Preparing for winter III

jools27_2

Smeeth, welcome! I lost my darling dad over 2 years ago, and still havent sorted my garden out! Every day I look and think he would kick my butt for this mess, but cant get my nether regions in gear! But his is looking great, as mum and I keep plodding away in it to remember him....helps that his ashes are there under a rose bush- always his favourite plant, and it is thriving! You will get there, trust me!
Prep wise, got the winter quilts on the bed today, and am almost packed for our pre-winter holiday in turkey next week!:j

Triggles

Welcome smeeth!

I have to second the recommendation to be careful about the ice. My DH slipped on ice years ago and had a serious break in his leg, requiring surgery and a metal plate. My father had a slip on the ice 2 years ago, fractured his skull, suffered brain damage, never fully recovered and passed away in March of this year. Ice can be so treacherous! Please do all you can to be careful!

tugrin

Of course - socks OVER the shoes was what everyone did BEFORE yaktrax - I cant believe Id forgotten that!
Triggles thats awful - we MUST all remember to take care - it only takes one little slip and that can be it. NOTHING is more important that staying safe even if you have to double wrap the rubbish and leave it somewhere safe from vermin for a bit. I havent really got room for my big wheelie bin outside my house but in view of everyones stories I think I will get a large pedal type bin to put the daily 'oh-I'll-just-pop-this-in-the-bin' rubbish in and leave trips to the wheelie until I can get my boots and yaktrax on

smeeth

wow now that's a welcome!:D

CH27: thank you! I've been a lurker for far too long!

Frugal: I know what you mean, Mum had been fighting cancer since 2007 so she hadn't really been herself for a long time, but at least now she's not suffering (that's what helps me sleep at night). I'm sorry to hear about your Dad, so many people seem to be hurting right now, it's awful!

toottifrootti: Thanks! I'm not going to lie, I think I've pulled a muscle in my bum!

tugrin: Thank you, so many welcoming voices! It's brilliant here!

jools27: Thanks Jools. My Mum was a mad gardener so it felt like I was doing something for her (no doubt she shouted at me a few times for throwing away what I thought were 'weeds' oops?) Have a nice time in Turkey, and remember all of us!



and of course thank you to anyone else who has given me such a warm welcome that I think I might have missed!:o

abwsco

Got to Primark but was hampered somewhat as DH was with me:rotfl:Got two lovely fleeces for £5 each but I don't do cm and DD has informed me they're nice but a bit small. I dithered over the size as well so a bit cross with myself. Can't take them back as her and her BF are using them anyway. Couldn't find any bedsocks either plus it was lunchtime when we were in so it was far too busy. Went to TK's as well and found some Bearpaw boots I like - chunky soled. Was going to treat myself as my current Bearpaws are 3 years old but they'd only got the left boot in my size. Was not impressed:mad:

Dustykitten

I lost you all with the closing of the old thread but I'm back now, sorry can't catch up on 28 pages.

Loft insulation is going well. Didn't get it finished this week as we need another roll of stuff which is coming tomorrow. It is now very silver and light up there - a bit like being in a space ship.

Have lit the fire twice so far but not put the heating on.

Plan to go through everybody's clothes in half term and write a list of what will be needed (not too much I hope).

Replacement windows in the process of being made so will not be long now before they are fitted - that will be a cold few days!

Rainy-Days

Hello Smeeth and welcome. I am sorry to hear about your mum and yes I too am well aware of it's impact as I was in the same situation as you. I live in my late parents home that they built and it only this year, seven years after mum died that we have got round to replacing the fascia boards. We have also done quite a bit in the garden as well such as gloss black painting the washing line posts which were with mum when she had her first house way back in the 1960's so I want to keep those with us.

You will be in dog nivarna on here as most of us seem to have one and if not it's a cat!

I haven't made much further progress with the scarf tonight - but you know I'm working on it, just two more wool balls to go and I should be about there. Might need to go and buy another ball of wool. I do want this finished by the end of this month - oh please let me get this finished :rotfl:

greenbee

My mother broke her wrist falling over in the snow the year before last, so last year we gave her yaktrax... We also gave them to OH's dad who thought they were fantastic, and this year I have given them to OH and my dad. I have several spare pairs, so my DB, SIL and SIL's father may get them for christmas...

I have cleared out the shed, put all the garden furniture away and made sure salt, kindling and small logs are accessible. I have also filled up an old plastic dustbin with smokeless fuel. I must remember to pick up free newspapers every time I go shopping tomorrow I plan to go and buy winter tyres as my local place has them in (I'm trying to persuade OH that he should get some too as he drives more than me...) which can be fitted in November (or when it snows, if that's earlier).

I do need to empty a few pots, including picking the last of the peppers. The freezers are both full, and I have lots of long-life stuff including rice milk (I loathe soya milk!) and 5kg of pasta from approved foods for £1.39 . I have insulated the back door with foil-backed polystyrene and a wall of loo roll...

I have a business trip coming up next week, so hope to get some work done in my utility room while I am away, and then have a plasterer coming to skim 4 ceilings when I get back so I need to start packing up the two rooms involved (the others are the hall/stairs/landing) and hopefully throwing stuff out. Between now and mid-November I hope to get quite a bit of the house redecorated so I can get the curtains back up! I'm also going to get the front step redone... It is currently covered in quarry tiles which are slippery, so hopefully it can be redone with flagstones of some kind.

There always seems to be more to do somehow...

SpikyHedgehog

I had put up a curtain rail over the front door with no more nails sticky pads, & lightweight curtains (ie, the cheap ones I found in a charity shop that are long enough to do as they are for this year...), but it fell down. So, I need to get some battens & put them up so I can put the curtains rails onto them.

In the meantime, the front door has 3 glass panels horizontally in it, so the hallway gets lots of light... and there's a large amount of glass to make the hallway feel cold. I put bubblewrap on the lowest panel as I only had enough to do one, managed to have the boys leave it alone, but when my contact lenses were delivered today, the box knocked down the bubble wrap.

Back to the drawing board I went... I'd got 3 packs of the cheap fleeces in Wilkinsons (& they are cheap! I wouldn't pay full price for them) so have put up net curtain hooks on the beading round the top panel in the door, safety pinned over a casing on the lightest coloured fleece and threaded the net curtain wire through it. Success! I used the lightest colour fleece as I plan to leave it over the door all day as well as all night, at least till I've found a pretty ribbon to tie it back in the day. Then, when I've put up the batten and put the curtain rail back up, we can shut the proper curtain when we're all in, without having to wrestle it to much to get in or out.

singlestep

I've finished with work for the night. Technically, it hasn't finished with me but I do have to sleep at some stage. Not complaining, though - I have next week off I'm doing a quick ten-minute burst of de-cluttering of my office/spare bedroom. It didn't look all that bad but what I do have in here is mostly time-consuming to look through. I've just come across a few things I've absentmindedly shoved in file boxes out of the way. This is mostly things I've created at work but one box is full of random stuff, including a month's supply of a cleanser I've given up because of the cost, a 'to-do' list book, a wee me poster a pupil made of/for me and a packet of gold stars. At least they weren't in the fridge or somewhere like that!

I think that I may follow greenbee's example and give some yaktrax as Christmas/winter birthday presents, particularly if we do get some early snow.

Welcome to the thread, smeeth! I'm sorry you've had such a tough time. You'll already have seen that the people who contribute to the thread are lovely and so supportive.