Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Your Mum's memory garden sounds lovely, OBL. Mine won't have ashes - my parents left specific instructions as to where they'd like those scattered, something we shall soon fulfil - but rather to mark that my Mum really did pass on an amazing amount of gardening knowledge to me. She particularly liked a big flower bed up by her french doors which was planted to provide winter colour from December up to March, & that's what I'm aiming for. I also intend to bring back a few plants from Mum's garden before we put our old family home on the market.
Re the hebe cuttings. It sounds like your hebe has gone much like mine. Mine has long straggly stems with live leaves only as the very tips. It is possible to take cuttings from them, but like all cuttings, sometimes they work & sometimes not.......or sometimes, like last year, the starlings arrive & nick all the carefully planted cuttings for nest building, grrrrrr! I've cut off the best tips, stripped off the lower leaves & popped them in water. When I have some new compost, I shall recut the base of the stems & pop them around the edge of a pot. To stop them drying out, I shall pop a home made bottle cloche over the top. I'm hoping some should root. It's a nice hebe - a pinky variety called 'Hearbreaker'. I do find that once most of the stems have gone to leafless straggle with only a few live leaves right on the ends, that it's usually best to start again. Hope this helps. Am just going to have some lunch, then I'm off down the greenhouse to sow this year's tomato & aubergine seeds. Am having a really productive day - am now on Co-codamol for my poorly hand & able to do a little more with it, but will have to be careful not to overdo it in the garden because I'm less aware of pain-causing activity. Looking forward to a busy afternoon out there in the sunshine though.
Hope everyone who drops in on my ramblings is getting off to a good start this week. Let's see what we can achieve.......& keep our purses closed aas much as possible!
F x

foxgloves

Well, I got today's jobs out of the way, then had another couple of hours outside working on planting up my new bed & clearing & revamping the courtyard. I make no secret of the fact that a not insignificant wodge of my debt back in the day came from my bad garden centre habit but there have been no 'wobbles' - I absolutely promise that my total spend so far has been £4. The old me used to think nothing of blowing the best part of 50 quid just on filling a couple of modest pots. Not so the post-LBM Version 2 me! I've been dividing existing plants & clumps of snowdrops & rescuing the best bits from tired winter containers & it's looking so nice.
Now I suspect some of Onebrokelady's new found minimalism may have rubbed off on me too, because the more old tired pots I removed from our courtyard, the more it dawned on me that having fewer things dotted around would make sweeping easier. So I'm just waiting till I can buy some compost (& yes, this will be stretched by mixing in some of our own homemade), then I have a plan in place of exactly what pots will be replanted & which will relocating down to the veggie garden. We had already decided to buy a garden bench this year. We've done without since our last one rotted & went on the bonfire, & haven't got round to replacing, so I shall look forward to siting that on the courtyard at some point & admiring all this week's hard work! Still lots more plant freebies to be gathered in from my garden, I'm sure x

crazy_cat_lady

I wish you lived closer Foxgloves - I would talk you into doing something amazing with my garden.:rotfl:

foxgloves

Haha, CCL, you'd have to be full of silver-tongued charm to get me to take on another garden, lol. But, I'd probably cycle over to you with my basket full of nice free plants. Shame there is such a massive length of A1 in between us, as I would defo swap some plants with a lesson on why squares crocheted by me always go so rubbish!
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon all. I've been promising to share a few tales of my terrible past relationship with antique/collectors' fairs, & just recently, I came across something which took me right back to a particular Debtisode as though it only happened yesterday, instead of way back in the Spendy Years.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin......
I decluttered a couple of kitchen cupboards the other week. I'd pretty much sorted one out, with everything fitting in much better & a few things removed for the charity shop, when I caught a shiny glimpse of gold & glass right at the back. Out everything came again so that I could get to it & there we had it - a perfect example of past antique fair spendiness sitting there on my kitchen tiles looking right at me! I am talking about two vintage glass apothecary bottles - the ones with glass stoppers & the name of the chemical on the front in red, black & gold. Well they were obviously a waste of money, weren't they, as they had sat at the back of that cupboard since we moved in here 16 years ago. I used to frequent antique & vintage fairs a LOT. I'd say almost every weekend, & occasionally two on the same weekend. There are 2 or 3 things I used to collect, & still do own & display those collections, so I don't regret buying those (only that I was usually spending the bank's money & storing up problems for later in the month, of course) - it was the impulse buying of other random bits & pieces that really racked up the overspending. Anyway, back to those bottles. Did I collect apothecary bottles or old pharmaceutical equipment? No, I didn't. But I still bought them. Here's what happened:
Back in my Spendy Years, stall holders didn't have card readers, so it was cash or cheques. I used to withdraw about £30 to spend at each fair, but (big mistake), always used to take my cheque book. There's always that few days grace with cheques, isn't there, while they clear, so it never felt quite like 'immediate' spending, iyswim. I remember I hadn't been at this particular enormous fair very long when I spotted a big pottery bowl I wanted. It was from a pottery I collect, but from a different range, & it was around the 1960s. It wasn't badly priced at around £25, so I bought it & I have to say it has been in constant use ever since. I still enjoy owning it, so that (apart from the fact that the money wasn't mine to spend) was a 'good buy; I should have gone home at that point, cash spent, but the next stall along from where I bought the bowl looked like a really eclectic mixture & the stall holder......well what can I say? Be still my beating heart.......this paragon of loveliness had long hair, a silver earring, eyes to tempt the hardest heart & he was wearing a vintage red uniform. I don't really go for uniforms (with the obvious exception of Sean Bean in his 'Sharpe' regalia) but we caught each other's eye, I stopped for a chat, & before I could come to my senses, I'd spaffed £15 on two apothecary bottles!!! Why? I mean WHY??? It wasn't like you got the scrummy bloke free with them or anything! I did display them at my previous house....it was an old house & they looked quite nice in the bathroom, but they gathered dust like the rest of my vintage paraphernalia & frankly, it was just a waste of money. Yes, £15 wasn't a big spend for me back then, but with retrospect, given that those bottles have sat in the back of a dresser cupboard for 16 years, it was just another example of all the silly frittering that went on. I'd spend the cash I'd come with, but then carry on buying little bits & pieces that caught my attention & they all added up. But being tempted into purchasing two items just because it was a good-looking fella - I obviously left my all feminist credentials at the door that day!
The vintage bottles have gone off to the charity shop in the hope that they can either sell them to a proper collector or that someone will come in & love them.
I will save the flea fair item that was too big for me even to carry until another time......
F x (who is now sensible & has spent all morning working on her March budget!)

1LuckyLady

I do love your posts foxgloves

wishingthemortgaheaway

1LuckyLady wrote: »

I do love your posts foxgloves

Me too.
Always read along.

foxgloves

Well, that's very kind of you, WTMA & 1LL.
I think this diary seems to serve as a sort of 'confessional' for me, somehow, as it is often hard for me to reconcile how I was back pre-LBM with the (mostly) angelic budgeter I have since become.
I shall be back soon with another Antique Fair Debtisode of stupidity.........this next one is likely to remind readers of that black dress I kept chopping bits off.....oh dear!
F x

DawnW

Had to smile at your antiques fair escapades
Fairs are generally too expensive for me, as a dealer. My stock used to come from auctions, but they have got very expensive over the last couple of years, and these days I mainly frequent flea markets and boot sales. I sell through a small unit in a local antiques shop and online. Stallholders at the big fairs have to pay loads for their pitches, and that is why their prices are high. Needless to say, I have a houseful of tat, some of which changes week by week. Some is on display and lots of other bits are in boxes in the loft / shelves in the garage (I only deal in smallish stuff these days).

I must own up to owning 2 large antique oak dressers and no fewer than 5 blanket chests of various sizes though - actually one is a deed chest, so smaller than the others. My small grand daughter calls them grandma's treasure chests :rotfl: Surprisingly, there is room to walk around in my house :rotfl: and I love all of them, and they are not going anywhere

foxgloves

Dawn - I think fairs have got more expensive just to get into for customers too. I know it's a business for the events organisers, but charging £5+ just means people have less to spend on the stalls really.