The Bells Have Made Me Deaf

January is always a slack month. People have no money to spend after indulging the god of outdo throughout December. On the other hand, January* brings unwanted gifts to eBay for cheapskates like me to indulge the god of almost necessary and come in handy.

In the past couple of weeks I have purchased 130 metres fabric, 1 monks bench (someones homemade effort), 2 staplers, 1 nail gun, 1 compressor, 1 pasta maker, 400 metres piping cord, 1 desk, 1 5pk of air tools and 1 jump start/compressor unit for the van.

I must try to steer clear of all bargains in the foreseeable future or at least until these ones have paid for themselves… heh!

*Yes I know it’s February already.

Until this week I had never tried to buy anything on eBay. I’ve sold plenty but have never been tempted to browse. I seem to be missing, for the most part, the shopping hormones that most females are endowed with at birth. Shopping to me has always been a chore. If there’s something to be acquired I go straight to it, stick it in the basket and get out of the place as fast as I can. I will take the time to browse for something occasionally but taking all day to wander from shop to shop only to end up buying the thing you saw in the first one is something that I just don’t enjoy. I blame the dislike entirely on my mother who insisted on taking me with her on shopping trips to Belfast while I really would have preferred to go looking for tadpoles. My mother was a feely shopper. The bane of my childhood was having to sit and wait while she took forever to feel everything for long enough to make a decision and actually buy something. I didn’t understand at all, the days that she spent going to every shop and still bought nothing… what a waste of my time!

Anyhow, this week I decided that since I need a stove and a kitchen sink that I’d save myself the trouble of having to drive for miles to find them at the right price. I tried eBay. But for the carriage costs to Northern Ireland from England, I’d have bought a stove right away. The only cheap new sink I saw was in Dundonald and although I obsessively kept bidding beyond the amount I had set myself, I was outbid by some bollox (that was his chosen eBay name) in England. Now I have a huge watch list for cast iron multifuel stoves all charging extortionate carriage but even so, it could still work out cheaper than buying locally. I could wait until October and buy one in Yorkshire on my way through, save the carriage but I wanted it NOW so it would be installed on the hearth and burning big logs by autumn.

I quite fancy this one but it’s in Cornwall and they want £80 carriage