The Frugal Father

From a very early age I watched my father making sure nothing was wasted and if he could make it he would rather than buy it and if it wasn't possible to make it he would go without.

To give you a few examples, he make my mother sew a patch of lace curtain to the back of his pajama bottoms to cover a hole.  The net curtain was very old, was a piece that hung at one of the windows many years ago and was another item he had folded up and stored in his shed ready for the time he could put it to good use again.  I remember my mother moaning and groaning and saying that there was no one in the world who would be going to bed with a net curtain stuck to his bum.  He just did his usual little grin and ignore routine knowing she would just get on with the job!! My mother told him that every wash day she would hang his lace pajamas on the line with the patch on show for the neighbours to see.  Being a man who didn't care about what other people thought this threat carried no weight and just went over his head.

Another time he bought some really thick rough pants from Russia, these turned up in the post and Mum, in her usual way, opened up the parcel and my sister and I spent an afternoon of crying until our ribs hurt while my mother paraded around the bedroom wearing these massive solid thick rough cream knickers.  Then she hung them on the line for the neighbours to see and wished him luck going to work in the school wearing sandpaper.

He was the sort of man who pushed the car out of the garage and started it up in the street to save fuel, he retrieved a bean tin our of the bin because mum had left a bean or two in the bottom and that was a waste.  His writing was so small you needed a magnifying glass to read it and always infuriated mum by writing a shopping list on a postage stamp!

My mum used to go mad with his attempts to 'save money' and was often plunged into darkness as he flipped the light switch off while she was still in the room, he turned films of before they ended and mended broken umbrellas with other umbrella parts.

Mums other pet hate was the splitting of the toilet paper.  He use to split the ply of the papers and used each piece of ply twice.  I remember mum sitting on the floor covered by toilet paper while he had her counting the sheets and calculating size x amount and making notes on the best buy.  I remember the day he hid the toilet paper from mum and left her three sheets hanging in the bathroom, his reasoning was he was trying to educate mum and get her to use less!!! You can imagine the uproar from my mum who was not backward in coming forward and was outraged by this.  This 'education' backfired as she made sure she used more than usual.

I could go on and on, the stories are endless.  Now, at 83, he is still frugal and trying to save money.  The only difference now is that he doesn't have lots of money like he did in the past.  As you can imagine our shock when he handed over hundreds of thousands of hard earned saved up money to a relative stranger to carry our all the work on the house we now live in.  My mum was speechless and said he never gave me anything like that! This con man sweet talked my very tight father into parting with all his savings with a dream of things that could be only to find this man had squandered it all and disappear.

My father now have no money and at 83 is still tight but with a need to be now. He sits in his room with little heat, he now has running water which is great but he ends his life with nothing.  Its strange to think that someone could talk the talk and manage to crack open the safe of my father.  We are still wondering how this happened.  Even my father sits and shakes his head saying how stupid he was and he regrets what he did so much.

He is still a happy chappy and as he says life goes on can't keep looking back but one thing is for sure he will  always be tight, frugal and watching every penny!!

Walk along the river

This is the river that runs through Parthenay.  A town close to where I live.  We often walk along this river with the dogs.  In the summer they can go for a swim, chase sticks and ducks and cool down.

as I have many dogs who stay with me while their families are on holiday this is a brilliant place to take them for some fun and exercise.  Today was a lovely autumn day and it was really quite warm too.

This is a perfect house on the river and I pass it with a sigh and wishing that it was my lovely house!! It is so pretty and has wonderful views.

Sometimes life takes over and we become consumed with problems and issues that we can forget to look around and see the beauty.  This is so pretty and when you are worrying you can walk along it and not see how pretty it is.  I realised this the other day when walking and just thinking about everything that was going wrong I suddenly saw my pretty house and stopped.  This is why I took all these pictures so I could take a second look.

Sometimes in life you just have to take a second look and actually see what is around you.  Don't let lifes painful problems cloud your vision there are lovely places about, just take a deep breath in, open your eyes, stop worrying and take a look at the beauty.

My Friend Michael Hobster

This is my rendition of my friend Michael or Mick as I like to call him.  He is an old friend who I worked with many years ago in the printing industry.  A man who worked like no other putting his all into every job.  Believing and encouraging the best in every employee.  He has a brilliant sense of humour and has had me laughing until my ribs hurt. He has been there for me through thick and thin always there online to put a smile on my face, congratulate me, listen to me, advise me, give honest opinions and just be a wonderful friend.  He has just retired and he deserves a long healthy happy retirement.  This drawing is my retirement present to him.  I wish him all the best always.