It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

shegar

Gigervamp wrote: »

There's an article in the Guardian on how to make rowan berry wine, here.

The blackbirds have already nicked all of the berries from my rowan tree in the garden...........not one berry left.......:eek:

elona

Yay me! :j:j:j


After well over an hour online I found a brochure / manual for the freezer in the garage and managed to sort out the problem myself without having to call out service people etc.

Made a "moussaka" for tea with pork mince (yellow stickered), onions, tomatoes, red lentils, garlic, white sauce and very finely sliced courgettes instead of aubergines or lasagne sheets and grated cheese on top. Even my picky lot whoofed it down and DD said I should make it again (high praise in this house).

Youngest has gone to a sleepover so just me , DH and two dds here. Seems quiet!!

[Deleted User]

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*zippy*

betony wrote: »

I've just seen today that our Julian Graves is closing down and being replaced by Holland & Barrett. Is this happening elsewhere, or is it a one-off? I've found JG to be cheaper than H&B

H&B have said they are keeping the JG brand open and are trialling different things in certain stores to see what will work, but quite a few seem to have been changed to H&B and some are closing completely. I know the manager of one that changed over she says they are a lot busier since, but I suppose they are selling more high priced supplements than fruit and nuts.

scottishminnie

Just dropping in with a short post, I've been MIA since Tuesday.

Had a routine boiler service yesterday which turned into the day from hell when the engineer stopped the service and showed me the boiler has a hole in it. It's terminal but I wasn't unduly worried as we've had an annual boiler policy since we installed it almost 15 years ago.
Anyway I call the insurers and get this stroppy cow who straight off tells me we will have to pay a significant contribution towards the new boiler due to it's "geriatric age". When questioned about how much she says "oh anything up to 80% of the cost". Given that the engineer quoted £3500 off the top of his head that would leave us with a £2800 bill. I'm absolutely spitting feathers - what the **** have I been paying insurance for, there's nothing in the policy which states the policyholder may have to foot 80% of the bill.

I took myself off to Costco to cheer up this afternoon but even that couldn't perk me up. I did buy some marriage self raising flour - £4.75 for 5 1.5kg bags. I know it's more expensive than Asda Smart Price but I'm hoping it will be good quality.

I was 75% of the way through making gingerbread earlier when I discovered the ginger was missing so I had to replace with allspice. I now have a pretty tasteless cake thing - ah well, I'll cover it with custard and it will be fine!

Off to bed now, I'll try to adopt a more positive attiude before I come back:o

p.s. I'm planning to phone the museums etc tomorrow to see if anyone would like granny's sewing machine. Will keep you posted.

Gigervamp

shegar wrote: »

The blackbirds have already nicked all of the berries from my rowan tree in the garden...........not one berry left.......:eek:

There are two trees by the Co-op here and they've not been touched, but I remember when I lived in London, there was a tree in the close and the starlings used to decend on it until it was stripped.
I guess it depends on how fussy your local birds are! :rotfl:


Went to Tesco tonight to stock up on cheese and juice. We get through a lot of cheese (about 400g over just over a week) and prefer a good strong cheddar, so the offer on atm for the seriously strong cheddar had to be taken up. It's limited to 6 packs per customer, but might pop back tomorrow to get some more to freeze as my budget is still looking good.

smileyt_2

Kittie, I saw that link to the winter forecast too. :eek: I'll be stocking up over the next couple of months to make sure I have enough food for me, the dogs and the hens. At the moment I am a bit low on energy (again) but I have bought some of those foil emergency shelters from the pound shop and will be lining a sheet and turning it into a door curtain when I get my mojo back.


Speaking of hens - £55 at the vet's today :eek: but she should recover, thank goodness. I stupidly went wearing a sparkly top, and all the time she was on the vet's table she was pecking at the sparkles, much to the vet's amusement :rotfl:I do love her (the hen that is, not the vet!!), but oh my goodness she has cost me a fortune in vet's fees. Once again I give thanks that my OS and MSE ways have meant that I had a few savings (rapidly dwindling, though!) to help meet the bill.


Ceridwen I will bear in mind about noise insulation. I have fairly noisy neighbours but they are lovely, and they never keep me awake at night because once I take my hearing aid out I can't hear anything anyway (I'm the perfect neighbour lol!). I was reading an article today and apparently there is a trade-off between having a filled cavity wall between adjoining properties and noise insulation - if the wall is filled full then it doesn't provide any noise insulation. The solution apparently is to end-cap them properly to stop cold air being drawn into the cavity, rather than stuff them full of heat insulation. I can see that this position on the tenants' panel is not going to help my inner geek to become less geeky!

Scottishminnie isn't there an insurance ombudsman you can go to if you think your policy is a load of old bumf? I know the banks are having to pay people back for missold insurance policies so it might be worth finding out if anything like that applies to your policy.


Time for bed (said Zebedee, boing); I'm aiming to be in bed this side of midnight tonight. Good night, all!

jackieglasgow

Instead of filling the cavity, you can double skin the existing walls with another layer of sound proof gyproc or thermal stuff which does pretty much the same job. Which might be and ides for those of you in really old properties which cant get cavity wall insulation?

Gigervamp

smileyt wrote: »

Speaking of hens - £55 at the vet's today :eek: but she should recover, thank goodness. I stupidly went wearing a sparkly top, and all the time she was on the vet's table she was pecking at the sparkles, much to the vet's amusement :rotfl:I do love her (the hen that is, not the vet!!), but oh my goodness she has cost me a fortune in vet's fees. Once again I give thanks that my OS and MSE ways have meant that I had a few savings (rapidly dwindling, though!) to help meet the bill.

People often just think "Oh, it's just a chicken" because it's something they can buy in the supermarkets for 3 quid or so. What they don't realise is how much like cats and dogs they are, in that they each have different personalities.

I'm trying not to get too attached to our male chicks (now teenagers) because I know that if we can't find homes for them, we'll have to find someone who can *do the deed*.

They're not *just chickens*. They're sentient beings and whilst we are the ones looking after them, we should give them the best possible life that we can.

I hope your girl makes a speedy recovery.

judy_

When I discovered MSE 3 or 4 years ago, it cost me loads in buying stuff lol...bought a panny breadmaker, a ramonska (sp), a dehydrator, a juicer, a magimix, lots of fleeces, lots of demijohns for my homemade wine (hic).. the list goes on...

then I was made redundant end of Dec last year....

Luckily I had paid for above items without going into debt, so the items have actually been a godsend to me...especially the wine lol
It has been very tough for me being a single (divorced mum of 3) and losing all my wages to going on JSA, but MSE and reading all of the tips has kept me within budget.

7 months on, I today went for an interview (had quite a few interviews, but its hard out there), thought I had stuffed the interview up as the questions were bazaar (to me).

4 hours later, was driving to the dentists, mobile rang, I got the job ))))

So thankyou to MSE and all the posters on the oldsyle board for keeping me sane over the last 7 months and surviving.....

The workhouse didn't get me......just yet I have a reprieve, I will still keep reading as nothing can be taken for granted these days jobs wise, so got to keep myself debtfree, a full storecupboard/freezer, keep growing my own which has been very tough this year due to the mammoth sized slugs I have in my garden ..

Keep smiling everyone, as a smile is free

xx