Less Books, More Space, More Pots

 

Happily, I have now sold, donated and passed on enough of my books to completely free up the bookcase from the bedroom.  You have no idea how happy my new more streamlined bedroom makes me.

I put the bookcase onto Facebook Marketplace for £10 and it was snapped up in two days.  It was only when the lady came to collect it and handed me the crisp new tenner that I realised that the bookcase had only cost me £8 about three years ago at a local car boot sale.  So pretty good value, three years of use and then a two pounds profit. 😀

I finished sorting out the bottom cupboard of my living room bookcase the other day, and the books that I did decide to keep from the bedroom bookcase have ended up in there.  It very satisfying to have all the non-kitchen books in one place, well virtually in one place there are a few decoratively dotted around still ... but you'll never cure me of that!!

I think I mentioned last week that Alan had bought me my Christmas presents while we were at Dunelm, he was determined to get them nice and early this year ... and they are already in use.  He bought me a microwave, a new electric kettle and a few pieces of green tableware.  

I saw and fell in love with some handmade green bowls, so I chose the minimum that I thought I could get away with ... and then Alan persuaded me to get the larger plate too.  Which I guess with Christmas in mind, and perhaps needing a plate of sharing nibbles, was quite a good idea.

They are quite a bit greener than this photo shows them, but the light in my little kitchen corridor is terrible today. The rain has not stopped since last night, and I have had to have the light switched on just to be able to see to type.

What are you getting for Christmas this year, a want or a need?

 Mine ... unusually for me ... is definitely a want, as I already had my white crockery, plus some of my retro pretty plates that luckily match in beautifully with my new purchases.

Sue xx

Sideboards, Cats and MIA

 

I was sat watching a very old Nigel Slater episode the other evening and I found myself watching the sideboard more than the television.  Indeed I almost lost myself in the grain of the wood.  It's just beautiful old Elm at it's very richest.

The next day the sun came out and illuminated the room in a completely different way and the light highlighted the sideboard totally differently.

 So I took another photo

Of course it's not always easy to get a clear shot if you own pets ...

*** *** ***

Sorry for the prolonged absence, well it was less than a week actually but folk seem to have been worried.  We have been extremely busy with end of year business financials, house-sitting arrangements for our holidays and lots of sorting for a table top sale that we did yesterday, and there has been a death in the family.  Not a very close relative, but a much loved one that we lost in a way to Alzheimer's a couple of years ago.  It does make you stop and ponder life though doesn't it.

Sue xx

My Lovely Lavender Sofa Has To Go

 

My gorgeous sofa has just been listed on Facebook Marketplace and I'm more than a little bit sad. 😢

Alan and Jason tried valiantly to get it up to the top floor of Alan's house, the idea was to turn the en-suite guest room up there into a proper sitting room for our house-sitters and future potential Airbnb use, but the tight turn into the room at the top of the stairs proved to be the undoing of the plan and they had to bring it all the way down again.  

For now the sofa is upended in Alan's kitchen while we put it's legs and cushions back on then and then hopefully someone will want to grab the bargain of the year.  We did offer it to my other son Simon, but I fear the colour was just a little bit too girly for the new home he is setting up for himself.

The new chairs with much better support for my back are being delivered tomorrow morning, I'm really hoping that they will be more comfortable for me.  I also had to go out and buy a new rug as this one just looks dreadful with the new colour scheme ... so it's all change after just seven months.

There's also a lot of sorting out and decluttering going on at the moment as we are doing a Table Top Sale next weekend and we are going to be literally loading Alan's car up to the gunnels with stuff that has been waiting in the spare room sine we moved in, and also things from the Lodge that I have been sorting through after realising that I really just do not need them.

Anything that I have not needed since I moved in is going and it's going to be simplicity all the way.

Sue xx

No Food, No Stuff ... and Death to the Dust Bunnies

 

I think I'm sick of food!!

Eating the food, buying the food and blogging about the food ... so I decided I would start to do a bit of decluttering and sell a few more things instead.

I started to think about getting rid of stuff when I was dusting the other day.  Now dusting itself is a thing I do only when I have absolutely nothing else to do, I would prefer to read a book, play with a dog, talk to a cat, dig a hole ... anything except move dust from one place to another.  I wonder how much dust we make, churn up and remove in our lifetimes ... I would hazard a guess at enough to stuff a double mattress with.

Anyway as I dusted the bowl in the photo, the bowl that has sat there since the day I moved in and although looked very pretty was actually doing nothing except taking up space and catching some of the aforementioned dust.  I decided I had dusted it for the last time.

I took it's photo and added it to my Facebook Marketplace page ... it sold within two hours along with a folder containing 120 DVDs that I knew I would never watch again to the same lady.  The DVDs were for her Mum to watch and the bowl ... well I guess she'll either be selling it on for a profit or dusting it for the next few years.

Either way I now have £10 in my coat pocket that I can drop in the collection buckets for the people of Ukraine next time I go shopping or for a coffee at Booths.

And one less thing to dust.  😀

Sue xx

Feedback ... and Car Boot Bargains

Alan came to the Van with Mavis much later than usual this weekend as we had a house viewing at 1.30pm on Saturday.  He thought the couple were quite elderly to be thinking about buying a smallholding, both at least in their seventies, but he was buoyed up by their excitement and the things they said and arrived feeling very optimistic.  He read them wrong ... I think men do that more so than women ... we got feedback from the estate agent yesterday telling us that although they thought the house and everything we had done to the place was wonderful, it was all just much too close to the road.  

Oh well, there's nothing we can do about that ... we only bought the place because we were assured the road would be moving, but after three years of floods that plan has pretty much been scrapped by the Highways Agency.  So up to now with our viewings we have had two 'too close to the road', two saying we were too small and one saying we were too big, one lady who said absolutely nothing about it, oh and one offering us £80,000 under the asking price as that's all she could afford.

To take our minds off everything in Wales and to enjoy the sunshine while it lasted we went to the Bilsborrow car boot sale on Sunday.  The dogs came and had a good walk, Alan mooched about and had a bacon bun, I had a coffee ... ooh coffee 💖  

If you read my other blog you'll understand that one  🤣

But I managed to get a few bargains.  Two stainless steel dogs bowls to go in the cars, the larger one for Alan's stonking big Audi boot was 50p and the small one to replace the dish I have in my little Fiat 500 was 20p.  The boot space is a good size for me, it fits three shopping bags side by side but having a smaller bowl will help my emergency bag of car and dog related things stay a bit slimmer.

The basket I just absolutely loved.  It is a genuine vintage one, something I used to sell lots of in my shops and I thought it would be good for display or even to store fruit or veg in.  So even at £8 I thought I had a bargain.

The hand-creams were in a fancy box and were just £1 for the six.  I go through so much hand-cream, and even more so these days when my skin dries out with all this hand sanitiser we have to rub in whenever we are out and about.

The little crocheted knee blanket was new and the whole stall was full of them, so someone had been working very hard.  Mine was just £4, all that work and wool for £4!!  It's going to to keep Suky snuggly in the Van over Winter and I'm sure she'll appreciate it when the nights get even colder than they have been over the last few days.

And finally this, I spied it in amongst all sorts of detritus on a guys stall and knew I just had to have it.  It was £2.  I think it's quite old as it just feels 'right', but whatever, it is just lovely and had to be mine.  A quick clean and a wipe with some oil and  it looks lovely.

So I spent a total of £15.70 and I think I have some lovely things to show for it.  

Sue xx

A Lovely Relaxing Weekend & Car Boot Sale Finds

I had a break from all but a bit of social media and from the internet in general over the weekend.  We had no plans as such and just enjoyed the sunshine, although of course it was far too hot to walk the dogs other than very early in the mornings and very late at night.

What we did manage was a first outing to car boot sale on Sunday morning.

We got up nice and early so we could have a quiet coffee, feed and walk the dogs in the cool along the riverbank and then leave the Van so it was safe for them to be alone in it for the morning.  Luckily although it was warm there was a lot of cloud cover so the sun wasn't beating down on the Van as it had been the day before.  But we closed the curtains on the 'morning sun' side of the Van just to be on the safe side and opened all the windows, the large ones on the security setting and the small top ones fully open.  Happy that we had left them safe, and with Radio Two for their entertainment we set off by 9am ... which is not early if you are looking for re-sale items or exceptional bargains but was early enough for us to browse.

As you can see from the top photo (my car boot garden gnome version of Alan) and this one, I managed to snap up a few good bargains, even more bargainous as Alan paid for the cushion and donated £10 towards my table.

We had two pit stops.  Once for a black coffee for me, and a bacon roll and a milky coffee for Alan and the second time, a couple of hours later, for two more coffees and a cheeseburger for Alan ... and I might have succumbed to a portion of curry sauce and chips as my early morning Weetabix seemed to have been soooo many hours earlier  😁

When we got home the dogs were pleased to see us and happily, the Van was deliciously cool, and while Alan cracked open two cans of cider I took a couple of quick photos of my goodies.

The cushion had just caught my eye, it's design and colours will fit in well with the Van for now and will be good in my new place.  

The curtains which I had spotted one of on a charity stall and was just about to buy it, when luckily the lady remembered there was another still with it's original cardboard header on in another basket under the table, were also meant for my new place but may well be pressed into service here at the Van if we are going to be living here for a while between homes.  They were £3 the pair.

A lucky find was a brand new pastry brush for 50p.  I don't have one here at the Van, I've just been using my fingers, but a recipe I want to try out for the Ration Challenge needs the dough to be brushed with oil between folding and refolding, so I had just added a pastry brush to my shopping list ready for my next trip to a supermarket.  Result!!

The Bohemian Rhapsody DVD was one we both wanted after originally seeing the movie at the cinema when it first came out.  But as it was still at nine or ten pounds in most supermarkets we were waiting for the price to drop ... it did at the car boot sale to £1.  The other DVD is actually series six of ' House', the only series missing from my collection ... and was a real bargain at just 20p.

But the star purchase of the day was this beautiful old oak side table.

There are a few tiny scratches on the top, but something that a good layer of wax polish will cover up easily, apart from that it is in beautiful condition.  I had spotted it earlier from a distance on the field, and after our second pitstop headed over to where I thought it was, only to find myself a few lanes away ... this is a large car boot sale.   I got to the stall just as the pair of elderly ladies were packing up and the table was sitting in the back of their estate car.  I politely asked if I could have a look at it and asked how much they wanted, she said  "It's £20.".   I was just looking at it and running my hand over it's gorgeous pedestal leg and she said  "But you can have it for £15 ... it's going to a good home isn't it?".  I had my purse out so quickly, handed over mine and Alans cash and thanked her profusely.

It really is going to a good home ... my new home  💓  

I didn't realise how solid and heavy it was until I got back to the Van ... as Alan had carried it from it previous owners car back to his ... and I turned it over to read the little label I had spotted on the bottom of the leg.  

It looks like my little table pedestal table is from a really good maker.  The oval metal label says Archer and Smith which is a company founded fifty years ago.  I Googled them to see if I could find anything about my table, but it seems they've moved on to bigger and much posher things in the last few years, including pieces for royal palaces and luxury yachts.  But I am hazarding a guess that this was a bespoke early piece as they have nothing of a similar size in their back catalogue and their style has most definintely moved on.

Anyway it is going to be perfect in amongst the other things that will be coming with me to my new home, which could be coming sooner rather than later, as last Fridays viewing went very well with Alan showing the prospective buyers around and giving them all the information they needed.

We have our fingers firmly crossed, and if we haven't heard anything by the end of today we will be phoning our agent for some feedback.

Sue xx

Outside/Inside/Outside ... Put Off Jobs

The other day I was working outside but inside!!

I decided that while I had the time I would go through all the leftover stock from last years car boot sales and the stuff that we have sorted out since then ready to sell before we move and get it all ready for the first car boot sale we get to do.  Well I say first but it will be the one and only.  After that one we will sell all remaining stock to someone else who wants to continue doing car boots either at the venue itself if anyone is interested, or if not there we will sell it on Facebook Marketplace.

We did that at the end of last year with five boxes of stuff we were sick of seeing.  We photographed the boxes full of stuff, advertised it and had it picked up and paid for within hours.  We've never been the sort of car booters that bring the same stock back to the same car boot sales over and over again.  We give things one or two chances to sell and then move them on.

Now it's all sorted out, price stickers that were on now taken off most things, and all planned out for us to have one table of 20p items and one table of £1 items.  With a small selection of things at a higher price point which will be labelled with the price we want.  The boxes will fit neatly into the truck for the journey and some of the cardboard boxes can be used to package up the things we will be selling en-masse on our return.

The empty plastic boxes I still have here will hopefully be filled with more unwanted items over the next couple of weeks and then all the plastic boxes will be kept ready for our hopefully imminent house move ... that is if we ever get the house on the market!!

It's a good job I chose to work in the shed when I did, as first thing this morning Alan fixed the bottom of the door ... and then took the steps away to be repaired.

New pieces were being cut to size in the workshop ready to fix the steps that have been a death trap for the last couple of years.

It's good to have the time to do all these put off jobs at last, even if I am missing the Van dreadfully.  I keep imagine the grass ... it's going to be waist high.  

Time to look out the scythe methinks!!

Sue xx

Simplifying the Book Collection

I finally got round to starting a Challenge of sorts on my Challenge blog yesterday.  This first one is a year long Challenge to read one hundred books over the course of this year.  I did start my reading straight after the New Year but I have just not gotten round to documenting it or writing a post until yesterday, and now we're already 26 days into this year … I get the feeling this is going to be another fast year!!  

(See Here  if you would like to read about it a bit more.)

But the main emphasis of it is to help me in my quest to down-size my book collection even more than I already have.  I say my and I  because after clumping together all of Alan's books, his fit onto less than one shelf  (the second one down in this top photo) and all the rest are mine, all mine 🤣

When we move house, hopefully later on this year, we won't have the built in bookcase that we have here behind the living room door.  We will most likely be taking this shelf/cupboard unit with us … but even that is not a certainty.  This one does hold around one hundred books on the shelves, and it's my mission to try and get my fiction and non-fiction down to this number so my whole book collection can be in one place.  As it says on my Challenge blog, I am also hoping to get my cook books down to this number too.

Now we just need to look for a house with a kitchen with room for 100 cook books on it's shelves!!

It might not seem that we are downsizing or simplifying the books that much, until you realise that a couple of years ago we had well over 600, and now after a few car boots sales last year we have 362 … I know this for a fact as I counted them all for the blog post yesterday 🙂

Sue xx

The Selling Goes On

Car Boot sale season for us has now come to an end.  

Although there are some that go on through the Winter in the wider area, they are not ones we would consider doing as we like the two that we have supported for the last few years.  They are close by, start at civilised times and are raising money for local good causes.  So we will continue to save our stuff up to sell at them for perhaps the last time next year.

This morning I unpacked and put away the contents of our 'car boot sale bag'. 

 In it we keep our trusty vintage cash box with a £50 float, and on the morning of a sale we add our lunch and drinks to the sellotape, pens and sticky labels that are also kept in there.

The float was quickly shared between the 'housekeeping pot' and the Sealed Pot teapot.  The notes and pound coins into the first and the silver into the teapot.  It's already filling up nicely in there so an instant £10 of change is a very welcome addition.

Even though the car boots for us have ended, and the last two we didn't even get to due to a bad forecast and us preferring to go up the road to the Van, we have still been selling happily away.

Yesterday's sale was ten Demi Johns for £10, we also sold the same guy a large box full of other assorted winemaking gear for another £10.  So twenty pounds made without us even leaving the house.

Just before we set off for the Van on Friday night a lady came and picked up these four chairs. It turns out I renovated these chairs almost seven years ago to the day and blogged about it HERE on my old blog Our New Life in the Country.

Although in that post I called them our 'forever chairs' things have changed so much and in so many ways.  They were in use while we needed them but for the last couple of years they have been languishing out in the shed.  It would be far better we thought, that while they were still in good condition someone could enjoy using them for a reasonable price.  The lady that picked them up was thrilled, especially when I gave her the matching tablecloth.

Seeing her face and listening to her telling us that now she has a dining set for her kitchen was more than enough for us to let go of something that for us had been special, with a real lightness of heart.  The cash went into our housekeeping pot ... and while we are living out of that instead of off our wages we are adding to savings that are guaranteeing us a good future.  It really is a win, win situation all this selling off the excess and all no longer used or wanted things that we have.

Some things that you think will be forever ... such as having these chairs ... simply aren't, but the joy in life should be that you love what you have and use it fully while you have it.  Being prepared to pass things on, change the way you see yourself, your life and the things around you is what keeps everything fresh and alive.

I'm loving our new transitioning phase.

Sue xx

Selling from Home

We were due to do a car boot sale this weekend, but right until the night before the weather forecast was a bit hit and miss, and to be completely honest we really didn't fancy loading the truck up in the rain on the off chance that we would be able to sell the next day.

Instead, I spent a couple of hours photographing and listing things on Facebook Marketplace and when Saturday dawned bright and sunny it didn't matter too much that we weren't all set for the car boot sale ... we had two buyers on their way to pick up two of listed items.

You don't need another bookcase when you have half as many books, and after serving us well for a while in the garage holding lots of bits and bobs that we needed keeping off the floor, this long low bookcase ... formerly a display unit in a friends delicatessen and then a shelf in my gift shop, then a bookcase in three of our homes ... was finally destined to belong to someone else.  I think I had more than my money's worth out of it.

Also off to pastures new was our apple store we bought when we had visions of us being completely self sufficient in whole fruits for the Winter.  It never happened, what we didn't eat instead of trying to store whole we instead chopped and froze ... much less hit and miss.

In fact, this is the only apple the apple-store has ever seen.  Alan's version of 'visual merchandising'.  The store has been in regular use in the chicken shed for the past few years though, a handy set of drawers for all things 'chicken'.

So we didn't need to leave the house, the buyers came to us, gave us their money and took away the things that they wanted.  Win, win ... a good mornings work and another £60 in the coffers to go towards our Sark spending money.

Simplifying our lives is proving to be very rewarding and very satisfying.

Sue xx

Letting Go of Books

Possibly the hardest thing for me to sort through and let go of has been my collection of books.  But finally last year something clicked and I started to drastically reduce the number that I owned.

Of this little 'Aga' collection on the top shelf in the kitchen for instance, I had just three that I actually used regularly but I had hung onto them all for ages.  Now that I have checked through them I have kept just those three and will pass these on to the next owners of the house and the Aga ... and the rest all went straight into the car boot sale box without a second thought.

It's like I've been 'cured'.

Last year we sold the dictionaries and books to the left of this photo ... this year all the 'bee' books have gone into the box ready for the car boot sale.

So NO books are now left in the office.

When we first moved into this house we brought with us this long low shelf unit, an ex-display shelf from my little shop in Ulverston.  It housed a lot of books after one of my many blogged about sort outs.

This year the shelf unit is out in the garage full of car stuff and the bits and bobs that were lying around everywhere as it is no longer needed in the house.  Because after a few big sort throughs and a number of car boot sales last year, we no longer needed it for books as what we had left ...

... moved into the gaps I had made on this set of fitted shelves behind the door of the living room.

This year there has been a further click ... and not just one!!

  Firstly, getting rid of books was suddenly much more preferable than holding onto them.  I went with the flow and sorted out whenever the mood overtook me.

This morning the shelves look like this.

The second 'click' of realisation was that I no longer had the need to own everything written by a particular writer or chef.  

For years whenever my favourite cooks ... Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater or Jamie Oliver ... brought a new book out I rushed out to to the shops to buy it, gaps in my collection were filled in from charity shops and car boot sales and then suddenly I realised that I didn't need to own them all as I wasn't actually even using them.

I sold most of the older ones last year and then this year I have been letting go of the newer ones after checking first that there was nothing in them that I actually wanted to cook.  In one book the only recipe that I used regularly was this Green Spaghetti recipe, I was about to photograph it for future use and then I realised... I use it that often I know it off by heart anyway.

The book was in the car boot sale box at the weekend.

The bottom shelf of this set of shelves now looks like this, just one Jamie Oliver book ... the one I use!!

The other shelves we have, also originally from my little shop, were filled to capacity too.

With even the cupboard being full up with magazines that I had held onto after reading.

It currently looks like this ... and the cupboard is empty!! 

And shock, horror ... I have just decided that once we move into our little flat this will be the main bookcase.  Apart from some books in our office and perhaps a few cookbooks in the tiny kitchen, this will be expected to hold the whole collection.  

I better keep whittling away at the books then.

The kitchen collection after my recent sort out currently looks like this, which I think is a very manageable number to have and use.

What do you find the hardest things to part with?

Sue xx

Jettisoning Stuff

Another weekend, another car boot sale.  Well, the same venue but mostly different stock.

We were loaded up ready for action last night and in place and selling for 10am this morning.  It's very civilised here in our neck of the woods, no 6am start times for car boot sales.  It was thankfully much, much cooler and very pleasant to stand selling and chatting with all the lovely folk that came to the stall. 

There were lots of dogs around too for Suky to bark at and for Mavis to ignore.  Mavis just took to her bed after a few minutes of watching people go by and had a lovely lazy morning while Mum and Dad worked hard, but generally had fun.

The rainclouds started to roll slowly in by 2.30pm and we began tidying and packing away.  Making sure the boxes were ready for next time.  Now we're home and having counted the money ... a grand total of £163.50 ... and had a cup of coffee we are now awaiting the arrival of two buyers who are buying larger items off us from Facebook Marketplace.  

It's all sell, sell, sell here at the moment, but jettisoning the stuff is a wonderful feeling.

I mentioned getting rid of all my old diaries the other day and after a quick check through them for any important information ... a few things which I quickly copied into my new Filofax ... they are now in the pile ready for a little bonfire.

It's a good job I did check, as stuck in one of them was this, the original disc from when we appeared on Escape to the Country a few years ago.  It would have been a shame to lose the chance to watch Alan teaching people how to feed hungry Large Black piglets and the views of our lovely Oxfordshire home with the pigs in the fields.

Sue xx

Not Using the Stuff

Another weekend, another car boot sale, this time in Tal y Bont which is a few miles along the road from us.  We were selling lots of the stuff that was previously in cupboards, on shelves and most definitely no longer needed by us.

We did really well, and made a grand total of £158.50.  The heat took it's toll though and we were both exhausted by the time we got home at 3.30pm,  But the truck was much lighter and now I have a couple of empty boxes and lots of empty hangers to fill ready for next time.

The dogs came with us and lay in the shade of the truck, and thanks to a very naughty Daddy they enjoyed a whole ice cream cornet to themselves.  

As well as being the car boot sale this month it was the Annual Bike Show, with bikers from all over the area turning up on their large and not so large motorbikes.  Competitions were had and raffle tickets drawn.  The ladies in the Memorial Hall cafe sold out of bread rolls for the bacon and sausage buns that were for sale and someone had to be sent out for fresh supplies to keep the bikers and car booters fed.  

All in all it was a good day ... and it was nice to see blog reader Gill and her hubby Mike again.

Sue xx