Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Crowded Jumble Sale and Rye Flour

 The jumble sale last Saturday, a fundraiser for a village hall in a nearby village, was absolutely packed with people. I just picked up a three things for £1


Something for Granddaughter to do when she's here, another freezer storage box and lid, the right size for putting small cakes in the freezer and a solid clipboard for the check-in charts for Keep Moving group, I've been using a cardboard one for the last three years and it's falling apart.

BUT while looking round I lost my woolly hat, which I'd shoved in my pocket as everyone went in, so annoying as I'd had it ages. It probably fell out of my pocket and got added to the jumble! I can't go out in winter without something over my ears as getting cold can make me dizzy. When I got home I searched high and low for two other pull on beanie type hats that I had and they've vanished, I do still have two but one is a very thin knit and the other is an old fleece hat that lives by the back door for going in the garden. 

So that jumble sale has ended up costing  me more money than I wanted as I've sent for two different new hats - one home knitted from the Oxfam online shop  and a cheapie from ebay. (just occasionally I wish I'd had the patience to learn to knit!)

Then even more annoying, when I put my other coat on on Tuesday I found one of the vanished hats in my pocket ................duh!

After the jumble I went on to the next village for their monthly craft/farmers market and got a bag of rye flour to try (I've been wanting to try to make medieval maslin bread for ages)


 BUT what I'd not realised was that rye flour needs a different mixer blade for my bread machine as it makes a very sticky dough. I could make by hand but find kneading dough very hard on the wrists now. New blades for the bread machine are cheap enough so I sent for a pack containing one of each - normal and rye -  handy to have a spare anyway while it's still available.

So even though the sun was shining for the first time for many days it didn't feel as if I'd had a successful day.

Ho Hum


12 comments:

  1. Shame about losing your hat, how annoying. I hope one of the new ones is even more efficient at keeping your ears warm. I hate it when you get ear-ache from the cold. Good find with the freezer storage box etc.

    Looking forward to hearing about the results of the Maslin bread. I didn't know that it would need different blades.

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    1. The blade has two sticking up bits - I'll see how it goes

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  2. What a day! We use 50 50 rye and wheat sometimes in our machine... not maslin obviously, but would use up the flour.

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    1. I think 50/50 rye and wheat is maslin bread. That's what I'm going to try anyway. I believe they grew the grain mixed in the fields.

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  3. Typical for a day to go south, and keep going, nice to see the sun.

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    1. It was good to see the sun - couldn't believe that I'd lost the hat - so annoying

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  4. How annoying. I lost a favourite cotton sun hat in the charity shop, so I hope they made a bit of money and someone else got a nice hat.
    I bought a felted wool beret on eBay, it is really warm and pulls down to keep my ears warm. Very 1940s!

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    1. We had to wear a beret first year - age 11- at Grammar school, perfect for boys to steal and throw away. Luckily a new headmaster and no more berets in 2nd year.

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  5. It sounds like a real day of finds and losses. The only thing I ever learned to knit was scarves and squares, any sort of altering the shape of a 'thing' completely flummoxed me. My Gran gave up and taught me to crochet instead.

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  6. I'm forever losing gloves. I'm thinking I should copy the littl'uns and have them joined on a string down my coat sleeves. My new bread maker came with a rye blade. I have not used it yet, but I took bought some rye flour recently.

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  7. So annoying when basics like hats and gloves get lost. I was pretty hopeless at knitting until a couple of years ago when I suddenly clicked with it and made loads of……hats!……..now I’m into knitting jumpers too, only basic but it gives me a lot of pleasure and teaches me to slow down occasionally.
    Alison in Devon x

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  8. I wonder if your lost hat ended up sold! Too bad you couldn't knit another.

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