2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

PipneyJane said:

  Same dye lot, sold in shops 5000 miles apart.

- Pip 

That's amazing! Especially when you consider how hard it can be to match batch numbers on the same shelf.  

It was a surprise.  I can only conclude that Sublime do huge dye lots.

I have been thinking about my own New Year’s Resolutions, some of them Challenge related, some of them not.  Historically, I’ve always used the time between Christmas and New Year to conduct a personal audit of what I’ve achieved and where I am going, usually scribbling it all out in the front of the new year’s diary.  (More lately, writing it as a blog post.)  I keep asking myself, what do I really want to achieve in 2022 and what is realistic?  Knit 30 balls of yarn from stash.   Read 12 books.  Continue with my Duolingo French.  Run an official 5k.  (Yes, to all four of those.). Find and buy that damn trench coat.  (Only if the fashion gods smile on me.)  More financial security. (Continue with current plan and hope for a raise.)  Spend my leave seeing/exploring places in Europe.  (I really want to travel and my list is long.)  Go home to Oz for Christmas 2022?  (Usually the most efficient time to travel leave-wise because of the bank holidays, but not really workable in my current job.). Write that damn book?  (It’s a recipe/budgeting book to share what I’ve learned and I’ve day-dreamed about it for years.)  

Aarrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

- Pip

MoneysavingmadGem

I'm like you Pipneyjane, always use this week to reflect and plan! 

I have joined the new thread as I'm hoping all you lovely people knitting and sewing and mending and thinking carefully about buying will give me a bit of motivation to get my projects finished! One of my reflection is I have not sewn enough ... knitted yes 3 jumpers this year but not finished one sewing project! 


Can I ask what is reverse couponing? 

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

 Continue with my Duolingo French. 

That's a good list, Pip, I would have thought most of those would be achievable, if not all, depending on how much life gets in the way. I didn't know you were a fellow Duolinguist? I've managed to make progress with French this year - did it at school but have some definite weak spots (like conjugating avoir and venir ). I think my pronunciation has come a long way this year, as has my confidence, but I have a long way to go. I've often meant to search for a Duolingo thread on here because there are a few of us.

Running-wise, I'm currently sub-5K but I have my eye on getting back to 10k where I was a couple of years ago. I'm never going to be fast but I love longer runs. Perhaps the village Athletics Club could put on another fun run in the spring? The winter one went well, though I think the fancy dress element and the hot chocolates at the end were half of that. 

Where in Europe is on your list?

PipneyJane

@Cherryfudge - pretty much everywhere in Europe is on my list:  Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Iceland, Greece, Turkey, Poland, Scandinavia.  (I’ve always wanted to go to Stockholm.). For now, I’ll settle for places that I can get to via Eurostar.

I did French and German at school. Even if my vocab isn’t brilliant, German comes automatically, whereas French doesn’t.  Doesn’t matter if I’m in France, the first language my brain tries to form a sentence in is German.  I wish the same could be said for French.  I’m on my 577th day.

One day, I’d like to do Italian.  It’s one of the languages of my childhood.  My dad’s best mate at work was Italian and one of my earliest memories is sitting in his kitchen watching his wife make pasta, while Italian was spoken all around me. I sort-of understand it but I don’t know what I do and don’t know.

- Pip

florianatwobob

PipneyJane said:

I did French and German at school. Even if my vocab isn’t brilliant, German comes automatically, whereas French doesn’t.  Doesn’t matter if I’m in France, the first language my brain tries to form a sentence in is German.  I wish the same could be said for French.  

I’m the same with German. My German after 1 year was better then my French after 3 years of learning at school. Interestingly it appears I have a northern German accent and a Parisian French accent. 

In Germany I used to get some
confused looks when I switched from German back to English to speak to my sister. Sadly my German isn’t as good as it was. 

Wraithlady

Cherryfudge said:

PipneyJane said:

 Continue with my Duolingo French. 

I didn't know you were a fellow Duolinguist? 

Also on Duolingo - doing Spanish (well, when I say 'doing' ...)

Cherryfudge

@PipneyJane, I've been to Amsterdam and Haarlem, and to Florence and Pisa but that leaves about 98% of your list unexplored by me! I can recommend all the above though of course that was because they suited my taste. We are talking about having another holiday in Amsterdam one day: we made ourselves a promise not to visit it for five years so we would see other places and not always go back to one we particularly loved. However it has the Rijksmueum and Van Gogh Museum so we could probably spend a week in those without going much further!

I have my foreign languages in the opposite order to you: things tend to come out in Pidgin French! I've never officially studied German but I can read it because if you read slowly and carefully you can hear the English. I've no clue about the grammar, of course. I'm still on day three hundred and something. Hoping to make it to a year.

I did a couple of years of Latin at school: it's a very beautiful language IMO but unfortunately the Duolingo course is nowhere near as good as their French one so I dropped it in confusion. Perhaps one day I'll go back. I'm also wrestling Brazilian Portuguese because of someone we know in Brazil, but I find the pronunciation very confusing.

I've only spent a couple of days in Italy but the language sounded amazing! Exactly as stereotyped.  

florianatwobob said:
Interestingly it appears I have a northern German accent and a Parisian French accent. 

My Mum's French was southern, apparently because she once left home and went to live with the family of a French man who was rather an admirer of hers! I never got the full story of that one so I remain intrigued but she did have a rather stormy home life so it doesn't surprise me. My Dad spoke French with the Parisian accent which I understand is what we learned at school (though my version was probably Lancashire). Mum also spoke good Spanish and said Dad spoke it like an Italian because he learned Italian first. My parents and sister were/are good at languages so I thought I would be too, but I'm still waiting.

I think it shows how valuable it is to learn an language in a land where it's spoken rather than through the medium of someone who isn't a native speaker, but perhaps that depends on the teacher.

Wraithlady said:
Also on Duolingo - doing Spanish (well, when I say 'doing' ...)

LOL, yes, I know what you mean there! There are days when I only do enough not to lose my streak of days. Still even a bit is better than nothing. A colleague is learning Spanish and so is someone else who I 'know' through these boards - it's such a useful language and sounds so musical.

My Duolingo profile looks as though I speak about five languages but things like Russian are only there because I wanted to find out how they teach something with a different alphabet.

I do actually have a second language - Yorkshire. It's taken me about thirty years but I'm getting there! Ah mean, Ah'm gittin thur. 

TwibbleDee

For Latin, try Wheelock's.  That made the most sense to me.  Next time I decide to play with it, I'll probably buy the course on Udemy that goes along with it.

I had 3 years of French and 1 of German in high school, then several of German and Russian in college (I actually have a minor in Russian!).  Can I speak any of it fluently?  No.  I've also tried to teach myself Latin and Spanish.  I did fairly well with Latin, but Spanish seems to kick my butt.

Cherryfudge

TwibbleDee said:

For Latin, try Wheelock's.  That made the most sense to me.  Next time I decide to play with it, I'll probably buy the course on Udemy that goes along with it.

I had 3 years of French and 1 of German in high school, then several of German and Russian in college (I actually have a minor in Russian!).  Can I speak any of it fluently?  No.  I've also tried to teach myself Latin and Spanish.  I did fairly well with Latin, but Spanish seems to kick my butt.

I'd never heard of Wheelock's but thank you! I've looked it up and the fact there is a Latin version of 'Where the wild things are' advertised on the front page gives me hope.

florianatwobob

@Cherryfudge it does sound like an interesting story. Hopefully your mum will reveal all someday. 

Although born and bred in the south (northern Home Counties ) my dad was Cumbrian whilst my mum was from Surrey. As a result I have a habit of picking up the rhythms of speech (more than the accent). I’m also left with a colourful mishmash of dialect words and naval slang from Dad. 😉