Being a Sad Old Git, I do sometimes tend to think of present-day prices in terms of the Proper Old Money.
Which causes me to feel faint, when I realise that a single Mars Bar now costs around 15/- (15 shillings)! Mind you, they're two for £1 in the Co-Op, so I suppose 10 bob each isn't too bad...
I don't have any problems at all with metres, centimetres etc., and can translate them into feet and inches without difficulty.
No, no. The old Tate & Lyle came in 2 pound bags, which is 1 kilo, thus 1 kilo equals a bag of sugar.
Doesn't 1kilo weigh 2.2lbs?
If you buy a kilo of some thing and only get 2 pounds you are being short-changed by approximately three and a quarter ounces - thats nearly another quarter of a pound.
I have trouble with kilos, and generally try to think of them as a generous 2lb, which for most purposes is accurate enough.
I can identify with Mrs. Beaky's cups of coffee currency though - when we lived in Canada things could be measured in Timmy's*.
* Tim Horton's coffee - just under $2 for a cup.
I am now the proud owner of a laptop computer. I decided that typing my qualifications for job applications would be far easier with a proper keyboard than faffing about on the Tablet, and I'd be able to save Word documents without it swearing at me (not to mention me swearing at it). It took a fair bit of effing and blinding to get it to change my mobile number from my Canadian one to my Brit one, but I think it's sorted now.
I remember when I was studying in Canada, charities that were advertising trying to get people to give regular donations would use coffee currency as a way to try to persuade people - the idea that you can save lives for just the cost of a coffee per day.
Piglet, yes, laptops are much better than tablets for job applications. I use my iPad for most things, but there are a few things where a laptop works much better. Filling in data on a chart in Google Sheets is another - there's no way to make a new paragraph if you use an iPad. It is worth having a laptop.
Here in the U.S. I will sometimes see things such as "For what you spend at Starbucks you could feed a family of five for a month." Nope -- what I spend at Starbucks wouldn't feed anybody anything.
This reminds me of a very funny piece of commentary on the day of 'Er Majesty's Jubilee in 2012. "Here I am in a pub, where there's been a remarkable display of community spirit." (Interview with some people in Jubilee clothing arranging a festive table, then cut to a close-up of a rhubarb crumble on the pub's bar.) "The local allotment association has provided 16 rhubarb crumbles. That's how excited people are about the Jubilee."
It's official - British excitement is measured in units of crumble.
This reminds me of a very funny piece of commentary on the day of 'Er Majesty's Jubilee in 2012. "Here I am in a pub, where there's been a remarkable display of community spirit." (Interview with some people in Jubilee clothing arranging a festive table, then cut to a close-up of a rhubarb crumble on the pub's bar.) "The local allotment association has provided 16 rhubarb crumbles. That's how excited people are about the Jubilee."
It's official - British excitement is measured in units of crumble.
I’d get more excited about the rhubarb crumble - were there copious amounts of custard available too?
A productive day so far, with walking, corner shopping, laundry, light housework, a little work and washing of newly spun yarn. Now I need to get motivated to do some writing.
I actually went OUT today! As I haven't been past the front doorstep since March this was a great event!
I have been having trouble with my eyes, and despite two phone consultations, I really needed to see a human. My daughter bravely offered to take me there, so masked and with wipes at the ready, off we went in her car. Optician lady dragon unlocked the door for me, and masked, I entered. Optician was also masked, gloved and apronned, did what opticians do, and I left with more powerful gel and the hope that will do the trick.
But it was exciting, driving through streets that were surprisingly busy, and watching everyone staring at our masks! Funny ol' time!
I hope your newly spun yarn is measured in yards...
It’s not measured at all! But if I did want to calculate it would probably be in yards as I suspect that is how my niddy noddy* is sized - I could calculate the yards by counting how many layers I wind on to the niddy noddy. I usually card and spin rather fancy art yarn which has interesting textures and pretty waves and bobbly bits in it.
* Non-yarn lovers will now have learnt an exciting new word.
I'm OK in metric or imperial, cups as in American measurements confuse me though. Earlier on in this lockdown I made cake with various things in the store cupboard and lost weight. Now I've stopped, the weight seems to be creeping up. I'm confused.
Today I had my writing class by zoom, including a nice chat with two other members when we should have been in a breakout group critiquing each other's work. I think we enjoyed talking to people who weren't those we are in lockdown with,
If you buy a kilo of some thing and only get 2 pounds you are being short-changed by approximately three and a quarter ounces - thats nearly another quarter of a pound.
I cook in almost entirely in metric, except for sponge cake which is still in ounces.
I am, sometime this coming week, going to be creating a video for my students, who struggle to understand the value of money and thinking beyond the immediate moment, where the currency will be bottles of Pepsi Max (600ml as buyable in the college vending machines! Very popular with all my lot.) I gave up such drinks for Lent, and they got the choice of which charity I donate the money I'd saved to. Lent having crashed to an early end as far as I was concerned as lockdown started, (or is it still on-going, I'm not quite sure?) I calculated it as a bottle a day for the weekdays of Lent. and have finally with my once a week shop spent the money on food for the local foodbank.
My sewing frenzy continues apace. The hot weather over the last couple of days has highlighted the shortage of summer clothes in Captain Pyjamas' wardrobe. Today I started on a couple of t-shirts made by cutting up t-shirts of husband en rouge's that he didn't want anymore. Tomorrow's project will be some shorts. I have some suitable fabric in my stash.
I cook in a mixture of metric and imperial. With recipes I've invented it's often a mix of the two - it might have 8oz flour but 500g of sugar because, when I devised it our sugar came in 500g bags from traidcraft, whereas I actually weighed the flour on our balance scale that has only imperial weights. I also convert freely in my head.
That's the second time in the last week or so I've heard someone use "stash" meaning collection of fabric; the other was a friend who's a quilter. I have a stash, but not of fabric; mine is notebooks. I journal compulsively and have several empty ones in waiting, but am mildly twitchy about where my next one is to come from. I'm hoping stationery shops open before I get to the end of my current one because the next one can't be just any notebook, you understand. It has to be the right sort of notebook.
I confess that after several years in Canada I caved and started using cup measures*. D. (bless him!), without any prompting from me, went out and bought me a lovely set of metal cup and spoon measures (and put up hooks in the kitchen to hang them from), and I wouldn't be without them for bread-making.
I also find they're good for measuring rice, which the blessèd Delia recommends you measure by volume (one part rice to two of stock or water).
* but not for butter, unless the measures are marked on the wrapper.
I use both metric and imperial when cooking and can also freely covert between them. I try to avoid recipes with cups (I do have measuring cups and spoons but such recipes often also specify such mysteries as sticks of butter) but use a cup to measure rice as that is what came with the rice cooker.
I did my writing this afternoon (literature review themes now finished, moving on to my research questions now) and spent this evening spinning wool.
On a different topic, but can't think where else to post this ...
When we were fundraising for Scouts, the unit of currency was the Jumble Sale (about £250) or the May Fair (about £750) - so, any request for kit, or support for a Scout to go to a Jamboree, was measured in Jumble Sales or May Fairs.
Latterly, when assessing costs for The Dowager, the measure began as the Telly Aerial (£200 to get up on the roof and re-fix it) but transmuted into the Week's Care Home Fees (£1K) and now that is obsolete, is considered as one Deer Removal - as in, 'oh well, that's only quarter of a Deer *) . Does anyone else assess costs like this, are are we just weird?
* see TICTH thread
Mrs. S, genuinely interested
Well, Mr Lamb has just had ca. $8000 of dental work, so we will shortly be measuring things in teeth ("Hey, you think we got a tooth in the budget this month to replace the back fence?").
That's the second time in the last week or so I've heard someone use "stash" meaning collection of fabric; the other was a friend who's a quilter.
"Stash" is quite commonly used by needleworkers, especially cross-stitchers. When one has a shopping spree at a needlework shop, it's known as a "Stash Enhancement Exercise," abbreviated as SEX.
On a different topic, but can't think where else to post this ...
When we were fundraising for Scouts, the unit of currency was the Jumble Sale (about £250) or the May Fair (about £750) - so, any request for kit, or support for a Scout to go to a Jamboree, was measured in Jumble Sales or May Fairs.
Latterly, when assessing costs for The Dowager, the measure began as the Telly Aerial (£200 to get up on the roof and re-fix it) but transmuted into the Week's Care Home Fees (£1K) and now that is obsolete, is considered as one Deer Removal - as in, 'oh well, that's only quarter of a Deer *) . Does anyone else assess costs like this, are are we just weird?
* see TICTH thread
Mrs. S, genuinely interested
Well, Mr Lamb has just had ca. $8000 of dental work, so we will shortly be measuring things in teeth ("Hey, you think we got a tooth in the budget this month to replace the back fence?").
I do find it adds a sense of proportion to costings, like @MrsBeaky 's cups of coffee!
That's the second time in the last week or so I've heard someone use "stash" meaning collection of fabric; the other was a friend who's a quilter.
"Stash" is quite commonly used by needleworkers, especially cross-stitchers. When one has a shopping spree at a needlework shop, it's known as a "Stash Enhancement Exercise," abbreviated as SEX.
And then there's what I have - SABLE - Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.
I use stash to describe the fabrics I have acquired: it's used in dressmaking and knitting too. Someone on Instagram uses the name mystashislegal, which amuses me.
Mostly I know what I want to make with my fabric, and I still need the clothes. If I went back to work tomorrow, I might just have enough summer work clothes to wear for a week but I still don't for winter unless I'm prepared to wear skirts every day, and I'm not. I'd rather have a few spares rather than the bare 5 outfits, knowing that commuting means most clothes need washing every day and that I'd rather be able to vary a bit more for weather conditions and/or how smart they need to be, because midi skirts might look good, but they aren't practical for every situation, and three of my summer outfits and two of my winter outfits rely on them. Day to day, I have a couple of pairs of jeans for winter, a couple of pairs of shorts for summer and a couple of pairs of lighter weight summer cropped trousers, one more work appropriate than the other. One of the pairs of shorts needs replacing. And I have no fancy party clothes other than Christmas jumpers.
I cost clothes by fabric cost - so the two long-sleeved cotton polo necks I picked up in M&S this week at £1.49 and £2.49 were worth buying.
"Stash" is quite commonly used by needleworkers, especially cross-stitchers.
And knitters.
Some have whole rooms, with custom-made storage, devoted to their yarn stash.
My stash had to be drastically reduced when we 'downsized' to a tiny bungalow, and now has to fit in a 60litre plastic box, with my basket of knitting equipment on top to weigh the lid down
I have several stashes, my biggest is my fabric one in my study as I used to have a business making cloth nappies and girls’ clothing from vintage fabrics, and I also make clothing for re-enactment - I have shelves of beautiful fabrics which I now dip into to make dresses for myself (or masks these days).
I also have a large yarn stash there for my crochet which is rapidly being added to by my own hand spun (obviously I now have a fibre stash for that).
Been for my morning walk and I now need to water the garden. I might card some fibres for spinning later.
We’ve just had a dribble of rain. Enough to tease, not enough to be useful.
I have a small yarn stash. I dream of a house where I can have my own hobby room.
No rain since ???. Forecast said possibility of showers flying through on the blustery wind, but no sign so far. Nothing for the coming week, as far as the last forecast went.
Have been round the veg garden with the hose, but not touched the pots at the front, which are desperate for any kind of attention - particularly watering.
On a different topic, but can't think where else to post this ...
When we were fundraising for Scouts, the unit of currency was the Jumble Sale (about £250) or the May Fair (about £750) - so, any request for kit, or support for a Scout to go to a Jamboree, was measured in Jumble Sales or May Fairs.
Latterly, when assessing costs for The Dowager, the measure began as the Telly Aerial (£200 to get up on the roof and re-fix it) but transmuted into the Week's Care Home Fees (£1K) and now that is obsolete, is considered as one Deer Removal - as in, 'oh well, that's only quarter of a Deer *) . Does anyone else assess costs like this, are are we just weird?
* see TICTH thread
Mrs. S, genuinely interested
Well, Mr Lamb has just had ca. $8000 of dental work, so we will shortly be measuring things in teeth ("Hey, you think we got a tooth in the budget this month to replace the back fence?").
I do find it adds a sense of proportion to costings, like @MrsBeaky 's cups of coffee!
Yes, a sense of proportion is what it's all about- otherwise I'd tie myself in knots trying to get things right!
It would appear to still be blowing a hoolie here - the trees across the road are Moving About. There's been rain, but I'm hoping it'll stay off for long enough to facilitate an amble; I didn't have one yesterday, as we had a nice long visit from my brother and sister-in-law (bringing shopping).
On the subject of sewing stashes (about which I know nothing), a musician friend in Fredericton, whose livelihood was decimated by the lockdown, has started a business initially making and selling masks, but I think she's branching out into other things as well - good for her!
It's a lively day here weatherwise, with wind and heavy showers. Good for the garden - especially as I've been a bit lax with the watering.
I'm having a lovely day in my study with my books and have stir fry to look forward to for tea. At some point over the weekend (possibly Monday, it being a bank holiday here in the UK so Monday is still the weekend) I'm planning to make scones. It must be over 30 years since I made scones and never with gluten free flour. Nothing can go wrong.
That's the second time in the last week or so I've heard someone use "stash" meaning collection of fabric; the other was a friend who's a quilter.
"Stash" is quite commonly used by needleworkers, especially cross-stitchers. When one has a shopping spree at a needlework shop, it's known as a "Stash Enhancement Exercise," abbreviated as SEX.
And then there's what I have - SABLE - Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.
😂😂😂
I have a small stash of fabric, a smallish stash of yarn for crochet - it’s allocated to specific projects, honest - and a large stash of card making stuff. Oh, and a stash of embroidery threads and lace making threads and bobbins.
I’ve been starting to weed out some of the stashes as my hands aren’t good enough to make the things I used to, but there’s quite a lot of things I haven’t the heart to get rid of YET.
Yes, I have ‘small’ stashes of fabric, ribbons, wool, needle felting stuff, water colour paints / paper, crewel wool, card making materials ... a good friend and I fantasise about having a beautiful large room where we can display all our stuff, so that we can regularly go in and sit and gaze at it all with love 🤣!
Yes, I have ‘small’ stashes of fabric, ribbons, wool, needle felting stuff, water colour paints / paper, crewel wool, card making materials ... a good friend and I fantasise about having a beautiful large room where we can display all our stuff, so that we can regularly go in and sit and gaze at it all with love 🤣!
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Which causes me to feel faint, when I realise that a single Mars Bar now costs around 15/- (15 shillings)! Mind you, they're two for £1 in the Co-Op, so I suppose 10 bob each isn't too bad...
I don't have any problems at all with metres, centimetres etc., and can translate them into feet and inches without difficulty.
Doesn't 1kilo weigh 2.2lbs?
If you buy a kilo of some thing and only get 2 pounds you are being short-changed by approximately three and a quarter ounces - thats nearly another quarter of a pound.
I can identify with Mrs. Beaky's cups of coffee currency though - when we lived in Canada things could be measured in Timmy's*.
* Tim Horton's coffee - just under $2 for a cup.
I am now the proud owner of a laptop computer. I decided that typing my qualifications for job applications would be far easier with a proper keyboard than faffing about on the Tablet, and I'd be able to save Word documents without it swearing at me (not to mention me swearing at it). It took a fair bit of effing and blinding to get it to change my mobile number from my Canadian one to my Brit one, but I think it's sorted now.
It's official - British excitement is measured in units of crumble.
So it is, but I can still think of it (now I've been corrected by @TheOrganist ) as roughly (or generously, as @Piglet says) a Bag of Sugar.
*sigh*
O why do we still have to have these Horrid Foreign Measurements Not Like Ours, especially as we are now Going It Alone, and have Taken Back Control?
A productive day so far, with walking, corner shopping, laundry, light housework, a little work and washing of newly spun yarn. Now I need to get motivated to do some writing.
I have been having trouble with my eyes, and despite two phone consultations, I really needed to see a human. My daughter bravely offered to take me there, so masked and with wipes at the ready, off we went in her car. Optician lady dragon unlocked the door for me, and masked, I entered. Optician was also masked, gloved and apronned, did what opticians do, and I left with more powerful gel and the hope that will do the trick.
But it was exciting, driving through streets that were surprisingly busy, and watching everyone staring at our masks! Funny ol' time!
* Non-yarn lovers will now have learnt an exciting new word.
Last month saw an unfortunate incident where Mr A attempted to instruct me in the dark arts.....
I withdrew cake making services.
And
To drive the point home, we were Without Cake for four days.
Cake making has now resumed and I haven’t heard a Peep about metric Anything!
Today I had my writing class by zoom, including a nice chat with two other members when we should have been in a breakout group critiquing each other's work. I think we enjoyed talking to people who weren't those we are in lockdown with,
I am, sometime this coming week, going to be creating a video for my students, who struggle to understand the value of money and thinking beyond the immediate moment, where the currency will be bottles of Pepsi Max (600ml as buyable in the college vending machines! Very popular with all my lot.) I gave up such drinks for Lent, and they got the choice of which charity I donate the money I'd saved to. Lent having crashed to an early end as far as I was concerned as lockdown started, (or is it still on-going, I'm not quite sure?) I calculated it as a bottle a day for the weekdays of Lent. and have finally with my once a week shop spent the money on food for the local foodbank.
That's the second time in the last week or so I've heard someone use "stash" meaning collection of fabric; the other was a friend who's a quilter. I have a stash, but not of fabric; mine is notebooks. I journal compulsively and have several empty ones in waiting, but am mildly twitchy about where my next one is to come from. I'm hoping stationery shops open before I get to the end of my current one because the next one can't be just any notebook, you understand. It has to be the right sort of notebook.
Not exactly. A pound is 453 grams, while a kilo is 1000 grams. 2 pounds is 906 grams.
I confess that after several years in Canada I caved and started using cup measures*. D. (bless him!), without any prompting from me, went out and bought me a lovely set of metal cup and spoon measures (and put up hooks in the kitchen to hang them from), and I wouldn't be without them for bread-making.
I also find they're good for measuring rice, which the blessèd Delia recommends you measure by volume (one part rice to two of stock or water).
* but not for butter, unless the measures are marked on the wrapper.
I did my writing this afternoon (literature review themes now finished, moving on to my research questions now) and spent this evening spinning wool.
Well, Mr Lamb has just had ca. $8000 of dental work, so we will shortly be measuring things in teeth ("Hey, you think we got a tooth in the budget this month to replace the back fence?").
"Stash" is quite commonly used by needleworkers, especially cross-stitchers. When one has a shopping spree at a needlework shop, it's known as a "Stash Enhancement Exercise," abbreviated as SEX.
I do find it adds a sense of proportion to costings, like @MrsBeaky 's cups of coffee!
And then there's what I have - SABLE - Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.
Mostly I know what I want to make with my fabric, and I still need the clothes. If I went back to work tomorrow, I might just have enough summer work clothes to wear for a week but I still don't for winter unless I'm prepared to wear skirts every day, and I'm not. I'd rather have a few spares rather than the bare 5 outfits, knowing that commuting means most clothes need washing every day and that I'd rather be able to vary a bit more for weather conditions and/or how smart they need to be, because midi skirts might look good, but they aren't practical for every situation, and three of my summer outfits and two of my winter outfits rely on them. Day to day, I have a couple of pairs of jeans for winter, a couple of pairs of shorts for summer and a couple of pairs of lighter weight summer cropped trousers, one more work appropriate than the other. One of the pairs of shorts needs replacing. And I have no fancy party clothes other than Christmas jumpers.
I cost clothes by fabric cost - so the two long-sleeved cotton polo necks I picked up in M&S this week at £1.49 and £2.49 were worth buying.
Some have whole rooms, with custom-made storage, devoted to their yarn stash.
My stash had to be drastically reduced when we 'downsized' to a tiny bungalow, and now has to fit in a 60litre plastic box, with my basket of knitting equipment on top to weigh the lid down
I also have a large yarn stash there for my crochet which is rapidly being added to by my own hand spun (obviously I now have a fibre stash for that).
Been for my morning walk and I now need to water the garden. I might card some fibres for spinning later.
I have a small yarn stash. I dream of a house where I can have my own hobby room.
Have been round the veg garden with the hose, but not touched the pots at the front, which are desperate for any kind of attention - particularly watering.
Yes, a sense of proportion is what it's all about- otherwise I'd tie myself in knots trying to get things right!
On the subject of sewing stashes (about which I know nothing), a musician friend in Fredericton, whose livelihood was decimated by the lockdown, has started a business initially making and selling masks, but I think she's branching out into other things as well - good for her!
I know. I wasn't giving a precise value, more a rule-of-thumb idea.
Obviously, computer scientists, mathematicians would settle for 2.2. (actually divide by 11, divide by 2 and times by 10).
I'm having a lovely day in my study with my books and have stir fry to look forward to for tea. At some point over the weekend (possibly Monday, it being a bank holiday here in the UK so Monday is still the weekend) I'm planning to make scones. It must be over 30 years since I made scones and never with gluten free flour. Nothing can go wrong.
https://youtu.be/LpAKcQufacc
😂😂😂
I have a small stash of fabric, a smallish stash of yarn for crochet - it’s allocated to specific projects, honest - and a large stash of card making stuff. Oh, and a stash of embroidery threads and lace making threads and bobbins.
I’ve been starting to weed out some of the stashes as my hands aren’t good enough to make the things I used to, but there’s quite a lot of things I haven’t the heart to get rid of YET.
(Jerome K Jerome)
Oh, and what Bishops Finger wisely says!