OneGuyFromBarlick

I take your point Cathy about the modern obsession with 'kill all germs' but as you know I am not part of that brigade. I think that moderate exposure to germs is essential for our immune systems. When I think of all the years I survived despite being contaminated by cow muck and worse it proves to me that we are quite capable of adapting. I clean my vinyl floor because it looks better and I do recognise that having a dog means that a drop of Dettol in the water is a good thing, and besides, I like the comforting smell.
Wendy visits this morning to pick up a few things, perhaps I ought to test Tiz's theory and put a dab of Jeyes behind my ears if it works for Col!
My experience over the last couple of days convinces me that having a few effective remedies in the cupboard ready for when they are needed is a good thing. I had forgotten I had that Paramol, a very strong analgesic, left over from some previous episode. I don't like painkillers but there are occasions when they are the sensible course and it's good to have them handy!

top tip.... I had a laugh with Wendy yesterday about the Jeyes Fluid behind the ears theory and she let slip that wood smoke rings her bells as well......

Thinking about the Red Mite problem and creosote. I was reminded by the conversation recently that we used to clean the dropping boards off under the perches and give them a good coat of creosote.

I'm sure we didn't get red mite when we used creosote on the hen houses. A good soaking with Jeyes Fluid seems to help though.

You can still get it Wendy but I'll bet there is a stupid regulation about it! Nothing nicer than going into a wooden shed on a hot summer's day and getting that clean smell of the creosote soaked woodwork!

A bracket on the back of a door is a good place to hide folding steps.......

The steps passed inspection by Susan yesterday.....

I've always considered myself as being quite proactive when I identify something that needs attending to, I take action and put it right. But there are some areas where I seem to have a blind spot. For years I have put up with the inadequacies of two cordless drills I owned. Yesterday I reached breaking point, hampered by them yet again I have given them away..... I shall get a new one when I am in funds. Question is, why have I put up with them for so long?

My annual gardening tip..... Don't buy and plant any annual bedding plants in Barlick until the beginning of June! The garden centres will start selling them any time now and any that are bought and planted before our proper Spring starts are doomed to a hard life unless you have an incredibly well sheltered garden!

Find out if your electricity supplier does a deal similar to British Gas. I have just gone on to a fixed price tariff that includes free electricity from 9AM to I think It's 6PM on a Sunday. I reckon that with a bit of forward planning I can do all my washing and a lot of cooking in that time. The gas and leccy prices are fixed for a year and I have an idea that prices are going to go up. Of course I could be totally wrong!

I have fixed mine as well.

I still have a year of a 2 year fixed tariff left to run, a recent check shows it is still a good deal

Mentioning creosote hubby is at this moment doing our fence with some he got yesterday from a friend who can get it.

Make sure he washes any splashes off Moh, it's a skin irritant.

Never pour bleach into your coffee. It does nothing for the flavour!

I've just made my coffee and been very careful about where I put the bleach!
Maz gave a good tip about drying a duvet outside on a clothes line. Shake it frequently 'as though your life depended on it' to stop the filling from clumping.
This used to be a great problem with flock mattresses and when I was repairing the machinery at the Higher Mill there was one called a 'willow' which was for separating out clumps in raw wool and letting the dirt drop out. They told me that it used to spend almost as much time de-clumping flock from mattresses as it did on raw wool. They ran a service where, if you took your mattress to them they would run the flock through the willow and refill the cover for you.



The willow at Higher Mill.

With all that is going on in the world just now, our thoughts turn to the horrible possibility of another big war. ( hubby and I were discussing it just last night over a very indulgent bottle of Red...which sadly, may become a pleasant memory if there was a war!)
I have always admired how people coped/adapted/made do in WW2, given the length of it and rationing etc.
Who knows what sort of war will come next. How does one prepare?
We waited in line for the checkout in ou local supermarket today and both agreed that the woman in front of us was buying startling amounts of certain items...she had two trolleys...one full of bottled water. The other trolley contained vast quantities of toilet paper, tissues, band aids and long life goods. She was stocking up!

Without turning this into a political debate (please!)....how would you prepare for war? I am not talking guns/bullets/etc...I am talking household strategies. ( thoughts turn to Mother who was only young in WW2 in Barlick and was sent to collect soap from a relative whenever her Mum ran low.)

Maz, one of the big differences these days is that people have become dependent on the internet and their broadband and mobile phone connections. Short of all-out nuclear war I think one of the biggest changes to `life as we know it' would be disruption, and perhaps destruction, of our electronic communications. At first glance that might seem relatively innocuous, especially for those like me who don't use a smartphone. But on further examination we realise that much of our modern world depends on these communication links: hospitals, supermarkets, banks, transport networks, emergency services etc and much of our contact with government departments is online now. How could we prepare for this disruption? Perhaps the solution is to have more robust alternatives wherever possible, such as keeping important information on paper as well as electronically. But often it will mean resorting to the same old methods - stocking up with essentials before the supermarkets go into crisis because their stock controls no longer work. Let's hope that peaceful solutions prevail!

When the cold war started after WW2 the Government built a number of nuclear bomb proof bunkers which would hold the main government controllers. This would save ..... 120 people. The rest would be left to fry. My advice would be 'buy a crate of wine', twelve bottles should be enough and hope you get long enough to enjoy them.

Given that Plaques, our bodies will be found amongst a huge store of unopened bottles of alcohol...
There are worse ways to go!

We have solar power in our camper with 12 volt ( and USB ) charge, and a wind up radio. Guess we can recline with the best of the wine and listen to the end of the world then.
So much for the woman storing months of toilet paper!

Being cheerful that keeps you going??

Moh is right. When a friend of mine was very low after his young wife died of cancer I sent him one good joke every morning. He told me afterwards that now he knew how we had survived WW2! I normally have a good stock of food in, I suppose that's a legacy from then. I have a fetish about toilet rolls as well, another legacy from my mother! As for the rest, keep calm, carry on and deal with difficulties as they arise!

I'm just assuming it won't happen and that there'll just be a lot of name-calling on social media instead of going to war. Squabbles over whose Olympic dominoes teams are taking illicit drugs. Disputes over the Eurovision Song Contest. Cat-calling between political leaders. At some point the need for the world's nations to finally work together is going to be over-powering. Alien invasion from space? Maybe not (yet) but it might be climate change or antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Maybe even a treacle shortage!

Or an EMP..... (LINK) The estimate is that one large EMP would knock out the US for a year and cause millions of deaths.
Another tip on a more mundane level. It struck me yesterday that as a bloke who has shunned bread to the extent that he has ditched his bread maker and flour stocks it didn't make a lot of sense to have a toaster cluttering up the worktop! It is in the bin.......