Preparing for Winter V

At the moment I think all I'm doing with the cooler weather in my mind is air drying my woody herbs from a hook in my kitchen ceiling. They look a little lost up there but out of the way of family goings on and mischief.

Just put the name of your stove in google and it should come up with an official site for spares.

I use the Stovax website.

HTH

My big winter coat has been washed, dried and put away, need to do the husband's now.

I've ordered some blinds for the kitchen and some curtains for the patio doors off the next sale to help keep the heat in, that room was very cold in a morning last winter so hopefully this will help.

I need to prep for my mental health this year, I found last winter very hard especially with all the dark wet days we had. Not looking forward to another winter.

Anyway it's nice to see activity on this thread again :T

Doveling wrote: »

Have you tried a light box Naughty Spot?
One seems to help Mr.D. x

I haven't got one, it's worth a thought thank you.

I don't think it was the dark days as such; I seemed to have back to back colds and the rain really gets me down. We got a puppy and the muddy paws and standing in the rain waiting for toileting was part of it too I think.

I'll go and research light boxes now though!

NaughtySpot (is this by any chance the puppy influencing your name?!)

"and the rain really gets me down"

I'm almost the opposite, as I often love rain... I wonder if there are any ways you can start now in summertime to change your view of the stuff?
I think there are three rain-situations:
1. you have to be out in it as you go to your day's work, so if you get soaked, you'll stay soaked.
2. you have to be out in it as part of your day's work, so if you get soaked, you'll stay soaked.
3. you have to be out in it but will get home at the end of the being-out, so can change.

For 1 & 2, all I can suggest is investing in the best waterproofs, but for 3, which is my own most common one, I think there are ways you can think differently that make it worse or better.
I do almost all our shopping, on foot (because my bike needs hauling out of the weeds and cobwebs, oops), and can get sodden in wet weather as each shop is a mile or more in three different direction. It's probably similar to having to take a dog out once or twice a day.

For mild weather like now, I concentrate on having comfortable dry feet and keeping my face (specs!) fairly dry. The rest of me can get rained-on and it doesn't matter. I wear bare arms if it's not really cold, and shorts or loose trousers or skirts. Then on getting in, I just hang up my damp clothes and they dry quickly.
For colder weather I wear real wool jumpers which have a fuzzy 'halo' of hairs on the surface. For most rain, that 'halo' keeps the rain off the jumper, so I stay warm but also dry. When I get home, I take off the jumper and give it a sharp 'whip-crack' shake on the stairs of the flats, and that takes most of the rain off. Then I generally just put it back on again and it finishes off drying by body-heat
For real deluges, I cut up a brightly-coloured Ikea shower-curtain to make a rain-cape I also have a wrap-around over-skirt made from dark green rip-stop nylon which is brilliant as I often go through woodland footpaths as shortcuts and my skirts would get soaked from the undergrowth being wet!

Mostly, the over-skirt and a wool jumper do the trick right through the dark wet months, with decent footwear. And a hat, of course! Dry head and dry feet, always...

The other thing you could try is having deliberately-chosen Nice Things to come back to. Is there a hot drink you like? What about setting it up before you go out - clear the comfy chair, get out your favourite mug, put your thick woolly house-socks on the radiator, choose a good book and out that by the chair, put out a plate and knife in the kitchen, and then when you come in, you towel the pup dry (with his towel, not your nice heated one!), take your boots and hat off, towel anything you need to, then put the kettle and your socks on and make your hot drink, toast a slice of bread, butter it and lots of jam, and then pad through to the comfy armchair and curl up for ten minutes with a good book, toast and hot drink...

Might that kind of thing help? so going out might still take some determination, but coming home you think of the warmed socks and the smell of the hot toast and the way the butter melts and the tink-tink of the spoon as you stir your drink...