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

grandma247

Thinking of you FTM. Also taurus get well soon.

Hornetgirl I have made fig jam but I did not put vinegar in. I am not sure of the purpose of the vinegar because there is enough lemon juice and apple to give a good set. If the raspberry vinegar smells ok then I would use that.
I left the skins on for my jam but I only roughly chopped them and the chunks were a bit big so would chop finer next time.


ASBO kids would probably destroy it
same here

smileyt_2

Old bathtubs as raised beds! Genius! Thank you for posting that link, Nicki!

*Resists urge to go skip diving for bath tubs at midnight!*

taurusgb

Thank you all so much for the good wishes - I'm so sorry I can't thank you individually but thanks button is missing when I use my phone.
I'm still in hospital but no longer in a private room as it was needed for a lady who is dying so that her family could stay with her 24/7....I feel so sad for them.
Still having tests to find what is wrong as spleen is still massive & large amounts of vit k injections have made no difference to blood clotting ... getting very fed up (& a bit scared) now, though you have no idea how comforting it is to read the thread - it's like being able to conjour up a roomfull of friends with the push of a button. Thank you!
I've shown the site to a few cash strapped nurses who have pledged to join as they think it looks fantastic - as of course it is.
DH & my 4 offspring are being great - doing the best they can to OS & not overspend our tight budget. As a bonus DH & the 2 kids still at home keep telling me how impressed they are now that have 1st hand knowledge of what I do & how much effort I put into doing it.....bonus!
Hope everyone is OK, sorry to hear about your Dad FTM.
I'll see if I can get a bit more sleep now - been tossing & turning all night.

jamanda

Taurus and FTM - sorry for both of you. Will be thinking about you and hope everything is OK

mardatha

Sending love & light & strength xxx

littlecal

Taurus - ((((hugs)))) Hope you managed a bit more sleep xx

jackieglasgow

Taurus I hope today dawns a little brighter for you, and am sending lots of positivity your way.xx

Flowertotmum, I am sending positive vibes your familiy's way too, hope your dad is comfortable, and your mum is finding some comfort in having you close. xxx

Well folks, its my little sister's wedding tomorrow, can't believe it has come around so quickly - four weeks is no time at all :rotfl: The workhouse may still be snapping at our heels, but there's still always room for some love and laughter in the world, no matter how bad things may seem.

HariboJunkie

jackieglasgow wrote: »

Well folks, its my little sister's wedding tomorrow,

It came even quicker for me. I thought it was today!! Hope it all goes brilliantly and you can relax and enjoy yourself.

Hope you got some more sleep Taurus and they sort you out soon. xxx

Planning a pickling and preserving day here as it's wet n orrible. Need to root through the freezer first to find all my berries.

Jolaaled

jackieglasgow wrote: »

The workhouse may still be snapping at our heels, but there's still always room for some love and laughter in the world, no matter how bad things may seem.

JackieG: what a lovely statement. I'm sticking it on the inside of my kitchen cupboard door, where I keep all my important bits n bobs!

GreyQueen

Good morning all.

Yesterday was a wee bit crazy for me on the lottie. I decided that, with the temperatures so high and the humidity at uncomfortable levels, I would behead the remaining potatoes which were still growing with no signs of the haulms going over (about 1/3 rd of the patch).

Accordingly, had an early tea and headed out the door at 5.45 pm and realised that the sky was virtually black (drivers had their headlights on) so hastened up on the pushbike and grabbed a compost sack and got weaving. Wasn't fast enough as by 6.15 the heavens opened and thunder and lightening were crashing around. The rain was unbelievable, the kind of intensity which makes you feel that you're standing under a waterfall. Only my feet in my Doc M gardening boots were dry.

Y'know, being soaked to the skin in warm rain isn't too unpleasant. Once you have accepted that you're going to have to get fully changed once back home, there's nothing left to lose. I would have stayed and picked some beans but the site is on top of a hill and lightning has been known to strike it so it's best to skedaddle away in a bad storm. Walked the pushbike down to the council tip where I was the only member of the public and off-loaded the haulms into the green waste. Blight? Let it come if it dares.

trifles you're too late for the tatties as they're not frost-hardy and don't have enough time left to grow but next Spring will soon be here. Some varieties of carrots can still be sown eg Autumn King carrots but you need to get a wriggle on with them. Mine are about 1 inch tall. I have a poor track record with carrots and the slogan on my lottie site is; "No one can grow a decent carrot on here!" And this is from geezers who've gardened up there for decades, and their fathers before them in some cases.

I honestly have no idea why this should be as carrots like light soil and ours is light silt-over-sand but it's true. Beetroots love it up there, though, so you can't have everything. My Dad cultivates his mother's garden which is lottie-sized and it bestrides two areas of soil-types having both a sandy bit and a clayey bit so he can work the areas to different crops, subject to rotation.

kittie, Dad was telling me on the phone last night that he'd heard 2 wheat farmers on adjacent farms being interviewed and the one on the heavier soil has yields only slightly down from average, despite the drought earlier in the year, but the one on the sandy soil is very much down on yield. Reminds me that one of the small family farms (my lot lost their farms in the agricultural depressions of the early twentieth century) was called Sand Hills Farm. Gives you an idea about the quality of the land, doesn't it?!

Ahh, the story of my family is the story of so many families.....small farmers who got wiped out when times were tough and also lost out to the various Enclosures Acts, slipping down to being smallholders, then landless farm labourers in tied houses, then not needed due to mechanisation and the families having to move into market towns and cities to find other work.

A few years ago, I was in the village where my Nan and other relatives still live, at the fete. They opened up the church tower as a fund-raiser once a year (your had to climb up past the bells on ladders) and I was standing on the top of the tower admiring the view when a courtly elderly gent, an incomer, asked me if I was local?

I just looked at him and thought, "Where do I start?"

The churchwarden who'd taken our admission money was my Nan. Just below us was the schoolmaster's house for the church school where my Dad, my Aunt and my Grandad and his brothers and sisters and cousins went to school. Just beyond that was their childhood home, just beyond that their Nan and Auntie's current homes. looking across the fields you could see the cluster of villages where we'd been living for 500 years as a matter of record, and probably a damned sight longer before record-keeping kept track of commoners like us.

I just pointed at a row of graves down in the churchyard and laconically told him they were my gread-grandparents and my grandad's graves, as well as many other relations.

I feel sad that none of us can afford to live in the villages where we were born; no one under 40 in my family lives in our native villages and when our oldies die, their homes will go back to the council and that will be that. It's total economic apartheid in local villages. Cousin J and her OH and teen children could write a hysterical sitcom called The Last Working Class Family in the Village, they get so much hassle off the posh incomers.

They're perfectly respectable people; he's a farmer's son, she's from a smallholding branch of my clan and they work as jobbing gardeners but they drive a beat-up Transit for their work and this rubs some snobs up the wrong way........:rotfl:Of course, the New Posh People, unlike the Resident Posh People, haven't learned to rub along with the Romanies in the area and haven't realised yet that if you object to them hare-coursing on your land or other traditional pursuits, you will get sugar in your fuel tank and other little inconveniences until you learn to turn a blind eye. Country ways, country ways........(said with a smile a a very rural accent).

taurusgb glad you're finding some comfort from reading the thread from your hospital bed and spreading the OS word to the nurses. Hope they find out what's ailing you soon and resolve it.

flowertotmum sorry to hear that your Dad is poorly and hope that with your help life will be a lot easier for your Mum. ((Hugs)).