OneGuyFromBarlick

When I was in New York I was impressed by a system they had there, no doubt inspired by the fact that many people lived in small apartments with very little storage room, where, at the end of winter you took your winter clothes to the dry cleaners and they not only cleaned them but stored them on an automated system of hanging racks on rails which extended through the building. Your winter clothes stayed there all summer and when you needed them you went in, presented your ticket and the system was activated until your clothes appeared on the rack in the shop.
What raised this memory was the fact that yesterday the Crombie went back in the wardrobe, I dry clean it every two years and had it done last year. I washed my heavy fleece and dried it outside, it's now sleeping under the stairs until next winter! There is much to be said for having definite seasons, I love this time of year when everything suddenly changes and we can see that winter is over. So now is the time to deal with the winter clothes, store them away and start to enjoy lighter apparel!

Even if you aren't a smoker, it is always handy to have a tin of lighter fuel in the house. Nothing better for getting the nasty residue from sticky labels off things.

The same applies to Methylated Spirits. If petrol won't dissolve it this will almost certainly do the job. My mother swore by it as a remedy for chilblains, she suffered from them in the leg affected by polio because of the bad circulation. I use it these days for cleaning the stems of my pipes....



You won't be able to read the label but this is the bottle my mother used for years. It's labelled 'Stockport Cooperative and Industrial Society' and probably dates back to pre-WW2. I like links like that......

We used Isopropryl Alcohol for removing the lacquer and cleaning flux residue after soldering in electronic bench servicing. It's better than meths as it does not leave the sticky residue from the dye which is slightly conductive. Carbon Tetrachloride is the other liquid widely used in solvents for electronics use.

I can remember when trichlorethylene was a common solvent but I think they found it was carcinogenic.

The old 'Pyrene' pump type fire extinguishers were standard equipment on automotive applications like cars and buses for many years.



They were filled with Carbon Tetrachloride, a widely used solvent used in dry-cleaning and because of their design it was easy to extract a small quantity to deal with a stained uniform. In consequence many of them had very little fluid left in them. I have an idea that Carbon Tetrachloride was later found to be a carcinogen and was banned. I found a good use for one of these when I had a wasp nest in the roof at Hey Farm. I got my mate Ted Lawson to help me. He blew a hole in the large nest with my -410 shotgun and I sprayed the contents of the extinguisher into the nest. 100% cure but not recommended!

In Australia I found that the council occasionally had a waste collection that covered anything that didn't normally go in the bins. On the day appointed you put the rubbish out on the side of the road and the council blitzed it. It worked well. Here we have a 'Bulky Waste Collection' service which is free for most items. I have just sent in a request to the council for them to taker my old carpet and underlay away. It's a service that, from experience, works well.

The carpet will be lifted next Tuesday.....
One thing I have learned over tha last few months, which I knew but had forgotten, is that slow cooking foods like mutton in cider is slightly acidic and the porcelain enamel lining of the CI cooking pots doesn't like it. If you can, use stainless steel.....

Bananas and onions have something in common, they both give off ethylene gas. I keep and enamelled dish on the window cill where it gets full sun and I have my onions and tomatoes in it. The cheap tomatoes that are always picked before they are ripe will ripen nicely if sitting on top of the onions gaining the benefit of the sun and the gas coming off the onions....

It's quite a miracle watching cheap under-ripe tomatoes turning into the more expensive 'ripened on the vine' variety over a few days.... They taste better too!

I shall test this out. Must admit that I now buy the small mini tomatoes especially the plum ones for better taste. I bought some cheap tomatoes (6 for 58p) especially for the test. They look OK and are grown in Norfolk - variety 'Dometica'. No - me neither.
I'll do a before and after taste test. Knowing my luck - I'll probably end up with onion flavoured bananas. We shall see.

Fear not David, It works, you'll get a pleasant surprise. Full sun helps but it will work even without that benefit.

It struck me afterwards that the opposite is true with bananas. Always keep them away from other fruit because they accelerate decay.

We've all heard the old saying "Ne'er cast a clout 'til May be out" and many of us puzzle whether this means the month of May or the May Blossom (The Hawthorn tree). In my case this means my under-vest and last year I only ditched it for one week. Now I don't know whether this is because it was cooler or if it further evidence of my age but it's certainly not the time just yet no matter what the May Blossom says! The bottom line on our climate is don't be in too big a rush, our weather is too variable.

Just done my regular bleaching of my pint pot and the hot water and bleach is sat in the U-bend under the sink doing its work. I must have the cleanest sink drain in the Northern Union!

I'm quietly gathering my travelling gear ready for my teaching trip. It's not been used for a long time! Yesterday I got out a deerskin bag out I bought in Montreal almost forty years ago, dusted it down and painted it with Neatsfoot Oil. I have done that regularly over the years and it is as soft now as on the day I bought it. Leather loves Neatsfoot oil. Not easy to get these days but I think horsey people still use it as Hoof Oil.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that unexpected presents are best. One of the best lubricants for relationships there is!

It probably says a lot about my psychological state but a job undone is a reproach to me and I'm not comfortable until I have got it off the agenda. Some might call it compulsive behaviour, perhaps it is, but it's a good compulsion. I don't know how anyone can function in the midst of chaos! So I have just finished a load of washing......

I ticked a job off my list this morning that's been nagging away at me...I finally brought the ponies in and stripped some of the old hair out of their coats. They look a lot better and I don't feel guilty of neglect anymore. There is a lot more to come out though!

Have you oiled their hooves? I used to oil horns and hooves on the occasional Jersey we sold with handlebars..... I always got our sale cattle washed brushed and beautified each Wednesday morning at Gisburn Auction. Richard said I wasn't half bad for a wagon driver..... John Henry and I used to clip them on Tuesdays, you could put £50 on a beast by good clipping.

There is a lot to be said for 'hay-box cooking'. Bringing food to the boil and then placing it in a well insulated container where the heat is preserved and the cooking continues. Very good for cooking cheap tough meats. The modern equivalent is the Crock Pot or slow cooker and I am seriously considering getting one for summer use when my stove is cold.....

Aside the hob our slow cooker is one of the most used bits of kit. About £25.00 to buy, not worth being bout. I think Savages will have one if you want to invest.

Slightly later, I noticed Charlie at the sweet shop on the town square has a couple of different sized ones on the shelf.

Thanks for that Ian. By the way, which is 'Savages'? I always associate that name with Jack in his days as a greengrocer and fishmonger on Church Street.

Still on Church street Stanley next to Barclays. I reckon the only place in town where you can buy a kitchen appliance, wall plugs, screws and nails and any other DIY stuff and still buy something for your tea as well. It could be named Arkwrights.

I always think of it as Redman's.....
If like me you regularly use a tea strainer (mine is stainless steel), they gradually acquire a brown coating from the tea/coffee. If you immerse them in a pint pot of boiling water and bleach for a while they will come out looking like new.