2026 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

Just seen your post, @PipneyJane , and sending 'get well' wishes. It does sound as if it may have been a spider bite, I hope all's back to normal soon and you can start knitting again.

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere 4:50 from Paddington is the first Marple I ever remember reading. I agree re the film versions - avoid like the plague.

Thanks for the suggestion about screen brightness. The battery thing is always off - it annoys me. Seriously Apple, if I put my phone on to charge at 5pm, that’s because I need a fully charged phone ASAP, not tomorrow morning. Despite my best efforts, the iPad refused to charge until my husband replugged it in when he came back to the hospital at 8pm. May need fixing.

I spent yesterday evening with everything on charge, listening to The Man In The Brown Suit. The narrator is Emilia Fox and she does a beautiful job making it interesting and entertaining whereas I struggled to get past the first chapter when I tried to read it. More today.

Had a lovely book chat with one of the nurses. We both agreed that real books are better than kindles, no matter how convenient the latter is.

• Pip

PollyWollyDoodle

ooh I love Mary Stuart. I’m also a big Agatha Christie fan. I have just read ‘The Body in the Library’ which is a Miss Marple.

Do you like similar era detective stories - Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham? If you like Mary Stuart books, have you tried Josephine Tey - Brat Farrar, or The Franchise Affair.

Also, a bit further back in time but Wilkie Collins ‘The Moonstone’ is great, if you haven’t read it.

Hope things are improving and that you can get home soon.

Baileys_Babe

Just catching up with this thread, sorry to read you are laid low @PipneyJane I hope you are fully recovered very soon 🤗

maryb

I like Patricia Wentworth Miss Silver mysteries, another Golden Age lady detective. Very easy reading. I think they are on Kindle Unlimited sometimes. Not at the moment but they are among the cheaper Kindle books - a lot are 99p and at most £2.99

Nelliegrace

Furrowed Middlebrow is an interesting blog for discovering vintage authors. Many of the books are available free online on The Open Library. The Christie, Wentworth, Tey, Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Allingham books are there. There are some audiobooks and old BBC radio dramas. I like to listen to books, even though the electronic voice is a bit dull. I go back to Georgette Heyers’ novels if I am poorly, and her detective novels, especially Death in the Stocks, Why Shoot the Butler? and They Found Him Dead.

https://furrowedmiddlebrow.blogspot.com/search?q=detective+novels

I am reading Michael Gilbert murder mysteries on Open Library at present, on my iPad. I take a screen shot of the list of characters or the plan of the scene from the front pages. I like to stop and look up some detail from the book or a place. I am rereading my Daisy Dalrymple books by Carola Dunn, set in the 1920-30s, I have put a few on Kindle as the first 4 were on offer.

I have quite a few Complete Works Of… on my Kindle, though the Sayers one was far from complete. O Douglas, (Anna Buchan, sister of John Buchan) writes delightful novels set in Scotland, about likeable characters.

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82002617#Comment_82002617

I reread all my Sayers books while i was being treated for lymphoma @PollyWollyDoodle . My favourite swings from Have His Carcass to Gaudy Night and back Again. I’m definitely a Harriett Vane fan. I like Allingham too, but I haven’t read them in a long time. I have 4 on Kindle and several paperbacks.

Sadly can’t hold a real book right now or I’d be reading Jean Lucey Pratt’s diary, which we talked about earlier in the thread.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82002887#Comment_82002887

I own a few Miss Silver books too, @maryb, but not as Kindles.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82002898#Comment_82002898

Thanks for the link @Nelliegrace If you like reading about Golden Age detective novels, may I recommend the excellent podcast series, She Done It? The host, Caroline Crampton, is beautifully spoken. In most episodes, she’ll interview an expert about a novel or about an author from the Golden Age.

• Pip

Nelliegrace

I went for a scan at the local hospital yesterday, Sunday morning. I was worried but all is well. I stopped at TKM for retail therapy and bought a lovely (red-stickered) almond scented soap, and found our usual brand of crystal deodorant at reduced price. I was tempted by a pure merino short sleeved jumper, perfect for winter thermals, at £18, they have some online, but we are not completely free from house moths yet, so I put it back on the rack.

I am thinking of hand-dyeing some inexpensive white cotton sleeveless T-shirts to a nice grey. Does anyone recommend a brand other than the traditional Dy? Is it cheaper than £3.65 anywhere? We went to a talk on wool felting and the colourful dyes were from an American drink powder.

Laura_Elsewhere

@Nelliegrace - if you dye white t-shirts, do just be prepared for all the stitching to stay white! Seams less of a problem but hems on sleeves (or edges of sleeveless) and lower edge are very visible.
Also, the vast majority of women's t-shirts are a few per cent synthetic to give stretch and that won't dye so you may end up with a 'marled' effect.

also, the best results for colour-fastness involve a long, hot wash, typically twice plus a very hot wash to flush the machine, and that can be too much for cheap machine-knit-jersey type fabric. Even hand-dye involves a long, hot wash plus the machine-flush one.

just so you know!! :) you may be better looking for grey t-shirts in the first place, by the time you buy the white t-shirts plus dye plus all the hot water involved.

I dye things quite cheerfully- but I don't think I would try to dye cheap white t-shirts to grey… cheaper to buy grey, I'm sure!

incidentally, the very best, brightest and colour-fast dyes I've used for wool and silk are food-colourings. I use various heat sources (microwave, hob, oven) and have dyed a lot of wool and silk- my dyed socks are colour-fast enough to be machine-washed in a mixed load at 30° :)

Nelliegrace

Thank you @Laura_Elsewhere, for some reason the white ones are cotton but the grey have polyester.