Why We Moved to Wales VI - Earning a Crust

When it all went pear-shaped, I learned to be very economical indeed.  I had long ago learned to cook from scratch, and use up all leftovers, make soup from next to nothing, and anything "nice" was also produced at home. My husband's ongoing illness meant he was unable to work, so I did what I could to bring home the bacon. 

When middle daughter G was a baby, I signed up for an Enterprise Allowance scheme, selling quilting supplies, and I had a neighbour who was a good seamstress and I sold a couple of commission quilts which I did the designs for and she sewed up.  I tried making simple patchwork quilts to sell at a shop specialising in old-fashioned bedsteads, but you can't 2nd guess people's colour schemes, and after making and sending off several, the shop contacted me to say that they weren't large enough for most of their old beds and suggested I try elsewhere. That's what comes of not doing your homework!  

After a year, that income ended.  We had started going to car boot sales to get scarcely-worn clothes for us and the kids (children grow so quickly) and I noticed that there was an opening for my home made chutneys and jams, and that no-one sold herbs or the more unusual plants for herbaceous borders.  I didn't have a greenhouse, but I did have a couple of cold frames, and also made an old-shower-door-leaning-against-the-wall type "greenhouse" to bring on seedlings.

I grew a wide range of herbs including different types of Basils, a variety of different Mints, Thyme, Oregano, Feverfew, Jacob's Ladder, Sage, Rue, Parsley, Borage, Coriander, Chicory etc.  I used to spend evenings studying the Suffolk Herbs catalogue and marking off what seeds to buy.  Some of the ones I chose from Suffolk Herbs were Dye Plants, some American (Joe Pye Weed), others attracted Butterflies, and so my sales patter included this!  

I grew trays and trays and trays of plants from seed, spending hours pricking them out and potting them on and caring for them.  I remember growing one particular annual whose name eludes me - the packet said up to 2,000 seeds.  Damn me, but every one of those seeds germinated and the pricking out was onerous . . .  

I had various perennial plants in the garden which spread, and so down the years many gardens in our part of Wales ended up with Scented-Leaf Geranium, Sneezewort, and Aquilegia galore.

One of my favourite bootsales was in Pembrokeshire - it always felt like going on holiday for the day going there.  There were regular customers, and friends made amongst the other regular stallholders and it was always busy with holidaymakers too.  

I sold the children's outgrown clothes, toys and books, and bought them replacements.  I can remember getting our son a wonderful selection of barely-worn clothes from Next, just the thing for school - and then they introduced school uniforms a few weeks later, and I was back to square one!  I was also back to square one with the herbs when someone else muscled in with pots of HUGE well-grown Herbs grown in a polytunnel.  I couldn't compete, even with being cheaper, so that idea had to be sidelined.

So then I started with my jams and chutneys, which were made from home-grown soft fruit - the first thing I did in the garden on arrival was to buy and plant gooseberries, raspberries and blackcurrants.  We had several well-established apple trees, including the old "Leatherjacket" Russet apple tree in the paddock, which provided us with hundredweights of apples each autumn.  I enjoyed trying new recipes and amongst my cookery book collection, the preserves section is still by far the biggest and I can't resist a new book on the subject.

People would - almost reluctantly it seemed - buy a jar of home-made jam and go away and then next week would be back clamouring for more as it tasted of FRUIT - not just sugar, like the commercial brands.  My price must have been competitive enough too, though I wasn't charging for my time, just the ingredients.  They loved the more exotic flavours although my Banana Jam got some raised eyebrows (it was a recipe which won me first prize at the local show though!)

The boot sales were very tiring days though - I would pack the afternoon before, then be up at 4.30 a.m. the next morning and it was always a long journey to the best car boot sales.  One I went to through the winter was held in a concrete high rise car park and you would not believe how cold that was first thing in the morning, and a bitterly cold wind would whistle through.  I wouldn't warm up properly until I got into the bath that night.  In those days, old china was a popular thing and I would buy the occasional piece which took my eye, either to decorate my kitchen or to put on my stall.  We are talking 50p "treasures" here, not Ming vases!!

Despite the money worries, they were happy days and now I always appreciate seeing people at car boot sales who have made jams/chutneys, boxes etc out of wood, repurposing/updating old furniture, knitted goods.  Self reliance.  I used to hide a smile when I saw stalls of plastic boy's toys (He-man etc) once collected by lads who were now grown men and still couldn't move on to better stock!

If you are wondering why I didn't go and find a job. for the first few years we were here I was either pregnant and/or breastfeeding.  Plus, I always wanted to be a home-maker and mother and it suited me, though we lived hand to mouth for a good few years.