2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, yes, I do... and yes, you're right...

I can cheer you up, though, with my *other* story of a friend meeting a soldier of the Great War...  

My friend D went, in the 1990s, on a work trip to Frankfurt. He speaks very excellent German so in the free time, he was happy to just go out exploring by himself. One day he found a lovely park, and so he sat on a bench to enjoy it. He sat roughly in the middle of the bench, as you do when alone- so when he saw a very, very, old man shuffling along using two sticks, he moved along, and gestured to the now-empty half of the seat, saying in his flawless German that the gentleman could sit if he liked. 
"Ah!" said the old man, obviously in German. "It's good to see that *some* young people appreciate what I did for you!"
In German, D politely said, "I'm sorry, sir- I don't quite understand. What was it you did?"
In German, the old man barked, "Hah! I fought in two world wars for the likes of you!"
Struggling to keep a straight face, D said, incredibly politely and still in German, "I...I....I'm terribly sorry, sir, but... well, you see... I'm afraid you didn't...!"
The old man didn't understand and was starting to get indignant and angry, so D explained quickly, still in German, "you see, sir- I am Scottish!"

At which point, the most fabulous twist occurs...!!!

D thought the old man might get angry or offended, but instead his face broke into a huge beaming smile, and to D's absolute astonishment, the old man said very clearly, "Acht! It is a braw, bricht, moonlicht night the nicht"!

(That is a phrase in Scots English which is often used as a jokey example of how differently Scots pronounce words- 'braw' means good, so it is saying that it is a good bright moonlit night tonight)

D stared, open-mouthed, and the old man anxiously asked (back in German, as is all the rest) if he had said it right. D said, yes, completely but, but, how...?

It turned out that the old man had been captured in 1917 by a regiment of Scots soldiers who had taken the poor captives back to their dugout behind British lines, fed them with hot porridge and whisky, taught them to say "it's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht" and then off they'd gone to become PoWs for the duration... but he had never forgotten. He said he had once met some Englishmen in the 1930s but they hadn't understood at all... 
"I am 97 years old now," he said, " and I had thought I would die without ever saying those words again to a Scotsman"

It's such a lovely conversation, isn't it? The bad-tempered old man, indignant with disrespectful youth, but then the sudden twist of a phrase remembered for seventy years... 

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere that is a beautiful story.  Thank you for putting a smile back on my face.

 BTW count me in for the fete.  I don’t have a clue how we’ll make it work, but I’m up for the challenge.

- Pip

MrsCD

This is wonderful! Those soldiers and scenes are just amazing and so moving. Thank you for showing us.
My story is...
When we went on a battlefield tour a few years ago, our guide was an ex soldier who had a young family. Whenever we went to a cemetery, he would wander around talking to 'the lads'. He told us his daughter had been asked as part of a lesson at school to say what her dad's job was. She told the class that her dad talks to dead people!

PollyWollyDoodle

Lovely stories, thank you all for sharing those. 

Have to declare six coupons, on 3m fabric. I decided to make a cotton dress.  Not my best work, I rushed it a bit in places but it’s turned out ok - however I think I made a bad choice of pattern, I just don’t really like it now it’s finished!   Rather annoying as that’s coupons and a lot of time spent on something I can’t see myself wearing.  Although I’m sure I have learned a few new sewing skills. 

I’ll have a think about whether I can (a) modify it at all to make it more wearable; (b) donate it (not sure it’s good enough quality for that) or (c) make a dress for my three-year old great-niece.  I think (c) is winning at the moment. 

thriftwizard

Oh dear, turn my back for a week (mostly spent doing stitched shibori dyeing in Wales, on reclaimed curtain lining, whilst house-&-pet sitting) and there are 57 posts to catch up with! Laters, my dears...

I nearly fell whilst there, though; it's always a couple of degrees cooler up there, and I just hadn't factored in that the temperature was already pretty low for the time of year, when packing. I'd taken jeans, lightweight leggings for lounging and shorts for gardening, so had to choose between wearing my one pair of jeans all week - the others were in the wash when I left - or freezing. Then I had to pop to the big Tesc0 in Haverfordwest... oh, they do clothes, there's a big department upstairs... maybe a pair of tracksuit bottoms? Luckily, I wouldn't have given you £5 for any of the thin, cheap-feeling ones they had in my (very standard) size, never mind the £20 on the price tag, so I left with just a few groceries & wrapped a blanket round my legs that evening. Next day, I raided the charity shops and came out with a smashing pair of green muslin trousers for £2 and a pair of M&S linen/cotton ones in navy for another £2, both of which have exactly the right hint of warmth & comfort without being winter-weight. I also picked up a large piece of joined tweedy-looking fabric with velcro all down one side, which was in the "3 for £1" bin; I insisted on giving them £1 for just the one piece, because I knew I was going to sell it on, and can even tell you who will buy it! Imagine my surprise when I burn-tested a snippet from the hem back at DS1's - it's actually wool. So I got 2 x 2m lengths of pure wool suiting for £1 and no coupons... I do love Haverfordwest!

Cherryfudge

Ooh, @thriftwizard, I think I will have to put Haverfordwest on my list of places to visit! The wool suiting was a wonderful bargain, but the trousers both sounds like wardrobe staples to me: had I bought them, I'd be getting a lot of wear out of them.

You reminded me of my charity shop emergency holiday buys last September when I forgot to put my case in the car. I'm not sure I remember them all and I know I didn't keep the tee shirts, but the PJs have been used quite a bit, the grey wrap/poncho is lovely and has been used a few times when I want to feel 'dressed up', the jeans have had a lot of wear but won't last long (stretchy denim is pulling out of shape) and the merino cardigan that I only got because it was merino turns out to look very good with something I'd not thought of...

There was also a shirt which in theory is a 'good' make but I've only worn it a couple of times. Somehow it doesn't seem quite at ease with my other things, probably because the light blue doesn't show up well with jeans.

 I feel I did very well from my holiday buys, unplanned though they were. Hope you get lots of use from yours, too, thriftwizard!

PipneyJane

Good shopping @thriftwizard, especially the 4m of pure wool suiting for £1.

I’m back from France, a bit earlier than planned.  We had to drive back yesterday and down to Somerset.  DH got a text message from his sister on Thursday evening; she’d found their mum unconscious on the floor of her flat, called an ambulance and she was admitted to their local(ish) hospital.  MIL may have been on the floor for 12 hours, possibly longer.  No idea how she ended up on the floor but she isn’t strong enough to get up so probably wore herself out, leading to a build up of CO2 in her body, leaving her unconscious.  The hospital put her on oxygen via a CPAP mask.  She was confused for 24-ish hours but has gradually returned to normal, and they’re now weaning her off the CPAP, while leaving her on 2L of oxygen via a nasal cannula.  We spent most of today with her and she improved before our eyes.

This is MIL’s second admission for respiratory problems, this year.  My nurse’s instinct tells me that there will be more, because she only ever gets back to 80% of her previous physicality each time and she’s been visibly frail since the Lockdowns in 2020.   She was a smoker and they mentioned today that she has COPD.  (I am not surprised, but this is the first time any of us had heard her diagnosis.)

DH is doing OK.  His sister was a bit teary with relief earlier, when speaking to the doctor.  Don’t know yet how long we’ll be down here or how long she’ll be in hospital. 

- Pip (Forgive me later, if I rant about the need to exercise and maintain muscle strength. )

Laura_Elsewhere

Oh lord, @PipneyJane! What a ghastly end to your little trip, and what a grim long drive that must have been... good that she is on the mend, but yes, these things rarely stop at once or twice, sadly. 
At least you all get some time to think and plan and make good decisions together! 

Mr E's ex is approaching this situation, only the one fall thus far, but yes, imo it's bound to happen again, and she currently lives alone in a house that is dreadfully badly-arranged for anyone not fit and active! Poor young Master E is having to try to persuade her that she needs to start thinking now about where she'll be in about 18 months' time, because if she has too many more incidents then she'll find she just has to go into a home and won't necessarily be able to choose, at short notice, where and what sort, what level of independent living, etc... better by far to make her own decision, make her own choices... 



(If it pleases you, having joined the gym in February specifically to work on strength and on balancing out my uneven muscle-strength, my legs are now able to do 100kg as of yesterday, on the seated leg-press machine. I am very pleased about it- not least because actually I cycled two miles on a heavy (22.5kg) old-fashioned 5-gear bike, including up steep hills, walked half a mile, then swam 300m, walked the half-mile back to the gym, did a full workout of legs-machines and squats, ending with the leg-press where I did two setsa of 12 reps on 60kg, then 6 reps on 70, 6 on 80, and then decided to go for it and managed 100kg for three slow but steady reps- and THEN cycled two miles home inc one long slow killer-uphill! ) 

Cherryfudge

How very stressful for you all, @PipneyJane. I do hope your Mother in Law continues to improve and you all feel 'safe' to go back home soon.

Rant away about exercise and maintaining muscles: my son in law, who does these things for a living, says exactly the same. Keep it, build it if you can. Certainly now I've hit my sixties and gone from a post-viral slump and taken a very physical job and lots of walking, my health is as good as it's been in a long time and I'm hoping to help compensate for a tendency to poor bone density.

And how are you feeling Pip? 

Cherryfudge

And by way of a P.S. for @Laura_Elsewhere and other O Douglas readers: I've now finished 'Pink Sugar' which was a lot better than I expected from the title! The first one I read was 'The House that is our own' and the second was 'Penny Plain', then 'Jane's Parlour' - so now I'm deep into the Borders circa 1920. Such a different world from ours: the past is indeed a foreign country and I'm enjoying a little holiday there.