We don't have separate days for plastic and paper - both go in the green recycling bin, and glass too. And the brown bin is for rubbish that can't be recycled. Both are wheelie bins provided by the council.
General rubbishbin, recycle,green waste bins all wheelies, come with our council rates. We have little general waste, most green waste goes to chooks or compost bins. Recycle bin is always full. Every two weeks.
Here it’s every other week alternating general rubbish with “recycling” and glass and tetra pack going into bins in and around town. On a visit for the Santa Fe meet a few years ago I realised how much we Brits take rubbish collection for granted: Motherboard & JB were taking their trash to the dump on the back of a pickup truck.
We are fortunate. Our block is actually three blocks wide and we pay rates on three blocks. We are entitled to bins for them. We have bins for two blocks but most general rubbish fits in bottom of one. Recycle is handy to have extra. DIL policesw all rubbish to make sure we recycle properly. It does mean puttin the. B ins out on Tuesday mights can mean a hike across the front so it looks as if we have rubbish separated for the blocks.
It also means we pay water and sewerage rates on three blocks, with no more people to use the services.
Place was on much more ground. Original builders sold a couple of blocks as they needed money to extend house etc.
We get alternating fortnightly general waste and recycling, weekly food waste collections, but I'm the only person using the food waste bin. I am in a flat so shared big bins: glass bin, recycling bins for paper, tins and plastic containers, big wheelie waste bins and a small food waste bin.
We have food and recycling waste each week, general and garden waste alternate week by week except that garden waste goes down to monthly from November to March.
On a visit for the Santa Fe meet a few years ago I realised how much we Brits take rubbish collection for granted: Motherboard & JB were taking their trash to the dump on the back of a pickup truck.
When I lived in New Hampshire I took my trash to the dump and I preferred that system. The dump was open Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and all day Saturday. I could take my trash at my convenience rather than having to put it out at the curb first thing in the morning one day a week.
We have a large green bin for food and plants and a similar for mixed recycling, on alternate weeks from the black bin.
I've spent the last 12 hours finalising my doctorate research proposal, just the references to do now. If it is approved I will be 50 when I start.
We don’t have food bins, and I think I prefer this because there is a chance people think more before binning food, or maybe before even cooking too much which I fear, with such cheap food at the A***and L*** type stores, is more of a reality than it should be. My green kitchen waste goes to the compost heap at the allotment, garden waste I take to the dump when I need to - I only tackle the garden twice a year so I easily fill the trailer.
Damp and windy here today, a real hibernation day.
I’ve started making ecobricks. I’m going to build a planter. I’ve got five days worth of plastic (the stuff which things come wrapped in) into half a bottle so far - it’s getting really heavy. It’s amazing how much compresses in.
I throw out about one of those small caddies of food waste a week, and it really is waste - potato or other vegetable peelings, the liquefying satsuma that meant I paid 20p for the bag, tea bags, egg shells, stuff that has gone off, which isn't much usually. I use leftovers, plan and cook around having leftovers: yesterday I made egg fried rice served with a stir fry pack bought at a very reduced price, today we had the leftover rice, another egg and some more peanuts, with another reduced stir fry pack (25p or 38p).
Continuing dressmaking is in progress: my daughter is making a lined navy blue summer weight jacket and I'm making a shirt covered with bears, I guess it's going to be really useful for Children in Need days.
That must be quite some stash you have. You sound like you’ve made a whole new wardrobe in recent times.
I am contemplating whether my skills extend to making a flat cap. I’ve found a free pattern for one. Husband en rouge lost his hat last winter, and I have wool fabric that would work. I guess I’ll only lose time, not money, if it’s a failure.
(The big question is when I’m going to do the sewing without the Other Half noticing. I am home with Captain Pyjamas one day a week, but I can’t get the sewing machine out during his naps or the noise will wake him up.)
We don’t have food bins, and I think I prefer this because there is a chance people think more before binning food, or maybe before even cooking too much which I fear, with such cheap food at the A***and L*** type stores, is more of a reality than it should be...
Interesting thought, because I find the opposite - throwing something into the food bin makes me feel really guilty as I am more conscious that it is food I am wasting.
We don't have food bins either. I put raw fruit and veg food waste in a pile in the corner of my garden, along with grass cuttings from when I mow my lawn, as a sort of compost heap. And I crush eggshells and put them around my house to stop the slugs getting in - but it doesn't always work! And I always save leftovers to eat the next day. So I don't think I'd really have food waste either, other than chicken bones, and the occasional onions I use when making chicken broth - I use them to flavour it, but I won't eat them when they've cooked so long they've gone all soft and soggy. Same with a celery stalk now and then. They are just to add flavour to the chicken soup.
I don't think I use enough plastic bottles to make ecobricks - or do you buy them specially to put your plastic waste in? I don't regularly buy things that come in plastic bottles.
We don’t have food bins, and I think I prefer this because there is a chance people think more before binning food, or maybe before even cooking too much which I fear, with such cheap food at the A***and L*** type stores, is more of a reality than it should be.
I'm on a couple of Zero Waste groups and the posters fall between:
I never cook too much and therefore have no food waste to throw away
and I have kids.
I don't think I use enough plastic bottles to make ecobricks - or do you buy them specially to put your plastic waste in? I don't regularly buy things that come in plastic bottles.
You would easily find that your neighbours have them. But we aren't making eco bricks, we are trying to cut down plastic as much as possible, and where we can't to go for a recyclable version (e.g. some plastic bags are) and where we can't do that, to reuse (e.g. we use cereal box inners to get food from shops where you weigh it out).
We don’t have food bins, and I think I prefer this because there is a chance people think more before binning food, or maybe before even cooking too much which I fear, with such cheap food at the A***and L*** type stores, is more of a reality than it should be...
Interesting thought, because I find the opposite - throwing something into the food bin makes me feel really guilty as I am more conscious that it is food I am wasting.
I wonder if buying cheaper food really makes people more likely to waste food. I find people tend to buy food according to their income, and someone on a low income shopping in a cheaper supermarket may still be spending a greater proportion of their income than someone on a higher income shopping in more expensive supermarket, and so they will be more careful.
I do what Ck does and buy food when it's reduced very cheap, but I don't think that makes me waste more - except in the kind of example Ck gave of buying a big bag of satsumas reduced to 20p because they've reached their sell-by date, and maybe one will go rotten. It's lemons with me - I find there is always one that goes mouldy. But that is something you are aware of when you buy, and decide it's still worth it, rather than spending £2 for the bag that has a few more days to go before it reaches its date. Though if anything, buying reduced food makes me more aware to eat it fairly promptly, so less likely to have it sitting around forgotten at the back of my fridge!
I don't think I use enough plastic bottles to make ecobricks - or do you buy them specially to put your plastic waste in? I don't regularly buy things that come in plastic bottles.
OH drinks tonic water after the gym, which comes in 750ml bottles - he has at least two a week, so that should be plenty. They’ll all be the same size for my planter too. I’ll probably just ‘plant’ them top down, put a rope round and fill with soil.
I don't think I use enough plastic bottles to make ecobricks - or do you buy them specially to put your plastic waste in? I don't regularly buy things that come in plastic bottles.
You would easily find that your neighbours have them. But we aren't making eco bricks, we are trying to cut down plastic as much as possible, and where we can't to go for a recyclable version (e.g. some plastic bags are) and where we can't do that, to reuse (e.g. we use cereal box inners to get food from shops where you weigh it out).
I wonder if my neighbours would have them. My neighbours are elderly. I can't imagine them buying something regularly that is in a plastic bottle, but maybe they do. For ecobricks, it would have to be the same kind of bottle, I'd imagine, to build with it, so it would be the kind of situation where someone buys the same bottle of, say, Vimto or water each week. (Or tonic bottles, now I see Boogie has also posted.) I think for me it might take a couple of weeks at least to fill a bottle with plastic, so it would be quite slow going. Though I don't really understand what a planter is - I was thinking of the big structures built that were shown on the website, but maybe it is something small and quick to build with a few bottles.
I think I’ll probably make a planter about three feet in circumference. I imagine it will take a long tome to fill enough bottles. I’ll let you know.
The only food waste we ever have is peelings and tea bags. We make soups out of aging veg and eat everything else. Out bread is frozen so we only take out what we need. Fish skins and meat trimmings are added to the dogs’ food.
Today/yesterday in our compost caddy we have put:
Coffee grounds
Leftover pasta that the smaller kid didn't eat.
Leftover cauliflower that the bigger kid didn't eat.
Crusts that the smaller kid didn't eat.
Cereal that the bigger kid didn't eat.
Bread crumbs and a mouldy slice of bread from a loaf I got out of the freezer earlier in the week.
A few pumpkin peelings from making pumpkin cookies (I peeled the pumpkin ages ago but they got stuck in the pumpkin puree).
Later we will probably put in:
Crusts that both kids don't eat.
3 baked beans that the big kid doesn't eat ( I would give them to the smaller kid but we have a rule about not taking food off other people's plates and both kids think it doesn't apply to them - if we actually give them the food they will think this even more).
The centre of some peppers I'm going to roast for dinner.
And in the main landfill bin - the turkey breastbone (we just had a turkey crown for Thanksgiving, which we had on Sunday). And tea bags (they don't compost as they have plastic in them).
I sometimes go to a coffee shop that packages up its used coffee grounds for people to take if they want to use them for compost. I always forget coffee grounds can be composted. But I don't make coffee very often, and when I do, I actually like to eat my coffee grounds. I add them to plain yogurt, with chopped banana and cacao nibs. It's nice and adds a bit of texture.
I feel awful about throwing away good compostable material, but I really can't cope with a compost bin now there is only an elderly disabled me! So it goes in the black bin, tied up in a black bag, nothing loose allowed there. Recycling stuff goes into the grey bin, but it must be loose, not tied up in a bag, and garden waste (NOT kitchen waste) goes in the green bin, but they have stopped green bin collections now until March. . All bins are collected fortnightly - black one week, green and grey the next. I don't have to take my bins up a steepish drive to the pavement, as I have registered as ancient and decrepit! They bring the bins back, too!
And its wet and miserable here too. A restorative drop of alcohol is indicated, I think!
Our council take all garden and food waste every week - including cooked food. It all goes in the same bin. I’m not sure what they do with it. 🤔
Edited to add -
I realised that I should know, so I googled it.
“What happens to the food and garden waste after it is collected?
It is taken to the new In Vessel Composting (IVC) facility where it is composted. In Vessel is an enclosed, intensive method of composting with accurate temperature control and monitoring to ensure that the material is fully sanitised before it is matured and screened for use as soil conditioner in agriculture.”
That must be quite some stash you have. You sound like you’ve made a whole new wardrobe in recent times.
We are having to make two whole wardrobes, because the waft of weed my daughter carried home from her student accommodation was so penetrative and persistent it took out something like 90-95% of her wardrobe and 70% of my wardrobe, which has been compounded by me losing enough weight that none of my trousers fit me, well, the two cropped pairs I bought in the summer sales do, but nothing else. It was coats, shoes, underwear, the lot.
I had a big wooden trunk full of fabric, plus overflow in two under-bed drawers, which fortunately escaped. I could now get the fabric that's left into the trunk, including the additional purchases - Walthamstow market being our new favourite place. Last Saturday's expedition garnered some chiffon to toile another shirt pattern at £2/m for me, some wool with edging that I want to make into a cape at £6/m and two lots of tweed for my daughter from one of the shops - some red checked wool mix @£5/m that's on its way into a winter coat and some tweed for a suit for her @£10/m.
All this stitching and recycling is making me feel inadequate.
I don't think we're too bad for food wastage: admittedly we get the odd satsuma or apple that doesn't survive (doesn't everyone?), but pretty much the only food things that get binned are peelings, eggshells and the chicken bones and veggies left over when I make stock.
In a general way, we buy veggies in fairly small quantities (except onions and potatoes, which keep well), so they get used before they go off. One unfortunate exception was a bag of five avocadoes, which were in varying stages of ripeness; I left the last one for just too long, and felt suitably guilty about it.
We seem to be getting a brief respite from the snow - there's been some thawing - but I'm not holding my breath for it to last.
I've just been for my evening stroll and saw 2 houses with their Christmas lights up and the house opposite has a wreath on the door!
Your sewing list sounds wonderful, CK. Sewing tweed must be so satisfying.
I'm also on the sewing train at the moment as I have a Victorian Christmas re-enactment in a couple of weeks. I am a middle class surgeon's wife and evangelical social reformer and wear the full regalia; a deep brown wool-silk full dress with lace collar and neck ribbon, worn over a crinoline and chemise, drawers, petticoats and corset, and a fine lace cap on my head. I look just like an 1860s photograph. I have a rust velvet jacket, large tartan wrap and a choice of two bonnets to wear over my cap (stiff sensible wool and soft Sunday best) as well as fashionable yellow or red leather gloves. I've been lucky enough to obtain Edwardian buttoned boots, an advantage of having size 3 feet.
I've lost several stone since I last wore my costume though so I'm having to do some taking in; the underwear is sorted but the dress bodice needs altering. I'm outside this year rather than in the posh house so I made myself a quilted under petticoat last weekend to keep warm.
I had hoped to make a new dress (I have some dark teal wool-silk) but haven't had time. I will get a new duck egg blue plaid petticoat done this weekend though to go under my dress and over my crinoline for a nice flash of colour.
I can knit complicated patterns but have never got to grips with sewing. Both my grandmother and my son have had goes at different times to no avail. Maybe I just need to practice on my own.
I went to Nottingham for the day today to meet up with a friend. I lived there years ago and it was interesting visiting it again.
I can crochet but find patterns difficult to follow. Intricate lace knitting is no problem. Am currently making plain socks which I really don’t need, but just easy to do almost with eyes shut.
Socks were always my go to item to crochet during sermons (crochet keeps my mind focussed away from the manic racing thoughts of my bipolar disorder) but recently I've taken to making shawls and giving them as gifts to those who need a hug. We have several people with mental health challenges at church (and those who care for them) so I make them prayer shawls to remind them that people are praying for them.
What's Nottingham like, Sarasa? It's currently second on my son's university choices and we will be visiting soon.
My day off today so I'm off to my yoga class then coffee with the ladies. This afternoon I need to finish the references on my research proposal. My husband has gone to Hull for a couple of days on business so I think me and the 2 boys will have a nice Indian meal together this evening courtesy of Waitrose.
I like Nottingham. It was where my daughter went for her first degree, UoN, not Trent. Lots of purpose built student accommodation, good links to the Peak District and a rambling club that used it, interesting buildings in the University campus, walking routes through the city on the canals and rivers, trams, old historical parts, the Goose Fair. Churches are low church or RC, which my daughter didn't enjoy and it's where she started attending RC churches, but that is not necessarily an issue for you. She shopped in Chinese, Caribbean and Turkish supermarkets mostly and came back cooking chicken feet and other very cheap cuts, but that was partly sharing flats with Malaysian and Chinese students. Good links to the Kuala Lumpur and Chinese campuses.
You'll notice the northern towns have more deprivation than this more affluent corner of the south east, more empty shops, more signs of economic struggles. (Huddersfield is similar, but nothing compared to say, Middlesbrough.)
I like the idea of learning to crochet. I only ever learned knitting. It’s going to have to wait until after Christmas though.
My list of stuff to make is coming along nicely: oven gloves, make-up bag, woolly hats, cuddly toys and that flat cap if I’m brave enough. Most of these projects have the advantage of being fairly quick. I need to go to the market on Sunday morning and look for haberdashery*. It’s so much cheaper there than anywhere else.
*I can’t help feeling “haberdashery” is one of the glories of the English language .
I love Nottingham and would never have left if my husband hadn't got a job in London. UofN has a lovely campus and students I've met have enjoyed their time there. Quite a lot of couples, including my mother and father in law met there too. What I liked about the town was that it felt quite a small community. Every time I went to a party I met people that I knew from other places and my friend I was visiting says that is still the case. Walking through town we bumped into the Bishop's secretary for instance. Nottingham Trent is more town centre and also seems to be good for certain courses. My FiL used to lecture in European Studies there back in the 80s.
LVER - Inspired by you, I've dug out some bits of spare yarn and will go on a hat and mitts spree before Christmas. Another quick project is Christmas Tree decorations. I went on a two hour course on making those last Christmas, and even with my naff hand sewing skills managed to turn out a presentable felt gingerbread man.
Starting just after Christmas one year I made lots of flat Christmas ornaments (patchwork, cross stitch etc) and attached them to plain cards to send as Christmas cards (don’t worry, charities didn’t miss out)
You'll notice the northern towns have more deprivation than this more affluent corner of the south east, more empty shops, more signs of economic struggles. (Huddersfield is similar, but nothing compared to say, Middlesbrough.)
I'm originally from a Luton council estate (with Northern parents) so can relate to the contrast between rich and poor areas. My rather molly-coddled Cantabrigian son might find it a bit of a change though.
We get alternating fortnightly general waste and recycling, weekly food waste collections
On the first day I moved into my house in Brazil I asked my neighbours: "when do they pick up the waste here?" They answered "10am and 4pm". I asked: "but which day??" Then the penny dropped.
"Cantabrigian" is indeed a Good Word (D. did his PGCE at Homerton, and Cambridge is just a hop, skip and jump from his mum's). "Oxonian" refers to The Other Place.
I'm rather envious of all you knitters and crochetists; both my grandmothers knitted and one crocheted too - she even did those very fine, almost lacy mats you used to get on dressing tables.
The thing that sticks in my mind, though, was a fringed shawl she made for me to wear to my brother's wedding (it was 1975, so everyone was wearing shawls). It was black, quite a loose pattern, with silver shot through it, and worn with a full-length peach-coloured dress. I can picture it yet - I was 13 and felt very grown-up. I must have looked it too - when the waiters came round with the drinks for the toasts, the one who was serving me said "Sherry or whisky, madam?".
I knitted a shawl for a friend's baby and was delighted when eighteen odd years later said baby turned up with it to my wedding. It had become a very important thing to her.
I love knitting shawls and have done many. Am planning on a a couple of lacy but more like scarves in length to prepare for next winter. I find something light twisted around my neck and tucked in makes an enormous difference to warmth on a chilly day. I have bought some Lang Jawoll sock wool on special in bright colourful combinations to make some like this for next winter and to add to present box. Buying more sock wool just about guarantees what will be in the next box or two that I unpack. Even bought some beads for some s
Comments
It also means we pay water and sewerage rates on three blocks, with no more people to use the services.
Place was on much more ground. Original builders sold a couple of blocks as they needed money to extend house etc.
When I lived in New Hampshire I took my trash to the dump and I preferred that system. The dump was open Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and all day Saturday. I could take my trash at my convenience rather than having to put it out at the curb first thing in the morning one day a week.
I've spent the last 12 hours finalising my doctorate research proposal, just the references to do now. If it is approved I will be 50 when I start.
We don’t have food bins, and I think I prefer this because there is a chance people think more before binning food, or maybe before even cooking too much which I fear, with such cheap food at the A***and L*** type stores, is more of a reality than it should be. My green kitchen waste goes to the compost heap at the allotment, garden waste I take to the dump when I need to - I only tackle the garden twice a year so I easily fill the trailer.
Damp and windy here today, a real hibernation day.
Continuing dressmaking is in progress: my daughter is making a lined navy blue summer weight jacket and I'm making a shirt covered with bears, I guess it's going to be really useful for Children in Need days.
I am contemplating whether my skills extend to making a flat cap. I’ve found a free pattern for one. Husband en rouge lost his hat last winter, and I have wool fabric that would work. I guess I’ll only lose time, not money, if it’s a failure.
(The big question is when I’m going to do the sewing without the Other Half noticing. I am home with Captain Pyjamas one day a week, but I can’t get the sewing machine out during his naps or the noise will wake him up.)
I don't think I use enough plastic bottles to make ecobricks - or do you buy them specially to put your plastic waste in? I don't regularly buy things that come in plastic bottles.
I'm on a couple of Zero Waste groups and the posters fall between:
I never cook too much and therefore have no food waste to throw away
and
I have kids.
You would easily find that your neighbours have them. But we aren't making eco bricks, we are trying to cut down plastic as much as possible, and where we can't to go for a recyclable version (e.g. some plastic bags are) and where we can't do that, to reuse (e.g. we use cereal box inners to get food from shops where you weigh it out).
I wonder if buying cheaper food really makes people more likely to waste food. I find people tend to buy food according to their income, and someone on a low income shopping in a cheaper supermarket may still be spending a greater proportion of their income than someone on a higher income shopping in more expensive supermarket, and so they will be more careful.
I do what Ck does and buy food when it's reduced very cheap, but I don't think that makes me waste more - except in the kind of example Ck gave of buying a big bag of satsumas reduced to 20p because they've reached their sell-by date, and maybe one will go rotten. It's lemons with me - I find there is always one that goes mouldy. But that is something you are aware of when you buy, and decide it's still worth it, rather than spending £2 for the bag that has a few more days to go before it reaches its date. Though if anything, buying reduced food makes me more aware to eat it fairly promptly, so less likely to have it sitting around forgotten at the back of my fridge!
OH drinks tonic water after the gym, which comes in 750ml bottles - he has at least two a week, so that should be plenty. They’ll all be the same size for my planter too. I’ll probably just ‘plant’ them top down, put a rope round and fill with soil.
I wonder if my neighbours would have them. My neighbours are elderly. I can't imagine them buying something regularly that is in a plastic bottle, but maybe they do. For ecobricks, it would have to be the same kind of bottle, I'd imagine, to build with it, so it would be the kind of situation where someone buys the same bottle of, say, Vimto or water each week. (Or tonic bottles, now I see Boogie has also posted.) I think for me it might take a couple of weeks at least to fill a bottle with plastic, so it would be quite slow going. Though I don't really understand what a planter is - I was thinking of the big structures built that were shown on the website, but maybe it is something small and quick to build with a few bottles.
The only food waste we ever have is peelings and tea bags. We make soups out of aging veg and eat everything else. Out bread is frozen so we only take out what we need. Fish skins and meat trimmings are added to the dogs’ food.
Coffee grounds
Leftover pasta that the smaller kid didn't eat.
Leftover cauliflower that the bigger kid didn't eat.
Crusts that the smaller kid didn't eat.
Cereal that the bigger kid didn't eat.
Bread crumbs and a mouldy slice of bread from a loaf I got out of the freezer earlier in the week.
A few pumpkin peelings from making pumpkin cookies (I peeled the pumpkin ages ago but they got stuck in the pumpkin puree).
Later we will probably put in:
Crusts that both kids don't eat.
3 baked beans that the big kid doesn't eat ( I would give them to the smaller kid but we have a rule about not taking food off other people's plates and both kids think it doesn't apply to them - if we actually give them the food they will think this even more).
The centre of some peppers I'm going to roast for dinner.
And in the main landfill bin - the turkey breastbone (we just had a turkey crown for Thanksgiving, which we had on Sunday). And tea bags (they don't compost as they have plastic in them).
And its wet and miserable here too. A restorative drop of alcohol is indicated, I think!
Edited to add -
I realised that I should know, so I googled it.
“What happens to the food and garden waste after it is collected?
It is taken to the new In Vessel Composting (IVC) facility where it is composted. In Vessel is an enclosed, intensive method of composting with accurate temperature control and monitoring to ensure that the material is fully sanitised before it is matured and screened for use as soil conditioner in agriculture.”
That’s good to know
I had a big wooden trunk full of fabric, plus overflow in two under-bed drawers, which fortunately escaped. I could now get the fabric that's left into the trunk, including the additional purchases - Walthamstow market being our new favourite place. Last Saturday's expedition garnered some chiffon to toile another shirt pattern at £2/m for me, some wool with edging that I want to make into a cape at £6/m and two lots of tweed for my daughter from one of the shops - some red checked wool mix @£5/m that's on its way into a winter coat and some tweed for a suit for her @£10/m.
I don't think we're too bad for food wastage: admittedly we get the odd satsuma or apple that doesn't survive (doesn't everyone?), but pretty much the only food things that get binned are peelings, eggshells and the chicken bones and veggies left over when I make stock.
In a general way, we buy veggies in fairly small quantities (except onions and potatoes, which keep well), so they get used before they go off. One unfortunate exception was a bag of five avocadoes, which were in varying stages of ripeness; I left the last one for just too long, and felt suitably guilty about it.
We seem to be getting a brief respite from the snow - there's been some thawing - but I'm not holding my breath for it to last.
Your sewing list sounds wonderful, CK. Sewing tweed must be so satisfying.
I'm also on the sewing train at the moment as I have a Victorian Christmas re-enactment in a couple of weeks. I am a middle class surgeon's wife and evangelical social reformer and wear the full regalia; a deep brown wool-silk full dress with lace collar and neck ribbon, worn over a crinoline and chemise, drawers, petticoats and corset, and a fine lace cap on my head. I look just like an 1860s photograph. I have a rust velvet jacket, large tartan wrap and a choice of two bonnets to wear over my cap (stiff sensible wool and soft Sunday best) as well as fashionable yellow or red leather gloves. I've been lucky enough to obtain Edwardian buttoned boots, an advantage of having size 3 feet.
I've lost several stone since I last wore my costume though so I'm having to do some taking in; the underwear is sorted but the dress bodice needs altering. I'm outside this year rather than in the posh house so I made myself a quilted under petticoat last weekend to keep warm.
I had hoped to make a new dress (I have some dark teal wool-silk) but haven't had time. I will get a new duck egg blue plaid petticoat done this weekend though to go under my dress and over my crinoline for a nice flash of colour.
I went to Nottingham for the day today to meet up with a friend. I lived there years ago and it was interesting visiting it again.
My day off today so I'm off to my yoga class then coffee with the ladies. This afternoon I need to finish the references on my research proposal. My husband has gone to Hull for a couple of days on business so I think me and the 2 boys will have a nice Indian meal together this evening courtesy of Waitrose.
You'll notice the northern towns have more deprivation than this more affluent corner of the south east, more empty shops, more signs of economic struggles. (Huddersfield is similar, but nothing compared to say, Middlesbrough.)
My list of stuff to make is coming along nicely: oven gloves, make-up bag, woolly hats, cuddly toys and that flat cap if I’m brave enough. Most of these projects have the advantage of being fairly quick. I need to go to the market on Sunday morning and look for haberdashery*. It’s so much cheaper there than anywhere else.
*I can’t help feeling “haberdashery” is one of the glories of the English language
LVER - Inspired by you, I've dug out some bits of spare yarn and will go on a hat and mitts spree before Christmas. Another quick project is Christmas Tree decorations. I went on a two hour course on making those last Christmas, and even with my naff hand sewing skills managed to turn out a presentable felt gingerbread man.
I'm originally from a Luton council estate (with Northern parents) so can relate to the contrast between rich and poor areas. My rather molly-coddled Cantabrigian son might find it a bit of a change though.
Myself, I'm just a boring old Londoner living in The 'Diff.
I'm rather envious of all you knitters and crochetists; both my grandmothers knitted and one crocheted too - she even did those very fine, almost lacy mats you used to get on dressing tables.
The thing that sticks in my mind, though, was a fringed shawl she made for me to wear to my brother's wedding (it was 1975, so everyone was wearing shawls). It was black, quite a loose pattern, with silver shot through it, and worn with a full-length peach-coloured dress. I can picture it yet - I was 13 and felt very grown-up. I must have looked it too - when the waiters came round with the drinks for the toasts, the one who was serving me said "Sherry or whisky, madam?".
BTW, I thought "The Other Place" was Harrow - although I see your drift.