First off this week, I’ve been meaning to post this picture ever since Andrew kindly sent it to me.  This is the adaptor I was referring to in November when I was rambling on about how once upon a time people could plug things like a sewing machine into a table lamp or indeed a pendant light fitting and still get to see what they were doing.

Andrew’s is actually the posh version with the push switch controlling the socket on the side, and as it’s seen in the picture, both bulbs will light up when the whole shebang’s plugged into a light fitting.  When that red push switch is pushed back towards the camera (from the other side of the adaptor), only the “straight ahead” bulb is lit.  Substitute the connector on your sewing machine for that bulb on the side and off you go!  For total authenticity though, make sure the whole thing’s plugged into a light fitting which has a parchment shade which smells hot and has both scorch marks and a looped decorative trim dangling all the way round it …

Moving on, I must just mention before I forget that Joan, one of the ladies in the States who’s bought a fair few bits and pieces from us over the last year or so, has recently celebrated her 62nd wedding anniversary!  That certainly makes our own 31 years seem a bit insignificant, but we were interested to learn of Joan’s theory that collecting interesting sewing things contributes greatly to longevity.  Whatever, all the very best from us to Joan and Jim in Michigan 🙂

And now we get to today’s news, which is that from now on this blog’s being relegated to the back burner.  And of course you want to know why, so I’d better tell you …

Two years ago today, Elsie was diagnosed with cancer.  When I started this blog five months later, we’d done the surgery, we’d just finished chemotherapy, and it gave us something different to think about and do while we waited to start radiotherapy.  We had a few ups and downs after radio and then more surgery, but now it’s just a matter of a hormone pill a day for another three and a half years, and fingers crossed it’s all good 🙂

So … Elsie and I need to move on.  We’ve thinned out the Singer collection a bit and gained some much-needed space.  We have other fish to fry, and I have my Elna Grasshopper blog which really is in dire need of bringing up to speed.  Seeing as how that’s very much a minority interest compared to the world of vintage Singers and we’re only talking about one particular machine, it won’t eat up as much of my time as this blog has and the correspondence which it generates does.  At least that’s the plan.  We shall see.

Meanwhile, I’ve just updated the bargain basement page to show accurately what we have left, so if there’s anything there that you fancy,  get in quick and grab yourself a bargain because when they’re gone, they’re gone.  Which has to be one of the most banal and singulary stupid slogans ever, but never mind.

Have a good weekend folks, and be happy.

Edited to add In view of the comments that are being posted, we’d both like to say thank you for your very kind words, and to point out that I will still be rambling on from time to time, only on the Elna Grasshopper blog.   So do check it out from time to time.  Who knows, you might even develop an interest in the amazing little green thing yourself …

Does anybody know?  Is anybody else vexed by this slowness?  For the last month or two it’s just seemed to be getting slower and slower, irrespective of time of day, time of high tide or conjunction of the planets, until now it takes for ever and a day to write a post and upload the pictures.

I don’t think it’s anything at this end, because the only sites I’ve noticed the lethargy on are WordPress and Tumblr.com, and unusually, Googling the problem hasn’t shed any light on it so far, which is a real PITA because I’ve got a long-winded post to do with lots of pictures.

Is there anybody out there’s up to speed with this sort of stuff and might be able to solve the mystery?  I guess it would help to know that I’m on BT Broadband in the UK, with a virus- and malware-free puter running Windows 7 and Firefox current version.

Whatever, have a good weekend, folks.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible …

Hurrah!

Hurrah!

Now we have

No car

Yep, it’s gone.   We have finally achieved a state of carlessness.  No more car insurance.  Car tax* .  Depreciation.  MOT tests.  Repair bills.  Servicing.  Tyres.  Wiper blades.  And all the rest.

No more washing the thing, vacuuming the inside, checking the tyre pressures, checking the oil and the coolant, de-icing it on a winter’s morning.  No more getting stuck in traffic.  Road works.  Speed cameras.  Finding a parking space.

No more £6.30 a gallon for diesel.

And that’s just off the top of my head.  From now on we walk, we get on our bikes, get on a bus, get on a train or phone for a taxi.

Or we stay at home.

* For the benefit of our overseas readership I’d better explain that in the UK, car owners pay a car tax based on engine size and C02 emissions.  For most ordinary cars it’s £100-150 a year, and its proper name is vehicle excise duty.  Some people call it “road tax”, particularly when they’re shouting at cyclists, who they think have no right to be on the roads because cyclists don’t pay “road tax”. 

This amuses many of the cyclists who are shouted at, because apart from anything else, there is no such thing as “road tax”.  True, at one time, Brit motorists bought an annual Road Fund Licence which did indeed go towards paying for roads, but that was abolished in 1937, since which time road building and maintenance in the UK has been financed from general taxation.

Anyhow … I had a look at the stats for this blog last night and was amazed to see that we’re now getting a consistent 400+ page views a day, with visitors from literally all over the planet.  What surprised me even more is that we now have 201 followers, so by way of celebration of that, here’s a great rendition of “Sweet Georgia Brown” …

Have a good weekend, folks 🙂

I’ve been trying to think of some ingenious way in which I could weave the Olympics into a thread about, say, how to set up the check spring on your 66K, but try as I might, I couldn’t do it.  And believe me I tried.

But even though nowadays Elsie and I have no interest in sport, it would be churlish of me to ignore completely this whole Olympics thing.  So bear with me while I subject you to a post which has no relevance whatsoever to vintage Singers – unless of course you count the inspiration for what follows, which was an email exchange I had earlier this year with a guy in Canada from whom I was considering buying a rather rare attachment.

I needed to know what the shipping cost would be, and he quoted me a price which seemed excessive.   Fortunately I knew what the packed weight was likely to be, so I checked on the Canada Post website and came up with a figure about 50% cheaper.  Thanks to our subsequent email exchange, I now know that if you are in Canada and you wish to send a parcel to London, the cost of so doing, as calculated by the Canada Post website, depends on whether you enter the destination country as “England” or “UK”.  Which, if you are a Brit, is bizarre.

If, however, you’re the average American (or maybe even the average Canadian), it’s actually this whole England / Britain / UK thing which is bizarre.  So now, when we are led to believe that the eyes of the whole world are or will shortly be on the London Olympics, here’s a simple explanation of the whole thing.  It’s based on an article on the BBC news website written by Jon Kelly and Hussain Hussaini, edited and amended for clarification.  OK, here we go …

The English are British.  Lots of people think that the British are the English, but that annoys the Scots and the Welsh, because although most Scots and most Welsh know that they’re British, even if they don’t speak English, some of them think they aren’t, and some think they are but they wish they weren’t.  Scottish and Welsh people alike can though be relied upon to tell you emphatically that they are not English.

So can the Irish.  Ireland is an island, five-sixths of which is The Republic Of Ireland, which is nothing to do with the UK.  The other one-sixth is Northern Ireland, which is.

Most Irish people consider themselves to be Irish, apart from the Northern Irish, some of whom say that they are both British and Irish.  Others disagree and say they’re not exactly Irish, but they aren’t British either because although Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, it’s not part of Great Britain.

Great Britain is a political term, by which is meant England, Wales and Scotland.  Add Northern Ireland to those three and you get the United Kingdom, which is just the short form of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

People from England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland may all play cricket for England, because they are British. People from Ireland may play cricket for England, even though they aren’t British.  The English play football for England, unless they aren’t very good at it, in which case they might try to play for Ireland.

The Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Orkneys and the Isle of Man are, like Scotland and Wales, all part of the British Isles.  People from the Isle of Wight are English, those from Anglesey are Welsh, and those from the Orkneys are Scottish, and they are all British.  However, people from the Isle of Man are not, because even though it lies half-way between the island of Ireland and England, which is of course itself also part of an island, the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom.

So there you go.  A quick and simple guide to help the easily confused.  Maybe somebody from Canada Post will read this one day …