A stitch up

Hello. The weather has been wall to wall rain today, so it's been a day indoors for me. Not to worry though, it's given me a chance to get stuck into the latest artwork. I've been stitching all day, my little fingers are sore. It's looking pretty darn good though, worth all the effort to get it right. 

So, what was I doing yesterday. I went to visit my friend Jan from the craft club, she lives at the other end of the village and as it was raining I drove myself there. She lent me some books a month ago so it was a good opportunity to take them back. I wanted to be nosy in her sewing room, see what fabrics she has. I must say her room is very neat and tidy, everything in it's place, and lots of lovely fabrics to drool over. She sorted out some more books for me to borrow, she has lots of them on every crafting subject. I took the Hudl with me and we had a play on that, she will think about getting one when she comes back from her holidays. 

My dinner yesterday was a scrumptious plate of steamed vegetables topped with grated cheese. Sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes, parsnips and spinach. There is no meal better than this, I enjoy every mouthful. Today I had the same again, minus the spinach, and topped with garlic mushrooms. Simply divine. 

Here is a little teaser. I'm close to finishing it now, or I think I am. The bigger towel rail which I am using as a frame is ready to be wired onto the back of it. Anyway, must get on, want to do another hour before I wind down before bed time.

Enjoy your Sunday, Toodle pip.

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Shopping - a military operation

Good morning, and what a miserable one it is too. I don't care, plenty to keep me occupied here. I am fully stocked up with food once again after my Tesco saunter last night. It took me two hours to pick up the best bargains in the store. It's all about timing, and hovering, and going backwards and forwards, watching the various places where the yellow stickers are likely to appear. 

Not much in the chiller cabinet when I arrived at 7pm, mostly meat. I picked out some cooked ham for the cats. The veg had not yet been marked down, I saw it disappear into the store room, and after some enquiries I knew it would be about 20 minutes before it was wheeled back out again, newly stickered up. That gave me time to put a few essentials into my trolley and check out the bread situation. Not a lot on offer there, it hadn't had it's final reduction, I'll keep an eye on that, will come back later. 

The veg came out and there were four of five people eagerly diving in, me included. No point in having a meal plan in that situation, just take what's there and think about what I am going to do with it later. Someone beat me to the pears, but I met the lady a few minutes later and we stopped to chat about what we managed to bag. She handed me a pack of pears which she didn't need, she had two packs, and I gave her my tomatoes which I wasn't really bothered about. She was pleased with that and so was I. 

I find it's best to make a few friends while yellow sticker shopping, we are all trying to get the best for our money, and that lady has several kids to feed. 

After several circuits of the store, I was lucky enough to be in the right place when they brought more bread out. Wow, I hit the jackpot, Hovis seeded wholemeal for 15p, down from �1.49. 

So, what did I get, here's a breakdown.

Yellow sticker list.
Pack 8 croissants 18p was �1.75
5 x Hovis wholemeal 15p each was �1.49 each
Pack of 4 wholemeal rolls 13p was �1.30
Pack of 5 cookies 50p was �1.00
Family pack mushrooms 50p was �2.00
Cooked ham for cats 48p was 95p
Curly kale 15p was �1.00
Small Parsnips 16p was �1.60
2 packs parsnips 7p each was 73p each
6 Rocha pears 26p was �1.75
Grapes 6p was �1.25
2 avocados 18p was �1.80
Bananas 7p was 74p
Cabbage 8p was 80p
Cauliflower x 2 10p each was �1.00 each
Broccoli x 2 6p each was 64p each

Here's the rest of the shop.
Cat food pouches �2.50
Bananas loose 69p. I picked these up before I found the reduced but decided to keep them as they are a bit green and will keep longer.
4 tins Value spaghetti hoops 20p each
Jar Value pickled onions 30p
4 tins Value rice pudding 15p each.
Value plain yogurt 45p
Value tinned peaches 40p these have gone up from 35p
8 tins Gourmet gold cat food 45p each, on offer 8 for �3.00
Bag frozen chicken pieces for the cats �2.00
2 jars Value Lemon curd 22p each
2 tins Value baked beans 24p each
Packet Value sultanas 84p
Six pack flavoured yogurt �1.00
Mature cheddar 350 grm �2.00
3 packs ground almonds �1 each, Buy 2 get one free.
Value porridge oats 75p
2 boxes Value bran flakes 88p each

I had three coupons totaling �2.75 making a total to pay of �23.05. I think that's what is called savvy shopping, ha ha. One of the loaves and a cauliflower is ear marked to give away to someone who is doing me a favour.

And that's not all. My new purple Hudl is charged up and ready to go. They cost �129, but I got �60 off by using the double up offer on vouchers. �30 became �60. Now I have got a new toy to play with, it can rain as much as it likes. Ooops it's stopped, might go out later.

I'll leave you with another picture of Mayze snoozing in my bit box. Buried under the mounds of mesh fruit bags. The pink thing is an unraveled body scrub, might come in useful for something, ha ha.

Have a good weekend, I'll catch you tomorrow, probably, possibly, most likely, might do, good chance I will do. Toodle pip

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See you tomorrow

Hello. It's a bit late to start writing a post now. I've done a big Tesco shop tonight, the trolley was stacked up high but it only cost �23. I'll be back tomorrow with the list. Oh, and I've bought myself a Hudl :o) Goodnight.

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Growing pains

Hello. This is something I wrote in August 1999. I sent it to a magazine in the hope that they might publish it, and send me some money. They didn't, they rejected it, so I can publish it now.

Tucked away at the bottom of a drawer in the old sideboard I inherited from my mother, I came across my old school report from 1959, I was ten years old. On the bottom of the page it says, 'Talkative'. That's what I was, a right chatterbox. I hated to sit still in class, and was forever turning around to talk to my friends. I liked to be the centre of attention and felt happy when I could make people laugh.

Although I was bright and chirpy, there was a sad, unhappy little soul deep inside. It was my appearance which was causing me so much pain, but I managed a brilliant cover up with my incessant talking. There wasn't actually anything physically wrong with me, all the right bits were in the right places, it's just that when beauty was dished out I got the slops. So chatter I did, I needed to make friends.

Not long after I moved to the senior school I started to take an interest in what young girls are supposed to take an interest in, fashion, make up, pop stars, and boys. The boys only seemed to go out with girls who looked pretty, just so they were the envy of all their friends. This would change every week,, competition was fierce. I never did get on the merry go round, they weren't interested in a girl who was chatty and funny. They didn't want someone to go on bike rides with, or someone to collect frogs with, or go fishing with. One girl in our class was actually engaged to a man of 21. She flashed her ring around when the teachers weren't looking, and constantly got into trouble for wearing nail varnish.

I felt some improvements in my appearance were called for, if I didn't do something I would be left on the shelf by the time I was fifteen. I was never going to get a boyfriend, looking like a bean pole, with national health specs and rabbit teeth. Terry was the boy I had my eye on. He was the best looking, and I thought he was kind to ugly people. I was wrong on that last assumption, he laughed his socks off when my friend told him I fancied him. That hurt. I spent a lot of time sobbing into my pillow.

Maybe I couldn't do much about getting my teeth straightened, or chucking the glasses, but I could go down town and visit the make up counter at Woolies with my pocket money. A Panstick was very useful for covering up spots. If I saved up enough I sometimes bought a small block of black mascara, the sort you spit on and apply with a brush. By coating my eye lashes six times and adding dollops of sky blue eye shadow, I thought I could pass for 'Miss Burton upon Trent 1962'.

Something had to be done about my chest as well. It was painfully embarrassing to be the only girl left in the class who didn't have a bra. I begged mum to get me one, but all she kept saying was, 'You don't need one, you haven't got anything to put in it'. I didn't need reminding of this. I knew my equipment was a bit late in coming, but I thought that if I had a bra it would prompt my chest to start blooming. Close inspection every morning was disappointing, I kept wondering if I was ever going to get bosoms. Eventually mum gave in and we went to Marks and Sparks. Once back home I excitedly tried on my new bra. I was so chuffed, now I could be a real woman. As I didn't have anything to push up and push out, I had to make do with a pair of socks. Later on I found that these had a habit of working their way upwards, and eventually popped out of the front of my dress.

My fashion idols at the time were Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, and Cathy McGowan. They leaped out of the magazine pages, and the television screen. Oh how I wished I could be 'with it', like them, but I had no money to spend on nice dresses. The next best thing was to improvise. I was pretty nifty with a sewing machine, and fabric from the market was dead cheap, I could knock up a mini skirt for five bob. My friends were dead impressed. I could sell them a skirt for 7/6d and buy some more fabric to make my dresses. A basic pattern could be adapted, and a loan of mums Singer treadle machine produced some amazing outfits. So amazing that men on building sites whistled at me. I felt a million dollars.

I enjoyed going to the youth Club, and on a Thursday night there was always a battle between me and mum as to who would wear her trendy calf length leather boots with a heel. She wanted to go to bingo in them, but I usually won. In our family clothes were passed down the generations. I used to claim all mums cast off stockings. All the better if they had two or three ladders in them, at least people would know I was grown up and wearing stockings now. I could usually buy a pair of stiletto shoes from a jumble sale for two shillings. I would totter off to the bus stop to go to town on a Saturday afternoon. This was the highlight of the week as I paraded up and down the High Street, imagining I was in the heart of swinging Soho amongst the boutiques.

After many agonizing years my attempts to create a raving beauty out of an ugly duckling have finally diminished. I did manage to get my teeth done and swap my specs for contact lenses, but my chesticles were never what you might call voluptuous. Now gravity has taken over and everything is plunging south. I finally have to admit defeat.  

I wrote this fifteen years ago, my memories of growing up in the sixties. It's funny thinking about how I have changed. Then I wanted to be like all my pals, wanted to be in fashion, and wanted to look pretty. I desperately wanted to fit in, and be one of the gang. Now I am the complete opposite. I don't need to be fashionable I can wear what I like. I don't need to be one of the gang, I don't have to cosy up to people and seek approval, or impress, and I don't have to be in with the in crowd. It's a liberating feeling.
Toodle pip

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Get ready for the big bang

Now now, don't get excited, I haven't been knitting. I just had to post pics of this Nativity scene, all hand knitted by Janet from our Chat and Craft Club. Aren't they just brilliant, so neat and so perfect, not a stitch out of place. No, she doesn't want to sell them, or give them away, they will be taking pride of place in her home for many years to come. 

Janet also makes bags. She made this one out of an old pair of jeans which no longer fit her. The needle felting motif on the front panel was also done by Janet. It's a handy medium size bag. 

Here are a couple more photo's of ladies hard at work at the meeting yesterday. This is going to be a woodland scene picture and needs thousands of tiny stitches. It's going to take ages to complete.

I'm not really sure what you call this type of crafting, but I do know the lady makes greetings cards.

I took along the patchwork I am making for the sewing machine cover. Another job I ought to be getting on with. So many things I want to make, need to sew some more shopping bags, and make some more of those fabric bowls. Another idea is lurking for the next piece of artwork.

This morning I started on the back garden at Helen's rental house. It's not very big so shouldn't take long. The cat pee smell is still there in the house, but not quite as bad as it was. She has some industrial cleaner on order which should sort it out. She has already painted all the walls upstairs, now is working on the downstairs, then the new carpets can be laid. It must be soul destroying knowing that she did all this fourteen months ago, and now has to do it again. I think if you take on tenants you hope they are going to look after the place and stay a long time. She was just unlucky, but is better informed for the next time.

Dinner tonight was a bit of a mishmash. I had some pasta left over, cooked extra on Sunday, so I microwaved that with some cheese sauce, and steamed some brussel sprouts, potatoes, and parsnips. I suppose it could have all gone in a pie dish in the oven, but I don't use the oven, so things got cooked separately.

The fridge freezer is buzzing a lot more than normal just lately. It seems ever time I go in the kitchen it is buzzing. Don't know what's going on there. Is it about to pack up, I wonder. I need to eat all the food in it, just in case. Maybe it needs de frosting. I've turned the thermostat down to 1, that stopped the buzzing, but it's started again. We shall see, I'll keep my eye on it.

I've got quite a lot of Tesco points saved up, and been thinking I might treat myself. I quite like the idea of getting a Hudl, has anyone got one? With the double up promotion I could pay a big part of it with vouchers. Something to think about.

Guy Fawkes night tomorrow night, are you ready for the bangs? Get your pets in early. Our fireworks started last Thursday, someone close by had a party. No doubt some will be saving theirs for Friday or Saturday night.

That's all, thank you for popping in. Toodle pip.

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Share your secrets

Hello. Did ya miss me. Only the usual stuff going on at Tightwad Towers. Today I got the Dyson out, YAY, three cheers, I did some housework. I saw a programme called Trust me I'm a Doctor, and it said that housework and working in the garden is as good for you as a session down the gym. They did some tests, getting people to do some ironing, mopping, hoovering. and dusting, then checked how much energy they had used doing these tasks. Apparently you get a pretty good workout while doing mundane housework, so maybe I should do more of it. In your dreams, ha ha. No, I'll plod on with the housework in my own sweet sedate way, and when I feel the need to limber up I will go outside and do a bit in the garden instead.

Today I went out there with the loppers and shears and attacked the Leylandi hedge. Behind it is a six foot wooden fence between me and the house round the corner, so it's difficult to get to all of it. The hedge is about eight feet tall, and even standing on the step ladders I can't reach it all, so it was a matter of climbing up into the middle of it, and standing on the lower branches. There's a particularly high bit which I would like to cut down, don't know how I'm going to do it. The trunk is too thick for the loppers, I'll have to try the saw. I ran out of daylight and had to give up, will try again another day.

I'm on the home stretch with the picture, spent most of yesterday working on it. I was going to go to the Bake Off in the Village Hall, but completely forgot about it. Fancy that, missed out on the cake, oh bother! I was so engrossed in what I was doing, everything else went out of the window.

When I am at home, I have my computer on most of the day, keep popping back to have a look what's going on. Sit down for ten minutes with a drink, or a bite to eat, have a nosy round the forums. Do you do that? It sort of breaks the day up, I do jobs in bite size chunks, half an hour here, half an hour there, sit down for a rest when a job becomes too boring. Can't stand long boring jobs, Can only Dyson for 20 minutes, or clean two windows, or put a load of washing in, or clean the kitchen for 20 minutes, then I need a break. So I have a look round the blogs and forums, have a nosy on Facebook and Twitter, see what's going on.

I go on Down the Lane forum. It's about self sufficiency, gardening, pets, health and fitness, hobbies, food, bit of alsorts really, It has a big section on chickens, not that I read that, I have no desire to keep chickens, but it's useful for anyone who is interested. Richard who runs the forum is in Nepal at the moment, he has been posting updates. No doubt when he gets back there will be more photo's appearing.

I like the Walking Forum. It's all things, erm, walking. My user name on there is fit old bird, 'cause that's what I am, ha ha. It covers walkers of all abilities, from the novice just starting out, to experienced mountain climbers. There are a lot of trip reports on there, so if you are thinking of walking in a particular area, you could probably find a report from someone who has been there before. There are sections on equipment and what gear to wear, and a meet up section for those who want to walk with someone else.

Does anyone go on Money Saving Expert Forum? I go on there quite a lot, well I would do wouldn't I. There is always something new to learn about saving money. Alright, I do know most of it, but I don't know everything. I know what works best for me, but there might be something I might not know about, something new I can learn. The forum is not just about money saving either. It's a bit like sitting in a launderette and having a gossip, or chatting over the garden fence with your neighbour, or stopping in the street to chat to the postman. There are such a diverse range of topics on there, you can find out all kinds of things about how folks live their lives. Some of it is very enlightening. The MSE forum is so busy, you can have conversations on there. No need to wait for a comment to be published, it is instant on a forum, and if someone is reading it, a reply can come back straight away.

So how about you, what forums do you read, any that I should be looking at? C'mon share your little secrets, what have you seen on a forum  ;o))
Toodle pip

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Love Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Hi de hi, howzit going. Tis a warm and sunny day up here in my little corner of North Lincolnshire. Yesterday was a dry day so I took a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, not far from Wakefield. It's easy to find, just off the M1 motorway at junction 38. I was last there a while ago but thought it worth another visit. Although it is free to enter the grounds and buildings, there is a car park charge. I was intending to pay this but when I saw how much it was, I changed my mind, and instead drove half a mile to a village, parked there and walked back. To park costs �2.50 for one hour, �5 for two hours, and �8 for all day. Why the big jump I thought, it's a very big park, too big to walk around and see everything in two hours. Three or four hours would be about right, and as I calculated I would be there for three hours I decided that the �8 was too much. 

Some of the outdoor sculptures have been there for a long time, so I was looking for those I hadn't seen before. Here is a spectacular piece by the artist Ursula Von Rydingsvard, called Bronze Bowl with Lace. As the winter daylight ends, the sculpture is illuminated from within giving it an ember like glow. 

There are several sculptures dotted around, some outside and some in the underground gallery. 

This owl is by Thomas Houseago. Click to see some of his other works.

This sculpture stands in the corner of a garden, and it's by Marc Quinn. Click on his name for more of his art work.

This six metre high iron tree is amazing. It stands in the Chapel courtyard, and is by artist Ai Weiwei. If you scroll down and enlarge the photo, you should be able to read about the tree and it's maker. Here is a little bit more about Ai Weiwei, taken from the Sculpture Park web site. 

I finished off with a walk around the lake. It was a smashing day out, and in the end it cost nothing apart from the petrol to get there and back.

Enjoy your weekend. Toodle pip.

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