This morning I reluctantly threw away two quite large artificial roses made of leather. Yes truly, leather. Mauve leather as a matter of fact. I can’t think where they came from originally, nor why I have carefully saved them for several years. By no stretch of the imagination do I see myself sewing them on the fronts of old slippers, arranging them in a vase or doing a clap-and-stamp into supper with them gritted between my teeth.
I suppose this hoarding instinct is a throw-back to those days when ‘Make Do And Mend’ was as much a part of our lives as ‘Don’t Drink And Drive’ is today.
Well, I don’t drive and my drinking doesn’t amount to much, but I still make do and mend as if my life depended upon it. I feel guilty flinging that last little sliver of soap down the loo. (No, please don’t tell me I should save all the little oddments in a jar of water, for washing sweaters. It all ends up too much like frog spawn.) In the interests of economy I already have to be restrained from putting spent toothpaste tubes through the mangle just in case a little dollop lurks unsqueezed. Friends are baffled to receive gifts in carefully-ironed-out wrapping paper still labelled ‘To Daniel with love from Granny’. And for months I saved somebody’s one remaining good shoe, just in case. It was only when the macabre significance of that ‘just in case’ dawned on me that I reluctantly threw it into the dustbin.
When we first moved into our present home there was evidence of many similar economies. We were delighted to discover a lean-to stacked high with home-made coal dust brickettes. I understand that the correct formula is two parts coal dust to one part cement. These were not made to the correct formula. In fact I should say they were nearer cement-and-a-dash. With gleefully frugal chuckles we lobbed them into the dying embers of the living-room fire one frosty winter’s night. Disintegrating immediately, they fell straight through into the tray beneath. Sort of do-it-yourself ash.
In spite of this I still feel that the previous house-holders were kindred spirits, because in sheds and out-houses we found various tins full of men’s trouser buttons, not to mention several bunches of rusty keys, a saucepan with short lengths of rope in it and a padlocked box containing gas mantles. I forced myself to discard the latter but soon found homes for everything else. Over the years I have collected rows of screw-topped coffee jars which now variously contain buttons, beads, elastic, pyjama cords, unpicked and saved zip fasteners, short lengths of anything and, finally, one mammoth jar labelled Things Found On The Floor. This one is permanently brimming with tiddlywink counters, foreign coins, marbles, bits of jigsaw, three long green metal things, and several medals which I’m pretty sure none of our family can lay claim to. The idea is that everyone can dip into this jar when the need arises. But of course they never do. They just go out and buy new jigsaws, tiddlywinks, long green metal things, etc.
If I do have a brave blitz on all the carefully hoarded odds and ends, such as the mysterious little triangular piece of black rubber I threw away last week, you may be sure that the moment the dustbin is emptied I realize there is a little piece of triangular black rubber missing from the bottom of the ironing board.
It is easy to become just a shade obsessed by the idea of home economy. A friend of mine has spent years making a careful study of bulk-buying. ‘You really can save money this way,’ she says, staggering in from the garage with a giant-sized can of what I sincerely hope is cooking oil. ‘The secret is to decant it into smaller containers,’ adds her husband, busy in a corner siphoning something off into a carefully washed HP sauce bottle.
In her house one keeps on coming across cupboards crammed full of toilet rolls bought by the gross. ‘Why not use them meanwhile to insulate the roof?’ I said. I still think it a moderately brilliant suggestion, but the friend became rather withdrawn at the idea.
My own obsession is to insist on keeping an open fire in the living-room so that I can use up any bits of wood found lying around in the garden. It gives me the double delight of Saving Money and Tidying Things Up. The moment comes, however, when there really isn’t anything left outside to tidy up. So then I start pruning the trees. Then thinning out the trees. When I begin to waggle fence posts. speculatively, my husband draws the line and we start saving up for Welsh nuts.
‘Black diamonds describes coal only too accurately,’ says David, adding up the bill. My cooking also suffers from periodic outbursts of home economy. ‘Oh you can fling anything into a risotto,’ they say. So when I make one, it’s coming along nicely and then I feel I must use up that great big blob of cauliflower cheese left over from yesterday’s economy supper. So in it goes and, yuk, instant flab.
I don’t think I am alone in this. There are ladies who line their cake tins with saved butter papers. There are others who can’t seem to stop running up useful little aprons from old shirts. I even know one who cuts the ribbed tops off old socks and wears them round her wrists. But my favourite story concerns a late great-aunt of mine who would peel oranges carefully in sections, thread the little boat-shaped pieces of skin on to skewers, hang them up to dry and then use them to light fires. At such frugality the mind really does boggle.