Preparing for Winter

Cheapskate

Rather cool in God's own county, too; we sat a bit shivery last night. Starting to do stuff to the house now, to pace myself & to ensure I can get things as the shops stock up.
I need to:
Make door curtains x2
Make draught excluders x3
Make thermal curtain linings x2 or 3
Stock up on dry goods, candles/nightlights, matches, etc
Make sure we've plenty warm clothes to layer up/peel off as the temperature goes up/down
Do some batch cooking while veg/meat not too expensive & freeze for later in autumn

Rather cool & wet this morning, feels very backend-ish!
A x

northwest1965

CCP wrote: »

I've noticed that my mealplans are already starting to include autumn-type meals -

We've been having those for weeks!

kayjay - I know what you mean, I'm from Stockport and this rain is just so depressing. Our house feels damp now aswell.

lola34

Poured down here all day yesterday, the dressing gown was on last night, there was a distinctive chill in the air, looks equally miserable this morning - ugg boots out at the ready. Last year we went away in Nov and put off putting the heating on until we came back in December - feeling the chill already, don't know if we will last that long.

mardatha

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/

Just to cheer you up ! Our first snow came in Oct last year, it seems to be moving forward this time !

Ladyhawk

kayjay1809 wrote: »

I keep hearing that 'down south' you've had a fabulous summer, well I can say we haven't had a 'summer' day since about June, we're all really fed up of it

Who stole our summer?!!!!

I'm in Bedfordshire and we certainly havn't had a fabulous summer... it's not been as bad as your up north, but it certainly hasn't been good.

ginnyknit

Maybe we will have a late summer :rotfl: Hope so cos my tomatoes are very fed up - all green. Have 4 tubs on the windowsill with a banana on top hoping they will ripen fast enough to bottle them. Its cold and wet in Manchester again and Ive just dug out my boots and socks. Am off to the Manchester meet-up - me and Smiley T and possibly one other.
we were going foraging but the weather put paid to that!

fedupandskint

Autumnal here today today - another one in gods own county

Stocked up today on dried beans, flour and some casserole ingredients and a couple of bottles of water to go in the winter box

Next thing is to buy some more water over the next couple of weeks and get some candles in then nearly ready

annie123

I woke up cold twice during the night, the 4.5 tog is not enough now, and went back to sleep once I had put my fleece PJ's on

Had thunder and lots of rain here in London yesterday, its gray, damp and gloomy:(
Thermometer reads 16c in my living room at the mo, if this was winter my heating would be kicking in.

Not good for my fruit and veg, got a baby butternut squash growing (my first one) only 2" long, might go and wrap it up so it feels warmer.

Ginnyknit, there are going to be an awful lot of toms all over this country ripening indoors this year I think.

Went to lots of local charity shops yesterday with DD to look for frabric for the front of her window quilt, could find anything that she liked so decided on old white sheets with trimmings yet to be found.
Have made several mock up of quilts over the last couple of days and think I have found for me the easiest way to do them, so today I will be making the first of 2 for DD's room. Will post pics later.

*Wanders off to find fleece socks and jacket cause I'm bl**dy freezing:mad:

Frugalista

Here in Herefordshire, I still have all my windows open, day and night. I am also still wandering around the house in a t-shirt and sleeping under the summer weight quilt.

The weather here has been a little overcast but still quite "muggy" with a few showers.

We also have a log-burner (our only heat source in the entire house) so am hoping that we don't have to light it just yet. I think it was around Oct/Nov last year before we lit it.

mardatha

Just to cheer you all up, here is a wee story about the southern hemisphere's current winter... There was a link with it (in another forum), but it was to a really technical geeky site and a bit long

“Maybe the most notable fact took place in North South America. The cold reached Amazon and temperatures felt to as low as 7C in towns in the Amazon Forest in the states of Acre and Rondonia. Temperature even felt in Roraima, where the state capital Boa Vista record 20C (normal lows are 25C) and the wind were blowing from the South. Boa Vista is located at 2 degrees North of latitude, so the influence of the Antarctic cold blast crossed the Equator line and reached towns in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be the same of a cold snap from the Arctic crossing the entire North America continent, the Caribbean and reaching North Brazil in cities at 2 degrees South of latitude as Santarem, a bizarre situation.”

Alice Springs: coldest day on record

it’s not just South America feeling the chill – see Africa temps and Australia