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make do and mend for tougher times

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  • Popperwell
    Popperwell Posts: 5,088 Forumite
    edited 7 August 2012 at 8:12AM
    Morning Fuddle,

    How do we stay positive, I have no idea. They used to say religion was the opium for the masses use to calm us down, at present it's the Olympics...It's diverting attention from this worrying situation...

    To be made homeless and all you own are the clothes on your back. Great!

    I think your oven may arrive today so listen for the knock on the door...

    How the other half live...I/we struggle and fear the future, my cousin took off to the US...he works for Sony and an artist he managed in the last year or two sold enough CD's to go triple platinum and in a few weeks he will be in the studio with Richard Carpenter of The Carpenters who is going to record a Christmas album...having said that there are many living in poverty and struggling in the States just as here...the land of plenty...for some...many haven't health insurance and have to use food banks etc...
    "A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!" ~Thomas Jefferson

    "Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in" ~ Alan Alda
  • jpscloud
    jpscloud Posts: 1,465 Forumite
    edited 7 August 2012 at 8:34AM
    Morning toughies, fuddle I hope your oven arrives today!

    Just in case you didn't read it in your research, I remembered a couple of things I wished someone had told me before I used mine...

    VERY important: Don't turn the timer dial anticlockwise - let it run down on its own (the lid can be on the stand, as it only lights up if the lid is on the bowl and the handle clicked down). It will just tick away till the timer finishes, but if you try to turn it back it will break.

    Practice taking the lid off and putting it on the stand a few times before you use the oven (so it's not hot while you get used to it).

    Second, be wary of allowing fat to splash (you know how joints of beef etc. can have an explosion of fat?) upwards onto the halogen bulb. I don't cook large joints of meat, and most meat for me is done in the SC, so the only thing I have to watch is sausages when I cook them in the halogen. Too much fat splashed on the bulb can shorten its life.

    Protecting the halogen bulb: I only clean the glass parts, on the inside of the lid. The halogen and the metal guard get so hot when you put the oven on self clean that they are sterilised anyway.

    Basically people say the halogen bulbs are delicate and tend to go a lot... mine has done a year of daily use and is still fine, and I still have the free spare (you should get one as well, as it's Andrew James).

    If anything really baffles you, check out you tube, almost every problem you can think of has been shown solved on there!

    I am having a bit of a blitz and cleaning the bedroom this morning before I start anything else, so at least one room will be clean and tidy. I want to put some shelves up in there, hopefully today, and maybe even finish the decorating in there!

    Hope everyone has a good day, in spite of those things which threaten to grind us all down.
    I believe in the freedom of spinach and the right to arm bears.

    Weight loss journey started January 2015
    -32lbs
  • fuddle
    fuddle Posts: 6,823 Forumite
    The porch door is open and I'm ready for a knock :D

    Thanks jps, very much appreciate :)

    You know how I'm keeping positive? It's by reading about survival of the working classes in the 30's/war era. It makes makes me ever so greatful that I have the very basics at hand at least. Learning about those that have come through life in a much worse position than I am is what is getting me through. At least my family is comfortable.

    Change is afoot and maybe, as a society, we need this to come together. What I mean is there's been too much, easy come easy go, I want, I can have, keeping up with the Jones' kind of attitude and that has made a selfish society - each for their own. Maybe these times will push all that away?
  • mardatha
    mardatha Posts: 15,612 Forumite
    Recoverydust - the first and most important thoing we need to copy from Europe is the guillotine !
  • mardatha wrote: »
    Recoverydust - the first and most important thoing we need to copy from Europe is the guillotine !

    can we start a list? :
    Mary Miller
    Ian Duncan Smith
    ALL the Lords and Ladies with interests in ATOS, G4S or privatising the NHS
    Lord Mayor of London
    :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

    i shall sit at the front and knit... anyone going to join me?
    :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
  • Mrs_Chip
    Mrs_Chip Posts: 1,819 Forumite
    Too swift, too painless Mar! :D

    Fuddle - I find the lid stand really awkward (might just be me :o), so I use the extender ring to sit the lid on whilst it is hot.
    Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures
  • fuddle
    fuddle Posts: 6,823 Forumite
    edited 7 August 2012 at 9:10AM
    The place I have for the halogen (it needs a name, I shall think ;) ) is next to the oven. The hob is glass and heat proof. I was just going to place it on there.

    Halogen ovens are:

    bright, warm, and breezy... also has to be a woman as all my things that help me are troopers.

    Now a bright, warm, breezy womans name - I think there might be an inuendo or two in there :rotfl::o

    EDIT: Jamaica! It's bright, warm and breezy there isn't it? Now for a strong Jamaican woman :cool:
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 12,492 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I feel really churned up about the fact that some on here think pensioners have it easy. All I can say is that the ones who saved and provided for their old age are being hammered. No HB and pension top ups etc . The ones who appear to be relatively better off are the ones who rely on the state and who get the extra handouts

    Many of us were brought up to just get on with it, to make the best of whatever life threw at us and that included taking in lodgers, which was a very common occurrence and happened in my own family, through several generations. Most of us were lucky to have one small tv and one radio per family, no internet of course so no electronic games that are now the `must haves` and which also consume a lot of energy. No carpets, lino was the norm and I could go on. Most people rented and some dragged themselves up by their bootlaces to better themselves, many of those are now asking why the heck they bothered

    We either got pessimistic and got swallowed up or we stayed optimistic and took very small steps to survival. I am an optimist and was born that way and even while I helped prepare the half pigs head that was our meal for nine for two days and I stayed an optimist as I shared a room with four others and walked two miles to school every day. I realised that the worse thing ever was to be dependent on society and we, in our struggling family, took responsibility for ourselves. Now I`ll get me hat because no doubt I`ll be shouted down in flames
  • prepareathome
    prepareathome Posts: 1,931 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    mardatha wrote: »
    the first and most important thoing we need to copy from Europe is the guillotine !

    Nar we want to put them all in social or private housing - the worst conditions mind you and the make them live on benefits, but not straight away, they have to wait while lost files are found, money that should have been paid wasn't. Visit upon them every indignity that the welfare state has ever visited on anyone........

    It should be law if you want to be an MP you have to live like this for a couple of years at the very least, oh yes and even if they are healthy they must be treated as if they have a Mental Health Problem or ME/Fibro etc......and have all the fun that goes with that (if they are healthy to start with I doubt they will be by the end).

    Even though they knew they just had to get through 2 -3 years ad then things would get better its a long time when you are living on welfare and it might just open a few eyes. Sadly I know a lot would shake off the memories the minute they walk through the doors of Westminster and forget all about the awfulness.
    Need to get back to getting finances under control now kin kid at uni as savings are zilch

    Fashion on a ration coupon 2021 - 21 left
  • kidcat
    kidcat Posts: 6,058 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Kittie- I certainly meant no offence and I do not believe that all pensioners have it easy at all, I am aware that having a private pension even small can be a huge difference in that it disqualifies you from so much other stuff. What I was clumsily trying to point out is that some pensioners who receive full HB CT benefit, pension and tax credits are actually alot better off than many other groups.

    I am sorry if anything I have said has caused you offence - I agree that those who worked to provide a small pension are getting a rough deal - I know someone in the exact position that if they didnt get their small pension they would be hugely better off.
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