How to Get Through The Tough Times The Old Style Way.

GreyQueen

:mad: Oh, I am sooooooo cross I could explode! I.B came in with a noisy group of mates yesterday evening 9-10pm. Fair enough, it wasn't late, but I knew exactly what it meant......they were going clubbing and would come back in the middle of the night, en masse.

Sure enough, was woken at 3.35am by the whole posse of them thumping around upstairs and more yap than a kennel-ful of puppies. I put my industrial ear defenders on and checked every 15 minutes to see if they'd shut up. Went on until 5.15am when I.B said a lengthy farewell (15 minutes!) to the last reveller in the pavement 2 metres from my bedroom window. Stuck my eyeball around the edge of the curtain and was so shocked at his appearance. Although his flat is right above mine and I get to hear every detail of his life, I hadn't actually seen him in over 6 months. Tell ya, if the voice wasn't the same I wouldn't have believed it was the same man. He looks 10 years older than he did last summer, has gained a lot of weight and looked very rough. Guess a degenerate lifestyle is taking its toll.

Then the muppet went upstairs and played music for another 30 minutes.

:mad: So, here I am with about 4 hours sleep in the past 24 hours to sustain me........

Had a phone call from Mum last night and she mentioned that it was on the news that a guy has been fished out of the river (alive) from a nearby street, could it have been Idiot Boy? Regretfully not, it seems.

Don't know what it is with the river which snakes thru Provincial City. We've a smallish place and it's a smallish river but seems to exert an irresistable pull on drunkards, druggies and general-purpose fools. I think some people jump into it for a lark and don't realise how paralysing very cold water can be, then they get into trouble because the banks are built up and there aren't that many places to get out. So some Good Samaritans end up risking their lives to fish them out. I had an off-the-record natter with one of our local bobbies who was b*tching about fishing a guy out and when then found out that he was one of our most notorous junkie crims (now dead of an overdose) they were tempted to drop him back in!

The horrible itchy scaly thing on the back of one of my hands is.....ringworm. Eww. Which is a fungal infection. As I quipped to the pharmacist who dispensed the cream.."How Victorian!" I'm sure it's somehow Idiot Boy's fault.:rotfl:

welshcamper

Morning everyone

Happy St Davids Day

DD gone to school dressed as a Welshlady, was a note in her school bag i found at 9 oclock last night saying to bring some welsh cookery into school today! there was no way i was cooking last night. had a brainwave brought out a wimberry tart from the freezer to defrost for her to take, well, the wimberrys were picked on a welsh mountain!..batch cooking really comes in handy!

on another forum im on someone reported of having paid £1.41 a litre of petrol on a motorway service station!

Qreyqueen i dont know how you survive on so little sleep, hopefully he will be gone soon.

daugters new wardrobes arrived at 7 this morning, just got to put them up:eek:, sorted here clothes out got a huge black bag for the charity shop, will sort her toys out today.

modern_millie_2

Katholicos, very sorry to hear your sad news. So hard to lose a parent. I think, and often talk, about my mum every day, and find this helps.

Kezlou and LL, well done! esp. at the mo when everything is going up so much.

Ginny, hope you are feeling better today.

We are having car expenses atm - just paid £200 car tax on our old Nissan, and it's gone in to the garage for brakes repairs, MOT and insurance also due this month, can't see much change out of another £400, even if I can get the insurance costs down. Seem to spend such a lot just to stay mobile.

On a more positive note, made bread pudding yesterday with a reduced loaf, was really delicious, filling and quite cheap - not much left today!

Sun is shining here today, have a few hours work then maybe OS/tough times workout (aka going for a walk).
Have a good day everyone.

Winged_one

Ideas for using up cooked ham:

Macaroni cheese with ham chunks, gently fried mushrooms and onions, and whatever other veggies you want to add (like peas, mangetout, french or broad beans, courgette, peppers, garlic etc). Can serve direct from pot, but can also reheat as a pasta bake next day (just throw some grated cheese over top).

Stilton and ham potato bake - from a Dec Good Food (perhaps 2001) - uses turkey stock too, but basically crumble stilton and ham in between layers of potato slices, with a herb (either thyme or rosemary I think), pour over stock, and bake for 1hr5mins at 180c. Absolute necessity at Christmas and good other times too.

Chorizo and chilli potato bake - slice a chorizo, throw in chunks ham (or bacon lardons), bag of salad potatoes and a jar of tomato and chilli sauce. Mix well, throw some mozarella over top if desired, bake at 180c for about an hour (until spuds are cooked through).

Ham freezes fine once cooked - I often chop leftovers into chunks to freeze in bags, the right amount for throwing into other dishes (like mac'n'cheese especially - it is a big family favourite here).


There's a lot of "apocolyptic" type preparatory posts/threads these days, or is it just me? I have the ability to deal with emergencies if need be, but none of the elaborate preps some people seem to be doing. Am I burying my head in the sand on this one, or is it just certain people (not getting at anyone here) just getting hyped up and excited by the possibilities?

grandma247

GQ body ringworm can come from soil or rotting wood. Did I see that you have an allotment? that may well be the source.

winged one people are scared,especially those who have not lived through economic crashes before or were too young. One way that I know helps give peace of mind is to have a good storecupboard. It helps offset rising prices if you can buy stuff when they are on offer and buy enough for several months. But it only makes sense to buy what you will use. Not much point in a cupboard full of spam if you hate the stuff.
As my sig says "action is the antidote to despair" so many feel they are better preparing for the worst and if it does not happen then they can use the money they would have spent on groceries on something else while they reduce their stockpile.

GreyQueen

Winged_one wrote: »

There's a lot of "apocolyptic" type preparatory posts/threads these days, or is it just me? I have the ability to deal with emergencies if need be, but none of the elaborate preps some people seem to be doing. Am I burying my head in the sand on this one, or is it just certain people (not getting at anyone here) just getting hyped up and excited by the possibilities?

Hello, Winged One, I have no way of knowing what the future holds (wish I did, I'd post it up here for all the forumites to share;)). There does seem to be a feeling of insecurity in the air at the moment and as OS-ers are by definition practical types, that will lead to thoughts and perhaps preparations. For some of us that will mean making sure they have candles and matches, for others it will mean a good storecupboard. Others, depending on lifestyle and temperament, it might mean more elabourate plans which may look insane to others.......

It might also be a generational thing. People in their late fifties or above will have clear memories of the events of the early 1970s, the oil crisis, 3 day week etc etc. I'm late forties and can remember some of it, although from a child's perspective. Can recall Mum trying to cook meals on a tiny parafin stove, bread on ration and panic buying in the supermarkets; sugar was scarce as I recall.

I guess with events in the Middle East, looming unemployment for so many, and galloping food and fuel inflation, people are becoming anxious about the basics of survival.

Modern society has very little intrinsic resilence and the difference between civilisation and anarchy can be reckoned to come down to something as basic as the electricity supply keeping going. In my grandparents' day, and pretty much still unchanged in the 1950s, they lived in a cottage in a tiny village. Water was pumped manually in the dairy (and big slugs came up with it), the WC was a bucket loo in a privy outside whose contents were buried in the garden, veggies and fruit were homegrown and Grandma kept a flock of hens for eggs for sale and bantams for the house eggs. Heating was a fire in the living room and hot water was a fire lit under the kitchen copper.

They had electricity (a few lighbulbs) but otherwise were off-grid. Grandad was one of the last to plough with horses. Their life wasn't that much different to that of their ancestors and they would have survived disruption to the wider society pretty intact.

Compare and contrast we moderns in our urban, suburban and village lives and subtract the motor car and the supermarket.....


Scary, isn't it?

bertiebots

Greyqueen I really feel for you with that a* hole of a neighbour!! Its a fact that lack of sleep can make you ill -so take care of yourself , hope your hand gets better soon too...
Had my e mail today confirming ds2 has got into the high school of my choice! I am very happy and its probably going to be here very soon with the speed this year is flying:j. The only down side to my 3 going to a very good school situatated in a posher area than I live in(:o) is the uniform cost! Its discraceful and I am just going to have to start gathering bits now if I am going to kit all 3 out with new stuff for september. One blazer costs £48 in the school shop, or £39 in the uniform shop but the quality isnt as good , a rugby shirt is £18 and so it goes on:mad:..cost me over £300 last year:eek:and that was mostly just dd! (it was her first yr).
Any tips on stunting childrens growth would come in handy at this point:rotfl:!!!!

elona

Winged one
I have a theory that if I prepare for the worst, then it won't happen. (If it does happen then at least I have a few bits and bobs)

Ginny
I find that if I stop "trying" to please people and just relax a bit and try to please myself more that things are less stressful and work better.

Had a lot of tinned stuff and a sack of potatoes and onions which came in very handy during the winter if it was icy underfoot or I was feeling a bit ill (colds, coughs etc).

The tins that have nearly all been used up were tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers - for things like spag bol, curries, lasagne etc. When I see a good offer on these then I will get more as I know I use them. For some reason I have a heck of a lot of tinned sweetcorn so need to find a few good recipes - any ideas?

I have treated myself to a compact food processor from Morrisons for 20 quid and it works fine for blending soups - slicing onions, carrots etc for recipes. DH carefully stored away my old one (bigger and more expensive) and now we can't find it after the house moves:mad:

I tried making my own shortcrust pastry in the food processor and it was not too bad and much cheaper than buying it ready made so will experiment on that a bit more. Suggested to DDs that I use the food processor to mix up cakes etc and got a lecture on the blades changing the structure of the gluten? Think I''ll experiment anyway and just not tell them.;)

Hugs to Katholicos and anyone else who could use one.

Kittikins

I always use a food mixer to mix up cakes, your daughters will never know the difference

MaLarkin

Good morning everyone and it's a beautiful one here. Sun shining, birds singing and I have to go to work when I want to go in the garden. Never mind glad to have a job, took me long enough to get it and the money makes a huge difference to us even though it's only part-time.

Yes I too noticed all the "disaster" threads Winged One. I think because a lot of us on the site have had really bad times it makes us wary of the future. We see all the turmoil in the Middle East and it affects us.

Nothing wrong with a bit of stockpiling its what we do anyway. Problem comes when it turns to panic buying. I well remember the great toilet paper scare. Not a roll to be had for love nor money.

Speaking of stockpiling do you think it's fair to buy all of a real bargain or should you leave some for others? I went to Mr M's a while ago and the ham bits were really reduced. I can use those for all sorts so I bought the lot knowing nothing would be wasted. Just before I finished being served another customer asked if they had any more. They hadn't and I felt really guilty. Never done it since but do wonder if I'm being fair or silly.

Gotta go have a lovely day everyone