Preparing for Winter V

Primrose

I think an emergency food storage capacity is essential in winter for those who are likely to be snowed in or unable to get out because of illness and even if there isnt room in kitchen cupboards one can always have one of those deep polythene storage boxes with lids stored in a living area and covered with a decorative cover and a vase on it so it doesnt betray its real purpose.

Many years ago I visited an elderly couples flat in Moscow at a time when food was short and people had to queue hours for everything. The flats were tiny but the wife proudly showed my her wooden chest covered with a decorative Russian cloth in which she stored any tins and dry goods she could lay her hands on. They didn,t have see through polythene storage facilities in those days and even if they did, I suspect they would have been covered with cloths or blankets so that prying neighbours couldn,t see what foodstocks you had in case they were continually trying to trying to cadge or borrow them.

mardatha

I bet they'd be far ahead of us in commonsense and being prepared for anything Primrose.

Primrose

Well their choice of foods s were very limited at that time. We sent them various food parcels which amazed them because they had no idea what some of the foods were or how to eat them. Multi coloured pasta spirals were a complete mystery to them and as for Marmite and Bovril - they couldn,t figure out whether the B ritish actually ate it or used it for axis grease! It was humbling how valued the foods were. I managed to include a tin of olive oil which I think they eked out for about three years and tins of meat and fish were treated like gold dust.

This was exactly how my mum reacted when Canadian relatives sent us food parcels during the war. It was like Christmas, Easter and your birthday all rolled into one ! One Canadian relative was so worried food would be stolen out of the parcels she used white cotton sheeting instead of brown paper to wrap the parcels and actually stitched it in place. It took my mum hours to unwrap it using a carefully handled razor blade cutting the seams stitch by stitch. She then washed the sheet and used it for mending holes in our bed linen because that too was on rationing and coupons and had become ragged and worn out.

mardatha

We don't know how easy we have it eh!

[Deleted User]

Indeed we don't mardatha, my late Mum's sister lived in New Jersey and would send us food parcels and, cram the odd spaces in beteen the items with things like stockings for my Mum, and she would treat these like gold dust and they were carefully worn and washed and dried indoors in case anyone saw them on the line and pinched them

Once in one parcel we had some tiny tins of Heinz baby food and I was about 4-5 by then and there were tins of apple sauce which we ended up spreading on toast like jam. One parcel has a lovely green velvet dress with a white lacy front which I adored and it was so beautiful and I had never sen anything so nice it has white pearl buttons all down each side of the white lace and when I eventually grew out of it my Mum let me have some of the odd bits that she didn't use for me to dress my doll with.

My doll had been rescued from a bomb site and had one arm,leg and eye but I loved her because she was mine and special.I made little pyjamas with one leg in them for her and also made a white lacy patch for her missing eye. She was a bit battered about and my Mum hated me having it as she knew what had probably happened to her original owner but no one else had such a unique dolly and my Molly :)

Everything was used again and again and nothing was binned or wasted at all. I think my late Mums generation were the original recyclers as the thought of throwing something away would have been scandalous.

Everything was saved and reused as much as possible and I don't think there were the amount of landfill sites around like today .scrap went to the rag ''n'bone mans and even then you usually got a goldfish in a jam jar in return and when the goldfish went the way of most of them the jar was saved and put to good use.

Even the ash from the coal fire was used in the garden as fertilisers and dug in. Sheets were turned sides to middle, and wool from outgrown jumpers was unpicked washed and reknitted into something else

By the time I was 10 I could knit a pair of sock for my brothers no problem, and when as they did they had holes in, if they were darnable then Mum or I darned them.

If not then they were inravelled and reknitted again

We had a pillow case that Mum kept her wool in for reknitting.Today I will happily buy tiny cardi's from a bootsales for 20p or so, take them home and unpick,wash and reknit into my baby blankets, especially white DK wool as its often £1.50 odd for a ball in the shops .

So much stuff is wasted today its no wonder we are running out of landfill sites to dump stuff in.

JackieO xx

[Deleted User]

unpicked curly wool, wrapped around two open arms then wetted and hung over the back of a chair, a weight tied onto the damp wool so it dried straighter. We had one small metal bin with a lid, for 9 of us and for us that included ashes because we had no garden but the bin was collected weekly. Nothing was wasted

[Deleted User]

That was why the bin men were called dustmen as they collected the ashes unused from peoples fire places. Yes getting the kinks out of curly wool and oh how you arems ached at times while your Mum was winding it :):)

skintmumof3

Winter is forecast to return at the weekend down here in the south...snow and temps of -3c according to the met office ..brrr....will have to dig out my winter jumpers ..........

Wednesday2000

There is meant to be light snow here this weekend! It's supposed to be Spring.

I'm glad I ordered some flannel sheets and flannel shirts today!:D They should keep me toasty warm.

mardatha

Whole of the east side of the UK getting it I think. But it's only March, it happens here, so I'm not getting meself into a state. Just impatient to get into the garden but up here that won't be until mid-April at least.