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Not long after Christmas, we took a whole pile of boxes and wrapping down to the local recycling place. While my husband was unloading, Iwas idly glancing around at all the packaging and general detritus from the festive season, when my eye fell on an old brown suitcase. Now you can't actually recycle suitcases at this place, just the usual paper, cardboard, bottles, cans etc. I opened it up and it was stuffed with old notebooks and papers. On closer inspection, it was the notes from someone's entire university course in economics, from the late 1960s. I was sorely tempted to grab large handfuls and bring home for collage etc. but we are starting to declutter our house in preparation to sell it and move down to the coast. So I walked away, but at the last minute, knew I just had to bring home one notebook
. 
Last time we went down to the coast, we stopped, as usual in Braidwood and there was a book sale on at the local church hall. I just had to duck in and see what was there. I couldn't resist this Enid Gilchrist classic on making your own maternity wear. All the patterns are shown in diagrams with hundreds of markings and numbers - obviously in those days, people thought nothing of drafting up their own slopers. I guess in those days they still taught dressmaking at school! It isn't dated, but the price is four shillings, so it predates the introduction of decimal currency on 14 February 1966 - probably about 1963 or 64, I'd guess. On the back is an advert for the latest Bernina - the 730 - its most outstanding features are proudly announced as 'portable' and 'electric'. So are the latest models, but we don't seem to need to advertise those features anymore - now it is more likely to be 'connects to the internet and downloads bazillions of patterns'.
Those were the days.
