Shrinkage

In my teenage years (yeah, a long time ago now) the rage was to buy a pair of jeans then get in the bath wearing them so that they’d shrink to fit your shape.
I passed on that as I liked to breathe when I walked or sat down, though I do remember one pair of hipster jeans (with a wide belt and flared bottoms) that I lived in until they literally fell apart.
After jeans, came cords. Now that was a challenge for me as ladies corduroy trousers were always cut in the wrong place for my ample  apple bum, but with men’s I stood a fighting chance…….. or one particular man’s.
Boyfriend of the time gave me a pair of black cords, and they were the most comfy pair of trousers I had ever owned.

I was poorly with suspected glandular fever and completed a 3000 piece jigsaw in the five weeks I was off.
Boyfriend went off on holiday for two weeks and when he got back, dumped me for someone else. Not that I really minded as he was charging me petrol money to visit (don’t go there), but he did ask for his trousers back, so I took them off. Don’t worry, I was at home at the time.

For years afterwards, shrinkage was commonplace in everything except myself.

I’d buy clothes and they’d shrink in the wash, I’d cook bacon and it would almost disappear without trace in the pan, but sadly if I stood out in the rain in the hope that I’d shrink too, all I can say is Fat Chance.

Fast forward to recent times, and everything in the food line is shrinking again. Chocolate bars in particular come to mind here as the bargain 4 pack for £1 is actually not a bargain at all as two bites and it’s gone because the bars therein are only 2/3 of the size of a standard bar.
I so remember those ‘Bite Size’ multi packs of popular favourites where you’d get about 20 in the bag which were ideal for lunch boxes or those of us allowed a treat on our diet. They are still around but you only get about 12, maybe 13 in a bag if you’re lucky. The price has also gone up.

In my budget posts on food shopping, I am always reminding my readers to check the weights as wrappers may look the same size and design, but push the contents to one end, and there can be a rather large gap which you are also paying for.
My favourite, and a running joke on posts like this, is toilet paper and the number of sheets you get on a roll.  Soft loo paper is a must in our house, and I noticed how much prices have increased in this line, having paid £4.40 for 12 rolls a couple of months ago.
I discovered yesterday that it has changed yet again, and the ‘own brands’ padded, quilted, three/four ply tissue is rough to the touch, and one manufacturer is only providing 180 sheets on their standard roll which is 2 inches shorter in length than the good old familiar puppy brand. This can be proven by taking a 9 pack of puppies and standing it next to a 12 pack of the other, and they are the same height.
Makes you think.
I ended up buying a pack of 18 of a cream quilted variety with 210 sheets per roll for £4.

However, the subject of shrinkage has also come to hoover bags.
You may remember a little while ago we were having a few problems getting bags for our  hoover, but luckily for us we still had a 5 pack which had the reference number on it and  were able to get some from the discount store where we’d bought the vacuum cleaner.
OK, I admit we took their entire stock in three outlets (they only had 2 packs in each), and if the hoover failed we’d have plenty of spare bags!
We are now down to our last five pack. No, we are not obsessed with our hoover, but do vacuum through every day. However, the bags are smaller, a lot smaller.
Sure the fitting to the innards of the machine are the same, but there is a substantial space around said bag when in position which we didn’t have before, so obviously we are sucking up as normal but changing bags more often.

Hubby mentioned recently about getting another hoover. After all, we are king and queen of the hoovers as we each had our own in the cottage…….. mine was the upright and his was a Bertie.
The beauty of this is that the one he was thinking of is bagless!

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