Nice People Thread Number 10 -the official residence of Nice People

vivatifosi

Thanks Gen, I've been looking at a Remoska as a gift for my parents. Mum loves to bake, so needs a standard oven, but they tend to have a conventional oven cooked meal most nights so I think that would save them money. I need to understand benefits over a halogen oven though, my sil has been suggesting one of those.

neverdespairgirl

SingleSue wrote: »

I have an ex husband trying to recreate our marriage with his new wife, right down to the dinner plates we used to use!

Now that is scary....

I'm sure there's a film about that sort of thing, featuring dead pet horses or boiled bunnies, or something. Does she look like you, too?

silvercar wrote: »

He is hinting at number 3!

If it takes me another 9 years to get over remembering how horribly sick pregnancy is for me, I think I'll be getting a bit past childbearing (-:

silvercar wrote: »

Our bin men are good. They come on the day they are supposed to. Our bins are sited near the end of the drive, so need moving only about 3m to be ready for collection, occasionally if we have forgotten, the bin men move them themselves! We've not yet had a bin rejected because it contains the wrong kind of rubbish.
(

Our rubbish collection is very regular, and idiot-proof. Everything that can be recycled (and it's most things) goes in clear bags, non-recycling goes in black bags. Both types go in huge bins in a locked cupboard outside the block of flats, and the binmen collect it all every day except Sundays. They have a key for the cupboard.

tomterm8 wrote: »

I've got no advice on that score. In my experience if you get through Christmas without one set of relatives killing the other set you're doing pretty well.

I've honestly never seen a Christmas-time family row.

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

Thanks Gen, I've been looking at a Remoska as a gift for my parents. Mum loves to bake, so needs a standard oven, but they tend to have a conventional oven cooked meal most nights so I think that would save them money. I need to understand benefits over a halogen oven though, my sil has been suggesting one of those.

I've never used a Remoska myself so can't personally vouch for them. One for Old Style I would imagine.

zagubov

vivatifosi wrote: »

Thanks Gen, I've been looking at a Remoska as a gift for my parents. Mum loves to bake, so needs a standard oven, but they tend to have a conventional oven cooked meal most nights so I think that would save them money. I need to understand benefits over a halogen oven though, my sil has been suggesting one of those.

Generali wrote: »

If it's just for you I'd consider getting a Remoska as well as a standard single oven with the features you want.

A Remoska is great for one or two people. Slow cookers are a good alternative too if you make a lot if stews. Both are cheap to buy, cheap to run and give great results.

The Remoska is covered very thorougly in other parts of this very forum, including the difficulty of getting one through their only supplier in the UK, Lakeland. This is temporary as they're waiting for the new models later next month.

Other posts elesewhere mention you can find longer-lasting cheaper versions by googling Tefal Roast N'Bake. No idea if it's any good. I expect you can find both on Amazon and elsewhere as well.

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Our rubbish collection is very regular, and idiot-proof. Everything that can be recycled (and it's most things) goes in clear bags, non-recycling goes in black bags. Both types go in huge bins in a locked cupboard outside the block of flats, and the binmen collect it all every day except Sundays. They have a key for the cupboard.

If it were that easy for everybody we'd all do it

There are a variety of different coloured plastic sacks, or other sacks, or boxes, or bins ... in various combinations.

What can/can't be recycled varies in every area.

Sometimes you don't know stuff like "what is cardboard?" Is a pizza box cardboard? A cornflake packet? A food box with a see-through, cellophane window (or should the window be removed first? And paper, is an envelope paper? What about the gummed strip part? If there's a window, should it be removed? Is newspaper paper? What about the yellow pages? What about the cover of the yellow pages, is that paper or cardboard? Are glossy magazines and catalogues paper? Is a fruit juice carton cardboard? Do you have to remove the plastic pourer section?

And glass... you can put a coffee jar in, but not the plastic lid.

What's a tin? Is a pepsi can a tin? Baked bean can a tin? Or is it specific metals...? What about tin foil from cooking? Just the clean stuff, or even grubby foil from roasting, with fat? If I've had a takeaway and it's come in a foil container, does that go in tins?

Supermarket chilled/frozen meals for one - what's that plastic tray it comes in, is that plastic?

Then you need to know the bin day - which is often every fortnight. One week it's regular bins, the next it's recycling. And if there's a holiday/bank holiday, do they still come on the same day? Or miss you out entirely this time, or is it a day laer? Or two days later?

And when are you allowed to put the bin out? And what if you're not there/away? And you have to put the bin away ....

... and ... oh b0ll0x to it

neverdespairgirl

I know, I've watched my mother worry herself to a frazzle today about it. This council's only just introduced recycling in any real form, and it involves 3 different recycling bins, and a food waste one too, and a general bin for non-recyclables. She was trying to work out which ones were being collected tomorrow, and it appeared far too complicated for me.

There's a lot to be said for Islington's system. No bins to worry about, and only two catagories of stuff, and it's all collected from the same place at the same time.

neverdespairgirl

lostinrates wrote: »

Evening bags are kinda meant to be bizarre and impractical. . I liked the idea but I just don't like the brushes.


There are some really beautiful and extortionate priced ones.

I agree, they aren't supposed to be practical. So long as you can fit your mascara, door key and £20 in for emergencies, that's all that's necessary.

I've got a couple of gorgeous evening bags my Granny made in the 1930s and gave to me, all velvet and lace and embroidery.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

If it were that easy for everybody we'd all do it

There are a variety of different coloured plastic sacks, or other sacks, or boxes, or bins ... in various combinations.

What can/can't be recycled varies in every area.

Sometimes you don't know stuff like "what is cardboard?" Is a pizza box cardboard? A cornflake packet? A food box with a see-through, cellophane window (or should the window be removed first? And paper, is an envelope paper? What about the gummed strip part? If there's a window, should it be removed? Is newspaper paper? What about the yellow pages? What about the cover of the yellow pages, is that paper or cardboard? Are glossy magazines and catalogues paper? Is a fruit juice carton cardboard? Do you have to remove the plastic pourer section?

And glass... you can put a coffee jar in, but not the plastic lid.

What's a tin? Is a pepsi can a tin? Baked bean can a tin? Or is it specific metals...? What about tin foil from cooking? Just the clean stuff, or even grubby foil from roasting, with fat? If I've had a takeaway and it's come in a foil container, does that go in tins?

Supermarket chilled/frozen meals for one - what's that plastic tray it comes in, is that plastic?

Then you need to know the bin day - which is often every fortnight. One week it's regular bins, the next it's recycling. And if there's a holiday/bank holiday, do they still come on the same day? Or miss you out entirely this time, or is it a day laer? Or two days later?

And when are you allowed to put the bin out? And what if you're not there/away? And you have to put the bin away ....

... and ... oh b0ll0x to it

Parts of Germany have a system where you bring your empties to outside the supermarket and the recycling bins are opened by the barcode on whatever you're putting in. The bins print out cash vouchers to spend in the shop.

Or you give it to homeless people who gather there to recycle the stuff and collect the vouchers.

But its happening in Europe not America so the chances of us adopting that system are really dire.

michaels

They changed ours with cardboard that used to go in the big green wheelie bin having to be put into one of the small boxes which is a bit of a fail when you are dealing with packaging for a large item like a bike.

We have long been big fans of the LG solardom combi/microwave/halogen and use it for all our cooking but we our now on our third (or be it two were second hand) so they obviously don't last for ever if used as family ovens.

Why is life never easy - got a clearance set top box from Tesco for a tenner which will give us HD on one of our SD TVs. It mentions iplayer as well, plug in an ethernet cable and it seems to work until you actually try and watch a show when it shows nothing. On to google and it seems the company channel zero providing the service have gone bust but then more google and there is a work around involving telnet (what that?) etc so here I am three hours later and it is....finally working...altough if the unit ever powers off apparently it needs to be done all over again

neverdespairgirl

OH has gone back to London this evening - he's got a massively busy January, lots of different cases in, and lots of prep to do. So he's gone home to do some of it. That's his story, and he's sticking to it, but he's also had 6 days with the whole gang of in-laws, which is probably quite enough for any man.

We've had a lovely time - my Bruv's been utterly brilliant, played football with Isaac for at least 30 minutes every day, and gave him goalkeeper's gloves as a Christmas present. You wouldn't believe just how much mud one 8 year old can accumulate playing football at this time of year.....

Dad's been playing chess with him, Mama's been reading various !!!!!! King-Smith books, the dogs have had lots of long, gloriously messy walks with him, and everyone's been enjoying themselves, it appears.

My maternal uncle won the prize for "least intelligible comment to a child" when he said to Isaac, "Germany's the only country in the EU which doesn't have a structural budget deficit." He's a very clever, well-educated, interesting man, with apparently absolutely no concept of what even a fairly bright 8 year old might understand.