It's never going to be a good start to the day when you sit innocently down at a table and begin to neatly cut off the top of a packet of household gloves (no I don't wear them for washing up, only for gardening) and the cat does something to distract me. This was to attempt to get into my mini- greenhouse in the conservatory, a place which is, at the moment, his favourite sleeping place, preferably with his ginger head nestling on one of the seed trays. It replaces his other favourite winter sleeping place, in the airing cupboard with his ginger head resting on a nicely-ironed pile of towels. Having already had depressed dahlias and squashed salvias, I managed to persuade him that he really needed a spot of fresh air and tossed him out into the bushes. No, not literally, but by the look he gave me I might as well have done. He left in a huff to squash the heathers in the front garden. So I then turned back to extracting the gloves from their packet and to my horror realised I had cut off the tips of the fingers. I wish I could think of a use for fingertip-less rubber gloves but I can't. It did, actually, turn out to be a bad day because by the time I found more gloves, got my tools together and ventured out, the sun went in, the heavens opened with icy rain and the cat tripped me up by rushing in and making for the airing cupboard.

I'm perfectly used to being marked down as a pariah (ie a smoker) but it was a surprise the other day to find that, on a trip to Liskeard, I'm now a double pariah. This has come about because I realised that in a supermarket I was the only person who required a plastic bag. Everyone else was carrying a smart bag in hessian or cotton or even paper. I slunk out in a very guilty manner. I do have these bags. Honest. In fact, I've got more bags for life than a cat has lives. The only trouble is they are usually in the car because I always forget them. What is needed, of course, is for one of the car manufacturers to invent a clever little device to help us remember. My car has reminders for just about everything so it shouldn't be too difficult to insert a computer voice to say, as we get out of the car, 'don't forget the old bag'. My son-ln-law, who has just read this over my shoulder, suggested that could either mean a bag for life or me... and moved swiftly away.

The by-word at the moment is thrift. No, not the nice cushion plant of that name which is the cat's second favourite one in the garden to snooze on, but the saving of money. This always happens during a credit crisis, everyone goes thrift mad, thinking up ways to make the remains of the Sunday joint go further, and then promptly forgetting about it a few months later and returning to fillet steak. Jamie Oliver is, at this very moment, doing things with wartime recipes for a television programme. I'm not sure if he began this with a view to money- saving, but he's going to be waxing lyrical over Wootton Pie and the like. Which is probably not good news for those who remember carrot jam the first time round. One of my grandmother's sayings was 'pennies make pounds'. It was one of many sayings which in one way made total logical sense but in another, not at all. Especially on pocket money days when I used to think, no they don't , not if you only get a measly 12 of them each week. Mind you, she was thinking of a time when people darned their socks, made knickers out of parachute silk and 'turned' their sheets so that the threadbare bits were at the top and the bottom and you caught your fingers and toes in them. Whatever happened to darning? I can remember spending a whole term in needlework learning to patch and darn, although my efforts looked more like a ploughed field and part of a quilt than intended. Nobody would dream of turning a sheet now, they are more likely to throw them away because they've gone off the colour, and downed parachutists are rare on the ground indeed. We don't make do and mend anymore. We just recycle and buy new. It is true though that we are all wasteful, not just of household items, which could go on for years if it wasn't for the latest, newest, best looking and 'everyone's buying' cult of always having to have the last word in everything. And I'm no different from anyone else. Take toasters. Why buy a new one when the old one works perfectly? Because its got a 'cool wall' that's why. But who asks themselves how often they plaster their hands against the side of a toaster and end up with burns? Only once, is probably the answer. So here's my first resolution for thrift. I won't replace any electrical item that is still working perfectly just because the popular colour of the day is aubergine and mine is mint green. Or any other pathetic excuse. Actually, the microwave blew up yesterday, taking a dish with it, so I can legitimately look around for another one. But no, I won't be replacing the dinner service just because it has one pudding bowl missing.

And here are a few more things I, and hopefully others, will take note of in the thrift stakes. Cleaning materials. We've got a whole array of them. My daughter buys cleaning materials the way other people augment their obsessional hobbies with Welsh love spoons or thimbles of the world. As soon as a new one arrives on the market it's on the shelf. So we've now got the latest one, the penultimate one, the one before that, and so on. None of them finished, because you don't want to keep on using something which was obviously second rate, as manufacturers insinuate with their 'new, improved, now works better than ever and the old one was c... anyway', claims. To go with the cleaning materials we've got cloths, miracle cloths, absolutely the latest thing in miracle cloths, sponges, pan wipes, disposable cloths, wet wipes, dry wipes, kitchen roll in various ply, floor mops with throw away covers, dusters, dust attracters (which to my mind is every surface but especially the television) floor cloths, washing up brushes, washing up sponges with a little container for the liquid, fake feather dusters which, again, attract dust, even, believe it or not, a battery-driven washing up sponge thing which I bought for my daughter as a joke and she acted as if I'd given her a fine piece of jewellery and used it immediately. And it goes without saying that we do have a dishwasher. My grandmother used to knit dishcloths. Mind you, I can't think of anything which is more depressing than spending your leisure hours knitting a dishcloth, but I suppose it was useful. She also used to cut up old tablecloths and sheets and hem them to make tea towels, old towels became floor cloths and old underwear made dusters and polishing cloths. Woe betide a man who left his nether garments around the house. The next time he saw them they would likely be buffing up the brass letterbox. Turning something old into something new was an art among those old folk, and it's a lost art now. Ah yes, they would say, but you had to, what with rationing and clothing coupons. Which for a time was true, but it did carry on a bit. I remember with particular horror my mother 'cutting down' a man's hideous ginger tweed suit to make me a skirt and top, which made me look like a walking carrot. That was many years after rationing ended, but they couldn't help themselves. She was still buying old jumpers at jumble sales to unravel and knit something else when I left home to get married, often running out of the wool and having to fill in with a different colour for the sleeves. The Christmas jumper was always a surprise! Thrift, though, was in abundance. Now we live in a time when nobody has to snatch up old Y-fronts for dusters, nor make dresses out of old curtains, nor, for that matter, have to draw lines up the back of their legs with a pencil because they can't find stockings. But we can try a little bit harder not to buy things we don't need. My older daughter has a mantra when we go shopping. 'Do you want it? Do you need it? Can you afford it?' The answer to all these things should, usually, be no. Sadly, when in department stores, supermarkets, dress shops, bargain basement emporiums, outlets, especially those with sales, or indeed in any charity shop, jumble sale, fete, or street market. Or, let's be honest and admit it, the answer is, after a swift bit of self-brainwashing, usually yes. In the coming weeks perhaps I'll look at other areas of money saving possibilities. Not, however, including buying plants because they are absolutely essential at this time of the year. Of course they are.