Preparing for winter II

metherer

Have been reading this thread with interest. I skipped over a lot of pages at the start, beginning to read when it hit 2011. Thats still a lot of reading for the past two days!

Have started a notebook with what I think we need to do before Winter, using a lot of your tips. Hubby is on board with wanting to prepare, as he is on Warfarin so feels the cold a lot more. And I'm permanently freezing.

We don't have a car or an Ikea near us, unfortunately, so won't be able to get hold of any of the pound fleeces. We have got a £land in the next town though, so going to go over there next week and have a look to see what we can get. We'll also add a few things onto each grocery shop. We're thinking winter will start mod-October, so we have four months to get organised.

Kimitatsu

MrsRogers wrote: »

Here is the website link (Lot is quite technical)
(http://www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Range_Forecast.html

Summary from above link

'Based on the natural factors that I have covered and in terms of how I calculate solar activity into my forecasts, it would be adequate to suggest prolonged periods of well below average temperatures and widespread heavy snowfall throughout this winter. This will result in the fourth bad winter in succession for the UK, and will prove to be the worst of them all. I now fully expect records to be broken, with the Highlands of Scotland being once again particularly hard hit. It is therefore vital to start preparing now in terms of high energy bills, and raised awareness amongst the elderly and most vulnerable people.'

Like all MSE recommendations preperation is key

Just wanted to say what a fab site! This is the first site which has put into laymans terms why the relative sun activity is important :T This has really spurred me on now to get on with ensuring we are sorted for the winter so thank you once again

sammy_kaye18

metherer wrote: »

We don't have a car or an Ikea near us, unfortunately, so won't be able to get hold of any of the pound fleeces. We have got a £land in the next town though, so going to go over there next week and have a look to see what we can get. We'll also add a few things onto each grocery shop. We're thinking winter will start mod-October, so we have four months to get organised.

Good idea about being organised for mid october. think I may make that my deadline too especially as access for us becomes limited about then with all the mudslides/landslide issues my little village has! :eek::eek::eek:

Also with regards to cheap fleeces - if you have a home bargain locally then they sell lovely soft fleeces for £1.25 and they come in a variety of colours and wash well.

suzybloo

Reading over this thread again has spurred me on to getting organised for winter again. Last year around this time I made a list of tins, packets etc for our food stores and bought them over the six months before christmas, well we were so glad of them, it meant that I didnt have to go shopping for six weeks, and also meant that I could save the money that I would have normally spent. The same with the freezers, I am fortunate to have two, both are being run down at the moment, one for everyday use one or stores for the winter to supplement the grocery cupboard.
Knitting is on the go too, and DD2 - who is 21 has asked me to do more fisherman ribbed socks so they will be next on the go - she laughed when I asked her if she wanted knitted socks, but once she had tried them she loved them!
I will have to do full list to include HW bottles, torches, spare fleeces and I am hoping to invest in flanelette sheets in the 'summer' sales.

sammy_kaye18

Right I made a mammoth list last night!

Have already planned my trip to primark this week and will be forward planning another nearer to autumn/winter weather (possibly august) to get Ben to pick himself a winter coat etc.

So far I have this list to do things to the house
fleeces inside living room windows
fleeces on hollys window
fleeces on bens window
fleece inside our bedroom window
fleece on top bens bed
fleece on top our bed
fleece on top hollys cot
fleece under ben sheet
fleece under our sheet
fleece under hollys sheet
big rug for living room floor
fleeces for sofa snuggling
move pooches bed
make a door curtain for front door
2 extendable shower rails or net curtain wire
bath mat + toilet mat for bathroom to add warmth under foot
small curtain to fit small window in hallway
make a door curtain for back door
curtains in bens room
curtains in our room
curtains in cupboard in our bedroom
dressing gown for ben washed
bens slippers washed
shelves for kitchen alcoves to make a store cupboard
possible new fridge freezer??

this list for things to get for us
gloves/scarf/hat (me)
gloves/hat/scarf (ben)
gloves/hat (holly)
winter coat - ben
winter coat - holly
winter coat - me
fleece sleepsuits for holly
pyjamas (me)
pyjamas (ben)
vests (ben)
long sleeve body suits (holly)
me - slippers
me - jumpers/hoodys
ben - jumpers/hoodies
gripper/bed socks - me
gripper/bed socks - ben
gripper socks - holly
Hot water bottles
sports skins - ben (he will be into his rugby/football seasons then)
insulated cup for me for watching
reflective jacket/strips to wear for the school run
reflective tape or clip ons for the buggy to be seen (road is poorly lit here)

And this list as general stock
candles!
torch
batteries! (ben has a touch light in his room and am considering getting another cheap pack to keep one at top of stairs/bottom of stairs in case of power cuts)
extra tins to stock up store cupboard
extra dog/terrapin food
baby food jars/milk

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:( never moving house again! :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

Will spend today looking finally trying to sort out our bedroom - as have managed to get Ben's room done yesterday and its a funny catch 22 - I cant get Holly's room finished until my rooms done, but I cant get in my room until her room is done so need to try and get it sorted out today finally or at least half sorted! Im debating though whether to go to town today and get a few fleeces ready and keep a box aside and mark it as winter prep so start stocking up on fleeces/candles etc ready and then have a day come September once kids are back in school and put everything up ready so we are winter ready there and then. It will also give me a chance to see what Ive got and what I still need from my checklist.

Right.............cup of tea me thinks before the school run.

candie_gill

thought i would let everyone know argos have reductions on thermal blinds at the minute, due to it been summer a lot of the winter stuff is cheaper atm

Winged_one

I have started my gathering of pine cones etc for the fire. Our big project this autumn (we almost always seem to do our projects in the autumn for some reason) is probably going to be getting a closed in stove to replace the open fire in the sitting room. There are some nicer looking ones out there now, and it would reduce our heating bills, and make us use the sitting room more as the fire would be a lot less mess and faster to heat the place.

The other option is wall insulation, but we'll have to do external insulation because of the construction (one concrete block, thin layer fiberglass, and then internal plasterboard). Yup, no proper double block construction in this part of the country!! We can't do external clad on front (lovely bricks, and would have to do us and next door together, and she can't afford it), so it would be the side and rear - side would be helpful, and most of the rear we insulated well when we extended, so it's really just our room and bathroom upstairs. But I think that's more a job for next year. Stove first.

I am thinking about snowboots myself. Dh and I now both have salopettes, and I have a proper ski jacket while DH has good waterproof jackets. DD has waterproof trousers, but we might consider ski gear if we can get it cheap for her - the kids up the road got great use from theirs last winter (they ski too - we keep planning to but haven't yet).

I need to stock up on candles and nightlights when I am in IKEA again. And I want to get some rechargable batteries for things this year - I always have a few regular ones, but if they could be standbys, it would be better. We have a couple of windup torches and lanterns from last winter too that were useful on occasion.

I need to get a fresh pack of cards (the last one got scattered) and a new board game that we can all play. A quiet one (we have buckaroo and hungry hippos).

The house is pretty well sealed, but I want to check a couple of windows before the cold comes, and see if I can do something to improve the sitting room roof (there''s a little jutting roof over a sort-of bay window, that has no insulation at ALL - and that's a north facing room).

Otherwise though, that weather forecast is a bit on the cautioning side. So I think I will get a snow shovel (we had to clear a lot this winter with the coal shovel) and make sure my food stocks are replenished early on as I couldn't do my planned Sainbugs run in November and weather prevented it the rest of the winter until it wasn't worth doing anymore.

CH27

Both my Dad & I have smallish freezers so i've up to see him & suggested we go halves on a large chest freezer then we can get stocked up.
Dad has loads of room to store it & lives in walking distance from us so we can get at our stuff even if the weather is atrocious.

helen_jelly

Winged one - no idea how old your kiddies are but we find the Lego board games are brilliant - my kiddies are 8 [boy] and 11 [girl] - we have quite a few from birthdays and Xmas and they get used quite a bit - they need a little bit of building to start with but once built they stay that way in the box

HTH
Helen

LittleBrownFrog

Another vote for the lego games - we have Creationary and um... another one:o