Edible golf tees

In these times of financial hardship, an increasing number of people are turning to the old war-time practice of ‘make do and mend’. I thought I’d share a few tips, inspired by those passed down to me by my parents and grandparents.

• Grow lots of carrots and use them for everything. Here are some ideas to start you off:
  • Edible golf tees
  • Novel wine bottle stoppers
  • Aerodynamic improvements to the fronts of roller-skates
  • Cut into the right shapes, artificial goldfish
  • Any labour-saving device, which can be fashioned from a carrot
  • Exciting and original knee-cap decorations
  • Very realistic toy carrots
• Short car journeys are less fuel efficient, so always use the longest possible route to any destination.
• When following a recipe, don’t rush out to buy missing ingredients. Just substitute a carrot for each item you don’t have in the cupboard. Carrot and butter pudding has become a particular favourite in our household.
• Treat your house spiders as pets. They’re free, don’t need feeding and look after themselves whilst you’re on holiday.
• Save money-off coupons from magazines, your local supermarket etc. Boiled up with some grated carrot, they can make an appetizing meal.
• Potato peelings can be sewn together to make stylish and eye-catching leg-warmers.
• If you must buy new clothes, sew fragments of old clothes to them immediately after purchase. This will make them last longer and stop poorer people from feeling jealous.
• Individual strands, from a carefully dismantled hair-net, can be tied together to make an excellent hair-net.

Mind your head!

Eventually something will hit it. Be ready for that eventuality. A skateboard helmet is light, but surprisingly sturdy. Being of open-face design, it doesn’t get in the way of eating, drinking, licking postage stamps etc. and can be decorated with small herbs; I favour the chive.

I’m sure there are spiders living behind my noticeboard. I can hear them whispering to each other and giggling at each other’s arachnid quips. I wonder if they post their own notices on the back of the board, which they consider to be the front? If so, perhaps they have discussions about the human they suspect lives on the back of their noticeboard, commenting on the fact that they’re sure they can hear the occasional, unmistakable sound of a chive falling from his skateboard helmet.