Preparedness for when

VJsmum

craigywv wrote: »

ok gang need help here plssssssssssss.....got my 2 burner camping stove yesterday and it came with 4 tins of gas they not that big say the size of 1 liter of milk jug. i want to know can i get this cooker attached to an ordinary gas bottle like my kitshen stove is...its hole drilled through wall and hose into gas bottle outside. i want to go camping in summer and got camping stove for this reason but i dont think these sml tins it came with would last very long.. question...how long will these cans last ie . will 1 can be enough to boil water and if so how much. also what size bottle do i bring camping dont fancy the bottles i use for house stove as too bulky thanks in advance
xxx

Hi Craigy - as Lynne says you can get the blue campinggaz bottles that will attach to your camping stove. Any caravan or camping shop will sell them and the right fittings - maybe take yours in and ask? We can buy gas from these shops, some small hardware shops or even some camp sites (though that may be for patrons only) and garages where there are lots of camp sites IYSWIM.

The blue gas isn't suitable for winter though as it freezes (obviously only if it is outside) and if you are going to Europe it can be hard to get hold off. For those reasons we now use red cylinders for our caravan (can't remember name - might it be Propane???)

westcoastscot

never made soda farls, but tattie scones sound similar - they cook easily on a very low heat - mm wondering if I could make those in my stove toaster thingy? shall have a play later.
I'm going to have a good clean and tidy here - what a mess!! open fires and cooking surely make a mess - no wonder they have stone/flagged floors in days gone by!

Mad-Frog

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Amazon.

Here's one selling the 12" ones (IMO better than the 9.5" ones) for less that £5.

Thank you everyone for your replies, I have brought one of these and it matches my colour scheme in the front room

Will have a look for wax for my boots thank you. Have invested in some grips for ours boots, forgotten what they are called trax thingies so will see how we get on with them.

We have lots of deep snow in the garden it looks really pretty and makes my garden look tidy for a change

The_Dragon

Just to remind folks that if the power goes a freezer is no good, the first time you open the door/lid the items start to spoil

Butterfly_Brain

This is a national disgrace in 21st century Britain :mad::mad::mad: Yet the fat cats still make their obscene profits:mad::mad::mad:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

pineapple

Mad-Frog wrote: »

Will have a look for wax for my boots thank you. Have invested in some grips for ours boots, forgotten what they are called trax thingies so will see how we get on with them.

There are several makes as a well as at least a couple of different types.
If you search for grippers on Amazon it will be bring them up - as well as the Yaxtrax you may be thinking of. Mine are the stud type
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Veriga-City-Tracks-Track-Medium/dp/B0039L1AEC/ref=sr_1_2?s=shoes&ie=UTF8&qid=1364124938&sr=1-2
But you can find budget stud versions for close to a fiver.

daz378

no snow here in salford , heating on while im not metred , not going out all day, will nip and see dad after 5pm , lamb chump chops sunday dinner on the go.... operation solar charger tomorrow so if leccy goes out my kindle doesn't....take care be safe

Popperwell

ginnyknit wrote: »

Pops, zip your coat up (not with you in it :rotfl:) and put it on the table rub up and down on the teeth with a pencil lots of time which will help it zip better. Then test it out. you may not need to replace it quite yet. hope it works.

I'm off to buy a pencil and a pencil sharpener:rotfl:Much cheaper...A friend on another thread checked with a repairer and they charge approx £28 to replace a zip:eek:but I think it was Pineapple who suggested velcro so even if the zip has failed that would keep the coat closed.

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Amazon.

Here's one selling the 12" ones (IMO better than the 9.5" ones) for less that £5.

£4.10 on Amazon on the company's own website £3.76(p&p £2.50)but you only save 10p going on their own site because of the P&P. No sign of any wicks to buy. I assume they don't last long? I may buy a couple of these lamps...I am surprised they don't sell them.

Thanks for the link Bob:)

grandma247 wrote: »

I have just had a quick google for alternative lamp oil and it seems you can use olive oil or canola (rapeseed) oil instead. I am pretty sure any old oil will also work because I used to have little burners that floated in water which used chip pan oil. Rancid oil is supposed to work best so it makes sense that chip pan oil would work. I shall have to find a small oil lamp to test it out.

I have read something similar in the last few days too...and that some retailers have their own kind.

As for looking in the mirror I try not to and don't recognise who is looking back at me either. Inside I could still be in my twenties but with glasses and loss of hair sadly it ain't true.:p

GreyQueen

Afternoon all.

Very interesting comments on this thread, always a good place to watch and learn, I find. It's amazing what a collective pooling of commonsense and acquired experience can achieve.

I've been watching the weather online, mainly newspaper websites, with wide-eyes and horror. Blimey, there's some serious whitestuff out there. Being as I live Dahn Sarf, we don't tend to get much snow here, although there have been some notable exceptions in living memory.

Re the lady who asked about starting from scratch for herself and her littlies, excellent advice already. I don't personally own shoes which aren't able to stand up to wetness, although my trainers wouldn't stand protracted use in the rain. I just don't like to own things which are only suitable for dry and/or warm weather, as my experience of summers in the UK is that they don't get much use. I layer up or down as necessary.

Trapper hats are excellent (£6 in Primarche/ on the markets, widely available all over the place). I am inordinately fond of mine and can say that very few items I've owned have given me such satisfaction. Plus the world and its wife have them and you'll be on-trend.

Most cheapy clothing stores, and markets, will sell you a set of hat-scarf-gloves in fleece for £2.99. They also turn up at bootsales and charity shops, although there may well not be much of a saving. You want a few more of each than there are bodies because little ones will lose them and they could end up sopping wet and you need a change.

I think everyone, child or adult, really ought to consider a waterproof windproof coat a necessity. Unless you're in an exceptionally cold country, you may get more use out of an unlined type of jacket, slightly oversized, so that you can layer up with jumpers/ fleeces underneath. That way, you can roll the jacket up small and carry it with you in what we humourously call "summer" to be deployed in the inevitable rainstorms.

Vests are an art form of their own. Some of us older broads were vested-up in our childhood and escaped but there comes a time where (as well as turning into your mother) when you see the point of a vest. Fortunately they are a lot less frumpy than they once were. If you can add a proper vest as your base layer, you'll thank yourself for it. A cotton tee-shirt won't achieve the same effect. Vests are great for those who have to do business-smart and can't pile on the jumpers.

Longjohns are fab, but a pair of tights under your trousers is a good substitute. Works for the littlies, too. Even some very hardcore fellers are wearing these in some very macho occupations. I've know oilriggers to use them before now.

I can still recall my surprise when The Sexiest Boy in School displayed his shapely calf to me in turquise Lycra dance leggings. Gosh, but we knew how to live in the late seventies. He was a farmer's son and had serious weather to contend with.:rotfl:

Candles can be easily had now, both new and secondhand, but if there is a prolonged period of powercuts/ or the steadiness of the supply becomes unsteady, there will be a run on them. Those of us who have lived thru shortages and powercuts can tell you tales of profiteering and other shenanigans. The Seventies weren't just ABBA and naffola clothes, there was some seriously-scary stuff going on, too.

Candles don't "go off" although they can sag and bend if subjected to heat so store them away from direct sunlight and heat-sources. Torches are something you need to have with you. You could have a power outage particular to your home, to your neighbourhood or indeed country-wide. If you've always lived in a built-up area with streetlighting you may have no real idea of how dark the darkness is, if that makes sense. If there was a powercut which took out the streetlights, you need to have a torch in your bag to be able to walk home without injuring yourself.

I'm guessing that if your diet is mainly fresh foods that you are a conscientous person and this is for health reasons? This is excellent, and I eat a lot of fresh stuff myself. Heck, I even grow it. But if there was disruption to deliveries you'd have to eat the fresh (or frozen) stuff first and then, without a cupboard full of shelf-stable foods, you are up that body of water without a propellant device, as they say.

UHT milk (comes in all the usual demoninations) is widely-available and lasts for months. Icel0nd have it at 55p/ litre, Tossco at 88p/ litre if you buy it singly or £4.60 for 6 in carton (= 77p each). Tinned fish is absolutely excellent nutritionally; sardines, mackerel, salmon, tuna, sild and various other fishy things. Cheese can live outside the fridge in a cool place quite happily and some gourmands regard refrigerating good quality cheeses as an act of barbarism.

There are a lot of things which aren't unhealthy which can be bread-substitutes if you can't get out; oatcakes, crackers, rice cakes (somebody must be eating them), cream crackers, crispbreads.

You can also get sweetcorn canned in water and many other veggies have a water option and fruits canned in juice rather than syrup. Although if the SHTF you'd be after every calorie you could get your mitts on and overweight wouldn't be a problem.

I have a rather dubious fondness for Fray B*ntos tinned pies, which aren't guilty of horsemeat-itus and even stack. Although I appreciate not everyone's digestive system is as robust as mine................. But they do store very tidily. HTH.

mardatha

Some poor old lady has been helicoptered off Arran with hypothermia. No power since Friday. I think that's such a shame, how many more old folk are there sitting in their beds shivering?