Preparedness for when

maryb

I think of it as 23 is 73 and 28 is 82. Helps me calibrate these newfangled temperatures!

mardatha

We aren't getting that here. It's too hot though I think.

[Deleted User]

maryb wrote: »

I think of it as 23 is 73 and 28 is 82. Helps me calibrate these newfangled temperatures!

The calculation is degrees c, multiply by 9, divide by 5, add 32, equals degrees f.

On the subject of conversions, for the benefit of the drivers on here, to convert Litres to Gallons, divide by 4.54609

maryb

Mine was only meant to be a mnemonic, I know it' s not completely accurate. But everyone over a certain age I've told it to goes round muttering 23 is 73....

muffin_man_7

Thanku mary and bb way too hot for me Ive got to go out later fingersx i dont get a migraine


Kids do everything in metric me i do bit of both just not very good at it
We have a red sky this morning and all im thinking is sailors warning so ive checked the forcast met office it saying 28c and thunder lightening warning now im hoping we dont get this i dont do thunder and cezer dont like heavy rain or thunder he snuggles under the covers its funny cos he gets too hot then has a bit of a panick till he gets out and cools himself onthe floor will post later if i ve got an internet signal im tethering with my daughter atm its cheaper than paying out twice
My son is preppinng in his own way now he came back from town with a pop up tent and a 90lt back pack from argos it popped open in the kitchen it shocked him how quick it went up i had to help him pack it up and im not a camper just had lots practice with popup toy tents over the years

Frugalsod

pineapple wrote: »

Food is going up here too. The increases bear no relation to the official inflation figures which are based on a 'shopping basket' of various goods including electrical items. If anyone with clout is reading this I challenge you to produce a 'shopping basket' figure for food only!
Food can't help but go up if only due to the extreme/uncharacteristic global weather in recent years. I just wish they wouldn't try to treat the general population like muppets. We know what we have to fork out and we know that the basics of food, heating, lighting etc are going up faster than our incomes.

The current official list includes various things that most people never buy. While there may be a good reason for the items in the official list. Though I do think that there should be a low income version with just food energy and housing costs as these are what most people spend most of their incomes on. I suspect that the rate of inflation it would reveal would be substantially higher than the official rate, but that suits governments because otherwise they would have to increase benefits and pensions substantially.

jk0

Morning guys.

Thunder & lightening most of the night here in Reading.

I have just been reading the comments to this article on PP. This one by Sand_Puppy seems particularly relevant:

http://www.peakprosperity.com/comment/168841#comment-168841

Also someone mentioned that they had to buy their supper and drag it up 25 flights of stairs to eat it during Hurricane Sandy. They have resolved to move, as they will not be able to do that when older. Food for thought for anyone in a high rise block, eh?

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Looking like being another scorcher today. I did split shifts on the allotment yesterday (the joy of being on your annual leave) and did 09.00-10.45 and 6.40-8.20 pm. The morning slot was too hot and the evening one was just perfect, warm but with a light breeze.

I'm only well enough to do about 2-3 hours' physical labour per day, with rest breaks, so it works quite well for me. If you add in the diversion to the tip, I probably biked 6 miles, too, but had the second night of scrappy sleep as too warm.

SorryImoved, very interesting about the price hikes. I get some gen of this nature from the comments on the Zer0 Hedge articles, people grumbling about shrinking pack sizes as well as rising prices.

The UK is in the middle of grocery price wars, with the german discounters Aldi and Lidl showing a clean set of heels to all our regular suspects such as Asda (part of the Walmart group these days), Tesco, Sainsburys, Co Op, Morrisons and smaller regional grocery chains. Lots of people who couldn't be bothered to shop around (my Mum was one of them) are finding such howling price discrepancies that you'd be a fool not to.

The inflation figures here are a joke. Many basic food items are 80-100% up on a handful of years ago, and some items leap about 50% between one day and another. Price discounts can be as steep, erratic and unpredicatable. Some bargain priced items are disappearing from certain shops, which I take to mean that they can't get the manufacturers to produce to that price point. Sorely missed in the parental household is the cheap-but-good Aldi ginger biscuit (RIP).*

Trying to keep a handle on the grocery spend is ridiculous. My reaction, as I suspect may well be true of my fellow OS preppers, is to stock up when I see a good price and sit on my wallet when I think I'm being overcharged. Some things I just won't buy at certain prices and hope to see them on yellow-sticker at closing time.

Frugalsod, I came back from the lottie to a msg on my phone from SG. Rang her to get more goss. In the 2.5 hours I was out we had; two police cars, a paramedic car, an arrest, a brawl, a septugenarian matron threatening to strangle a junkie (one of SG's neighbours, they're hardcore on the Far Side) and some other stuff about a water leak.

Wanders off singing hot in the city, hot in the city tonight.......

* International translation service - when a Brit like me refers to a biscuit, understand you'd call it a cookie.

ivyleaf

There was a piece in the paper a couple of days ago saying that the price of fruit and veg is lower this summer than it was last summer, because of the weather. I can't say I'd noticed particularly! I'm puzzled, too as to how this could be the case when we had dire warnings of poor crops due to the soggy winter.

I did get Picota cherries in a supermarket the other day for £1 a punnet, which I thought was good, but they're Spanish.

I have noticed people on here reporting good crops of some fruit and veg though (especially GQ's spuds )

GreyQueen

I think predicting anything (especially future crops, lol) is a tough one.

Several of us have remarked on heavy fruit crops in our gardens and allotments this year and I've noticed that the blackberries along the cycle path flowered very well and have set a lot of as-yet unripe berries of good size. It seems that the warmth and the sufficient rain at the right points in the summer have helped, especially my potatoes.

I never water my spuds in any year, as I figure what you can get on them by can or hose wouldn't be sufficient to add much to their growth but would certainly stimulate the weeds. Likewise most veggies, with the exception of young seedings; they get on with what nature provides.

About 4 years ago, I was walking around the hills of Tuscany and one of our party fell into conversation with a retired farmer on the edge of his village (in Italian, naturally) and he invited us to help ourselves to as many cherries as we liked from the several fruit trees in his front garden.

They were almost valueless over there, as the cost of getting them to market made it not worthwhile to pick them unless for home use. At the time, cherries were going from £9-£12 a kilo here in the UK. To us, they were a luxury item and we happily stuffed our faces with many thank-yous.

It's the downside to growing for the market, as opposed to purely for household consumption; a bumper crop means that prices go down, because everyone in your area is liable to have a bumper crop, too.

And a big part of the price of fruit and veg is the picking, processing, transportation, packaging etc. I know someone who used to get a large car-trailer full of carrots from the packhouse, culls which were funny shaped or broken, bag them and sell them for £1.00- £1.50/ 20 kg bag as 'horse carrots' although most of the purchasers didn't have horses. The cost of the trailer-ful was £20, plus his costs and time.

Was a nice little side gig. I also know villages where the main road is peppered with cute little home-made stands by people's gates, showing a few bags of veggies. The intimation is that they've come from the back garden, home-grown by the honest toil of the countryman.

Lots of them are rejects from the packhouses. Don't tell the incomers, willya, we wouldn't want to shock them............:rotfl: