What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12

[Kiwififer]

Well tonight is the first night I've had to use the hot water bottle…

[Yorkshire Andy]

Well tonight is the first night I've had to use the hot water bottle…

Must admit its a bit nippy in the east riding

Tomorrow ive to add deicer to both cars got a bag full in the shed ready

Wifes car is on all season tyres but the winters are prepped ready


Had 3hrs "free leccy" via the smart meter man today.. had the leccy heaters on for the full 3 hrs was silly not to warm the house / bricks/ fabric of the building .. plus the dishwasher tumble and washer.

Need another radiator type heater
Through winter any additional heat you can pump into the house for "free" is a bonus and one over on the greedy power provider.....

Up until this smart meter i saw leccy heating as inefficent till you get free leccy. Then like today 3 hrs of free.. = 7kwhr 2 +2 + 2+1 x3 hr so 21 kw based on about 25p per kwhr in 3 hrs so over £5 of free power not counting the white goods...

Free is free * over your usual use*

Nb before you go banging extra heaters in the house make sure your ring main can take it.. ive witnessed a fuse box litterally glowing.. we are lucky i can spread the big loads across several circuits (cooker point socket in the kitchen , old legacy boiler supply on the chimney breast sperate mcb now usually runs the tv and the remaining upstairs on the ring main

[Frnc]

3° here this morning. So I did the sensible thing and opened the window in the prep room for 15 minutes, and shut door during and after. This might sound daft, but cold air even at 85% rel humidity is actually much drier in absolute terms than the air indoors. Prep room is quite cold, and I don't want the RH getting too high as it could cause mould. 15 minutes window open a bit is enough to bring that down, once the fresh air warms up. Another trick I do now is move the clothes on the rack round a bit now and then.

Ordered 100 Clinel individually wrapped hand sanitizer wipes, as my last lot expired in September. Date code is YYMMDD which can be confusing. It is quite common on medical products in the UK.


3° here last night, and I was still almost (but not quite) too warm, and that's with a Tog 3 duvet. Bearing in mind they go up to Tog 15, it's obviously a summer duvet. I used it a couple of cooler days during the summer, but it was too hot. Only got it out a week or two ago. So now in the evening, I have to be careful my room doesn't get too hot. This is a new duvet, cotton filling, so it'll be interesting to see what it's like in the winter.

My room is now sealed (draught excluders on door), apart from window trickle vent. I opened my window for 15 minutes this morning as well.

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Less of a prep, more of a chore - doing my tax return.....

[grenfell]

Again perhaps not quite a prep but it's that time of year that the car goes into the garage. Well to be accurate my wife's softtop MG goes inside for the winter. Cleaned ,dried and battery disconnected and in it goes. Outside the garage is my trailer that is only gets used for re-enactments , that needed moving to get the car in and once it was pushed back into place the wheels come off so it's not sitting on them over the winter. Also gave me a chance to clean the garage too. Not related but I've put a new section of guttering on the house.

[Frnc]

Day 12 after scalding my hand. Skin is peeling quite a bit. New skin is pink/red and a bit shiny. Apparently normal (asked GPT and it said so, and asked if I wanted to show it a photo, which I did). Still applying vaseline. Am ok to shower normally now, ie get it wet.

Apparently I need to shield it from the sun for up to a year. Doubt I'll remember by next summer, but I do use sunscreen on bike rides. And I wear gloves anyway, come to think of it. In summer I just wear fingerless ones, or short fingered. For if I come off, plus they mostly have gel on the palms to absorb vibration and pressure from bars.

[GillyBee]

We are resorting to hot water bottles at bedtime but have discovered that if you put a very heavily insulated cover on them they behave much better. You don't get too hot in the early part of the night and they are still warm enough to cuddle in the morning. For us it has been a gamechanger in terms of sleeping comfort when the bedroom is chilly. (The wadding on the bottle is a good 3cm thick all round, made up of lots of scraps but we also tried wrapping it in a fleece jumper and that worked too)

[grenfell]

I think I've still got a couple of hot water bottle covers that my mother knitted years ago. We haven't yet found it cold enough to break out the bottles just yet.

[Kiwififer]

I’m actually putting the other bottle in the fridge with cold water for Mrs Kiwi.

She’s Perimenopausal and swings between freezing and sleeping on top of the covers.

I’m tempted to say occasionally six inches above the covers but that’s a bit cheeky…

[GillyBee]

Kiwififer: You may find separate single duvets are a marriage saver for surviving menopause.