It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

taplady

silvasava wrote: »

'Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle' &
'Small victories - sometimes they are all you can hope for, but sometimes they are all you need'
QUOTE]

brilliant quotes silvasalva - thankyou!:Tthink I might nick one of them for my signature;):)

silvasava

Hi Taplady - glad you like it, unfortunately I can't remember where I read it! I was undergoing Radiotherapy at the time & it seemed very appropriate (see the big cheese next month - fingers crossed) Off to check how many of my green beans have sprouted - just on the knockings from last years crop!!

taplady

silvasava wrote: »

Hi Taplady - glad you like it, unfortunately I can't remember where I read it! I was undergoing Radiotherapy at the time & it seemed very appropriate (see the big cheese next month - fingers crossed) Off to check how many of my green beans have sprouted - just on the knockings from last years crop!!

I can understand why they seemd so apt to you. I hope all goes well for your appointment next month and fingers crossed for a big crop of beans:D

pawpurrs

Hi Everyone,
Havent posted for ages, hope everyone is coping ok.
Feeling a bit down in the dumps and despondant. DH lost his job in Jan 2009, a wellish paid job in IT, since then he has been doing some painting and decorating, working at the pub, bits and pieces to get by really. But this work seems to have dried up, and we have hardly any money coming in, now. He has started to apply again for jobs in the last day or so, he was applying solidly for six mths but nothing so gave up and was happy to be painting and earning some money. We are trying to renovate a house, and at the moment have no heating, no sitting room etc, and its getting me down a bit, but then I think shouldnt grumble......blah, blah, but I am worrying that if he doesnt get back in to IT soon, he may well not, as his CV will be less and less appealing. Sorry, having a down day!
Things will get better, I am sure.

mama67

We have an organic veg box delivered weekly; but have decided this year that instead of just changing to the salad box and then buying extras on top we are going to grow as much salad, beans and carrots as we can and then use the box ( which I can adjust online) to fill in the gaps. The main thing will be potatoes as haven't as yet got space/pots to start/sort those this year.

To this end I now have coming through/nearly ready to plant on:

green beans, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, butternut squash, couergette, chilli peppers, parsley, lettuce and spring onions. We also already have an established rhubarb bed and I have sown some carrots, beetroot, mint and corriander.

I am hoping that these will keep us supplied throughout the summer and that we may even have some to store for winters use and to exchange with the couple of friends who grow different things to us.

And therefore the money saved can go into a pot to maybe pay for a treat ot two over the school summer holidays.

thriftyscotslass

Thank you for your quotes Silvasava, you are right it is the small victories that count and they are the ones that often mean the most. Good luck with seeing the big cheese next month.

Another quote that I read on here (sorry can't remember who posted it ) and one that I love is "It's me against the shops". So my new motto is "It's me against the shops; the companies and the banks" and boy have I found my found my fight, I thought it had deserted me - todays small victories are against Mr T - superb sausages bought in a local shop saving me 80p and 4 tins plum tomatoes at same shop saving me 50p :T:T.

mama67 - well done on your growing veg. Funnily enough I was looking at my wilderness of a backgarden today and thinking it was just the right size to turn into an allotment.

pawpurrs - sending you huge hugs.

Hope everyone is having a peaceful and enjoyable evening.

ceridwen

mardatha wrote: »

That's very interesting- we seem to think that everything now is better, and old fashioned stuff is rough - maybe its the opposite!

Well - I was only thinking about the sheet comments on here earlier today and thinking "Well - people now expect sheets to feel like polycotton - rather than cotton - and polycotton IS worse quality - but cheaper". On from that - people once used to expect that wood would mean wood - but, for some years now, its often meant wood veneer. I read someone's comment to effect that "real" food might come to seem more and more like luxury food (rather than the basic food it REALLY is) with all the current factory farming of cows/attempts by the American Govt to do the will of firms like M*nsanto and force us all into genetic*lly-m*dified food.

I think - all round - we are being "pushed" in the direction of accepting inferior quality to the normal quality we have come to expect over centuries past. Personally - I'm insisting on "proper" quality things these days - as they are ultimately so much more satisfying to use and the "cost per use" probably comes to little if any more when one considers that modern cheap substitutes tend to last about two seconds before wearing out/going wrong.

BitterAndTwisted

I'm not picking a fight but I don't agree that polycotton blended textiles are necessarily worse quality that 100% cotton. I'd love to have the pure luxury of decent-quality cotton bedlinen but I'd need a launderess or become one every time I washed the damed things. I remember the bed-linen at home taking days and days to dry after Monday laundry-day and in the winter it could take a week up on the airing thingy in the kitchen

Not having sheets, pillowcases and duvet-covers looking like old dish-rags when they're dry for a barely-discernible difference in feel is a price worth paying imo BUT I'd rather not have to buy the cheapest-quality if I could avoid it as I don't think they're worth buying at any price. Some of them are so thin you could read a newspaper through them and that's when they're brand-new.

Still, it's horses for courses, I expect

Bella79

I always always buy the best bed linen i can afford at the time, ive learned my lesson i had a few sheets left from when i first set up home about 6 years ago they were cheap ones at the time and havent worn well at all, However my mum and nan brought me so v expensive sheets and duvet sets and i have to say there still like new , and still feel lovely when you get into bed, however having a cheap sheet on it better than none !

BitterAndTwisted

You're right Owens3116. In more prosperous times I bought some rather nice Dorma bedlinens in polycotton and a decade later they are still as good as new. Just wish I could afford some now..... Even so 6 years out of cheap linens is still getting your money's-worth, I think