make do and mend for tougher times

Popperwell

Hope the op is as far away as possible and if an improvement is possible it happens Kittikins...

PAH, it's awful I know but are there no food banks that could step in and help in this situation and can the story not get any publicity in the local news?

GreyQueen

Good grief! I was off the forum for about 24 hours and it's taken me an hour to catch up with just this thread! Awesome!

Smileyt, I have to work part-time myself (60% of FTE) so have very particular requirements when I job-search and I would have been a bit freaked if an interviewer had started on about progressing the advertised p/t role into f/t. It seems to me to be dishonest, unless they have stated in the advert that this is a possibily. That's my take on it, but I can only speak from the POV of the interviewee not the interviewer. I think you handled it as well as you could, having been thrown a curve ball like that.

And as for one of them being the nurse........:rotfl: Whenever someone of a medical nature wants to go south of the border I find it hard to resist quipping about needing a dinner and a date before we can get so intimate. But then again, I have a sense of humour which can assert itself at unfortunately moments.

Fuddle, others have said it before, but you're not comparing like with like if you look at el cheapo vs knitted. I must admit I find the price of craft materials pretty appalling in new shops but I'm never sure if this is because I have been c.s. and bootsaling for so long that my sense of value if skewed. It's a particular joy to luck onto a bargain.

Quick Q My Mum, who is a beautiful knitter, has always handknitted socks for "the boys" in 80/20 wool/nylon blends. The wool for the warmth, softness and wicking, the nylon for the hardwearingness. And they are darned until they scream for mercy, and sometimes the leg part may be unravelled and re-used if not too worn.

Places to buy this are becoming harder and harder to find and she's down to one stall in a nearby market town which has always provided yarn of a satisfactory quality but the lastest batches have worn very badly, so much so that she has said she won't make any more as it isn't worth it. That's a shame for her and for the menfolk.

So, does anyone have knowledge of an online source of such yarn which they can vouch for?

Mum and I are having a chuckle about the SABLE piles of yarn in her loft. Bought when yarn was cheaper, often from the c.s.. they are steadily coming into their own.

short_bird :grouphug: have a dodgy group hug to comfort you in a wobble. Been there in one form or another and the dread is corrosive. I hope it comes good for you.

Well. the reason I wasn't online past breakfast yeasterday awas that I went to work and then had a quick pitstop during which I ate a whole (whoopsied) box of French Fancies and drank a pot of tea. With water bottle in hand, and steely glint in eye, I clambered atop my trusty steed and set off to the allotment with grim determination. All that was needed was the Magnificent Seven on the soundtrack.

Well, at first glance the tater-tops looked fine, certainly nothing of the scale of the Great Blight Disaster of 2007 when they keeled over and went yellow in under 20 hours. Closer inspection revealed that the first blight symptoms had spread all over the patch. I think the reason that the progression was slower than in 2007 was that after the 6 pm downpours on Weds, the skies cleared and stayed clear and the weather was much cooler and fresher.

Tug up tater top, shake out 3 inch slugs and snails (several to each plant. Fold tater top into 3 and bundle into black bin bag. Stamp on snails in Doc Marten steel-toed gardening boots and cut 3 inch slugs in half with kitchen knife kept at lottie for misc purposes. Repeat for next 3 hours until you have a back screaming in agony, 16 bin bags, a crunchy mess of snails and dead slugs everywhere and are slowly going insane.

The only mercy was that the rain didn't come. I took 2 of the 16 sacks to the tip on the pushbike and fell indoors about 8 pm.

:j The good news it that some of the potatoes were breaching the baulks or disturbed by my tugging up the haulm, and they are a very acceptable size indeed. Not record-breaking by my standards, having taken an individual tater off the plot late year which weighed just under 2 lb, but very presentable indeed. So I feel heatened that there will be a crop worth having, despite not being able to leave the tops until they'd finished growing, which might easily have been another 3-4 weeks judging on appearances.

_pale__pale__pale_ The bad news is that the slugs and snails were everywhere in the tater patch, and so were the frogs. I look at the frogs (all bar one adult, they were titchy) and then at the slugs and the slugs were 3 inches long and the frogs about 1.5 inches exc legs. So, realistically-speaking, there is no way they can scoff these monsters. It would be like one of us trying to eat a sofa-sized sandwich.

Hence my resorting to stamping and cold steel (they don't like it up 'em, as Pike used to say). I lost count but I killed the best part of 200 gastropods and could have killed as many again but for running out of time. I took a certain grim pleasure in killing the ones nearest the runners as I'm pretty sure that they are the ones responsible for the Bean Massacre (all gone now ). And I shall go back tonight unless it's pouring with rain and kill some more, mwah ha ha!

Before I left the lottie I had an interesting chat with one of the fellers who is a retired farm worker who still helps out at his old farm. He tells me that the blight is everywhere and they're spraying weekly - no choice or they'll lose the lot. He also reckons that hay prices will be horrendous in the next few months; said that they'd not been able to cut any whereas they'd've normally made several cuts by now. Last year the drought meant the grass wasn't growing, now it's plentiful but too darned wet to cut. He also told me that the wheat, which should have started to ripen by now and be showing a bit of gold, is still fully-green.

Buffing my crystal ball, and factoring in the damage to grain harvests in Russia and the USA, I predict an expensive year ahead for commodities.

So, will have to look to my beans and tatties, aim to reduce the kiloage of slugs on my plot (daren't think what lurks in the derelict plots to either side) and stockpile tinned tatties for those months early next year when my h.g will be finished and I predict fresh and canned will be a lot more expensive than they are now.

One happy note was that I saw 2 of the "tree bumblebees" on my 2nd batch of broadbeans, which made me very happy.:D

OK, brekkie then out the door to w*rk. Laters GQ x

Possession

Sounds like it was Friday 13th for you yesterday GQ, all that slug massacre-ing!
I'm glad you managed to rescue some potatoes. I feel so sorry for all these farmers who look as if they're going to lose so much. But as you say, all the more important for us to stock up now.
I've got 2 big bags of bread flour, plus I think 5 normal size bags so I'm done with that I think. I have quite a lot of pasta, then again with 2 of us I get through quite a lot. Might need some more of that, and more Smash for emergencies (can't stand the stuff but I guess I'd eat it if I had to) and other sundries.

[Deleted User]

<<<For a time Mum used to drink PLJ lemon on a morning diluted in hot water(I think)and I remember having a Halliborange tablet daily. Also remember Rosehip syrup but I don't remember again how often we had it or when we stopped having it. >>>


I remember drinking PLJ as the rumour went around that to drink it every morning first thing helped you to lose weight as the taste put you off of sugury things
Trust me it didn't it just made you want to have something sweet to take the taste away.

There were 42 in my class of (1948) at school and we had to line up every morning for a spoonful of Virol malt extract.It was very dark brown like molasses and tasted awful but it was supposed to be good for you so we obediently lined up for this revolting stuff.There were four classes in my primary school and apparently only four desert spoons so we were lined up in alphabetical order to imbibe this goo.As my surname began with a 'B' I was lucky and was usualy first or at the least second in line.The ones I felt sorry for were the Smiths and Williams children as the spoon had been through a few childrens mouths before it got to them .Great way of passing on colds and coughs I thought at the time :) and if someone had a runny nose then tough :) Oh the good old days when kids were treated as kids and not wrapped up in cotton wool H&S would never allow it today but I survived even though the smell of Virol takes me back over 60 years to those days of lining up for this 'healthy' stuff no doubt the stuff was good for you but the sharing of a spoon between 42 kids wasn't .In the winter when there was an outbreak of chicken pox,measels or mumps most of the kids all went down like nine pins (no jabs for us, we either got ill and survived)I have never been vaccinated for anything and I'm still here, I think I must have built up some sort of immunity as a child to things, by catching them :)
Thank God for antibiotics

dragonette

GQ - try texere, its a wool mill in bradford that sells its other yarns as well brands. Some of it its pennies (I adore it, miss living next to it!). https://www.texere.co.uk any other working mill should be fairly cheap too

ETA: just realised that it must look like I'm promoting texere, I'm not, I just love the mill and have had some grat bargins from there £5 for 500g of mohair :eek:

Popperwell

dragonette wrote: »

GQ - try texere, its a wool mill in bradford that sells its other yarns as well brands. Some of it its pennies (I adore it, miss living next to it!). www.texere.co.uk any other working mill should be fairly cheap too

ETA: just realised that it must look like I'm promoting texere, I'm not, I just love the mill and have had some grat bargins from there £5 for 500g of mohair :eek:

I have mentioned a fe places since joining and have no connection with any place but when you are trying to save money or share experiences...I think we're all sensible that we're not selling, it would soon be spotted and to keep saying other sites are available is taken as read I think;)and I hope the people running the site are understanding.

katieowl_2

Morning everyone. Good Grief it's like the middle of blooming winter here today....not so much cold as dark..although I was freezing last night and bunged the leccy blanket on for 10 mins before I got into bed. The tooth hole isn't too bad, I slept ok. I've got my online bill for the leccy, just come through, I'm working up courage to look at it...I'm not exactly going to be making up for my winter usage in the summer if it stays like this am I? I've had to use the heated drying rack too...and the Tumble drier. And we've not yet turned the Rayburn off!

B&B bookings are really low. One can hardly blame people really, bearing in mind we are famous for our rain here in Wales. I've only got 8 days booked in advance end july/beginning of August. By this time last year August was chocca.

I've just been depressing myself thoroughly by looking at the daily wail website. I'm :eek: at the security for the Olympics...they must be expecting something to happen??? Very very scary. I'm so glad all the kids are out of London for the event - we aimed to have been gone by now. Just wish my Mum was coming her earlier, but I know she'll pull up the drawbridge. Also enraged by the amount of money that's been spent on it all, especially the 'village' It's supposed to be affordable housing after the event...yeah pull the other one. Is £200 a week affordable? Not in my world.

I found out yesterday, that DD no 1 and her BF are moving out of town and into St. Dogs (just over the river) which means they will literally be around the corner from DD 2 who's just moved there too. The rent is about the same, but the flat is bigger (their place in town was a studio, and the bedroom was into the eaves of the roof, with very little room to stand up, and no walls to put the furniture against!) The new place has actual rooms and a small garden, also the council tax is Pembs. so half what it is here in Ceredigion. DD can still walk to work, and she's been promoted to assistant deputy manager :j more jellybeans, when she is actually 'in' the role.

I've got to traipse back to the dentist later to have my crown stuck back in, but will attempt to combine the trip with doing some useful stuff to save money on petrol.

Kate

SDG31000

Morning all

Jasper Fforde was lovely, very kind, impressed that I had actually made the marshamllows (He thought you needed speical machinery and couldn't make them at home), and very handsome. Can you tell I have a bit of a crush going on? I swear that I could feel my blush getting deeper and deeper and wasn't able to do anything about it. I was trying to think of a comparision for my friend and said it was like being a teenager and meeting someone who's poster you have on your bedroom wall. Somehow I don't think that DH would be too impressed if I put a poster of Jasper Fforde on our bedroom wall though. I now have the new book with an inscription that says "Thank you for the marshmallows"

I had a big dizzy patch last night, DH came home to find me clinging to the bed and then collapsed next to me. I staggered downstairs an hour later and put some potatoes in the oven and we had those with freezer pot luck. Thank goodness for all those random bags of stuff I made and put in there.

DS2 has his last day at school today and they are meant to be having their sports day. As it hasn't stopped raining since before 8am I don't think it is going to happen somehow.

DS1 has just moved from his bed to the bathroom but I have no idea when he will make it downstairs. He needs to do last night's washing up at some point. I don't think he liked me shouting at him last night when he decided to start doing it at Midnight and he woke me up.

Thank you for the website dragonette I'm looking for some wool for my next project and it looks great.

Take care everyone xxxx

mardatha

I forgot about Texere, yes they are good, I bought mohair off them and it was lovely. Dull and dry here but cold, just 11 degrees. Pathetic.
I'm flattened again today so reading more than talking for a change

katieowl_2

Bu&&er. I just called the NHS exemption helpline as we'd not had new cards this year. Apparently we are not entitled any more, unless OH is getting a pension credit and no one bothered to tell us!!! Anyone know how much it is to have had a tooth out??? :eek:

Kate