Preparedness for when

charlies-aunt

GreyQueen wrote: »

An old country trick is to use clean spiderwebs to lay over areas of abraded skin. Apparently the spider silk assists the cells in recovering the areas which have been grazed off. Sort-of forming a bridge. Please note that this isn't medical advice, just an old country folkloric thingummyjig.

Very old folk lore. When I remember reading in Jane Austens letters written in the early 1700's, her mother mentioning being at Stoneleigh Abbey and complained that the house was kept so clean that if she cut her finger, she won't be able to find a spiders web to wrap it up in

Probably goes with the nappy rash remedy of anointing baby's bottom with raw egg white .... Works brilliantly as it forms a breathable barrier but in this age of salmonella scares, it is frowned upon by midwives

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

Frugalsod, I haven't the nerve to pick up a spider barehanded, although I will scoop the pods out of the bath-tub if the get stuck, but they can normally get out under their own power. I seriously wouldn't rest if I thought my tiny home harboured a critter too big for a beer glass. The pods will protect me, however; they canniablise other spider species.

I do fully appreciate people can have phobias and fears. Some are actually more rational than being real phobias. I had an ex who would not stay in the same room as a spider and would scream as soon as she saw one. I have no fears of insects though I find slugs disgusting and will do what I can to avoid picking one up. A stick comes in handy to flick them over the fence.

My comment was meant to help people appreciate that they are no threat to us no matter what size they are here. Abroad that can be a very different matter. In a major crisis when you are forced to leave the safety of your home and live under canvas it becomes a serious problem if you cannot manage your fear. Insects are everywhere and spiders and wasps will get rid of the nasty ones.

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

And the cricket sang on.......and on.........and on. It seems to rev up at nightfall.

I was fascinated to watch what happened when a wasp ended up in a spiderweb stretched over the outside of a window. It couldn't extricate itself and its thrashing summoned the spider from the edge of the web. What happened next was very interesting to me; the medium-sized garden spider carefully severed all the strands of web around the wasp and let it go.

I don't know whether it made a judgement call that the wasp was a bit to big to be eaten, or whether wasps give spiders indigestion, but it was interesting to watch. It didn't faddle about, just nipped in there and cut it free.

An old country trick is to use clean spiderwebs to lay over areas of abraded skin. Apparently the spider silk assists the cells in recovering the areas which have been grazed off. Sort-of forming a bridge. Please note that this isn't medical advice, just an old country folkloric thingummyjig.

Wasps are pretty vicious and so it was would have been a risk to try and subdue it. Having seen a wasp kill a grass hopper many times its size a spider would be no trouble, especially with those giant mandibles and it can also sting repeatedly. So for a small spider the loss of silk is probably a better outcome than death.

ScarletRaven

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Scarlet Raven welcome back and congratulations on the baby
I hope that you are recovered from the TB :eek:
They should never have stopped the TB vaccinations in schools

Thank you

Recovery has been a long haul, 9 months down the line and it seems the TB has almost cleared up from my lungs, should be off the medication by January. The weight loss on the other hand is another matter entirely - severely struggling to gain more than about 6lbs before it drops again. And I lost almost 2 stone originally so there's a long way to go...

As for the TB vaccination, I was one of the lucky ones who did have it in school as a teenager, but obviously it didn't do much good regardless! Though my son was offered it as a newborn, and I'm very glad I accepted considering how ill I became out of the blue just weeks later, it may well have helped him at least.

TB is on the rise again in this country though, so I agree the vaccination should never have been stopped. With less people being vaccinated here, and more and more people moving to the UK from countries that don't routinely vaccinate against it (despite often being more prone to it), some of whom (especially from South Asian countries) end up carrying TB here with them, it's no wonder it's on the rise

jk0

This is worrying folks:

Depositors in other South African banks are having their savings raided to bail out ABI.

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/africa-bank-rescue-breaking-south-african-depositors-already-being-press-ganged-into-bailin/

GreyQueen

Seems that lady is ahead of the news. Check out Paragraph 7 in this article with today's date on it:

http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/financial/2014/08/11/embattled-african-bank-gets-bailed-out

Have just combed ZH and can't see anything yet but this is the middle of the night on EST which is what they seem to operate on. If this really is happening, I imagine that there will be a run on all the South African banks involved. The fools (the banks, I mean, the depositors would be acting sensibly).

Frugalsod

The moment that the banks start raiding customers accounts will be the end of the banks. I will be minimising my exposure to banks once debt free. Though since I will be concentrating on completing my BOB and SHTF kit that will help.

If you are at risk of being robbed by the banks why bother with banks? The fact that there is not enough potential earnings via interest to make up for the losses by a bail in, makes owning a safe a far better option. While it might cost a small fortune to buy the safe, the fact that a single raid on your account will cost you more than the cost of a safe will mean it will pay for itself after a single bank bail in.

mardatha

I suppose it all depends on how much money you have and where you live.. we never have a lot of money and where we live is very safe, so we always take it out of the bank the day it goes in. But if I had thousands and lived in a city then I might not do that.. I wouldn't like to advise anybody on it in case they ended up losing the lot.

1Tonsil

I am getting messages about various places in the UK getting sudden storms and there are reports of funnel clouds in some places ( like a tornado that does not touch down)

I have just got this report, it seems your weather is going to be pretty interesting for the next few weeks. Besides this report there are signs that another low is on it's way for you.

http://realityweather.eu/interesting-patterns-unusual-northern-blocking-setting-signs-winter-ahead/

It might be time to check your waterproofs and thermals by the look of it.

Meanwhile we still have the heatwave and today was 42 in the shade. Hoping it will cool off later. Our ceiling fan in the bedroom has picked the wrong time to give up working properly...there is no chance of sleeping with it on , it is making horrendous noises. Have to invest in one over the weekend, but the shops are all closed tomorrow for a holy day.

The Russians and Greeks have not reached a compromise on the cancelled fruit orders, so 12,000 tons of rotting fruit is on its way back to Greece and another 13,000 tons is rotting on the trees unpicked. It is scandalous waste of good food. I paid 66 cents a kilo at the shop for Nectarines and they can't sell them off at that price. I am thinking of putting some in honey syrup and freezing them. Any other suggestions?

[Deleted User]

It's a funny day here, weather wise.

One minute it's sunny, the next it's persisting down.