Preparing for Winter

Aril

Have spent the last week reading this thread all the way through and have made many useful scribblings.
My preps to date have been to buy a little calor gas ring in the sale, a bigger coat for the small person in the sale and I've topped up on candles and camping socks from poundland. All gloves and hats have been washed and just need to get decongestant tablets and then the meds are fine.
My OH spends a lot of time working out in his shed- we've bought him a doormat to stand on which keeps his feet from getting so cold and we invested in a couple of pairs of long johns from Help the Aged shops [new:D] The small person took to going to bed in his dressing gown. One thing we did when he was a lot younger was to put an old sleeping bag beneath his sheet aswell as extra layers on top.
Aril

Athome1

grannytwice wrote: »

Hi AThome1, ididn,t know you could reuse sloe berries , how do you make them into wine . i made sloe gin which still has the berries in it and have been on the look out for this years crop, it seems such a waste it would be great to get the most out of them. by the way i am a newbie wine maker and have only used juice cartons so far, thanks for an interesting post.

We put the sloes in a bucket, added 3.5lbs of sugar (if you like your wine dry then only use 3lb) and added 8 pints of cold water and added the yeast (I use ordinary bakers yeast- the stuff I use in my BM). Cover it with a thick cloth and put somewhere warm. We leave it for 7-14 days, stirring daily and then we transfer the liquid only, into a demijohn, fit an airlock and leave to finish fermenting (usually 8 - 12 weeks). Once it's finished bottle and leave for as long as you can!! When making ordinary sloe wine I would use apprx 3lb but when using the gin soaked ones I used apprx 1.5lbs. It is not an exact science - well not in my house it isn't - and it is well worth experimenting. There is a brewing thread on this forum ( https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/948049) which has lots of advice and it well worth a visit. Good luck:beer:

Sunnyday

Morning everyone,

the weather here is definitely more like autumn than summer recently.

The sun seems much lower in the sky in the early evening than usual at this time of year- i was hoping that it was playing tricks on me but maybe not.

This weekend i shall be stocking up the meds drawer, there`s not a great deal that we need tbh as i don`t buy a lot of the high priced cold and flu stuff. We get by with good old paracetamol most of the time but there are two things that i always get in and they are beechams powders and night nurse. Great for flu symptoms. The beechams keeps you going through the day and the night nurse knocks you out at night I`ve sworn by these two for years.

The quilt that i mentioned a few pages back has arrived, i missed the delivery twice but got it ok in the end, i`m very pleased to say that its not one of the crackly ones and is a really nice good quality duvet. That has been stashed away for winter, in fact i`m quite looking forward to snuggling up underneath it

SD

Winged_one

Just thinking about cold remedies, we usually have a couple of "real" paracetemol tablets with a lemon drink made from the juice of a lemon, couple of spoons of honey and hot water. I usually only have a few tabs for taking in the office in the daytimes, just in case (I often fill a bottle with lemon juice to have such drinks by day, and have a jar of honey in my desk).

But I am wondering, as the lemon "season" is probably around now (certainly, they seem a few pence cheaper than depths of winter), is it worth making the juice now and freezing it in 1 drink portions? Like maybe getting a box of lemons from the fruit market and having a decent session??!

Athome1

Winged_one wrote: »

Just thinking about cold remedies, we usually have a couple of "real" paracetemol tablets with a lemon drink made from the juice of a lemon, couple of spoons of honey and hot water. I usually only have a few tabs for taking in the office in the daytimes, just in case (I often fill a bottle with lemon juice to have such drinks by day, and have a jar of honey in my desk).

But I am wondering, as the lemon "season" is probably around now (certainly, they seem a few pence cheaper than depths of winter), is it worth making the juice now and freezing it in 1 drink portions? Like maybe getting a box of lemons from the fruit market and having a decent session??!

I buy lemons and thick slice and freeze them. Never thought about juicing them!:o

Nicoll

:eek:

I have a friend who works for a firm supplying boilers, heating etc to various councils and they have had a bunch of calls the last few days from people regarding problems with their heating as they've had to turn it on as it's so cold :eek:

Are these people mad or do they get their heating paid for them? We still have our windows open day and night no way is it cold enough for heating, barely need a jumper! I'm not particularly die hard about the cold, I know some on here are brilliant for holding off with the heating until it's minus degrees, that's not for me, but heating on now? How could you justify that?

pavlovs_dog

well it is cold here in south wales - worn a hoody all day and my dressing gown has been worn in bed the past 2 days

Gigervamp

Yup, I've been wearing a fleece everyday and had to put the quilt back on the bed yesterday as I woke up cold.
Not put the heating on yet though. Need to check how much oil we've got as it's been a few months since we got some last and we only ordered 500 litres as we had to change supplier.

I see you're in the south east Nicoll, it's been a lot warmer there than on the west side of the UK.

csarina

No heat on here yet, but I have been wearing a fleece for the last few days, also had to put my thick socks on the keep mt tootsies warm!!

Ellidee

Definitely a hint of autumn in the air in Cheshire these last few days