As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

PrincessTazza

mardatha wrote: »

The Cake - that's very interesting. I love history. I don't mind old houses as long as they feel smiley and welcoming and homely. Some feel too dark and depressing though. I had a horrible encounter with a ahunted house that my daughter rented but it will take us so far OT we will get banned forever though!
Can't seem to shake off this canny-be-bothered-ness this summer. Think it's lack of sun and heat really. Get up every day and feel sad as soon as you're out of bed, in mid summer that's bad - Need a good kick I think.
I would like to see that 1940s house somebody was talking about in some museum - wonder if anybody in the country has actually done that look and re-created it in their home?
Although the way things are going re elect and gas bills we will all be going back to the medieval look :rotfl::rotfl:Coal or wood fires, high-backed chairs to keep out the draughts, tapestries on the walls & shawls and woolly tights !

This got me thinking about an article I read in the DM, worth a look if you have a minute!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1300744/Pictured-The-man-loves-living-1940s-outside-loo-all.html

ceridwen

1940s - oooh...not my taste...if summat is going to be "old" then I like to be "proper old" - ie centuries or timeless is also good (eg Shaker style stuff for instance).

Hmmm...the jury is out still in my mind re "energies"...maybe it shouldnae be...as the second I had got my post out mentioning "hope that house I have my eye on takes forever to sell" my access to this website started doing the Hokey-Cokey on me (you put your left leg in, your left leg out, shake it all about that is) as in "cant get into this, cant get into that, its being SLOW/SLOW/SLOW..bring on the tortoise".

Note to Universe - I meant that house selling for the slowness please...not my access to MSE:rotfl::rotfl:

cat_smith

ceridwen know what you mean about the access. Its been off and on all morning.

Morning all. Sent DH off diving with leftovers for lunch. Really must get a**e in gear and get dressed and productive.

Kimitatsu

Redlady - you took the words out of my mouth! Ceridwen if its meant to be yours it wont matter what you offer it will come to you

When we moved up here, this was the only house I looked at. Everyone thought I was completely potty because I kept saying my house will come to me, sure enough it popped up one day and I wasnt the first person to look or make an offer, but the house felt right and the lady selling it told me that it "needed a family" to live in it.

Even my mum who firmly puts a lid on her sensitivity told me that it was a house I would be happy in.

modern millie my house isnt entirely old furniture lol, but I too love craft pieces. We are lucky living in a rural county that more and more people are reverting back to what I call "proper" pieces of furniture. I bought some carvings from a stone mason a couple of years ago who was fantastic, and would love to learn to make stained glass items. Its on my list of things to do, and I think I have found someone to teach me now I just need a few more hours in the day - anyone got a tardis??

7WW - sending hugs and thinking of you today x We said goodbye to my MIL on her birthday and it was a good day to do it on, its never easy x

CC ooooh bee keeping! Now I have been looking at that this year with a view to getting a hive in the end of season sale for our local beekeeping shop, and then starting off a hive early next year. There is a chap who supplies colonies of queens and bees all of which are local to the area, so any pointers would be fab - please!

Well its chucking it down here today, the garden is in great need I have to say although it may not do the wheat much good So today the boys have revision and homework to do and I think I will get on with baking. DS2 made me laugh today when he blithely told me that I have quite a following at school for the home cooked things he takes in his lunchbox! When I enquired further he explained that they all share bits out of their lunchbox and nowdays they all want to see what he has first :rotfl:

Better get cooking then lol.

Hope everyone has a great day and hugs to all who need them x

redlady_1

I have done it! I have finally cracked the breadmaker to make soft and squidgy "shop bought" bread! I am well chuffed.

Now off to make twinks

barneydee_2

hi well it has taken me about 3 hours to catch up from page 175:eek: you lot can talk for England(scotland & wales) I am a lurker and don't post much but I must say you lot are great, the tips, support and advice you give is amazing:T.

I live in a house that a friend of mine original owned, but in the first instant about 20yeasr ago when she was looking to buy in the area I was living in it was me who found the house for her, then when after 5 years she was looking to sell and move to southern Ireland I asked if she would be intrested in selling to me and my other half, so I feel that it was ment to be ours, however I love the house but feel we have not had a lot of luck in the first 10 years, I was made redundant after being in a job for 25years, with in a year of each other I lost my mum and dad, then we had lots of problems with DD2 getting in with"the wrong croud", who put bricks through two of my windows plus my car window and robbed us, but I know say we have I think moved in to a new stag, said DD2 last year gave birth to our lovely grand son and he has realy brought such great joy and I am start to love the house again.

Our house is a miss mash of old and new, up until 5 years ago we had a sofa that had been my inlaws for 30 years ,we replaced it with two new leather sofas it was the worst thing we have done as the quality is no where as good as the old one:mad: the only thing we had new when we got our first place was our bed everything else was second hand, I am glad to say that my DD2 who has just set up home has done the same, so we have passed on some of our OS ways to her.:j

Barney Dee

redlady_1

Right, I have my cream and I have my Kenwood. Do I just shove the cream in the Kenwood and then go for it to make butter please?

GreyQueen

Wooo, was that a fascinating read or was that a fascinating read?! I'm thoroughly intruiged at mardatha and some of the rest of you reading the vibes of old furniture etc etc. Can't say I've had experience of this myself but most of my old stuff is family cast-offs, the odd piece from a friend, so it has a known provenance.

When my parents were newly-weds, back in the early 1960s, they rented a cottage which has now just been given Grade 2 listed status; it dates from the early 1600s but the exposed timbers in the ceilings and sitting room walls are older, re-purposed ones. It was one of the estate worker's cottages that was no longer "tied" as the estate didn't need so many workers due to mechanisation. The tenants immediately before my parents had been the gamekeeper and his family (they had 6 kids born there, as were myself and my brother). It had a very happy vibe and my father, who is one of the most level-headed and least fanciful men you'd ever meet, still admits he sometimes dreams of it.......

When I first moved in to this flat, the guy next door asked me out and got a gentle rebuff and later retaliated by making a point of spitefully telling me that the previous tenant had died here. I asked SuperGran, friend and neighbour, about it. She's been at the Towers for most of it's existance. She was friends with the old boy who lived here and raised the alarm when he wasn't seen. He did pass away in what was now my bedroom. I did feel a sense of a presence, a couple of times, but not in a frightening way. He was a good person by all reports and I can't think he'd be hanging around on this mortal plane.

The spot which Shoebox Towers has been sitting upon since the 1970s is at the centre of one of England's ancient cities. A Roman crossroads met a ford on the river about 50 yards away and this site has been continously occupied for at least 2,000 years. We've had plague, witch hunts, floods, firestorms from air raids in WW2, lots of history here. Lots of births and deaths, too, I imagine. I like a bit of history under my feet and felt very discombobulated in New Zealand where I didn't have that sense.

I moved into this flat exactly 7 years to the day after I moved into the previous one, and in both cases the moves were directed by forces beyond my control. The next 7 year spell is up Sept 2012 so I wouldn't be surprised if something happens then. SuperGran, who has some surprising connections, thinks that if the economy picks up, the site which the Towers is part of could be slated for re-development. It's prime city centre riverside real-estate and there are hungry wolves circling. The company which was going to develop the opposite bank of the river is on the rocks at the moment with their fancy plans for high-end housing, restaurants and retail, but if the situation changes, it may go ahead with another developer. And if it does, I don't imagine they intend to have the riff-raff element at the Towers and the adjacent bail hostel and homelessness hostels right in their faces across a pretty narrow river!:rotfl:

I'm fairly laconic about the prospect; 7 years is as long as I have lived anywhere as an adult, so if they sell the site, the council will have to give us tenants a high priority to bid for another flat, and home loss compensation of a few grand to help the expenditures. What will be, will be.

Intersting debate re the cost of sachets of yeast. I am still working my way thru a backlog of Allinson's sachets. I used to stock up when I saw it and breadflour at half price, never paid full whack. It's all date-expired but still seems OK. When I've cleared out, I shall have to look at other options. I always had patchy results with fresh yeast myself but the dried stuff has been 100% reliable.

I have a fairly cavalier attitude to use-by dates for packaged goods although I'm fussy about meat and fish. I prefer to use my senses. Mum was a shop girl in the 1950s when she left school and there were no such thing as best-before dates on tins etc then. One of her jobs in the little corner shop when customers weren't needing her was to DUST THE TINS which gives you an idea of how slow the stock was moving.......

I'm currently defrosting the pickings of a whoopsied chicken which I roasted last month and will be making a chicken pie. After a quick discussion with Mum the other night, I realised that it is probably more econonical for me to buy a packet of ready-made pastry than to make from scratch as I don't have any suitable fat in. I mustn't eat too much pastry as it adds the poundage overnight; could just tape the blessed stuff straight onto my hips, that's where it'll end up.

I'm embarrassed to admit it on the OS board but I've never made a chicken pie from scratch; only fruit pie experience. I was thinking the chicken bits, chopped onion, carrots, seasoning, bit of chicken stock? What else do you think I should put in?

ChocClare I have a big jar of 2 y.o. clear honey which I brought back from Bulgaria which has crystalised. Is there a way of making it back into runny honey again, please?

7 week wonder ((hugs)) to your and your family.

Well, must have more tea. Am having a lazy day and hoping that the unstable weather will improve a bit this afternoon so I shall do the allotmenteering then. Have had the first bait of broad beans, a handful of blackcurrants and a double-handful of new tatties off selfsets which had popped up in the strawbs (which was the 2010 potato bed, so not too surprising) Delish!

Hope everyone is having a good day.

EDIT; So it's not just me! I was grumbling to myself that my dial-up connection was taking for ever and a day to change pages on the site. Do you thing we've finally overloaded the system?!

rachbc

redlady_1 wrote: »

I have done it! I have finally cracked the breadmaker to make soft and squidgy "shop bought" bread! I am well chuffed.

Now off to make twinks

You can't say that and lave us hanging - recipe please - my lot eat my hm bread but complain its not a good as warbies (yuk)

maryb

Grey Queen
When I make a chicken pie I fry an onion, some chopped celery if I've got it, some chopped bacon and some mushrooms til everything is soft then stir in about a heaped dessertspoonful of flour and then add a mix of chicken stock and milk to make a thick binding sauce. Season then let that cool then stir in the chopped up chicken. It should be cold when it goes into the pastry case

To keep the calories down, I line the bottom of the pie tin with pastry rolled out much thinner than usual then I use one of those lattice cutter rollers to make a lattice pastry top for the pie. That means I can do a big pie with a fairly small amount of pastry that just uses 5 oz of flour and 2.5 ounces of fat in total. The alternative is you put the filling straight into a pyrex dish and just have pastry on the top but I've got one of those pie tins with perforations so it gives the pastry on the bottom a nice crispness and I have a real weakness for that - so that's why I roll it out as thin as possible