An Unwise Car Boot Sale Purchase?

It was back in 2021 that I found this plant stand from a car-boot sale for £20.

Since then it's been painted twice, had plants on and off and  seems to have been mentioned in 15 blog posts!

After it's new paint and update this was it in May last year.

It's tied to the trellis and is a bit rickety now, all the shelves are sloping forwards rather a lot but it's still just about usable and everything - mainly various succulents, survived the winter.

But when I spotted this at Stonham Barns car-boot sale on Sunday and the lady wanted £5 I bought it. It's very sturdy  and I thought it would be a good replacement................BUT it was only afterwards that I wondered if it is actually made for standing outside as it has solid shelves!

With no drainage on the shelves maybe it would be better to re-sell it as I'm sure it's worth more than £5.

Back Soon

 

Much Less Spent This Month - And An Explanation for Ana and Others

 After the expenses of April with several annual bills falling due plus dentist and heating oil, May was much better. The only known extras above the normal monthly spending were ED and EGS birthdays and car breakdown insurance.

The normal outgoings are Council Tax, Phone and broadband, monthly electric bill, charity donation, diesel for the car (two lots this month as I've been out and about) totalled £375 and food of course. 

Then there is always something that needs buying in a house- this month I needed new AA batteries and some mastic to redo around the shower enclosure base. All was going well with not too much spent until the cold tap in the en-suite started drip, drip, dripping. BiL looked but said it's one of those new ones without a washer but with a 'cartridge' thing instead, and you have to have the right one. He didn't fancy the job - so I had to call in a proper plumber! Got a recommendation for someone local and it was soon sorted but cost £85! Yikes. - and that was someone reliable who didn't rip off old people!

Garden spending totalled £9.38 for parsley from aldi, courgette plants, bean plants, trailing thyme and a clay flowerpot  from car-boot sales.

A wide top small clay pot for the plant stand to replace one that was starting to be frost damaged

Food spending was up this month, after two lower spend months. Mainly due to replacing items that had been used up to restock the freezer and cupboards. Although prices of things like milk and other dairy products have gone up. I had a pensioners discount Fish and Chip meal for £5 as I'd not had one for a few months and coffee out three times. 

A few frugal notes for those who like to read the list.............

• Gift of bundle of  Rhubarb from my sister. Mine is not doing well.
• Big bundle of asparagus for £1.50 from boot sale, made me two meals with poached egg and wholemeal bread.
• Eggs from roadside stall are still just £2 a dozen
• Found a really good quality t-shirt for £3.49 from charity shop. Lovely jade green and looks hardly worn.
• 4 x 25L bags of free compost from District Council giveaways
• BiL had a small bag of tile cement in his garage which I borrowed so I could re-attach some of the quarry tiles on the front step.
• Reading library books for free
• Home made bread from the bread-maker - 50/50 wholemeal/white this month
• Dishwasher used only every 2 or 3 days
• Washing machine used twice a week only
• Tumble dryer not used all month
• Lights not needed until 8.30 in the evenings for reading.
• Two big bags dishwasher salt for £2 from boot sale
• New kitchen sieve from boot sale 50p
• No flowers bought - I've been bringing in a few roses from the garden.
• Given up feeding the birds for the summer as the huge starling family are clearing out the mealworms and fat balls in 10 minutes. Just leaves the starling proof sunflower heart feeder.
• Free referral to physio appointment for next month to look at my knee problem.
• Made 4 x Two cheese, onion, spinach puff pastry bakes  - instead of buying more 'vegetarian taste test' products.
• Cooked up a big batch of Quorn and vegetable korma curry - 10 meals total
• I put the refill filters for my water jug on my Amazon wish list and keep an eye on the prices because they go up and down. This month they went down by £3 to £9.99 for the pack of three so I ordered, I've still got one filter left in the cupboard so OK now for a year of good filtered water for the coffee maker and to drink with no limescale.
• I use Sensodyne small head toothbrushes and found packs with buy two get one free, so got two packs, 6 toothbrushes should last me a while. Sensodyne toothpaste is cheaper at Aldi than anywhere else.
• First few strawberries from my few plants and  handful of  Very early raspberries - they were a surprise find.

 Personal spending included the first  book find of the year from a boot-sale for £1 and then another for another £1, the old scrap book, mentioned earlier in the month. A much needed hair cut, exercise group, jigsaw puzzle and a new Puzzler Magazine. I also printed out a couple of grandchildren photos for my frames. The £10 spent at Sibton church for 5 books, a birthday card, coffee and sausage roll was added to the charity part of the accounts (clever accounting!)

Finally a special treat..........a   subscription to Discovery+ TV so I can watch the French Open Tennis. Just have to remember how to cancel after a month. Discovery+ has amalgamated with TNT Sports, and cost a lot more than last year , but I decided I'd rather have this than an outing to the Mid Suffolk Railway for their 1940s day, which I'd pencilled in the diary - especially as it was wet and chilly and I don't bother with the big Suffolk Agricultural Show now, so that's a saving of nearly £30 anyway. After the first 3 days of tennis there were still 6 Brits going into the second round of matches and Cam Norrie and Jack Draper both played well to get through. By Thursday evening all the women were out and just  three British men left, apparently that's the first time since 1968 that there have been three British men in the third round. There will be at least one of them in the 4th round as Cam Norrie and Jacob Fearnley play each other today. Still several Brits in various double matches which never get as much publicity.

Looking forward - June is usually a good low-spend month, the only extras above the normal are the annual payment for the Garden Waste Bin. But whenever I say it's going to be a low spend month something usually happens to upset that plan so I didn't ought to mention it - ooops too late! 

Have a good weekend and I'll be back soon. 

And here is my explanation of why I use the mobile library-

The mobile libraries (3 in Suffolk) travel around all the villages so that people can go on and choose books or collect books they have reserved on line, especially useful in villages that are many miles from a physical library building and especially useful for elderly who can't drive. We can reserve books on line and ask for them to be sent to any Suffolk library or to the mobile library. I have read so many books in my 70 years that most of what I read are new books by favourite authors and I rarely find books I want actually on the shelves.
If the books go to a library building they have to be collected within one week of arriving there whereas the mobile saves them up to bring all at once. Also I can keep books for up to two visits (that is 8 weeks) where as people borrowing from town libraries have them stamped for just 3 weeks.
Yes I could drive to a library but it seems silly to do that when I can stroll up the road once every four weeks to collect my books. If I was to use a town library I would need to drive to town (10 miles or 20 minutes) every week to collect my books.
The mobile library service is always under threat of stopping as it is gradually used less and less. When I worked on one we had 5 mobile libraries covering the whole County (several 100 villages) and visiting every two weeks. Now there are just 3 visiting every 4 weeks.
The mobile libraries have depots in 3 different parts of the County where they park and where all books waiting to go on the various routes are stored so my books are not actually somewhere where I can go and collect them at the moment. Hence hoping that the delivery van (a small van that takes reserved books and new books around to all 40 libraries in the County) will bring my books to my nearest library before the next mobile visit at the end of June.
For the last 20 years I have been using the mobile libraries as it's a case of use them or lose them.
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Sorting the Plant Stand

 One of my favourite car-boot purchases must be The Plant Stand. Bought in June 2021 for £20 it looked like this. I painted it dark grey in the July and gathered some small plants and terracotta pots. 

After it blew over sometime in the winter of 2021, breaking some pots, I tethered it to the trellis .

In the summer of 2022 it looked like this

In April 2024 it was still OK

but for the last year things had been watered but otherwise ignored, so now it was looking very sad.

The trailing ivy that was on the top shelf had died over winter, so that went first and everything else needed rescuing.

Wire brush and sandpaper got off most of the old flaking paint and I'd got plenty of the slate grey Cuprinol paint left.

At a recent boot sale I bought a small trailing thyme  and popped it into a clay pot and refreshed the compost in a couple of the succulents.

And attached the stand back to the trellis, so now it's looking good again.

I might separate some of the red house leek type succulent on the middle shelf sometime, I'll see how it recovers or not.

Back Soon

Sue

Week Ending Saturday 13th

 Two clay pots were found at the boot sale last Saturday and they were my only spend (£1) on a day when there were more people selling than anytime this season so far. Just nothing much needed. I picked up three Beswick Birds like my Blue Tit and Wren, one was a robin but he had a chipped beak, one was supposed to be a grey wagtail but didn't really look like one and had a chipped tail and the third was a much larger pheasant but he'd been badly damaged and repaired even more badly so all three were left behind and I never wanted a Beswick Bird collection anyway! 

I could have bought more toys for grandchildren, a ton of craft stuff, a box of Christmas crackers and loads of Christmas cards but don't need any of them. Boot sales now seem to be more about the things I don't buy! Oh, and someone had the full set of the Country Diary of  an Edwardian Lady Months of the Year plates - I'd not seen any since I got my set  two years ago.

I potted my two recent purchases - a trailing ivy and a bright green sedum into the clay pots and added them to the plant stand. It's was 2021 when I found it at a boot sale and now looking as if it will soon need a new coat of paint. Ever since it blew over I've had it in this spot where it is tied to the trellis.

It looks better in real life than any photograph I've tried to take.

My tomato seedlings in the greenhouse have been potted on again as the warmish weather over last weekend meant they had a growth spurt. I know BiL wanted a couple of my plants to grow something different from those he gets from a friend. Couldn't remember if he wanted the giant Big Mama or the tiny Sungrape so I potted up all  6 of each. 

Most of the trees have suddenly greened up this week with a bit of warmth at the end of the week - I need to get more seedlings into bigger pots and the climbing French beans outside with some way of protecting them if we get a spell of cold. Jobs for the weekend I think. 

Yesterday I had MGS and YGD here as DiL had a school PD day, they were in grumpy end of school holiday mood - there were tears - which is quite unusual and that's my excuse for not replying to comments yet again - plus I'm reading lots of good library books too.

Thank you for birthday wishes - it's not quite yet! Although I did have some cards and a present already - thank you Ang, a lovely surprise - it was unwrapped by the grandchildren - they were very puzzled!

Have a good weekend - I shall be back Monday

Sue

End of March Financial Round Up

March Income was the usual two pensions and interest on savings. 

The main expenses in March were for the car windscreen excess payment, servicing and MOT and I'd forgotten that I'd not paid for the tyre valves when they were replaced a couple of months ago - so that was added on. All the normal expenses as usual = Electric, diesel for car, phones and broad band etc. 

Household spending was for a new little electric heater and window cleaner. 

Birthday gifts for my sister and SiL. For the garden I bought a small trailing ivy from a boot-sale to add a bit of interest to the plant stand and a new packet of all female cucumber seeds so I have some to sow  later in the season. 

Buying wild bird feed has become a more regular thing as they just Love the dried mealworms and the suet blocks. If I'm outside and the mealworm feeder is empty a Robin  appears to moan at me and make me feel guilty for not filling it up! 

I also bought a book of  8 x 2nd class postage stamps before the price rise  - should have bought more I guess as they are jumping up by 10p each. 

Food spending was more this month and not just because of that so called 'Suffolk Cheese'!

Personal spending included WI annual subs, which has been subsidised again thank goodness and I re-joined the village Over Sixties group, which is half the cost of WI and is much better value  as unlike WI no money has to go off for regional and national organisations. I avoided second-hand books all month so just exercise group and one swim to pay for. Had my usual coffee and cheese scone when out a couple of times.

I cleared out three bags full of bits and bobs this month including 10 books, 6 DVDs and various other bits that I can't remember. They all went  to a charity shop.

 Frugal Notes for March

• I've cancelled my Radio Times Subscription. It was a quarterly direct debit and suddenly they took £21 more than the previous quarter without notification making the price the same as it is to buy in a shop. I was very disgusted but there didn't seem to be a way to get a refund on the payment, but at least they won't take anymore in May. 
• Had to stop mixing whole milk half and half with water as my coffee cappuccino machine won't froth water! I'll be buying semi-skimmed instead. Increase spending on milk is offset by big decrease in spending on boxes of coffee sachets!
• Make sure to shut curtains as soon as it's dark
• Mended old leggings again.
• Only using dishwasher every other day
• Home made bread and malt loaf, cakes and biscuits
• Using lots of my own batch made meals from the freezer
• Finding things for Grandchildren from car-boot sales
• Found 20p on the ground in the car park!
• Reading Library books for free
• Won a tub of Celebrations chocolates at the Over 60's group meeting and as I don't eat chocolate it will be a perfect gift for giving to the family at Easter.
• Only used tumble dryer once despite having no radiators working for 12 days.

I had a quote for a new oil fired combi boiler £3,500 + VAT this was from a company that specialises in replacement boilers and can do them almost straight away. The next day Ian,  the usual heating engineer came  (the one with all the family disasters) and repaired the old boiler as we agreed we'd give it one more chance. I don't really want to spend out that big sum of money for a new boiler - it's quite a chunk after lending Son etc money for their car.  I might decide to move again and would need what I have for that!

And Looking Forward  with trepidation to April when expenses are always awful.........................

Add together Council Tax, Charity donation, Phones and Broadband, Diesel for the car, TV Licence, Dentist visit, Electric, Plus the  House Buildings and Content insurance and I reckon about £870 without even eating or doing anything! Frightening .............and it's the YGD's birthday mid month although she's had half a sandpit already.

And now there'll be a bill for the boiler repair to add on - an expensive month for sure with no way of spending less.

 State Pension increases in April but from my point of view it won't make a huge difference as I'll just get taxed more on the Suffolk County Council Spouses Pension!

Hope the rest of your Easter weekend goes to plan, clocks forward tomorrow - lovely lighter evenings but makes it harder to get up early for boot sales! 

I found out last week that when the ground is dry enough my nearest boot-sale is going to have a Thursday morning boot-sale as well as Sundays - I'm not sure that's a good thing at all!

I shall be back Monday

Sue

Growing Well

 I had a fright one morning in the week before last - looked in the greenhouse and all my babies were looking a bit limp - of course it was a night when they'd not been covered with fleece and the temperature must have dropped lower than the forecast. Thank goodness a while later they were all standing up straight again....phew!

These photos were taken on Saturday - Before the Coronation I worked in the greenhouse for an hour filling up some of the big pots ready for all these to go into later.

There are too many peppers and  too many aubergines here...........

and too many tomatoes too!

and just one cucumber............so far. There are two more babies on the living room windowsill although I only need one because the plan is to sow another cucumber seed in June for a later crop.

Also on the living-room window sill are some teeny squash seedlings - a second sowing after the first three didn't germinate - thought I was going to have to buy new seeds but they seem to be OK.

The raspberry bed is looking more hopeful, considering how sad they looked through the heat of last summer when there was no sign of any new canes appearing. Brother in Law hammered in two metal posts - from his neighbour's old gazebo- early last year and now I've put string along the top and two rows of wires below and fixed a new piece of netting right over the top. The netting cost me over £20 and I wondered aloud if I would get the value back in raspberries but as Lesley (who sold me it ) said -"well without it you won't get any!" - Very True

One more thing looking good is the plant stand. The pots have been standing on the patio all winter after the trellis collapsed but now they are back and the whole thing is tied to the post. There is someone at the car-boot sale who sells succulents so I may be tempted to buy two small ones for the top two shelves and I lost a lovely pink flowered Saxifrage over winter so could replace that.

 You can see the difference in temperatures this spring compared to last if you look at THIS PHOTO of the Plant Stand taken at much the same time last year.

And my 3 Minarette Apple trees are in flower. I know it looks weedy around them but the plants there are mainly Phacelia which are a green manure - self seeded from last year - and after they've flowered for the bees I'll hoe them up and leave them on the soil as a mulch.

Fingers crossed for an edible harvest later.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Easily Tempted By Plants

 I'm so easily tempted to buy plants at car boot sales. They are so much cheaper than garden centres. 

With almost all boot sales cancelled in March due it either raining on the day or - at Stonham barns - waterlogged field. It was good to get to one on the first weekend in April although there weren't many people selling there were several plant stalls. 

I got tempted by drum-stick primroses, Eryngium and a pot of tiny creeping Thyme which is for the plant stand.

Patio needs weeding again!

I wonder where my love of plants and books comes from? As I'm sure my Mum or Dad never bought either.

All the plants I've acquired this year have now been planted out....... that's the purple leaved perennial geranium, the tray of six wallflower plants, the rhubarb plants and these above.

Many of the perennials that were here already and struggled through last year's dry summer are now looking much healthier.

I've dug out several clumps of the blasted foreign bluebells that spread like crazy especially clumps that had popped up around the Helebore and some of the other perennials. Out in the front border I've left the grape-hyacinths which have also appeared and spread, I'll get them out later if they begin to take over.

Bet these won't be the only plants I buy this year!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

First Saturday In May

When I got this stand from a boot sale last year, painted it and found the first plants for it someone commented that I'd made a lot of blog posts out of one plant stand, so I gave it it's own label!

Here's the most up to date photo - so that makes eight posts giving it a mention....always good to have something to fill a blog post!

Need to weed the patio.....again

It's tied to the trellis in two places now which should stop anymore crashes like it had in the winter storm and angled so that I can see and enjoy it from the living room.

Although we desperately need rain for gardens and more urgently for farmers fields I've enjoyed the warmer weather we've had on the last two days of the week and lots of gardening was done........... more beetroot seed sown and I got the canes ready for the French Climbing Beans but when I found the ratchet thing and wires to fix the canes together (It was originally a thing for twisting a wire tie around potato sacks but it's brilliant for fixing bean canes ) out of the shed, I found it had rusted solid since last year........that's Very annoying. I squirted it with WD40 but it made no difference. 

The choice was either to buy a new ratchet or wigwam cane supports. The second was the cheapest option although now I'm left with a huge pack of wires that Col got from a farm sale about 25 + years ago. 

 I've planted out the Chard and the Courgettes......all four of them which might be 2 too many, and started to prepare the pots in the greenhouse ready for the tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and peppers. I have a home for the spare plants as one of the ladies at WI has a plant sale at her house at the end of the month as a fund raiser for two charities, so I can pot up my spares and pass to her. 

Also got the greenhouse automatic window opener working....finally. I did it myself without any help from Brother in Law.......very chuffed with myself!😇

Not a lot more to mention about my week although WI Knit, Stitch and Yarn group was good, I'd not done any of the cross stitch since last time but got a bit more done and the coffee and cake was tasty too, and I collected a lovely pile of library books which I'll put on Monday's post.

This week I've been grateful for

• Good weather for gardening
• Being able to walk to things in the village
• A little....although too little...... much needed rain
• Getting to know more people through the knit and stitch group
  

 Did you know this weekend it is National Mills Open Day? A visit to one just into West Suffolk is in the diary ....if all goes to plan.

Have a good weekend, I shall be back Monday.

Sue

Of Course I Found a Few Useful Things!

There were more people selling at Needham Market boot sale last Saturday than on many of the Saturdays last year. I went all round but considering the huge amount of 'stuff' I didn't find many things to come home with me. .

 Barbie doll's clothes and the unusual find of a Barbie wheelchair can be ticked off the list. The plate is for the summer display on the bookshelves. (I searched for summer in the box while looking for spring and could only find the Summer Haze Lilliput Lane cottage). There is another Johnson Brothers cereal dish that I use everyday and two small cross stitch kits that can be made to be gifts.

The book is Laurie Lee's Village Christmas - I dithered about this as I'm sure it was borrowed from the library sometime in the last few years but couldn't remember reading it and it's not listed in my 'book of books read' so it's a good thing  it was brought home. Total of £5 spent on these.

 

There were so many plant stalls  I could have gone crazy! but restricted myself to a Saxifrage and a Red Cactus for the plant stand.

 

 

After the stand crashed over last week I moved it back into the corner but it doesn't get enough sun or light there - probably the reason two plants died over winter - I've now potted up the new plants into clay pots and moved it  further out on the patio but tied to the trellis. That should sort it.

I also bought a pot of 3 Hyacinths for standing on Col's Mum and Dad's grave. I took the Christmas wreath thing off several weeks ago. Col's sister has some faded plastic flowers there in the flower holder - which I think look a bit ugly! Might ask BiL to ask his sister if the plastic flowers can come off and I'll put something fresh on regularly now I'm only 3 miles away. I tucked the little wooden remembrance cross with Col's name on it by the headstone so it's a place to remember him now I've moved away from his birthday wood.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

Half Past March

 The car went for it's annual service and MOT on Monday and I didn't even have to take it the 3 miles because Ashley,one of mechanics, now lives in the next village so left his car here and picked up mine as he passed by on his way to work. Later in the morning Tom, the boss, rang up to warn me that out of the four tyres, one would be a MOT fail, one was on the cusp and the two front ones, which were only replaced by them 3 years ago were not going to last much longer either! I resigned myself to a large bill ((sigh)) At least I now have a car with 4 good tyres which should last longer than 3 years as they are a better quality than the make they'd been using............... until they had so many problems.

 Good job I know and trust them or I'd think they were ripping off a helpless old woman!

They managed to order the tyres in ,service the car, and get the  MOT done all in one day and Ashley swapped cars again on his way home. The bill was huge...........

The Council Tax statement thing for the year arrived, I eventually managed to get through to the District Council to change it to direct debit so that I'll get the £150 "gift" from the government without having to claim it. My bungalow here is Band D, Clay Cottage was Band F - a saving of £60 a month - thank goodness!

 

Growing Food..................If only germination was always like this....................

 

 

Do I need 8 Aubergine plants? No, but I sowed 8 seeds, just in case, and all 8 have germinated.

Do I need 4 Pointy Red Peppers? No, but I sowed 4 seeds, just in case, and all 4 have germinated.

There are also 5 out of 6 Orange block peppers beginning to pop up. Fingers crossed they stay alive until big enough to be transplanted!

I've being growing my own food for 40 years but every spring I  still get scared of a total failure !

On Wednesday  late evening there was a storm here with rain and  gusts of wind and this is what greeted me on Thursday morning. I'd only moved it from out of the corner where it had stood sheltered all winter just the day before. What a mess.

The stand itself is OK but the clay saucers have either cracked or broken. The wet and windy weather also carried in lots of Saharan sand so the windows, car and everything else are splattered. This happens at least once a year, more usually in Summer and always gets mentioned on the news as if it's never happened before. The sand is just a fine dust so doesn't do any damage, it gets carried here high in the atmosphere then lands on Suffolk and Norfolk.

 The buds on the Magnolias are all beginning to open. Still think it's a bit odd to have two Magnolia trees side by side in one small garden but they will stay as they're both a good size.

What gorgeous weather we had here in Suffolk after the Wednesday storm. Lovely sunshine, although a chilly wind in places..........it is only March after all............but I took a chair into the greenhouse and soaked up some sun. The weatherman said yesterday that it might be dry for the rest of the month that sounds very good.

This week I have been grateful for

• Living in a safe country
  
• Sunshine
• Car service and MOT sorted.
• Seeds germinating

Guess where I'll be this morning - and with better weather there might be more people selling than on previous Saturdays.

 Have a good weekend, I shall return, with or without treasures, on Monday.

Sue

The Raspberry Bed + This and That

 Another job has been done in the garden, thanks to a lot of help from my BiL. He's still wanting to keep busy after a year of retirement, mostly mending things  like cars and lawnmowers and other bits of machinery but he doesn't mind a bit of gardening. 

The wood surround are re-used from the shuttering for the concrete greenhouse base. He is going to see what he can find for a post at each end ready for attaching the wire to hold up the raspberry canes. The two other photos are how I'm filling up the garden with productive things.......

My new pear trees, on the left

The nasty plastic edging around the lawn has gone and  the 3 new vegetable beds, with bags of compost laying on the top of them ready to be spread next spring are over on the far side by the fence. On the patio by the trellis is where the 3 Minarette apple trees will go.

.......compared to how it was before, when it was just grass. Probably a lot of people would prefer it how it was!

 

I need to apologise for not replying to comments promptly. I often turn off the lap top early especially if there's plenty of good reading waiting. I don't have a thing set up on my phone to tell me when a comment arrives either  - wouldn't want that.

On Saturday I missed seeing that Joan hadn't understood about the connection between singing and covid (it's all about the breathing out!) so didn't get to reply properly until Sunday... ...a bit late..

This photo has been on my phone for a month - the Mobile Library has been wrapped! I thought painted because it was white before and without the colourful panel but the library lady said it's a sort of plastic wrapping that stuck on by heat. There's no chance of it hiding now!

Hopefully this means that their idea of getting rid of the large van and swapping to something half the size that just delivers books has been dropped.

 A couple more  photos..........Living opposite the graveyard I don't see many signs of life! but watched two blokes setting up a grave stone  last week. The tree in glorious yellow leaf is now completely bare after just a week - the windy weather and drop in temperature soon made them all fall.

 Does anyone else watch Countryfile on Sunday evenings and shout at the TV "Let them stand still while they're talking!" I do.

I also watch Doctor Who and go "?" except for this latest series when it's been more like "????" 

I went mad on Sunday and popped over to the last Sunday Market/CarBoot Sale at Woolpit, it was freezing and hardly anyone selling but I found some more old flowerpots for my plant stand to replace the one that was too big ( it tipped the plant stand forward after a particularly wet day) and for the succulent that's still in a plastic pot.

From the Christmas Fair on Saturday I found a concrete frog. I had one like this but it got left somewhere and I've been looking for one all summer. So my next job here will be to dig a mini pond so he can sit beside it. My tiny pond at the cottage attracted frogs most years, although here I'm surrounded by fences so not sure they will find a way in.  I need to make a frog and hedgehog tunnel somewhere.

Bit of a muddle of a post  and definitely This and That.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

The House Clearance People Are Back

 Needham Market boot sale at the weekend was much bigger than previous Saturdays but still not as busy as pre-covid days. There were several large vans there full of all the miscellaneous bits and bobs from houses they've cleared. Furniture and bigger household items etc probably go off to auction or sold elsewhere so what they bring to boot-sales is stuff just hauled out of cupboards and piled into boxes.

If my back and knees didn't object to rummaging through boxes on the ground then I'd probably look for longer so all I just picked up the two part-used boxes of  baking paper for 20p.

From a different seller the childrens doodle pad was 50p which is pretty good considering the label on the back saying it was bought from Heffers big bookshop in Cambridge for £5.99. It will be something  for Eldest Grandson to do when they visit next month. The only other things bought were the plants and pot on yesterdays post, a bunch of big  beetroot and a punnet of local strawberries...........

and I was still home in time for breakfast!

 

When I searched for a picture to see what plants I'd displayed on the old shabby chic ladder at the smallholding and the cottage I couldn't find one. But yesterday looked again and found this

 

That was the sort of thing I'd planned for the plant stand............... but I'm liking my new idea better.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

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I Seem to Have Decided........................

.............................what I'm going to display on the plant stand...........without really thinking about it.

 Because at Saturday's boot sale I bought these 3 small plants for £5, Thrift, a Succulent and a trailing thing that I've forgotten the name of

 and found this old pot and saucer for £1

So it's going to become a sort-of rockery/cacti/succulent display stand.  There are plenty of stones from the veg beds to put in the bottom of the pots and lots of small shingle from the front drive to top them so hopefully all good for drainage.

Just one more pot and one more plant needed. Completely different plants to my first idea but that doesn't matter.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Recent Car-Boot Finds

 Recent boot sales involved lots of looking but not much buying (good!) Firstly Needham Market on Saturday - not many people selling as rain was forecast yet again.

 I found a pretty silver Saxifrage for £2 which will go into one of the bowl shaped pots on the plant stand and the cheese grater (50p) I needed for grating the wax blocks to make some wax-wraps

 

The Sunday Car Boot at Stonham Barns was busier than it's been for several Sundays, there was bright sunshine early which must have drawn out the sellers. I bought this big new holdall to replace something similar that I used for clothes during the weeks in holiday lets as I don't possess a suitcase. I crammed so much weight in the old one that the handles broke.The old one had been Col's hospital bag - always half-packed right ready for all the trips he had in ambulances - so it had been around for several years.

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Also bought a small punnet of gooseberries for £1 (mourned the smallholding days when I picked lbs and lbs of gooseberries to sell!) to go in the freezer to add to the strawberries for better setting jam. I found a small oblong terracotta planter - meant for the plant stand but it looked all wrong beside the round pots so maybe not.

(must do something about the weeds on the patio!)

 

Finally (said I couldn't resist craft bits!)  I picked up these for 50p each. Each page in the pad of Hunkydory has die-cut card toppers and extra bits that fit just right on the pack of 20 cards - which are an unusual size.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Pots for the Plant Stand

 Why did I leave some old clay pots at the cottage?

 Because I couldn't imagine why I'd need them?

Because  I was already  taking so many things with me?

Because  it's not easy sorting everything out by yourself?

All those reasons and now of course I know I should have brought them with me. - Stupid woman!

Oh well, too late - time to search for some............... not new off the internet or from a garden centre - that's too easy.

And sometimes you strike lucky..........first from a charity shop in Diss - £1.75 each

2 bowl shaped clay pots........... one had a hole in the other didn't and it took me an age to drill the tiniest of holes in the base, think I need a bigger masonry drill bit!

On Monday after the dentists (((shudder))) I went into Ipswich town centre and landed on these in the BHF charity shop

Total of  £6.47 including the little saucers

 

 

I've painted the plant stand - slate grey - and potted the two small cacti into the smaller clay pots,  just need to decide what to put in the other pots and keep searching for more.

 

 

Haven't done a Summer of Sport update for a few days..........yesterday I watched an hour of Le Tour before the men's quarter finals at Wimbledon. Then caught the highlights at 7pm.They really were up in the clouds at the top of the mountain. At Wimbledon  my new favourite player...... Denis Shapovalov  (wiki says born 15 April 1999 is a Canadian professional tennis player. Shapovalov is currently ranked in the top 15 in the world, and was the youngest to enter the top 30 since 2005) is through to the semi-finals as is Djokovic of course. But poor old Roger Federer is out beaten by a Polish guy who seemed to have come from nowhere - as I'd not seen him play at all in the last 10 days. Perhaps that will be RF's last match.

Then of course there was a Very Important football match.........again......... and they went and did it!! 55 years since England reached the final of a major tournament. Now they meet Italy in the Final of the European Cup on Sunday. Goodness Me! 

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

A Bigger Than Usual Spend at the Car-boot Sale

 A grey and chilly morning at the car-boot sale yesterday but still lots of sellers and buyers although anyone who arrived after 8.30am might have got wet as it started to drizzle as I left.

My bigger than usual spend was £20 on this....................

The bloke wanted £25 which was all I had in my purse. I walked round a bit more, saw it was still there and offered him £20.

A better version of my old shabby-chic ladder that I  had at the smallholding and then at Clay Cottage. It wasn't used in 2020 because it had got really loose and wobbly so  went off to BiL's to be cut up for firewood when I cleared the cottage garage.

I'm going to give this a going over with a wire brush and then a coat of colour. The two cacti were also from the boot-sale - £1 each -and need re-potting into something bigger. Then I can spend the rest of the summer looking for small clay pots and decide what plants to display.... should be a fun garden project.

 

It may be pretty busy this week if I'm to fit in everything planned and watch as much Wimbledon as possible, so please forgive me if I don't leave many comments elsewhere.

Back Tomorrow

Sue