make do and mend for tougher times

fuddle

The Bon Maman damson plum conserve winks at me all the time. I will buy it one day but the conscience gets me when I can get the rubbish stuff for pence.

I should treat myself I think

prepareathome

Thanks Jamanda will remember that and be extra careful, in fact will stick a note on one to remind me as not planning on using them at moment.

Grandma wanted to say thanks for info about putting dehydrated food in jars, put bananas I had done in jars other day and been checking them daily but no trace of moisture so put jars in cupboard now with label with date on them. I sterilised the jars in the oven as my DW is old an not sure if it heats up enough now for that now although ok for washing.

Hi to all newbies, I am 56 and live on the edge of Liverpool literally, my front garden fence is the border. If I lived on the other side of it my council tax would be so much cheaper. Married for too long, but that status might change soon, with all my fledglings flown the nest, one escaped all the way to Australia where I hope to visit him one day, but cannot think about it while my fur babies are alive as cannot even go away overnight without youngest (14 in Oct) fretting very badly. Other 2 will be 15 in Jan. We also have a very large precocious goldfish who has just turned 7. I have 3 grandchildren 13, 7 and youngest was 3 today. I tend to be the moaning minnie here always feeling sorry for myself.

Hugs and Love to all xxxx

Mrs_Chip

Oh yes you should - when treats are only a few pounds, they are worth it once in a while as they cheer you up - and you would have the jar!:D

crumblepie

Fuddle- lakeland sell red gingham lids for jars . I've bought the plain white lids from there but I do think the patterned one are pretty.

As intros go - I'm fast approaching 40, believe in value for money which sometimes means spending money on something that lasts years, rather than buying cheap for it to fall apart. However I don't believe in wasting money and look for bargains when I shop, like cooking and knitting and have a well fed cat.

Popperwell

This is quite interesting especially the cook tab...

http://cookit.e2bn.org/

meme30

Intro:- I'm a 54 year old born and bred Geordie from Newcastle currently living in a pit village near Durham, There's me, a grumpy but well loved DH, 2 grown up and fledged DDs and Sil's and three rather wonderful grandchildren, with one more on the way! Favourite pastime is sitting in a field doing nowt...and reading a [STRIKE]bit[/STRIKE]lot of MSE.

PAH:- Stop beating yourself up pet! You do what you can and that's all that matters.
Always look on the bright side of life de tom, pom de tom te tom! Bet you're singing it!
You forgot to add in your intro that you are the Champion Slayer of HA's!:rotfl:

GQ:- has the current Champion Slayer of Snails title of course!:p

SpikyHedgehog

gailey wrote: »

Im not having much luck with southwest blackberries.
They not all out yet and need sun to ripen.
I also need to go minus the kids as they get bored then they sting themselves on nettle and toddler crys as she has mud on her shoes.

Its sunny here. hubby has today and tommororow-quite rare.
we off to swindon to butterfly farm as promised eldest all summer and its a reasonably cheap day out, we packed huge picnic.

Im ok I can plod on with house.
its just quarterly inspection doing my head in.
We been here 7years we spendt so much money decorating.
They can see we not trashing the place.
coming during half term even harder, hate way tennants get treated.

sorry kidcat you having trouble with schools still

right bets go cath u laters everyone have good day and take care.

you homeschooling?

Gailey, can you contact the agents & say ' When you want to do the inspection, its half term, so I'll want to be able to do things with the children - can we make it the week before or after?'

fuddle wrote: »

Is it possible to freeze:

cheese
yoghurt
fromage frais
cream
margerine/butter

successfully?

Frozen yoghurts are good for lunch boxes - just take them out in the morning & put in the box with spoon & they'll stay cool till lunch time!

kidcat wrote: »

Fuddle - for cheese cake I always use basics soft cheese, which I have frozen.
I have also frozen cheese, butter and marg.

My back has finally started to ease, I drove this morning and didnt scream aloud when I put the handbrake on which is a definate improvement. DD says she cant see any difference but I can manage little things today for the first time. It may still be agony but I can feel the little improvement which means that if I am careful it will continue to improve.

Good job as we have three trips out this week, Cadbury world I booked a while ago, we have been given a family ticket to a theme park and my parents have decided to wait until now to declare they want to do a family day out. They usually do Blackpool but as the weather is really unpredictable and DD17 hates the big rides, I have persuaded them to do Trentham and see the gardens and the monkeys this time.

Wandered to Ald! earlier and managed to buy some paint, Oh is furious (and yes I mean absolutely furious) that the woodwork on DS14 bedroom he painted in March has gone yellow - I had bought Dulux not cheap stuff, thinking its our house now need to do the job properly. It was the only paintwork that was needed as it was all new when we built the room (took us 8 months to get around to it) and it went yellow.

After reading on here of some other problems I have discovered that gloss is no longer any good due to the removal of ingredients and that it always goes yellow - unfortunately it looks awful one doorway yellowed compared to the others. So have been today and bought a white gloss acrylic and I hope that works.

Strangely two of the radiators have both started to rust at the bottom as well, so I picked up the metal paint in white too in the hope it will prevent me having to have two new radiators fitted.

Garden is flooded yet again and apparently the local music festival has been abandoned yet it was blazing sun for most of the day the nights downpour was hideous.

PAH - you have to count the success rather than the fails, I know a guy who was a heart surgeon (retired now) and he worked on the worst cases and alot of his patients died, when asked how he coped with the failure he said calmly - what failure? I saved four lives last week! You had two great days and managed alot of things, thats the bit you count, the rest is unimportant. You spent time with your grandchildren worth any price I bet.

I have the rusty radiator problem, & got some kurust to paint on first to cure the rust - you put on paint afterwards & I haven't used it yet, but it didn't cost a lot.

stiltwalker

SpikyHedgehog wrote: »

Frozen yoghurts are good for lunch boxes - just take them out in the morning & put in the box with spoon & they'll stay cool till lunch time!

...and keep the rest of your lunch cool at the same time - my mum used to do this with my yoghurts for my lunch box back when I was at primary school.

When you take a picnic out for the day you can freeze a big (litre) carton of juice instead of using a freeze block - it does the same job and you can have a refreshing, real juice slushie at the end of the day to cool the kids (and you:)) down instead of forking out for one of those nasty, florecent (sp?) slushies out of a machine.

grandma247

Pah I'm glad it worked with the jars. I have a ton of jars at the moment. I should start bottling and canning but have not seen any good prices yet. I will do a few at present prices to get us through the winter though.

I want to do some jars of coleslaw as the price of white cabbages in lidl is not bad.

I am 56 with 57 fast approaching married 39 years and have six children spanning two generations, oldest 38 youngest nearly13, and 11 grandchildren between 11yrs and 18 months.

We went to the evening wedding reception of one of my nieces last night. It was lovely catching up with some of my family who I haven't seen in a long while. The place used to be some kind of stately home I think. We were able to sit in a room away from the music and chat and hear every word.

I have come to hate gatherings these days where the music is so loud you have to shout at each other and still miss bits of what is said. I usually go home with a headache and have started declining invites if there is any kind of disco type thing.

[Deleted User]

FUDDLE - if you have any gingham material you could always do the old fashioned thing and cut some circles from it to go over your jar lids with a piece of string or an elastic band, then it wouldn't matter what jars you used, and the fabric is re-usable so very OS.

Intro - DH and I are 67 and 64 respectively and we live in a village in Hampshire. We have a dippy lurcher who keeps us on our toes and 2 grown up daughters . We have a garden, greenhouse, polytunnel and allotment which take up most of our days but we love it. DH is a fishing enthusiast but only the kind you put back in the lake, and I love all things OS, my kitchen, preserving and have a big interest in the WW2 Home Front and how folks managed to keep going in those conditions. We try to be as OS as possible, produce as much of our food as we can and produce as little waste as possible. Cheers Lyn x.