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

HariboJunkie

GreyQueen wrote: »

Students p*ss me off, too. We have an MP from the Coalition and who owes their tiny minority to the student vote. Doesn't seem fair to me that students have a choice of voting in their home town or their college town. They're exempt from paying council tax but they still consume our resources and, every autumn when they arrive, it's the start of a plague of criminal damage which just so happens to follow their routes home from clubland.
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I'm sorry to hear that students are all like that where you live.:(

I was at university for 5 years (not ALL that long ago) and never committed any criminal damage, nor did anyone I knew. I also chose to vote in the area I spent the majority of my time, ie my university town, as did all my friends. As I was in full time education, and only earning enough in part time jobs to support my education, I couldn't reasonably be expected to pay council tax but had no choice to consume some resources.:)

Hope your throat is better soon GQ. x
Good luck Larumbelle. xxx
Hope those of you with Tax credit probs Dolly and GreentT, get it sorted soon.
Lucky it was you who found that card Lizzy.

Children have broken up for summer today. Not very summery though so we are wrapped up warm and snuggled on the sofa. It is so unlike summer. Not even funny any more.

Have made lots of frugal plans with the girls to get us through the summer and what will be a tight financial time for us. Both girls want to help more in the garden, want to learn to cook/bake more and one is very keen to knit. Coupled with the craft ideas we have planned once we've collected some more driftwood from the beach and pine cones from the woods, we should be busy enough. :cool:

RAS

HariboJunkie

How about making potato print Christmas cards and tags in advance? or just greetings cards for later in the year?

HariboJunkie

RAS wrote: »

HariboJunkie

How about making potato print Christmas cards and tags in advance? or just greetings cards for later in the year?

Great idea ta. :T

They are really keen on the cooking but I need to put my patient hat on.
For a few years I have been writing in a cooking journal for each of them, adding recipes they each particularly like and illustrating and decorating it and jotting down some memories. We decided recently that they should also add to the book while they are young, rather than it just be something they inherit when I'm dead and gone. My thinking is that it will be even more special if it is something we work on all together. So that will be our major project for wet days I think. It's very important to me as my Mum died when I was very young and if it hadn't been for my big sister alot of her recipes would have died with her.

Larumbelle

Well... I was a student. Of politics, as it happens! BUT - I possessed common sense and manners, and didn't go drinking, let alone trash stuff on the way home from the pub. I had three part-time jobs to support myself as well, so not much time for misguided protests either :rotfl: And as it goes, I paid council tax, too, because my OH wasn't a student.

Besides, loads of people who consume resources don't pay council tax, not just students. Doesn't mean they are inherently bad or wrong!

It does annoy me a little when people make sweeping generalisations about students. The majority aren't muppets, I know that a sizeable minority are, but it's really not fair to lump all of them together. Students, and chavs, the two groups left that it's still okay to group together and target in that way. I live a few hundred yards from a university campus. The students living round here are generally very well behaved and they run loads of volunteer community projects. They bring thousands of jobs to our city and mean that we get better shops, gigs and the like than we would otherwise. Yet still "the students" get blamed for everything.

Anyway, moan over.

HariboJunkie

Larumbelle wrote: »

Well... I was a student. Of politics, as it happens!

Me too. Plus economics and social policy. :rotfl: Very enlightening it was too. :cool:

Larumbelle

HariboJunkie wrote: »

Me too. Plus economics and social policy. :rotfl: Very enlightening it was too. :cool:

Mine was politics, philosophy and sociology

QOTD

HariboJunkie wrote: »

For a few years I have been writing in a cooking journal for each of them, adding recipes they each particularly like and illustrating and decorating it and jotting down some memories. We decided recently that they should also add to the book while they are young, rather than it just be something they inherit when I'm dead and gone. My thinking is that it will be even more special if it is something we work on all together. So that will be our major project for wet days I think. It's very important to me as my Mum died when I was very young and if it hadn't been for my big sister alot of her recipes would have died with her.

What a brilliant idea. :T When I left home my mum gave me one of her treasured cooking books - not a big one, just a small thin paperbook, but it contains loads of the meals that I remember mum cooking what I was younger. I still refer back to it today and ocassionally she asks to borrow it back.

I love the idea of sharing with my DS the recipes that I have now come to rely on (including the cakes and pancakes!), what a brilliant gift in the making for when your children leave home. I'm going to put that on my todolist (fortunately my DS is only 3 so loads of time to start prepping for this) - It really is the simple ideas that are the best...

HariboJunkie

QOTD wrote: »

What a brilliant idea. :T When I left home my mum gave me one of her treasured cooking books - not a big one, just a small thin paperbook, but it contains loads of the meals that I remember mum cooking what I was younger. I still refer back to it today and ocassionally she asks to borrow it back.

I love the idea of sharing with my DS the recipes that I have now come to rely on (including the cakes and pancakes!), what a brilliant gift in the making for when your children leave home. I'm going to put that on my todolist (fortunately my DS is only 3 so loads of time to start prepping for this) - It really is the simple ideas that are the best...

Glad you like it QOTD.

They are quite thick books so I'm hoping we will fill them over time. I have also stuck in photos of them baking and at celebration meals as well as all their homemade birthday cakes. At the back I've included dinner party ideas, cheap table decorations and conversions etc. Recently one of the girls asked if I could include how to stretch food out as she's very worried about the recession lasting for years.
I've also asked family members to add their favourite recipes so they will have recipes from the Aunts, grandparents etc too.

Kimitatsu

Afternoon All

Firstly hugs to all who need it - there seems a lot today! Larumbelle lots of luck for next week - we will all be thinking of you.

Went to Morrisons today and for all of the butter makers out there, they have on offer a 600ml carton of double cream for £1 at the moment, offer valid until 05/07/2011. I bought some today and promised the boys we will make some over the weekend (may have a quick practice tomorrow though whilst they are at school!)

Insulation was supposed to be fitted today but "apparently" the surveyor forgot to put some notes on the paperwork and so the installers told me that I needed new loft hatches in the upstairs bedrooms (dont think so says I electrician and plumber got up there just fine) and we have no ventilation in the eaves so they couldnt do it in the bathroom either (which is strange really as there is an abandoned hornets nest and several birds nests up there, obviously they just use the time travel portal instead then!) So after a phone call to the company and a few words because either their surveyor is wrong or they didnt fancy it when they saw the lofts (I favour that one myself) they have "noticed" the problem and will come back at the end of July to do it

Boys have had the day off school due to strikes so have had a quiet day at home today, playing with kittens who are becoming monsters now and counting ducklings which are getting greater in number every day. I have explained to DH that we WILL have to sell some because we cannot accomodate another 20 ducks over the winter :eek: thankfully even he realises that is the case.

Chilli from the freezer for tea so thats nice and easy and off to make some more breakfast bars for lunch boxes, and some cake apparently! Still at least I know what goes into it and its not overpriced rubbish I suppose.

QOTD

I feel like I've had a few glasses of wine (I haven't!), I feel quite in awe of the journal you've created Haribojunkie - and I haven't even seen it

I'm going to have to dig my camera out now so I can take some pictures of my DS next time she helps with the baking

I really like the idea of getting family members to add to it as well. Everyone has a signiture dish don't they so it makes sense to make a record of everyone in the family. I hope that your children keep up the tradition and do the same for their kids.