Wol's Riverbank tales: Part 3 Restoration

Karmacat

Hi Wol! And the Wol-ites - I'm back in the land of the living. And am definitely an old rocker - can still sing along to almost any Beatles song.... my snow seems to have started to melt, the icicles have been dripping all day, even tho we've been having little flakes of snow falling on and off all day. And the sky is very, very ominous, but I do think that for now, we might be over the worst. And as for fresh food - well, I'm glad I've got both vitamin c and iron tablets....

Wol2

Nargleblast wrote: »

Good afternoon Wol, hope all is well in Piggiesville. That was indeed sacrilege, that bit about telling Eric (Clapton)not to make a noise with his guitar - your brother should be thankful he doesn't live next door to one of the Scorpions or Grateful Dead or ACDC )now there's some name dropping for you!

:rotfl::rotfl:I used to sell prorgammes at the NEC in Birmingham when I were a student.......the noisiest concert ever was Duran Duran - had to go get earplugs as the screams were damaging our ear drums - it was also the only time I have had a fully-laden whole programme stand tipped over on top of me by the rush of fans:eek: - had to get secureity involvd to hold all those little 11year olds back for a while

Nargleblast wrote: »

Good afternoon Wol, a bit warmer today (currently 4.3 degrees above zero) but more of the filthywet and cold stuff expected overnight so summer not here yet! Have a good day!

Hi Nargle

Wow 4deg is a real heatwave, hope it doesn;t encourage the chickens to moult :rotfl:

We started off with sleet and a slow thaw....then from late morning onwards more and more snow.....and it got cold again .......so still hibernating - literally!!

I've been doing a business plan assessment this afternoon wrapped in a duvet with fingerless gloves on.......and can't stop thinking about how lucky your chickens are with their meals...nom nom........decided therefore to do full roast with lamb leg steaks :drool::drool: ....which would also serve to heat up the kitchen/utility that have no heating (courtesy of dodget and bodget'sfailed attempt to put in underflooor heating) and now act as a cold sink for the rest of the house :mad:

Hope your thaw continues and any more snow forecast doesn;t arrive - we certainly didn;t get the 20cm forecast over the last 24 hours so hopefully you ownt get too much more this evening

xxx

Wol2

Horace wrote: »

This old rocker is still here - busy eking out the milk although I will probably have to go and get more tomorrow as I only picked up a litre bottle the other day:rolleyes:

Have spent the day washing (its currently drying in the front room), I have started dis-assembling the christmas tree too (so far 4 baubles removed). Lunch was bacon bits omelette (hey I can live on bacon bits for another week). Need bread as my rye bread has turned into a brick so need to get plastic white bread from corner shop.

More snow this morning and its still icy - loads more snow forecast. I have found a roll of bubblewrap so may be wrapping my windows with it...good tip Wol.

On the prescription front - get yourself a pre-pay certificate as it works out cheaper. My doc is rather nice - I used to work for his dad:eek:

Hi Horace

Hope you're now sorted on the provisions front and that your Xmas deccies are down. I have discovered that the spelt bread I bought yesterday from the organics shop was in fact not spelt bread - somebody had put normal bread back in the wrong place :mad:

My bubble wrap has definitely been a godsend these last few days :T...hope the temperatures are starting to go up where you are and that this slow thaw speeds up

Although I had cancelled tomorrow's appt owing to iced-in car/roads etc, the client pushed back in an email last night saying if the roads were passable they wanted to drive down to me and suggested we discuss their business (including any confidential information) in...wait for it.... my local village cafe...:eek:..PMSL..the local gossips would have a field day..:rotfl::rotfl:

I have refused theri request and re-arranged for friday at the original venue (subject to de-frosted car ) and am now considering whether to give them a minus ten score for business acumen on their assessment :rolleyes: :rotfl:

Yay to nice doctors - mine is nice too but it's the practice rules and regs that aren't .

I have now been put on a special scheme where my prescriptions are automatically renewed by the chemist themselves and I just get notified to come and pick the next one up. They tie you to one chemist so the chemist gets the prescrption payments - however I have, as you mentioned got a pre-pay certificate - so they won;t be earning any extra money from me :rotfl:

Hope you managed to warm up the bathroom and have a nice hot bath

xxx

Wol2

Karmacat wrote: »

Hi Wol! And the Wol-ites - I'm back in the land of the living. And am definitely an old rocker - can still sing along to almost any Beatles song.... my snow seems to have started to melt, the icicles have been dripping all day, even tho we've been having little flakes of snow falling on and off all day. And the sky is very, very ominous, but I do think that for now, we might be over the worst. And as for fresh food - well, I'm glad I've got both vitamin c and iron tablets....

Yay - KC......good to see you :j:j

Very happy to hear you are feeling better :T:T.........

........and as for the food situtation :mad::mad::mad: - guess there's nothing for it but to "keep taking the tablets" :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


Hugs to you - hope to see you after the thaw :beer:

xxx

Karmacat

Tee hee..... good one! Yep, I'm glad to be around again - I still find it difficult to talk on the phone, and I can't concentrate at all, but I feel a *lot* better than I did. It would be lovely to see you - even in a group of people, I know you're busy. Damn, I'd go with your weekly trip to the supermarket at the moment!

Lemon_Tree

i sounds like you're wrapped up like me, douvet and gloves, hat and scarf - our calor gas cyclinder has run out, last one lasted a year (used sparingly) this one has lasted 3 weeks with this cold.
i even resorted to baking yesterday to help warm up the flat, not sure it worked for very long but do have some nice garlic beef, mincemeat cake and scones.
where did you get your bubble wrap from? we've been thinking of bubbling our patio doors, there's two sets of curtains up but it's still letting loads of cold air in. Either that or i'm contemplating quilting up the winter set of curtains which i hope would help. Any opinions would be gratefully received.
Our piggies and rabbit are doing ok, they are in the green house out of the actual snow but their bottles still ice up so they have sock covers and we defrost them daily.

Karmacat

I bubble wrapped a window yesterday - thats one of the ways I knew I was well enough to come back on here :rolleyes: It looks very ugly - its old parcel packaging, which I put by to use if I ever sell bits and bobs of stuff on ebay, its all taped together with brown parcel tape. Nobody really sees that window, so its okay :rolleyes:

LT, I'm sure putting a cheap fleece on the reverse of the curtains would be quicker and simpler than doing bubble wrap, especially for a room that you actually use regularly. Any chance of sausage rolls of rags around the edges, to help against the draughts?

Wol2

Good idea KC - I have been on the look-out for cheap fleeces recently as they are ideal for the piggies to snuggle in and after a few washes they "wick" well letting the piggie pee seep through - ooops maybe TMI :rotfl:.

Best I can find is Ikea £1.67 - Sainsbury's are currently selling off posh ones for £4.00 atm and Tesco did do a value one at £2.00 before Xmas.

I like the idea of a roll too - I had a disastrous attempt at fitting self-adhesive draft excluder to my back door last year and it is still my major source of draughts say i might get a few more fleeces and roll them up. They would then be more easily removeable/replaceable than the bubble wrap each time I go outside to Piggie Palace.

Glad to hear you and you furries are all OK LT.:beer: Pants about the gas cylinder running out :grouphug:- when do you hope to be able to get another one? I had ordered some large rolls of bubble wrap when I moved back into my house in Aug 08 and had some left over (got it from Viking Direct). You might find somewhere like Wickes has some going spare for free of check on Freegle/Freecycle. Someone recently suggested a bit of bubble wrap around the water bottles before you put the sock over the top helps stop them freezing in this ultra cold weather :cool:

Right off to bed reasonaby earlyish tonight - need to blitz house tomorrow as Top Totty electrician is coming round tuesday to be inspected :whistle::whistle:




......erm I mean the work he's done here is being inspected by the regulatory authorities to renew his certificate

Tixy

Wol2 wrote: »

Although I had cancelled tomorrow's appt owing to iced-in car/roads etc, the client pushed back in an email last night saying if the roads were passable they wanted to drive down to me and suggested we discuss their business (including any confidential information) in...wait for it.... my local village cafe...:eek:..PMSL..the local gossips would have a field day..:rotfl::rotfl:

:eek: Some people really don't care who knows their business do they amazing. :rotfl:

Wol2 wrote: »

Good idea KC - I have been on the look-out for cheap fleeces recently as they are ideal for the piggies to snuggle in and after a few washes they "wick" well letting the piggie pee seep through - ooops maybe TMI :rotfl:.

Best I can find is Ikea £1.67 - Sainsbury's are currently selling off posh ones for £4.00 atm and Tesco did do a value one at £2.00 before Xmas.


Right off to bed reasonaby earlyish tonight - need to blitz house tomorrow as Top Totty electrician is coming round tuesday to be inspected :whistle::whistle:




......erm I mean the work he's done here is being inspected by the regulatory authorities to renew his certificate

Someone told me primark have cheap fleeces, although not sure they can rival the price of the ikea ones (and I know some people would rather pay more than go in a primark anyway). I have lots of ikea ones (although mine were £2.79 ones) dotted round the house for keeping warm. The red are best as they obviously keep me warmer than my green or blue one!

Ooo, hope the top totty provides good entertainment .

Horace

No chance of me having a bath or anything else - I managed to get a few provisions on Saturday but noticed that the freezer was off when I got home from the corner shop (I know because I slung an aunt bessies toad in there - I know I could make one but couldnt be bothered), it seems that the power went off at 12.40pm it didnt come back on til 2am this morning:eek::mad: The power came on for 5 mins Saturday which was enough to boil a kettle and make a hot drink and fill the thermos so that I could have more hot drinks and cupasoup but I was without heat/power for a long time. It was so cold that the stupid thermometer (meant for old folks so that they can see when they need to put the heating on and put layers on) told me it was 9 degrees (the legal min for working in an office is 16). Central Networks who provide the cabling are carp to say the least - I managed to get out of them the fact that I would be allowed £10 to buy myself a hot meal and a hot drink - the only place open near me was Subway so I had a foul meatball sandwich with a wonderful hot choc and they gave me a free cookie:cool:, I then went to get a newspaper (two reasons, it would keep me warm and I could read it), my knicker elastic broke too and thus I had to walk back home with a john wayne swagger trying to stop them falling down inside my jogging bottoms, at 8.30pm they rang me to say that I could book into a premier inn or travellodge overnight and send them the receipt so I asked the silly mare who rang me how I was supposed to book such a room and she turned around said by using the internet:mad: Fat chance of that I said I have been without power since 12.40pm Saturday:mad: Needless to say I stayed fully clothed, wrapped in duver and covered in fleecy blanket with woolly hat on my head, in bed listening to Radio 2 (listening to the likes of Mario Lanza and listening to god botherers), got up at 2am with raging headache (own fault not been drinking properly because all drinks were cold) and discovered that I had power:j - put the large oil filled radiator on in living room and went back to bed - got up at 6am. Got phone call from another idiot at Central Networks apologising because my power wouldnt be back on today - so I told him that it had come on at 2am and that the background noise he could hear was BBC Breakfast, he then had the nerve to say that I had only been without power since Sunday afternoon:mad: Needless to say he got a piece of my mind. He was told too that if I got cut off today that they would be getting a bill for loss of earnings and I get paid £50 an hour:rotfl:

Hopefully my freezer full of food has survived because it was packed in quite tightly and I didnt open the door - I refuse to claim on my contents insurance for it because why should my premiums go up because of Central Networks' incompetence

Managed to get an appointment at the docs this morning and he diagnosed mild hyperthermia and gave me a flu jab - went to dodgy chemist to pick up the remainder of my prescription and then walked home. Our docs are lovely and don't have rigid rules and regs like other surgeries I have had the misfortune to visit.

Have breakfast meeting to look forward to tomorrow - I hope it doesnt snow again otherwise it will be cancelled - we had an extra 5cm overnight and now I am getting fed up of the stuff - sure it looks nice but I am bored now.

Prinarni sells nice fleecy blankets for about £2