Preparing for winter II

rosieben

Love that fireplace abwsc

and I'm not owning up to the 2.320 tea bags in my pantry

frugaliciousness

I'm struggling right now with this.

There is a real possibility that we'll be moving to a remote Scottish Island and won't find out for certain till another 3-4 weeks.

I know that I'll have to be stock pile queen once there but to get up there we're going to have to think very carefully what we take. We're storing our furniture and renting a furnished house if the move happens. We'll basically go up with a car full.

So I can't prepare if we stay put just incase we move.
I need to prepare if we stay here
I need to prepare for if we move to the Isles

but I can't do anything! It's driving me mad

Gettingtherequickly

squeaky wrote: »

Be aware that there are sometimes problems with such offers. The link below is just of threads that have this name in the title...

groupon threads here on Consumer Rights

Shall I look or go on my only previous experience of Groupon, which was good?:o

niccinotts

Anyone stocking up on winter medicines, remember to check the expiry dates. Yesterday i bought some lemsip all in one liquid from Tesco only to find when I got home that it had expired in June'11.
Husband will be taking it back later to complain!!!

squeaky

Gettingtherequickly wrote: »

Shall I look or go on my only previous experience of Groupon, which was good?:o

Whatever rocks your boat.

While I'm sure that as with every company it's not too many things that go wrong - it would seem that IF they go wrong it's not always easy to get things sorted out.

Miss_J

Very pleased that my house will be a little warmer this year. I live in an old draughty house with a very cold hallway. Just been given a brand new double glazed door for it with free fitting, so pleased and can't wait to sit in my toasty hallway.

Confuzzled

Triggles wrote: »

Kathy - another late "welcome" to you! I'm from the states originally,

*waves to Kathy and Triggles* wow didn't realise we had so many american ex-pats here! i'm from the northern midwest myself, been in scotland 12+ years now

i have to say, the last few winters here in scotland have reminded me of growing up there, they have been much more like what i remember as a kid... now if only we could get the autumns more like 'home', i miss the autumn colour drives, but we don't seem to get enough sustained heat here to get the brilliant reds in the leaves...

just to take you both back a bit... where were you during the blizzard of '78? i was at my grandmothers house and i remember her opening the curtains to her bay window (that looked out onto a covered porch) all we could see was greyish white and the glare of the glow from the fireplace shining back at us. the porch was about 3 feet deep and about 8 feet high and it was packed solid with snow!

my grandmother tried to open the front door but couldn't because it had frozen shut (just as well because when she did manage to open it a few days later a bunch of snow fell inside the house in a heap!). my grandfather was able to go into the attached garage but couldn't open the garage door at all and couldn't open the back door either, again frozen shut.

after a few days he was able to crawl out a window, he then was able to walk up the snow drifts at the front of the house straight onto the roof of the ranch style house (bungalow) so he could shovel snow off the roof! i remember him taking me out on the snowmobile to check on the neighbours, we were flying across fields i KNEW had barbed wire fences, there was so much snow it simply wasn't an issue :eek:

i think that's where my love of 'battening down the hatches' comes from. we were lucky we had wood for the fireplace (thankfully in the garage!) so were ok even when the electric was out, we had plenty of food and played games by the fire, i actually enjoyed it but i know it was really bad for many people so i think that's another part of why i make sure if that ever happens here we'll be ok

Confuzzled

Money_maker wrote: »

I want that fireplace too... especially the little hens!

Anyone with little people may want to stock up on Karvol - on offer at Mr T's for £2.04 /12 pack until 30/8. I actually use these myself when I have a rotten cold with blocked nose as I find it hard to sleep. I put them on a tissue and put them by my neck so the vapour rises.

HTH someone.

is that like vapo rub? i put a dab under my nose, works a charm. also if you don't have any vapo rub but have carmex you can put some of that under your nose and it works much the same though it's not as strong, it is also superb for healing up raw noses, put some on overnight and in the morning all but the rawest nose will feel much better!

Justamum

I've just checked the other pair of my son's lined trousers, and it's George. I'm going to have to ask my mum to have a look when the winter stocks come in and see if they have them in again.

Confuzzled

frugaliciousness wrote: »

I'm struggling right now with this.

There is a real possibility that we'll be moving to a remote Scottish Island and won't find out for certain till another 3-4 weeks.

I know that I'll have to be stock pile queen once there but to get up there we're going to have to think very carefully what we take. We're storing our furniture and renting a furnished house if the move happens. We'll basically go up with a car full.

So I can't prepare if we stay put just incase we move.
I need to prepare if we stay here
I need to prepare for if we move to the Isles

but I can't do anything! It's driving me mad

having lived on skye for a few years let me say, prepare for rain more than snow if it's a west coast island, i don't know if orkney or shetlands get more snow than rain but the west coast islands get little snow but torential nearly horizontal brain freezing rain for about 5 months of the year (and plenty in the other 7 but don't worry when it's good it's golden ).

i'd highly recommend a dehumidifier or two, damp is a real issue. also wellies and the best waterproof warm coat you can afford or at least a good waterproof jacket you can pull on over a warm coat. prepare early, winter hits the hebrides in about late september to early october, not full on cold but the rain and gales hit then.

get plenty of wood and coal, get your chimney swept asap if you have a fireplace or stove or aga. be super nice to your neighbours, deal with the fact they will treat you like you've grown three heads not being from there, this will happen for years, they'll be polite (and know far more about you than you're comfortable with and you'll just have to deal with that, sorry!) they'll help too but they won't give the best most helpful information like who sells the cheapest coal, where to get the cheapest wood, the best chimney sweep, best mechanic etc til they feel they can trust you so be helpful but not too enthusiastic asap so they trust you faster cuz you're gonna need it when you get there believe me. also be VERY careful who you even make slightly negative comments about. someone i thought i could trust on the island became so offended that i didn't like the local coal supplier (due to constantly being late and getting my orders wrong) that she told a bunch of people and then when i needed to find a new supplier and even a chimney sweep no one wanted to help me, turns out it was her cousin that i had complained (very mildly i might add) about! only person that came to my rescue eventually was someone that also didn't like her or her cousin!!!

i loved the isolation to a degree and whilst skye isn't that far away from the mainland we lived 60 miles from the bridge so it was remote enough to encounter plenty of quirky island life and the challenges that come with it

once you get some people that trust and accept you you will probably learn to enjoy the challenges, i did. we moved to go to glasgow so my (now) ex could go back to uni and because we'd just had my daughter and couldn't face life in a home with only open fires for heat with a baby plus no washing machine (we did the welly dance on our clothes in the bathtub and used a mangle to wring them out!) so we moved away.

take anything really practical, warm things too you'll need them. take things that are simple pleasures to enjoy during the long wet winter nights. and take anything that would be expensive to have delivered because shopping options are limited to the extreme and shipping is VERY expensive to the highlands and islands. do remember though, if you stock up you can put that £11+ quid shipping to good use it's cheaper to pay high prices for shipping and get a large quantity of things, bulk shopping, than it is to pay petrol costs to go get it yourself most of the time because most of the time you won't find it on the island or what is on the island is more expensive than places that will ship in bulk to you!

most of all, enjoy the adventure... and don't even think of giving up til you've spent at least 3 winters there, that's what everyone told me and they were right by the third winter i was finally settling in... best of luck to you!