Preparedness for when

Si_Clist

GreyQueen wrote: »

I already know people who are one big repair bill from scrapping cars which they can afford to run but not replace

If we'd left it much longer, that would have been us - only we flogged ours while it was still worth £3K and bought two pedelecs with the money! That was 18 months ago, and all we miss is the never-ending round of MOT, VED, insurance, repairs and so forth, to say nothing of the sitting in traffic jams.

Nowadays we rely on the bikes and the trailer for local transport, and after that it's the bus or occasionally a taxi for some hospital appointments.

Anyhow, what I need to know now is what on earth "ZH" is. I'm trying desperately to get with the program here but all this code you guys keep slipping in has me guessing ...

Witless

ZH = http://www.zerohedge.com/

(Make sure to have a tinfoil hat at the ready)

Si_Clist

Witless wrote: »

ZH = http://www.zerohedge.com/

(Make sure to have a tinfoil hat at the ready)

Oh, wonderful! Another wacky American site for The Lady Wife to enjoy

maryb

Not that wacky by tin foil standards - actually quite well informed

COOLTRIKERCHICK

possession the last sofa etc we bought new must have been 19 years ago, and TBH it only lasted about 4 years, total carp... from a place similar to DFS etc... after that we were lucky we had other people's that we knew for free..lol... I think this is the 3rd free one we've had....friend having a new suite, then my mother moving and it didn't fit the 'style' of her new place, then step father's brother dying so we had his lol..


I wonder what people think of us hahaha,


I would never buy new furniture again... haven't bought new in donkey's years...

GreyQueen

Evening all.

Si, someone beat me to it. I am fascinated by the'Hedge, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. Pls warn the lady wife that it's seriously-addictive.

I sold my last car (a 10 y.o. Fiesta) back in 1997. Even back then I was getting one unexpected bill per month, over and above running costs and it was coming it at about £80 of unbudgetable expenditures per month.

Haven't owned a car since although I have been on various other people's insurances as am well over 35 and it doesn't usually cost them anything and sometimes it's given family and friends a hand to have another driver available. I drive the parental car and my brother's automatic every few weeks to keep my hand in.

I most certainly do not miss the anxiety of every funny noise, lump and vibration making me worry that more money was about to be bled from my bank account. Have a pushbike, occasionally ride the intercity coaches or it's shank's pony.

CTC, what is this you speak of, this 'new furniture'? Doth not furniture appear miraculously in small ads, charity shops and discarded on street corners? You're never going to kid me that people are making it in factories and selling it in shops and paying VAT on it? Insofar as I'm concerned, that's pure fiction.:rotfl:

Hmm, glancing around my sitting-room; burgundy brown leather sofa, prolly DFS, definately chazzer. Blockboard pooter desk, originally Argussy, private secondhand sale. Blockboard wall unit and DVD cabinet, chazzers. Small table bought by Nan during WW2, secondhand for 7' 6. Two homemade-by-moi rugs, one from yak wool, a coffee table made from a metal document box for a fiver...........curtains one of two pairs for another fiver from a bootsale............

I rock and earth-toned autumnal vibe here. In fact, given the amount of blockboard it's a wonder I haven't caught veneerial disease.

I'll get me coat.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

GQ what about this, instead of buying a potting bench for the greenhouse ( secondhand) that we are putting up, I salvaged an old table that was buried in the brambles, and the old sink unit that got taken out of the ranch... needs 'tweeking', but ideal for potting on plants etc

MrsAtobe

GreyQueen wrote: »

Windows XP is not receiving support after 8th April.

Reading this, it's a lot more serious than civilians using it on their home PCs.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/atms-at-risk-of-hacking-and-viruses-as-windows-xp-support-ends-1.1728600

Blinking hole-in-the-wall machines are using it - there's potential for fun and games, and not in a good way.........

Some of our submarine systems used to used Windows NT when it was out of support, now there's a scenario I don't even want to contemplate...

The gummint has a policy of not using the latest release of software, I can kind of see where they are coming from, but to not upgrade is ridiculous.

Sorry but I can't work in a Discworld reference.

GreyQueen

:T Bravo, CTC, most excellent re-purposing of sink unit and table. I hope that in the fullness of time you'll treat us to photies of the finished article.

I smile when I think of my old Grandad, sadly passed 14 years ago, and the way countrymen of his generation gardened. He was a retired farm-worker and gardened his own veggie patch in a no-nonsense sort of way. It's the size of an allotment and my Dad looks after it now on just Saturday mornings for Nan, keeping her and the extended family and neighbours in fresh veggies. The front garden was Nan's work, that's where the flowers and lawn were (and still are) but the back garden was the authentic deal.

They had a shed which had been modified decades before to have taller sides (was originally a chicken hut) and stands there still. Black with creosote and with a corrugated iron roof. In it are many treasures. It stands in my mind as an excellent example of shed-dom; built like Fort Knox and liable to see us all out.

A true countryman, he had a garden line made of random bits of binder twine knotted together and spindled around a stick. Tools are mostly handed down the generations. I have some of his, and some of my other Grandad's, the one who died when I was a babe in arms. Can't imagine that either of them would have thought much of garden centres and the ilk. Terrible wastes of money, they would have thought. Greenhouses were built out of old window frames, ditto cold frames.

I have followed the scavenging tradition. Mum and I celebrated the end of her radiotherapy by wombling most-of-a-shed which she made into my cold frame, with it's glass lid an old 1950s metal-framed window from Nan and Grandad's bungalow. Takes two strong people to move the beggar but therefore unlikely to blow away in the wind.

Yup, building your own from salvaged materials is so much more satisfying than merely shopping, even if you can afford it.

Si_Clist

Gosh, I'm working well here ... I just found the picture I was looking for when the topic of woodstoves was aired t'other day.

How's this for a log stack?

And while we're on the subject of woodburning, if you're into stacking logs but you haven't heard of holz hausen, that's the term you need to Google ...