Bad news, Good news...

Today I had a bad news good news scenario. The bad news - guy in a car park over the weekend spotted that my "car suspension's gone, duck" and that I need to get it seen to "as soon as". So I booked it into the garage first thing this morning, phoned into work to take a day off (flexi time is great when you have a crisis!) and went back home. "Bliss", I thought. The good news : a whole day to myself completely unplanned so I can do anything I like as long as its at home . I decided to sand and paint an appallingly scruffy chest of drawers which my father had had in his shed for years when I was growing up. Everyone who has seen it has advised me to take it to the tip but I wanted to see if I could make anything of it. So, it's now looking much better painted in Farrow and Ball's Lichen which I love.


By 9.40 the garage had phoned to say the car was ready so I could collect it. While very impressed at the speediness of the job (and less impressed at the cost) I felt strangely cheated of my day at home ! I felt I had to rush out to collect it and then get on with all the "running around" chores that needed to be done denying me of the day's sewing, gardening and other self indulgent treats I had promised myself, to make up for the fact that the price of this was going to hurt . I did manage to get to a couple of charity shops and spotted the book above which really said it all. "Time is of the essence". Isn't it just...

It's a cookery book published in 1961 with sections such as "4 cheap meals for 4 people which can be prepared cooked and served in ten minutes", and "3 more expensive meals for 4 people which can be prepared cooked and served in 10 minutes", and my favourite "An autumn menu, very English and traditionally held to appeal particularly to men"! I love the frantically whizzing hand whisk with the clock hands placed artistically over the front of it!

The book has fabulous lines in it such as "this section is designed to help someone who is working every day and who prefers to do all her housekeeping, thinking and shopping for the coming week on Saturday." What a brilliant idea - I shall henceforth do all my thinking on a Saturday and get it over and done with!

Its probably just as well that the book doesn't have photos in it - some of the ideas sound strange even to me as a child who grew up in the sixties - I'm glad I was never offered "Sandwiches thickly sprinkled with hundreds and thousands"!



Love Wend

Show and tell

Had a great couple of hours at the car boot yesterday morning once again finding several little bits but also a couple of significant finds. Aren't these little glasses sweet? I love the way the sun shines through them casting a rosy glow beneath them. At £1 the set I couldn't leave them!



A little needle case held together with an elastic band containing an abundance of crochet hooks - great for me as I have recently started crocheting.



A fabric bolt with this lovely Sanderson fabric (Little Chelsea)- there was only a couple of metres but as it normally retails as £39.50 per metre I felt I'd done really well. I bought several embroidered tablecloths and cushion covers - I'm rather enjoying bringing the old cushion covers back to life with a bit of TLC.



I seem to have started picking up old floral prints and have several now. This is by Vernon Ward well known for his floral pictures and his "migrating birds* series and considered to be kitsch by many. I also managed to pick up a couple of the migrating birds for pennies. You can just see under the picture some duck egg blue fabric which is a pair of curtains I bought just because I liked the fabric - they are a thick heavy cotton hand printed by Fothergay and it wasn't until I got them home that I realised I have just the spot for them. Unfortunately I shall have to change the heading tape as the threads have long disappeared!

So, home happy with the booting bug satiated for another week and off to the allotment for a few hours. It was great to pick a dozen sticks of rhubarb, over wintered leeks, a couple of lettuces and the first radishes of the season - they were only as big as marbles but that little bit of harvesting provided just the right boost to keep plugging away at all the digging, sowing, trimming, raking and hoeing...

Love Wend