Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

gayleygoo

I don't think I've ever posted on this thread, but have been reading the wonderful stories of your memories, and very much enjoying them, thank you for sharing

I was an 80's/90's child, but my Granny cared for us while my parents worked and she told us many of her stories and taught us lots of things she learned as a child, that I am eternally thankful for today.

I'm off to figure out how to darn OH's socks!

alice-mary

GreyQueen wrote: »

I spent a big chunk of my childhood climbing trees.

I did too! About 10 years ago I went on an activity holiday with a bunch of teenagers from our school and part of one of the structured activities included climbing halfway up a tree, swinging on a rope across a narrow stream, then climbing up a wet, muddy bank... I don't know who was more surprised, the kids or the instructors, when I not only needed no help at all to climb the tree but I cleared the stream in one swing of the rope AND was the least muddy of anybody at the end (not that staying clean was my aim)! I loved it and although I ached a bit the next day, it was worth it to see the begrudging respect in a few of the kids eyes!

I also remember being told off for playing football in the carpark (oi you little bar stewards, if any of ya 'it me car, I'll knock yer 'eads off) so we climbed up onto the row of garages and played up there instead! We only failed to keep the ball up there a few times as far as I can remember (or maybe it just wasn't me that had to climb back down to get it, being the shortest of the gang)!

Alice
xx

GreyQueen

gayleygoo wrote: »

I don't think I've ever posted on this thread, but have been reading the wonderful stories of your memories, and very much enjoying them, thank you for sharing

I was an 80's/90's child, but my Granny cared for us while my parents worked and she told us many of her stories and taught us lots of things she learned as a child, that I am eternally thankful for today.

I'm off to figure out how to darn OH's socks!

I can help you with the sock darning. You'll want a curved surface to darn against, the traditional thingy was a darning mushroom or a darning egg, the improv answer is a satsuma/ small orange/ small smooth ball.

Put the fruit into the sock in the area to be darned (heel or toe) and use an elastic band to snug it tight. If the socks are thick woollen ones, you'll want something like a thin wool, if they are cotton ones, or cotton rich, I use ordinary sewing thread doubled up.

Firstly, ring the darn with a line of running stitches, to contain it, then cross the darn from one side to another, laying down set of parallel thread. yarn lines. The trick is that you never pull the sides of the hole together, you are using the darn to infill the worn-away bit of sock. You'll need to re-thread the needle several times, and be sure to anchor each new thread and finish it off with a back-stitch in place, not a knot. You don't want knots in your socks, they'll lead to blisters.

Once you've covered the missing area with to-and-fro threads, you turn the work 90 degrees and start going under and over the previous threads, as if you were basket weaving. Once you've finished you've woven a bit of replacement fabric for the hole and muchly extended the life of the sock.

You can also darn jumpers, and can google 'french darning' for more sophisticated jumper-mending. You can darn things like sheets, teatowels and regualar towels on a sewing machine using the zig-zag stitch, I've a few things featuring an asterisk-like darn and they go on forever.

I was taught to darn as a kid and quickly excelled my Mum; was once running a stall at a boot fair and darning handmade socks whilst I did it, and it was a fascinating conversational opener.

One old boy commented he hadn't seen anyone darn for years.....think he was quite tickled that the secret hasn't been lost.

After coming back from the shops, I have re-strung the second set of Grandma's 'pearls', the fiddly ones with lots of tiny seed pearls which the shop didn't want to do but said they'd put a catch on for me if I could string them on the thread the gave me. Will trot them up there this afternoon.

I have also done one of the two pesky doorhandles which got gloss paint on them about 3 years ago when I decorated. Had them off the door and gently carved the gloss off with a small veggie knife then finished the job with a brillo pad. One done, one to go, and that's a niggle out of my life.

ETA OMG, alice, we spent a lot of time on the roofs of the garage blocks, didn't understand why the adults used to stress about it so much - they could see is going thropugh the asbestos sheet corrugated roofing and getting badly hurt, but we just thought they were spoilsports.

Prinzessilein

Hello Make-do-Mend-and Minimisers!


I've been absent for a couple of days ...finally got the new meds....steroid cream...and ended up somewhat bloated and sorry for myself!...didn't even feel up to knitting!


Anyway, feeling more like myself today....and there seems to be LOADS to catch up on on this thread!


I went out to the library this morning...they have a book sale on. All sorts of ex-loan books, get ant 3 for £1. Nothing much for me...but Mum got three of the historical romantic novels she enjoys (me, I prefer a fresh bloodied corpse on every page!)....bargain at 33 1/3p each...and when she has read them she passes them on to the warden (like me Mum lives in sheltered housing now)...and then when the warden has read them they go onto the communal table for any resident to grab if they like them.....those 3-for-£1 books will be doing the rounds for a while!


I have spent a little money today....I found a couple of beautiful thick lamb steaks...short-date coded but perfect for freezing. I have put them in the freezer and that is Easter dinner sorted!....I will defrost, honey glaze them and bake them on the day.


The plan for this afternoon is to sort through my tea-towels...a couple of them have seen better days...they will be cut up for cleaning cloths.....a couple are very faded but still good...I might try and dye them, embroider them, and turn them into tray cloths...I'll decide when I've had a good look at what I've got.


I have some rice in the fridge...so tonight I am having a 'fusion' mix that I rather like...heat the rice up with a tin of tuna...add a slice of tinned pineapple (put the rest in the fridge...Gammon steak is ready for Gammon-and-Pineapple' tomorrow!)...some left-over veggies...and add a sauce made from peanutbutter and chilli-ketchup.......and a baked banana with a splodge of joghurt and honey for dessert/later

Floss

GreyQueen wrote: »

Yeah, everything my generation played on as kids has been banned as unsafe. The wooden adventure fort was dismantled (you mean it isn't safe for unsupervised kids to use an unharnessed zip-wire between towers and maybe fall 8-10 feet onto dirt - who knew?) plus all the play equipment such as the wonderful slide and roundabouts are gone and what's left is as boring as hell.

I have a divot out of one knee (fall onto pavement outside my Nan's as a kiddie) and scars above both knees, one caused by a slo-mo car crash and the other caused by a close encounter with a rusty wheelbarrow. I tend to think if you haven't accrued some minor scarring and broken at least one bone, you haven't really been living childhood at full throttle.

My poor Mum; if I was climbing the beech trees, it was green stuff from the bark on my clothes, if I was in the pines, it was pine sap. She had some interesting laundry conundrums, bless her; I spent a big chunk of my childhood climbing trees.

I have a scar on my chin that needed 3 stitches after falling off a trapeze bar on our climbing frame...that had several broken flags over the muddy patch! I also have an inch-long scar on one knee from riding my trike into the corner of our house

GreyQueen

My brother (and several other grown men I know) have small facial scars caused by running full-speed indoors and colliding with furniture; his is on his eyebrow. Furniture is dangerous to children.

vhalla1478

Hi again, pleased there are so many tomboys amongst us. I was an only child but had two boy cousins so had the opportunity to play with toys that actually did something as opposed to dolls that just sat there looking stupid. All I did with my dolls was sit them in a line and 'teach' them and smack them if they didn't get it right - there was a lot of smacking! And of course I was always being tied up when it was time to play cowboys and Indians: I've probably been psychologically damaged for life - I wonder who I can sue?

I know the world is a frightening place and it is a parent's instinct to protect their children, and rightly so, but it does appear to me that children are wrapped in cotton wool these days; how on earth would they cope if there was a real crisis. I do think we need to teach children to be resourceful. My son lied about his age to get into the army cadets early and several months later we went for our first visit to Israel to see my daughter (there's a big age gap between my two children), the strap around my suitcase broke just as we were arriving at the station. I panicked - couldn't afford a new case , mum had paid for our flights- Michael, at 12, just whipped a belt out of the luggage and sorted it; I knew then he was on his way to growing up.

I've had a productive morning, making bread and tapenade - will do for a couple of scratch lunches with some 'living lettuce' that I still have on the window sill and I've unearthed my last bag of fruits of the forest from the freezer for when I fancy something sweet.

If you have a tiny kitchen or lack of storage which is especially true of rented properties on the whole, consider buying a couple of metal grids to fix onto the wall. I have three stainless steel ones, I've had them for years , and with butcher's hooks, I can hang utensils, colanders, griddle pans etc. My stainless steel utensils go on the grids, wooden spoons, spatulas etc go in a nice pottery jar and all the ugly plastic ones are hidden in a drawer.

Viv xx

Prinzessilein

I have a whole plethora of scars from childhood!...I have severe dyspraxia...and these days I use a walker or a stick...in childhood days I just fell!...a LOT!


I have a long horizontal scar a few inches below the knee...I was in a hurry to get to a Christmas Party...Father Christmas was going to be there and I REALLY needed to whisper with him that I wanted a certain laundry set for Christmas!....I managed to trip on the stairs and fell heavily on my right leg, cutting it open on the edge of the marble stairs....I refused to miss the party, and just had the leg neatly bandaged....it was worth it because I DID get that laundry set on Christmas Eve!


Then there was the time my sister dared me to climb a tree...she insisted I couldn't do it...not with my rubbish coordination...I just KNEW I could...so I proved her wrong...I climbed that tree....and then realised I could climb up...but not down!....Mum had to be sent for to rescue me!


I didn't have a bike...the dyspraxia means I lack the balance/coordination to ride...but that didn't stop my sister lending me her bike...which I managed, with a fine sense of irony, to ride into a stop-sign...the bike stopped and I didn't!...I soared over the handlebars and almost managed to achieve human flight, flapping my arms!...hit the ground bruised myself thoroughly and broke my new glasses....I had to promise never to try anything so stupid again!


Oh and I managed to get the mother of all black-eyes....I went to the local indoor market to spend my pocket money....totally forgot that the doors were automatic...stopped in front of them to check my watch....totally missed the people approaching the door from the opposite direction and got the full force of the door in the face!...Knocked me to the ground and stunned me...somehow I stumbled to the taxi rank and managed to give the driver my address!


And I still have a scare that almost encircles my thumb...I was cutting up some chicken for dinner one evening...and I missed the chicken and sliced my thumb instead!!!!...Mum still goes green when she remembers coming in to the kitchen and seeing the blood...there was a LOT! (Shortly after this we instituted the 'knife-ban'!...still in force today!...I have various kitchen aids now that do most of my chopping!)


Mum never once thought to sue anyone for compensation like you might today....it was somehow expected that children would have accidents! It was a part of growing up!

grunnie

I was a cute only child blonde hair pigtails you get the drift.;) All my pals had brothers and if I wasn't wrecking their lego to make houses I was falling in the burn at the end of their garden while trying to beat the boys at jumping over it. Over our back wall was the sea and at the end of the street was the ship yards and if we weren't down the beach catching crabs or lobsters with cleeks ( long pole with metal hook) we were climbing over the wood at the slip.To this day I love the smell of new wood as it reminds me of the time we used to run between the rows of planks of wood all taller then us and hide.
Was always amazed how my mum knew we had been eating welks. A rusty can collected from the shore some sea water a few handfuls of welks boil them up someone always had matches ( all our dads smoked so easily pinched) and after they were boiled for a while you took a pin and pulled out the welk and ate them. They just do not taste the same :rotfl:nowadays must have been the rusty can to add the flavour.

kittym

Prinzessilein your 'fusion' sounds delicious. Why is it that left over meals taste great yet you can never exactly re-create it again.

Please keep posting all your fab stories as it's lovely to hear what great fun you all had when you were kids. I to was a tom boy and would spend all of my time outside. I think we had a lot more freedom those days. I find i worry a lot when my DD is out and about, yet they have to learn and develop their independence.

Get well soon Cherrfullness my DD passed her tonsillitis and cold onto me. She's chuffed as I have totally lost my voice so can't ask her to do chores. Ah well Im sure they'll still be there tomorrow.

Take care all and have a good afternoon. xx