, so I put a request on Freecycle, not expecting anything as there were several listed locally on Ebay at exceedingly silly prices, i.e. more than my friend asks for them after she’s done them up professionally. To my astonishment, I got a reply within the hour, and picked up a modern, but very comfortable, reclining wingback chair the next day, for free. Joke returned! We may never get him out of there, though…
Free wingback recliner…
Then the hunt was on for serious bookcases. I answered an advert on Facebook Marketplace, for a tall painted wooden bookcase from a certain Scandinavian emporium. They did say it needed some TLC, but it was priced very reasonably at £10. We squeezed it into my van & bore it home triumphantly, but on closer inspection, though very heavy & originally very sturdy, it was actually particle-board and had been left outside for too long; the damage to the weight-bearing base was irreversible. But it hasn’t gone to waste; the shelves and one side have gone up into the loft as loft-boarding where there wasn’t any, and the damaged side has been trimmed to size & deployed across two (also Scandinvian) tall bedside tables to make a perfect, and rather stylish, laptop desk for my husband to work-from-home on, teamed with a comfortable office chair that came to us via Freegle. I also rescued the dowelling and other fixings from the shelves; they’re pretty standard across the whole range of their furniture, which we have a fair bit of, some of it even bought new. The only bits that went to the tip were the top & bottom trim and the flimsy back-boards.
I spotted an advert for all sorts of free furniture from a big Edwardian house being cleared only about 400 yards away from us. Old stuff, lovely quality, but mostly much too big & dark for modern homes. But there were two tall bookcases… I dashed off a polite request & heard straight back; the chap organising the clearance was upcountry, but thought they were a pretty standard size, i.e. 6′ tall x 3′ wide, so I replied that we would love to give both of them a home, please. So we went to pick them up from his brother the next day; they’re absolutely lovely in a shabby-chic sort of way, but actually over 7′ tall and well over 3′ wide! Only one would fit into the bedroom, but we’ve managed to make space for the other one in the hallway, replacing two smaller bookcases, one of which has also gone into the bedroom.
One free bookcase…
But he also needs a desk. And not the neat little desk that’s been in there all along; it needs to accommodate his laptop, a couple of big reference books plus notebooks, pens etc. and have plenty of space underneath for restless legs. However, add in the bed, wardrobe & a large chest of drawers (with small bookcase on top) and the remaining space is limited; 4’/120cm wide by about 20″/50cm deep is about all that will fit. Suggestions have been winging their way through the ether, but nothing ready-made has yet hit the spot in terms of style or size; he desperately doesn’t want white-on-white. However, a couple of days ago I picked up a Gumtree’d “Freebie” black desk top, also originally from the Scandinavian emporium, may their name be ever-blessed; I knew you could still buy legs to fit it very reasonably. So they’ve been ordered, and the desk top cut to size; it turned out to be easier to cut particleboard than I’ve always thought, given a decent jig-saw. I’ve added a board at the back to stop stuff falling off, as it’s side-on to the doorway. So, there will be a desk, which will have cost next-to-nothing, and ***It Will Do *** until he finds one of his own choosing, or the job of his dreams and moves out again!
After Christmas, when he announced he’d be returning home for some indefinable length of time, I was panicking mightily that I’d have to spend quite a lot of money on new furniture that really needs to be spent maintaining my van, as I’ve earned next-to-nothing over the last year & will need to go out & sell stuff on virtually every fine day this summer. But given time & access to a computer, I’ve been able to assemble bits & bobs that fit the bill for very nearly nothing. Thank you so very, very much, to all Freecycle/Freegle volunteers, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace!
How strange! I feel as if a beloved friend has just left us… the time had come to replace my Mac Mini. We’d had it for over 10 years and it had served us well; it’s been replaced with an updated version as that’s what does the things I need from a personal computer the best & fits the space available. It had become slower & slower over the last few months, and every now & then the fan would kick in audibly as it struggled; I suspect it had got very dusty inside. I opted to go for the trade-in option, as that means that anything that’s still usable inside the box will get re-used, and the bits that aren’t will be recycled rather than just sitting in a cupboard until I got round to chucking it out.
So I did the Mac-to-Mac transfer, which wasn’t as horrendous or time-consuming as I thought it might be, though there were one or two little blips. But Apple Support were great & smoothed it all out for me, and the New Mac Mini was up & running easily a couple of days ago. Yesterday I managed to track down all the bits of data that had wandered off to other folders, so today was “Wipe Mac-Mini-1” day. I followed the instructions on the Apple website to prepare it for returning to Apple, but as it came to clicking the “Erase Disk” option I felt a real pang of sorrow!
It’s very strange; I know I’ll feel the same when my beloved Mazda Bongo finally trundles off to the great scrapheap in the sky. Or if my 1909 Jones Medium treadled sewing machine jammed irreparably, something having broken inside. My head knows perfectly well that they’re just machines; they don’t have personalities, they’re not my “friends” no matter how useful they are, but somehow my heart “knows” otherwise. And I suspect that that’s one reason why I feel I have to do what I do; I see perfectly good old tools, furniture or books sitting in a skip or at an auction and somehow they seem to be begging, “rescue me!” But that does rather lead to an excessively cluttered home, despite my efforts to re-home stuff profitably.
I suppose the answer is, stay away from skips, scrapheaps and auctions. But please tell me I’m not alone, and that other people out there do sometimes feel the same, and that some of the good old stuff that’s tossed away in our wasteful society will also be rescued – just not always by me…
My beloved “rescued-via-Ebay-for-£2.50” Jones Medium treadle, still very much in use!
A recycled lifestyle... 