Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

Oh pflaumenkuche!!!!!that takes me back to Saturday afternoons in Mainz with coffee and cake in the cathedral square watching the weekend market in full swing, bliss, thanks RAS, lovely memory. Other not so lovely memory is FEADERWASSER which is the still fermenting grape juice before it turns into wine, it's too volatile to cork in the bottle so when you buy it they cut a notch in the cork to let the gas out and you have to keep it upright in the car to get it home where you drink it with Zweibelkuchen which is much more delicious!!! Oh my, trip down memory lane!!!

GreyQueen

You're right about the bowstrings, Bob.

A string for a compound bow is about £45, for a recurve about £9 or up to about £27 for a so-called 'high-speed' string. For my flatbow? A princely £3.60. At that kind of price you can have a spare, so I have one on the bow (longbows are stored unstrung but the loop on the end is wide enough to slip up the bowstave when it's unstrung so it stays with the bow at all times).

Have spent 3 hours on the allotment, where I had to winch two of my runner bean wigwams back into the vertical and stabilise part of the self-sown sunflower plantation with sticks. Bliddy windy site up there.

Have harvested the white onions, will take up the red ones when the tops have all died back. Picked the first lot of runners of the season, had most of them in the freezer one hour after picking and a goodly amount of them with my meal. My favourite veggie. Also have a saucepan full of beetroot on the stove so am feeling very domesticated.

Definately autumnal out there, things seem about a month ahead of where they normally are by now.

[Deleted User]

It is isn't it GQ, walking the lurcha this afternoon I was surrounded by falling leaves that the breeze was blowing round and rustling on the pathways. My cooking apple tree is actually starting to drop perfectly good apples, it's normally only the damaged ones that drop at this time of year but the stems on these are perfectly dry when they fall, our runners are nearly over and I've been harvesting blackberries for a month or so, it's really beginning to feel autumnal too with cold mornings and evenings that turn into blazing hot lunchtimes and afternoons, but it is very early!!!

[Deleted User]

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

and I've been harvesting blackberries for a month or so

The ones where I work are still clinging onto the branches, and half of them are still red.

Another few weeks, and I'll be gathering them.

[Deleted User]

BTW GQ, what's your thought on fibreglass v aluminium arrows?

I've read reviews on Amazon, where they report the glass ones breaking quickly.

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

BTW GQ, what's your thought on fibreglass v aluminium arrows?

I've read reviews on Amazon, where they report the glass ones breaking quickly.

The archery club has the tubular alu arrows for members to use, but most of the really keen archers have fibreglass ones. Some of the best cost £50+ each.

The alu arrows are cheaper, the basic ones about £4 each. If you're shooting outside and lose them, you can find them with a metal detector, unlike fibreglass.

All arrows have to be weighted fore and aft and be flexible. The longer the arrow, the thicker the shaft can be and still have the flexibility for it to swim through the air. With alu, there are a lot more limitations on the maths of the thickeness of the alu tube vs the length of the arrow having the required flexibility, as opposed to fibreglass.

With fibreglass, arrows can be tailored more exactly for the intended use, such as indoor arrows being thicker (useful, as if you cut the line between rings on the target, you get the higher score, and the thicker the arrow, the more likely you are to cut the line). With outdoor fibreglass arrows, you want them to be denser, so they tend to be a lot thinner, some I've seen are almost like knitting needles. You don't want them bulky as they'll catch the wind and go off-target.

I have been assured that if you shatter a fibreglass arrow, the thin shards go everywhere and it's a miserable clean-up job, but I haven't seen it done IRL. There's prolly a YooToob viddy somewhere. I've seen a lot of fibreglass ones shot and no breakages, but there's always a first time.

When I shot the club bows, I used alu arrows for the recurve and cedar arrows with turkey-feather fletchings for the flatbow. My own arrows are white pine with turkey-feather flights. Alu and fibreglass arrows have plastic flights, often looking more like fins.

I would say that a basic aluminium arrow should see most of us OK, but if you got very expert and had state-of-the-art bow, you'd probably move to fibreglass.

Y'know that classic scene in the Robin Hood movies, where one arrow splits the other? That's a physical impossibility when shooting into the end of a wooden arrow, as the grain of the wood sees the point of the second arrow shear out of the shaft of the first arrow after a few inches. With alu and fibreglass, you can split the arrow all the way down to the target. My ambition it to smack one of my cheapy pine arrows through one of the state of the art ones............it's called a 'robin hood' and is a pretty uncommon occurance.

It's also expensive as the one who does it has to stand a round in the pub afterwards...........:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

The splitting the arrow reminds me of the American Civil War when, on occasion, two musket bullets were found on the ground, fused nose to nose, having collided mid flight.

maryb

Nargleblast wrote: »

Reading news items recently regarding the NHS, we can expect to see smaller GP surgeries close and patients having to transfer to larger surgeries further away from their homes. Also, a large number of GPs are heading near retirement age, and there are not enough doctors electing to do general practice after med school to take their places.

Now, I am in no way trying to give medical advice on a forum, but I think we should all be a little more self-sufficient in our health needs. Bearing in mind that in some areas it is almost impossible to get an urgent GP appointment on the day you want it, we should all make sure we have a basic medicine cabinet at home. None of this "taking Junior to the doctors because he's had a cold for a week" nonsense, I know from years of having colds myself and having kids with colds that the symptoms can linger on and on, and sometimes they catch a new cold germ just as they are recovering from another one.

So, paracetamol and ibuprofen are known to help with aches and pains and fevers, and sticking your head under a towel over a bowl of boiling water with a few drops of eucalyptus oil will help ease stuffed up noses. In fact, when I took my son to the GP last year (because he was anxious about his cold, so it was to put his mind at rest as much as anything) he was prescribed a bottle of inhalation solution for use as described above. It contained menthol and eucalyptus. You also have good old fashioned Vick and blends like Olbas oil, which many people swear by. Honey is soothing for a sore throat, and stuff like elderberry syrup, which you can make yourself. Generally most complaints sort themselves out with rest, simple analgesia and plenty of oral fluids, and your own body will tell you when it feels like eating.

All this stuff I have just written is evidence-based, tried-and-tested, and a knowledge of basic first aid (eg how to treat a cut) should also be part of everyone's education. Obviously, you need the knowledge and common sense to know when home methods are not enough and when you should seek medical advice, but for routine stuff we should be getting out of the mindset that you automatically run to the GP or turn up at A & E, which I am sure some people out there do. They may find it not so easy to access healthcare services on demand if things carry on the way they are going.

I know there will be those people who, because of compromised immune systems or complex medical problems, will need to seek medical advice sooner rather than later, but for most normal, reasonably fit people, simple home remedies are often the answer.

Nargleblast I don't disagree, BUT...

My DD1 mis-stepped on the steps at the station yesterday. Fortunately it was the bottom step of the flight. But her ankle turned right underneath her and she heard a crunch. She could not put any weight on it, it was agonisingly painful and she had to be helped back up to street level. She phoned me and I went to get her. The pain did not diminish after 20 minutes or so. There was no way I could tell whether it was just a sprain or a fracture so off to the Minor Injuries Unit we went. Thank Heaven for them. OK it was the better part of 4 hours but she was Xrayed and given strong painkillers after they were satisfied it was "only" a very bad sprain.

It turned out to be relatively minor although it is painful and will be for a couple of weeks. But self reliance could not have told me that it was nothing that needed medical attention.

Nargleblast

maryb Ouch! Must have been excruciating for her! As she could not put weight on it, and she heard it crunch, then you were absolutely right to take her to the Minor Injuries Unit, it could easily have been a fracture and only an Xray would have confirmed one way or the other. The principle of self reliance also includes having the common sense to get stuff like this checked out at the right place. Hope it heals soon.

maryb

She's very glad she has next week off work. And as she planned to do very little it won't make much difference to her plans which I believe involve lots of video games LOL.

But thinking about it, it does help to know where to go for the most appropriate attention. It obviously didn't need A&E but it did need an Xray and not all the MIUs around here have that facility. So we went to one a bit further away but I knew we would be able to get an Xray there. So worth checking out what the facilities are in your local area.

And keep some loose change for an emergency for pay and display parking - normally we would park in the local shopping centre a few hundred yards away but she could not have walked from the supermarket car park