Preparedness for when

2tonsils

Thank goodness the storm missed us completely, my friend said they got heavy rain on the other side of this island but we got none. So no more mopping out to be done this morning.

We have a lovely sunny day and its currently 19 degrees, one line full of washing already out in the breeze and the second one about to follow it. Great stuff!

Went to the car boot sales but bought nothing but a cup of tea lol. Going upstairs now to sort out my old clothes and get rid of them. Got some happy recipients for them next week and the other clothes and household stuff is going to a charity jumble in aid of the firefighters and animal charities....and in return I will be happy knowing they have helped someone as well as clearing some space in my cupboards. It will be Corfu's first jumble sale so I am feeling very happy about it...who knows? they might just catch on....

BitterAndTwisted

I have a feeling that jumble-sales are going to come back into fashion with a vengeance quite soon. Most especially now that some charity-shops appear to think they're a Knightsbridge-based fashion retailer, they have become so trendy with the sort of people who wouldn't have bought second-hand anything a couple of years ago.

2tonsils

My mother was an absolute expert customer at jumble sales. She trained us well with four children to clothe! From an early age we went to the jumble sales with her. The youngest would head to the toy and book stall to pick the best stuff for all of us. The other three would go in different directions, each with a small purse full of coins to pay for what they found. My mum taught me to go under all the clothes to look while the other people foraged on the top. It was just like a rugby scrum lol.

We would get arms full of clothes that looked vaguely like they would fit someone in the family. If they didn't fit they were either passed onto someone they would fit or cut into strips for the ''peggy rugs'' that we used to make for the house.

When I was a teen I added another skill by learning to sew and do alterations, so I used to buy the biggest dresses in nice material and make clothes out of them for the summer months. Unfortunately we only have table top/car boot sales here at the moment and the prices are often more than they are for clothes at the Chinese shop brand new!

Margaret54

Hi everyone:) Have been m.i a for a while so lots of catching up to too. Wonderful posts to read. I agree about the sizes shrinking and prices shooting up, it is madness. Takes so long to do a food shop now, doesn't it? Used to be make a wee list of what you needed to buy and off you went. Trying to weigh up /work out what is the better deal, what is cheaper seems to take up so much time. Has to be done though as it is so important in order to not overspend, even my dh has mentioned the soaring cost of food. He has given up smoking after at least 17 years and am so proud of him. He just gradually cut them down and it was so hard for him, but he did it. I need to lose a few stones and am trying very hard to do that too. He is going to teach me how to swim soon, so that will be something I am looking forward to. We both want to be as healthy as is possible. He has no health problems but I have. Feeling positive though with signs of spring coming:):):)
take good care everyone.Loving this wee forum so very much, and you are all a smashing bunch of people. Margaret xx

westlothianlass

Hi all
Been M.I.A too, work and study definately getting in the way of posting, but I have been trying to keep up on the reading.

Woke up this morning in a bit of a panic as I had a SHTF dream and was getting frustrated that people were getting in my way when i was trying to pack vases!!! sometimes my brain is a worry:rotfl:.
Its been a glorious couple of days (i.e it hasnt rained and we have seen the shiny gold ball) so my spirits have been lifted and Ive been thinking about what we can grow this year. We had a dreadful year last year with the plum tree's so I am considering getting a damson instead, (nowt to do with damson Gin I promise:D).
Sent away for Veg seeds yesterday so looking forward to planning and waiting:o on the weather getting warm enough to plant them.
Hugs to all
WLL x

GreyQueen

BigMummaF wrote: »

Last time..for today anyways..

Been meaning to say about your improvised candle moulds GQ; had you 'greased' them with something--I don't know..cooking oil or summat--or tried standing them in hot water, to help release them once solid? Not sure why I thought of it but it's been bugging me since your experiment


I'd made a note to ask in my To Do notebook, but I can't find that since I tidied up :undecided
I am, most definitely, a Lost Cause in the World of Housekeep.

:DEvening all.

The candlemoulds were just ripped apart and stuff came out easily. Think the trick with these big pillar candles is to remember what nuatha told us about his experience of getting melted candlewax on his toes and let them have a goodly long time to set.

I was ssssooooo shattered from gardening yesterday that I fell into bed at 9 pm and resurfaced again at 8 am. Been gardening again today, two hours of delving. You wouldn't believe those bliddy counch grass roots, they're everywhere, dammit. Once your back is bent up like a hairpin you might as well keep going.

Didn't take the time out to play with the firesteel as I was in a hurry to get back to the homestead. Self in shower, stuff in washer, starting to get on track for the week.

Just spoke to my Nan (1923 vintage) and checked that she has candles. Tick. Prolly more than Mum. She can remember life pre-elastictrickery (her village was a wee bit backwards). She also has some oil lamps in the back bedroom but I've never known them to be lit.

Concentrating on getting as much of the lottie under cultivation as possible this year, thinking long term as the way prices are going we need to be self-sufficientish. Trouble is, the topmost section (aka The Rough) has a major horsetail infestation but I am planning to clear that and keep digging and digging and digging to discourage it with view to having a patch of fruit bushes up there. Horsetail roots are 6 feet deep so not realistically gonna get them all but can try to weaken it by jumping on it with cold steel whenever it rears its ugly head.

You can scour pans with horsetail fronds; they contain silica and are scratchy. Just thought you might need to know that one day............:rotfl:I have enough of the bliddy stuff for a lifetime of washing up.

Allrighty, better see what else is pertaining in this wicked wicked world..............have a good evening. GQ xx

craigywv

helllllllllllloooooooooo all, im in a good mood this evening! seems we all doing our outdoors prepping this week.today i have not been in verymuch got 2 raised beds for my garden, 2 trellis, honeysuckle for to grow up at back door, and a big glass frame thing that sits on the ground with a "roof" made of glass and 2 teapots bigguns all courtesy of freecycle I"M IN MY ELEMENT!!!!!!!! and if thats not good enough my sister who lives inthe sticks.which isnt too far from me is giving me compost from their polytunnels and deliverying it must make her a cake. so shall plunder through my seed box tonight blissfully picking whats getting planted.on friday night i was driving past a house that was filling a skip and noticed a bbq getting dumped , 5 seconds and a hand brake turn later (oh puce and near on the floor of car) i casually rapped door of house and asked could i take it. mansaid work away and take whatever i wanted. got bbq used once bythe look of it 3 bags of charcoal, cooking tongs etc, ablackberry bush, a clematis and about 15 big tubs will do my spuds. i am 1 happy bunny. on another subject watched on netflicks last night a documentary called "crude awakening"..(i think) regarding the usage of oil and our dependance on it,i was seriously dumbfounded at how much we rely on oil and its by products,absolutley everything not justthe obvious,heating,cars etc comes from it. and apparently we at the highest peak for oil this century and its downhill from here. it will run out as there is only so much , they showed what will happen wars etc... i certainly had food for thought last night, so even more prepping in order for me now.they showed you how we will have no cars only the elite will have them as petrol will be like gold. we will be back to horse and carts!!! one head of gas company was talikng to the experts and he asked him a question...."will my great grand children be able to fly in a plane like go on holiday?" reply...no! there wont be enough oil left to make airplane fuel . daunting stuff ! on a lighter note theyalso trying to come up with an oil substitute made from natural resources. that was quite an interesting watch. today its quite dull and chilly still put a wash on line so maybe it will dry overnight fingers crossed.have a lovely evening allxxx

GreyQueen

:j Well done on the bin-diving and other things, craigy! Most excellent bargaineering. Puts a smile on my face just to read it.

Yeah, we've passed peak oil and we're on the far side of it, at the start of the long decline into a post-petroleum future. In a hundred years things will be very different than they are now.

The easily-accessible oil and gas has mostly been accessed and what the extraction companies run into now is the problem that you can end up expending as much energy to get at the oil or gas as you achieve from it, giving you a fast trip to company bankruptcy.

In the future, we will use less whether we like it or not.

craigywv

GQ, until i came onto this site i never even thought sbout oil and energy! it was just pay the bill and keep warm but now its soooo different i want to educate myself and pass it down to my son so he is aware that nothing is forever and always have plan b,c,d and even e . i want him to be able to have many different views on how he can survive and continue in life and be prepared and not think like the majority but think for himself.

[Deleted User]

Hiya CRAIGY that is precisely why it is sooooooo important to keep old skills and knowledge alive and working. Our future and that of our children and childrens children must of necessity be much lower tech. To survive in any state of civilisation we must learn to live without oil and all the things that have become the norm in our time. To feed ourselves without chemical fertilizers, to re-learn how to make our clothes and shoes and textiles from indiginous natural materials, to build and maintain our homes from the same, it will be really,really tough. We will have to learn to do without so many conveniences and in those I count electricity and things that work from it, mechanical transport even bicycles will be impossible to maintain for any length of time if we have no factories for spare parts because there is no electricity to run the machines or dig the metal ores in the first place. We will all have to learn how to become self reliant in so many ways, there have been some who pour scorn on us for looking at the world as if it was a transitory thing and for not assuming that everything will carry on just as it is ad infinitum, we'll see!!!!!!!!! All I know is that our forebears lived for many centuries without modern accoutrements and although I have no doubt life was extremely arduous and tough they survived or we wouldn't be here today. What they had that we lack is experienced elders to show them how to do things properly but, we have books and some enlightened experts who DO still know the old ways, so tough though it will be we can learn again, we will live too, and as well as we possibly can!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.