Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

boddy wrote: »

GQ is it Ann Cleeves new book? Harbour Street. I just got that yesterday with my Xmas tokens. She lives in this area and have met her a few times. Really nice lady. Another good author is Mari Hannah who is also a crime writer.

Off to take some more money out this morning.

It's actually The Glass Room. I just drop my hands on them at random in the library. I really liked her Shetland Quartet books. I'll look out for the other lady's work, too.

Glad she's a nice woman. If any of you get a chance to hear Lindsey Davies, of the Falco Roman "detective" books fame, speak, I thoroughly recommend seizing the opportunity. She's lovely, warm, funny and knowledgeable and had us all in stitches. I won't easily forget her description of getting togged up to go spelunking in Rome's sewer system for research purposes..............:rotfl:

Going to look at the newspapers to see what's happening to the weather. Yesterday was drizzly, apart from one very loud crack of thunder which startled me, and there was nothng more than that. It's dry now and a flat grey sky. I may go to the lottie later.

thriftwizard

Very, very soggy here! Not a downpour, thank Heaven, but it's definitely a quilting day. That said, the new tarp over the chicken run has bust an eyehole, so I may need to soldier off down there with my eyelet tool & try to rig some kind of patch, otherwise I'll have ten very soggy birds - again.

There's definitely something going on in the world of high finance. My daughter & I gazed at each other in utter incredulity when we heard on the news that the British economy is doing really well, that wages have outstripped inflation, that the Tories may even raise the minimum wage ever so slightly - is it just that we're years behind, down here in the sticks? From where we're standing, it's going downhill rapidly! The food bank's overwhelmed, no-one's buying the new houses - mind you, no-one in their right mind would, there's water fountaining out from underneath them! - even with massive "co-ownership" deals & sweeteners, the market (most accurate economic barometer there's ever been) is half-empty most weekends - I mean of stalls, as well as of customers. No-one we know is confident enough to even talk about booking a holiday; I'm talking about teachers, local government staff, bookkeepers, even an architect. People with "good" jobs and regular salaries are struggling.

Is it any different upcountry?

westcoastscot

mardatha wrote: »

Ah yes WCS I could do that if I used house coal, ty. That's always a plan C.I do like plans lol

Mar I use smokeless eggs - just need to have a window open when the stove doors are open, but its roasting anyway so need it! plus we have monitors etc. I usually put a couple of logs on the fire first to damp the heat a bit -never had any problems.

edited to add: katep I have a copper kettle that sits in the fire well, but since I got my kelly kettle I use it on it's side, with its bottom bit in the fire facing outwards - so just the bottom "corner" actually on the coals. Works a treat and really quick too, and showing no sign of damaging it at all - the soot just wipes right off

WCS

mardatha

Brilliant WCS I can do that too then, is handy to know- thank you.
Thriftwizard, no pet you're not in a strange land or other dimension. You're in the real world, not in Tory-lying-toerags-think-we're-all-daft land!

GreyQueen

I'm not a denizen of HappyToryLand, either, thriftwizard.

There are empty shops on the main shopping streets and in the mall in my city. Some of these retail units have been empty for years. Our market used to be a case of "dead men's boots" if you wanted a stall, now there's plenty of gaps.

Little independant shops flicker in and out of existance like fireflies, as people try to be entreprenurial, but the economy just doesn't have the ooomph in it for much discretionary spending.

Charity shops are busy, as are the discount chains and junk shops, and that's about it, really. In my hometown (market town pop circa 20,000) the dereliction of the shopping streets is hidden by those plastic films with pretty pictures on, stuck all over the glass like a panorama so that you can't see the emptiness and pile of post which will likely be inside.

If this is prosperity, I'd really hate to see what a recession looks like!

I'll know things are turning back into prosperity when fewer people are calling us to claim HB, when we notice a rush of people signing off because they've got jobs, or more hours and don't need topping up in order to be able to pay their rent. When we have fewer calls about the replacement for the crisis loan scheme. When I see people looking a bit more prosperous. When there aren't collection points for food bank donations in every bliddy supermarket.

When I don't see my colleagues in the chazzers with me, when we don't tend to bring pack-ups for lunch, when we're not stretching the intervals between haircuts for as long as possible, when waged women go back to paying someone to colour their hair (if they ever do) rather than using a £1 colour from Poondland.

When there's less of a scrum around the yellow-label spots in the supermarket. When there isn't a Big Issue seller or a beggar every few meters.............When there aren't a rash of payday loan/ cash converter etc type places. When you can get seen at the CAB without waiting for hours because they're so mobbed by the desperate.

Yup, we have a way to go before we achieve 2008 levels of prosperity, never mind any improvement. *and breathe*

mardatha

Well the one good thing is that so many people are affected by their cuts that the only people believing them are themselves!

westcoastscot

It's certainly grim up here - we've always been negatively impacted pricewise but it's getting silly now - we also have smaller shops rather than big supermarkets and we're finding they have less choice in them - apparently they just cannot afford the range they did before and folks are just buying the barest basics.

I work with the most vulnerable people in society and services to them are declining daily - which coupled with many having to pay for services even when on benefits is having a huge impact on their health and wellbeing. The lack of face to face assistance for job seeking, benefit claiming etc is a real issue also - if you only have a cheap mobile phone it costs a fortune to phone these people, and then you need the fortitude to focus on an often technical conversation, with people who are working to very tight constraints, saying no as often as they can. I find also i'm working with people who I used to consider peers and it truely reminds me that we're all only a few steps from hell.

WCS

pineapple

Maybe they are trying to talk up the economy. But where I am liitle shops close every day - to be replaced by the modern day equivalent of pawnbrokers and the like, charity shops have appeals for stock in their windows and the 'cheapy' supermarkets are going great guns. Talking of which I was walking behind an affluent looking woman and toddler in Ilkley recently and was gobsmacked when I followed them into a charity shop.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

craigywv

Greyqueen I using sons iPad and think I have pressed spam when scrolling down reading your post sorry this thing should come with a winder handle like the old fashioned pencil sharpeners so sorry if it has been reported as spam I pressed it again and it said not spam ............sorry don't no wat I have done x

DawnW

mardatha wrote: »

Well the one good thing is that so many people are affected by their cuts that the only people believing them are themselves!

The trouble is, the scumbags have the support of large sections of the media, and when people are told that it is all the fault of benefits claimants / immigrants / choose your own target group unfortunately many do seem to believe them, and the accompanying lie that there is no alternative tothe unfair policies we are seeing

Of course, in Scotland people have always had more sense, and they don't have much support . Unfortunately though it is different in the south of England where I live :mad: But we certainly don't all vote for them down here either! I fact if more people bothered to use their vote, they would probably be out on their ear.