It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

kidcat

JillD you mention changing your husbands mobile to PAYG and reducing your top ups to £10 each month, have you looked into the 30day sim only deals that all the providers now offer, they work out much better value for money than PAYG, we use one for DD14 and for £10 she gets loads more than on PAYG. O2 have a £9.79 or something like that with 150 mins and 300 texts. and there are loads of others around. Most come with cashback thru any of the big cashback sites too. HTH. you sound as though you are really well organised and prepared, which is great. Good luck

[Deleted User]

Jilld I made curtains for inside a bay with a big curved window cill. You can buy curtain rail that bends and can be fixed to the ceiling inside the bay, above the window. Blinds offer little or no energy saving. My curtains went from top to bottom inside the bay ie the bottoms swept along on the cill

daska

JillD wrote: »

My main problem is what curtain rail or whatever to go round a bay

You have a few options:

a. flexible curtain rail - these can be an absolute pig to put up and to pull the curtains round - it depends on the quality of the rail and the angles involved.

b. straight rail or pole across the bay. Do you use the bay, i.e. have a sofa in it or anything like that? Or is it just a window or does it have something purely decorative in it? If you don't 'live' in it then you can always put the curtain straight across.

c. multiple rails. If the bay can be divided into sections e.g. there are broad pillars where additional curtains can hang, then you can use separate rails.

d. hinged curtain rails - great for dormer type bays - but not so easy to get hold of.

e. the quick fix! curtain wire

daska

ceridwen wrote: »

Thinks...didnt someone mention earlier using plastic "milkbottles" for foodgrowing purposes? Ah....I can now picture what they mean:

http://farminginsuburbia.blogspot.com/2009/01/winter-sowing-my-new-experiment.html

That was me, but I made it up myself, honest I did, I've never seen or heard of anyone doing this.:o

(except using the teabags in the toilet rolls, a shameless nick from the greenfingered forum but I couldn't find the poster - apologies)

mardatha

Got my big spare room all sorted for plants, got some compost in to heat up on the sill, and the forecaster mentioned the "S" word for next week !! argggh !

pmorrisjones

Re-tax credits. A friend of mine had 2 years of hassle with them claiming she owed them money. She also lost her appeal. After 2 years she 'phoned the office (in Glasgow then) a woman then re-read the form and said there had been a mistake and they owed her £2000. Apparently they thought her daughter was not living at home (she was) and it was to do with when she 'phoned to ask for help with forms the person on the 'phone had written the wrong information down. Its always worth a try!:j

JillD_2

daska wrote: »

You have a few options:

a. flexible curtain rail - these can be an absolute pig to put up and to pull the curtains round - it depends on the quality of the rail and the angles involved.

b. straight rail or pole across the bay. Do you use the bay, i.e. have a sofa in it or anything like that? Or is it just a window or does it have something purely decorative in it? If you don't 'live' in it then you can always put the curtain straight across.

c. multiple rails. If the bay can be divided into sections e.g. there are broad pillars where additional curtains can hang, then you can use separate rails.

d. hinged curtain rails - great for dormer type bays - but not so easy to get hold of.

e. the quick fix! curtain wire

The bay has 5 distinct sections, it sort of goes window 1, window 2, door, window 3, window 4.
The door sections will have to be floor length so they would be separate and only have to pull across a straight line.
The window ones will each have a corner will windows 1 and 2 nd windows 3 and 4 meet. (Is this making sense ?)
If I did a separate curtain for each of the windows then they wouldn't have to pull across a corner at all. Initially I was thinking a pair in the middle for the door and one big one either side so 4 pieces in total, but this would mean each window one pulling across the corner.

I dont want to put a curtain pole across the whole thing , we dont have anything other than toys in it, but then where the curtains would hang would be in the way of a bookshellf on one side and the sofa on the other side, so I dont think that would work. Although it would be blooming easier than the fiddle of lots of different curtains. And we do have a curtain pole in the garage though not sure its long enough. Would really need to think about where the curtains would hang when open.

Hinged ones sound expensive and I dont thin curtain wire would cope with the weight as the windows are quite wide.

So its a toss up between
a) a bendy rail - we have one in the front room I think,and it seems ok, hasnt fallen off yet, been there since w emoved in 7 years ago
or
b) a curtain pole across the whole thing

Thanks!

MindaJ

Well done JillD! I can't offer much in the way of advice, but I sympathise with the forgoing the cafe situation. Have you considered recreating the cafe experience at home? Make cakes for the freezer, then take a piece out to defrost a few hours before needed. Just like the real thing! As for the coffee, a plunger and some preground coffee will create something pretty close to an espresso.

*moggins*

Jill D I have the weird window situation because the front of my house is round. We actually used copper pipe as a curtain rail, you can buy it in a coil and it's flexible enough to bend round funny bits. You can also buy fittings that look like a small circle with a stalk that screw to the wall to provide support for the rail.

[Deleted User]

I saw some govt info in the paper yesterday about how to cope with excessive heat as in a hot summer. Do they know something that we don`t? Probably, because there is always flood info then weeks later there are floods. They said to use fans :rotfl: :rotfl:

Might we be in this prepardness state?
Green - Awareness – summer preparedness and long term planning

I have 4 good solar showers ready for washing up and hand washing. lol I can even hitch them to the bird feeder if we get any more big bills