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

bluebag

charlies-aunt wrote: »

Your home sounds lovely and normal! - only people in sit coms on the telly live in 'show'houses and a few poor deluded souls who are deep in hock trying to keep up with the Jones! As others have said - sadly, its their loss.

Had an intruder at the allotment this morning - found a tiny rabbit skipping around happily - managed to get through a gap in the wire :mad: no wonder the peas have come to nothing but nibbled stumps. However pulled a further 4lb of strawberries, 3lbs raspberries and 3lb of blackcurrants unfortunately rain started at lunch and so gardenng was abandoned!

Had a trip to Waitrose this afternoon - they are selling frozen cranberries - reduced from 1.99 to 10p - seemed such a bargain that I bought three packs even though I don't know what the heck I'm doing to do with them :rotfl:

I make an applely, cranberry thingy. Cook some baking apples and cranberries with a little sugar until soft and chuck in a deep dish, top with great gobs of Twinx mix with a litlle cinnamon added and bake for 20 to 25 mins. Like an oaty gooey crumble with a little sharpness from the cranberries.

bluebag

smileyt wrote: »

Hester, you have no idea how much better this makes me feel to know that someone else has a shambly house but one that is filled with love and welcome!

Catznine, enjoy your daughter's wedding. I hope you all have a fantastic day!

FTM, happy birthday!

Right, off to walk the dogs and then ... if I never post on here again ... you'll know I've been blown up by a pan of tayberry jam :eek::rotfl:

Shambly house? Good god woman, I need three weeks notice to move the carp out of the hall so visitors can get in!

A house is somewhere to sleep inbetween doing stuff.

ginnyknit

Love the term 'shambly house' thats just what mine is. today I have had to clear a space on the work table for the cat to sleep - they seem to pick a new place every week or so! The chair in the spare room /craft room/ second office has a cat cover on which can be whipped off at a moments notice if OH has a cricket friend round for a natter. Theres a pile of washing on the couch waiting to be taken upstairs and every night when I go to bed I find I have left a project on the bed and have to fold it up and put it away - this week Mums latest miracle duvet has been replaced so its now being cut up to make DGS a quilt for here and one for home, plus cushions in mid stuffing with the leftovers. Its books though that are really the problem, not enough shelves or wall space to put them.

Mardatha, hopefully you will have a decent company fitting your windows and they will leave very little mess. Just imagine the tomatoes you can grow next year with each window like a greenhouse. Any mess is worth it to have double glazing in my book , I no longer lie in bed watching my curtains blow in the draught shivering my socks off :rotfl:

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

This has to be the fastest thread on MSE!

We had our first Megacourgette from the garden today (DD will eat courgette but is suspicious of something called marrow), sliced lengthways, cooked in cheap passata, onion and some frozen garlic, parsley and chilli, together with a tiny amount of mince and the remains of a tub of basics cream cheese, all with pasta twists cooked with this new fangled boil the water-add the pasta-boil again-and turn off method. I will DEFINITELY be using this method from now on!


Out of interest - roughly how many courgettes are feasible from two generally neglected plants growing in a raised bed? And how many beetroots can you expect when someone got bored and just chucked the entire contents of a packet of seed over the back of the veggie patch?

Looking forward to the French beans and runners, assuming they set. Still a while to go before they appear, but at least they are beginning to flower.


I might make some brioche tomorrow - I was given a mix by BIL when he was over from France, but never got around to making it. I won't be trying the homemade butter as yet - tubs of double cream were £1.50 in the supermarket this week! I shall keep my eyes open for reductions.


I loved the crispy noodle things when I was a kid, as I would be entrusted with frying them in the old chip pan. We were very cosmopolitan, having curries and suchlike in the early 1980s. Oh, and one of my favourite meals was chicken gougere - basically leftover chicken warmed in a white sauce and served in a savoury choux pastry shell with frozen peas. So continental!

It is amusing making a grown man squeal in horror in Morrisons at some of the recipes I learned - he got told off by one older lady because he made a face when I asked what he thought of lambs' hearts stuffed with sage and onion. I thought he was going to pass out when i suggested rabbit stew - that intruder bunny would be on a limited timespan if my DD were hungry!

I do love shopping in Morrisons, and the older ladies seem to like having people like him around to tell off! But then he insists that Fray Bentos tinned pies are lovely and I think they are horrid when it takes such a little time to make pastry - or get a packet of puff out the fridge :whistle:

My mother has never got the hang of Yorkshires, so much so that toad in the hole was a once a year offering (usually around the second week of October) and the sorry looking pancaked discs we had were either burned or floppy. She hates the fact that I just chuck flour, milk and eggs in a jug and get something quite respectable out of the oven at the end. I would use it to bulk things out, too - just like she used to do with mash and stuffing. Fortunately, DD adores the stuff, so as long as she gets two out of four - Yorkshires, Carrots, greens, potatoes - she's happy.


Amazingly enough - Goblin puddings are back in the shops - they went out of production, but are now in plastic, microwaveable pots - so that's a pretty cheap meal when you need an old fashioned stodgefest. Or in my case, reminding of my Granddad :A


Nobody else in the house will countenance marrowfat peas, pease pudding or tinned potatoes, though (although I do concede that homegrown fresh are vastly superior, I think they still have their place). I also usually got fed tinned carrots rather than 'real' ones, but I never understood why, as fresh carrots have always been so cheap.

I suppose I should be grateful that the majority of traditional vegetables are willingly consumed here. And we get through around a pound of tomato products in an average week.


I'm tired and beginning to ramble, so I think I had better go to bed now. Lots of stuff to do in the morning!

GreyQueen

Well, up at ridiculous o'clock due to forces beyond my control and enjoying some internet playtime before w*rk. Am vaguely contemplating getting dressed and flitting up to the lottie for a quick bit of graft but I'm clean now and I won't be then and will have to get tarted up again before t'office. (Sigh) how lovely it would be if the veg patch were outside the door rather than just over a mile away.

:mad: I was spitting tacks at bedtime when I went to close my curtains and found some kind person had fly-tipped a whole load of cardboard packaging from a huge piece of furniture right under my bedroom window. I just adore having flammables less than 1 metre from my bed. Went out to see if there was any indication as to where it had come from as it was obviously something which came off a truck and, lo and behold, it has a delivery label from Argos dated last week and the recipient's name but not the address.

The name reveals that it is one of a few possible suspects and if I knew which one for sure I'd ruddy well take it up to their flat and give it back! Gonna report if to the council via the website but I know fine well that they don't have enough staff to investigate and prosecute fly-tippers, even when the fools have left the labels on things. It's so disheartening sometimes, trying to be a responsible citizen in an irresponsible world. Still, if I don't report it, it won't get taken away and I don't have a car to drag it down to the dump. If it comes from where I think it comes from (private flat) they blinking well have a car and could've taken it themselves.

Sorry to have a wee rant, I'm very short on sleep for the past year + and may be heading into the menopause. Or I may just be a c0w, who could tell?!:rotfl:

Last night I had the last of the 2010 broad beans from the freezer. The peas had long since gone and I don't freeze the runners as manage to keep up with them in real time. I have also just had the last two 2010 stored spuds and will be onto the new ones soon. This sounds like excellent planning but is nothing of the sort, just randomness. Will be looking at having a mass pick-and-blanching session this weekend as the broad beans all come at once, bless them, and there's limits to how much I can eat.

I amazed myself in Little Mr T yesterday after work. I was whoopsie-hunting, which I do most workdays as my walking commute takes me right past their door, and there was a HUGE CHOCOLATE CAKE for £2 something and...and.....I looked at it and shrugged. Whatever is the matter with me?! Time was I'd have bought that huge cake (serves 12) and scoffed the lot myself or dragged myself away and really really wanted it.

But now, it was a matter of indifference. Can't believe I've broken the chocolate habit after a lifetime. Also can't believe that I haven't lost any more weight, but that's another story. Think I got out of chocolate just in time as prices have started to get silly.

Prices in general are getting ridiculous in my neck of the woods, which is a long way from London or any major metropolitan area. My heart goes out to those of benefits (been there myself for years at a time) as so much of the little you get goes on food and fuel and every extra increase means a crisis brewing when something essential wears out or breaks down beyond repair. I'll have a go at repairing and refurbishing most things but there's stuff the most ardent DIY-er mustn't handle like the gas stove or the boiler.

:mad: Don't expect many of the ruling caste infesting Westminster will be trying to work out how to eat and heat this coming winter.

mardatha my flat was double-glazed a few winters ago (4 windows) and the whole process took about 3 hours although it seemed longer as it was November and in a howling gale. I realised that, once you've taken out the windows, you don't have right a lot left! They hardly made any mess at all but I'd carefully wrapped up my desktop pooter in case it got dust inside it. It was a famous and well-reputed company under contract to the Council and all went very well. I was very happy to be warmer. Your tommies should love it.

Righty, need more tea. Many thanks for the Spanish Potatoes recipe btw, I have cut-and-pasted that straight into protective custody for my future cooking pleasure. With the excellent examples I get up here, I might end up as a halfway decent cook instead of a bit of a one trick pony, which is where I am at the moment. Cheers!

floss2

GreyQueen wrote: »

....:mad: I was spitting tacks at bedtime when I went to close my curtains and found some kind person had fly-tipped a whole load of cardboard packaging from a huge piece of furniture right under my bedroom window. I just adore having flammables less than 1 metre from my bed. Went out to see if there was any indication as to where it had come from as it was obviously something which came off a truck and, lo and behold, it has a delivery label from Argos dated last week and the recipient's name but not the address.

The name reveals that it is one of a few possible suspects and if I knew which one for sure I'd ruddy well take it up to their flat and give it back! Gonna report if to the council via the website but I know fine well that they don't have enough staff to investigate and prosecute fly-tippers, even when the fools have left the labels on things. It's so disheartening sometimes, trying to be a responsible citizen in an irresponsible world. Still, if I don't report it, it won't get taken away and I don't have a car to drag it down to the dump. If it comes from where I think it comes from (private flat) they blinking well have a car and could've taken it themselves....

GQ, do your lot not do FPNs for fly tips? Surely it would be an easy one - name & general vicinity of fly tip,so check CT system then issue FPN by post?

meg72

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

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GreyQueen

floss2 wrote: »

GQ, do your lot not do FPNs for fly tips? Surely it would be an easy one - name & general vicinity of fly tip,so check CT system then issue FPN by post?

Not as far as I know, hun, (am assuming FPN is fixed penalty notice btw).

They used to have a person who'd come and witness & photo the offending item(s) but she left and I honestly think they don't do anything. We've had such swingeing cutbacks at the council here (I'm staff so I see what goes on behind the scenes) that they're limping along. That woman had a chat with me once and she was utterly exasperated as they had to prosecute the flytipper and they'd get a trifling fine, no more for a roomful of furniture than for one black sack of household waste. Drove her nutty.

So, because they can't afford any staff to attend to the problem, they end up spending tens of thousands per annum clearing it up.:( And it goes on and on and on.............

floss2

GreyQueen wrote: »

Not as far as I know, hun, (am assuming FPN is fixed penalty notice btw). Yes it is

They used to have a person who'd come and witness & photo the offending item(s) but she left and I honestly think they don't do anything. We've had such swingeing cutbacks at the council here (I'm staff so I see what goes on behind the scenes) that they're limping along. That woman had a chat with me once and she was utterly exasperated as they had to prosecute the flytipper and they'd get a trifling fine, no more for a roomful of furniture than for one black sack of household waste. Drove her nutty.

So, because they can't afford any staff to attend to the problem, they end up spending tens of thousands per annum clearing it up.:( And it goes on and on and on.............

I'm the same...over here in the Lancashire coastal resort it's our pick-up teams who check for any provenance and issue FPNs via the call logging system, but like most things they've now been cut and are now doing other tasks as well. It's frustrating to watch isn't it?!

ceridwen

Flytipping is indeed a problem - as I know myself.

For anyone experiencing this - my Council certainly has a webpage for reporting antisocial behaviour. You just scroll down to the particular type of antisocial behaviour it is THIS darn time (ie "Litter") and fill in the details of what and where and can click for "Anonymous" if wanted on the "your contact" details line. In my experience - my Council are out pretty quickly when I think "Agh:eek: - they've been at it again:mad: - more darn rubbish put out and blow the fact this is supposed to be a (half way:cool:) decent area".

I HAVE even seen the Council there removing the offending item before now as I go past later that day on my way to work. I've not often had to send in a second report saying "Its still there...".

This shouldnt happen though and I am very conscious of the fact that if I didnt report all this darn flytipping myself the area would probably soon look like a right tip (as it happens so darn frequently!) - as no-one much else seems to bother..:mad: (I've experimented before now with leaving something be for a few days - to try and nudge other people into reporting it instead - but its stayed there. As soon as I reported it - its gone. So my guess is that I'm pretty much the only one who DOES report it..)

I'm also very conscious that these antisocials are taking up a lot of Council resources with their flytipping needing to be removed so often.