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

redlady_1

I just wanted to say that after the crap start to the year I have had, I had the most perfect day today. Not working 60hours plus a week certainly has its advantages. Today Matthew I have cooked Twinks (and still have some left), made doner kebab, flatbreads, roasted a chicken for the Old Blind Boy, cleaned the kitchen (including all cupboards) and the living room, spent the afternoon in bed watching rugby with the OH and it feels bloody wonderful!

Please can someone remind me of the above when I realise I will be £300 per month short and all DIY will have to go on hold for a while. :rotfl:

By the time I got to Lidl, they had sold out of the belly pork so will be camped on their doorstep tomorrow morning at 10 am to get it! Its only on for Saturday and Sunday I believe.

Pitlanepiglet

flowertotmum wrote: »

right got to go..iris whingeing..and i need tea..desperately..
love to you all
ftm

Just wanted to say, we have an Iris as well, she's OH's mum and is nearly 91! Isn't it funny how names come back around

flowertotmum

Hi plp..yes its an unusual but beautiful name..it sort of suits her too..she has the most beautiful blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair..with chubby cheeks...i love the old names..hubby not too keen but as soon as he saw her he agreed with me...
ftm

ChocClare

shegar, might it be worth asking at the hospital/doctor's about transport? I say this because I was about to reply to what ceridwen was saying about sort of co-operative bus services, and where I live there is a little bus, one of those ones that only holds about twenty people, which goes from the two local hospitals via all the villages, serving quite a large area. It only goes twice a day I think, a morning run and then an afternoon one. I think it's run by a local Age Concern-type organisation, specifically for elderly people to be able to make hospital and doctor appointments, but anyone can use it. You never know. And I second (or third) the checking about entitlements and, of course, the :grouphug::grouphug:

Today I have mostly been planting fruit trees. DH bought me a set of four from some offer that was on here a couple of weeks ago - an apple, plum, pear and morello cherry. Maryb also kindly recommended a steam juice extractor, which we are seeing about getting, so the idea is that we will continue our efforts to be more self-sufficient. We now have quite a decent orchard, so are hoping to be able to provide our own fruit except of course, citrus fruit and bananas - as long as it all grows eventually! :rotfl: I am going to be far more disciplined about planting veg this year as well - all the tomatoes are going firmly in the greenhouse as I have had blight the last three years and it's just heart-rending to lose it all. I know we had a running joke about the number of tinned tomatoes you could keep under your bed, but I would like to have home-bottled tomatoes this year WITHOUT FAIL As for the rest, I'm only planting what we'll definitely eat as last year I had rows of stuff which we looked at, tasted once, and then left for the chickens... I know mardatha's thinking about the k-word when I say this, but our downfall was rainbow chard. It looked pretty though, even if it did taste a bit...muddy. Perhaps when it grows back, we'll just eat the leaves this year. My mum says she really likes it, so perhaps I'll palm a bit off on her:rotfl:

Pitlanepiglet

flowertotmum wrote: »

Hi plp..yes its an unusual but beautiful name..it sort of suits her too..she has the most beautiful blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair..with chubby cheeks...i love the old names..hubby not too keen but as soon as he saw her he agreed with me...
ftm

Funnily enough, and this sounds a bit twee, but our Iris looks like that as well (although I think the hair may be chemically achieved!).

She's snoozing in the chair after a hard day visiting a jumble sale! Your Iris sounds lovely

hornetgirl

Gailey (and anyone else in a food rut), the 5 dinners for £20 leaflets from Sainsburys have some good suggestions. No need to follow them to the letter, but a good starting point for some new ideas. I pinched it from someone else who mentioned it on here. The thread about weekly menu plans often has some good ideas in it too.

mardatha

I got chard seeds again this year but did some last year and didnt touch it. However, anything green and dodgy looking can go into soup. Or into chickens.. Tomatoes I only grow indoors on the windowsills. The one thing that I can't do is lettuce !!

Charis

ceridwen wrote: »

So - say a remote little place was 20 miles from the nearest source of choice of shops/medical places/etc - then maybes the car-owner could work out what 25% of the cost of the return journey was and "charge" each passenger that 25% for any lift they shared maybe?

It's already being done here, under the guise of a 'Ring and Ride' scheme, using volunteers who operate a kind of taxi service with their own cars, for folk unable to use public transport. The drivers are recompensed by the mile at a set rate. There are strict HMRC rules on how much per mile a driver is allowed to be reimbursed. A narrow gap between 'expenses' and 'receiving a fare'. Also the driver must be insured in case of passenger injury, as some passengers are very frail or disabled. The scheme sorts out the extra insurance premium. The ladies who book the calls do it as volunteers. One problem is finding enough people who will volunteer to drive, as they often have to wait while someone shops, has their hair done, has a hospital appointment (sometimes a lengthy process), but it can be done. Another problem is how to gently suggest to an elderly driver that maybe it's time they 'retired', for safety reasons.

There are other Ring and Ride schemes which use minibuses, formerly subsidised by local councils, before the government cutbacks.

mummyjane

Hello ladies

Do you mind if I join you, I have enjoyed reading through this thread. It has given me so many ideas. One thing I will definitely be doing starting this week is organising the cash for the week into envelopes. It does all seem to be about organisation. I started meal planning last month and although I went over my budget I still spent far less on food simply by doing this. I have sat down with dh so we both know exactly what we need to be doing. I am really enjoying baking, even my bread is edible now :rotfl: and my daughter is loving helping mum (she is 7) My mum has been really supportive and it helps I think that she had to manage on very little when we were growing up.

Charis

shegar wrote: »

Im not too impressed with all the money being spent on the olympics stadium , to me that dosh would be better spent on hospitals, etc etc............the countrys in a financial mess and here we are spending millions on that !!!.....

When I was working in the voluntary sector, it must have been about three years ago, long before the current financial crisis, I went on a day of workshops run by our County Council. We were told categorically by one of the speakers that the government were, even then, setting aside the funding pots (from which charities normally make bids for funding their projects) to pay for the early stages of building the Olympic facilities.

The seeds for this shambles were sewn some time ago. We were also told on that day that it would be several years after the Olympics before things got back to normal but they would not have foreseen the recession.