2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

@Cherryfudge thanks for asking. I’m ok but worried about DH, because I can’t protect him from the inevitable.

I don’t know if it’s a nurse thing or because I lived my first 27 years with the threat of my mum dropping dead from a heart attack, but I can detach my grief for a while.  It’s why I cried at The Longest Thread.  That’s when the grief comes out.  I don’t know how this happens, just that it does.

(My mum had a dodgy heart, mainly due to atrial fibrillation.  Even at her sickest she looked like an athlete compared to my MIL a few months ago.)

@ Laura_Elsewhere I really feel for Master E.  It’s a burden you can’t shake.  We always had contingency plans about what to do with Dad when Mum died. When he died first, it was quite a shock.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

I don't have any great insights @PipneyJane, and as a nurse you will have a more informed view than I do, but my experience says that the thing we dread is very rarely what we have to deal with in real life. (As for instance, it looks as though both of us had plans for the wrong parent). And sometimes it's the people who look least resilient who somehow go on. However, I do appreciate the strain for you. Sending hugs.

thriftwizard

Third time lucky...? I keep getting interrupted when trying to post!

Just adding some {{{supportive vibes}}} to @PipneyJane, Mr. P and also Mr. E. And mention in passing that when my mother went into her care home, nearly 3 years ago, we all thought we'd be lucky if she saw that Christmas; she'd had infection after infection, antibiotics to the hilt, C. Diff, multiple falls and a small stroke which led to fits. Plus, just being 95, then... But she loves it there and is very much still with us, if somewhat muddly now. The end is inevitable, at some point, but we've given up second-guessing when now.

CapricornLass

Big hugs to everyone who is supporting their OH in dealing with fragile parent(s).  Its not easy for anyone.

Like Thriftwizard, my parents went into a home over three years ago.  Then, my mother wasn't expected to live more than a couple of weeks, yet here we are over three years later, and she's still here, very frail but still very interested in what's going on, while my father died a year ago of cancer and dementia.

I had some M&S vouchers to spend, so I've treated myself to a pair of yoga and a pair walking leggings, having realised that there is nothing that I really need clothes wise.  However, we've booked a trip to Tromso in December and we were advised to get wool thermal underwear.  I've bought some, but what do they count as?  Combinations?

Laura_Elsewhere

I'll just leave this basket of freshly-baked hugs behind the kitchen door there, and anyone in need of one can just help themselves. I've wrapped them up in a few traycloths so they should stay warm for a while...

thriftwizard

Oooh, thank you for a delicious freshly-baked hug, @Laura_Elsewhere, that will distract me from the ever-present scent of fresh garlic that's this week's harvest! Sorting into the best for next year's "seed" garlic, braiding a "rope" of decent bulbs for drying & using, and peeling & lacto-fermenting the smallest cloves has resulted in some lingering smells...

Just off to pick up an auction bargain of a L. Ashley rug for DD2's bedroom, swinging by the recycling centre on the way home. Wearing a HM t-shirt, and a pair of last week's bargain CS trousers, just right for today's grey & drizzly but warm-ish weather.  

PipneyJane

thriftwizard said:

Oooh, thank you for a delicious freshly-baked hug, @Laura_Elsewhere, that will distract me from the ever-present scent of fresh garlic that's this week's harvest! Sorting into the best for next year's "seed" garlic, braiding a "rope" of decent bulbs for drying & using, and peeling & lacto-fermenting the smallest cloves has resulted in some lingering smells...

Just off to pick up an auction bargain of a L. Ashley rug for DD2's bedroom, swinging by the recycling centre on the way home. Wearing a HM t-shirt, and a pair of last week's bargain CS trousers, just right for today's grey & drizzly but warm-ish weather.  

Please tell me more about your garlic processing, @thriftwizard.  We’ve got 9 growing, which I’ll harvest when we get home.

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I'll just leave this basket of freshly-baked hugs behind the kitchen door there, and anyone in need of one can just help themselves. I've wrapped them up in a few traycloths so they should stay warm for a while...

Thanks @Laura_Elsewhere.  

Yesterday, I was firmly told by SIL that I was not to go to the hospital - she is worried that I will find it too traumatic - so BIL took me to Wells. (It’s easier not to argue.)  May I recommend it as a charity shop destination?  I spotted at least half a dozen, on my way to view the cathedral.  All were beautifully presented.  Sadly, I could not browse them, but have promised myself that I will return at some point with DH (who loves shopping).

Per DH, MIL is considerably better.  She was eating without prompting yesterday.  (A good sign.). Today, we’ve got SIL’s house to ourselves.  DH has his security interview with the ministry this afternoon, so SIL and BIL have gone to the hospital without us, to sit with MIL.  Hopefully they arrived prior to the ward round and will find out her care plan, potential for discharge, etc.   (I really want to go home, have my own space, and not feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

You're really having a time of it and no mistake, poor @PipneyJane! 

We spent both weekend days wading through box after box after interminable box of my unsorted stuff, actually sorting it properly. Two huge crates and four large boxes, plus other stuff (and an impromptu re-jigging of the tubes I keep my 250+ knitting needles in...), and it's all come down to one box of Stuff I Need To Do Stuff With, and one box of sorted stuff that really needs another sort-through further, and everything else seems to have gone. 

Idiotically, though, after a weekend of turning myself inside-out, I didn't look after my sleep last night, reading til nearly midnight, and so when I woke at half-four, that was it... I managed to go swimming at the quarry thanks to Mr E dropping me off and collecting me, bless him, and we've both been for our dental check-ups (no work for me (to my shock!), but three fillings for Mr E, tut tut...). 
I am very very tired, and not for the first time I really wonder how people managed in the war, especially in the cities that had many raids. Maybe it helped that everyone was shattered? 

First thing, I wore my striped-linen-blend pinafore dress (bought from Tu recently) with my green short-sleeved acrylic cardi (knitted last year), for swimming trip, but then changed, as both need washed (I love the vibrant green colour of the acryclic mohair and it was free as someone gave me it years back, but ohhhh, how my other clothes need washing due to the way acrylic makes me sweat...!). I am wearing that blue dress I bought last year from White Stuff at a very much reduced price, with its oddly-dated, elbow-length balloon sleeves shortened and folded back to cap-sleeved cuffs, and the sleeve-bands sewn to make a standing-band collar With a narrow red belt bought a couple of years back online, red mohair short-sleeved cardigan I knitted from yarn I was donated, and red plimsoles bought years and years agowith pale blue ankle-socks I knitted in 2017. 

PipneyJane

I never told you ladies about the other exhibition we visited last week, at the Musee Christian Dior in Granville.  It was his childhood home and they had an exhibition of clothes designed by him  - and by others at the House of Dior - split over 3 floors.  There were about 12 outfits on display that Dior designed - I didn’t count them - but none were the classic suit that you think of when you think of the New Look.  I was rather disappointed.  

These are the closest:



The garden of the house was more delightful, with roses to sniff and great views of the beach.



Granville itself is a delightful village.  It’s been a resort town since the late 19th century and has a classic, seaside casino hotel.  (Sorry, no photo.). It doesn’t look like a package-holiday-tourist-trap, more like somewhere Miss Marple would have visited back in the day.  

- Pip

PollyWollyDoodle

Lovely photo Pip!  Sorry you’re having such a time of troubles lately. Hope DH’s interview went well (shh). 

Today I have been to donate blood, wearing a Tu pink cotton shirt (charity shop) beige M&S chinos (CS last year), a FatFace denim jacket (CS 2 years ago) and white Stan Smith tennis shoes (CS last year).  Underwear, model’s own!   🤣