2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Thanks for the mask pattern link, @Laura_Elsewhere.  The advice you give is top notch!   That shirt looks lovely, too.

@CAFCGirl - your fella is very observant about the dungarees.  If everything else fits OK, then it isn’t you; it’s them.

@CapricornLass - If the rugby shirt suits you, fits you and you get to keep a business you like in business, then that is 5 coupons well spent.  I’m all for spending wisely, particularly if it supports a business you like.  None of us can prop up everything, but if we target our Pounds at the places we respect most and get decent products in return, then we can still hold our heads up high.  We are rapidly sliding into the biggest economic depression since the 1940’s.  It’s completely unchartered territory.   

Yes, I said the 1940’s.  That was not a typo. I was watching Andrew Marr’s Making Of Modern Britain on BBC4 - it’s a repeat - and have been reminded just how perilous the national finances were at the end of the war.   All rations got smaller.  People lived in worse conditions than they had during the Great Depression.  Everything that could be manufactured and sold abroad was shipped overseas to earn hard currency.  Worldwide, people were desperate for decent homes and jobs that paid a living wage.  (Even in Oz.  When my parents built their house in 1956, there was a waiting list for bricks, so they opted for weatherboard, instead of brick veneer.)

I think, in many respects, we’re still living with the consequences.  The class system hasn’t disappeared, its just morphed into something more insidious.   Oddly enough, I think the Government’s response to the Virus (furlough’s, etc) is the most generous social welfare reform since the Beveridge Report.  If only they can keep it up.   Universal Credit wouldn’t keep most MPs in petrol.  Perhaps they’ll realise it also won’t house, feed and clothe the people they rely upon for votes.

Apologies for going off topic.  I’ve had one of “those” days.  My anger was triggered by a headline in The Sunday Times, “Super-rich lose billions to virus” which was meant to advertise their annual Rich List but just makes me think “How insensitive can you be?”.  The rich will recover; it’s the little guy on the bottom of the heap that we need to worry about.  If we can keep him going financially, then this won’t be a complete economic disaster.

Sorry,

- Pip

CAFCGirl

I've been commenting on items shared by 'friends and family' on other social media regarding the bottom falling out, concerned about the interest rates on their savings and investment returns etc to which I completely understand but Average Joe who rents, doesn't have savings and works a zero hour contract job has significantly bigger 'struggles' than people who cant fly over to their second home in Spain..... but then again I get 'liberal snowflake' responses so I'm giving up and instead reaching out to those who may be finding life particularly challenging in these times.

PipneyJane

CAFCGirl said:

I've been commenting on items shared by 'friends and family' on other social media regarding the bottom falling out, concerned about the interest rates on their savings and investment returns etc to which I completely understand but Average Joe who rents, doesn't have savings and works a zero hour contract job has significantly bigger 'struggles' than people who cant fly over to their second home in Spain..... but then again I get 'liberal snowflake' responses so I'm giving up and instead reaching out to those who may be finding life particularly challenging in these times.

Welcome to the club,@CAFCGirl.  You are not alone.  I am struggling to find the right words this morning, but I find that there is a terribly paternalistic streak running through the British middle classes.  It’s only when they personally are seriously affected will they realise how poorly served people are by the benefit system.   The basic Job Seeker’s Allowance has increased by less than £30 in the 31 years I have been in the UK, while other benefits have got harder to claim and the cost of living has increased dramatically. 

I have mentioned before that coming from a more egalitarian country, I struggle to understand how so many people can be so badly off in the FOURTH RICHEST COUNTRY in the world.    For many people, living conditions are only marginally better than they were 100 years ago. (Indoor plumbing, electricity, mass vaccinations, antibiotics and birth control being the main improvements.)   Zero hours contracts and Houses in Multiple Occupancy are only the tip of the iceberg of financial instability.   The shortage of decent, affordable housing is a national scandal; 80% of people claiming housing benefit are working.  I have no objection to people buying their own  council house BUT the councils should have been required to reinvest the money in more housing, not penalised for it.

- Pip 

Laura_Elsewhere

I was going to click 'thanks' to show my appreciation of comments but it seems to have vanished - anyone else lost their 'thanks'?

And yes, agreeing all over the place... as you could guess, our wedding, whenever it will be, won't be ten thousand quid of meringue-frock and hired country-house-hotel wastage... we are fortunate and have a little put aside to make it special so one thing I am doing is buying everything possible from the small businesses that I already loved, some of whom have become friends over the years - so I hope to buy almost everything from small businesses, somehow, and even things like a Wedding List, we're talking to a potter about her making us some richly-coloured stoneware crockery that is just what we want, and then friends can buy us a bowl or two or three plates or a mug, whatever they can run to, and we'll have a shut-off date and then she will know what the full order is and can make it, knowing everything is paid for in advance! 

CAFCGirl

I find myself crying with anger and sadness all at the same time reading some things.
One of our local churches has a subsidiary community project attached (café, classes, clinics etc) and they are running a food share/food bank effort there and their social media is often met with 'They should try growing their own then' or 'bet its all immigrants' or 'they'll be first in the queue when McDonalds opens though wont they?' and I just despair completely!
But it does drive me to donate more, give regularly and share what they're trying to do - and meet the animosity from a place of love.

Nonnadiluca

My thanks button has also gone AWOL!

PipneyJane

As has mine.  (Thank you button, that is.). 

@Nonnadiluca, did you reply to a post about meal planning/food budgeting and mention a broccoli and pasta bake?  (I can’t find the post.) If so, please share the recipe.  Many thanks.

I have finished the sleeves of my jumper.  Now just have to join them up and knit the yoke, which means that I have reached a decision point.  I want the body to be longer than the 13 inches length-to-underarm specified in the pattern but I wasn’t sure I had enough yarn, so I paused working on the body until I finished the sleeves.  (I had 15 balls of yarn when I started.)  Including the two unfinished balls used on the arms - one for each sleeve - and the partially finished ball used on the body, I have used 10 balls of yarn, which leaves 5 for the yoke and collar.  I think I can safely lengthen the body by 3 inches, the equivalent of 1 ball of yarn, and not run out.

- Pip

PipneyJane

Thanks is back!

@Laura_Elsewhere, I think that is a brilliant idea for a wedding list.  Beautiful, special and absolutely what you want.  Hopefully, you won’t have a family member who will see the list and decide to buy you a totally different set of crockery, picking something hideous.  (Our “big” thing was a canteen of cutlery for “good”, since we had day-to-day stuff.  My darling Eldest Sister decided to send us a canteen of absolutely hideous, silver-plated, very ornate cutlery from Australia.  We have never used it.  Meanwhile, the Clan - DH’s best man’s family - bought us the cutlery we had chosen.  Then is his cousin flew in from Canada and presented us with a third canteen of cutlery!)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Golly, you're obviously the people to come and see re canteens of cutlery - although I wouldn't need to as I already have my Gran's wedding canteen of silver Mappin & Webb cutlery! I use two forks and two knives for occasional ordinary use, and the other 6 settings remain pristine. 
Much to my amusement, when my chap moved out of his late-marital home, well before we got together, his then-wife of 20 years gave him a load of stuff she didn't want including some everyday cutlery - which my chap knows quite well is the wedding present cutlery from his *first* marriage (a brief, youthful, ended-amicably-still-FB-friends type)... so it does amuse me that we don't need wedding present cutlery as we have two lots already, just from other weddings!  



We intend to emphasise and get trusted family to emphasise that this is a *very small flat* and that we simply can't afford house-room to things we can't justify keeping, and anything not on the list will probably go on to a charity for ex-homeless people setting up home from scratch... we reckon if we overtly state that, in as many words, then it should keep us from having too many new toasters...!

It's already being a very non-consumerist wedding! I think i shall be spending most of this year's clothing coupons, though, as by chance most of my undies are starting to 'go' in various ways, and I think maybe I should stock my trousseau with a nice dozen of new M&S knicks, and so on. I would like to start my married life *without* a load of old tat!  

I am currently knitting some bulky wool I've had for a decade or more into a quick little cap-sleeved summer cardigan. It's a pale violet-blue, like faded speedwell flowers. 

PipneyJane

Even worse, I had to pay import duty and VAT on the stuff! - Pip (seriously, there is a reason why people have wedding lists.)