Preparing for winter III

smeeth

Rainy-Days wrote: »

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:

Well I live with my parents (just me and Dad now) so he's finding it hard to adjust, not surprising really.

From my lurking I realised how much we all love our animals!

I wish I could knit, I keep wanting to learn but I don't want to be hopeless at it!:o

Sunnyday

SpikyHedgehog wrote: »

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.

:eek: I`ve bought these and put my kitchen curtain rail up with them, the rail is up but i`ve not put any curtains up yet.

I`ll have to keep a close eye on them when they do go up.

Smeeth & peking & anyone else that i`ve missed :wave:

Oh and smeeth - there will never on this planet be anyone more hopeless at knitting than me lol Have a go! I actually like it but nothing that i make will ever come close to being wearable so i gave up

SD

Red_Doe

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...

Not just snow we need to be wary of. Yesterday I walked out my door to go to the outbuilding I work in, and due to the constant rain we've had up here, slipped and thumped down on my knee, which is now a lovely purple colour and swollen.
So, a couple of things for folks to consider.....especially if you are isolated. I was lucky because my OH is here, but for any isolated single folks, maybe try to make some kind of plan as to what happens if you have an accident and are alone (though I'm not sure what, sorry! )
and bone up on basic first aid.
Re winter accidents, the osteo department at Raigmore hospital in Inverness is now seeing referred patients on Sundays too because, apparently, the last two winters resulted in so many elderly people falling and breaking bones, they are still being seen for treatment now and it's working the department to capacity!

skintbint_2

morning Red Doe - your up and about early! hope you are okay and no lasting damage,
havent been on for a while but its soooooo cold this morning thought i'd pop on and see what everybody is doing and how their plans are coming along. had the heating on last night but only for an hour and am refusing to put it on this morning as only me up and about so just got the gas ring on to take the chill off. moved the sofa yesterday to free up the radiator in the lounge so hopefully that will help as its been in front of the radiator the last couple of years
am off on leave this week and am trying to declutter every room just to get on top of things and do a spring clean for winter iyswim.
dragged my knitting out last night am just doing a big fluffy scarf - not the bonniest of colours but nobody will see it as it will be near enough dark all the time lol!!! have a bit of sewing to do today made a Cath Kidston type patchwork and will back it with one of the cheap fleeces so will be nice and cosy, will dig out all the scarfs and gloves etc today just incase the weather forecast has a bit of truth in it and must get suede protector for those "ugg" type boots i got from DP's for £7, will pop into poundland for screenwash and de-icer and get other half to check the anti freeze and bulbs in the car.
well ironing beckons - have a good day everyone! and red doe take care you dont want to be one of those in Raigmore!

suzybloo

MOrning folks - see Red Doe and skintbint must be early risers = hope your knee is ok Red Doe. Keep going with the knitting Skint - if you need a hand let me know,

All the new flanelette sheets are washed and ready to go on the beds but will hold off another couple of weeks. I got an email yesterday to say our snow shovels have arrived so will pick them up tomorrow. I have also bought the hot water bottles from poundland for ourselves and MIL, so just have to find the crochet hook and I will crochet basic covers with a nice wee bit ribbon on them. WInter stocks are doing well, but need to find material for curtains for the front door - have been looking i the charity shops but they dont have what I am looking for.
Winter medicine cupboard is sorted now, poundland have various cough syrups in - all named brands so if anyone is looking for a bargain bottle thats the place to go - I bought the lemsip chesty cough one normally retails around £2.70, so at a pound wasnt too bad.

OHHH WHAT A Thought winter is on its way!

skintbint_2

suzy - dont buy curtains i'll put a pair upto you 66x90 brown and terracota but can you email me a copy of those socks you knit - would do for DS in his riggers thats if the pattern is easy and i can manage it, he's been asked to go out on the boats - not keen too dangerous for him

biggest spider ever has just run across the floor - if it wasnt as quick cud've just about jumped on its back!!!! normally dont bother but this one was the size of the palm of my hand think it's under the sideboard will wait on o/h coming in from nightshift i think before tackling it!

suzybloo

will post it to you skint - no sure if I like the idea of him on the boats either - especially after watching Trawlermen!!
Many thanks for the offer of the curtains - they would be ideal!

nursey3

Good Morning All!

Smeeth- welcome to the thread!

Smeeth & Frugal: my condolences to you both.

Rising: I hope you are feeling a bit better today and that it goes well with the Dr.

Re: trips and falls - given that so many people have yaktrax or similar on here, hopefully these will be helpful in keeping people safe. But a suggestion for the winter prep/general prep list is to possibly have a hot/cold gel pack thing that can be used to ice or heat injured areas. Frozen peas work well for applying a cold compress but then you can't put them back in the freezer to eat later! Just need to remember to wrap any ice type compresses in a tea towel etc before applying to skin, so as to avoid 'cold burn'. OH and I managed to pick up a couple of gel ice packs from £land last week.

Jobs to do this week:
Declutter the garden from all the loose plant pots (the wind has reallys started to get up). Try and get the guttering fixed - its come loose on my neighbours side of the fence, but reachable from our side and when it rains it literally fills buckets! That or it will just leak against the outside wall (and its rented accomodation) but I want to avoid any problems with damp etc. Do some baking and food prep ready for the next week of nights that I have. Try and declutter our bedroom a bit more - I swear the stuff I have up there 'breeds'! Put up radiator reflector thingies (heating isn't on yet but I want to be prepared).

I probably won't get half of it done, but I can only try! Not helped by my lovely OH getting me a kindle so I have yet another distraction from doing all things I should! lol.

Have a great day everyone.

Nursey

Rainy-Days

smeeth wrote: »

Well I live with my parents (just me and Dad now) so he's finding it hard to adjust, not surprising really.

From my lurking I realised how much we all love our animals!

I wish I could knit, I keep wanting to learn but I don't want to be hopeless at it!:o

Smeeth - try You Tube they give tutorials on there on how to do it, just start off with a very basic knit, which is what I am doing and then try another style.

From memory when mum had oesophageal cancer it was just over 15 months from symptoms to her passing. You are right to think they are out of pain because they are. I remember the family GP asking me if I needed anything after she had passed and I just said no, just a few nice long walks with the dog (I just had the labrador then, springer hadn't come on the scene) and to keep myself busy. One thing I did notice is that for the first month after mum had died everyone was phoning and popping round then it sort of just tailed off. I came to the conclusion that people thought oh well thats it you are over the worst of it now and just left you. My mum had died in the April and then by August I went to see the GP to ask her to sign me off the sick and to return back to work. She nearly fell off her chair, she was so shocked. She kept saying are you sure, are you ready and I said yes I am because in nine weeks time those clocks are going to change, the dark days will be ahead and then I will not want to go back and do anything I will just want to shut the door and hibernate and that is the worst thing that could happen. I need to go back to now to get myself into a routine.

NorthLondonChick

Hi All! I am a long-time lurker and "do-er" of this thread (everyone has such great ideas which are really paying off for us - thank you so much! :T) but I'm scuttling out of my lurking hole to ask a quick question which hopefully someone might be able to help with.

In feb we managed to buy our first home together - an end of terrace victorian convertion GF flat. Boy is it cold! It needed a lot of renovating so we have been doing that constantly since Feb (doing diy, running out of money, waiting til payday then more diy etc etc!). I have been slowly draught/winter proofing as we go along and I've noticed a definate improvement. Yesterday, after 8 mths of walking on bare chipboard-type flooring throughout the whole house, we finally saved up enough to get carpets laid in every room (bar kitchen and bathroom). First thing we both did after the carpet men left was lay on the floor wiggling our arms and legs and making carpet angels lol! So happy we are not walking on solid freezing floors anymore! :j

However, the reason for my post is actually: We have 2 half rolls of underlay left (10mm wool felt, 5 ft wide by approx 7 ft ish long each - http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af331/webseventy/Wilsons/wilsons51.png). Its seriously cuddly stuff and i made the carpet men leave it as it seems so useful for something but i just cant think what! The only thing i can think of whenever i look at it (apart from rolling myself up in it and hopping around the house) is putting it under the mattress of the beds (between the bottom of the mattress and the base/slates) but I'm not sure it'll do much good. Feel like i need to do something useful with it tho! Cant make clothes out of it as its not washable tho was toying with the idea of covering some and attempting to make a pair of slippers. Other semi-idea was covering a length to make a big bed blanket thing for the single bed (sadly not our bed as underlay too skinny at only 5 ft wide). OH is a total snob so it has to be something sneaky that he either doesnt notice or doesn't feel embarrassed about.

Sorry for the massive post, thanks to everyone who has given tips on this site so far - you really are making a difference to real people's lives - thank you x x x