Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

12 days ish to windy blizzards, 17 days rapid thaw floods

not on here much now as have discovered spinning, fleeces, dyeing etc plus lots of new faces. Just back from time to time infrequently. Too much to do really, ie living and enjoying it with full backing from dh and not in front of laptop too much

lol have drunk 1/2 a bottle of bubbly

BessieBooBoo

Hello all

Sorry to hear about your fall GK - wrap up warm and plenty of hot drinks! My fave hot chocolate with a (liberal) splash of B*iley's - not too much, we don't want you tripping again!

2T I always enjoy your posts, and as others have said, we are all (most of us!) able to cope with reading them and looking at them in perspective. It certainly brings home to me the common sense approach of having a store cupboard, in such weather, even when it's simply not having as much time to shop as we are working more, or tired, so we have the option for something to fall back on.

Hope everyone is keeping warm, even if your heatings on minimal? Thermals, snuggie, and hot drinks here....

I have finally equipped the car with the following, after my 'interesting' 20 minute car trip turned into a 3 hour car park...

Granola bars
Honey & oat bis-quits
Juice (UHT in a carton)

Shovel
Spare tyre is ok
A few tools
Car jack is ok
Water ( car!)

Plus I will fill up the car again as it's amazing how much petrol stopping and starting over all that time has used up!

Being in the flattish 'burbs, I don't think I will need much more, but, any ideas will be most welcome and appreciated...

I forgot to mention I bought cheap snow tracks for my shoes, these have been amazing for dog walks, where everyone else is sliding around on the pavements or dodging cars on the slightly less slippy roads....

DDog has now been promoted up to hairy hot water bottle and seat warmer, and an excellent job she does to! Sleeping with a purpose!!

Take care all

BBB

BigMummaF

Apologies Foks....I fear the poor weather conditions may be attributed to my elevated culinary skills. I'm still in shock myself tbh! Muvva asked for--ate cleaned her bowl both times!--seconds of my Lentil Ham Soup


I warmed the body of the soup thru first then added a sprinkling of onion gravy granules (for some reason muvva thinks you have to put gravy in or it isn't soup ) & a bit of cornflour to thicken. It was nice but a tad salty for me, so if I make it again I must remember to add a bit of potato to mop up the brine from the bacon joint.

Which leads me to the current chatter about salt

I used to have sugar in my tea but haven't done so since early teens; yes, a bit odd to begin with but I got used to it & now, can almost 'smell' which cuppa has sugar in it *eurgh*
The same happened with salt when I began cooking stuff for weaning The Offspring & I soon got fed up making two lots of everything & all the extra pots & pans I used, to do a simple mash (ANYTHING that cuts down on housework is a definite benefit in our house :rotfl: )
If you're like us we have bread (look at the salt levels in shop stuff :eek: ) prepared cooked meats like sliced ham, bacon, cheese & that's before getting on to sausages, burgers & fish fingers. If you weighed out the suggested portion of each thing on your plate, you will probably find you've got most of your recommended daily intake for salt just in one meal

westcoastscot

Kittie i'm only on here sporadically - I'm really busy when I'm not at work so read but don't often post unless something really catches my interest.
It's lovely though - like meeting friends again after a wee while away.

Glad you're enjoying your spinning - my son made me a drop-spindle for chirstmas a few years ago and I love it! when i'm away anywhere I collect wool from the fences and bring it home, clean/card/spin and either weave or knit it into a placemat or something - acts as a useful item and a happy reminder of a lovely day.

GreyQueen

BigMummaF, could have written your comment about sugar and salt myself. Use to take 3 teasp of sugar per mug up until about 12 then decided to wean myself off it a 1/4 teasp at a time. Now can't even bear it if my tea stirred with a spoon which has stirred a sugared mug. And yes, you can smell the sugar, ick.

Re salt, I don't salt veggies when I cook and rarely salt at table. The folks don't even have salt on their table, just a black pepper grinder. I also make perfectly lush bread without any salt at all.

My observation is that when people remark that something is tasty, what they're actually remarking on is sweetness or saltiness. There are a lot of other, subtler flavours to enjoy, but the salty/ sweet combo shouts so loud you can barely hear them.

Bit envious of those who have the ability to harvest fleece bits as they go walkabout. I can spin with a drop spindle but it's very "slubby".:rotfl:Great hobby to have anyway but going to be very handy if the S permanantly HTF as we'll eventually run out of existing textiles and will have to craft our own.

Read something interesting once; prior to the invention of powered spinning and weaving, households spent as much time producing their own textiles as they did their own food.

Now, anyone here know how to process flax into linen? As a clue you'll need to do retting and by golly, it's minging....

Confuzzled

pineapple wrote: »

Maybe when you are better, some pelvic floor exercises?
Being of a certain age I've experienced similar problems plus when you have to go you have to go :rotfl: Consequently I've annointed many a fresh air location (quite pleasant actually ) and on one memorable occasion when I just couldn't wait another second, I ended up sat in the drivers seat, perched on the dogs drinking bowl in a Leeds city centre car park (while a suspicious parking warden circled....).

i once peed in an emtpy peanut butter jar inside a tent, i just coudln't face the pouring rain and midgies biting my nethers another time

you should have seen the look on my (now ex) husband's face, didn't spill a drop, yay for kegals!!!

herbily

missrlr wrote: »

DH wanted fresh toms so had taken a small walk around to get these and had a nose at the seduced section, got a couple of swedes and a bag of pasta.

Well, if they've got a "seduced section" I'm definitely going shopping tomorrow!:rotfl:

I was born the winter of 62/63, and my dad remembers standing outside with me in the pram and a stopwatch, because my mother was determined that a baby needed at least five minutes of fresh air a day, despite the temperature. My parents lived in a flat, and Dad says it took half an hour to get me dressed up against the cold, and to get the pram down two flights of stairs, all for five minutes outside. He remembers the sea freezing, and you couldn't get fish and chips because the fishing boats were iced in.

Helen2k8

Bessiebooboo have you got some scraps of carpet to put under tyres for grip if you get stuck? OR sand or cat litter helps in a pinch apparently.
Still snowing here, but I need to go to GP tomorrow might as well top up supplies while I'm in the village!

Rosemary_Jane

GreyQueen wrote: »

Now, anyone here know how to process flax into linen? As a clue you'll need to do retting and by golly, it's minging....

How about making nettle fibre?

John-Paul Flintoff is interesting to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QSvdAZeOxw

and there are a lot of articles on the internet, such as this one
http://www.nettlesoup.info/nettlecloth.htm - here she models the 'nettle knickers' which would take less weaving than Flintoff's shirt.
Further down the same page, it states that there has to be a change of water, or the retting doesn't work.

Flintoff's book "through the eye of a needle" is really interesting - right down to the treadle sewing machine.

Anyone here into weaving?

Rosemary

missrlr

BigmummaF you may find the onion gravy granules are responsible for the saltiness rather than the meat. Have discovered that for myself seem to have a VAST amount of salt in them when I have added to slow cook meat dishes. Worth a think ...
Regarding salt content in food, we have only had homemade for at least 4 years now, and longer for me (re educated DH lol) now have shop prepped stuff about twice a year when DH gets it into his head it will be a good idea (and I am not in the shop with him to stop it) we always notice the saltiness of the foods and end up drinking loads of water all night as a consequence. You'd think DH would learn and remember by now.

Mind you he is a complete whatsit for salt, has to add it to every plate of food without even tasting, but does not thank goodness add it to cooking! I tried taking the cellar off the table, hoping to break the habit, he got up went to the kitchen found it and plonked it back on the table.

I have low blood pressure and occasionally I need a bit of salt , having spent a lot of time in hot climes it had been drilled into me try salt if you can't taste it you are too low. rough rule of thumb but useful. will try marmite now as per suggestion above.

Loads of snow here now,roads becoming covered despite being salted and gritted so could be interesting tomorrow ....