tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84571323140493501312024-03-05T05:49:35.881-08:00Playing HookyPlaying Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-44811558299397310022013-07-27T10:04:00.001-07:002013-07-27T10:04:27.468-07:00Irina Neblea cures puppies of parvovirus in a field.Facebook won't show a photo I want some people to see, so I'm bouncing it off my blog in hopes that it will be visible here. Finger crossed!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD77-KI6nNXvBjNA8Hj6P_zRE95ft6Yhi8eaNU3ioUMbCRWznpZFM3RcbeXGVBzjqFzow096sUFaJMx3e_WwpDfPRhsxPGIx3Ptz03cAcPyvO9xsnaMGx19289HQ3lpUmH9e3Ux9GV_oAE/s1600/irina+with+parvo+pups.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD77-KI6nNXvBjNA8Hj6P_zRE95ft6Yhi8eaNU3ioUMbCRWznpZFM3RcbeXGVBzjqFzow096sUFaJMx3e_WwpDfPRhsxPGIx3Ptz03cAcPyvO9xsnaMGx19289HQ3lpUmH9e3Ux9GV_oAE/s1600/irina+with+parvo+pups.jpg" /> </a></div>
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This is my good friend Irina Neblea of Constanta, Romania. She rescues stray and endangered animals, cares for them, feeds them, treats their ills and rehomes them when she can. She is a superwoman; intelligent, fit, kind and can swear in English better than I can. She has much to swear about. No income, neighbours who harass her animals and vandalise her property because they don't agree with rescuing dogs, and much else that I won't mention here. She is in permanent debt and has problems that could be solved by most English people's annual holiday budget, but never will be. She is my hero and I love her.</div>
<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-54335260979100828312013-06-13T12:11:00.001-07:002013-06-14T03:03:40.744-07:00One challenge done, another takes its place<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT7aVJM5uulEA018E9_84E3Ycj3EbVSTJY5sY4Jg6_Exm1kbopgmhxSGGfmi8vkvIxZFyPfCZXFd4b7hGR87ij5GLHFoj4oXN7grTqHtG0-_yZioC5bMzQRbmOUXcL0e0ubxlA90u82seD/s1600/challenge+accepted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT7aVJM5uulEA018E9_84E3Ycj3EbVSTJY5sY4Jg6_Exm1kbopgmhxSGGfmi8vkvIxZFyPfCZXFd4b7hGR87ij5GLHFoj4oXN7grTqHtG0-_yZioC5bMzQRbmOUXcL0e0ubxlA90u82seD/s320/challenge+accepted.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The fat lady has sung, and the money has been sent to the three causes I chose:<br />
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One by One Until There Are None (http://www.facebook.com/groups/382239931873396/), a group that fundraises for specific animals to come to the UK for rehoming.<br />
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Serbia's Forgotten Paws (http://www.facebook.com/groups/serbiasforgottenpaws/ or <span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://www.forgotten-paws.com/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.forgotten-paws.com/</a> ) , a group that fundraises for the rescue, treatment and rehoming of animals (mainly dogs) in Nis, Serbia.</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Irinia Neblea (http://www.facebook.com/irina.neblea?fref=ts), a young woman who, with only her poorly mother to help her, cares for 60+ animals at her self-built rescue centre in Constanta, Romania, with no running water, no car to get her to the supermarket or the vet, who carries and pushes on a cart many litres of water and many kilos of food each day, who builds kennels and disinfects the land with her own hands and a brush.... I could go on. I thank all the fates that I have been able to raise funds to help her a little towards recovering - at least financially - from a recent devastating outbreak of distemper at the shelter. I know that my contributions are a drop in her personal ocean, but I also know that they are a help and that makes me feel good. I have also spread the word about her and she has received donations from at least three people because of that - thank you to J, M and S who have big hearts. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Each cause benefited from sponsorship money to the tune of £66, which I know will be used wisely.</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">I learned lessons from this challenge. I now know that I can live quite easily on £1 a day at today's prices, but that I cannot do so in a way that will keep me healthy. I learned that when you have little you don't waste any of it - you scrub carrots and potatoes, you do not peel them, because that peel may make the difference between going to bed comfortable or going to bed hungry. Literally. I learned that only refined pasta is cheap enough to eat on £1 a day; you can't afford to pay someone to leave the fibre in. Go figure. I learned that people are generous when you are honestly doing something to try to help. I have also learned that it is the same names, over and over, that you see offering donations and sponsorships. I have learned a lot, but already just a couple of weeks later I can feel those lessons fading into the background (apart from the donations one - I keep getting reminders of that).</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">And the next challenge is Ben's. I will spare you the photograph, but Ben is a dog who died un-named shortly after rescue from an inhumane "shelter" in Romania. I named him posthumously, because he epitomises the barbarity of those "shelters" in these countries where dogs are largely regarded as vermin to be poisoned, beaten, kicked or stoned to death. Somehow naming him felt like the decent thing to do, and I would rather he be remembered as Ben than as that dog in the awful photo.</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Ben's challenge is open to anyone who would like to raise money for the dogs that are still savable from the same "shelter". The idea is that you take £10 of your own money (or whatever you can afford) and use it to invest in any way you choose, with a view to making it grow. You might buy cheap and sell for more, or buy ingredients and bake things to sell, or buy materials and *make* things to sell. Or you could go door to door offering your services to mow lawns or clean cars. Anything that will grow that original £10 stake into more than £10, for the animals. Then you send your profits (with or without the original £10, depending on your circumstances - entirely up to you) to me. When we have a sensible amount, it will go to Valcea, for the animals for whom it is not too late, in Ben's name. I think this is a *good* plan, and nobody loses anything except a little time. Please visit Ben's facebook page http://www.facebook.com/events/340458212749674/. Even if you don't fancy joining in, there might be something there that you'd like to buy :o)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLIIZDpAyDCOdpyaCH6AbfTw5O90w5sCzbh_TAmjmNNb3umdkFPb4K2uot7R5nJ_Nmy63JCbWDccf96QdqKYsmAoiYQfhV6YH-s7ZORpvH5d7ckyM2yffGG-zUJNa8bye3-TSkvnKbvepR/s1600/bens+string+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLIIZDpAyDCOdpyaCH6AbfTw5O90w5sCzbh_TAmjmNNb3umdkFPb4K2uot7R5nJ_Nmy63JCbWDccf96QdqKYsmAoiYQfhV6YH-s7ZORpvH5d7ckyM2yffGG-zUJNa8bye3-TSkvnKbvepR/s320/bens+string+1.jpg" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See this? (The string, not the cd. Ignore the cd)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8ZbvQSc-TgSSn75RAvPVKVMb8U0EsMAZ9lGhoCKGFSteTjyPv64V0TKou46xDJMogyqskmNplDzrgIv846Oi8fugSTSmCpwemahpqPFdX9DF1DZ24kKC31SO94oVAh6tM9uolozUc1fd/s1600/washcloth1a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/events/340458212749674/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8ZbvQSc-TgSSn75RAvPVKVMb8U0EsMAZ9lGhoCKGFSteTjyPv64V0TKou46xDJMogyqskmNplDzrgIv846Oi8fugSTSmCpwemahpqPFdX9DF1DZ24kKC31SO94oVAh6tM9uolozUc1fd/s200/washcloth1a.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's turned into this, over at Ben's £10 Challenge!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-23453513226737692052013-06-02T02:38:00.000-07:002013-06-02T02:38:00.179-07:00Day 5 - That's all folks!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwxORE-Bry3cPggxRncRrC2tz9FEnTxAFTHH4T7B3KSwEG3ENOMjcA3j0HRU2tPqWdgE5vA7ezPrUFEuLuO9hDsMIdJXKAhhltQjjeV45pQqhlw5guZx9ifqsT77hdQEoJzNJ7Q2MQJC30/s1600/sunday+celebration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwxORE-Bry3cPggxRncRrC2tz9FEnTxAFTHH4T7B3KSwEG3ENOMjcA3j0HRU2tPqWdgE5vA7ezPrUFEuLuO9hDsMIdJXKAhhltQjjeV45pQqhlw5guZx9ifqsT77hdQEoJzNJ7Q2MQJC30/s320/sunday+celebration.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">All back to mine for the after-challenge party, 'kay?</span></td></tr>
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Welcome to my last (for the moment anyway - who knows, I might make it an annual event) post detailing the ups and downs of my five days Living Below the Line on £1 or less a day.<br />
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I am sitting in my little home office on a gloriously sunshiney Sunday morning, drinking a vast mug of proper tea with actual soya milk (59p per litre) and feeling incredibly, wonderfully fortunate. In my usual "this is too good to be true, what's going wrong that I don't know about yet?" way, I am nervous inside, but I am trying very hard to banish that so I can luxuriate in the small (tea!) and very large(tell you later - read to the end!) pleasures of the day.<br />
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But first - yesterday - did I do it? Did I live on less than £1 per day for 5 days? Bet your boots I did!<br />
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Breakfast was the usual porridge, not exciting but filling, healthy (mostly) and <b>cheap</b>! Lunch was the spaghetti and sauce that I didn't eat last night. As mentioned, it could have done with more sauce, but I gave it a grind of pepper and a pinch of salt and it slipped down easily enough.<br />
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Mid-afternoon Husband came into the kitchen with the second ripe strawberry of the year out of his polytunnel, warm and fresh from the plant. He ate the very first one himself - talk about selfish ;o). The challenge went right out of my head, I didn't even think of it as I sank my teeth into the juicy red flesh and was taken straight back to childhood by the intense, sweet flavour. You simply cannot buy them in the shops like that! When he brought the first handful of marble-sized new potatoes of the season into the house later in the afternoon, I complained that I could not share them due to the challenge. His reply - "That didn't stop you scoffing the strawberry", at which point I realised that I have no way of costing that piece of fruit, so should have refused it. Mea culpa!<br />
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I gave a lot of thought to dinner, and this is what I came up with. I chopped an onion and a piece of carrot very small and simmered them in a quarter-pack of passata with about a quarter of a stock cube and a pinch of value mixed herbs until mostly cooked but still slightly crisp (add a splash of water if it gets too dry). Meanwhile, I sauteed the last of the made-up burger mix in a dry frying pan over a gentle heat, stirring often and breaking the mixture up with a spatula into small pieces, so that by the end it resembled fried mince, all loose and browned. I mixed this in with the tomato mixture and put it in a casserole dish, thusly:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDY7D_wKrLOG-D1SW8W0YwYAea-btw5M9KPHQF5reoQIAAli-q2VBZZi0AgZBJlyPXyvTZOIW1Gd2oyDKekFrf4X_4OthUg3sKbSYtS_rZXUg_x3Bhej0STZyR_OkKP2sYTmIW0ZS3hU5/s1600/pound+day+5+mince.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDY7D_wKrLOG-D1SW8W0YwYAea-btw5M9KPHQF5reoQIAAli-q2VBZZi0AgZBJlyPXyvTZOIW1Gd2oyDKekFrf4X_4OthUg3sKbSYtS_rZXUg_x3Bhej0STZyR_OkKP2sYTmIW0ZS3hU5/s320/pound+day+5+mince.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looks good, smells good and by golly... <br />(if you can't finish that sentence then you are enviably young).</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Then I dissolved the rest of the stock cube in boiling water and used it to make up half a pack of value instant mash (you can see where I'm going with this, can't you?). At this point I thought I'd made a ghastly mistake because frankly it smelled horrible. I tasted a tiny smidge and it tasted better than it smelled, but still.... So I added a heaped teaspoon of Lidl's stone-ground mustard (less than 40p per jar if I remember correctly, no idea how much per heaped teaspoon!) and tasted again. Much better! I topped the casserole with this delightful mixture, roughed up the top a bit and bunged it into the oven at gas mark 6 to brown. About 20 minutes later I had this:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGEVRN0oeuR-aGzNmTUJXIjNcR1jHznVCwtLp3rFECyaV2QDfb_qyEUlrCeMPZdZUsVR7zBmRxnbXM15ZF9JnQldjqh12aJ1CPzXwr69x62vnIyZ13CxklPslTsmgr0ielIPAZUZxhENdN/s1600/pound+day+5+cooked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGEVRN0oeuR-aGzNmTUJXIjNcR1jHznVCwtLp3rFECyaV2QDfb_qyEUlrCeMPZdZUsVR7zBmRxnbXM15ZF9JnQldjqh12aJ1CPzXwr69x62vnIyZ13CxklPslTsmgr0ielIPAZUZxhENdN/s320/pound+day+5+cooked.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Excuse the state of the casserole, it's the one in which I made up the burger mix and it's burnt on.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz25q29k7S94xHmAa17BtSTH2oAe9zuFuFR9EgToMAtPTSbPu_DH74TYE5Vp0WIbNOrChA-ahkn231LY0u-0vO2uIhl1U9CvOkMaaysHxQRL9nbJtMGNdneV64X-12OmQz0sRdqVMxvhpK/s1600/pound+day+5+ratio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz25q29k7S94xHmAa17BtSTH2oAe9zuFuFR9EgToMAtPTSbPu_DH74TYE5Vp0WIbNOrChA-ahkn231LY0u-0vO2uIhl1U9CvOkMaaysHxQRL9nbJtMGNdneV64X-12OmQz0sRdqVMxvhpK/s320/pound+day+5+ratio.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This shows the ratio of top to bottom. Unfortunately my own top to bottom ratio is exactly the reverse.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDAA7Ekqy2wfAtNczVytoeSIzqqRxlQwLG_TJJ9WOWNZh-jhtJZVCJ3Bn0IdWsrm0-zu9GjzrhSRPui5bMEDMU6_O2Q9DN28oBlucPxCBt_d-Osoj-hajH4ED5EHdmJ-tEY4dNJh08inA/s1600/pound+day+5+scale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDAA7Ekqy2wfAtNczVytoeSIzqqRxlQwLG_TJJ9WOWNZh-jhtJZVCJ3Bn0IdWsrm0-zu9GjzrhSRPui5bMEDMU6_O2Q9DN28oBlucPxCBt_d-Osoj-hajH4ED5EHdmJ-tEY4dNJh08inA/s320/pound+day+5+scale.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I took this to show you how big the casserole is. That is an ordinary half-pint mug, so you can see the dish is not huge but not tiny either. Easily enough for a good meal for a woman my height, 5' 2".</td></tr>
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At this point in the proceedings I wasn't expecting much in the way of enjoyment from this meal. I thought that the mince would be soggy, the sauce unexciting and the mash probably pretty dreadful, but it was dinner and it was mine and it was all there was (under the rules of the challenge), so I ate it. </div>
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It was delicious.</div>
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A smidge too salty, if I am to be completely accurate, so next time I would use only about half a stock cube in the potato, but apart from that and a slight rubberyness to the texture of the mash (I seem to recall this is standard for instant mash) I would have absolutely no hesitation in cooking this again, or even serving to someone else. It just plain tasted good, which is fairly amazing because I am usually a duff cook to say the least. A small happy dance took place. My last below the line meal and it was a good'un.</div>
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I had 4 rich tea biscuits later in the evening, just because I could, really, I wasn't hungry. I had budgeted for 8, but could not justify eating 4 more biscuits for the sake of it, and then I went to bed, job done.</div>
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Fiscal matters: </div>
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Breakfast - 50g oats and 20g peanut butter - 7.5p</div>
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Lunch - leftover spaghetti and sauce - 17.3p</div>
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Snack - 4 biscuits - 2.3p</div>
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Dinner - Burger mix (30p), 115g onion (4.6p), quarter pack passata (7.3p), stock cube (1.5p), 60g dry weight value instant mash (10p), 65g carrot (5.2p) = 58.6p</div>
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Dessert - 4 rich tea biscuits 2.3p</div>
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I make that 88p! Of course out of that I have to take the following uncostables: 1 strawberry, 1 heaped tsp stoneground mustard, 1 pinch value mixed herbs (made ALL the difference to the sauce), a pinch of salt and a couple of grinds of pepper. I can't believe that adds up to anything like 12p, so <span style="font-size: large;">I WON!<span style="font-size: small;"> Another happy dance, I think.</span></span></div>
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I'll probably post again, drivelling on about lessons learned, effects of the challenge (one of the better ones being that I am 2lbs lighter this morning than I was on Tuesday morning before I started) and other self-indulgent stuff, but you can always skip that. On the other hand, if you choose to read this blog in the future, you will be most welcome and please do feel free to comment.</div>
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I will be contacting my wonderful sponsors today with payment details, now that I know I completed the challenge, and will post the grand total here when I know it myself. I am still hopeful for more sponsorship, so please comment here or send me an email if you can squeeze even 10p per day out of your budget (50p total, but I know that even that is not possible for everyone). 50p is two dog's bellies full for a day, and I'm not too proud to beg for that!</div>
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Now then, here is the end bit that made yesterday a very special day. We have been waiting to see whether two dogs that we would like to adopt from Irina Neblea in Romania are good with cats. Yesterday we received the video of their "cat test", and the decision has been made. Two dogs rescued from the harsh streets of Romania will be coming here to live with us and be part of our family. My chest constricts and I cannot breathe out as I type these words. Two dogs. Mine (ours, must remember to say "ours"!). Two lives with sadness behind them and all sorts of love and adventures in front of them (breathe woman, breathe). It's almost too much to bear, the sheer joy of this knowledge. So please have a look at the video and meet our Mamy (shaggy) and our Gloria (pup with one paw missing) - <span class="userContent"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or84yyc4loY&feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or84yyc4loY&feature=youtu.be</a></span><br />
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I'm going to be a mummy.Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-49162186266776683012013-05-31T16:29:00.001-07:002013-05-31T16:29:22.145-07:00Day 4 - cheapest yet and full to the top of my pinny!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimWfZ7_ab9Uo5oYDZV9garQradeOFblumjD3fvT8Pe32EzI0WGmvfxrdkGdt9wkUd7Kueh6BSPFyqGbe3mRh9nDF7d32vVgjrmVzGb0V1CG90kCzSqnSbPNwNYf5dTE-uwQT4mqIRR_d_T/s1600/pound+day+4+and+random+photos+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimWfZ7_ab9Uo5oYDZV9garQradeOFblumjD3fvT8Pe32EzI0WGmvfxrdkGdt9wkUd7Kueh6BSPFyqGbe3mRh9nDF7d32vVgjrmVzGb0V1CG90kCzSqnSbPNwNYf5dTE-uwQT4mqIRR_d_T/s320/pound+day+4+and+random+photos+001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photo of my garden in March, just to remind me to be <br />grateful for the lovely weather we are finally having.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Day 4, the end is in sight, I'm over the hump of the hill, shooting down the other side and I confess that I can't wait for Sunday morning. Not that I've minded most of the meals I've had so far, but I chafe against the restriction. I would like an impulsive snack occasionally, without having to think of the consequences to my dinner. And I would love a cup of tea - any sort, anything other than tap water. Just one more day to go, tomorrow, and I will have made it to the end.<br />
<br />
I wasn't feeling very imaginative today, so I stuck with tried and trusted for breakfast, porridge and peanut butter. I rang the changes at lunch by throwing caution to the winds and having that extra slice of toast that I denied myself yesterday, so 3 slices with half a tin of mushy peas.<br />
<br />
I felt I needed that extra, bcause I knew that this afternoon I had to do some "work" work, as opposed to other types of work such as cleaning the house (pfft!) or parceling up goodies that people have bought online, or donations to auctions etc. Real, actual, paid work. The sort of real, actual, paid work that I ran screaming from last August into a life of comparative penury, simply because I couldn't face doing it any longer.<br />
<br />
Now this is a horrible self-indulgence, if I'm honest. To leave paid work when so many others are desperate to find just that, cannot on the face of it be classed as proper grown-up behaviour. But it had to happen because I was going slowly silly in the head - over-emotional, irrational, forgetful, sleeping long hours full of fitful, anxious dreams of fires where I couldn't dial 999 to save my life, or I'd left my purse in a public place and of course it was stolen or my cat urgently needed the vet but I kept getting delayed. You get the picture.<br />
<br />
So I negotiated my resignation and started a new relationship with the same company on a retainer basis, and it has worked well. But of course now I have new interests, and it is quite hard to leave them to go back to the challenge of programming in MS Access.<br />
<br />
One of the things that helped me cope when I had to do work that I really believed I couldn't, was food. Program doing strange things? Have a sandwich and think about it. Operator pressed the wrong button - twice - get last night's leftovers out of the fridge and ponder while eating them. At very least, a nice cup of tea and five minutes of Frasier would delay the inevitable for a while. And here today I was facing the work knowing that I could not turn to my usual solace. I drove myself mad sitting at my computer all afternoon, not hungry, but craving something - anything - to eat. In the end I gave up and went downstairs and started the washing up, which frankly even I can't get wrong, and the cravings disappeared, switched off magically. I will have to do the "work" work on Sunday now, with a gigantic bowl of popcorn by my side!<br />
<br />
So - what to have for dinner when I have all of 78.2p left to spend - decisions, decisions. Although by now I was actually very hungry, so when I spotted the 400g of dry spaghetti left over from lunch earlier in the week, my decision was made. I simmered a large chopped onion (7.2p) in a stock cube (1.5p) dissolved in a little bit of water. When that had mostly evaporated I added half a tetrapak of tomato passata (14.5p) and left to cook gently until the onion was soft and the sauce thick. Meanwhile, I took half of the remaining veggie burger mix (30p) from last night and rolled it into 9 small balls. These I dry-roasted in the oven to make "meat"balls. I worked out how much this left me and decided I could easily afford 300g of pasta (11.4p). What I didn't realise is just how much pasta that is. I never do spaghetti by weight and of course usually I'm cooking for two, so although I realised that this was quite a good fistful of pasta, I didn't compute how much I was going to end up with, which was at least twice as much as I could possibly eat. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA4sLJZg58AhVCeWLszgo7631byGOSqX_nT2tnYtPV0pD9rhQKjC6FJ11QTSewhfZo8FQTgZuRqRkCKnEWlfNPwbFOLQq6VQNgVqawP2De9R2WsraPPJQBWjkePKzjKYzBROw7hZ0xcR01/s1600/pound+day+4+dinner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA4sLJZg58AhVCeWLszgo7631byGOSqX_nT2tnYtPV0pD9rhQKjC6FJ11QTSewhfZo8FQTgZuRqRkCKnEWlfNPwbFOLQq6VQNgVqawP2De9R2WsraPPJQBWjkePKzjKYzBROw7hZ0xcR01/s320/pound+day+4+dinner.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First serving! <br />Yes, I know what the "meat"balls look like, but I prefer not to think about it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I confess at this point that the matter of how much I ate of the spaghetti today compared with how much is left for tomorrow is woolly at best. I did try to weigh as I went, but Husband was trying to use the kitchen as well, and it got complicated and confusing, and the bottom line is, I may have eaten an ounce or two more or less than half of the pasta and sauce, although I definitely ate all of the meatballs! For the sake of my sanity and your patience, I am going to assume that it was exactly half.<br />
<br />
It was good, although I'll increase the sauce to pasta ratio if I cook this again. Which I probably will, because the sauce comes out at about half the price of the bottle I usually buy. The burger mix made very tasty meatballs and overall I was well pleased, especially with that wonderful full feeling I had all evening!<br />
<br />
In fact I was so full that I couldn't even manage my rich tea dessert tonight, which is pretty amazing when you see how much today's food cost in total. Here goes:<br />
<br />
Breakfast - 50g oats and 20g peanut butter - 7.5p<br />
Lunch - 3 slices bread and half tin of mushy peas - 14.3p<br />
Snack - 4 biscuits - 2.3p<br />
Dinner - veggieburger mix (30p), 70g onion (3.6p), quarter-pack passata (7.2p), half a stock cube (0.8p), 150g value spaghetti (5.7p) = 47.3p<br />
<br />
Grand total: <span style="font-size: large;">71.4p, <span style="font-size: small;">or as my granny would think of it, fourteen and thruppence ha'penny in real money.</span></span><br />
<br />
Blimey. Not much more I can say after that, really, except to thank one of my lovely relatives who has promised me £20 in sponsorship, which completely blew me away and totally made my day. And to show you a picture of my cat, by way of celebration.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzFoDkfP8BoBZz99iYOWsUBh6cICWCmJzQow_Se0j3OHk_ZL3UYQO2DYR2O9KWBvrULhr7OvtlngxmpiwGQ8X9APzsAxY9xlHS_kbIAgkxouOpY1kbUscW_dB9JD_DD7ifXX7mUdqLOXL/s1600/moo+folded+in+half.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzFoDkfP8BoBZz99iYOWsUBh6cICWCmJzQow_Se0j3OHk_ZL3UYQO2DYR2O9KWBvrULhr7OvtlngxmpiwGQ8X9APzsAxY9xlHS_kbIAgkxouOpY1kbUscW_dB9JD_DD7ifXX7mUdqLOXL/s400/moo+folded+in+half.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Moo, who has deformed front legs and who likes to sleep folded in half at the waist, head between his knees, next to his all-black brother Charlie (the shiny bit on the right). Judging by its similarity to a bottle-brush, I am fairly sure the tail you can see is Moo's. The detritus on the sofa cushion is mostly pulled threads because he can't retract his claws. My lap is similarly afflicted.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-27995261988319822962013-05-31T01:38:00.000-07:002013-05-31T01:38:27.880-07:00Day 3, or how I made the correct choice for once!This is now starting to feel like normal, and I am no longer waking up in the mornings and remembering with a lurch of the stomach that I am restricted to £1's worth of food today! Of course, I realise that I am not eating healthily and this is no way to live. Were it permanent I would have to start scouring the reduced section of the produce aisle, but in my local supermarkets they do not mark down by much, preferring to throw stuff away rather than compromise sales of their in-date expensive, perfectly-formed vegetables. I would need either to buy frozen, or to hope that some of their "everyday" (ie not perfectly-formed, but just as nutritious) veg went out of date so that I could afford it. And I think that fruit would be totally out of the question unless I could grow some myself. I would seriously struggle and 5 a day would be but a dream. Even fresh potatoes are a luxury item on £1 a day, and they don't even count as one of the 5!<br />
<br />
But it isn't permanent, I am lucky. <br />
<br />
Oats again for breakfast, but I'm not putting a banana (or part thereof) into them this time, oh no! I remembered from a book I read years ago that fruit is better eaten alone, on an empty stomach, because it is so quickly digested that it can ferment and cause digestive problems if it hangs around too long in the stomach, waiting for other foods to be digested. But I had three-fifths of a banana in my cupboard that was not getting any younger or more attractive (I can relate!) as time passed. I decided to eat it for elevenses, long after my porridge, and turned my thoughts to the problem of flavouring said porridge. <br />
<br />
I prefer it made with water, which is handy as I have no choice, but it is a little bland with nothing at all added. Then I remembered my trusty jar of peanut butter, which is proving really useful! Ok, so peanut-flavoured porridge might be a tad eccentric, but when that's what you've got you say a quick thank-you to the fates that you have it at all, and dig in. <br />
<br />
I liked it! I'd have liked it more with a more generous serving of peanut butter, but overall not at all bad, and I think I'll have it again tomorrow. What do I mean "think"? Of course I'll have it tomorrow. The price of the oats makes it the obvious choice, almost compulsory. And relatively healthy. Certainly oats are great for you, loads of minerals and fibre, some of it cholesterol-reducing. And peanuts are not bad, being a legume and a rich source of various nutrients. Bit of a shame about the refined sugar, oil and salt that is added in the manufacturing process, but I am eating it in small quantities and frankly apart from being vegan, I don't eat all that healthily normally, being inordinately fond of starch and a bit sniffy about veg.<br />
<br />
I didn't take a photo of it, you all know what porridge looks like - beige - so here's a picture of a pretty blanket that I crocheted instead.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiopCjuABUw02awi_7ikmNDEuDRihuNwS1Y_wTI8wekrANMaCb_bPT2zKUzeBgvQDyzdbJl0Z2mG7KgtBud5-mA1n5YBf3WefNXC8H3DW-bOQ46NgQmepc83ZaDapLdidGAsDdIoLNHeNy2/s1600/cot+blanket+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiopCjuABUw02awi_7ikmNDEuDRihuNwS1Y_wTI8wekrANMaCb_bPT2zKUzeBgvQDyzdbJl0Z2mG7KgtBud5-mA1n5YBf3WefNXC8H3DW-bOQ46NgQmepc83ZaDapLdidGAsDdIoLNHeNy2/s320/cot+blanket+1.JPG" width="320" /> </a></td><td style="text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See, I do have colour in my life, just not in my food!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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After yesterday's success with the mushy peas on toast, I decided to have it again for lunch. I really do feel full for a long time after this "recipe" but was feeling more than usually peckish and decided to treat myself to an extra slice of toast. Three slices, woohoo. Then I counted the slices in the bag, and put one back. I must not rob tomorrow to gorge today, and in the event two was enough. I didn't even feel desperately anxious about having to make this choice, which surprised me. I think that I now trust this process enough to know that so long as I choose my foods carefully I will not at any point be ravenous and desperate. So that was lunch. I didn't photograph that, either, I have to leave something to your imagination!<br />
<br />
Dinner, ah dinner. I ummed and aahed about this for a long time. I was trying to choose between "shepherd's pie" made with a sachet of soya mince mixture from Asda (79p) and Tescos value instant mash (20p), or (be still my heart) burgers and something, made with Asda chargrilled veggie burger mix (£1). We had a sachet of the burger mix at the weekend (before the challenge, ah yes, I remember that!) and it was good. The instructions tell you to make 8 burgers, but portion sizes on manufactured foods are always written for anorexic gnats, and I found that the packet actually made 5 decent-sized burgers. 20p a burger, 40p for two. Could it be done?<br />
<br />
I was worried by the shepherd's pie. Sure, I still had 73.4p left to splurge, and even with carrots and onions and a stock cube, I could bring that in cheaply enough to afford half tonight, but would I have that much money left to spend on dinner tomorrow night? No way to tell. Tooooo risky!<br />
<br />
So for dinner I had 2 Asda veggie burgers (40p), 170g(raw weight) jacket potato (10.2p), half a tin of mushy peas (8p), 45g grated carrot (3.6p) and 2 slices of wholemeal bread (4.2p). Wonderful! Best meal I've had all week and I felt so energetic and well all evening. I oven-baked the burgers to save having to use oil (no idea how to cost it) and made a sandwich with the bread and one burger and some of the carrot and saved that to eat last, so it was bit like having a 2-course meal. This is what it looked like:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibUgVL1LvQa4YF6OhdxFoeaI_pUF1GDfTE6-K2v_ac-g43nHdl_Yk9pJekWEO2QrFMAHw2UXTuSEmuCUZn2YiQqN36JXR2xrbuHacZTPuwguqE4HtuN2cBSEZ15SX-JD0vf2Py4fjL-Vb9/s1600/pound+a+day3+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibUgVL1LvQa4YF6OhdxFoeaI_pUF1GDfTE6-K2v_ac-g43nHdl_Yk9pJekWEO2QrFMAHw2UXTuSEmuCUZn2YiQqN36JXR2xrbuHacZTPuwguqE4HtuN2cBSEZ15SX-JD0vf2Py4fjL-Vb9/s320/pound+a+day3+001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I know, still a bit beigy, but getting better!</td></tr>
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And now, the next morning as I type this, it is gone 9am and I am still not hungry. Also, I slept deeply and still feel energetic and very well today. <br />
<br />
To be truthful I felt a little bleary the first couple of days of this challenge. Nothing I'd worry about, just a tad under par, maybe only firing on three and a half cylinders. I wonder whether the difference is to do with the fat content of the burgers, because I have not added fat to my food all week. Or maybe it's something to do with having orange and green on my plate, even if the green is mainly tartrazine and turns my pee lime coloured! Whatever, I think I've found my ideal below the line meal. I may well have the same again tonight and possibly the shepherd's pie tomorrow, because the day after I can eat exactly as I choose and can scarf the rest of the pie for breakfast with a pint of liquid chocolate if I want!<br />
<br />
I am very lucky.<br />
<br />
Right, the boring bit:<br />
<br />
Breakfast - 50g oats (3.9p) & 20g value peanut butter (3.6p)<br />
Snack - 3/5 of a banana, yucky black end bit cut off (6.9p, not worth it) <br />
Lunch - 2 slices bread (4.2p) and half a tin ofm ushy peas (8p)<br />
Dinner - Asda sachet burgers (40p), jacket potato (10.2p), mushy peas (8p), bread (4.2p) carrot (3.6p) & rich tea biscuits for pudding (4.6p)<br />
<br />
Grand total <span style="font-size: large;"><b>97.2p</b></span>. I'm doing well!<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnCqzitB63ScARY9L2NOcIyNvjrnEw0tdrQ1okOKXDVRjcQmp25hFzdg6Q5V-MtEz7UxDNC32CtOciwKzKaOi0_EY_QKwRC5b2NjgVXbAjWFxURVkpdluaelsb595nqnd92gzkMDSZAqP/s1600/Fargo+rescued+from+pozega.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnCqzitB63ScARY9L2NOcIyNvjrnEw0tdrQ1okOKXDVRjcQmp25hFzdg6Q5V-MtEz7UxDNC32CtOciwKzKaOi0_EY_QKwRC5b2NjgVXbAjWFxURVkpdluaelsb595nqnd92gzkMDSZAqP/s400/Fargo+rescued+from+pozega.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fargo, rescued from certain inhumane slaughter in the Pozega public "shelter" in Serbia. He is now doing well too, thanks to the good people who bought (28 euros) him out of there to safety. <br />He is one of the millions of reasons I am doing this, and he is looking for his forever home. Please "comment" if you think you might be able to offer him that home.</span></td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-27558442059563295532013-05-30T01:41:00.002-07:002013-05-30T01:41:36.532-07:00Day 2 - Kidney bean catastropheIndigestion gone and breakfast decided upon, I was feeling quite chipper at the start of day 2 of my "£1 a day for food" challenge. <br />
<br />
I spread the half-tin of mushy peas I had left over from yesterday's lunch on two slices of very crispy wholemeal toast and ate them with a mug of hot water for breakfast. The toast/mushy pea combination is one that I have had many times because I actually do enjoy it, although I usually garnish it with a soupcon of salad cream, being the classy eater that I am!<br />
<br />
It's also a <i>good </i>breakfast, because I didn't feel in the least hungry all morning, so I think I'll be repeating it. As I may have mentioned I have a real problem with being hungry, it makes me anxious, which is why I have been going for the maximum quantity of food and chucking quality out of the window on this challenge. <br />
<br />
This morning's work was taking a gentleman in his 90s shopping. It is his pleasure to buy me a drink in the Costa cafe afterwards, to thank me. This was a bit of a challenge, because I can only drink tap water unless I count the cost into my day, and things don't come cheap at Costa! So I screwed up my courage and asked for a glass of plain tap water, burbling as I did so about living on £1 a day for charity etc. The young man behind the counter turned not a hair and said, "Of course, no problem at all, would you like ice and a slice of lemon?" I will be going there again.<br />
<br />
Lunch was a mistake. I reasoned that baked beans - especially value ones - usually come with too much sauce, which I generally tip down the sink. So if I were to cook some spaghetti and add it to a tin of baked beans, the sauce would cover the pasta too. Well it did, but it was bland and frankly unpleasant, and guess what? It gave me indigestion! It seems best to avoid a combination of pasta/noodles and pulses, although my breakfast of mushy peas and (wheat) toast was fine. Go figure!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwERVD9SaYi_F7qVlpHHwJa05skW6L-jGfncHx6efqrkXaX3pozq6tOBJaZtHkEiBvTxmddfeOUtImSYKM3cXWuqULPgj-XECvTqHYN1dF9zNpfyvBAzl7lD9LuBrR2ibPCRsbCCCOafp/s1600/pound+a+day+lunch2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwERVD9SaYi_F7qVlpHHwJa05skW6L-jGfncHx6efqrkXaX3pozq6tOBJaZtHkEiBvTxmddfeOUtImSYKM3cXWuqULPgj-XECvTqHYN1dF9zNpfyvBAzl7lD9LuBrR2ibPCRsbCCCOafp/s320/pound+a+day+lunch2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I have not resorted to eating houseplants. My meals are so beige/orange and samey,<br /> I thought I'd inject a bit of colour into my photos. </td></tr>
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<br />
I blew it at dinner time, too. I was intending to make a sort of bean bake, with value kidney beans as the base, but after half an hour rummaging in my voluminous and very inconveniently-sited cupboard, I was forced to the conclusion that I didn't have any. Well I did, but both tins I unearthed expired in 2011 and I'm not up for botulism. Lesson of the day - clear out your cupboards, woman!<br />
<br />
By the time I got to this stage I was very hungry indeed, so I lined up my meagre store and debated combinations in my head. I decided upon a tin of new potatoes warmed through with a tin of value spaghetti, with two sandwiches of peanut butter and grated carrot on the side. This seemed like a good, substantial meal. One out of two's not bad I suppose - it was substantial. I couldn't finish the spaghetti/potato combo. I hate wasting food with a passion, but this was not only bland, it was slimy and the sauce was so sweet it was more like dessert than dinner. Ack. It's very rare that I don't finish my food and I feel bad about it, but I just could not. The peanut butter and carrot sarnies were good though, I'll definitely have them again. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheLMIZto36TQaAIiytkHfBihpn4xKIxuHN2pu5_07_IucHs4lB9afDC22zKhfJTmMqExGcqOd8T-DaCcdrmRKBj9zbEM1yMeMAcD7LNfhEjryFsnNUbnhwS2YE9ABVD7gfnBLuKYyTSzDs/s1600/pound+a+day+dinner2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheLMIZto36TQaAIiytkHfBihpn4xKIxuHN2pu5_07_IucHs4lB9afDC22zKhfJTmMqExGcqOd8T-DaCcdrmRKBj9zbEM1yMeMAcD7LNfhEjryFsnNUbnhwS2YE9ABVD7gfnBLuKYyTSzDs/s320/pound+a+day+dinner2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More beige and orange! Beige good, orange BAD.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I consoled myself with 4 rich tea biscuits for pudding.<br />
<br />
Breakdown of day 2 costs:<br />
<br />
Breakfast: Bread 4.2p, peas 8p<br />
Lunch: Baked beans 25p, 100g dry spaghetti 3.8p<br />
Dinner: Tin potatoes 15p, tin value spaghetti 15p, bread 8.4p, 40g peanut butter 7.2p, 90g carrot 7.2p biscuits 2.3p<br />
<br />
A smidge over 96p, so that's 2 days down and three to go and lots of lessons learned!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVckJyh0m3he-Ic0eyZeBSwIkVPgBl5rhAgmh0-bs9qyvVyiXXKk0y5k29VSxxaI_PMq3e7VlDAaPxuEYwurZRxgYXx1VgJ2DFR_rPUtX2iFd-DkZE5k1_HsKU-82Rm0v04on5uF0ESpyC/s1600/mamy+dog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVckJyh0m3he-Ic0eyZeBSwIkVPgBl5rhAgmh0-bs9qyvVyiXXKk0y5k29VSxxaI_PMq3e7VlDAaPxuEYwurZRxgYXx1VgJ2DFR_rPUtX2iFd-DkZE5k1_HsKU-82Rm0v04on5uF0ESpyC/s320/mamy+dog+2.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I bet Mamy would have eaten the orange stuff.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-5834361001531455402013-05-29T05:59:00.000-07:002013-05-29T05:59:50.985-07:00Living below the line - day 1Day 1 successfully completed and well within budget.<br />
<br />
Something I didn't realise is that you can't carry money forward on this challenge - each day must come in at no more than £1, which is a bit of a bugger as I was hoping to keep a few pennies in reserve each day in case I *really* needed some extra one day (if I have a migraine for example). Had I realised this at the start of the day I probably would have used up the extra. But no matter, I know now!<br />
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Breakfast was easy - porridge made with 50g of oats (3.9p) and two-fifths of a banana (4.6p) for a grand total of 8.5p. It wasn't bad, either, except that for some reason I got indigestion about an hour later. I've chosen to spend my money on food rather than drink, so had a mug of hot water instead of my usual Redbush tea. This was not as much of a deprivation as I expected. The comfort factor of a hot drink is still here, even though the taste of course is not.<br />
<br />
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Lunch was a pack of Lidl's noodles (18p) and half a tin of mushy peas (8p), also from Lidl. Again, enough for a satisfying meal, even for someone like me who likes to feel full. So that's another 26p gone, total for breakfast and lunch 34.5p. At this rate, dinner was shaping up to be a veritable feast!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ck1wYsVa2teC7BthJUwlu4Ti2dAgfFlD2QTPzlE8A-d6mBXyozJ2jWcHow8FUZi32wJH5iI_OAnXHMVe0tvZhY26_XvOuANbZb_WYLqKB8ZD-YyiTrqXIv7SA4JBtHVzRAmGguURdeLP/s1600/pound+a+day+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ck1wYsVa2teC7BthJUwlu4Ti2dAgfFlD2QTPzlE8A-d6mBXyozJ2jWcHow8FUZi32wJH5iI_OAnXHMVe0tvZhY26_XvOuANbZb_WYLqKB8ZD-YyiTrqXIv7SA4JBtHVzRAmGguURdeLP/s200/pound+a+day+004.jpg" width="200" yya="true" /></a></div>
<br />
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Which I decided I might not be able to eat, as by half an hour after the noodles indigestion was rampaging through my chest like a baby dragon on the first day of the holidays. I really hope that medicine does not count as food, because I could not have coped without an antacid.</div>
<br />
Normally on Tuesdays my work consists of just one 2-hour session of cleaning, in a particularly difficult house where resides a long-haired black cat. She is lovely, but boy does she shed, so the cleaning and vacuuming are particularly vigorous and of the on-hands-and-knees-with-an-attachment variety. This takes a lot of energy. Also, with it being a bank holiday week, I also had a session in the afternoon at another house that I usually do on Monday. This all took quite a bit out of me. I've only been a home helper for three weeks after giving up a third of a century sitting behind a desk, so as yet I am not all that fit. You can imagine how I felt by late yesterday afternoon after all that hard work on relatively little food, so I had to have a peanut butter sandwich to start feeling remotely alive again. It worked, but it cost me 4.2p for 2 slices of wholemeal bread and 3.6p for 20g of value peanut butter, bringing my spend up to 42.5p. Dinner was starting to look a bit less generous, but at least by now my indigestion was gone!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufAuHp5G7seDOdufYCY4HI08spOlHY-mvvKP9kqzyink1KJerljtrukOKNKTY552rNE3o-fqS_p33-VEano1ySmjDDp3MQgRgfAwqKlswx8qP_PZsShyphenhyphen8EmyHJHoFUgAtfoDlRAqco5Me/s1600/pound+a+day+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufAuHp5G7seDOdufYCY4HI08spOlHY-mvvKP9kqzyink1KJerljtrukOKNKTY552rNE3o-fqS_p33-VEano1ySmjDDp3MQgRgfAwqKlswx8qP_PZsShyphenhyphen8EmyHJHoFUgAtfoDlRAqco5Me/s200/pound+a+day+006.jpg" width="200" yya="true" /></a>I decided on soup. I've read somewhere that soup is more filling and satisfying than the same ingredients cooked individually. Probably something to do with the water helping to activate the stretch receptors in the stomach or somesuch. I don't know how it works, but it does seem to. So I cooked an onion (4.8p), a large carrot (12.8p), a stock cube (1.5p), 50g oats (3.9p) and 355g potatoes (21.3p) into a thick, hearty "scotch broth" and enjoyed this 44.3p feast very much. I was surprised, I expected it to be bland and unexciting, but it tasted quite fresh and was very filling. So filling that I probably didn't actually <em>need</em> the 8 rich tea biscuits I ate as dessert for 4.6p, but I had them anyway!</div>
<br />
I don't know whether it was the reduced food intake or the hard work or both, but I was ready for bed very early and turned in at about 9:30. Time spent asleep is time not spent thinking about food!<br />
<br />
So - a grand total of just over 91p spent on my first day. I was expecting to have lost some weight as a welcome side-effect, but the scales told me this morning that I am actually a pound heavier than I was yesterday morning. Tuh!<br />
<br />
But the *important* pounds are the ones that I earned yesterday by sticking within the limit. Thanks to the people sponsoring me so far, £14 will now be going to the dogs, and that's better than losing a stone!<br />
<br />
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Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-32447415671124907492013-05-26T09:51:00.000-07:002013-05-26T10:16:21.372-07:00Done the shopping - that's the easy bitI did most of the shopping for my challenge yesterday, leaving just a loaf of wholemeal bread for 47p at Lidl's to buy on Tuesday. I almost splashed out 30p on a whacking great bag of value cornflakes, but then I thought of all that refined carbohydrate and how it would give me a blood sugar crash mid-morning that I would have no way of reversing, and put them back. Besides, I can't afford 59p for a litre of value soya milk. I started to get quite anxious at this point and had to do some deep breathing and remind myself that this is purely voluntary, I *want* to do it. Apparently a small, worried part of my brain really doesn't. ;o)<br />
<br />
Fresh fruit and veg has a walk-on part, with 2 bananas (23p) to give my morning porridge some interest and carrots and onions to enliven my evening meals. Other nutrients will be provided by pulses (kidney beans and mushy peas from Lidl's), wholemeal bread and whatever vitamins remain in tinned potatoes (at 15p per large tin, quite possibly cheaper than fresh!). <br />
<br />
I astonished the checkout girl in Sainsbury's with my purchase of a solitary pack of 10 value vegetable stock cubes for 15p, paid entirely in pennies. I could have got them for 12p from Tesco, but they had milk in them. Just what you want in a stock cube - not! And I'm afraid that any street cred I may have had (pretty non-existent if I'm truthful) evaporated completely upon my purchase of a 20p pack of value instant mash from Tesco. Beware bargain hunters - the exact same thing costs 48p(!) in Sainsbury's.<br />
<br />
I also have tins of value baked beans, but they are an extravagance at 25p, so will be used in halves. Tins of Asda spaghetti in tomato sauce are cheaper at 15p per tin, but of course nowhere near as filling. I also bought a pack of value spaghetti for about 20p, but I may well not use that. Refined carbs again. Which won't stop me having a pack of Lidl's noodles for lunch each day, with half a tin of mushy peas, because I know that will stop me from being too hungry through the afternoon.<br />
<br />
I discovered that passata is cheaper by several pence than tinned tomatoes, so I have a tetrapak of that which I may or may not use. Likewise a pack of vegemince type stuff from Asda. If I can use that and beans to get several meals then I might, but I don't think it's going to be affordable. We'll see.<br />
<br />
My one real indulgence is a packet of 40 Rich Tea biscuits from Lidl's, for 23p. If I can have 8 biscuits a day I can weather a lot of hunger pangs.<br />
<br />
So just today and tomorrow to go now, then it starts. I am curiously nervous.Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-30647520051593614802013-05-24T10:25:00.001-07:002013-05-24T10:25:47.689-07:00I've often wished I could share my food with hungry animals<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="spotlight" height="240" src="http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/179584_450007031753012_820492151_n.jpg" style="height: 437px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 582px;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lucky dogs in a *good* shelter in Romania</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">I
have been reading recently about the "Live Below the Line" challenge,
where people try to live on £1 per day for 5 days, to see how it feels
to be so poor that you can't afford proper food. </span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br /> This is of course
a human-oriented initiative. Participants give the money raised to the
likes of Oxfam, and ask friends and relatives to sponsor them for each
day achieved, up to 5.<br /> I have become very awa<span class="text_exposed_show">re
lately of how well I live compared to stray dogs, cats and other
animals, especially in countries such as Serbia and Romania and I would like to even the
balance a little. Obviously we have to look after ourselves and I am
not being over-sentimental about this, but I reckon I can do this
challenge and maybe make a difference for the animals and their rescuers
in the process. </span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> So the plan is, starting Tuesday, I will spend no
more than £1 per day on food and drink for 5 days. I am not allowed to
accept anything from other people (ie tea or coffee) without factoring
that in, so there's no cheating. I will post here what I have eaten
each day (only water to drink for me!) and how much it has cost, and
perhaps a little about how it feels.</span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> Would anyone be prepared to
sponsor me for 50p for each day that I achieve, up to 5 days? My plan
is to divide the money I raise (I already have some sponsorship through Facebook) between "Serbia's Forgotten Paws", "One
by One Until There are None" and Irina Neblea who runs a shelter in
Constanta in Romania. (These all have their own Facebook page, so
please feel free to look them up and see what they are all about).
Because many of the people who will read this don't actually know me, I have also asked someone who has been
involved with these rescue organisations for a long time to act as treasurer and accept donations into their paypal account, so everyone can be sure that I am not up to some money-making trick!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">Please don't feel in any way obliged, we are all under financial pressure these days and the last thing I want to do is make anyone feel awkward. By the same token, I hope that you will excuse me for asking.</span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> I will
also be posting this on various</span></span><span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"> Facebook pages, so please ignore any
duplication. All comments, suggestions and, of course, sponsorship
offers, gratefully received!</span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> Thank you.</span></span>Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-81762949876452772512013-04-19T09:57:00.001-07:002013-04-19T14:47:40.156-07:00There's nothing like the promise of free money to get me off my backside and blogging.Of course the chances are good that by now MoneySupermarket will have had the maximum 500 entries to their '30 ways to save a pound' challenge and I never win prize draws (apart from one, a box of cleaning materials, which would elicit a hollow laugh from anyone who's ever visited my house), so this is probably a bit pointless. But there's a theoretical chance that I could earn a very easy (and very welcome) few quid, so here goes.<br />
<br />
30 ways to save a pound or so<br />
<br />
1 Wash out plastic food bags that have been used for sarnies or in the freezer, line dry and then use them again for something else (not food related for the sake of hygiene), such as covering newly planted pots of seeds (mini cloches), as doggy waste bags, anything where their waterproof properties are useful.<br />
<br />
2 When making a shepherd's pie, mix the mince half and half with cooked brown lentils. Better still, use lentils instead of the meat, even cheaper and very tasty!<br />
<br />
3 If you have one of those magnetic shopping list pads on your fridge, start writing your list from the bottom, so you can just tear off the used portion when you're going shopping, rather than using a whole sheet each time. I make one pad last a couple of years that way.<br />
<br />
4 Buy (or better still, make) a pretty bag that you can hang from a wardrobe or dressing table drawer handle. When you find an odd sock, pop it in rather than throwing it away. The other one will turn up eventually and this way you'll always know where its partner is.<br />
<br />
5 If a garment is beyond use when you are finished with it, remove any buttons before sending to the textile recycling bank. Even if you won't use them yourself, once you have a jarful you can eBay it - buttons are very "in" at the moment.<br />
<br />
6 Write on both sides of the paper when writing a letter, and invest in envelope reuse labels from your favourite charity.<br />
<br />
7 Don't let bread go mouldy - if you can tell it's going to be past its best before it is all eaten, make it into breadcrumbs and freeze them or make a bread-pudding type dessert with any fruit you have (that also may not otherwise get eaten). There are loads of recipes on the net.<br />
<br />
8 Buy a roll of wall lining paper from you local DIY store at the beginning of December and get your kids (or creative adults) to decorate it with potato stamps of stars and Christmas trees, to use as wrapping paper. Might be worth asking on your local Freegle list whether anyone has a roll before you buy one!<br />
<br />
9 If you've not already done so, invest in a charger and some rechargable batteries, You'll save loads over time.<br />
<br />
10 Next time you need a torch, buy one that you charge by squeezing the handle. Hand power is cheaper than batteries!<br />
<br />
11 Join your local Freegle or Freecycle group. You will definitely save more than a pound this way!<br />
<br />
12 If you are a knitter or crocheter, scour local charity shops for knitted garments that can be unpicked and the wool re-used. New yarn is not cheap! Make sure you read one of the excellent tutorials to be found on the net first though - there can be pitfalls.<br />
<br />
13 Organise book-swaps with like-minded friends. Agree in advance with them who is going to buy which book, that way you all get to read several books for the price of one. Also works for DVDs.<br />
<br />
14 Make your own wine and beer. The outlay is very quickly recouped even if you are a modest drinker.<br />
<br />
15 Make sure you're only carrying as much as you need to in your car boot - any extra weight is just wasting petrol.<br />
<br />
16 Greeting cards are expensive, so consider instead writing a chatty letter for someone's birthday. I know which I'd rather have!<br />
<br />
17 Save plastic food boxes (such as the ones strawberries come in) and use them as mini-propagators to start off seeds on your windowsill.<br />
<br />
18 Freeze your metal scouring pad in a plastic bag between uses. It won't rust as quickly that way.<br />
<br />
19 When you're making a warming winter stew, leave out the meat and use a couple of tins of different sorts of beans instead - much cheaper and cuts down majorly on cooking time, saving fuel too!<br />
<br />
20 Use threadbare old towels to stuff castoff trouser legs to make draught excluders. Doesn't sound terribly chic, but with a bit of creative flair (embroidery, rick-rack, material paints etc) you can stop the draughts, save on fuel and have your own unique statement piece!<br />
<br />
21 Wilted lettuce will revive if immersed in very cold water than put into a plastic bag in the fridge.<br />
<br />
22 Curry-house rice is very expensive. Even if you can't be bothered to cook rice from scratch to go with your takeaway while you're waiting for it to be collected/delivered, microwavable packs of basmati and pilau rice typically cost less than 80p at discount supermarkets. <br />
<br />
23 Some people are kind enough to leave boxes of windfall apples outside their gates with a note asking people to help themselves. Take advantage of these, pick some blackberries from your local hedgerow (or let them grow if they turn up in your garden) and make the best ever crumble. Freeze leftovers of the fruit - these will be incredibly welcome in the bleaker days of winter.<br />
<br />
24 Save the water from cooking your veg to use as stock instead of using a commercial stock cube, which is mainly just salt anyway and costs a fortune if priced by the pound!<br />
<br />
25 Freeze any leftover wine in ice-cube bags or trays so when you want just a bit for a sauce or gravy, you don't have to open a bottle specially.<br />
<br />
26 Use loo-roll as tissues at home -cheaper than buying paper hankies and nobody's going to know!<br />
<br />
27 Use baby lotion as a facial moisturiser. A tiny bit goes a long way and we all know how soft baby's bottoms are!<br />
<br />
28 Invest in a cheap set of different-coloured cottons and do small mending jobs on your clothes rather than throwing them out when a seam starts unravelling or a button comes off.<br />
<br />
29 Use leftover wallpaper to line drawers and store pleasant-smelling items such as bars of soap, lavender bags and packs of incense sticks in them. Makes your clothes smell nice without having to buy perfumed drawer-liners.<br />
<br />
30 Don't wash outer clothing (jumpers, blouses, trousers etc) after just one wearing unless it's actually dirty. Lots of us are in the habit of throwing everything into the laundry hamper when we undress for bed, but it's often unnecessary.<br />
<br />
31 Don't throw away tomatoes that have started to go soft. Discard any bad bits and sling the ok parts into your next spag bol or soup.<br />
<br />
I know, that's more than thirty, but when you start thinking about ways to save money they just keep coming.<br />
<br />
<br />
Right, that's my twopennorth. Fingers crossed that it turns into thirty pounds worth. Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-44661432166197551452012-08-08T07:54:00.001-07:002012-08-08T07:54:25.440-07:00The Final Countdown<br />
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<br />
Well, things are moving on. I am now in my last month of notice period, my last day as a full-time employed person being 31st August 2012, a day that will definitely go down in the annals of my personal history although in what context is yet to be decided.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.londonstimes.us/toons/cartoons/richdiesslin_paypal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" id="il_fi" src="http://www.londonstimes.us/toons/cartoons/richdiesslin_paypal.gif" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="320" /></a></div>
It may be remembered as my last day as a solvent person. On the other hand I may look back fondly on my currently gibbering self and wish I could pat me gently on the back and whisper soothing words of reassurance.<br />
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The latest new is that I'm not sure whether to be pleased or appalled that my employers and I have come to an agreement which allows for my continuing involvement with the company, albeit not as an employee.<br />
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Gone is the (admittedly pretty pointless, given the state of pensions generally) company-paid pension scheme. Gone are the paid holidays and the long service days (and I'd just earned my third, too, as I completed 15 years of service in June). In their place will be self-employment on a monthly retainer, plus an hourly rate for any hours worked during the month in excess of 10. I will be reimbursed petrol and accommodation for any visits. They are also lending me a Blackberry, so that I can be contacted when not at my desk (which will be the vast majority of the time).<br />
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The cowardly, scaredy-cat wimp part of me is thrilled that I will at least be able to continue paying towards the household bills and the mortgage. The part of me that summoned up the courage to start this whole change in motion is sneering at me undisguisedly. What a wuss. Not only am I not escaping the job and attendant stresses that brought me to this pass, but I will not even be safe when out and about, with a ticking Blackberry in my pocket.<br />
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Ah, but there's the difference - I can be out and about, I will not be attached to my desk by duty when the sun is shining and the gulls are calling me out to play on the beach.<br />
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There will be advantages and there will be disadvantages. I will need to rejoice over one and come to terms with the other, as with most things in life.<br />
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I keep reminding myself that the important things is that things are changing, and that I had the
courage to change them. Now I have to find some more courage to deal
with that. <br />
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<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-56343828023862570072012-07-15T10:32:00.002-07:002012-07-15T10:33:37.454-07:00A disappointed toeI am always full of plans, which delight me and make me look forward to when I am actually going to put them into action, and give me a warm glow as to how happy I'm going to be when they come to fruition. Of course I rarely if ever carry any of them through, which probably explains why I am so moribund and rut-bound.<br />
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The two main reasons/excuses are lack of time and lack of confidence. Of course I wouldn't need the confidence if I wasn't so ready to beat myself up for being useless when anything I try doesn't work perfectly first time. Anne Lamott (one of my favourite writers when she's not writing fiction) says in her wonderful book on writing "Bird by Bird" that "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and" (insert whatever it is you want to achieve here). Lord, but the woman is right.<br />
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Recently I've made a couple of moves towards actually carrying through on projects I've been planning. One has worked and one has not. The one that has not involved listing some of my crocheted blankets on eBay. Pricing them was difficult. I am not a fast worker, and of course having a full-time job which also tends to eat into my evenings and weekends means that a large blanket can take weeks or sometimes even months to complete. So any idea of costing an hourly rate into the asking price is laughable. I'd have to ask hundreds, even at minimum wage. So what I did was to work out how much the yarn cost, then sort of add some on to make a number which I hoped wasn't too scary. I also bore in mind advice that I've read from someone who makes part of her living on Etsy, that under-pricing your work does you no favours, nor is it helpful to other hand-made goods sellers, who need to make something from their labours. So although the prices I set would probably have amounted to less than 50p per hour for labour, I made sure that my blankets weren't going to sell for peanuts.<br />
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They didn't sell at all. Not one of them, not even the one that I was only asking £5 for, and which took me a week of evenings to make.<br />
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I am trying hard to believe that eBay is not the right marketplace for my work. I will think about Etsy. Luckily I like these blankets very much, so I am not writing them and myself off as rubbish and I am not deeply downhearted. I would have been thrilled to sell even one item, but I am not crushed that it didn't happen. I dipped my toe and gained nothing, but on the bright side I've lost nothing either.<br />
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The project that did work happened today, and involved taking two useless items and making from them one very useful thing. It's also something I've been meaning to do for weeks - nay, months - as is my wont.<br />
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I had a synthetic fleece mattress cover, double sized, which quite clearly said "DO NOT TUMBLE DRY" on the label. I didn't notice, and tumbled it, and the non-fleece part that was fitted to wrap around the mattress and hold it in place, melted and shredded, rendering the whole less than useful. I also upgraded from double to king-size, so my snuggly fleece was looking the local recycling skip squarely in the eye.<br />
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I also have a king-size fitted undersheet, that repeated washings and tumblings has rendered bobbly and uncomfortable. In a fit of inspiration, I decided to sew the fleece part of my mattress topper to the fitted sheet, thus making one useful item out of two that were otherwise destined for the bin.<br />
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I decided this months ago, and looked forward to working this little bit of recycling magic, for weeks on end. It never occurred to me to actually DO it, no, this was a project to savour, and I did.<br />
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Then yesterday my cat decided to try to rip off the skin surrounding his eyes with his back claws, and came bounding into the living room with blood running down his face. When I had wiped it off and stopped trembling, I called the vet and got an appointment for an hour hence. My cat didn't seem troubled by his disfigurement, but I was traumatised and bizarrely energised and could not sit down for the life of me. I seized the old sheet and fleece, fitted the one onto my bed and pinned the other to it. That filled the wait for the vet's appointment, but of course it left me with a pin-riddled item that was a danger in a house with three cats. So today I had to do the actual sewing. I knew it wouldn't be perfect. I knew it might not work, but I got a bit cross with those thoughts and decided to hang it all and do it anyway, and if it was rubbish then the bin was still an option and nothing lost. It was scary (Husband can't understand that, but then he's quite practical compared with me) and I had a couple of incidents with the bobbin yarn snapping and not being able to find enough white cotton (so the cotton's white underneath and unpleasant beige on top). I've not used a sewing machine for several decades and I find that it is very little like riding a bike.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggC6FFdd6ba4Cl_GieVzialvoElpqlw0jHCbdJvdVfen_Fsep047_0VjvQRp18kCZLEyHJawDOHTF8qpTzW0WijnQykFmnOVNI7K0aRKqBqDT0v9fsh_TO0yab-6s1o5XiPY6rjPtPGP-V/s1600/DSC00443.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggC6FFdd6ba4Cl_GieVzialvoElpqlw0jHCbdJvdVfen_Fsep047_0VjvQRp18kCZLEyHJawDOHTF8qpTzW0WijnQykFmnOVNI7K0aRKqBqDT0v9fsh_TO0yab-6s1o5XiPY6rjPtPGP-V/s320/DSC00443.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My boy Moo, before the self-mutilation incident, napping happily in a position that most cats can't even achieve, let alone enjoy. He is not your standard model.</td></tr>
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But that is all immaterial. I did it. I was right, it isn't perfect. But it's good enough, and miraculously one of my projects has actually happened, rather than just being something to think about comfortably as I drift off to sleep. And do you know, I couldn't be more chuffed. Well possibly I could, if I'd sold a blanket or two. But that aside, I'm pretty damned pleased. I may try it again sometime soon!<br />
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My cat Moo is apparently allergic to something, according to the vet. This information plus 2 injections cost me over £70. But if that stops him poking out his own eyes it's money well spent.<br />
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Quite an eventful weekend, overall.Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-6750846997334533692012-06-18T07:15:00.000-07:002012-06-18T07:15:53.921-07:00In the pictureWarning - very bad photographs are gratuitously scattered through this blog post. <br />
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At last I have a functioning digital camera again, albeit a very basic model. I'm not complaining - it was free, thanks to <a href="http://www.ilovefreegle.org/" target="_blank">Freegle</a>, and I even got 10% off when I ordered a memory card for it. So for the princely sum of £4.49 I am again able to publish photographs to this blog.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmNx0uSQPD8OMcxru2Z-O_WpsACSGKQ1FUNtZDDXCkX3t_316w8heIFfCo70pUAeLsWwlU4_6KTWdTLQVJ4xfUzjCKh8wSddBCfGeg5yFa4Fqx_3HihwnfhY5TBeK0r9KzbXgrc0Ja6wXc/s1600/PICT0008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmNx0uSQPD8OMcxru2Z-O_WpsACSGKQ1FUNtZDDXCkX3t_316w8heIFfCo70pUAeLsWwlU4_6KTWdTLQVJ4xfUzjCKh8wSddBCfGeg5yFa4Fqx_3HihwnfhY5TBeK0r9KzbXgrc0Ja6wXc/s320/PICT0008.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A swan. I was actually quite close to it, but the camera helpfully adds distance.</td></tr>
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Which is my lame excuse for how long it's been since I posted. When I wrote a blog a couple of years ago, it was all words. I didn't have a camera and didn't feel the lack. But these days a blog post without any images looks and feels a little dry, so having posted once with only words I didn't want to do it again straight away. Consequently it's been a while and I have a few things to tell.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-lhCickqAeWqopGtzvUZ2rrBfamTrYXIwMPcmazmAe6RhF9vUo6eSuKe-lyxyUxY-ntBJcislJral4-2vqBX942R1UXCwSBJh3fI7U9KUpuGc03zwztANsfQpjAUDod5GPC4huVoj2d9u/s1600/PICT0001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-lhCickqAeWqopGtzvUZ2rrBfamTrYXIwMPcmazmAe6RhF9vUo6eSuKe-lyxyUxY-ntBJcislJral4-2vqBX942R1UXCwSBJh3fI7U9KUpuGc03zwztANsfQpjAUDod5GPC4huVoj2d9u/s320/PICT0001.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the best picture by far that I have taken with the new camera to date. Admittedly I managed to chop the top off the very nice belltower, and include someone's backside bottom right, but at least you can tell it's the right way up and what it is.</td></tr>
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The table-top sale was several weeks ago now, and I am gutted that I couldn't take a photo of my table, because I was quite pleased with it. I didn't sell much, so obviously my efforts at artistry didn't impress anyone, but they lifted my spirits and that's the important thing.<br />
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Amongst other things, I sold 600 grammes of superfluous yarn, which astonished my mother because she is firmly of the opinion that there is a one-way valve between me and the entire yarn stock of the world. I do have a fair bit, it's true, and to be honest 600 grammes is a bit drop-in-the-ocean-ish, but it is a start and does at least prove that I am not totally obsessed with the stuff.<br />
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The money I took wouldn't keep me in groceries for a week, but the most interesting outcome of the morning is that one of the other stallholders is also a crocheter who runs a small haberdashery shop a few miles from my home. We have very different styles. She uses mainly natural fibres in neutral, classical colours, whereas I use almost exclusively acrylic yarn, having found a brand that is soft, reasonably priced and which comes in rather more than a rainbow of wonderful colours - <a href="http://www.stylecraft-yarns.co.uk/knitting/0_caea175_CAFA016" target="_blank">Stylecraft Special DK</a>. She makes mainly small items such as hats, headbands and flower brooches, whereas I have a penchant for making blankets and baby/toddler clothes. So although we both crochet, we produce very different items. She suggested that we could probably come to an arrangement whereby she could sell my stuff in her shop for a share of the proceeds.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR46VyOG-hjkv3lOWIi_kg8lEpLlhtwiOmxCglv_Kcs5Vl-0rFpqzxdUN3Xf9TKy7SEEsHVDgR1-bnCaLkBuDPnQcBhbT4fHKTVQXYg6VdUf49gOgl4a6LDO2_mHZttXSaLMjU2_nFNLVf/s1600/Mount+Vernon+square+multi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR46VyOG-hjkv3lOWIi_kg8lEpLlhtwiOmxCglv_Kcs5Vl-0rFpqzxdUN3Xf9TKy7SEEsHVDgR1-bnCaLkBuDPnQcBhbT4fHKTVQXYg6VdUf49gOgl4a6LDO2_mHZttXSaLMjU2_nFNLVf/s320/Mount+Vernon+square+multi.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what I was crocheting when I met the haberdashery shop lady. It's my adapation of the Mount Vernon Throw square. I will be blogging further about this square, which I reckon is a corker.</td></tr>
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I was pleased by this, but didn't get quite as excited as I probably should have done, mainly because I suspect she'll want quite a big percentage, and partly because I'm a bit of an old cynic these days and tend not to allow myself to rejoice before the good news event has actually happened. So far I have visited her shop twice, but each time she's not been there, so I'm still not too excited!<br />
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But I have started making preparations. I've been crocheting more stuff that I hope will sell, and I've bought some card to start making tags to hang off my things, giving care advice as well as price and dimensions. I'm thinking of using my dad's old sit up and beg typewriter, to give the tags a vintage air, but I'm not totally decided yet. Decisions, decisions. Not my strong point as anyone who knows me will attest.<br />
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It was my birthday earlier this month, and Husband took the day off work so we could spend it together. Unsurprisingly it rained quite a lot of the time, and we sheltered under the eaves of a chip shop eating our lunch out of paper with wooden forks, which wasn't quite the picnic I'd had in mind when the day was in the planning stages. It brightened up enough to let us take a stroll alongside the body of water that runs through part of residential Emsworth. I'm not sure whether it's a river, a long thin pond, a canal or maybe even a bit of the sea that stretches inland a way, but it's very pretty with lots of waterbirds and colourful cottages. <br />
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My notice period is ticking away, and there are rumours that several interviews are to be held the week after next, which is encouraging, because I was starting to think that my replacement would turn up the day I left and that wouldn't be good for anyone. It's a complicated old job, which nobody but me knows how to do. Recipe for disaster or what?<br />
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Although I'm not in a position to look for a new job yet I've been scanning newspapers and websites for local opportunities. Far and away the most active sector is care - care of the elderly in their own homes, care of people in residential homes, care, care, care. You could say that in this area we specialise in care of the vulnerable.<br />
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I've done this sort of thing before - a little, a long time ago. I've wiped bottoms and washed genitals and neither hold any horror for me beyond the initial embarrassment of such intimacy with someone you barely know. But that passes quickly, mainly because the person receiving the help has done so many, many times before and is long past embarrassment. So that is an option. I would prefer to be dedicated to one household rather than skipping from place to place - I think I would find it more rewarding to be able to build a personal relationship - dare I hope for friendship? - with someone rather that just nipping in for an hour each week to wash someone's hair and push a hoover round, then onto the next person. We shall see.<br />
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Well, this blog entry has taken a couple of days to write, consequently Emsworth has now been re-visited and the new camera tested out. Hmm. It has its weaknesses, as you may already have noticed. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_YyjuqBFLfJRd2Yu-uT0zl4KhMHhupJCl51BHeGcXttinj41COhdkCvSeka5b4Xgoa3QiqEgwj-W1dZyeiDX-iO_32dLBUkgMeomW3PnCIHIcWCjvBaWvEo5IYh57HdkSlNZ-9ZdNGR4/s1600/PICT0012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_YyjuqBFLfJRd2Yu-uT0zl4KhMHhupJCl51BHeGcXttinj41COhdkCvSeka5b4Xgoa3QiqEgwj-W1dZyeiDX-iO_32dLBUkgMeomW3PnCIHIcWCjvBaWvEo5IYh57HdkSlNZ-9ZdNGR4/s320/PICT0012.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A wonky road in Emsworth. I don't remember that man being that short and fat, so perhaps it was the camera which bestowed these qualities upon him. Being overburdened already in both these areas, I shall be taking care never to be on the wrong side of this camera.</td></tr>
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The photos it takes are not terribly good quality and the view screen turns almost completely black at the first hint of any ambient light, so you can't actually see what you're taking a photo of, which is something of a drawback. So you don't know what you're going to get until you download it to the pc, at which point you notice the lack of tops of things and the attractive bollards in the foreground.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXTk2CgR1JEELrFV9f8TrDfQPMzTnOsQX2vrdhf0q7RO_OeATuXGkhAD5SggbOydjsG87xEXIx4WkXLljbuGF7j89YywRl3W_ddXNn9-HcgV6_UmCcks_h8hZvqtBR1WW66ZJ67sFmo4H/s1600/PICT0005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXTk2CgR1JEELrFV9f8TrDfQPMzTnOsQX2vrdhf0q7RO_OeATuXGkhAD5SggbOydjsG87xEXIx4WkXLljbuGF7j89YywRl3W_ddXNn9-HcgV6_UmCcks_h8hZvqtBR1WW66ZJ67sFmo4H/s320/PICT0005.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See? And I'm sure said bollard was not at that weird angle - neither was I, so I again have no choice but to blame the camera.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My old camera had an ordinary viewfinder like a non-digital camera, as well as an electronic screen, and I tended to use the traditional one because I could see so much better through it. I know I sound like I'm describing the proverbial gift horse, but I really do need to be able to take decent shots of my crochet if I am to stand any chance of selling online, so I'm not being picky for the sake of it. I'll download a manual for the camera (the one that came with it is written in Spanish, a language which is completely Greek to me) and see whether there are any helpful settings I can try. Otherwise I shall have to dig into the coffers, and the timing on that is not good.<br />
<br />
Emsworth (revisited yesterday) was pretty and interesting and the weather was the best we've had for ages, so I'm glad we decided to go there again. I'm sorry I don't do it justice with my photos, but I will try to do better in future. Discussions with Sony re my old camera and its eventual fate continue, but I think it's probably for the bin. Which is sad as it was a present from Husband and has not had a lot of use. I do hate waste!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-AwEox9VhNUaduQH9F9B7WmnqCWBbYOxYyJI0riqQgKOF8UU6iCrUDWvQ-795dlafO1EPFQFy4XwqM-tHwlFe4WbEVQLhzDnwyzWUXm1UT2aMrn5fI19ICDBHTE1QFGvb83fisJlqPlkC/s1600/PICT0004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-AwEox9VhNUaduQH9F9B7WmnqCWBbYOxYyJI0riqQgKOF8UU6iCrUDWvQ-795dlafO1EPFQFy4XwqM-tHwlFe4WbEVQLhzDnwyzWUXm1UT2aMrn5fI19ICDBHTE1QFGvb83fisJlqPlkC/s320/PICT0004.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emsworth being pretty. You had to be there.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-41382289326547133152012-05-23T11:08:00.000-07:002012-05-23T11:08:34.109-07:00No pictures, just wordsMy camera isn't right. I took two pictures of my breakfast this morning - there was a reason, honestly - and neither of them made it into my camera's memory. It's annoying, because I struggle with technology at the best of times, and this camera used to do all that I required of it. But recently it's started on some sort of go-slow protest. Unless the batteries are completely charged it won't work.<br />
<br />
Like a good little greenie, I have a plethora of rechargeable batteries. Well strictly speaking I have a wooden box of rechargeable batteries, and under normal circumstances I would have inserted here a picture of the box, which my mother gave me as a tree present at Christmas. But as soon as you store a charged battery, said charge starts to slowly leak away. So I have been using non-rechargeables, much as it goes against the grain, because as mentioned, my camera will have no truck with anything less than perfection.<br />
<br />
So my breakfast goes unrecorded, and those who don't like blog posts that aren't liberally illustrated will simply have to go elsewhere for the time being.<br />
<br />
On other topics, I have at last tendered my written resignation to my boss, who still maintains that if we can just peel away the layers of my job that have grown over the years and stifled me, I may yet decide that my future lies with them. Annoyingly, today has been the best day I have had, work-wise, for years. I feel empowered, invigorated, interested, invested, and all sorts of other positive words ending in "ed". And just when I had decided that I was completely never going to want to do this job ever again and everything, ok? Along with my camera, it is annoying. I am reminded of just how rewarding my job can be, but usually is so not. My notice is three months long. So much can change in that sort of time span. I was determined. Now I am dithering. I will keep you posted.<br />
<br />
Another subject - due to the amazing weather we've had the last couple of days, I have dug out the cropped jeans I lived in last year until incipient chilblains forced me into full-length denim. I am chuffed to bits to report that I fit into them every bit as well as I did last year. If I were to look at this from the glass-half-empty angle, I would be forced to confess that this means that I am no slimmer now than I was then, and considering that "obese" would be a step in the right direction, that is maybe not so great. But I refuse to look at it that way. Maintaining one's weight is, IMHO, more important than losing, given that yo-yo-ing is more detrimental to one's health than overweight. I would still like to be thinner though.<br />
<br />
Another topic altogether - I have booked a table at a local table-top sale at the beginning of June. I've not done one of those for years, so it will be interesting and I'll no doubt be reminded of how no-one is ever prepared to pay more than 50p for anything. But I am looking forward to it, ever though my mother won't do it with me, being "overwhelmed with work". At 84. Good for her. Perhaps I should apply to her for a job.<br />
<br />
Maybe not.Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-2244026268226786782012-04-27T06:50:00.001-07:002012-04-30T07:37:20.313-07:00The Here and NowI am a very disorganised person. I am also untidy, but I suspect that comes in part from being disorganised. I have never developed a place for most of the things in my life. I mean, I have a cutlery drawer, and an underwear drawer (although my undergarments often sit in the clean washing basket until worn again), but most of my possessions stay where they land, which is not ideal and really needs to change.<br />
<br />
Take my crochet hook for example. I have hundreds of the things, but only one that I use almost every day. It is a satisfyingly red aluminium 4.5mm hook, and it is the exact right size for Stylecraft Special DK yarn, which I also use almost every day.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WedHryfFAL5fispzXp6sN_A6DhVqt8ANKLuq1_Xhs8898uyKhz6hN04k4FvDKtptjtQHyF3HtQHVREjBpKcxwT1DlsFvVxblGmBuwT6fK6N8OIwyk6iXidhPvhtfihyphenhyphenoPIrlEx82t0Lq/s1600/crochet+hook+with+cork.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WedHryfFAL5fispzXp6sN_A6DhVqt8ANKLuq1_Xhs8898uyKhz6hN04k4FvDKtptjtQHyF3HtQHVREjBpKcxwT1DlsFvVxblGmBuwT6fK6N8OIwyk6iXidhPvhtfihyphenhyphenoPIrlEx82t0Lq/s320/crochet+hook+with+cork.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
You will notice that it has a cork skewered onto the end. This is because I lose the damn thing almost as often as I use it. Now that it can't easily fall down the side of the sofa, or roll underneath it, or be picked up unnoticed in a large piece of crochet work, I lose it (and therefore swear) far less frequently. Of course, it is the only 4.5mm hook I can find, despite having bought three complete sets over recent years, because I only caught on to the cork trick after at least two other hooks vanished into the ether, never to be found again. Or at least, not until I rake some of my unfinished projects out from my home's various nooks and crannies.<br />
<br />
My mother says that I have a grasshopper mind. Which might go some way towards explaining how I can spend hour upon hour making a blanket, then find a photo of it on my camera a year or so later and wonder what it is! After a few seconds staring at it vague bells started to ring at the back of my mind. I sort of recall making it as a blankie for a toddler, when I fancied a shorter project than the 2 kingsize granny stripe blankets I had made in succession. I also decide to do a colour repeat, to see whether I liked it. The jury is still out on that.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHhIE0eMGepdfXLuq-ZrF1yt8vLa-r0aYApzhXLIJG8u2G80owd1OSCvMjbSOJp6FMTUKy6YMItYjeLaD7uoMmS0jOyFMnB1xZq2gtbIkClY75hTga4Ye3QpX0qM3g4lqhM6K8vsfx31Y/s1600/pink+purple+blanket.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHhIE0eMGepdfXLuq-ZrF1yt8vLa-r0aYApzhXLIJG8u2G80owd1OSCvMjbSOJp6FMTUKy6YMItYjeLaD7uoMmS0jOyFMnB1xZq2gtbIkClY75hTga4Ye3QpX0qM3g4lqhM6K8vsfx31Y/s400/pink+purple+blanket.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've seen worse, but it doesn't wow me. The point is, though, that I've put it away somewhere and completely forgotten its existence. It's not so bad that it deserves never to see the light of day again, and it's a waste of time, money and effort if it is never to be used. This "losing" of things is not deliberate, it's my disorganisation again. I need to come up with a strategy. Actually, I need to declutter, because if I didn't have so much stuff, then so much of what I do own would not be out of sight behind newer stuff! I dare not show you my bedroom. In fact, I'd not dare show you any room in my house. I'm not so bad that I'd set any records for filth on "How Clean is Your House", but House Beautiful it is not!<br />
<br />
And disorganisation has other, less frivolous consequences. If I am to be un(der)employed, then I have to cut back on my outgoings. That has to start with not wasting food. I'm normally not too bad in this area, being a great leftovers consumer and food recycler. (Last night's lefotver soup becomes today's shepherd's pie with the addition of a tin of lentils and some frozen veggie mince). But I shocked myself earlier in the week when I opened my fridge's veg drawer and found almost the entire contents beyond use. Including a whole bag of spring greens, not even opened. This has to stop. Apart from the financial consideration, it's just plain wrong.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1AG_d1kEAfbBbg2VoypcGdsuXaEYVn2j8LE2E8rhiAQZA5wDnKBfnSbzw-GbQN4Fj6vA-_L-E3_kXqmr4UJPW2H4_e6m958wO4ReHCaIxPux4qTIoTjJxPQptQD-9RyMtx29Ue-CIMos/s1600/waste+veg.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1AG_d1kEAfbBbg2VoypcGdsuXaEYVn2j8LE2E8rhiAQZA5wDnKBfnSbzw-GbQN4Fj6vA-_L-E3_kXqmr4UJPW2H4_e6m958wO4ReHCaIxPux4qTIoTjJxPQptQD-9RyMtx29Ue-CIMos/s400/waste+veg.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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To my shame, I can see carrots (black spotted and slimy), white cabbage (black spotted and dehydrated beyond use) a whole red pepper (wrinkled and with great slimy patches), the two heads of spring cabbage gone yellow (look, the one on the right's starting to flower, bless it) and part of a celeriac root which is pretty much fossilised. There are a couple of apples lurking in there, too, out of sight. Ack. Awful waste. All headed for the compost heap, which is my only consolation - at least it's not all going to landfill.<br />
<br />
After that depressing image, here are a few other, more cheerful aspects of my life at the moment.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
I love my garden. Not to work in, but to look at from the kitchen window as I wash up, and to sit out in with some wine and music and Husband (not necessarily in that order of importance) when the weather is kind. At the moment it's looking very overgrown, because Husband (who is in exclusive charge of grasscutting) has a note excusing him from heavy work due to a recent hernia repair. The grass is becoming very, very long.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkRdNdl0L2rHV252BkDy1-5ixc_D4YZcSWEURFXxOkwWAZjAgJV4UAERSaHtKXDUFBbvfQ-p199_9IIHyaI3WMZrf-NXakknA2Guqvpm58u6h0CZKJs05TJLxdBjrOkHp7oDxQwdmULFmJ/s1600/kitten+in+the+garden.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkRdNdl0L2rHV252BkDy1-5ixc_D4YZcSWEURFXxOkwWAZjAgJV4UAERSaHtKXDUFBbvfQ-p199_9IIHyaI3WMZrf-NXakknA2Guqvpm58u6h0CZKJs05TJLxdBjrOkHp7oDxQwdmULFmJ/s320/kitten+in+the+garden.JPG" width="237" /></a></div>
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Here my senior cat demonstrates how far up her side the grass currently reaches. You can tell from her half-Siamese frosty glare that the current state of her domain is not appreciated. She is doing her best to help us with this situation by chewing off, eating, and then throwing up on the dining-room carpet as much grass as she can manage, but she's only one cat, dedicated though she may be.</div>
<br />
Not all of the garden is looking so neglected. We also have riots of wallflowers in two old half-barrels. They perfume the garden with scents of my childhood and delight me whenever I go out there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_h_Ou6zlxzv7eQXUHUTQaiDo2qFPRhWFHXTSOk9Z_O8P2KS6jUQ7Fl2Mmk4G7A2w2AomGibh0CUrCgBqZ7FWvYVa7poMJGqtqWo-AeV7PwM-IyVqxprGeSwk56lE796jy2YjH2nU_NIp/s1600/wallflower.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_h_Ou6zlxzv7eQXUHUTQaiDo2qFPRhWFHXTSOk9Z_O8P2KS6jUQ7Fl2Mmk4G7A2w2AomGibh0CUrCgBqZ7FWvYVa7poMJGqtqWo-AeV7PwM-IyVqxprGeSwk56lE796jy2YjH2nU_NIp/s320/wallflower.JPG" width="309" /></a></div>
<br />
And the lilac bush is in flower, proving that I was wrong and Husband was right when he pruned it back so hard last year that I predicted he'd killed the tree. I only photographed the top part of it, official reason being that it looks wonderful against the current old-jeans colour of the sky. Real reason is the lower half is obscured by an unlovely rotary clothelines that I can't reach over the long grass to dismantle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhke_mqtwhL7IFNVKzjIG-hpev929kfQduDXZZe-CzqflPQb2vDqQZ684Ae-9U8MdyMosomhxnG1sQ65_i85dUhxeAf6uh_M7ZEE7rjVgfv7Xfv9BmEbolffoDeilsF1-_FijE5cSH2udZv/s1600/lilac.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhke_mqtwhL7IFNVKzjIG-hpev929kfQduDXZZe-CzqflPQb2vDqQZ684Ae-9U8MdyMosomhxnG1sQ65_i85dUhxeAf6uh_M7ZEE7rjVgfv7Xfv9BmEbolffoDeilsF1-_FijE5cSH2udZv/s320/lilac.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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To finish on, here's a photo of my one and only white camelia that's not been rendered brown and crispy-edged by the wind:<br />
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Please ignore the two flies inconsiderately bonking on the leaf to the left. It is spring, after all.Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-20700440293879243152012-04-23T07:42:00.001-07:002012-04-23T09:32:45.531-07:00Looking backI went on a weekend course in 2010, to gain inspiration and encouragement to take the step that I am only just now, 2 years later and no further on really, starting to take. I wrote this about it just afterwards: <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiehno43CXozblLIn77HZH6iy__zrvXPLF_hxZdjPTScUtVWVSuvpXZF0k3wLPcZMllKda4HnGaLAPUcagnBii0OHkqwAnj-8RJkhq_ih4VxMpxnFYHdtsGNFxOFkAlVNuRePzJg7k58VJW/s1600/Dial+House+in+summer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiehno43CXozblLIn77HZH6iy__zrvXPLF_hxZdjPTScUtVWVSuvpXZF0k3wLPcZMllKda4HnGaLAPUcagnBii0OHkqwAnj-8RJkhq_ih4VxMpxnFYHdtsGNFxOFkAlVNuRePzJg7k58VJW/s1600/Dial+House+in+summer.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dial House in summer.<br />
They usually leave some of the grass to <br />
grow, meadow-like, these days.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
"This weekend just gone I went on a short residential course at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_House,_Essex" target="_blank">Dial House in Essex</a>, "Ditch Your Day Job, a Permaculture Approach to Quitting the 9 -
5". The more time goes on, the more desperate I
am to escape, so I booked myself and Husband (with his agreement) on the course, and we got back last night.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5lOf6aodiRNbx6IwnGcNHlGsW3qITRFaoyQ7jph3LMATXQo_Zi86hKogXOPDWfE3BR6iDkJ75NBHEoJtGNwNNI_k1jeXvoSX7ajza6mCO0ok6loUZUw6iToa-qHDuBbbQweB2tFxjAdFM/s1600/graham+burnett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5lOf6aodiRNbx6IwnGcNHlGsW3qITRFaoyQ7jph3LMATXQo_Zi86hKogXOPDWfE3BR6iDkJ75NBHEoJtGNwNNI_k1jeXvoSX7ajza6mCO0ok6loUZUw6iToa-qHDuBbbQweB2tFxjAdFM/s200/graham+burnett.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graham</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The course was run by <a href="http://www.grahamburnett.net/" target="_blank">Graham Burnett</a>, Permaculture guru, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hodgkinson" target="_blank">Tom Hodgkinson</a>, editor of The Idler
magazine amongst other enterprises. I've met Graham before and like him
immensely, but Tom was a new acquaintance and I was very surprised by how young
he turned out to be. It took me until middle age to decide that the rat race is
unendurable (although I've never liked it, I've never discerned any practical
alternative). Tom picked up on this piece of wisdom in his twenties, and thanks to a
fortuitous sacking, put his ideas into practice and has been gainfully "idling"
ever since.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy6u_2Fd5CKwNT5Kw8E1WE6rv2Ej3wtKIr1FV-O23Jcp21hYfdH1mdX-8Us2I89eAKWTXLIdyQd5y2rJwLt54k8CYuKmQKsVeij0dj6gA3MzPs1ePSqf0nCjrDUxPY4MMuWk2HA4fRTQc/s1600/Tom+Hodgkinson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy6u_2Fd5CKwNT5Kw8E1WE6rv2Ej3wtKIr1FV-O23Jcp21hYfdH1mdX-8Us2I89eAKWTXLIdyQd5y2rJwLt54k8CYuKmQKsVeij0dj6gA3MzPs1ePSqf0nCjrDUxPY4MMuWk2HA4fRTQc/s200/Tom+Hodgkinson.jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The atmosphere of
the course was pretty pragmatic. We can't do without money altogether, but
maybe we can do with less, and earn that in an enjoyable way. Many of the things we buy, commonly, are to reward
ourselves for doing our crap jobs. If we don't have that aggravation in our
lives, then quite possibly we don't need so many of these little rewards. This
habit is so common we've even coined a term for it over recent decades - Retail
Therapy. How grim
that we are living lives that require such a panacea.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-TnaRu0ctrT5Mq33PV8VIjvl8ifKoZXRsb-yLTjeuQ5xGsREvbxFcsBkXwme0COkFG7G3Kxxl4oC-UKOQU2SGOoqQPT2kFP50KgUKJ33EKfdidqcEgsbYzqs9I72bCAuS4RaPWmkf-_Uf/s1600/freeform+beret+from+top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-TnaRu0ctrT5Mq33PV8VIjvl8ifKoZXRsb-yLTjeuQ5xGsREvbxFcsBkXwme0COkFG7G3Kxxl4oC-UKOQU2SGOoqQPT2kFP50KgUKJ33EKfdidqcEgsbYzqs9I72bCAuS4RaPWmkf-_Uf/s320/freeform+beret+from+top.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freeform beret, made for a friend's toddler <br />
grand-daughter, subsequently passed on to her sister.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Another consideration - so much of my spending actually supports my ability to do my eight to five. That's potentially money I don't need to earn. My car, for example. I've been taking notice lately, and I doubt that I do 5 miles per week that isn't to work and back (80+ miles each way, thankfully not every day!). I have a bike, and for the odd occasion (maybe once a month if that) when a bike won't do, there are always taxis. How much do I really need a car if I'm not commuting? That has to reduce my outgoings by £2-3,000 pa, and that is taxed earnings, so I can probably afford to earn £3-4,000 pa less gross if I don't run a car.<br />
<br />
We were encouraged on the course to take stock of our talents and experience in things we actually like to spend our time doing. On from this, the one point that set off rockets in my head was the
concept of multiple income streams. I have mulled for many, many hours over
recent years, ways in which I could earn money that would involve me in
activities that I already enjoy rather than sitting at a computer from 8am to
5pm each day. But none of them would provide a living wage, even a modest one.
So, why not do several? See what works, what doesn't, and whilst I'm
going through this learning period hopefully the things that don't work will
become obvious quite quickly and the ones that do will prop up my optimism
whilst I develop more ideas. If I can accumulate a number of revenue
streams then I will never be dependent upon just one which may collapse at any
moment. I've been made redundant once in my life and although it wasn't the
tragedy for me that it is for a lot of people, it left me with no income and led
me into a job that not only did I not enjoy, but which swallowed up 4 hours of
each of my days in sitting either on a train or behind the wheel of a car.
Awful, awful. I'd panicked, and taken the first job I was offered. I wish I'd had
Tom's foresight then.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6JXx2Pu6bLKh9L7lKjfwHb8FRokT4etsK1rSA1ciLPvDgQLNGbY6-Ag6HFeL3EiFwIwBiLoyU5At8ZOkK4ohzKlUS47IadY9PRPh5BVUNjw1NHVPxX8KPeXscvkaDzqq1ov7NDVKcZiy/s1600/Brown+freeformed+hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6JXx2Pu6bLKh9L7lKjfwHb8FRokT4etsK1rSA1ciLPvDgQLNGbY6-Ag6HFeL3EiFwIwBiLoyU5At8ZOkK4ohzKlUS47IadY9PRPh5BVUNjw1NHVPxX8KPeXscvkaDzqq1ov7NDVKcZiy/s320/Brown+freeformed+hat.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first commissioned piece - a cloche with a tiny brim, <br />
freeform scrumbles and beads attached. Great fun to make, <br />
and I am told, well received.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I dabble in crochet, (also <a href="http://users.tpg.com.au/users/jdesigns/Freeform%20KnittingandCrochet.htm" target="_blank">freeform knitting and crochet</a>), and I have a number of ideas
surrounding this particular subject, including making things for sale, maybe
running short courses on freeform (bit ambitious, that), and preparing kits for sale with materials and an instruction
booklet to give newcomers to freeform a head start.<br />
<br />
I have also cherished a
desire to write for publication - mainly fiction although I'm open to
suggestions - for many years. Since my teens, really. I have had one
timid effort at submitting a story for publication (rejected), but now I'm going
to push at that door more firmly. That is so scary. (Note - have tried again twice since. Both rejected. Getting used to it now!)<br />
<br />
Which brings me to the barriers, of which fear is of course the biggest.
Fear of personal failure that may diminish me, but also fear of letting Husband
down and leaving him the sole breadwinner - I am BAD, I am LAZY, I am living off
SOMEONE ELSE, I can hear the gremlins shrieking in my head, and I've not even
started any of this yet. The next worst barrier is a dreadfully unhealthy
attitude towards money. I'm fine with my employer putting a lump of credit into
my bank account each month. We don't talk about it at all, and usually each
January it rises by the inflation percentage of the time - although not for the
past 2 Januaries due to the credit crunch. But taking money from individuals for my time and efforts makes me cringe.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fuUWYMWjcPeILEmANxRGm-yXaTjG5keMG7Y5W0xq_e80IQGO00YPnvCYBBwSchKV6h1nq8SmNawSW7myq_7gF1r3UqdC4H476PTxaPgdfDWYqjPcV1K0-6AZ9la7hikhNXAP_-R3AFPT/s1600/Gordon+with+hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fuUWYMWjcPeILEmANxRGm-yXaTjG5keMG7Y5W0xq_e80IQGO00YPnvCYBBwSchKV6h1nq8SmNawSW7myq_7gF1r3UqdC4H476PTxaPgdfDWYqjPcV1K0-6AZ9la7hikhNXAP_-R3AFPT/s200/Gordon+with+hat.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gordon, my toy baboon, fetchingly modelling the beret. <br />
I'm told it looked a lot better on the child!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
To illustrate this unhelpful trait of mine - a couple of
people at work saw some of my crochet work and each asked me to make a
hat for them to give to a relative as a gift. I was delighted and flattered and
I spent many hours making those hats and each was well received. When those
people asked me how much I wanted to be paid, I went bright red and refused
point blank to take anything. It was an act of friendship, making those hats,
and I could not have thought of taking money from a friend. Which was all very
nice, but it did mean that for one thing they'd never ask me to make any more
for them, and for another, that I didn't get any concrete reward for my
efforts. That's fine all the time I still have the day job, but if I want to
diversify then I have to get over the abject horror of taking money for my
work. It was the same when I did house cleaning for a friend when I was
unemployed a few years ago. I nearly died of embarrassment when he handed me
those three five-pound notes.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilN9j04wRtAuTGje5E2ho4Xj7eKyeAgAYBzMRmQJhuYo9O_xGrQuzmZBEc3dXJMd8d6nYQmd3rv4eh6TnxcoIyR6BAThfxDJXH4jdYSDWnjs8E2Mglko3qhdbbFKKwluWpVI-mELU8CTwJ/s1600/mark+stacey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilN9j04wRtAuTGje5E2ho4Xj7eKyeAgAYBzMRmQJhuYo9O_xGrQuzmZBEc3dXJMd8d6nYQmd3rv4eh6TnxcoIyR6BAThfxDJXH4jdYSDWnjs8E2Mglko3qhdbbFKKwluWpVI-mELU8CTwJ/s1600/mark+stacey.jpg" /></a><br />
So I have some big hurdles to haul myself over if I am ever to make the break
with full-time employment. But my mood post-course is positive and warm inside, which is
a big improvement on my average mood of the last few years. I am so sick of
whingeing. I don't what to moan - I want to idle."<br />
<br />
I still do!Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-42611125124634491032012-04-22T04:40:00.001-07:002012-04-22T04:55:23.911-07:00Getting in some practiceMy boss knows that I want to leave; we have been discussing this on and off for several months. There is a degree of reluctance on both sides to accept this. It's a family firm, and I've become part of the furniture, and though we both agree that I have my down side, I am dependable and I am the person they call when anything computer-related goes wrong, and thus far it has always ended up being sorted. For my part, despite my desire to change my working life completely, I am very fond of some of the people there, not least of all my 80+ year-old Chairman who still comes in from 7:30 to 12 each day, rain or shine. Love him to bits, have for years. I go back a long way with this firm, to my early twenties when the software house I worked for sold them a computer system. Even when that firm went bust, I still used to swap Christmas cards with Chairman and his secretary. And eventually I ended up as an employee.<br />
<br />
I am used to having some money plop into my bank account every month. That is going to be hard to give up, emotionally speaking. I have been used to defining my self-worth by the status of my job, and my attitude towards it. I don't think that this is healthy, and it's one of the things I hope to change. I genuinely believe that any job well done is something of which to be proud, but I don't seem able to think that way about myself, only others. I sometimes wonder whether I may have tiny self-esteem issues.<br />
<br />
Other revenue streams need to be found, so that when my company finds my replacement I stand a chance of continuing to eat - something of which I am overly fond.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1iADa1nRoTczLWxNPkt5YlLFkFWC2y0sxnHDHndUnfbijx7wCt2Z4PVpgdHveB91vY5cmHl8UjptguI3TCHVBav7lkcr3Z6Yi2eS7sSUAa03fF-OwySMp36EoM15sO689TtgbSDX6B3Ut/s1600/granny+stripe+blankie.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1iADa1nRoTczLWxNPkt5YlLFkFWC2y0sxnHDHndUnfbijx7wCt2Z4PVpgdHveB91vY5cmHl8UjptguI3TCHVBav7lkcr3Z6Yi2eS7sSUAa03fF-OwySMp36EoM15sO689TtgbSDX6B3Ut/s400/granny+stripe+blankie.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King-size Granny Stripe Blanket, original pattern courtesy of Attic24 <br />
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/granny-stripe.html<br />
Loads of yarn!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As previously mentioned, I crochet. Of course, so do a lot of people, and I can't claim to be any sort of genius in this area, but I do quite like some of the things I make, and at some point I hope to open an Etsy shop (or similar) and see whether maybe anyone else likes them too - enough to actually pay for them. This will bring in peanuts at best, but that might be ok, I can live on a lot less than most people, I reckon.<br />
<br />
Then of course there's the idea of buying cheap and selling a little less cheaply. I've made a bit of a start with this original drawing, purchased on eBay for £3. I collected it, avoiding postage fees. It is of a boat called "Vere", and was drawn when it was moored in Birdham in 1984. I've done a bit of Googling, and apparently Vere was built in 1905 and was one of the flotilla of small ships that went across the channel to rescue soldiers stranded in Dunkirk. Despite breaking down twice on the way, she is credited with bringing 346 men home, probably saving their lives in the process. Since then she has served as a house boat to three successive families, and at some point sank at her berth in the Chichester Canal, passed through the hands
of the Official Receiver of Wrecks and one other owner before transferring to her
present owner. In July 2007, Vere underwent restoration at Cowes, Isle of
Wight.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrwQyqY5AAaAYUfrw440P3Xa64hyphenhyphen8aJsZv6tCzOEpFY3-WytDtGqFKnvLhYWl7gPj6V11vzN5uik2V2wBH14J1Xqd1n2MfJ42s4hMB7HeeAuVTAPiDhMXws3iucwklbaqx7pPkgdQIcoV/s1600/vere+boat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrwQyqY5AAaAYUfrw440P3Xa64hyphenhyphen8aJsZv6tCzOEpFY3-WytDtGqFKnvLhYWl7gPj6V11vzN5uik2V2wBH14J1Xqd1n2MfJ42s4hMB7HeeAuVTAPiDhMXws3iucwklbaqx7pPkgdQIcoV/s400/vere+boat.JPG" width="375" /></a></div>
<br />
My thinking is, if I can find out who owns this boat now, they might be interested in buying my picture for a little more than the £3 it cost me. In the meantime I have it on my wall, because it is a jolly nice picture and I've always had a lumpy-throated soft spot for the Dunkirk evacuation.<br />
<br />
So a very small start, both of which ideas may of course come to nothing, but my outlay has been modest (although I've drawn a line under how much I've spent on yarn in the last few years. I don't buy expensive, but I have bought lots).<br />
<br />
There are a number of other issues that I have to address if I am to take this monumental step. But for today I'm happy that I at least have some ideas to follow. I won't be leaving my present job for at least three months, so that's a minimum of three more paydays' worth of money off the mortgage before I have to worry about how on earth I'm going to keep up the payments on it!<br />
<br />
It's a nice sunny day and I'm now going to sit outside without a glass of wine, because one day soon I hope not to be able to afford such luxuries.Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8457132314049350131.post-63859263295755109692012-04-20T06:41:00.001-07:002012-04-21T02:13:04.160-07:00Outlook uncertain<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Well, the time it has taken me to set up a Google account and this blog proves to me once and for all that computers and I are not suited. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We used to be. In fact I have earned my living for more years than I care to admit (more than twenty, less than fifty) in IT, or "computers" as it was known when I started out. I was a Computer Operator, then a Computer Programmer (much to my father's surprise, who never made it past Operator and couldn't believe I had the brains to do so), and have now reached the lofty and uncomfortable heights of IT Manager.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Surprisingly, I am not rich. You'd think I would be, wouldn't you, with a job title like that and no children? But no. Some dodgy career moves by both me and Husband, plus a tendency to go for jobs that appealed rather than job that paid, have seen to that. I'm not starving, but I certainly don't have the sort of financial comfort that is generally associated with my calling. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Luckily this is not a huge problem. I'd sooner be happy and interested and optimistic about the future than rich. It's therefore a bit of a bugger that at the moment I am neither.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've been in my current job for 15 years in June. It is a good company, with some lovely people, run by a wonderful family. Should be idyllic, but I am jaded and stretched beyond comfort, and the older I get the more of a Luddite I am becoming. I won't even use a mobile phone except for emergencies, because I don't want to be available 24 hours a day. And if truth be told, I spend so much of my time fiddling with technology trying to get it to do what it is supposed to, that the last thing I want to do is more of the same in my spare time. So it is Husband who has wireless broadband and a smart phone and laptop and a tablet - or whatever the squitty little things with no keyboard are called.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So - it is time for a change, which will of course not be easy. For a start I am on 3 months notice at work, which means that I can't look for a new job until I have resigned the current one, because who is going to consider - let alone interview - a woman of my age who can't even start for 3 months? So I will be launching myself into the unknown, and scouring the local paper for anything that I can do which will pay. I will likely end up self-employed, doing a mix of lealet delivery, temping and trying to sell stuff online that I have made or renovated. Although I've done a fair bit of crochet in recent times, selling it (or trying to) will be a very new experience. I also still have a mortgage, so on paper all this is complete madness. But if I am to remain sane and the carpet unchewed, it has to be done.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wish me luck.</span>Playing Hookyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15115396047958755808noreply@blogger.com2West Sussex, UK43.1338972 -88.222037243.0875472 -88.3010012 43.1802472 -88.1430732