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

HariboJunkie

mardatha wrote: »

I'm fed up tonight because I had set my heart on Black Rock hens, and the only person I can find who has them is asking 20 quid each. I dare say they are worth it but I'm not paying £40 for two hens, plus a fortune in petrol to collect them. Thinking hard now.

The cheapest I can find them is £15 Mardartha and a long journey from you. Are these people cheaper?

Any alternative breeds you would consider?

jumblejack

Primrose wrote: »

Does everybody know about the "Earth Hour" international project where for one hour on a certain night, people around the world are asked to switch off all their lights for one hour from 8.30 p.m? This year it's on Saturday March 26th. If you Google this link you can get more information: http://www.earthhour.org/Homepage.aspx?intro=no

Hiya, I am soooooo glad that you do it too!! We like to get together in one room and read a book by candlelight to the kids!!

By the way, as a newbie to the is thread (used to be a freebie/grabbit girl alone), has anyone here looked into grinding their own flour with a hand mill?

I am quite interested in the subject. Apparently something like 90% of the nutritional benefit is lost when flour is stored so to grind as and when you need it is far more beneficial. Any input is much appreciated.

floss2

I've just checked and as my birthday is at the end of this month, I've currently got 19 years to go! There won't be any money left in the state pension pot by the time I get there - DH's dad is almost 85 & his mum is nearly 79.....plus both me & DH have 2 older brothers.....better get stashing into my meagre private pension fund methinks.

Re the 3-day week & power cuts....we lived in a house with oil-fired CH & a coal fire. Tea was always camping-stove-something on fire-toast, our lovely new primary school was mothballed & we used to use the old coal-heated victorian school building in shifts - juniors in the morning, infants in the afternoon because it wasn't big enough for all of us. We all thought it was great, but now I'm a parent I bet it was a nightmare.

The later power cuts post 1975 (I know when it was because we moved to a different town in 1975 & this was all in the new house!) were similarly difficult, but we were all older (high school) and there was a small one added to the mix, plus only a gas fire & GCH. It was always easy to cheat at Monopoly by candlelight, but Scrabble was harder as the creamy letter-tiles glistened in the light!

We are probably to be considered quite well-off by some people's standards, but we have our worries about bills etc....we recently shelved plans for moving as my (local government) job is not secure at the moment and interest rates are almost certain to go up soon and to double / treble our mortgage might be fine at 1.25% above the current base rate, but not at a new mortgage rate of 4-5%. Also, I do not have a very full private pension pot, due to p/t work in the days when p/t staff weren't allowed to pay into pensions and being under the belief that my then husband would provide for me in our old age. Alas, he will be providing for someone else, but I have my lovely DH and we would like to be able to enjoy what retirement we will have by the time we can eventually finish working!!

Anyway, I am off to find my book & huddle under the duvet - it's a bit chilly but nothing a 13tog quilt can't fix!

Kittikins

ChocClare wrote: »

Sounds FAB, mary! Brown eh? Mmmmm. (Actually I quite like brown now but wouldn't have done then!) Before we moved I was supposed to go to St Joseph's in Reading and I seem to remember they wore brown capes :eek: though I've just been on their website to check and sadly they've wimped out, gone co-ed and got a far better uniform than the one I remember :rotfl:

Bet you're glad you didn't go to Holy Joe's, I think their girls still have a bit of a reputation, not like girls from my old school in Reading - we had money belts as our embarrassing uniform item

HariboJunkie

floss2 wrote: »

I've just checked and as my birthday is at the end of this month, I've currently got 19 years to go! !

29 years for me and 24 for OH :eek: Doubt there will be much left in the pot at all by then.

ChocClare

jumblejack wrote: »

Hiya, I am soooooo glad that you do it too!! We like to get together in one room and read a book by candlelight to the kids!!

By the way, as a newbie to the is thread (used to be a freebie/grabbit girl alone), has anyone here looked into grinding their own flour with a hand mill?

I am quite interested in the subject. Apparently something like 90% of the nutritional benefit is lost when flour is stored so to grind as and when you need it is far more beneficial. Any input is much appreciated.

We have a hand mill and have used it to grind flour. We bought it from an Italian website called Gioia della Casa, and my DH always starts babbling away in A Fish Called Wanda-type Italian whenever he uses it because he loved the name so much (he is actually partly Italian and speaks it fluently so there is Really No Excuse).

We buy wheat from the Estate every year - it usually costs about a fiver for half a hundredweight. We store the wheat in either 4-litre icecream tubs or big soup mix tubs which I get from the kitchens at work. Once a year - usually at Harvest Festival - I take it and some wheat into Rainbows and the girls all have great fun grinding wheat and then sieving it to remove the chaff.

It is HARD WORK to grind wheat by this method. We generally use an attachment fitted to the Kenwood Chef :rotfl:

charlies-aunt

[QUOTE=HariboJunkie;41638724
I realise your description was of a tougher existence than I can relate and I'm not trying to make light of that to but it just jumped out at me.
.[/QUOTE]



:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Strange thing is - we didn't think of ourselves as being underpriviledged or in hardship

Clothes were secondhand but clean and neatly patched/darned, food was simple but a hunk of 'proper' bread with hm jam was heaven (as was a stick of rhubarb and a brown paper bag of sugar) - it was cold but we never seemed to feel it - too busy being happy & busy and our blankets were ex-army but cosy none the less

kitschy

Kittikins wrote: »

Bet you're glad you didn't go to Holy Joe's, I think their girls still have a bit of a reputation, not like girls from my old school in Reading - we had money belts as our embarrassing uniform item

One of my best friends went to Holy Joe's and she STILL gets stick for it, twenty years later :rotfl:

Couldn't possibly say whether it was deserved :whistle:

Winchelsea

charlies-aunt - I'm another one who remembers the 3-day week very clearly. I was a SAHM with five children, and DH was slogging away at a low-paid job.

My childhood memories are a lot like yours too, except for the carpet square. I remember those in friends' houses, but we just had lino - SO cold on your feet on a winter's morning if you didn't have slippers!

And bellaquidsin , I well remember the breadmaking - we didn't have bread flour but made soda bread - the daily papers had various recipes, and we got to quite enjoy it. Haven't made it since though.

We had a paraffin heater to keep us warm, and my granny's old oil lamp and a few candles for light, and used to all sit in the dining room as it was the easiest room to keep warm. I just remember lovely family times together, and even then feeling quite proud that we were able to be quite self-sufficient - didn't seem to struggle at all, as could always cook something.

I do remember my husband coming home with a rabbit, with the idea of eating it if times got tougher. We called it Benjamin, and it was quite adventurous. We had a little closed in back yard, and the rabbit used to run free, and jump in to its hutch as it wanted. Well, one day it found out it could jump over the (high) wall separating us from our neighbours, but got back ok, no problems. Later, "Benjamin" gave birth to THIRTEEN babies! We hadn't known the neighbours had a buck!

So our doe Benjamin became Jemima! Needless to say, we never did have any rabbit dinners! (how could we have eaten her?!) - and we managed to find homes for all the young ones.

Don't know if that was anything to do with the fact that a few years later we went vegetarian (I still am after 30-odd years).

Winchelsea

Primrose and hornetgirl , we always do Earth Hour, though I'm not sure yet this year as I'll be just back from holiday.

A couple of years ago I had a houseful of offspring and grand-offspring, and we were having such a great time (playing instruments, singing, telling ghost stories etc) that we missed the time and did an Earth Two Hours by mistake! Finished off with hot drinks made with the storm kettle out on the patio.