A retirement blog about make do and mend

If there is an expression more resonant than the one above – make do and mend – of that war-time spirit, then I don’t know what it is. And I say this as somebody born 3 years after the Second World War ended. I suppose it must still have been circulating as a life philosophy through that time I was growing up. A period known as ‘austerity Britain’. Sound familiar?

It should because it was recreated a few years back by those lovely people the rich Tories who decided we needed to start living within our means. That’s us not them of course. Always so much nicer when one can pass one’s pain onto others. In this case it meant cuts to Social Services, local authority budgets, care-home facilities and yes, you’ve guessed it, the NHS. You know poor people stuff. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, was that the expression?  Probably not but you get the idea.

So this current period is often compared to the last war. Pulling together and all that kind of thing. And, as in the title, make do and mend. The comparison between now and then is partially erroneous in the sense that then the idea was both to save money and make the most of what you had because you couldn’t buy anything in the shops.

The last part is similar but for very different reasons. The first part – saving money – doesn’t apply, to us at least, at all. In fact we’re attempting to spend more money. Hopefully in the right places. Keeping out of work musicians going, supporting local shops and charities although I have to say that my efforts to help local small plant producers (as Alan Titchmarsh asked us to do) proved a lot more difficult than I anticipated. Something to do with the fact that the local businesses I contacted were plant sellers not growers.

As one said, we’ll be alright (Jack) because we do all our trade in the winter – logs and Christmas trees. What plants do you want? She reluctantly asked. I said I wasn’t bothered, just sell me £100 worth of plants of your choice and deliver them to me. Fine words I think you’ll agree. Then she said we’ve only got pansies in at this time of year.

My good intentions faded like last year’s bedding plants. I bloody hate winter pansies and pansies generally. I agreed to call back when they get the bedding plants in but even these are coming from Holland apparently, only local if you live in Holland. Will I call back?

Back to the make do and mend. We’ve been doing it but not because we can’t get out to the shops. Clothes for example. We hardly ever buy clothes and certainly don’t make trips out to specially buy them. And, as I’ve explained, we aren’t trying to save money. But we’ve been rifling (is that a word?) through our wardrobes. Clothes that would have been taken to the charity shops, are being re-purposed.

Trousers are a particular favourite of mine. I seem to have a lot of them. Mrs Summerhouse has been taking them in for me. I knew bell bottoms, flares and loons would make a come-back in some way and now here I am unembarrassedly wearing those huge pants that have been buried away for years, now all slim and fashionable. What’s that they’re no longer fashionable, bell bottoms are back. Damn.

Some clothes are just coming out blinking into the light of day not needing to be altered simply reintroduced to polite society. At least they would be if there was any society out there. We found a duffel coat, remember them, not since my college days and maybe not even then, have I worn a duffel coat.

True, the weather has been irritatingly warm, so the duffel hasn’t had as much use as I had hoped. But that quite small denim jacket is working well to walk the doggies. Of course the old Chesterfield is a fine example of ‘repair not remove’ but I’ve said enough about that for now at least.

But we feel strangely compelled to adopt this war-time spirit even though we don’t need to and it’s not really relevant. We’re visiting parts of the house we’d forgotten about and even playing, up in the attic, some of our old vinyl or LPs as they used to be know when we bought them.

37/6d or have I made that up? The Searchers (title Meet the Searchers, not original but precise) first album doesn’t sound quite as cool as it did in mono. As an ex-boyfriend of my daughter put it when we introduced him to our vinyl collection, like listening to music while sitting by a crackling fire. Smart arse. He didn’t last long.

Even more bizarre, as an example of make do and mend, because we can’t get to either of our other two properties (Yes, I know we won’t get much sympathy here) I had the bright idea of displaying photographs of those places on our walls here. Not quite as easy as those words might imply. We don’t have photos these days, just digital images. No matter I thought, I will find, on line, a company that changes digital into paper.

I found a company, spent a long time choosing 20 odd images and then waiting for them to download. The whole thing, including the slow download, took about two hours and then just as I was going to pay for them, what do you know, they all disappeared. Puff, into the wide, blue digital yonder. In a flash.

 I had in the meantime, ordered from IKEA 20 small frames for the postcard size photos. They are supposed to arrive on Thursday (yesterday to you). If they do come we will have 20 frames and no photos to go in them. I bet they never had these difficulties in the war.

As for food, in the make do and mend era, well obviously we’re eating some pretty weird meals. This in an effort to use up stuff. We pretend it’s fun. Hmm. Don’t even get me started on chicken and chips in a basket. The meal is fine, if a little dull, but trying to pretend we are recreating our courting days when eating out was a huge luxury and meant a trip to the pub and the only food they served was the aforementioned chicken and chips in a basket, is a step too far methinks.

So yes, times are tough but as long as we’ve got that war-time spirit to hang on to, oh and our wine gets delivered, we’ll be fine