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

ceridwen

GREYQUEEN

Hope your mothers shoulder is well again soon and that its the "least worst option" - ie frozen shoulder.

Anyways - I had a quick glance through my reference books - nowt for once. So - having a quick google re whether I would personally be going for something like osteopathy or acupuncture for this and not clear - but I did find:

http://my-frozen-shoulder.blogspot.com/

www.lingualearn.co.uk/frozen_shoulder.htm

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GREENBEE
Well - it must be different people who are giving away electrical goods to those who are worrying about "food and fuel" I guess. Mind you - I've certainly found myself buying items I could strictly speaking do without before now - on the grounds that "Provided I'm not in debt - then Society surely wouldnt let me starve or freeze as long as I'm either doing a full-time job or unemployed/but prepared to do so". My reasoning being "Well - at least I've GOT these goods now - so cant be prevented from having them by lack of money". Well - it made sense to me at the time LOL. These days I'm getting more disillusioned by the day it seems - and am perfectly well aware that I'd come absolutely nowhere in the "Gotta make sure they have enough money to live on" thing in anyone's eyes because I have no "cards to play" to plead my cause (will have one, for the first time ever, once I can say "But I'm a pensioner...." and, after all these years of "no cards to play", compared to many other people, I must admit I shall probably use that "card" at every possible excuse...LOL)

GreyQueen

Thank you for that, greenbee. Mum's X-ray results on the shoulder will be with her GP and her oncologist this Friday, she'll call the GP for them. I'm focussing on it being a frozen shoulder and thinking positive thoughts. I shall definately urge her towards some treatment even if she has to pay for it. I paid for osteopathy from my savings when I was very ill as the GP recommended it but said he couldn't refer me as it was a non-NHS thing. It was hard to afford but I don't regret a penny of it. That, together with self-directed gentle exercise (swimming) was what got me back from the brink with the ME. I don't ever expect to be truly well but at least I can work half-a-job and support myself, and I feel happy with that.

Thank you for that wiki linkie; I shall enjoy looking at that in a minute.

A couple of years ago, I was sitting alongside one of my council's arrears officers on a course and, making small-talk, asked him how he enjoyed his work? He admitted that he often found it incredibly frustrating. He'd go to so many homes where tenants were on income support/ JSA and housing benefit but still had to pay just under a tenner a week into their rent accounts to cover their water rates and hadn't been doing that for months. Sitting in their living rooms, he'd see the reason; huge state-of-the-art flatscreen tellies.

He'd be trying to get them to agree to pay off their rent arrears at £5 a week and they'd be halfheartedly agreeing, eyes on the TV; he felt they had no intention of keeping to their arrangements and were just agreeing because they wanted him out of their homes asap. Most of these people had children and were risking the roof over their heads.

I've come across variations of this behaviour so many times that I suppose it shouldn't still astonish me, but it does. I was raised OS and we didn't have a lot of material things but you paid your bills, bought basic groceries and clothing and furniture, often secondhand in the latter two cases, and anything else was saved-up-for or done-without (mostly the latter). This kind of behaviour was just the norm for almost everybody and now it seems to be the exception. And I'm in my late forties, not my late eighties btw!

Ahh well, it'd be a boring old world if we were all the same, eh? I need to have another cuppa and read that wiki.

Softstuff

I feel today as though I have been doing battle. After hearing the sounds of vermin in the walls, I approached our maintenance manager and obtained some bait/poison. Unscrewed a panel, dropped it in, rescrewed the panel. A little later all hell broke loose in the wall, the pests seemed to be fighting over the bait. So I went to clean the bathroom in the meantime.

In the bathroom I was seriously freaked out to hear the rush of feet overhead, followed by a "whumpf" and a scrabble and munch behind the panel of my bath. This sent me running for help. Promptly my very kind friends arrived and prised off the bath panel (whilst holding brooms to whack it if necessary). Nothing to be seen so it looks like it scarpered out elsewhere.

Not heard anything since so here's hoping they've crawled away to a more peaceful place *ahem*.

Have also painted round the new lights in the ceiling and found the name of a decent plumber. Things are at least progressing, despite what seem to be rather frequent bumps in the road.

silvermaid

Paidinchickens – for Yorkshire pud or pancakes I use my late Mum’s batter recipe of 1-3-5 i.e. a ratio of 1 egg, 3 tablespoons of plain flour and 5 fluid ounces of milk (or milk& water). I generally cook Yorkshire for 7 or 8 so I triple the recipe. I mix the eggs into the flour with a fork and gradually add the milk and leave to stand. I make one large pud in a rectangular pyrex dish - large lasagne type thing. I put about a tablespoon of oil in it and place it in a very hot oven. When the dish is hot I put the batter in and replace in the hot oven for 25 minutes with no peeking. The edges rise up and go crispy while centre is firm but soft. People then request their favourite e.g. DGS1 likes crispy edge, DH & DSIL like a bit of both while I myself like middle
Scottishminnie - We never net our tomatoes. Our garden supports the local wood pigeon population along with lots of other birds but they do not go for our tomatoes. The major problem we have to look out for is the gastropod community.
GreyQueen - All the very best for the news about your Mum. I too have found sports massage very beneficial. Also Feldenkrais is excellent for skeletal efficiency.
Hope you all have a good Monday - off to work now.

redlady_1

Why is it just when I have some extra cash and I dare to actually purchase something, that it then all goes pear shaped!!??!

I am not having a good day today. I need to get my wood ordered and coal, I also need to put petrol in the car and buy some food. FK needs her jabs. Car tax is due next month as is the service and MOT. I do have some savings but not much and that is for the car insurance which is due in December. this bloody electric bill seemed to really have unsettled me and I have gone from being fairly relaxed about money to freaking out. I would put it down to hormones but that isnt the reason. It doesnt help that I know I will have to get this suit sooner or later that just makes me wonder whether a professional job is worth it (of course I know the answer to this but today logic doesnt come into it!!!)

I know there are people worse off than me and I know that it will all work out ok but just today I am bloody sick of it all!

Please forgive the rant.

mardatha

Can you use the top green bits of onions? Mine are all broken and flattened by the rain. Will the onion itself carry on growing if some of the top is left intact?
Horrible night of bad dreams and aches here, woke to yet another grey drizzly wet morning. You sit inside all winter and look forward to this (mythical) summer where you eat salad every day (lettuce failed) and you spend every day out in the garden & get a tan. All I'd get would be mildew!
And on top of that I went mad on the online Asda order and am now regretting it.
*&^%$%^

ceridwen

Re top green bits of onions - dont know whether you are "supposed to" or no Mardatha - but I've chopped them off and used as spring onions before now.

Just not sure whether the "stalks" are still needed until the onions themselves have grown as much as they are going to?

REDLADY-1 - Its a sort of s*ds law thing I've often noticed myself - ie whereby I've mentally set to one side money to buy something and an unexpected expense (or two...) has come up and taken the money...

Fortunately I've now got (at long long last) to a position where I have "emergency level savings" and am working on from there to getting it up to "basic level of savings + cashflow money in the bank account + money set aside for specific things". It has taken AGES to get to this position and I'm still mentally adjusting from all the time I had to spend earning extra money in my spare time (ie on top of a full-time job). I find I'm feeling sorta guilty almost at having my evenings and weekends for myself - rather than having to use some of them to earn a bit extra...mad isnt it to feel that way?

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

Can you use the top green bits of onions? Mine are all broken and flattened by the rain. Will the onion itself carry on growing if some of the top is left intact?
Horrible night of bad dreams and aches here, woke to yet another grey drizzly wet morning. You sit inside all winter and look forward to this (mythical) summer where you eat salad every day (lettuce failed) and you spend every day out in the garden & get a tan. All I'd get would be mildew!
And on top of that I went mad on the online Asda order and am now regretting it.
*&^%$%^

I think you can, mardatha. I've certainly eaten the sprouted tops off stored onions, yoy know, when they've been dried and stored and the little blighters start to grow in the cupboard. I got it as a tip from Shirley Conran's Superwoman book; you can use them as a substitute for spring onions.

I can't see that the tops off onions in the soil could do any harm although I suspect they would be a bit coarse and better in a recipe than a salad. If you try it out, perhaps you'd let us know? One thing's for sure, you wouldn't waste them if you had no alternative.

Sorry to hear that the weather is so rough; I went thru 5 summers on the same side of Scotland as you so have an idea what it's like. Can recall the disappointments. Could be worse; could live up in parts of the continental USA or Canada where the locals joke that they have 9 months of snow and 3 months of poor sledding weather! Plus terrible mozzies although I have been chased over the Outer Hebrides by clouds of midges before now, and they're horrible, too. The midges, I mean; the Outer Hebrides are absolutely stunning and I'd recommend them to anybody.

redlady (hugs) Doesn't it seem that life suddenly throws all the expensive things at a body all at once? Some days you could cry or gnash your teeth. Oh, scrub the latter, it's expensive; I'm back at the d*ntist next week to get a repair on another damaged tooth thanks to stress-induced toothgrinding.

Hope the expenditures soon settle down a bit and give you some breathing space.

EDIT Softstuff those critters in your walls, would they be rats or does Australia have other options in the nuisance-small-mammal-in-the-house range of critters? You're very brave. I'd be in a lot of distress if they were in my building.

mardatha

Ok ta, will go out and collect them all and maybe fry them up in butter and freeze in portions . Can see just what kind of day it's going to be on here eh -:D
Now, all together ladies, one...two...three.... -
MOAN! :rotfl:

Softstuff

GreyQueen wrote: »

EDIT Softstuff those critters in your walls, would they be rats or does Australia have other options in the nuisance-small-mammal-in-the-house range of critters? You're very brave. I'd be in a lot of distress if they were in my buiding.

There are other "nuisance-small-mammal-in-the-house" critters, but they tend to be in the roof space rather than a low wall. And I identified droppings in the wall space, so this is either rats or mice. And the way I went running for help wasn't brave, I sure as heck wasn't facing "it" alone. Though I did unscrew a hatch to poison it myself without freaking out, and it retrospect it could have said hello then, so I guess I should pat myself on the back for that! Here's hoping for no more critter sounds.