Buying Second Hand

 Thank you for all your comments yesterday about telling strangers they look good. The consensus of opinion was that Scarlett should carry on saying nice comments to people and you know what you are all right. I shouldn't worry, I doubt there would be one person who would not be thrilled to receive a nice compliment. Interestingly though it has caused much discussion in our house. Youngest son said although he would love to say compliments he would be too afraid to in case women or even men thought he was "hitting on them." Youngest daughter is 6ft 1inches and is so stylish and pretty she gets remarks every where she goes, she has even had TV companies giving her cards to try and get her to apply for different reality shows when she is out and about, although she says she can't think of anything worse than taking part in some sort of tacky reality TV show! She get's fed up with all the comments but she said when one man wound down his window and shouted "Nice Style!" it made such a nice change from what she usually gets it made her day. Imagine if everyone was as nice as all you people in blogland, wouldn't the world be a happy place!

I had one very annoying thing happen yesterday, our washing machine has completely packed up. It has been making a very loud noise while it was spinning for a few weeks which was rather worrying and then in the last few days has made such an awful screeching noise youngest son came down to say surely the neighbours will be complaining or even worse calling the police! Yesterday it completely died the death. We have a routine with washing machines we have stuck to for years. When we moved into our previous house in 1995 I wanted a really lovely washing machine as with four young children it was on so much. We bought a machine at the top of our price range, didn't think we would need any insurance and then two years later it packed up. Out of guarantee it was sadly going to cost a fortune to fix, I know it was on a couple of times a day but it wasn't a very good advert for the make. One of eldest son's friends said his parents were selling their washing machine as they had a new integral one put in as part of a new kitchen and we bought it for £40. That wonderful Zanussi washing machine lasted for 9 years without a single problem and was the best washing machine we ever had. 

After that we completely changed the way we bought them. We have had two second hand washing machines since then and I'm sure it has saved us a fortune. On the last two occasions, we have bought from the British Heart Foundation shop so  they are checked by an electrician and give revenue for a really good charity too. I always think it is good to buy second hand if possible as it saves the world's resources. So that is where we are off to this afternoon when Tom gets in from work. I hope they have a nice one in stock. 

It's a lovely morning here today, the sun is shining and it makes it so much easier to get all the jobs done that need doing nice and early. I'm going to plant all my little geraniums out in the front garden I got free a few weeks ago. They are still quite small but if I don't put them out soon we won't get any benefit from them at all this summer. I'll walk one of the dogs this morning as we have a busy day ahead! We have to get our shopping done quickly when Tom comes in as he wants to be back in plenty of time for the Wales match. I'm not quite sure Cassie is in the mood for a walk yet though, it's a hard life being a dog!

So Good Luck Wales or should I say Pob Lwc! Have a lovely day everyone I hope the sun is shining on you a bit where ever you are. xx

Green Walls And Skyscrapers

 I walked into Sutton yesterday morning. On nice days I always try and walk there, it's two miles which is just a nice stretch out I always think and I vary my route so I see different things. I always look in peoples front gardens as it gives me ideas. I love to see how people have pruned different plants for different effects. Sutton is much busier now but I went first thing so there were no queues yet. The old Cock Inn sign at the top of Sutton has had a new paint job recently and looks lovely. The old Inn which was a changing point for the London to Brighton stagecoaches has long gone but the sign still remains and I love to see the little piece of history still being looked after. 

Thinking about getting gardening ideas there was a wonderful item on Gardeners World on Friday about trees on skyscrapers in Milan. Apparently Milan has one of the worst pollution problems in Europe. To try and tackle the problem trees have been planted on two buildings. The project was named Bosco Verticale, or in English "Vertical Forest", because together the towers have 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 perennial plants, which help mitigate smog and produce oxygen. This photo on Wikipedia taken by the photographer Darsheni shows how they look.

Although I obviously couldn't do anything on this scale I love the way Wilkinson's in Sutton have added a living wall outside their shop. It was one of the ugliest buildings in Sutton, a typical concrete 1960s soulless sort of building yet it has become a real haven for nesting birds. I'd love to have a go with something similar one day, but then Tom and I talk all the time about building an eco friendly house on our own plot of land. It's a real dream of ours.

I bought two plants in Wilkinson's in the end. A red Camelia for the shady end of the garden by the new rockery and a Ceanothus. One of the houses I walk past has pruned one into a tree and it looks stunning when it is in flower. I'm going to keep it in a pot for a while and try and do the same, it will probably take years but never mind.

It's a very special day today, my Dad's 90th birthday. Sadly because of the restrictions on groups still in place we can't have the big family gathering we had hoped for but we are going in relays over today and tomorrow so everyone can get to spend time with him in his garden, so fingers crossed the rain keeps away. I hope every one has a lovely Sunday what ever you are doing. xx

All This Extra Plastic

 I try so hard not to put too much plastic into my rubbish. I don't buy items with lots of plastic wrapping and if I do buy food in plastic trays I try to reuse them in my greenhouse for growing seeds. We don't buy drinks in plastic bottles anyway and since we have had our milk delivered from the milkman for the last few years that has cut down a lot. Carrying a little shopping bag in my handbag so I am always prepared had become part of my going out checklist. However since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions that followed other items have been added to my checklist. Face mask and hand sanitiser. I use a cloth pretty flowery face mask so it is reusable (I even have one in Snoopy fabric!) but when ever I have had a hospital check up they won't let me wear these I have to be handed a surgical one. These single use surgical ones go straight in the rubbish and horrifyingly I see them everywhere when I am out walking just discarded at the side of the road. Tom says they are all over the bus by the end his route. 

The thing that has really bothered me though is all the little hand sanitizer bottles. All of my family are out and about a lot and I make sure they always have those little hand sanitisers with them but when the bottles are empty I'm not quite sure what to do. I looked online to see if I could buy a big bottle to refill them with but I thought it's only putting off the problem, I still have a big bottle to find a use for when it is finished. Then I remembered a shop near my Dad's house where you can refill bottles of household cleaners and the like  I had used it a few times and really liked it and then along came coronavirus and there seemed so much else to worry about I didn't go back. So yesterday after doing Dad's shopping I popped in to have a look round again.

It has some really good items. I have used the general purpose cleaner before and liked it very much so will definitely take an empty bottle in when my present kitchen cleaner is finished. I was very pleased to see they have hand sanitiser too so next week I'll take the empty little bottles of hand sanitiser with me and refill them. It is not the cheapest option though so I think I will be replacing a few items that I feel causes us to use the most plastic and see how that goes. They sell lots of locally made food products but again it's not a cheap option so it may be a case of replacing the items that I feel would have the most impact on food miles. I'm going to do a bit of research. 

The much promised glorious spring weekend seems to have disappeared from the weather forecast without even an apology form the forecasters! I think they are hoping we may have forgotten what they said a week ago. It's still quite pleasant here though so I should be able to get a few outside jobs done this morning. I'm off to get my coronavirus vaccination this afternoon. How exciting it feels! I hope everyone has a lovely day and you get to see a bit of sunshine. xx

Recycling Old Videos And Keeping Items From Landfill

 I'm an obsessional recycler. Not just the normal recycling that I do each week but I am constantly thinking how I can reuse old items instead of buying new. A friend of mine, who knows I am very interested in these sort of things, added me to a Green Facebook group about recycling. I started out full of enthusiasm in the group but lost steam after a while. The trouble is even though it is wonderful to see all these recyclers, some of them, in my view, miss the point a bit. Plastic has become such a big demon that everyone in the group had become single minded in banning it from their house. They have long discussions on replacing their plastic pegs with new wooden ones, usually expensively made from an online eco company, There seems to me what ever you want, there is an expensive eco friendly product being made out there somewhere. Surely the best answer is to hang on to your plastic pegs, keep them out of landfill for as long as you can then when they are literally unusable replace them with some second hand pegs, wooden or otherwise, that would have gone to landfill, probably discarded by someone who has bought an expensive eco friendly option. 

Years ago when video cassettes fell out of favour I tried to find a place to dispose of them. With four children we had so many. Often given as presents and then bought at car boot sales they got so much pleasure from them but along came DVDs then streaming and video cassettes are a thing of the past. Nobody wanted them, not charity shops, not recycling centres. How many millions of these have gone to landfill. I packed them all up and put them in the loft even though Tom thought I was mad. One day they will work out how to recycle this plastic I thought, then I will get rid of them. 

In the last year with Scarlett spending so much time at our house I have started wondering if she too could get pleasure from all these old films. My Dad gave me his old video player, ours went to landfill years ago, before my aim was to keep everything away from it. I have spent days researching on YouTube how to connect one to a modern HD widescreen television and yesterday while Scarlett was with us the wire arrived. She was so excited I'd found some Fireman Sam videos for her to watch. Old ones that youngest son used to watch 25 years ago, not the new remakes. (Have you seen the new Fireman Sam, good grief!) The quality isn't the best but Scarlett didn't seem to care she loved it. At the end of the day she and youngest son were having a long conversation about Thomas the Tank Engine. He has persuaded her these old videos are the things to watch next week. He's going to sort out all his old Thomas The Tank Engine trains for her and already she knows all the trains names and numbers. She's so excited about it but I can't help but wonder who is really getting the most pleasure from it! Here is the simple £3.50 wire that has given her (and youngest son) so much pleasure, If you have old video cassettes, or even old family camcorder recordings, this is all you need to bring them back to life. At least now the videos can be used for a few more years and by then some clever person will have found a way to recycle the plastic.

I've got a really busy day today, off out before  nine to go with my Dad to his rescheduled doctor's appointment, then his shopping and also a few more errands that need doing for him, which will keep me occupied all day. At least Tom is home today to take up the carrying buckets of water up and down the garden duty. Roll on Spring! Have a lovely day everyone what ever you are doing. xx

The Eco Friendly Conker Washing Liquid

What a lovely day it was yesterday. The sun shone and I felt very productive and cheerful. After my second operation on my thyroid they told me I may never be able to sing again but even though I was very croaky in the early days I can sing fine, well as well as I could before anyway! When I catch myself singing away whilst I am doing things I am always very grateful. It's funny the things you take for granted in life. Anyway aside form me singing all day I managed to get lots of little jobs done in the sunshine and after lunch I started on the job I was looking forward to most.
  I put aside half the conkers I had to experiment with my horse chestnut washing liquid with, which was a nice little hoard. Thank you very much Scarlett!

I started bashing with my hammer as the instructions online had said but with conkers flying and dogs barking it wasn't as easy as I thought.  However with a bit of experimentation and the use of an old towel I got a rhythm going and it started to work.I found using the claw part of the hammer and hitting dead centre was the most effective. "It's a good job Scarlett can't see what's happening to her precious conkers" youngest son commented as he walked past the kitchen. I had intended to put them in my Mum's old Magimix as the instructions said but they are so hard I was a bit worried about damaging it so I just kept bashing.

  Only a short time later the conkers where all in a satisfying pile of small pieces and I removed any loose outside bits, although the instructions said you don't need to, and then put them in a Kilner jar.

  Then I poured very hot, but not boiling, water over them level to the top of the conkers. Different sources say different amount of times to leave them soaking some say four hours and some say overnight.

  I left mine overnight on the kitchen windowsill and this morning strained the liquid through a muslin into a bowl.

   I poured the liquid it into a smaller kilner jar and here it is. It's a bit more watery than I imagined it would be but maybe that's because in my mind I am picturing Persil liquid! The proof will be in the using but youngest son and daughter have said "You're not practising on our clothes!" and who can blame them. 

  I'll try it out today on some of mine and let you know how I get on. Hope everyone has a lovely day what ever you are doing. xx

I Love Shopping Baskets!

Not using plastic carrier bags is a pleasure for me. I have a selection of lovely fold up material shopping bags, one with little dogs on given to me by my eldest daughter and a pretty floral one given to me by my Mum. I also have my Mum's shopping bag she used all the time for years. In the days before anyone was really worried about the use of plastic my Mum was far to stylish to be seen around with a supermarket plastic bag! I love having this bag but I don't use it though, I just get it out to look at it every now and again.
  My real love though is shopping baskets. I found this pretty one at our charity saleroom for £1. I put it up for sale on ebay and after a couple of weeks said to myself "Oh dear. that hasn't sold" and quickly took it off to keep!

   I love using it but I'm terrified to put anything heavy in it in case it gets damaged. Thinking about something for heavy items I remembered a shopping basket that lots of old ladies would have when I was a small child.

    How could I have forgotten these? I remember they used to have little rain covers on top to keep your shopping dry on wet days. I even remember seeing old ladies pushing their little dogs in them. I wonder if one might be a step too far, even for me, but I'm sure Cassie would enjoy trips to the shops! This is the type I used to take to school every Monday morning with my Home Economics ingredients in. We would drop them off in the "H.E. Room" so they would be ready for our lesson later in the day. There would be about twenty of them lined up. Then after the lesson it would be used to bring home what ever culinary delight we had made.

So not using plastic carrier bags is definitely not a hardship for me. I wonder if I am alone in my nostalgia for shopping baskets.

Watch Out There's A Humphrey About!

On my post a few weeks ago about cutting back on the use of plastic bottles, Gill made a really good comment about using a milkman again. I hadn't really thought about this but have been looking in to it. Coincidentally there was an item on the news the other night about the increase in doorstep deliveries of milk in glass bottles. I think this is wonderful news as I'm sure that these small changes will put pressure on supermarkets to change their habits as they will not want to lose custom.
  Tom and I used to always have milk delivered but then in the early 90s we moved close to Asda and it seemed a bit pointless. We have moved again since then but always pop into out local Co-op for our milk. I haven't seen a milkman in our area for years, so was surprised to see when I put our postcode into the Milk & More website, that Chris delivers to our area on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. One pint of semi skimmed milk is 81p which is quite a bit more expensive than in the Co-op but thinking about our poor farmers, I always feel guilty about the cheap price of milk in the Co-op anyway, so I ordered two pints of milk to be delivered on Friday. In my mind I was already thinking about searching for one of those little holders that my Mum used to put out for the milkman, with a dial to say how many pints we would like today. This morning I woke up several times approaching dawn trying to hear that lovely nostalgic noise of the electric milk float approaching and the clink of the glass bottles. While lying there nostalgically thinking about milk deliveries I remembered a milk advertising campaign in the 1970s and I wonder if anyone else remembers it.

   It was a very clever campaign, we took it up at school singing the song and I remember stickers everywhere. This brilliant advert may help you remember it.

    I must have gone back to sleep and had somehow missed the sound of Chris arriving as when I got up there were two bottles of milk on the doorstep. How easily pleased I am, it seemed thrilling. I am definitely going to make a regular order on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I know what I will be looking out for this weekend at the car boot sales, one of those little milk holders with a dial on the side!

Let's Put Pressure On The Big Guys

There has been so much in the news lately about excessive use of plastics. This week we saw a family trying to live without plastic for a week. Whilst I admire enormously the people who make this effort I'm not sure if it is really possible to live completely without plastic at the moment. It also puts the onus on us the consumer rather than on where it should lie with the big guys, the supermarkets. God forbid Tesco, Asda and the like should change anything that may eat into their massive profits! But maybe if all of us changed our buying just a little bit, rather than a few people changing it a lot, they may have to.
   There are the obvious things that so many people try to do such as buying loose vegetables in the supermarket rather than the prepacked variety, shopping from a butcher if possible ( I know that is not easy these days) or taking a reusable metal water container around with us rather than a plastic bottle. Though maybe we should be asking ourselves do we really need the water bottle at all. Before the 1990s nobody took water around and I don't remember anyone dying of dehydration in the street!
   I bought this little thermos flask at a jumble sale for 20p and we always take it on picnics and days out. I loved it as it was just like the one I used to take to school with me with hot drinks or soup in. (Wouldn't it be nice to get back to those days). No take away coffee drinking for us!

   Lovely though it is it is a bit big to carry about all the time so I have decided I am on the look out for something smaller. Something old so I feel I am recycling and something with a bit of character. I shall enjoy the search.
   But back to the serious issue. I am going to change my shopping habits by one or two items a week. I intend each week to change something I normally buy in a plastic bottle or container with something in a glass or card one in a gradual change away from plastic. I don't mind paying a little bit extra to help the environment but can't afford to pay a lot more so it will be a challenge. When I popped down to the Co Op this evening I thought I would buy the olive oil we needed in a glass bottle rather than the usual plastic one. All the Olive Oil in the Co op was in plastic bottles so I bought this bottle of Rapeseed Oil in a glass bottle instead. I had been meaning to swap to support British farmers who produce it, so now seemed like a good time.

However it was £4.19 for a 500ml bottle compared with the usual £2.25 I pay in Asda for the same amount of  Olive Oil in a plastic bottle so already the price is higher. I think I'll have a look in Lidl this week for some items. I searched around for some fruit juice my youngest daughter likes but even the very expensive makes were in plastic bottles. In the end I gave up and bought a bottle of wine. Oh well at least it was in a glass bottle!