THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

:j I've seen the first red-tailed bumbler of 2018 as it was stuffing its face on the broad bean flowers (the autumn sown ones, the others aren't ready to flower yet). So happy. Not so happy about the cabbage whites I've also seen flying around up there, they're one of the two reasons I don't do brassicas. The other being a gang of co-operatively working wood pigeons who land on any netting one at a time until their weight bows it down to the point they can all peck brassicas.

It's a constant war of behavioural evolution as we gardeners pit our wits against the winged rats. So far, the rats (and those pesky fruit stealing blackbirds) are winning a lot of the time.

maryb, I'm sorry to hear about hubby's health problems and hope for a full recovery. One thing you can do here is let the council (our allotments are council-run) know there is a problem and you can get a pass on any allotment inspections for a while. Perhaps an idea for you?

NewShadow, I haven't bought a house (could possibly RTB my council flat but won't) but have watched and listened to many a friend and acquaintance go through the process of making this big decision.

One thing which I'd offer into your decision making is to wonder if you are feeling any buy-fever because of social/ familial pressure to buy now rather than later? This can often be very subtle, such as hearing about everyone else who seems to be buying and feeling left behind or doubting the wisdom of your own plans. Sometimes it's not at all subtle as beloved people say blunt things like; your sister has bought, your brother has bought, the milkman's dog has bought, why the flip are you wasting money on rent?!

I well remember the house-buying mania of the late 1980s. To call it hysteria isn't far from the truth, it was all over the media and all over every conversation. If you weren't buying THEN you were going to lose the opportunity to buy EVER, as in for the rest of your life. Heck, you'd be lucky to live in a cardboard box under a bridge, you fool, if you didn't buy property asap.

I was an impoversished newish graduate and in no way able to 'get onto the property ladder' (despicable term imo) so watched gape-jawed as people borrowed up to the hilt. And watched a lot of them lose their homes within a few years, and several more endure horrible stress as they struggled with galloping mortgage rates. A lot of them didn't get out of negative equity for 10+ years (nearly into the new millenium) and were stuck owning property, somethimes in parts of the country where they had moved away from (for work) for years.

The narrative of house-buying always being a good thing tends to elide over these difficulties, and others. I have also seen a lot of people get into trouble with RTB properties as they haven't understood that a heavy discount at the start doesn't get you the extra income to pay for all the things which your landlord is paying for each year, plus upgrades and refurbishments.:(

Glorious weather here, also, spent about 9 hours on the lottie yesterday. Admittedly, some of that involved drinking wine and gossiping with a pal, as well as hard work, but you have to have balance, do you not? Going back there later, another pal due to visit, there was rumours of cake being involved.............

New shadow having bought a biggish house (though awkward and never has enough space of the type you actually need). I would say don't overhouse yourself as it can be a burden. Another advantage of buying a smaller place is that if you need or want to sell, you are more likely to be able to sell to a first time buyer with no chain. That gives you flexibility as you can go back to renting for a bit even if you end up buying another place

What might be useful is to spend the intervening period looking at typical layouts of the sort of houses that were built in their thousands ie Victorian terraces and interwar semis and seeing how they could be made to work for you.

A lot of two bed terraces have a bathroom extension on the ground floor and I have seen some that have a really useful space in the ventilated lobby that has to separate kitchen from bathroom. This could be used for washing machine and dryer and general storage.

That's just an example but you can get a lot of ideas from looking at the room layouts on Rightmove or Zooplankton

Sounds like you're well up with the allotment and I agree about the covered bed, you don't need to be looking for any extra work atm. What a fright for you and hubby, shows you how quickly things can change.

Chard is such a useful vegetable and I eat it 12 months a year. My orginal seeds were sown in 2009 and they've been popping up ever since. The supply of ferals has been dwindling, however, so I stumped up a whole 75p for a pkt of silver chard and will sow afresh (and let some set seed ) this year.

I have a remark to make about my buy-now-use-later stashette of loose leaf tea. I bought in Feb 2017, anticipating a substantial price hike, and stuck a bit of tape on the outside of the pkt with purchase date and price. Emptied pkt into the tea caddy and just thought I'd nip onto Sainsbug's website to see how much the product had gone up.

Ahem. The packaging has been redesigned but the price, 15 months on, is that same - to the penny.:rotfl:Epic fail but at least I win sometimes as my tuna stash pre-dates the can shrinkage.

ETA; I had to disable predictive text on my mobile because it came up with such random nonsense when I was trying to send relatively normal messages to pals.

Agree about the house types. We have a lot of victorian and edwardian terraces here and they're pretty much of a muchness. Hard to find one without a rear extension and most people have the washer and dishwasher in the lobby bit between the kitch and the downstairs bathroom.

Also, re parking, you might not care about it but it could be huge factor to someone else, off-road parking might be a good thing to have.

Hi NewShadow, just a random list of stuff that popped up as I read your post, possibly in reverse order, sorry about that!
- how come you're moving 200 miles at your own choice and changing jobs? Do you know the area? People there? It's a very big deal - I've done it a couple of times, and didn't take care of myself enough when I did it, it became a huge problem both times.

- buy the space you want, don't over-buy. The maintenance is a serious issue, e.g. I've now had two of my three walls repointed - I live in a tiny semi detached, if it was a house the size of my sister's, the bill would have been double.

- you're right to focus on the structural stability. Windows, flooring, can all be sorted.

- outside space: at the very least, surely you'd want to be able to sit outside on a hot evening? And as a self identified prepper, you'd want your own herb bed or something, no? :rotfl: sorry! Think about transport too. You're not worried about parking, do you have a pushbike? Where would you store it (and guess what I'm thinking about right now!).

- what direction does the house face? For the rising sun, for shade by other buildings, to shelter from the weather, for the view outside your window, for comfortable space outside, even if there's no garden, just a yard.

maryb sorry to hear your OH is so ill - you sound like you're coping really well, both with the hospital visits and with the allotment. And yes, it's a lesson about what can happen out of the blue, it's why I keep trying to get things in my house and garden on an even keel.