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

Uniscots97

ginnyknit wrote: »

I would love to wander round in my goth dresses but the full length skirts really do not work with mud and are not at all practical in the kitchen How Cathy ran round the moors in her long dresses looking for Heathcliff puzzles me cos they weigh a ton when they get wet at the hem.

you could do what I do with my goth dresses/skirts, I got brace clips (or suspender clips will do the same job as long as its not too thick material) and put a few lengths (~5-6 inches) of ribbon between 2 clips and do this twice so I have 2 for either side of my skirt. I also use the ribbon loops they give you in your tops , which I know you're supposed to use to hang them up but all mine are folded in the drawer. Anyway, I fold the side of the skirt up until the length suits and then secure the clips, and do the same the other side. I also do this in winter so you can see my long boots that have the skulls on them .

rachbc

unixgirluk wrote: »

you could do what I do with my goth dresses/skirts, I got brace clips (or suspender clips will do the same job as long as its not too thick material) and put a few lengths (~5-6 inches) of ribbon between 2 clips and do this twice so I have 2 for either side of my skirt. I also use the ribbon loops they give you in your tops , which I know you're supposed to use to hang them up but all mine are folded in the drawer. Anyway, I fold the side of the skirt up until the length suits and then secure the clips, and do the same the other side. I also do this in winter so you can see my long boots that have the skulls on them .

I have a couple of floor sweeping maxi dresses - I just tuck them in my knickers when they get in my way :rotfl:

GreyQueen

unixgirluk wrote: »

you could do what I do with my goth dresses/skirts, I got brace clips (or suspender clips will do the same job as long as its not too thick material) and put a few lengths (~5-6 inches) of ribbon between 2 clips and do this twice so I have 2 for either side of my skirt. I also use the ribbon loops they give you in your tops , which I know you're supposed to use to hang them up but all mine are folded in the drawer. Anyway, I fold the side of the skirt up until the length suits and then secure the clips, and do the same the other side. I also do this in winter so you can see my long boots that have the skulls on them .

That's a really clever idea!

I once read about the Great Exhibition of 1851, the one for which the original Crystal Palace was built. They had wooden board floors and, to avoid the trouble of sweeping them, they had gaps between the boards and the ladies' long dresses swept the dirt and debris down them. Can you imagine how mucky things were back then?

Anyway, having your skirts hitched up to show off your boots would have marked you as a very "fast piece" in the bad old days. I love the image of your skull-decorated boots peeping out from your skirts btw.

Yesterday's biggest laugh here at Shoebox Towers was when friend and neighbour SuperGran nipped out of her flat to go down the row to her shed and found a pair of druggies freebasing drugs on the stair. She nipped back home and reported them to the Police, so that our local team will be made aware, and step up patrols.

Anyway, the numptie on the other end of the phone asked SG was she sure they were smoking drugs, it couldn't have been a BBQ? Oh, how I wish I'd been present to see her face! She had to patiently explain to him that they were strangers who were cooking drugs on spoons with lighters, in a concrete stairwell, and that it definately wasn't charcoal-based home catering.........:rotfl:

Now we're left wondering if the druggies bought the gear off someone in our block (possible, although they mostly sell weed around here since our friendly neighbourhood heroin dealer was jailed a couple of years ago) or whether they had just got it elsewhere and tucked themselves up into our stairwell to hide up.

Could be either....never a dull moment in this place. If I lived somewhere normal I might have to get a TV.

silvermaid

Howdy folks,
Just taken ages to try to keep up with the thread.
Need to put the BM on in a minute. DW already on but there's still more:( and we'll be feeding 8 this evening as Tuesday is one of the "feeding the family" days - so Mount Dishmore will continue to erupt all over the kitchen!
Our potatoes are fantastic this year so far, plentiful and very tasty:) I am so hoping that we'll have our first runner bean meal this Sunday. The first runner bean meal of the year is a firm family favourite.
Hugs and mending vibes to all the poorlies and those who have poorlies close to their hearts.

Softstuff

GreyQueen wrote: »

Hope everyone has a good day and does anyone have any good recipes for mice?!:rotfl:I believe the Romans used to eat baked dormice stuffed with honey and nuts but these were a different and much larger species than our British dormice (which are lovely and rare and so protected that it's a sin to even imagine eating one).

Y'know, many more suggestions about me eating the critters and I'll cook one as suggested and post pics.

Mardatha, I'm not convinced the nice old lady upstairs isn't feeding them, unwittingly. She doesn't have what you might call an organised kitchen, and where in mine a mouse would have to be bleeding quick to get a look in, up there they'd have a fully laid on buffet.

GreyQueen

Softstuff wrote: »

Y'know, many more suggestions about me eating the critters and I'll cook one as suggested and post pics.

Mardatha, I'm not convinced the nice old lady upstairs isn't feeding them, unwittingly. She doesn't have what you might call an organised kitchen, and where in mine a mouse would have to be bleeding quick to get a look in, up there they'd have a fully laid on buffet.

Aww, only teasing, softstuff. Are the pest controllers coming today? I once had them in the kitchen of a shared flat (think they came up the walls from the manky corner shop below us) and I was a complete Tom and Jerry, too. It's weird how they get to you, I grew up with hamsters and gerbils and didn't freak when some wannabe suitor dumped a pet rat unexpected on my bare shoulder, but mice in the hice.......ewww.

The guy who was trying to attract my attention (was a young lass of 18 at a festival) was sooooo disappointed that you can drop a white rat on the bare shoulder of a woman from behind and just have her turn around coolly with the animal held between lightly around it's midriff and a laconic "Is this yours?" :rotfl:

Broomstick

We eat veggie with a limited amount of fish, but I am interested in foraged wildlife recipes for some background work I'm doing for a possible plot (a book, not an allotment! ).

There's a book called 'You Can't Ration These' by Vicomte de Mauduit, 1940 (with a preface by Lloyd George) which has all kinds of wildlife recipes. Maybe as a vegetarian/wildlife-lover one could read them in a loud and menacing voice to certain garden 'pests' eg. squirrel (grilled or roast, or maybe 'squirrel tail soup'); wood pigeon (pie or roast); edible snails (consomme of...). He doesn't seem to mention rodent cookery which is surprising, unless hedgehogs count as rodents (graphic detail on that one) and I'm not sure that wild birds' eggs cookery or roasting cygnets would be legal nowadays. But if you are on the lookout for wartime recipes for various types of game birds, rabbit, hare, rook, sparrow, starling, various forageable sea creatures etc, this might just be worth looking at.

Actually, there's a collection of other really interesting stuff in it, including preserving and drying food and natural remedies. The 'handicraft' section made me smile. It sounds as if it ought to be quite genteel but doesn't cover things like making lace edges for hankerchiefs but gives details of how to make charcoal, extract peat, a really good description of how to make a haybox, make a clay oven, dress poultry, make bait... ie real handicrafts!

http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/ republished it a few years ago (Persephone's books - mostly fiction - are worth looking out for second hand or in the library. They've got a very interesting list and lots of the WWII type books chime well with OS thinking.) They reprinted another book that was originally a Puffin children's book - I've got the original - called 'The Children who Lived in a Barn' by Eleanor Graham, 1938. It's about a family of children who, left to fend for themselves, set up home in a barn - very OS. It also has some fabulous descriptions of how a haybox works.

Can't remember how I got started on all this? Cooking mice...?

jediteacher

Well I'm feeling pretty cheesed off today. I know it's nothing compared to what others are going through or feeling but ebay has banished me forever. This is a real upset for me as that was where I was making extra money to pay debts and to use to cover my maternnity leave. :mad: There is no grounds for appeal and they will not reverse the decision. I will have to find somewhere else to sell the mountain of stuff that I have lying around but no-where has the same coverage as ebay.


Off to the hospital in an hour for my physio as my pelvis bones and muscles are still not right and I seize up and cannot move. My lower back does the same thing. My father-in-law is coming to look after the children as otherwise Ii would have to bring them with me.

I've got some coupons for Mr T and Mr S for money off a certain spend. I can use them both at Mr T so will have to sit down and make a proper list so not to waste them.

House is getting worse - just feels like a loosing battle at the moment. I go round to other people's houses and they are immaculate even those with children! Was really upset by it the other day until my friend said that she loved being in my house as it felt relaxed and she didn't need to worry about spoiling anything.

Trying very hard not to spend any money but not very successfully. Have got back into mystery shopping so hopefully this will bring in a few pennies.

Right off to do the washing up and then it's feeding time again for the baby.

Skint_but_Optimistic

Softstuff wrote: »

I recall thinking at that time that it didn't matter how skint I was I couldn't shave my food. And this coming from me who loves offal. I guess you have to draw a line somewhere and my line is somewhere before mice and pigs heads.

I have cried with laughing at this quote. Genius!!:T:T:T

I havent struck a bat in the past 2 hours really, just washing and heating up things I made at the weekend, making beds etc

We have had visitors.

Will try and do some more cleaning tonight and give upstairs loo a deep clean!

Skint_but_Optimistic

jediteacher wrote: »

Well I'm feeling pretty cheesed off today. I know it's nothing compared to what others are going through or feeling but ebay has banished me forever. This is a real upset for me as that was where I was making extra money to pay debts and to use to cover my maternnity leave. :mad: There is no grounds for appeal and they will not reverse the decision. I will have to find somewhere else to sell the mountain of stuff that I have lying around but no-where has the same coverage as ebay.

Whats happened? Cant your hubby register instead?