Preparing for Winter V

Wednesday2000

I was thinking about winter coming over the past few days even though we have had a good summer here in Essex. We moved the other sofa into the south facing living room yesterday and we have set up a "home cinema" room upstairs as we bought a projector. We switched to a new energy company this year which is slightly cheaper than our old one. I am going to make sure we use our portable heaters and close the doors to the rooms rather than having the heating on as much as previous years.

Laura_Elsewhere

For years now, I've worked away for 5 or 6 weeks over Sept-Nov, only home for weekends and tired at that. I've now stopped doing that, hurrah! 

So for the first time in many years, I am really looking forward to being able to properly enjoy autumn, the lovely feeling of preparing our home to make it cosy through the winter... 

For me, autumn starts now in August- it is still warm enough and dry enough to get our woollens washed and dried, to air blankets and so on. But my mind is turning towards the colder weather and I love the feeling!

We've ordered a litre of Nikwax Cotton, so I can go over my bicycle-panniers which are canvas (I prefer natural fibres where possible).
I shall use up the last of the previous synthetic-waterproofing liquid on our Merrells boots- infuriatingly, my boots are still clearly fine but bits of the plastic-rubber on the lower part of the uppers are breaking up. Only three years old, too! I intend to squeeze some of the 'Klebfest' glue I use for shoe repairs and cobbling into the cracks and then caulk them with some shredded fabric or wool, and hope that does the trick. 
I shall polish all our leather shoes and boots and check if any of the top-stitching needs reinforcing. I buy non-metal segs from Blakeys online, and that means I only replace the segs and don't have to re-heel my shoes and boots, plus the hard-rubber means if I carry shopping into the kitchen, for example, without stopping to take shoes off, I don't knacker our rented flat's laminate flooring! 
So our feet will be dry and warm, I hope  

I think our curtains are fine- but I shall draw them and check all the curtain hooks are still hooked up, and that kind of thing. We have a curtain in the hallway inside the front door, a portiere, made from two single curtains pinned together, the lower one folded in half so it reaches the floor but doesn't draggle all over, and I shall check the curtain-hooks on that and make sure all the pins are securely in, and add more if needed. 

Thankfully, the flat has excellent double-glazing, and I still can't quite get over the fact that each morning, right through all the worst weather, I can open the windows wide, front and back, let the icy blast howl through for three minutes and then close the windows snugly and *the weather stays outside!* It's amazing... First home I've ever had with double-glazing and windows that close properly  

Primrose

Yes I think we tend to forget  the benefits of double glazing.  I remember as a child living in our 1930's house.  In the winter if you sat near the windows a howling gale came through the cracks so everybody huddled close to the fire and ended up with xhilblains!  

Laura_Elsewhere

@Primrose - yep, that's how my first 45 years were!!  

Even after a decade now, I still gaze out at the gigantic Leylandii over the way as it roils and coils in a high wind and none of the wind comes in through the closed windows! 

After ten years of making do with the cast-off old furniture we acquired when we moved here, this year we have jettisoned that to a charity, and acquired some (also cast-off!) furniture that is much more what we want- from ghastly modern fake-pine fake-olde-worlde dresser-style cupboards to a whole wall of sleek white Ikea Kallax and Besta storage, the Besta with glossy deep-red drawer-fronts and cupboard-doors- and now we are dealing with the huge pile of boxes of Unsorted Stuff that had entirely filled the huge alcove that makes up a good third, if not more, of our sitting-room- til now, it's been literally stuffed to the ceiling with boxes, but we are sorting through those and have set a date- mid-Sept- when we will move my husband's desk into the alcove, and the big table against the window...

TL;DR: I shall be able to sit by the north-facing window this winter, and knit as I gaze out at the Leylandii dancing in storms and watch the snow-clouds (I hope!) coming in across the plain to our north-west...  

Primrose

Our freezer still has some of last year,s beans as well as the current season so much as I love them,  beans will doubtless feature boringly heavily on future menus in soups and stir fries.
Now in iur 80's we have other "physical and emotional" winters to prepare for so life is beginnning to feel increasingly challenging.  I,ve got a feeling this is going to prove a very difficult winter for many and the loss of the winter fuel allowance will be a bitter blow for many, especially if it turns really cold.

Nelliegrace

I haven’t put many of the winter things away this year. I have been shaking out the woollies and blankets regularly to check for moths. 

I think I have enough books.
New hot water bottles, they get a lot of use. 

I need to start freezing a few dozen eggs, lightly beaten, in individual pots, just incase the new hens don’t lay. The late summer pullets do usually keep us supplied with eggs. 

Cherryfudge

I remember the 'Jack Frost' patterns inside the windows. Beautiful! But storage heaters and eventually double glazing made it all a lot more livable.

We had tall Leylandii until a few years ago: they were beautiful but eventually grew so tall that the wind coming round the end of the terrace would whip the end one and I videoed it as it bent dramatically towards the neighbours behind us. I worried for their safety. Armed with the video, we had a tree surgeon lower the tops, which are still about on a par with the top of the house. So a recommended job for the winter is to be as sure as you reasonably can that tall things and growing things are safe, that things that the wind can catch are secure and so forth. It seems really unlikely in August (though we will get the tail ends of hurricanes) but some areas are often exposed to bad weather and even areas that have been safe for centuries may change (I was in the big storm of 1986 when colossal old trees came down simply because they couldn't bend so they went over like skittles).

I do miss how beautiful the Leylandii were, though, and I would never want to cut a tree short for the sake of it. They are also what holds the land together which in turn helps drainage. I can remember them covered in snow in the middle of the night, and the snow made them sufficiently visible for me to get a photo. I can only suppose there was a full moon as there weren't nearby streetlights.

I'm still on the blackberry-picking stage but I'm with Laura on checking the condition of clothes and footwear, and the little things like whether it would be a good idea to have ice grips for your shoes. There are two short areas of path near us that can become ice sheets so the grips help. Also salt or grit for your path if it gets icy.

Another garden job is to raise up any planters, either on proper little clay 'feet' or some alternative, doesn't matter too much what. The idea is to have an air gap underneath to protect the planters and plants from frost.

There's a new thread that seems to have died off about winter prep, but some people have put useful comments there: Preparing for winter — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Chloepad1

Primrose said:

Our freezer still has some of last year,s beans as well as the current season so much as I love them,  beans will doubtless feature boringly heavily on future menus in soups and stir fries.
Now in iur 80's we have other "physical and emotional" winters to prepare for so life is beginnning to feel increasingly challenging.  I,ve got a feeling this is going to prove a very difficult winter for many and the loss of the winter fuel allowance will be a bitter blow for many, especially if it turns really cold.

Bless you Primrose.  I'm thinking of everyone who this is going to have an impact on.  I think this was absolutely the wrong thing for the government to have done.  The best thing we can all do is try to look after ourselves and our families and try to look after those elderly and vulnerable people in our communities who are going to struggle to keep warm if we have a harsh winter.  I'm a carer for my mum who is vulnerable and poorly with a long term lung condition so keeping her warm is absolutely essential.  We've had some unexpected window upgrades done this year so this should help keep us warm.  Still lots to do here before the colder weather sets in.  I have a feeling we will start to see colder weather set in as autumn progresses.  Still nice and warm during the day but getting nippy after dusk and in the mornings.

Laura_Elsewhere

Here's the page with all the information for those born before 1958- and remember c.850,000 older people are not taking up payments they are entitled to, so worth checking...

...but also very much worth, as @Chloepad1 says, everyone just checking generally on each other, whether your neighbours are older, or have young children, or have only just moved in, or whatever... 

https://www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/print

Primrose

On the topic of tall trees, a few months ago we changed our house insurance and noticed on the new policy conditions that we had to declare if there any tall trees above a certain height (can't remember what it was now) within x feet of our house structure.    Don't recall seeing that previously and wonder if increasing storms and gales are increasing the risk of property structure damage.

woth bearing in mind if you have any tall trees on your property because of course they grow taller every year and thus more expensive to be lopped.