Preparing for Winter V

Primrose

I think most of us Who got married in the 1960s and 1970's were used to to going to bed dressed as eskimos. We quickly learnt that warmth came before glamour when it came to bedtime attire!

Wednesday2000

It felt cold today! I had to pop out twice to the pharmacy and the shop and it was lovely and crisp, but very chilly. I had to layer up even being back in the house. I ordered a heated throw. My husband said to get two, but I will get one to see what I think first.

MrsCD

@Nelliegrace I understand what you said about angina being made worse by going out in the cold. This is one of the things that concerns me about people going out to these 'warm spaces' then going out in the cold to go home. I don't know what the answer is though.
DH has a heated throw in the living room which seems to work very well.
We have a teddy fleece tartan blanket which goes underneath the bottom sheet on the bed in cold weather. It makes a huge difference. We have crochet blankets over the wool duvet and they help to trap air to keep us warm.

Nelliegrace

If I have to go outside in freezing weather I have a covered hot water bottle tucked in under my jumper, and a scarf to avoid breathing in freezing air, hat and gloves and sheepskin mittens, etc. on before venturing out or my fingers go white with cold and painful when they warm up again.
We have a Sainsbury’s superstore locally, and DH will take me there for a walk, up and down all of the aisles, in the warm.

I remember seeing those awful scorch marks, @SuzeQStan, and huge ulcers on legs from people sitting too close to the fire, which was the only heat source, and scalds from leaking hot water bottles. Painful chilblains used to be part of every winter, as were the smells of mothballs and eucalyptus oil. I buy British Standard hot water bottles with ribbing on both sides, and use them with a thick cover on them. Never use boiling water, it damages the rubber. Replace them regularly. 

Our utility bill is due today, but at least the money to pay it has been earning interest in our bank account all year. We used to pay a fixed amount monthly, enough to cover the annual usage, going into debit in late winter and into credit in summer, but BG wanted us to pay more, to be always in credit, giving them the interest on our money, with the threat that they might break in and install an expensive pre-payment meter, so we are with Utility Warehouse now. 

Cherryfudge

What a good idea, to use the supermarket aisles to get some exercise, @Nelliegrace.

This current cold snap has made me think about how many days' food, etc. I should have in my 'emergency cupboard'. I live in town and am fit and healthy so I've got off very lightly but it only takes one slip to do damage, and if that happened, I'd like to think I could carry on independently for a week at least. There are people who still can't leave home five or six days into this 'snap' because of the ice, and Councils don't have the facilities to grit side roads (main roads are kept as open as possible but getting to them from side roads is another matter).

DH was off-duty today and so was able to explain to someone who was blaming the Council for 'not gritting': gritting is going on at full rate but Council funds also have to pay for social care and SEN and there's only so much money in the pot. There are also literally thousands of miles of roads and pavements in our county.

I think it's easy to ignore weather warnings and assume they are just being sensationalist, and personally I don't give credence to those in certain newspapers who are always talking about 'artic blasts', but when warnings come from channels like the Met Office, they are doing it because there actually is danger of the conditions they describe. What really made me think was getting an emergency message from a friend whose daughter works for a utilities company and who got stranded while taking emergency help to a community in the snow. (A colleague with a different vehicle managed to get to them and bring them home). I later saw this young woman's film of the conditions they were stuck in, and it was a shocker. So I suppose I'm saying it's come home to me that prep is a real and important thing and anyone might need to have enough in to look after themselves for a week or so, or to help a neighbour.

Laura_Elsewhere

@Cherryfudge - I agree completely with you re the importance of having enough to cover emergencies. 

It drives me up the wall when people say, "oh well, so much for the weather warning, huh, I've got half an inch of snow and it was all gone by morning"- well, yes, but people in the same general area but a bit west or north or more exposed or higher ground or whatever have got real problems like you describe, Cherryfudge, and it's simply not possible to forecast weather to the individual postcode!   So all that can be done is to give a warning to the general area, and then we can check that our phones are charged, check that our battery-packs to recharge phiones are charged, etc. 

On that note- beware of cold weather and batteries! 

|I was out this morning swimming, and I put my phone down on the ground, on my changing-tarpaulin, while I undressed, then it comes swimming with me in a waterproof uninsulated pouch, then I put it on the ground again while I dress and eat and drink and so on... 

It went from 100% battery when I left the house at 07:45, to just 1% on the way home two hours later! 

It clearly was really unhappy being put down on the ground in -5º....!!! (as would I be, let's face it ) 

So if you have a powercut, or break down in your car or whatever, try to tuck your phone into an inside pocket to keep it warm (never place it near actual heat, of course!). And it's worth checking you know about your particular phone's options for low-power mode, to save the battery as much as possible in an emergency, and things like rapid-recharge settings for when you can plug it in even if only for a short time, etc., etc. 

It really had never occurred to me that my phone would behave differently in a hard frost! A bit dense of me, now I come to think of it...  

MrsCD

Talking about batteries.....DH went to get the windscreen de-icer from the car the other night, to spray the windows before we settled in for the night. Neither of our remote car key fobs would open the car, even though they had both been used earlier in the day. He eventually opened the car with the key, but it set the alarm off! Once he started the car it all reset, but just be aware that the extreme cold (for us!) can affect your car. We changed the batteries in the key fobs as an extra precaution. 

Cherryfudge

I hadn't given a thought to batteries behaving differently but it's logical. I've had a phone struggle to cope with heat on holiday, so that's another to be aware of.

Auntycaz

Thank you for letting us know @Laura_Elsewhere. I only have a basic £6 per month deal on my mobile as I have a house phone, a laptop which I use most of the time and home internet, but now I have changed to fibre internet with a Voip phone(BT home essentialls) I can no longer use my house phone if my internet goes off or if I have a power cut and I am totally reliant on my mobile phone so it is even more important to make sure I keep my mobile fully charged. 
I also make sure to have a carton or 2 of milk in the freezer when I know we are going to have bad weather. I don't have a big appetite but i always try to have emergency supplies of food in the house both tinned and frozen that I can make do with but I can't do without my cup of tea.
  
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annieb64

DD got caught out last year. She'd gone up to London for the day and her train ticket was on her phone. It was very cold. She checked at dinner time and had about a third charge left but by the time she got to the station her phone was flat!