really old style living?

Winged_one

OOh, I love the idea of having apple pie filling all ready, not frozen, and not letting apples rot in fridge. Thanks girls!!

I need to work harder on my OS skills at the moment - work is too bananas and I seem demotivated. Although, I gave a lot of jams and mincemeat (HM), as well as a couple of jars of HM Green tomato chutney (made in 2007!) away as Christmas presents and they all went down well. I had made the chutney when the builders were in the last time, but it suddenly seems to be a hit with DH and the other recipients loved getting it too (it was well sealed at the time and is fine to eat, seems to have aged well too).

I am currently using a jar of mince meat that my mum made 2 years ago, which is TASTY! I have a jar from her last year, a large jar of mine from last year, and then a half a 3l kilner of this year's batch (although that should make very nice presents for next Christmas).

I DID have to buy a suit last week (although I got it at 70% off in the sale), as my old interview suit (now 8 years old) had become a more "everyday" suit over the past 2 years and is now showing its age. But I had a look through my wadrobe and realised that, on a cost per wear basis, I have very cheap clothes!! I need to do some mending this weekend, but I am too tired to contemplate it in the evenings this week (I think I was drained by the interview and need to fnid out results before I can properly relax).

We are back on full water supply again though, and it seems like, until the next freeze, the CoCo are not cutting supply at night anymore. But it proved that having the rainwater butt was useful for more than the garden plants - 2 buckets sitting the downstairs shower meant that loo was perfectly operational very unobtrusively, and we could use the upstairs one sparingly too as the attic tank was refilling daily. But we could do a few days ok with what we had even if we had no mains supply at all - once we have some drinking water put aside somewhere (we still haven't started on the bottles we bought last January, so leaving those sealed for true emergencies).

RAS

Hi folks

This was posted up on the smallholding thread a couple of days ago. Might be useful?

rhiwfield wrote: »

I'd guess the course covers the range, headings on website are:

How do I?
Can
Freeze
Dry
Cure & Smoke
Ferment
Pickle
Make Jam & Jelly
Store

mardatha

We have a smallholding thread ? Where ? :rotfl:shows you how much attention I pay eh ! But this site is far too big for my brain..

RAS

mardatha wrote: »

We have a smallholding thread ? Where ? :rotfl:shows you how much attention I pay eh ! But this site is far too big for my brain..

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1544047

annie123

RAS wrote: »

Hi folks

This was posted up on the smallholding thread a couple of days ago. Might be useful?

Ras that is a brilliant site Thank you so much, I have thanked rhiwfield too.

I read that thread sometimes, but get depressed cause I still live in a maisonette with a little garden.
Wish hubby would decide where in the world he wants to move too, France is his current favorite, I preferred the South Pacific phase last summer, its warmer:D
But right now, I'll settle for anywhere south of London with a large garden

mardatha

South of London ??? Oh you utter wimp. Where is your sense of adventure ?
A nice Scottish island with the wind screaming & howli---em with nice fresh air would be far nicer !

Eltee12

Charis wrote: »

I've had a wake up call today to remind me just how OS I am not. My telephone/broadband bill is quite unexpectedly 42.5% higher than the regular bill. I think it's due to both a price rise and some items seem now to be payable in advance (so it covers a longer term) but the whole bill is so unclear, few of the terms listed seem to tally with previous bills, so I can't do a direct comparison. More worrying is that there isn't actually an amount alongside 'broadband' :eek: I hope it's listed as something else. I don't think I would stay sane for very long without broadband and it's not something you can make at home.

Hi Charis - the exact same thing happened to me today. Our Broadband/Phone bill is usually between £35-£50 per month. the latest bill is £94 and some pennies :eek: NINETY-FOUR POUNDS and some pennies?. As far as I know, our phone usage hasn't changed that much.

The bill this month is unclear (just like you describe) is laid out toally different to usual and seems to go from 1st December 2010 to 14th Feb 2011.

am wondering if we have the same supplier? ours is [EMAIL="T@lk"]T@lk[/EMAIL] [EMAIL="T@lk"]T@lk[/EMAIL], formerly [EMAIL="tisc@li"]tisc@li[/EMAIL].....

NINETY-FOUR POUNDS and some pennies??!!!!:eek:

Whale, oil, beef, hucked

annie123

mardatha wrote: »

South of London ??? Oh you utter wimp. Where is your sense of adventure ?
A nice Scottish island with the wind screaming & howli---em with nice fresh air would be far nicer !

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

My sense of adventure is sitting on a hot sunny warm tropical island waiting for the physical me find it

Scotland would be lovely, if only it were further south!

Charis

Eltee12 wrote: »

Hi Charis - the exact same thing happened to me today. Our Broadband/Phone bill is usually between £35-£50 per month. the latest bill is £94 and some pennies :eek: NINETY-FOUR POUNDS and some pennies?. As far as I know, our phone usage hasn't changed that much.

The bill this month is unclear (just like you describe) is laid out toally different to usual and seems to go from 1st December 2010 to 14th Feb 2011.

am wondering if we have the same supplier? ours is [EMAIL="T@lk"]T@lk[/EMAIL] [EMAIL="T@lk"]T@lk[/EMAIL], formerly [EMAIL="tisc@li"]tisc@li[/EMAIL].....

NINETY-FOUR POUNDS and some pennies??!!!!:eek:

Whale, oil, beef, hucked

Yes, we do have the same supplier, who conveniently took the bill viewing part of their website down yesterday for upgrading or somesuch. I did manage to bash out a quick email and was advised that the bill is late and part of the bill is now paid in advance, but yours seems to have leapt up. Definitely gone up by a larger percentage than mine. I don't feel quite so bad now Apparently their customer advisors can't access our bills until the 24th, so the woman informed me, when they will have finished whatever it is they are doing to the website. (Hiding behind it?)

BTW there is a rep from their company who is allowed to post on the MSE 'Phones, Web & TV' section of the MSE Forums.

ChocClare

I have now located my little Sainsbury's book of preserves and pickles :T

This tells you how to bottle using a water bath or a pressure cooker or an oven and has charts with "processing" times for different kinds of fruit.

If anyone would like this information, just pm me and I will email it to you.