A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

Mrs_Chip

I am eternally thankful that I will get my occupational pension at 60 (as will Mr C), there is no way I would be wanting to work to 66 - I would have been working 49 years:eek::eek::eek:. Now I know there are people wo love work and don't want to stop, but we only get one go here, and nearly 50 years stuck behind a desk is not my idea of fun!
And who knows what will happen, not everyone has a long and healthy old age, my poor mum being a prime example.

And it does seem mad - whole generations of young adults desperate for work and they want people to stay working until they are 67 and knackered! I remember Harold Wilson telling everyone how they would not have to work at all because technology would do it for us :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:.

And did they not think that if everyone stayed in full time education for another five or six years there would not be enough people working long enough to be able to pay for the pension bill?

3v3

scrabbles wrote: »

Ask on your local freecycle / freegle? I did that and I was inundated with demijohns and bottles, also got some fermentation buckets, a capper, a heat mat, siphoning tubes, even a few tins of beer and wine mixes... pretty much everything we needed except yeast and sugar IIRC. There are a LOT of people who buy all the stuff, make one quantity of vinegar then give up :rotfl: I have to confess to not having made wine for a year or so (can only drink tiny amounts so tend not to bother) but OH brews his own lager and made turbocider for Christmas.

Great idea, thank you!

I've only ventured in Freecycle once, and that was to put a Wanted: Dog Crate, but nothing happened so I suppose that's why it wasn't in my head to consider it.

I will give it a go :money:

"Proper cooks", on the other hand, need a decent-size kitchen. They tend to cook from scratch a lot more, are genuinely interested in food, etc. "Cooks" need a decent size kitchen.

I'm not so sure I agree with that.
Until 18mths ago I lived in a 1930's house. Lovely sized sitting room, same sized dining room and a teeny kitchen. In the '30's the majority of food was cooked from scratch in these tiny kitchens.

A 1930's kitchen required a sink, a cooker, a fold down type table and came with a built in larder (very roomy! I know because when I moved it, it was used as a coat/shoe cupboard, but when I rearranged everything *all* the food which had been kept in kitchens modern cupboards fitted very neatly in my one proper larder. Cooking from scratch for your 1930's housewife meant shopping for fresh dairy/veg/meat daily or at least every other day. No boilers, radiators, food mixers, toasters, fridges, washing machines, coffee makers, bread machines, food processors, microwaves cluttering up the work surfaces, walls and floor spaces.

I now live in a 1950's house (which has a lovely big kitchen - well, twice the size of the 1930's house. By now refridgerators were coming into vogue but still a built in larder came with the property.

By the 1980's, the "Wimpy Houses" were designed with modern families in mind (2.4 children, both parents out working) who were fast becoming meal assemblers and de-skilling themselves as people who cooked from scratch and were buying up "labour saving" devices, but with little space to put them into.

A good "cook" can prepare a hearty meal on nothing more than one hotplate if need be

pennib

Mrs_Chip wrote: »

Hello PN

I made butter from extra thick double cream (senior moment of Mr T order!) and it worked fine. Once it all comes together you have to keep going and eventually it start to give up the buttermilk.

Were you using a electric hand whisk? Unless it's got a good motor it might struggle once everything thickens up. My Kenwood was grumbling a bit! Have you got a food processor, that might work better?

Sorry it went wrong, hope you have got some more cream to try again with.

ETA - just seen you said you bought 'whipped' cream - what exactly did the pot say - you need to buy double cream or extra thick double that has not been bu88ered about with in any way.

Thanks Mrs.Chip. It was extra thick double cream. I was using an electric hand whisk and it was struggling so gave up before it blew up. I bought 3 pots they are now divided up in the freezer.:o

meme30

prepareathome wrote: »

argg I used the state pension calculator to check hubbys pension date the other day, but didn't check mine again as did so a few months ago and it said I would be eligible at 65 but just now was telling hubby his new age and he said maybe should check in case mine has changed, it has gone back another year till 66. so heaven knows if I will ever live long enough to claim it, as its gone from 60 to 62 to 65 and now to 66 in the space of just over a year.....

Just checked mine...66! If there are thousands of us working for ever to save the government the cost of paying us our pensions, then how much unemployment benefit are they going to be paying out to the younger generations who need us to retire so they can have our jobs! :mad:

politicians are as much use as a chocolate fireguard!

Hobsons_Choice

Been MIA for a while, some sort of "dead tired all the time" lurgy (medical term is probably "bone idle"). So I've had to skip through posts I'm afraid - you lot can talk the hind leg off a mammoth!
Mrs Chip: The Great Mystery of the Mat" is fascinating. Better than the new Peter James thriller, well almost. Could be spilled hand cream/shower jell or something? Oh..and Sherlock Holmes? I reckon he jumped on to that rubbish truck that was passing so that it cushioned his fall, then......ah then....I don't know how he could have slowed/stopped his pulse when Watson examined him. Sure it's something to do with Watson's collision with the bike though.
Off to play a tune on me violin while I have a good think about it!
Went to TK Maxx today and they have terrific reductions on their winter "ski" jackets. Found one that had a removable quilted jacket inside a waterproof jacket ifyswim. Trespass or Regatta...and reduced to £24. Dithered about it, looked round the store, decided I'd buy it and....well, you've guessed haven't you? Gorn!!!!!
I'm so annoyed with myself for not carrying it around with me. It would have been TWO jackets really, for £24 #sobs noisily#.

Hardup_Hester

Limo for Prom it doesn't have to be a limo, do you know anyone with any unusual form of transport? Our pupils arrived in everything from a very old sportscar to a digger.
Hester

gardenia101

Just popped in to say that my claim for ESA will continue & will be reviewed next year :j

Like a lot of people on disability/sickness benefits I was secretly terrified that I'd be found "normal" & put onto JSA. But the system has worked well for me - I am genuinely less able to work than a person who isn't partially sighted, I have said this on my forms & this has been agreed at my medical assessment just over a week ago. I'm staying in the work related activity group & hoping to get more practical advice & help to find a job. (Which is where it all goes a bit pear shaped for me).

I hope that everyone else worrying about a similar situation can take some comfort from my experience - although it must be "easier" for ATOS to deal with a "disability" (how I struggle with that label) like mine that is fairly obvious. You are either partially sighted or not, as you wouldn't get registered as such by an ophthalmologist if you weren't.

Impressed with the speed of the whole thing too - just over 2 weeks from the 'phone call to arrange the medical to getting my result today. Now if they could just manage to send the result letter in large print so that I could actually read it.....

Off to catch up, wine in hand (so spelling may deteriorate in later posts :rotfl:)

Mrs_Chip

Eliza - Mr OG will be 93 in a couple of weeks. Apart from the natural crumbling around the edges, and frustration at that, he is brilliant. We have had some long chats about his life (he has done so much), and it is amazing to think that he was a young beat bobby when war broke out. He was a policeman in the docks area of London and has some wonderful tales to tell of opium dens and ladies of the night. How different must the world today be to the one he knew as a child? Even he can't get his head around it!

scrabbles_2

Thanks Kimsmum and Bitterandtwisted. I can get semi-skimmed most places but I was hoping to be able to get skimmed - I can only have around 25-30g fat per day, so every bit of fat makes a difference! But I suspected it might not be easy as I'd already checked the two biggest household names without success. Ah well.

It was you lot talking about cream a few pages back that got me - one of the sheets the dietician gave me suggested that you can whip very cold skimmed evaporated milk like cream, but obviously with a lot less fat! But lots of the info she gave me is obviously American and downloaded off the web, and the products aren't very easy to get hold of over here. And the waiting list is so long I'm not due to see her again until the end of April.

Honestly, sometimes I think I'd find it a lot easier to just buy a load of pre-packaged weightwatchers carp and live off that instead.

Possession

Phew its hard catching up on here! Another really tiring long day, and i still have some clearing up to do before I go to bed, which is going to be soon. Tomorrow I get a lie-in till 5.30, at least. DS's birthday party on Saturday and I am SO pleased it isn't in the house this year, I haven't any energy left. He's doing the laser shooting thing and it is all paid for with clubcard vouchers, thankyou Mr T.
I checked my pension age, and its 67 at the moment, but TBH I don't expect a state pension to exist by then. I am paying £300 a month into a private pension and have done for at least 15 years, but the projected amount per yr it will give me is shockingly small. DH isn't paying at all since he was made redundant, which worries him.
I've been transfixed by the mystery of the damp rug but I can't shed any light on it I'm afraid.