Hoarding - Springing Ahead

pigpen

I was just reading while eating..


I cooked food, fed minions and now am having a peaceful cuppa while being harassed by a blooming great fly! Where is Boris when we need him?

GreyQueen

Would that be Boris Johnson? Does he also do crickets? I ask because just as I was about to put the light out before bed, I noticed a bit of debris on the sitting room floor where no debris had been before.

Then it jumped about 3 feet across the room and seems likely to be another bliddy bit of live food escaped from whichever of my near neighbours keeps exotic pets. I just left it and went to bed, life's too short etc etc.

Have now got the tea going. Woman was not designed to live on giant cookies alone, and trust me, I have experimented on this extensively.

NURRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bring tea at the double. if you please!

ETA; Goshdarnit, that bliddy cricket/ grasshopper/ cicada jumping thingy has started singing and I can't find the darned thing. Hope that won't go on all night. Any idea where in a sitting-room they might hide and what they'd eat? I suspect it'll starve to death in here but not before it's driven me spare!

anirtak191

didnt get my early night, ended up spending 2 hours unblocking the bathroom sink (so ended up not getting up to go out).

on the duvet side, i have quilts ive made myself that i wash, (they just about fit in my washing machine. and want to get a bigger one as soon as i can as i think this one will break having my quilts forced in it as it does) duvets i dont know if mine will wash even if i could fit them into the wm. one is feathers that escape at every opportunity, one is dunno how to explain it, but ive mentioned it before.
i dont trust laundrettes, i took one years ago to be washed and they used a too high a setting when drying i think and melted it, they replaced the expensive one with a cheap one because they melted it, but ive not taken one to the laundrette since just incase. but i febreeze mine every time i change the bedding, as well as the mattress and pillows.


gq how do you keep your utilities so low lol, we dont have gas, we have oil heating and last year it cost £320 for 500 litres, bought in october and ran out in february, well, i have less than 50 litres left just incase. and hot water i get form boiling on stove/kettle or shower.
my leccy used to cost around 1.50 a day, but since its gone up (again) we are doing between 2.50 and 3.50 a day. and i dont use the td. i hanf everything on hangers and hang stuff on my curtain pole to dry. (no washing line) or use the clothes horse for smaller things.
i have the last of the days light right through living room window so lights dont go on till late. and unless i need a panful of water the cooker is used once a day, got one of those 30 second cuppa kettles witch i noticed uses a lot less electric than a normal kettle does (decided one month to actually wash the dishes instead of useing the dw, and i was doing an extra £10 a week on electric by boiling a kettle once a day for this) so it was cheaper to actually use the dw :undecided

and
having to laugh at your little conversation,
i have been saying to hubby for years, every one of them, need to be given a standard job with minimum wage, and standard car, a standard home depending on how many people are to be housed etc. and told to get on with it for at least 6 months, no claiming for extras, and just living on the household wage with working tax if eligible to claim. if they have to get a second job to manage to be it. but maybe they will learn that maybe that minimum wage is actually just no good for the cost of living. i wonder how many of them would be able to actually manage a normal day to day life without all their expensive over big houses,and second and 3rd houses and big expensive cars.
then give normal random everyday people their jobs and see if the country gets run better than what it is now.

got told that someone actually tried that tho, and they didnt last a week, but who told me couldnt remember who it was that done that.

GreyQueen

Hi anirtak, I only have a small flat, not a whole house or a big flat. Have a larder fridge and a counter-top freezer, desktop PC, all energy efficient light bulbs. Don't own a TV and the stereo is a little ghetto-blaster type thingy and some days doesn't even go on.

I run the washer twice most weeks, dry on the clothes airer, avoid ironing most things, turn the power button on the computer monitor (it's an old CRT monitor) off if I'm away from the pooter more than a couple of minutes. Charge an electric toothbrush but gave the hairdryer away as couldn't be arrised with it. Shove a vacuum around a couple of times a week but less than 5 mins in total. Have an electric shower but don't use it daily.

My heating and hot water are on a communal boiler house and it'll costs me £383 this financial year, but that's paid as a rent charge and I can't get out of that or reduce it. I don't waste it, not in my nature, but it's the same amount all months of the year.

What I can control to a degree is the electicity, the cooker gas, and the water consumption, which are coming out at 6p/ 44p and 25p a day respectively.

:mad: And I have a singing cricket in my flat and I can't see where it is, or track it down by the sound and it's sending me potty.

*******and breathe*********

ETA; I have found a wee audio clip on the web of a cicada singing and played it and my critter has shut up and is keeping quiet. There are hundreds of species of these bliddy things, I have no idea what is in my flat, except that it was getting noiser and singing faster as the light faded, but I think playing it the clip has messed with its head. Hope it stays schtumm............

thriftwizard

Oh dear, GQ, I do hope it's not nocturnal... you need jk0's 4" spider!

IrishRose12

GreyQueen wrote: »

I was worried about all this laundering as I, also, have never washed a duvet in my life, surely that's what the covers are for? Plus I have down&feather duvets and they don't much care for being laundered.

Thank God I'm not the only one then lol. I thought I missed that memo in life lessons lol

skeeter93

I had to laugh at your chancellor story, GQ! Maybe Mr Cameron sent the cricket as payback? On the subject of people trying the minimum wage, a politician over here tried it for a week years ago, and declared it was quite easy and she didn't know what the pensioners were whinging about. Of course it's easy to do it for a week, it's doing it for years that is the problem!

pigpen

*brings in the cucumber sandwiches*


*Sits down to watch the cricket...*

anirtak191

your leccy prices sound good gq lol,
hubby prefers the tv, dont think he would last long without it, i usually end up having 3 or 4 weeks of programmes i like to watch build up, can take up to a week to go through, depends how much i sleep.
more often than not when im on my own tho i use my ipod. but i will say i have some days where i cant stand nothing going on, an i usually put a radio or osmething on in each room i might walk into.
im in a good sized 2 bed flat. but the one room up until recently was rarely used, usually locked up, unless i was putting some of my random collectings into it out the way
all energy saving lights, or so i been told, have a flourescent tube in kitchen the council out in about 7 years ago when they sorted all the elctrics out, and whats sposed to be energy saving in the bathroom, funny shaped tubed bulb in there.
only place i dont have an energy saver is my touch lamp in bedroom, didnt think they worked in those but its only a 20 watt bulb i use in there any way. sposed to have 3 bulbs in my living room light but took 2 out as i was told that would save on electric but not seen any difference if im honest.
double checked the time when i felt i needed the lights on tonight and it was just before 9 i put the living room light on, like i said i have the last of the days light in through the window, might have been able to have left it a further half hour if i opened the blind a bit more, but then i am usually squinting against the glare
almost all sockets get turned off when something isnt being used aswell.

my sister said she is only spending around a fiver a week on her leccy, and i went ona price comparison site to see if i oculd make any savings but the only savings i could make were 28p a year with a company ive never heard of lol. i think its the area i live in, even th i got told they dont or not sposed to do that any more.

GreyQueen

pigpen wrote: »

*brings in the cucumber sandwiches*


*Sits down to watch the cricket...*

I'd watch it if I could see it. It shut up for 20 mins last night after I gave it a bit more recorded circada then went offline and it re-started later but quieter.

I can testify that it ain't nocturnal as it's singing at the moment.

anirtak, TVs and cookers can drink a lot of leccy, I suspect that's where the difference between us is. I'm with Southern Electric on the Ebico tariff, which doesn't have standing charges, which work out very expensive for very low users like me.

I think what you have in your bathroom is probably what I have in mine; a curly fluorescent tube under a circular plastic cover?

Today's cunning plan involves working, getting the recyclables out and then do some housework. Looking for anything else which can be got out of here and I have some filing to do later but that shouldn't take very long, ditto the ironing.