A Super Sunday

Photo: Jeffrey Simpson

What a beautiful day it’s been. The sun’s been shining from a clear blue sky, and the day has been good to me, health wise.

It started bad – I woke with my heart pounding and tears running down my cheeks after the most horrendous nightmare I’ve ever had. It’s still clear in my mind but I keep pushing it away. It’s just too awful to think about. That was at about 7 this morning.

I got up, sat in the garden for half an hour or so then pottered about in the house for a bit. At around 9 I picked up Richard and we headed to one of my favourite places: the car boot market!

Strangely enough, it wasn’t as packed as I’d imagined it would be on such a lovely day, which was good for me as it meant it was much easier to browse the stalls. I got lucky.

I found this chair for just £10 and it’s practically new! It even still has its tag on!

When my legs are bad I need a chair that’s relatively high as the sofa’s just too low to get up from. I had another, similar, wing-backed chair but the colour – terracotta and cream - was all wrong. This one fits in with my plan for future decorating far better. Richard has now taken the original chair to his house where it fits better with his planned colour scheme. It’s good to share :)

I also found this cup and saucer.

I think it’s quite beautiful and will look lovely in the lounge filled with flowers. A snip at 50p (pardon the pun – it really was unintentional).

On the same stall I found a cut glass vase. Another 50p was duly handed over. It'll look pretty displayed in any of my rooms. Well, once they’ve all been redecorated, that is. The house is a work in progress but I plan to gradually change the entire place – it’s just a matter of doing it on a budget. A very tight budget.

I also found an interesting cookery book for 25p and a Maeve Binchy paperback for the same price. You really can’t go wrong, can you?

After dropping Richard back home I popped to Charlene’s (my ‘almost’ daughter) and sat in her garden for an hour before heading back home and spending another hour in my own garden. I couldn’t sit still though – I kept getting up and pottering about and that just wasn’t doing my legs any good. I knew I shouldn’t push myself too hard so I went back inside and spent a couple of hours resting on the bed.

At 4 o’clock, Richard arrived, ready to do some digging for me.

I needed a few hebes taken from their too small pots (where they’ve been living for a couple of years now) and planted in the ground. It wasn’t a huge job but too much for me and I really didn’t want to lose them. This is how they look now.

Once that job was finished, he went inside and started on the dinner. Nothing too challenging – skinny fries with bernaise sauce. Well it's what I fancied and it tasted delicious.

Now I’m back upstairs, attached to my pump for the night and resting.

Yes, it’s definitely been a good day.

Sharon J xx

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Alternative Vases

Photo: TengTan

While I’m not ungrateful when somebody buys me a huge bouquet, it’s generally the small bunches of wild flowers or perhaps a few stems picked from the jungle of weeds garden that bring me the most pleasure. I generally have at least one bunch in the house during summer, if not more, and use all sorts of things as ‘vases’.

I use

• Empty jars. Some are pretty in their own right, others can be decorated with a length of lace, wide ribbon or piece of crochet.
• Pretty mugs
• A pretty cup and saucer
  
• A gravy boat. Useful for laying a few stems along
  
• An old china sugar bowl
• A vintage tin box
• An old pewter teapot – looks lovely with the lid up and lots of flowers flowing over it.
• A couple of vintage bottles
• An old-fashioned perfume bottle (the type made of glass with a stopper

These things can make beautiful gifts when filled with flowers, too.

I love finding new uses for things and nothing’s ever disposed of here before some thought has been given to whether its life can somehow be prolonged, and if something’s beautiful and useful then as far as I'm concerned I'm on to a real winner :)

Sharon J
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A Teacup

I saw this beautiful cup and saucer on eBay last week and fell instantly in love with them. They’ll look just right in my kitchen when it’s finished and I can already see the cup filled with a bunch of tiny flowers from the garden or perhaps holding a little candle. If I wanted, I could even use it in my bedroom, filled with some gorgeous scented pot pourri or I might even grow a small plant in it, like a pink African Violet or a baby spider plant.

From a practical point of view, I didn’t need it; it isn’t something that will make my life easier in any way so some would say that if I’m serious about simple living, I shouldn’t have wasted my money on ‘knick knacks’. But aesthetics are important to me. If my surroundings aren’t beautiful then I soon feel depressed, so I could argue that I do indeed need things like this little china teacup.

I'm sure this need to be surrounded by beauty is part of our natural design; we were meant to live surrounded by the beauty of nature and the only way we can satisfy that is by bringing beauty – in whichever form we feel it should take – into our homes.

But having a beautiful home doesn’t have to cost the earth – either figuratively or literally. This little cup and saucer cost just over £3 on eBay, including P&P, and looking at it brings me more pleasure than a £50 designer vase or a Burberry mug ever would (yes, apparently they do mugs, too!). When I see it I think about its origins and the people who may have used and loved it before me. I look at the exquisite detail in the design and think about how beautifully nature’s represented through a simple piece of china. To me, it’s nothing short of perfect. But then I'm a sucker for pretty florals, lace and dainty little things.

This, to me, is what frugal – or simple - décor is about. It isn’t about not having nice things; it’s about finding pleasure in things that don’t have to carry a high price tag or designer label to be of any value and aren’t necessarily the latest ‘in’ thing to have. Whether you're into retro, minimalist, vintage, urban chic or whatever, there are things out there that won't break your budget, aren't being mass produced in third world sweatshops and aren't the same as every other Tom, Dick and Harry have. You just have to look for them.

Sharon J

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or
believe to be beautiful. - William Morris

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