Preparing for winter III

Cat501

lizzyb1812 wrote: »

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that the weather forecast has sort of fast forwarded? We weren't due high winds until Thursday but it's really rough here - for East Anglia that is

yes - just heard the wind howling outside and it's not supposed to get strong till tomorrow afternoon!

They got it right about the rain though, it's lashing down:(

SpikyHedgehog

Just ordered a cooking set with kettle so we can heat food better on my improvised stove, as I realised all my pans have fairly heavy bottoms so would take a while to heat up. http://www.millets.co.uk/camping/cooking/product/095669/adventure-cookset-with-burner.html?attribute=163296 I don't want to order a camping stove yet as I have a paranoia about gas, though this one actually comes with a meths burner. Scary stuff! DS1's used a trangia to cook with at Explorers, so should be ok with this as the reviews say they're very similar (and as a bonus, unlike the Explorer Leaders, I'll remember he's vegetarian... )

I want the set to use the pans on my improvised stove inside, if we use the meths burner, that will be outside, so safety reasons. Apologies if anyone's covered that further down the thread, :-) but I realised I'd not said that last night!

twiglet98

kittie wrote: »

I have ordered a new one and some bigger gas bottles and a 2 litre camp kettle, all better anyway. The one I ordered is more stable and safer anyway
http://reviews.argos.co.uk/1493-en_gb/3407497/reviews.htm

amazon for £10 no p and p

I have one of these (reduced in Tesc0 a couple of years ago, £9.99 then IIRC) and we used it for the first time just recently, between my old electric hob failing, and its 2nd hand replacement being fitted.

Nice cooking on gas for the first time in 20 years, though I forgot how hot the pan handles get if the flame is too high. Easy to use and so much faster than electric hob. Just a point, I was SHOCKED at how quickly the gas canisters ran out. We used three in six days, most days using it only in the evening. I now keep a back-up stash of 12 canisters, just in case!

twiglet98

Eenymeeny wrote: »

If anyone is looking for bungee cords to fasten their wheelie bin lids down or together I spotted them in B&M today 3 for £1. Pity, I'm sure that I paid £2.39 for mine in Wilkinsons the other day...:(
B&M usually sell the packs of gas canisters cheap too, but they mightn't have them at the moment as the shelves are full of Christmas stock. Worth looking after Christmas though:)

My neighbours' bins catch the wind at the side of their house and they have plain twine tied through the handles and then down to the ground and through the sort of house bricks that have two holes in them. Two bricks can hold the lids of three bins closed, the twine is long enough to open the lid to pop things into the bin, and just a loose slipknot means they undo easily for big items (or bin collection day).

[Deleted User]

I was a bit horrified to hear our local weather presenter Ian Fergusson (he is very very good and always puts up pressure charts) describing fridays storm as ferocious, now that is really scary to me. The winds and rain last night were fierce but I could cope with that. Pressure is still very low and I have heated the tank and filled 2 big vac flasks. Several power lines came down eg wilts, glos, plymouth. Amazon have sent all the camping gas stuff so fingers crossed that they arrive this week. I was glad to see that a canister lasts about 90 mins. I need to do a few food plans today re using the camping stuff, the fridge and freezers will be off so I won`t want to be opening them. I`ll base my one pot meals on tins and quick pulses like lentils and my dried vegies and pasta and rice and I`ll jazz them up with hm chutneys. I`ll also be using my smallest pressure cooker

I am afraid that netweather is consistently wrong re our local weather and I am trusting my own weather station plus rain today for precipitation in a 2 hour slot

I posted the above on the wind thread by accident, sorry if you`re reading it twice

Yes twiglet, I was thinking about the number of canisters earlier and have ordered 4 more. Argos are out of them so I have gone mail order. That will be 8 in total. Also thinking about the mass of pan to heat up and I must get into camping mode, so have ordered a good set of camping pans, which will stack small anyway. I have got a set with non stck as I have memories of the effort of scraping food off these thin pans in the past. My main pans are all heavy stainless steel so take a lot of heat before I can turn down to very low and that isn`t what I`ll need, I`ll need quick cook stuff to save gas

lutzi1

Eenymeeny wrote: »

Thanks Mardy, in future I'm naming this a guilt-free zone! And the eating sweets thing... maybe it could be a survival technique, like polar bears building up fat reserves for winter warmth?;):rotfl:
All this talk of using tealights to cook on, can anyone remember last year someone set up an emergency radiator by placing a baking sheet on 2 spaced out bricks and tealights underneath? I can't remember the fine details but she said that it gave emergency heat to her chilly kitchen. Please be careful, I wouldn't want anyone to melt their worktops:eek::eek::eek:

Hi, just dropped for virtually the first time this year in and saw this, think that may have been me! I posted that I put a metal baking tray on top of a cooling rack and put tealights underneath to make an impromptu radiator, as we don't have a radiator in the kitchen.

PS I have also started off casseroles on the stove then slow cooked them over a few tealights.

tugrin

Hi everyone - hope the weather isnt beating you down.
Suny and getting windier here - cold too in wind.
Had the day from hell at school yesterday - first full day in the phased return. Had to leave rrom due to level of noise (the supply is still in charge at the mo) and drive back in dark was vile.
Only doing pm today but its the Carol concert so potential for disaster there - glad Im not in charge this year!
Has anyone got any good ways of requesting things form freeglers? I have missed severl DVD/TVs recently ad I wonder if its my technique in asking? I dont want to fabricate but is there a better combination of words than ' I would love your xxxx please'.
Keep safe everyone.

Eenymeeny

Thanks Lutzi1 glad you were passing, and welcome back!:)

rinabean

tugrin wrote: »

Has anyone got any good ways of requesting things form freeglers? I have missed severl DVD/TVs recently ad I wonder if its my technique in asking? I dont want to fabricate but is there a better combination of words than ' I would love your xxxx please'.
Keep safe everyone.

You're probably just too slow. I know if I have a bunch of people asking, I'll often just pick the first as it seems fairer somehow (not that anyone can see how I'm picking but me! ). I don't know about other people but I actively won't give things to people with a sob story. There's no way of knowing if it's true, and I don't want to be lied to. Have you tried including how you're going to get the item in the first email? Obviously not "I will be on your doorstep at 4pm today"!! But just whether you're able to fetch it from theirs, or you want to meet up elsewhere, and what days. When I get emails like this I feel like they're more serious and not timewasters, and that the whole thing will be over quicker. I suppose others might see it as presumptuous, though.


I had no idea one could boil a kettle with tealights! I'm definitely filing that one away, thank you!

bonnie_bumpkins

Thriftkitten wrote: »

Just spotted these if anyone is without them.... Sadly here in Cornwall the only reason I will need these is to grip feet to the ground with the wind, but hey ho, anything is better than falling you yer butt eh!!http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/snow-grips-ice-grips-anti-slip-snow-shoes-2-99-inc-postage-ebay-sourcing4u-1088861

Hi just to say thank you for the link, I've ordered a pair each for me and my teenagers (I can picture the look of amazement and disgust on their faces but I think I'll have the last laugh).

I've lurked for a bit and picked up loads of really helpful tips and ideas so a big thank you to everyone. I'm in the south east so usually we have it pretty easy but I'm not being complacent this year.

Stay safe and warm!

eta tugrin I always say 'thank you for considering me' when asking for things on freegle/freecycle. And I definitely agree with rinabean about telling the 'offerer' when you could collect so they know you are serious. When I've given away stuff I always get people saying they'd like it and then when I ask when they can collect I hear nothing.... So I tend to go for people who give a bit more info. HTH.