Sugru and other squidgy mendy stuffs

I have been quite busy recently with a home made version of Sugru.
While i love the idea of Sugru and think that the inventor is a clever old clog, I cannot warrant spending £8 or £12 on a few tiny little blobs of it when I can make whole blocks of it If I want just by going to instructables or Youtube and typing oogoo into the search box.

Anyway.

Oogoo or Sugru is a silicone based putty  which sets in the air and becomes flexible and rubbery.

It can be used to mend many things and is quite strong and waterproof.
Stands heat and cold well and can be made to be almost any colour.

The official version Sugru  is available in lots of places and comes packed in foil with a 6 months life span or 18 months if you keep it in the fridge.

• I have used my homemade version to mend a dustpan.
• Make it a new squeegee edge.
• Make hooks for the kitchen
• Pan lid holders
• A knob for a saucepan lid.
• A handle for my deep fat fryer
• hooks in the bathroom
• Some washers
• A holder for my wifi dongle so it sits on top of the monitor
• Buffers on the top of our old loft ladder so it doesn't scratch the wall paper.
• A Grip for the flask lid which gets too tight to undo
• Mended the  end of knob on cup rack
• A new cover for a penknife which I found trodden into the mud when we were out.

Future plans are

• More bathroom hooks
• More kitchen hooks
• More pan lid holders
• Tidier way to fix the laptop connector on two of the fixed laptops
• Some rubber stamps for craft
• Fix my yarn winder to be more robust
• Fix the seal on the double glazed sliding door that leaks

I'm sure I will find other uses .
So far that is 13 things mended and 7 planned.
I don't know how many packets I could get through of the commercial version.

If you are interested in using the sold stuff.
Consider looking around the house first and finding all the things you want to mend with it.
Write a list and what colour you would need.
This stuff comes in black,white ,yellow,blue and red which are all the primary colours meaning you can mix almost any colour with them.

The home made version is slightly more versatile because you can of course make any colour you have in paint , including I think gold,silver and fluorescent and with glow in the dark powder, there is that option also.

Altering a Bra and other articles of clobber

Altering clothes for the frugally challenged.

I have been busy recently with my sewing machine.

I took in three pairs of shorts that I made about 8 years ago and were a good 4 inches too wide for me having lost weight and got fitter.

They are 100 cotton and dark blue with tailored waist band,inseam pockets and patch pockets.
That meant that I had to completely rip out the side seams after removing the patch pockets and rework them with new seams and seam pockets.
I decided not to remove the whole waist band but instead cut into it at the side seam as it was going to be so much narrower overall and incorporated it into the side seam as I machined.

One pair was shortened by about 3 inches, one pair by 2 inches and one pair by an inch.
The longest pair are going to have belt loops added so that each pair is slightly different.
I reattached one patch pocket on each pair but kept the second for using as material for the belt loops.

It took a good while but thankfully I have a very nice sewing machine so it was fun too.


Then I mended 6 pairs of pants( underwear) where the elastic had parted company with the material due to very cheap manufacture.
These last were done by hand because the material is thin and soft and the elastic although sound, is narrow and obviously stretchy.

I also had 4 quite nice bras that I bought back when I thought I was a 36 B
Unfortunately I am not a 36B and probably never was (MUM!).
The big TJ Hughes in town closed and their sale had several 34C bras which I bought to see how they fitted.
They were exactly right for me so I resolved to alter my other bras to fit better too.

I cant do much about the cup size but the chest size is doable.
Here is a diagram of how to do it incase anyone fancies having a go on their own.

 This was 

a really easy project and saved my bras from the dustbin. 

I remember when I first got a bra,Mum was in no rush to spend money on clothes and so it was after much pleading that I was given one, it was mums cast off and was way past its best.

If I had realised how easy it was to adjust the girth size back then ,I probably would have snaffled a needle and thread and got to work to make my ghastly acquisition a bit more acceptable .

As I did not, I went to school wearing it and other similar cast off s with over stretched straps and material and suffered the mirth of the 12 to 16 aged girls during many a PE lesson.

Bleaching T shirts

I found an interesting article on instructibles by a member called stinkymum.

She describes using Bleach in a tie dye fashion to alter dark T shirts.

This was very interesting to me because one of my favourite T shirts is black with a cheetah on and has become faded under the arms which looked horrible.
I also have a T shirt that OH gave me . It had been thrown away still in its packet because it was a small and didn't fit any of the beefy coppers.
When I wore it the first time, the black came off on everything.

So anyway I read through her instructions for various folds and chose two I liked the look of in her pictures.

The bleach went into a large bowl. I did 1 large yog container of bleach and 5 of water as it was wilkos thick bleach.
Then after folding and rubber banding my shirts ,I put them in and went off to do something else.
20 minutes later I took them out ,unbanded and rinsed them.
They had started to change but not very much so I had to carefully fold them back as closely as possible to previously and put them back again.
I gave them another 20 minutes because she had quoted 1 part bleach and 3 water and I had diluted mine by a lot more.

The second attempt was much better.
I rinsed like mad then when the rinse water  seemed to have cleared of browny colour, I put them through the rinse on the washing machine.

The manky underarm is gone from my cheetah shirt and the other shirt looks very cool going from a light mushroom brown to its original black in an interesting fadey pattern a bit like stained glass.
The cheetah is silk screened and so has not been affected at all and now sits in a shadowy shady mottled background. The underarm staining which was really I suppose natural bleaching from sweat and age, is just part of the bleach pattern instead of standing out screaming old and manky.

Unglueing a violin bridge

So you have glued your violin bridge to your violin only to discover that they are not supposed to be glued.
Do not despair!
All is not lost.

First of all,can you discover what the glue is?
If you can and it is a water soluble glue, try wetting the feet of the bridge with a paint brush to soften the glue.
If it is superglue, you may be able to soften the glue with something made to dissolve super glue.

In my case, I had no idea what the glue was as we did not glue it ...................

DD bought a Violin from a friend, he was only asking £10, so having learned to play when she was younger, she jumped at the chance of having her own.

When we were helping her move last week, she indicated that she didn't want the Violin because the pegs kept undoing.
Instead of throwing it away as she requested, we brought it home.

Looking at the instrument it was plain it had seen better days.
The fret part(no idea of the correct term)  was painted at intervals with either white nail varnish or white-out ( tippex), to indicate finger positions.
The pegs were thick with resin and some sort of glue.
The bridge was glued on and there was a big drip of glue that had run as well, beside it.

Plan of action

1.Find stuff that dissolves glue of various kinds and try in a little place where it isn't drastic in case it melts the varnish.

I tried

• Water
• white spirit
• Acetone
• Penetrating oil (like WD40)

I used a paint brush to apply and kitchen paper towel to remove.

• The white spirit did nothing either bad or good
• The Acetone removed the White marks on the fret board without melting or spoiling it.
• The penetrating oil did make the glue look more pronounced but nothing more.

 2. Find a thin sharp object to get under the bridge and ease it a bit.

I used a razor blade.
It was one of those flat conventional blades which luckily the men have gone back to using so we had some handy.
A stanley blade might have worked but is thicker so may not have.

The blade was snapped in half length ways so I didnt cut myself too much and I very slowly and carefully worked it back and forth under each bridge foot in a sawing motion.

Success!

The bridge came away.
It left a little of itself behind and in one or two places it took a bit of varnish with it.
There was a lot of glue left behind.

3. Remove as much of the excess wood as possible.

This was all done using the blade.
It took a good long while but caution was needed.

4. Remove excess glue.

The penetrating oil worked best.
It didn't soften the glue at all but it lifted the edge slightly and the blade was very lightly rubbed over it ,which got rid of a goodly amount of glue in little shards (it looked like super glue at this point but as the acetate hadn't touched it,  I don't think it was.

5. cover up the evidence.

The cleaned violin had a few bits of bare wood showing so I used a floor touch up pen that we bought in a set from poundland for doing scratch repairs on laminate floors.

The palest pen was chosen and I carefully dotted the colour on ,waiting and redoing as each bit dried.

On the fret board there was a scratch which was covered up with a Black Sharpie pen (thin black marker).
It actually looks better in the flesh as the darkness outside of each speckled area is not really quite as dark as it looks in the photo.
The new bridge will sit here and cover much of it .

**********************************************************************************

It still needs a new bridge as the old one was shaved off and the feet are not really very well shaped anymore. Also it has a gory blood finger print courtesy of me.

We need to clean the holes where the pegs go in.
I have cleaned them a bit but two holes feel like they have been gunked with glue and will need a bit more work to clear.
I cleaned the pegs in hot water and they are fine once the old gunk is gone.
We might be able to roughen the pegs a little to help them to stay put.

DH will most likely restring it as he is the strings man (he plays Mandolin and Guitar).

Back from the north

Well we did it!
The flat is sorted.
It took all the 10 days of constant work to get it ship shape but it is done.

Day 1

When we got there after a 12 hour journey by car (we take turns to drive but still had about 3 hours of sleep stops as there was no rush), the flat was in disarray. There were bags and boxes and 'stuff' everywhere. We sat around for a long while waiting for DD and her BF to get their stuff sorted. They were in no great hurry. In the evening , their guy appeared and about 2 3rds of the pile was removed. We had a take away pizza delivered while we waited for him to come and DH drove one car full of mostly DD's belongings over to her new flat. Then there was a flurry of activity as DH and I began going through the remaining bits to bin as much detritus as possible. We found a backpack full of bits belonging to DS who had lived there for 3 years before DD, including a 3 piece suit and a new pair of shoes.

Day 2

Thank goodness we had bought a steam cleaner.
The Fridge and Freezer were both so frozen that they were ridiculous.
In fact the freezer was frozen with the door open so it was a constant battle between the heating and the freezer.
I am guessing that the two were an expensive factor on the electricity meter. It took a full days work to get both machines back to clean and dry.

We went out afterwards and bought some food to last us the rest of our stay.
The fridge purred back into life when I switched it on and performed well for the rest of the time we were there.
The freezer was left switched off as we didn't need to freeze anything.

 OH began rubbing down paintwork in the bathroom and cleaned and treated the wall and ceiling to remove the mould build up.
The mould was caused by DD drying her clothes in there and her daily shower with the fan left switched off (I believe).

 Day 3

The steam cleaner was again useful to clean the tiling around the bath and restore the grout to something less revolting.
 I also steamed the window ledges and the Kitchen cupboard doors and handles which were grimy and food splattered.

DH retreated the mould areas and when it was dry, sealed the wall and ceiling with PVA. Then he rubbed down the back of the bathroom door which has a full length picture of a bathing beauty glued to it courtesy of the previous owner. We did not attempt to remove it, I have fond memories of removing glued on posters from wood because I worked in the photo exhibition industry and know that glue and wooden panels are a nightmare to clean back.

The cooker top needed only a light steam to remove some built up cleaning cream and as it is only about 6 weeks old, it was a quick job.
 The windows weren't too bad,just a standard clean with squeegee and washing up liquid. Outside is left alone.
The flat is on the 2nd floor and only the main window opens enough to clean both sides.

 Day 4

 More shopping. This time for Mattress covers, a few small tools and scratch restore pens for the floor. I found the pens in poundland. There is a big scratch under the living room door where something had got stuck and it was not easily removable. DH managed to get it out and it was a big piece of grit or gravel. That has been there since we bought the place .

 DH painted the bathroom woodwork and the door. An electrician installed a new extractor fan for us with a humidity controlled timer. He also moved the light in the bedroom so that it was in the middle of the room and not over the wardrobe.
I gave the woodwork a second coat while DH went for fish and chips.

 Day 5

We paint rolled the bathroom walls and ceiling with special paint. While DH gave it a second coat, I started to paint roll the living room. This is a big room maybe 15 feet square with slated ceiling at one side and so a lot of surface area. The ceiling needed doing in this room too.

On fitting a mattress cover to see how it looked, I discovered that it was a little large. This is because the last owner had bought a small double bed which was a non standard size. The mattress is fine and so a cover seemed the best bet. I spent the afternoon sewing the two covers to fit.

 I filled over some holes left by nails and screws in various places and a couple of larger holes caused by careless decorating or removals in the kitchen. One small area needed the wall paper removing and re-gluing as it was almost hanging in mid air.

 Day 6

 The builders came to paint the outside woodwork.
They are cheeky chappies.
 Builder 1 leaned out of the window and rubbed down the woodwork (it is a massive drop if he fell). He leant back in shaking and stressed out!
Then he produced a rope and handed me the end saying 'hold tight for just a wee while' and proceeded to lean a bit further while I held the end.
Obviously if he had fallen, there is no way I could hold his weight but I think he thought it added safety.
His crony, builder 2, appeared on the ladder outside and did the unreachable bits. Later they both came in and worked from inside. I was not happy to see them placing their cloddies all over the cleaned window ledges and even the bed.
Then they examined the concreting on the roof and made a note of what needed doing. We are responsible for the windows and their little dormer roofs .

DH painted the living room with plastic sheets over everything. I am the masker outer so that was all done before hand.

Day 7

The builders reappeared to apply a second coat and give an estimate on the concreting.
I was entertained with stories of terrible tenants who punished their kids by making them use their bedrooms as lavatories. Of tenants who bang up the heating and tape up all the air vents then dry their clothes everywhere resulting in mould(I didn't comment on DD's track record).
One of the builders said that some tenants will use candles rather than replace a light bulb and my mind shot to the candle burn on top of the bedroom chest of drawers and the candle wax that I encountered almost everywhere.

We cleared the bedroom (putting the bed in the living room) and I masked off for painting. The cupboards were filthy and so they got a thorough clean. DH paint rolled the walls to cover up the green .

 I started to paint the kitchen where I had reattached the paper and filled holes.

 Day 8

We finished the bedroom and replaced the bed.
 I cleaned the light shades with bread (it captures the dust and the crumbs disintegrate so it needs to be done over the bin).
The bin was cleaned to remove the food splats.
The kitchen was finished and the carpet was steamed to remove food splashes.

 Day 9

 Mastic day.

 I am the one who does the mastic work.

We had to attach a panel on the wall behind the bath. It covers the boiler and a cupboard above but you cant leave it as an opening cupboard because the shower would be unusable if you did. So it is screwed in place with covers on the screws and mastic is used to waterproof in front and behind the panel.
There was some to do behind the kitchen sink too. We found a tube of black had been left by one of the plumbers and so I filled in the missing 'disc' on the kitchen tap with a little bit to match the black disc on the other one.

 We hung the shower curtain. Fitted a kitchen cabinet with a mirror. Installed a shelf that sits around the basin.
I steamed the whole bathroom floor to zap any nasties hiding around the toilet etc.

 Day 10

 The builders arrived late.
They were there when I got back from the shop (travel food for the home journey).
DH was flustered and red faced.
Builder 2 in stepping on the worktop beside the sink, had caused a cracking sound and DH said the underside of the worktop was cracked. It wasn't visible from above or the sides.
I told builder 1 (the boss) that he should replace the top as they broke it.
He refused.
He told DH where he could get a matching piece to reinforce the counter and said he would pay for it.

 We felt caught out, we needed them to be gone and the work done so that the letting agent would see it finished and give us a price for letting. We were coming back home the same evening.
DH bought the wood and fitted it.
We tidied and vacuumed after the builders had left minus the price of the wood DH bought.

I filled in the scratches with the pen.It worked perfectly.

The letting agent rep came and looked around. He had been a few weeks previously when DD and BF were still here.
That time they had not been able to photograph it due to all the 'stuff' and possibly to the unkempt look of it. This time he nodded in approval.
The quote he gave us was 25 pounds more than the previous one so that was good.
 After he was gone we loaded the car for the journey and then got fish and chips(no washing up) We slept for about 2 hours before starting back.
We were home 12 hours and 600 miles later.

 How much did it cost?

 It was £810 for the builders.
 The petrol for the journey @ £140
 New fan Paint Light fittings
Spares for w-machine(knob) fridge(icebox door) freezer (inner flap)
 Electricity while there and until tenant installed (£35)
grub (takeaway and bought to cook/eat)
mattress covers/under sink shelf/bathroom cabinet
Mirror for hallway
Sundries (screws,glue, rollers, brushes) @ £350
So far around £1300
I haven't added the cost of the electrician as we haven't had the bill yet.
We still need to get a smoke alarm wired in.

The steam cleaner will be used at home so I didn't add that (£30)cost either.
 It was well worth it.
A company hired to come in and do it would have scrapped the fridge and freezer and we would have needed a new washer dryer because the dryer knob(£8 to replace after a little research) was broken.
That would have been a minimum of  £700 for machines alone.
I have no idea how much cleaning would have been and it would have needed at least the kitchen carpet steamed in that price.

*Looking online it seems that an 'end of Tenancy clean with steamed carpets' could be £150 for the size of the flat, I think that is without any clearing of stuff left behind and certainly with no maintenance  or decorating so looks like we made the right decision to do it ourselves*

The estimate for letting was £25 more per month which is £300 over a year

*Actually it was £ 75 a month more and was priced to let  at £50 a month more to see how many bites could be got. If it does well at £50 more,I am happy with that as it is £600 more than we thought it would let for over a year.*

DS is happy, he was reunited with his suit and shoes and the iron he bought and forgot when he came home. We also found one of his old phones, a pair of  expensive gloves,his mini fridge  and his wooly hat.

I brought home 2 towels,a tea towel,a pillow,pillow case, a casserole and a big square pie dish,
the old hose from the broken vacuum which we replaced (it fits my ordinary vacuum and my wet and dry machine).  We also salvaged a wooden venetian blind DD bought in error as it was too small.(its fits our stair window perfectly at home so we bought it from her.These things were not needed at the flat but too good to throw away.

We threw away, 2 chairs (replaced with new padded fold up chairs).
The old extractor (new one is more efficient)
A lamp shade (was awful)
The clothes rack (so people are more likely to use the garden clothes line or the dryer)
and the old round pedestal table which was coming apart(replaced with a nest of 2 pine tables).
The chairs and the rack were left where someone could take them if they wanted to.

Battery bits and bobs

Oh got his new CMOS battery in the post today.
He got it from china via ebay.
Some people would baulk at ebay stuff from china but if you think about it, nearly everything we used in the 1970's had 'MADE IN HONGKONG' printed on it.
The computer itself is made in Taiwan after all.

OH managed to dismantle and install the new battery with minimal help which pleased him and me as he now knows he can dismantle and reassemble his lappy himself and I now know he can too :P

He even had to do a little bit of soldering as the end connector was slightly different.

.................................................................................................................................
The garden is a muddy green expanse at present.
The runner beans are still producing well.
Brassicas are strong looking.
I have seeds from Spinach,rocket and nasturtiums for next year.
The shallots I put by to replant, will be going in sometime this month along with some garlic from last year and a few new bulbs.
I bought new golden onions as we have eaten most of the ones I harvested this year.

The leeks are embarrassingly like spring onions still but may pick up some once the weather cools more.

...................................................................................................................................

I have been doing a toothpaste trial this week.
Cant say which paste but it was quite good for making them feel clean and smooth.
Must look out for it when it comes on the market.

I quite often do trials for goods for companies.
You sign up with a company that does surveys and every now and then they will ask if you will do a trial. Sometimes they dont send anything afterall ,I suppose because they have enough people to choose from and you dont get picked but often you do.
They will ask how it went and you can usually keep the rest of the item to use up at home.
I love giving my opinion on new things.

whizzy peecees and muddy spuds

I spent my birthday money on 4gb of memory for the new lappy.
It now has 8gb which is more than any other pc in the house.

We have a LOT of computers in this house.

There are 6 that belong entirely to me. 3 laptops and 2 Windows machines and a Mac.
OH has a further 2 macs and a laptop,netbook and a tablet.
DS has a laptop and a desktop and DD has 2 laptops and a desktop.
Then there are at least 2 spare pcs and 2 amigas in the roof.

When I was about 18, I bought my first computer so I feel like I have grown up with technology as mich as the kids have.

The extensa laptop has been running puppy linux and is pretty nippy for an oldun.
I decided to combine one of the old extensa batteries with a battery from the old aspire.
I had to take the Aspire battery apart and do some soldering but it works so far.
I can get about 1.45 hours out of the combination .
The second extensa battery was better to begin with and is now giving just over 2 hours of running time.

So 3 more or less dead batteries have been resurected and mean I can run for 3 and 3/4 hours.
The charging is done on economy 7.

The new lappy has a newer battery and can run for around 4 hours all told.

I have dug up another load of spuds.
They are about a months worth and now only half of the spud bed still has spuds in so hopefully another 2 months of spud are still to harvest.

The Pumpkin is picked.
It is pretty big and heavy.
There is another one out there that is still dark green but nearly as big and a smaller one about 7" diameter.

cutting bottles

I have been trying to cut the ends off the vinegar bottles that I buy in sains or asda.
There are at least 10 every couple of months because that is the cheapest way to buy a gallon of vinegar.
I do try to put them in the recycling bin but they take up a lot of bin space and weigh the plastic kitchen bin bag down.

I tried to cut a straight line using a glass cutter but it is almost impossible to get it straight and steady.
Next I looked online for glass cutting comments.
There was a very interesting utube video about using hot and cold water to separate your scored bottle.

Then I found a home made jig on Instructables and that is what I made this morning.
My jig is an old shelf we had lying around in the shed and I already had the screws and the glass cutter so the whole thing was free.

Hmm, it is easier said than done though , cutting a bottle.
I dont know if my cutter is a cheapo thing or blunt but it was difficult to get a continuous scored line even using the jig that holds the bottle perfectly.

My endevours so far have resulted in various wobbly edged glass shapes.
I want them for mini garden cloches as they are glass and wont blow away.
The plants wont care about the edges being wobbly but my eye is offended just the same.

I shall persevere!

I love instructables and today while looking for the instructions for the jig, I decided to use some of my surveys money to buy a pro membership. I can download their instructables as pdfs then or download their ebooks which are compilations of various things.

2 years membership is about £24 so very good value when you think of all the info that I find on there.

Home Haircut day

Todays victim was me.
Not so scary as it sounds because I am my own hair cutter.
If I scream stop at any point during the proceedings, it is instantly acknowledged.
I used a combination of tools for this.

•  The robocut machine that I bought a couple of years ago.
•  Haircutting scissors.
•  A thinning tool and thinning scissors.
•  A hair line guide.
•  A web cam on a USB cable.
•  Mirror and comb.

It sounds like a lot but I have been a self snipper for ages (25 years)and you do tend to accumulate new tools along the way.

First I chop to 2 1/2 inches with the machine,my hair is rarely longer than 3" anyway). I leave the crown part alone at this point.
Then 2" at back and sides.
Next fit the web cam to check the back of my head.
I used the thinning tools to do my fringe (Bangs) and the hair line tool to do a neat line round the back of my neck.
The scissors help here of course and the mirror lets me check the front without having to keep changing the web cam position .
I go round each ear and tidy the edge to make a line following on from the fringe.

I'll no doubt notice a few stray bits that need tidying over the day so the scissors are kept handy for that.
The Robocut layers hair so it isn't just one thickness like it is knitted.

I did DS's hair a few weeks back.
For that I used the wondercomb thingummy that I bought from ebay.
It is a comb with a depth piece that you use to give the right length then you just cut over the comb  with scissors.
I made a similar thing some years ago for our clippers so that I could do the back of mine without needing to see it. My gauge was only cardboard fitted with an afro comb but it worked till the cardboard got too soft and bendy.

OH uses a phillips self clipper I bought him around 4 years ago.
He does his about every 6 weeks and tidies the back with the ordinary clippers as he says you get more of a blended look that way. It saves him about £50 a year to do his own .

I only do mine about every 2 months but a womans haircut is around £20 so it saves me about £120 a year or £10 a month.

DD does her own ,she has long hair and just does the fringe .Every so often she will see an advertisement for a free haircut if she models for a trainee so she does get a salon cut sometimes.She colours her hair herself with Henna .

Weeding with tweezers

Yes really!
The raised carrot bed has loads of little carrot seedlings in rows but also about a million weed seedlings.
I have spent about 6 hours on it so far.

We are going to be absent for a few days so I have rigged up a drip feeding affair to add to the capillary matting.
DS will be here but he isn't very good with remembering to water plants.
The drip feeder is actually just two redundant bread maker tins with sponge cloth for drip wicks.
They last a few days.

I have a smaller version over the greenhouse carrots which is a washing up liquid bottle and the same foam.

Make simple drip irrigation for your greenhouse

Cut the bottom off a plastic bottle.
Using the lid with a hole in or a squirty top, thread some foam rubber (washing up cloth) through to use as a wick.
Fill with water and suspend over the plants.
I have two wire shelves set up in a tent shape over the plants and the bottle is sitting in one of the holes.
You could tie it or wire it to hang from something.
It will drip slower as it empties.
Yesterday it was dripping at about once every 8 seconds and today when it is about half empty,it is dripping at around once every 30 seconds.

The bigger tin drippers are hanging from two pieces of pipe threaded through the handle.


The garden is doing well.
Onions are big and fat.
Toms are getting taller and most have flowers.
Courgettes are appearing on the plants.
Peas have pods.
Runner beans have scarlet flowers.
French beans have pods.
Spinach is  trying to bolt but I keep pinching out prospective flowers.
Brassicas are becoming taller and I have separated 16 plants of Kale and Broccoli and put them under cloches to keep the birds off.

The spuds were showing magnesium deficiency so have been watered with epsom salted water.
Runner beans have been soapy sprayed to remove aphids.

We have the usual cherries which look like most like Raniers variety than anything else.
The birds eat most of them as they are far too high up to reach.

Rasps are getting red and sweet.
Strawbs are nearing the end and have been abundant as usual.

We have had far more than the initial outlay in fruit over the years.
There must be pounds and pounds of the last two in the freezer .

I have bought several green manure seeds to sow after the spuds and onions are done.

In the later part of the year when the fruit is over, I will clear the area as it is becoming hard to keep under control and replant strawbs ,rasps etc.

Comfrey


I have 11 out of 12 comfrey plants showing!
The HDRA cuttings I bought some years ago were disappointing  but these new ones bought from ebay have thrived all apart from one.
I am happy though because I only paid for 10 and the offer was for a minimum of 10 cuttings.

Amateur metal working

I have been making bits for my wheel hoe.
Well , one bit really.
It is an oscillating hoe.
A lot of the new wheel hoes have them and I thought I would try my hand at a home made one.

Mine is made from a strip of iron bar we had, and 11 inches of a 24" steel rule(OH's late father had them everywhere so we had a surplus).
The steel rule is the blade.

So far I have had it working but the oscillating bit needs some fiddling to get it right.

I needed to bend the steel and used some pieces of wood and my own weight and a club hammer.
Once bent into two Stirrup shapes,one bolts to the other and all are bolted to the wheel hoe.
The oscillating bit is a little piece of metal that has a small space for the blade to wobble within so that it swings ever so slightly as you push back and forth but not enough to let it erode the metal or the bolts.
The deliberate agrarian has a few pictures of his own that he makes to go with his 'planet Whizz bang hoe' so that was a handy guide.

Also I have been playing with a couple of Absolutely ancient seeders.
They are from the late 19th Century I think as the only info I could find on the WWW was for one made around 1879 and is very similar with the same makers name.

They came as a pair because they were incomplete but there was enough there to make one whole machine with a bit of fiddling.
It seemed a shame to just discard the other parts so I have been fabricating my own replacement bits using the Dremel, a hack saw, a drill and several old bits of metal from things we had lying around broken.
I have one working and needing a new handle and paint the other is working,needs a better handle and paint.

The one with no handle has part of an old wooden one still stuck in the metal handle bracket so I have some work to do to get that out,the screws holding it in are stuck fast.
The other has a thin handle I connected to it rather weedily and although it does work as a handle, it isn't robust enough and will need replacing.


This morning I dug my bean trenches (finally).
The weather is still one long round of drizzle or mizzle or just thin rain.
Grey clouds and cool wind.
The beans are becoming taller and are going to need to go outside in about a week, so the trenches are dug and comfrey is laid in them thickly to act as a fertilizer.

The spuds are just starting to show their leaves.
The row with the shop bought seed potatoes anyway.
The others will show up in their own good time. They were not as far along in the chitting when they went in so will be later to surface too.

Everything in the garden is nestling in a cloddy mess.
The strawberries have loads of flowers and the rhubarb is doing well.
They don't mind the rain although it does encourage the slugs as well which means keeping an eye on the strawberries as they will hollow them out if they can get to them.

shredding and ploughing

OH cut next doors and our hedge .
It is ours but he has to go next door to do the other side.
There was a lot of debris.

Luckily,we have a new toy.
It is a shredder.
We had one once before that we were given by someone on Freecyle but that one did tend to cut out at the least provocation so after a while we passed it on to someone else.

This one is a Bosch and is much much better.
It handled almost all the branches from the hedge and some of the old plum tree remains.
Some bits were as thick as a broom handle and it had no problem making them into little bits.
Then I had rather a lot of mulch to distribute and so , the fruit beds were added to.

I have also been busy working on my Wheel Hoe.
I wanted to make an adapter so that I could use wolf tools on it and it took all weekend of fiddling.
I did make one a couple of weeks ago but it was rather basic,comprising of a tab to hold the wolf handle still whilst bolted to the hoe frame.
This new bracket is able to be adjusted for depth and angle and is much stronger.
I got the parts out of the dustbin.
OH had thrown away a broken satellite dish that we found lying in the road but the recycling bin men wouldn't take it as it is the wrong kind of thing to put in our recycle bin.
I fished it out and saw a new use for it.
The dremel came into its own again as it was the only thing that would cut holes in the thick metal.

All we need now is for it to stop raining long enough for me to get some use of it.

I may even get some pictures up later in the week. No chance today due to the rain .

Books


I am reading 'A hat full of sky'.

I cant decide as yet if it is a saying of the 'Nac Mac Freegle' (the wee free men)
or if it is referring to a vacant space where your brain ought to be.

French knitting upgraded

For a few months, I worked on the Amazon turk site.
This is a site on which you can perform tasks.
These range from writing articles to translations,surveys and  odd text adaptation.
At Christmas ,I thought I would buy someone a knitting frame using the Amazon.com cards I had earned with it.
I found the knitting frame, clicked to order , put in my details and was met with the text
'There is an error with your order, it will not be fulfilled'
or some such thing.
After several more failed attempts, I gave up and decided to order some seeds for the veg garden.
It took quite a lot more attempts and I eventually emailed Amazon america to discover what I was doing wrong.

Turns out you can only order from Amazon .com where international shipping has been arranged and there was no search facility .

After much googling I found amazon.com worldwide-shipping

Hooray a search that shows shipping to non US countries!

However I was foiled at the last fence
No one was doing a knitting frame in this criteria.

I did find some seeds and ordered them and later two wifi dongles to use up my almost redundant Amazon.com vouchers

Then last week I noticed on Ebay,someone was selling knitting frames just like the one I wanted to order.
My order was placed and my frame arrived(in 2 days )
So I have been playing at French knitting for a few days.

My frame is this one which weirdly they now have on Amazon UK


This one is £1 more than mine cost on ebay(including delivery) but looks like it is the same seller.

I am enjoying it so far, it is adjustable and so can knit tubes of different circumferences.
Ideal for knitting socks which is my reason for wanting one.
The way it is arranged as a rectangle makes it easy when knitting short rows for turning the toe and heel because you can instantly see half the amount of stitches without needing to count them. The beginning of a row is equally obvious as it is a corner and the wool tail shows which corner.

Anyway having tried one for myself and found it to be robust and useful, I have now bought another for the person to whom I was going to give one at Christmas.
Haven't sent it yet so I won't say who it is, just in case they stumble across this blog however unlikely that may seem.

Making old new again!

Goodness a whole week and more has passed me by!

I have been busy with surveys,they always seem to get more frequent at this time of year.
I have had at least 3 a day for the last 6 weeks.
It all goes to help,even the very small ones.

Today I had a bit of a success with my mending en-devours.
I wanted my own e book reader and after buying one second hand for my daughter for Christmas, I thought it would be nice to have my own.

So I looked for broken ereaders on Ebay and found one to bid on.
It was a Sony ereader with a touch screen but the e-ink pad part had become corrupt but it still charged okay.
Anyway,I bought it for £15.
Then I fiddled with it for a week and decided it needed a new e-ink display, so back on Ebay and ordered one from China (Sony are from over there and the screens are only available there) £41 delivered.

It came yesterday (8 days from ordering to arriving) and I was rather horrified to find that it didn't have a back made of sticky plastic .

I would have to rip the old one off its plastic backing and the plastic backing off the metal frame behind it.

It took me 90 minutes to get it all off (it has a thin mirrored glass backing and I cut my fingers with the tiny pieces as they splintered) and then today about 2 hours to clean the plastic back to it glue-less self with WD40.

Then I got a tube of contact adhesive courtesy of poundland (we already had it in the cupboard) and glued the new,terribly fragile looking e-ink display ,onto the plastic and the plastic onto the original frame.

After all that,I had to get it all back in its case in the right place and without damaging the new display.

Well I did it. Turned it on and it worked first time.

I have been singing all afternoon while getting tea started because I am so chuffed that something I set out to do,actually worked.

The ereader has cost me £56 which is a lot for me to spend on myself I suppose but I have learned a huge lot about them in a short time.
I often find PDF's of manuals or instruction books that I would like to download but as the laptop is mains only ,it isn't worth it for the non portability.
I shall try to put some on the reader when it is charged up fully and see how they view.

present perfect

I bought an ereader for the daughter, on ebay.
It is for xmas of course,cant warrant that kind of spending every day.
It came today and is spiffing. LOL
I thought it was a greyscale screen but it is actually colour and can even play film files.
She is getting through a lot of books in her course at uni so it should help her keep down the costs.
I spent £39 on it and about £4 on next day delivery.

Here is the case I made for OH's phone.
Its similar to his bought one but I made it narrower so that the phone doesnt slew about .
That is my phone in it at the moment which doesn't have a camera.
The flap at the back folds either half way down or rolls and folds depending on if you want to see the back of the phone.
Folding halfway down means the rain shouldn't get in while it is in video camera mode.

oops where did the week go?

Yesterday I went to the poundland shop in town and bought;

• a pack of chocolate to share with my son
• A sectioned box for small tools or screws
• A bottle of concentrated star drops.

The box is for my salvaged dremel and its little blades.
I cut two slots in it near the hinge side and fitted the dremel in.
It fits with the chuck poking out one end and the wire poking out the other.
All the blades fit in the other sections.

Today I played with the scroll saw.
I have had it years. We bought it when I wanted some Montessori puzzles and accessories for teaching the kids.
We couldn't afford to buy them so we bought the saw and wood and made them.
Last week I found that I can get new blades for it cheaply on ebay.
Now I just need a new spring for the blade assembly and it will be good as new.


Christmas

I am in my usual Xmas making mood.
I spent a day of last week making a new waterproof pouch for OH's phone.
He has one but it is quite battered so he will have another.
I used a found clear plastic umbrella which had a little tear in it, for the plastic,it has to be transparent as he uses his phone to record video of his commute via motorbike so it must let the lens work.
It must be waterproof although not immersible, so it doesn't wet the phone if it rains..
This was cut to size, folded and folded and melted with the iron using foil to stop it sticking.
Then The edge was finished all around with the umbrella edging which was purple but it is very dark once you fold it and melt it so not particularly a bad colour to use.
I will get a pic of it up tomorrow,cant at the mo as OH is downstairs and might catch me in mid camera wielding mode.

He has 2 cinema tickets stashed away for his birthday too.They need using by the last day of the year but I cant see that being a problem. People buy tickets for events as presents and they are often in 3 or 4 hour windows of one day,whilst these will be able to be used for any one of 9 days or any two if he decides to go alone to two different films.

Keeping up with the exercise

Yesterday I did about 44 pull ups.
I do them whenever I am downstairs and remember to do it.
I think I did one 10 and the rest lesser amounts.

I also did 3 X 8 pistol squats each leg.
I go quite carefully with them because it is easy to hurt your knees if you don't get the angle of your knee right.
It can be quite stretching for the Achilles tendons too.
I can do them without holding something for balance now.

We ran yesterday evening.
2.89 miles.
It took 30 minutes which seemed quite slow but was only a little bit slower than usual once I uploaded the Garmin results.
I have been leaving my Garmin at home a few times just so it doesn't get too obsessive.
I think there was a wind blowing against us on the way back but I didn't notice it behind us on the way out.

Mending and making do

We inherited a Dremmel from a relative. Just the main unit ,no attachments.
It is one of those rotary tools where you fit little saw blades and drills and grinding ends into a shaft and then you can work on small projects.
We already have a cheap rotary tool but this is much heavier duty.

After much pulling and puffing,I managed to get the tool that was jammed in it, out.
It needed pliers and a lot of twisting and tugging.
The chuck is perfectly okay though so I will have a go at making some tools for it sometime this week.
Instructables has some interesting home made bits for them so I must do some research.

Shedding the shed

Our oldest shed must be forty years old.
It stands at a slant and the door doesn't fit the hole.
A hole in the roof and a rotting side make it useless as a shed so for the last 4 or 5 years,I have been planning to dismantle it and use any good wood for building a compost bin.
Today my son painted the gate that he made a few weeks ago and then looking for another project, I suggested the shed.
Now it is in 3 piles.
The floor which hasn't been removed from situ
The good wood which will be the compost bin and remains will be burned.
The burn pile which is rotten wood and wood too soft to reuse.
Most likely the floor will be burned too as it is all holes.

My poor arms are worn out with dragging panels and throwing pieces of wood around.
I think that is plenty of a workout for one day.
Plus it is TOTM(womens problems) and as usual, I am knickered,knackered,knockered.

I have done 10 pull ups so far today.
2 X 5
The men have gone to Karate and tonights tea will be chips,sausage,bacon,tomato,egg and baked beans.