Preparedness for when

Uniscots97

Thriftwizard, one of my neighbours uses stacked hanging baskets for growing items (chain underneath the top one to support the next basket and so on). They are retired, in the baskets they grow herbs, some veg and strawberries. They grow tomatoes and peppers indoors (using the windows like a green house).

calicocat

boddy wrote: »

Looks like there is two in Newcastle.

Yes, I haven't been into the new one though...I keep meaning to go in too...the parking puts me off.

Enjoy, and if you go to the new one we need feed-back.

[Deleted User]

Before we get too high up on our righteous horses regarding ready meals and 'junk food' I'd just like to throw into the discussion the fact that cooking and anything related is NOT taught in mainstream education any longer and that for a lot of people the only thing they know is popty ping cooking so that's their norm!!! I know it shouldn't be this way but when you price up raw ingredients to make a meal for 4 even something simple like a shepherds pie and veg, by the time you take into account all the 'bits' you have to add in like stock cubes, onions, butter/spread to mash the potato with and the actual cost of the fuel to prepare and cook the dish with I can understand why the ready made option seems like an easier option to cash and time stressed people. I'm from a different generation and I've learned many techniques over the years of padding out with fillers the expensive protein elements of meals and know how to cook from basics, I count myself very lucky to have this knowledge and my girls both have always cooked from scratch and can manage their budgets well enough to do so. I am very aware though that many people just slightly younger than us and from then on didn't have the education in home making, home economics and general maintenance and it must be very tough for them to aquire the knowledge or even to know what knowledge to aquire. What we really DO need is not to let the situation coast along unchanging but to actually educate people in the things they need to know to have a better life on what resources they have available and that will lead to better health for the whole nation won't it?

Frugalsod

Perplexed_Pineapple wrote: »

It's worse than renting really because you have all the liabilities of owning a house - structural maintenance, boiler replacement, those kind of things. On the other hand if we can get on top of the mortgage (and resist upscaling to a bigger place with a bigger mortgage which so many seem to do) we should be clear by the time we retire, or hopefully some time before which will make things easier at that stage. That's the plan, anyway....

Yes but I have known people who have moved dozens of times each time buying somewhere bigger and getting a bigger mortgage. My parents only ever owned two homes, and they are still living in the second one. They have no mortgage and so are comfortable even though their pension is not as good as it would have been months before.

Homes are depreciating assets that need money constantly to be spent on them to maintain them.

[Deleted User]

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

If they are away the plan is sons mattress etc onto the grass and OH will hang and drop, then get the ladders for the rest of us.

And if OH isn't with you?

[Deleted User]

paidinchickens wrote: »

I've seen a couple of house fires in my time and had to watch the families jump out of the windows

You should never jump from a window.

You should lower yourself out of the window, holding on with your hands, stretch down as far as possible, then drop, thereby reducing the length of the fall by about 6'.

D&DD

Morning my lovelies I haven't been ignoring you all just not been able to find the time to come online for a while.I'm creaking a bit today due to too much weeding so thought I'd have a sit and see how you're all doing.


The sun is shining here after all the lousy weather and my fingers are itching to get in the soil again.


Hope you're all well XXX

GreyQueen

When I think back to the 'domestic science' I was taught, back in the day, it wasn't going to stand me in much stead in terms of everyday cooking.

An hour to make half a dozen fairy cakes or a sponge? Our cooking was baking such as cakes, swiss roll. The only thing I can remember cooking which wasn't a dessert was macaroni cheese. Oh, and one lesson devoted to fruit salad, slicing and chopping fruit and putting it into a homemade syrup.

Thank goodness for having a home-cooking mum to show me the sensible way of getting a meal on the table. Plus some stuff I picked up from my Nan.

I hear and see shocking things such as teens who drink 4 litres of carbonated drinks every day. The checkout lad who told me he doesn't know how to cook and lives on takeaways. My neighbours in the flats who live on pizza and cola. And D*min*s takeout pizza isn't the cheapest option. The gas engineer who tells me that most of the homes he goes to lack a cooker and that occupants laugh and think it's a good idea to live to takeaway and ping dinners rather than boring old cooking.

I get very worried when I see youngsters in their late teens or early twenties waddling about the streets. Their heft is so substantial that their gait is being distorted by their inability to put one leg in front of the other in the way our skeletons are designed to move. What the heck is going to happen to these poor souls in their forties and fifties? They're liable to be disabled by then.

I'm quite convinced there will be a lot of premature deaths, and worse quality of life than there should have been, thanks to this junk food culture.

ETA' nice to 'see' you again, DD&D. Steady with that weeding, we gardeners need to break ourselves into the new season slowly as we condition the gardening muscles to take the staind. But I do know what you mean.

paidinchickens

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

You should never jump from a window.

You should lower yourself out of the window, holding on with your hands, stretch down as far as possible, then drop, thereby reducing the length of the fall by about 6'.

Yes you are right Bob and the Mum of one of the families broke her leg by jumping.

I bought the ladder in case the kids were upstairs and I was downstairs, it is something they have been trained to use from being young.

I know I sound even more paranoid every time I type :rotfl:

I would like to say I have no stakes in a fire escape business and I do not get commission

PiC x

Frugalsod

While a fire ladder might be useful where I am now, first floor of an apartment block where I plan to move to is ground floor so it would be unnecessary.

As to the microwave debate. I cannot use stoves or ovens and can only use combo microwaves but I have managed to do things within those limitations. I can steam veg instead of boiling them and can bake bread when needed in my microwave. I used to live solely off ready meals but have slowly made a complete transformation to making from scratch but it is harder when you are restricted in what you can use. Soups are relatively easy and I make a batch and keep them in soup mugs and simply microwave to heat them back up for eating. So microwaves can be very handy if you have the right one.