Preparedness for when

sorryImoved

GreyQueen

Thank you for the explanation. I read all of the posts daily and am sometimes left scratching my head trying to figure out things. Love this website. Everyone here comes up with interesting things I would never have thought of!

Say_who?

At church one year we has a nativity where the whole congregation (well nearly) dressed up and came to the front when their part of the story came. My OH wore a sheet and went as Herod!

GreyQueen

sorryImoved wrote: »

GreyQueen

Thank you for the explanation. I read all of the posts daily and am sometimes left scratching my head trying to figure out things. Love this website. Everyone here comes up with interesting things I would never have thought of!

No worries. If you're puzzling, just ask. We're nearly all Brits but some of us have come here from other parts of the planet. And some are presently in other parts of the world. We're on GMT at the moment, what's your time zone?

I'm an English Brit. Those Scottish Brits baffle me with some of their words, and that's after having lived up there for 5 years........:rotfl:

Anyway, with wild plants, most of them are known by different names in different regions of the UK.

The classic foraging book here is Richard Mabey's Food for Free.

He lists the following regional names for this same plant, (Chenopodium album) aka Fat Hen.

All good (Hampshire), Bacon Weed (Dorset), Confetti (Somerset), Dirtweed (Somerset and Lincolnshire). Dirt D i c k (Wiltshire and Cheshire), Dock Flower (Somerset). Dungweed (Gloucestershire). Lamb's Quarters (Somerset and Isle of Wight, Northern England), Meldweed (Scotland), Muck Hill Weed (Warwickshire), Mutton Chops (Dorset) Myles (Berwick) Pigweed (Somerset & Hampshire) Rag Jack. (Cheshire), Wild Spinach (Midlands).

Mardatha, the book says it grows all over the UK on wasteland and cultivated ground. It's got close associations with human activity and we've been eating it since forever and were cultivating it in Neolithic times. My allotment is on what is known to be the site of Early Neolithic farmsteads and grows it like cress.

sorryImoved, if "allotments" and their diminutive "lotties" is baffling, here's the condensed version.

UK is very small and crowded. Lots of people were displaced from rural life in previous centuries by vile legistlation which enclosed the commons (read up on Enclosure Acts). Prior to which they had been peasants with a small amount of land to cultivate and access to common land to graze animals. When that was taken away by goverment fiat, they were destitute and had to trail into towns and cities to find work as factory hands. They lived in horrible crowded circumstances without even tiny gardens.

As a sop to revolutionary tendancies (and a feeling that It Would Do the Poor Good), allotments were started. These are plots of ground, grouped together, typically circa 250 square meters per plot. They're rented very cheaply from parish councils, or town or city councils, although some are privately-owned.

It is currently extremely difficult to get an allotment as the competion is so fierce. If you ever ride around the UK by train, you will be able to see allotments from the tracks, as they're often squeezed into funny bits of leftover ground. My site is tucked into the corner of a housing estate in suburbia.

Hollyberry

maryb wrote: »

oops, just realised the chat about cats and Christmas trees was on the OS Doorstep thread.

Never mind, hope I gave you all a smile

Sure did! It reminds me of happy times when the Christmas tree never looked tidy for long, and the corridors rang to the sounds of two wilderbeest masquerading as cats.

mardatha

I live on what was once the border between two iron age tribes (the Selgovae and the Votadini). On every one of the higher hills is a hill fort of some kind, one of them massive and very impressive (in pics, I haven't ever been up there lol). I dare say they would have known Fat Hen then, I wonder what else they ate..

greenbee

Kale, probably Mar

Hard_Up_Hester

My DD, is a size 6, wet through and what her sister & I affectionately call a t1tless wonder. She is expecting twins, the midwife spent spent ages explaining all about the different sort of maternity bras that are available and then asked her what size bra she normally wore, to which DD replied 'I wear pimple size, otherwise known as a vest!'

I have been advised that from next term 'high volume users' will be issued with a feedback form, so they can list my mistakes. That will be interesting. I've always had brilliant feedback from staff with phrases such as 'calm & smiling presence' 'efficient and helpful'. Oh well, no doubt I'll be forced out of my job before long, I shall go down fighting, lol.
I do still have a copy of the email about the cupboards, I like to keep a little ammunition in stock.
Hester

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

I live on what was once the border between two iron age tribes (the Selgovae and the Votadini). On every one of the higher hills is a hill fort of some kind, one of them massive and very impressive (in pics, I haven't ever been up there lol). I dare say they would have known Fat Hen then, I wonder what else they ate..

I looked it up for ya : http://dro.dur.ac.uk/5851/

Durham University paper in PDF format. One of the four sites analysed was coastal East Lothian.

Yer Iron Agers were eating lotsa meat, plus cereals (emmer wheat and barley) plus nuts and fruits. The analysis reveals that they were eating the following meats; sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, red deer, voles, greylag geese, mallards, domesticated fowl, grey herons, common voles and common toads, water voles, foxes and stoats and ravens.

Basically, whatever they could get their mitts on. Interestingly, despite the researches having chosen coastal or estaurine/ riverine sites, the Iron Agers don't seem to be having much truck with seafood or fish in general.

Hester, I have managed to buy two of what it amuses the retailer to call "shapewear" which I'd call "crop-tops with stretchy bits and foam cups". They'll do. Took me 8 mins to pay for the bliddy things, it's murder out there in the shopping streets.

I had some other errands but my nerves had been shredded by what I thought was a screeching infant and turned out to be a tantrumming two year old in a buggy. Feeling evil, I was tempted to suggest she left it outside the store and someone might steal it.

OK, I'm not a child person.............. ;p

mardatha

Skylight was just sucked right out of the roof by a gust of wind, heavy rain on the way and I don't know what hell to do lol. Rain will come in and soak the loft insulation and the ceilings might come down. HA emergency number not answering, joiner son not answering. Anybody got any ideas?

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

Skylight was just sucked right out of the roof by a gust of wind, heavy rain on the way and I don't know what hell to do lol. Rain will come in and soak the loft insulation and the ceilings might come down. HA emergency number not answering, joiner son not answering. Anybody got any ideas?

:eek: OMG Mar, how big is the gap? Pitched roof or flat roof? Tiles/ slates/ other?