Preparing for Winter V

Sarahspangles

Floss said:

Sarahspangles said:

.... I work in a related bit of the NHS* so I’m bound to think the approach is now a bit lax!
 ...... So I’ll be paying for a private booster later this year like I always have for flu.

I'm surprised you aren't offered flu & covid vaccines by your employers? I'm not patient facing but am offered the jabs every year.

Yes I can get ‘flu but not Covid - I’m not frontline.

Floss

Sarahspangles said:

Floss said:

Sarahspangles said:

.... I work in a related bit of the NHS* so I’m bound to think the approach is now a bit lax!
 ...... So I’ll be paying for a private booster later this year like I always have for flu.

I'm surprised you aren't offered flu & covid vaccines by your employers? I'm not patient facing but am offered the jabs every year.

Yes I can get ‘flu but not Covid - I’m not frontline.

Neither am I, non patient facing admin. Maybe it's a Trust thing.

Sarahspangles

Floss said:

Sarahspangles said:

Floss said:

Sarahspangles said:

.... I work in a related bit of the NHS* so I’m bound to think the approach is now a bit lax!
 ...... So I’ll be paying for a private booster later this year like I always have for flu.

I'm surprised you aren't offered flu & covid vaccines by your employers? I'm not patient facing but am offered the jabs every year.

Yes I can get ‘flu but not Covid - I’m not frontline.

Neither am I, non patient facing admin. Maybe it's a Trust thing.

I’m a bit of an anomaly, as I’m home based!

Green_hopeful

I have been reading about long term cognitive decline caused by Covid. Even mild Covid can have an impact. I have noticed a significant decline in my cognitive function and I have had mild Covid twice. I also stopped working last summer so I obviously can’t be sure if the decline is real or if it’s Covid related but it does seem lots of people are being impacted. I don’t think it’s a good thing to get more than is necessary. https://theconversation.com/mounting-research-shows-that-covid-19-leaves-its-mark-on-the-brain-including-significant-drops-in-iq-scores-224216

MrsCD

We both had Covid a few weeks ago and used some slightly out of date tests to confirm it and they worked fine. We had to use the liquid from two a couple of times as they had evaporated. I caught it on holiday in the Lake District but didn't feel poorly until we got home. I had the usual for me feeling of neuralgia all over my face, which is how I suspected it was Covid.

We used to make tomato and lentil soup at work....
Tin of tomatoes
Onion chopped
Tin of red lentils, measured in the tomato tin
Tin of water....ditto!
Vegetable stock cube to taste, 1 or 2
Fry the onion slightly in a deep pan, don't let it brown, add the rest, cook until lentils go to mush then blend everything until smooth. Add more liquid if necessary. Easy peasy!

Sarahspangles

beckstar1975 said:

Just a warning. I bought a big box of various pulses and beans from Hodmedods last year and had been storing them in a sealed plastic storage create. Went to get the chick peas out to cook today and the entire thing was HUMMING with weevils/bugs.

Had to chuck them all out (about 10 bags worth), such a waste. Have learnt my lesson not to try and stockpile too much if I'm not cooking them often

I’m having flashbacks - years ago my son had a friend to play, when I drove him home his mum had just gone to her big Tupperware container of flour and found weevils. Her son had severe allergies* so she was almost obsessively clean and made everything from scratch. Although I didn’t know her that well, she was really distressed, to the point of panic, so I stayed to help. They were in all her dried food stocks in containers, and the infestation was no more than two weeks old as we could see ‘ground zero’ in some flour she’d only just bought in her month’s shop. Luckily it was sunny so we put everything from the kitchen onto a sheet on the back lawn so she could get into every crevice and cupboard to clean.

* Our sons are grown men now, the first time hers visited mine at his place in Cambridge he ate something cross-contaminated in a restaurant and ended up being admitted to hospital.

Primrose

Re the long term storage of dry goods, I,ve had similar insect problems .  Also glass jars are a far better storage medium long term as plastic, as it ages, can tend to impart a bitter acrid taste onto items  like beans  rice and pulses which makes them pretty inedible.. if you,re filling a new container from Empty always a good idea to slip in a paper note I saying  the date the jar is filled.  They,re often kept for much longer than we realise, especially if ousted to the back of the cupboard.  We've all been guilty of not realising how quickly time passes.!

SuzeQStan

Gonna start from fresh - no strong stomachs in this household 🤣

greenbee

Freezing things as they arrive in the house can prevent weevils. But decanting into glass jars also means you can see quickly whether there is a problem. 

Laura_Elsewhere

I had weevils once in a bag of self-raising flour rarely used.... horrifying things, although a very very lovely friend made me feel far better by telling me how common it was when she was living in a hot country of the Middle East in the 1970s, bless her! 

I now have no self-raising flour, just adding baking powder to plain flour as needed; I have a 1.25kg plain flour tin, and two 1kg tins for strong bread flour and very strong bread flour, decanting from the usual 1 or 1.5kg bags into the tins each time. I make sure I empty the tins completely- I don't wash them because of the drying aspect, but I shake and rattle (ooh, channelling Bill Haley suddenly! I said, Shake, rattle and roll... ) the tins to make sure nothing is hiding in a crevice, and typically leave them for an hour in the oven when it's switched-off but still warm, before re-filling them. 

Friends buy bread flour by the 35kg sack but I now prefer to buy small bags, even if it costs more, because it's *not* cheaper if you have to throw weevilly flour away and everything around it!!