What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12

[Yorkshire Andy]

Thanks for the Don't go to Lidl ..yeah I won't even say it ..they work great
We have been notified of the hosepipe ban starting Friday. After banging the rates up 35 % this year too ..chocolate fire guard comes to mind
Went to get more bottled water to top up my stash thinking people would be raiding it but still plenty in
Cashier said that people are saying stuff them we are paying above and beyond so we will use what we want ..
I'll buy more now in case they do cut us all off ...I remember the stand pipes in the 70s !

I remember the tanker convoys in the early 1990s running water from howden (well loftesome bridge) to Leeds the truckers cafe near the big motorway bridge made a killing


The lidl head torches for the money you really really can't complain there's four in my boot for the kids and my niece they'll run round in the dark till they pass out from exhaustion or the battery's run flat

Slightly bigger wind up lamps in aldi which can charge via USB c

£12

Had a workmate loving my £10 ever ready rechargeable torch i bought for work

https://www.bmstores.co.uk/products/eve ... rch-399537

Whilst it's bright it strobes terribly not so you can see it but makes moving objects appear in slow motion not seen that since a led bike light my mate paid £250 for and i got an identical one from China for £30 20+ years ago (God that makes me feel old) well I got 2 in the end just to wind him up but it makes your wheel look stationary at about 20mph

[jennyjj01]

Bought a replacement battery DAB radio to replace the one I misplaced or maybe left at the allotment. The lost one is sure to show up now.

[Frnc]

Made a batch of pasta sauce, but stupidly left it a bit too long to cool before putting in fridge/freezer, so decided to chuck the rest of it. I'll do another one soon. I need to set an alarm on my phone so I don't forget.

Washed my 'winter duvet'. I have two tog 3s but one is thicker. Or was. On the line, it feels thinner, and some of the filling had bunched up, as it only has stitching in one direction. I think it will end up the same as my thinner tog 3, which is ok for autumn and spring. I managed to get the filling redistributed, for now.

Found a Tog 4.5 with box stitching for £34 inc delivery at Homescape. This should be perfect for winter, and will last longer, as the filling can't move.

Had to use a duvet cover on it's own last night, with no duvet. Tog 1 was too hot. Heat is cranking up now, but shouldn't go above 22 today.

[Frnc]

32° forecast for Saturday here is south Manchester. 30 Friday, 31 Sunday. I think the record for round here was about 34 in 2022.

Got the front door propped open with two 5l containers of water, one to stop it slamming shut. Got a metal dustpan stood up behind it to annoy the lodger...I mean warn me of intruders.

Sweating after 20 minutes cutting the lawn. Done 4 loads of laundry (clothes, duvet, duvet cover and cycling tops). Got a letter off the state pension saying how much I'll get. More than I thought. It's gone up, recently. Extra £50 a month. Tells me when I get the first payment, and then every 4 weeks. You have to apply for it, you don't get it automatically. I paid about 8 years extra NI to get close to the max, due to being contracted out.

[Peter]

With this heat any garden jobs are done at 6AM or after 9PM.

We paid extra for our pensions, and with the triple-lock the way pensions
have risen over the last 3 or 4 years it was worth doing.

[Frnc]

Made a batch of pasta sauce. I only had 5 containers, so the portions are a bit big, maybe 12 mg of oxalates each. That's not terrible though. Low oxalate diet is under 25 mg per meal.

I mixed it all up cold, put 2 in the fridge and 3 in the freezer drawer. No waiting for it to cool and forgetting.

I asked ChatGPT how much oxalates is in typical portions of curry. Then I asked it specifically about Spice Tailor Punjabi Chickpea Masaala. At first it said chickpeas are high in oxalates, so I queried that. Different sources give very different figures for all sorts of foods, including raw and cooked. Spice Tailor chickpeas are obviously pre-cooked, and we are mainly interested in soluble oxalates left after cooking. GPT revised the chickpea figure down after listing different sources. I also quizzed it about the spices you fry. It said some people remove them after frying, or you can assume you consume some, but not all. I try not to. The bigger ones are easy to spot. Final figure was about 12-16 mg for half a pack (200g). I generally split it into two meals plus a snack, and you don't get the full 400g they claim anyway, so my meals are about 135g, so that's less oxalates than GPT calculated.

Also got it to calculate ST Rustic Rogan Josh. It calculated 25 mg for half a pack. So, not bad, once in a while.

[itsybitsy]

Power cuts all over the place. I've had two flickers - but fortunately came back on, although there's a huge cluster about quarter of a mile away. Looks like there's a significant power outage going on across the North East and Yorkshire though. Naturally, I came back from Aldi with all my shopping two hours ago and the fridge is full.

[Frnc]

Power cuts all over the place. I've had two flickers - but fortunately came back on, although there's a huge cluster about quarter of a mile away. Looks like there's a significant power outage going on across the North East and Yorkshire though. Naturally, I came back from Aldi with all my shopping two hours ago and the fridge is full.

I had a look at the map for Northern Powergrid and there's loads of planned outages today, but they seem to be only small areas. They also say the heat is affecting the network.
https://www.northernpowergrid.com/power-cuts-map

[Arzosah]

Hope its back soon, itsy - have you got a spare few blankets, or your winter duvet, that you can throw over the fridge/freezer?

[Frnc]

It's 25 here now outside in the shade, 27 in my room. Getting hot. I was surprised the compost of the pot plants at the front was still damp. I gave them a bit of water anyway.

I just remembered, last night, there was an annoying noise a bit like a vaccuum cleaner, outsite, some distance away, for about 15 seconds every minute, approx. Had to shut my window. This was pretty late, nearly 10 pm. I wonder what it could have been? Street cleaning? It wasn't coming from the building site.