Plank, 2 manky chairs and 4 nails

and you have a magnificent rainproof, to a certain extent, recycling area.
Created during shed clear out and pre-winter wood pile sorting session...more of these excitements soon.

SIN

O.K I admit it. I do have a bath most days. Showers just don't soak ones aging feet, or sooth the pains of the day as well as a good hot bath. BUT I do save it all for the garden. This is an illustration of the amount of water from a fairly restrained bath. Makes one think.... Next year I'm going to construct a sort of Heath Robinson grey water recuperation system, but for the time being its me and aerobic workout with watering cans.

Goodbye....

Sob...sad day in the hothouse and for post-materialism. My old faux croc shoes have to go. They are becoming a public health hazard, and to quote someone Mark knows 'they don't owe me anything'.
Bought in the heady days of being a stylist, I saw them in one of those scary shops with black clad stick insect assistants and beech veneer everything. They were in a sale but quand meme, very expensive...Patched, repaired, more hole than sole, time to go.....
I did save a pan today however, that had cremated rice pudding in it. Mark was about to bin it. Scraped and wire wooled it lives again Ha!

A thing of beauty....

Our beautiful, tank like kettle, purchased from Loupia vide grenier a few summers ago, finally had a break down. Knob fatigue so to speak. Now fitted with a smart new, heat resistant cork, courtesy of Guinot, it will live to see thousands more cups of tea.
The other item pictured herewith is our elderly spanish tea-strainer, Mark, fool-hardy waster, was about to throw this jewel out. It has been re-conditioned, clumsily but with an artistic flair, with a length of super wire, and is now serving as 'bottom of the washing up bowl bits collector' to prevent drain blockages.

Saved from trip to IKEA by 1970's tray

I was struck by some weird urge this morning, to go to IKEA. this has not happened to me for about five years. The reason, apart from the thought it might be warm in there, was that I had suddenly had enough of picking up bits of straw in the bathroom from the perpetually molting washing basket lid. The thing itself must be twenty years old, no problem with that, but I was beginning to wonder if a new one would be..nice...no more bits, the gentle whiff of a couple of decades of socks gone...

Also the rug in front of the fireplace is VILE, hey we could get a new one, a better lampshade in the sitting room, fresh duvet cover, kitchen table is very wobbly, those old mugs are very unpleasant ...STOP.

I could have spent all day driving to and from Ikea, eating dodgy round meat products, buying not only the afore mentioned washing basket, but about fifteen other not actually really needed items, and spending money with the help of a small rectangle of plastic. These are dangerous places.

In the end I went out into the shed and found a 1970's vide grenier tray, banged a nail through it

attached some wire in a handle shape...new lid, which will do until the rest of the basket gives way, and we find another during the V.Grenier season next year.

Thanks Penny for the article about 'cashless man' in the guardian, which was probably another reason I didn't take the drive...