Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2017

winchelsea I have this image of cats running up your legs now :):)flashing your bits at your age as well:D:rotfl: what ever next

I have been knitting this morning and apart from the edging have finished another charity blanket

YorksLass I started with a 15 minute walk round the block last year and slowly increased it gradually. By June my DD and I did our second Race for Life (in my case more of a walk but a 5k hobble with my DGS and the dog helped to raise some cash for cancer research. But its important to take it slowly and notoverdo it .I love swimming and even a gentle splash around will make you feel so much better as the water helps with weight bearing on your joints I have osteoarthritis on my right side so my hip,knee and ankle aren't very good with strenuous exercise, so I do little and if possible daily.

MMMing with my food stocks and pleased that Love Food ,Hate Waste is going so well

Mended a dodgy plug lead on my hairdryer by cutting it off and rewireing the plug ,no bare wires now :)

Hi all - not posted for a while as RL got in the way! For those of you suffering from back pain gentle spurts of exercise will be just as beneficial as a big stint. DH's nephew is a high falutin sports phsychologist and reckons the finest form of exercise is walking as it strengthens bones, helps your blood pressure and lung capacity. Two or three 10 minutes is just as good as 20 or 30mins so you can build up slowly HTH
Misstara - would suggest an apple as you would probably get more usefrom the fruit. There are cookers/eaters that are useful in sweet or savoury dishes. Scones are the one thing I've never mastered! Tried all sorts of recipes - all edible but not lovely big chunky ones.

I've realised that, in my quest to decorate my new home, the only brand new things I have bought are my two sofas and a lamp. Everything else had been brought from my rented flat, given to us by kind relatives or bought second-hand from charity shops. As a result, we have a lovely mix of modern things & vintage pieces.

Doing my bit for recycling & not creating more waste is great. The more second-hand bargains I've found, the more I've been encouraged to fix things rather than replacing them. And older stuff is easier to do that with than cheaper new stuff.

I had a productive mending night last night - I managed to successfully alter a tweed coat that I bought a while ago in the CS for £1.

Its a lovely greeny-blue tweed material with a heavy mustard coloured lining and heavy expensive looking buttons - it looks like its hardly been worn...... the brand is Chaus which I have never heard of

The downside to this amazing bargain was that it had exaggerated 90s-style wide & padded shoulders and the sleeves were a bit long.

I had tried swopping the big shoulder pads for smaller ones which improved it a bit but I still didn't like the way that the shoulder line was too wide so I took the plunge last night by turning it inside out, took out the shoulder pads and then carefully measured, pinned and tacked the seam at the top of the sleeve/shoulder edge and machine sewed it a good 2cm deeper and tapered it off down the sides so it sat smooth.

Trimmed the excess material off the re-sewn seam, re-attached the small shoulder pads, turned it right side out and slip stitched the lining back in place and voila! it worked!!! The 90's shoulder line looks 'normal' and the sleeves are 'just right'

:) I shall be checking out the £1 rail more often in future for nice garments that need a bit of TLC :)

Evening all!

Did you wonder where I had gone? Off to Belgium is the answer! Those who know me of old will know that I do this each year with some Beer drinking CAMRA chums. Only for 4 days but the chap who organises it does such a great job and we have such a laugh! So we fitted in: 2 brewery trips; a chocolate factory trip (which had free samples - as much as you wanted and a chocolate fountain going all day!! Heaven!); a day in Ostende; visited 2 very beautiful churches; and a day on the Kustramm (sorry for spelling - not sure how to really spell it!) - which goes all along the Belgian coast and you can stop off where you like. We saw some fab places and found an old town with a pretty little square and a good basic pub and we sat sipping Belgian Beer and nibbling on snacks and watching the world go by - so relaxing! :beer:

I save all year for this as it is my main holiday and this year i came back with 35 Euro - and did not stint myself on beer, food or chocs which I have bought back for my folks!But we looked for the bars and eateries that the locals were using - often just down the side street from the main tourist bars etc.

osbornbiscuit - well done
Panda - well done for clearing storage unit - that must have been v hard work.
Yorkslass - go back to docs if this is a recurring problem. Yes, you can get exercises on line but it is soooooo easy to slightly mis-do one and possibly set yourself up for further trouble! Nag nag and nag again to see a physio. they are wonderful, and if you listen to them, put the effort in to do the exercises as they describe, put up with the slight discomfort they cause, you will get better. Despite breaking my leg in 2014, I can now walk 6-8 miles and think nowt of it! NB I am some 3 stone overweight as well - which I will be tackling ASAP (when my son and his lady move out - Long story ) My walking abilities come from physios fantastic help but a friend who also broke their leg in a less dramatic form than I did still walks with a stick and limps and is in pain because he gave up the physio and didnt do his exercises! :mad:

So back home to loving but chaos city (AKA home):
Make do: DS1 + GF have continued with the meal planning and so we are only spending about 30 pound a week for all 4 of us (bear in mind we have no back-stocks of a pantry)! they are buying special offers and having about 5 NSD days a week - the second shopping day is for bread and milk type stuff! Also we found an abandoned set of small drawers by my garages so my son was managing with stacked strong cardboard boxes but he lifted these home (it had been there for 2 days) mended it and cleaned it and they now have a set of small bedside drawers!
Minimise - it has been a lovely blowy day - both yesterday and today so we got all the washing 'done up' as they say down here! Also when I got back DS1's GF was v unwell with cold - as was the baby! So I went round and minimised the dust and stuff! We really need to get a tip run in this week tho as my son got the job he went for and so dont want his day off to be going to the tip!
Mend:- Since I moved here there have been some strange 'rubbery' marks on the front door and someone had thrown a McD's carton of Cola down towards my bin last nite and it had gone everywhere so I went to wash down the wall as it was sticky and I dont want to encourage ants. Washing didnt get the marks off the door (PVC white) so I got a bit bicarb on a wet rag and with a bit of elbow grease they all came off ! :j So feel v chuffed with myself for that! Tomorrow must mend slippers - the top has come away from the bottom so only some sewing needed!

Jackie O - didnt realise I would get free birthday meal - just thought I would get points off! Brilliant! Ta for letting me know!
Sorry for long post - been away a week! :rotfl:
Chao folks - back to usual frugal life style!