Preparing for Winter V

katkin

Thank you for the ideas and tips for drying outdoors in winter. 

My OH uses the garage as a wood workshop so it's not suitable and my poly-tunnel smells green and planty and I still use it to grow salad leaves etc overwinter. 

If I could I'd like something like this, below. Seen it on a camping trip - and did use it, and it works! Maybe I should be looking long-term to get OH to fashion something similar. 



Worth seeing how I get on with the gazebo, its one that folds down like an umbrella but takes 2 of us to do that as it's big and heavy. Even part drying outside will help. I do have a pulley, fold down wall rack and various airers but I'm not keen on the "house" smells they attract. But needs must 

annieb64

DD got a "Winnie the Pooh" fleece for DGD in Pr****k yesterday. Reduced from £10 to £ 5. She's hoping she'll smuggle down under it to watch TV so they don't have to put the heating on during the day.

Laura_Elsewhere

I haven't even started on making Xmas presents - I shall be speed-knitting this autumn, I suspect! 

Loubie47

Ami13 said:

So ive made a start, checking all woollens, coats and boots. 

Ordered an oil heater for mum who lives on her own and really doesn’t need to heat the whole house. 

Quick question does anyone have any recommendations for a thermal flask to cut down boiling the kettle ? 

we use the metal Thermos flasks for when we go out in the fields metal detecting and they claim to stay hot for 12-18 hours, I can deffo vouch for them staying hot for a good 8 hours... I have already started tighteningthe purse strings and making a flask in the morning to avoid using the kettle through the day... also we have a single camping stove in our camper van that runs on the little mini gas canisters, I wonder if I could drag that in for cooking to save using the big electric cooker lol

sarahlouise1972

Good morning and happy Tuesday everyone.

I'm a newbie and want to start preparing for winter. I live in a mid terrace council house, being in the middle the house warms up quickly. We only have gas central heating and no fire. 

What should I start doing ? 

Thinking of getting a door curtain for the front door but that’s all I can think of. 

Any suggestions would be grateful received.

Have a wonderful day xxxx 

Siebrie

We have 'wind guards' for our inside doors; they slip underneath the door, and keep the draught away from both sides. They last about a year in our house. They come quite long, but you can easily cut them to size. We usually buy them at Aldi for about €6.

Primrose

sarahlouise1972 said:

Good morning and happy Tuesday everyone.

I'm a newbie and want to start preparing for winter. I live in a mid terrace council house, being in the middle the house warms up quickly. We only have gas central heating and no fire. 

What should I start doing ? 

Thinking of getting a door curtain for the front door but that’s all I can think of. 

Any suggestions would be grateful received.

Have a wonderful day xxxx 

Get thick lined curtains if possible. Keep them closed at night in all rooms and during the day in unused rooms unless they,re sunny.

Stock up on warm indoor clothes especially those which keep extreme body areas like feed and head warm.

get hot water bottle to warm your bed.
get an extra blanket for really cold  nights 

consider switching off yiur heating an hour earlier than usual and go to bed earlier with a book or radio.

try double batch cooking so a meal like a casserole lasts for 2 days and uses less fuel

Stock up with candles, torches, spare batteries in case of power cuts 
Only boil a kettle with the amount of water you need
Only use washing machine on full load and where possible dry outdoors using free sun or wind  power.

Am sure others will have more suggestions.

fionaandphil

Welcome @sarahlouise1972, hope you will enjoy this group and the great ideas people come up with. I would agree with Primrose and would also add use a slow cooker and led lightbulbs. The slow cooker is good for hearty meals and you can also batch cook and it's cheap to run, also helps avoid going for a takeaway if you know there is a hot meal waiting. LED lightbulbs also saved us a good bit of money, most of ours were from a pound shop and have lasted well so far. Good luck!

Laura_Elsewhere

Re batch cooking - you can freeze cooked pasta, but it never gets mentioned! Everyone mentions freezing pasta sauces, but you can freeze the pasta as well. I dribble a bit of oil over the pasta and mix it with my hands (free hand-lotion!) to keep it from sticking together so much. We freeze whole meals in one tray, the pasta at one end and the sauce at the other, as we found the pasta kept a better texture that way, compared to mixing it all up before freezing. 
So we batch-cook pasta, and portion it up, with the sauce, so all we need to do is ping the whole thing in the microwave - we alternate our two bowls for  2 mins, 1.5 mins, 1 min and 30 secs, and it's done. Five minutes each. If we defrosted the meals overnight in the fridge then we'd keep our fridge cooler and need slightly less time in the microwave... 

newlywed

Laura_Elsewhere said:

Re batch cooking - you can freeze cooked pasta, but it never gets mentioned! Everyone mentions freezing pasta sauces, but you can freeze the pasta as well. I dribble a bit of oil over the pasta and mix it with my hands (free hand-lotion!) to keep it from sticking together so much. We freeze whole meals in one tray, the pasta at one end and the sauce at the other, as we found the pasta kept a better texture that way, compared to mixing it all up before freezing. 

Thanks for that tip. I have only ever tried freezing pasta all in with the sauce and didn’t particularly like the texture when reheated, so will bear that in mind.  Though we don’t eat much pasta anyway and often just have the leftovers the following day.  And my freezer is currently crammed!