If you’re looking for savvy ways to save a penny or two, clothing is one area to look at. Penny pinching ways with clothing come in two forms: getting clothes cheaply and making the most out of clothing.
Sometimes the glossy magazines make me laugh when they say that a T-shirt or a pair of jeans costing close to triple digits is the “budget” version of this season’s must-haves. Some of this is probably because the editors need to make advertising sales and would be in trouble if they committed the marketing sin of telling you where to find an item very much like the one in their fashion shoot second hand or (horror of horrors) how to make it yourself…
Actually, getting rid of the glossies, or at least the glossy mentality, is the first step to a sensible clothing budget.
Today’s hot fashion item is ridiculed tomorrow and considered only fit for scarecrows and fancy dress parties – remember big shoulder pads, bubble skirts and leg warmers from the 80s?
A few penny pinching tips for purchasing clothing are:
* Buy army surplus. It’s not all camouflage and khaki. This is a good source for raincoats, hiking boots/work boots, thermal underwear, gloves and the like. You can also sometimes get good blankets and handy items like Swiss-army style knives. If you don’t mind the limited colour choices, you can also find shirts and trousers.
* Everyone knows about second-hand shops, don’t they? Second hand shops are not equal. Some are the stereotypical seedy place containing drab old beige and nylon horrors, but many are not. Some have a huge range of clothing of all sorts, while others specialise in slightly worn designer items. In some ways, a good second-hand shop is a lot more fun to shop in, as what turns up isn’t just the latest fashions in the latest colours – you get all sorts.
* If you are a petite woman, you may find that clothes designed for young teenagers may fit you, especially as teenagers these days seem to be a bit larger – a fact that is bewailed by many. And children’s clothes tend to be cheaper. You will not necessarily look like mutton dressed as lamb – a few sophisticated accessories can dress them up. But avoid anything with the word “Barbie” written on it…
* When buying clothes for children and you have more than one child, have half an eye on hand-me-down potential. Items like polar fleeces and T-shirts last well. Plain colours and animal prints tend to be fairly unisex if you have one child of each gender and plan to hand things down.
* Boys have a tendency to be hard on the knees of trousers, so don’t waste your time looking for boys’ trousers in second-hand shops. Buy them from basic department or chain stores.
* Garage sales and rummage sales are also places to pick up good clothes for next to nothing, especially if a fashion-conscious person is having a clear-out.
* A friend of mine worked at an electronics factory, and found that unsold clothing from a popular children’s chain store –all unworn and in perfect condition – was used to clean the manufacturing equipment. My friend has five children, so these new clothes came home with him and their old clothes went for domestic cleaning London rags. If you see a chance like this, don’t be proud, but grab it! Another potential source is dry-cleaning stores. Sometimes, people fail to collect their items, so the store will sell these to recover the costs of cleaning, which is much less than the clothes are worth.
A sewing machine used for making clothes can pay itself off, not just in making new garments, but also for mending old ones.
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When you’re little, knickers come in one sort only: basic briefs, usually with frilly, lacy elastic and floral prints for little girls, or fabric covered elastic and plain or stripy fabric for little boys. When you’re older, however, the wonderful world of knickers broadens dramatically and the choices become seemingly endless. So how do you go about choosing the perfect pair of knickers?
Let’s start with the basics: the fabric. Knickers tend to be made from light, smooth fabrics for obvious reasons (can you imagine how our ancestors suffered with itchy woollen combinations and long johns? No wonder they all look so severe and up-tight in old photos). Cotton is the basic fabric for making knickers, but synthetics (polyester) and polyester/cotton blends are also very common. Spandex or lycra is added into underwear designed to “shape” or “control”. And at the top of the range, you have silk. In spite of the name “linen” being given to underwear occasionally, knickers are not usually made of linen these days – this name is a throwback to the days when they believed that immersing the body in water (i.e. a bath) was insanitary but linen had cleansing properties when worn next to the skin. Natural fibres (100% cotton or silk) are the best choice, especially for women, as these fibres “breathe”. Synthetics, on the other hand, provide ideal breeding grounds for thrush, so synthetic fibres should be reserved for looser cuts.
Which brings me to the question of the cut of underwear. The options for men are fairly straightforward – briefs, boxers, Y-fronts and button-fly shorts… plus a few more exotic options. Women have a larger range of underwear choices, ranging from the tiny G-string to the full Bridget Jones Big Knickers that are the modern day equivalent of the corset – but with Spandex rather than whalebone or steel stays to hold things in place.
* G-strings (usually for women, but some available for men): A triangle in the front and underneath to cover the bare essentials, and strings around the sides and down the back. Some G-strings have a decorative little triangle on the back where the strings from the side intersect the string at the back – this “whale tail” occasionally flashes above low-riding trousers or skirts. G-strings are sometimes called thongs.
* Bikini briefs (male and female): A largish panel back and front, but the legs are cut higher – up to the hip-bone. The leg holes are usually elasticated.
* Briefs (male and female): A big panel back and front, but with the legs cut lower than a bikini brief, with the holes for the legs falling just above or just on the crease where thigh and hip meet.
* Boyleg shorts (usually female, in spite of the name): These have a lower waistband than briefs, as they sit at hip level – perfect for low-riding jeans. The holes for the leg sit in straight lines on the crease between thigh and hip.
* Y-fronts (male): Like briefs, but the front has two overlapping panels with a small escape hatch between the two. This escape hatch means that a guy can take a quick pee without getting too chilly.
* Button-fronts (male): These look like very, very short biking shorts with buttons down the front.
* Boxer shorts (male and female): Loose-fitting with an elastic waist and reaching down to the thigh. Usually made from synthetic satin (or silk, for the luxury-loving), but sometimes made from cotton. They can be worn as pyjamas. They often come with bright prints – men’s boxers, in particular, seem to feature cheesy, suggestive or funny designs. Men’s boxers sometimes have a button-up fly.
* Control pants (female): Made famous by Bridget Jones, these resemble bike shorts and have heavy elastic panelling designed to squash and hide wobbly bits such as the tummy, thighs, hips or bottom.
* Tap pants/French knickers (female): These are like boxer shorts, but tend to be shorter and lacier, often with a slit at the sides.
* Teddy (female): Teddies look like a one-piece swimsuit but with a lot more lace involved. They usually have buttons or snaps at the crotch so you can… um… do whatever you need to without taking everything off. Some have suspender straps attached. Some have underwired bra cups.
* Bong thong (male). This consists of a codpiece that tucks neatly underneath everything and elastic around the waist, with nothing at the back. Don’t ask me how it stays on. Not practical for everyday wear.
Knickers should be washed in cold or warm water, never hot (hot water ruins the elastic). Lacy, silky or highly prized underwear should be washed by hand or using a delicate cycle in the machine. Put lacy knickers in a special bag or pillow case to stop the lace being hooked up or snagged and inform your domestic cleaning London lady to do the same when she does the washing.
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It doesn’t matter whether you’re planning on going to see a local club match or a big international one-dayer. But you’re off to the cricket and you want to enjoy your time there and not end up bored, sunburned or arrested.
This article assumes that the reader is not a member of the notorious Barmy Army. If you are, you probably have your own ways of keeping things lively and enjoying the match. If you’re not a Barmy Army member, do remember to keep an eye out for this gallant band at any international matches England plays in, as they can provide a fair amount of off-pitch amusement, such as (a) Count the Cops Patrolling the Stand where the Barmy Army Hangs Out, (b) Weirdest Costume Competition (these are located throughout the grounds, if you’re lucky), (c) Place Your Bets on Who Will Be Arrested First, etc. etc.
Let’s start with the basics. You will be seated for much of the day, so make sure you have a comfy chair. Taking your own fold-up chair is a must for any match that isn’t played in a stadium with seats. If you are going to a stadium with seats, take a cushion – the seats are rather hard.
Next – think of the weather. A good shady hat is a must, and if there is the slightest chance of rain delaying or holding up the match, take an umbrella (which can double as a sunshade or as a rain protector). If things turn really wet, you will be able to go home. Also wear layers so you can take thing off if the weather is roasting (without being arrested) and put something on if it gets a bit chilly.
Refreshments are another consideration. Big international matches often get a bit snippy about folk carrying in chillers or even large plastic bottles of drinks. This is nominally to stop people bringing in strong liquor and making nuisances of themselves (throwing glass bottles, etc) but also so they can make a killing selling beer. Sip-top bottles are usually OK. If you’re not sure, phone or go online to the stadium to find out what’s OK and what’s not. You can usually take food in – any good picnic food will do, whether that’s sandwiches and teacakes or lobster, mayonnaise and French bread. Of course, at a local match, you can take what you like, or even set up a barbecue machine and grill a few sausages (if you’re sharp enough, you can sell these to fellow-spectators).
At an international match where the big names are going to be playing, take a pair of binoculars and something to collect autographs with – a vivid pen plus a shirt, cap or bat are excellent.
For matches of all sizes, a pen and notepad come in handy. This can be used to doodle, collect autographs, make paper planes and to calculate required run rates – or to keep the score for a club-level match.
Things will get a bit slow at times, especially in test matches when someone is stonewalling it out against a slow bowler and is trying to stick it out until the new ball can be brought on. This is a good time to go for a little stroll – much better than during the tea break, when everyone heads for the loos. A magazine or a bits-and-pieces book that you can put down again in a hurry when something interesting happens can help. Bubble wands can provide some harmless amusement for yourself and for those around you – can you blow a bubble that will blow out of the grounds or onto the pitch? Slow times in internationals are usually when Mexican waves start up – usually by the Barmy Army. But don’t feel obliged to keep one going on for more than twice round the stadium. Don’t do them at club matches.
A transistor radio is another good item to take, as you can get a commentary and watch live at the same time, which is great if you’re not sure exactly what happened and it isn’t clear from the action replay.
Enjoy the game – the more you know about it and the more you understand, the more you’ll enjoy your day out at the cricket.
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We should all be aware, these days, of the hazards associated with sprays and spray residue on the food we eat. Many people are changing to buying organic produce to avoid consuming noxious chemicals, or even growing their own vegetables. However, even organic farmers and home gardeners need to keep pests at bay so that their efforts don’t go to waste and end up making the slugs, snails and birds fat. Organic farmers also have the added challenge of making sure that their produce is attractive enough for customers.
People growing food using organic methods have a range of ways to deter pests from the garden, ranging from keeping cats to deter birds to using organic poisons such as derris dust and nicotine sprays. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. But one common method that is used, more by home and allotment gardeners than by commercial farmers, is companion planting.
Companion planting works on the theory that certain plants can be grown alongside each other in the right combination to help each other. The pests of one plant will be deterred by the companion plant and, ideally, vice versa. Some people also suggest that certain plants seem to stimulate each other into better growth and better flavour. This is a simple method that home gardeners can use to help reduce pest infestations in their gardens and reduce the need for chemical sprays – or losing a crop to pests and diseases.
The most common plants used for companion planting are marigolds. The term “marigold” is somewhat misleading, as this is the common name for the Calendula genus as well as the Tagetes genus (known as the pot marigold and the African marigold, respectively). Both these flowers are attractive, brightly coloured and easy to grow – and both types of marigold give off substances that are barely detectable to humans but deter a range of garden pests, including eelworms and certain beetles. Aphids also seem to dislike them. Pot marigolds can be eaten – the petals look delightful in a salad – but Tagetes marigolds are not palatable (although they are not, as far as I know, poisonous. I think I tried eating one as a child and suffered no ill effects). They can make a very attractive border around the edge of your vegetable garden. They will die back in cold weather, but as they seed prolifically, they will come back in springtime.
Nasturtiums are another well-known plant for deterring pests, and this one has the advantage that it is completely edible – the leaves make a spicy and peppery addition to a salad, the flowers make a great garnish and the seeds can be pickled as substitutes for capers – but it has a tendency to sprawl everywhere if not kept under control. Nasturtiums deter aphids and whitefly, and the mustard oil in the leaves also decoys other pests towards them rather than towards your brassicas, such as cabbage and cauliflower – at least in theory. Some people say that nasturtiums enhance the flavour of radishes, but I can’t vouch for this, as I’ve never grown radishes. Nasturtiums are frost tender and will die back over winter. However, they will spring up again if they’ve had the chance to seed.
Other vegetables can be paired so the pests of one are repelled by the presence of the other. Tomatoes are protected from whitefly and aphids by basil and by garlic. And you probably don’t need me to tell you that the combination of basil, garlic and tomatoes is a must for any Italian dishes. Carrots can be interplanted with onions and other alliums (garlic, leeks or spring onions), and these will repel each other’s pests. However, the annoying maggots that always burrow into carrots will need more than just the alliums to be kept at bay – I’ve heard that poking mothballs into the soil can help, but I’ve never tried this.
Runner beans and sweet corn (maize) are other good companions. While both are prone to slugs and snails in their young stages (sprinkle crushed eggshells, wood ash or coffee grounds to keep these pests away), they grow well together. You will not need to stake the runner beans, as you can train the vines up the corn stalks. However, getting the balance between the beans and the corn is right. Having about one bean vine to two corn plants is a good ratio. If you have this ratio in reverse, as I did one year, the beans will smother the corn and even break it. While you will still get a small yield of corn this way, the yield will not be as great, nor the cobs as big.
If you live in an area where conserving water is an issue, sprawling vines such as pumpkins and nasturtiums can help to trap the moisture in the ground so it is available for other plants. These “sprawlers” also choke out weeds by cutting off their light. They will also do this to your “good” plants, so it is important to train pumpkins and the like away from low growing vegetables, although taller plants like sweet corn and tomatoes don’t seem to mind these around them.
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In Mrs Beeton’s hefty tome on household management – which contains more than just a huge selection of recipes for nearly everything imaginable and several things that you haven’t imagined – the section headed “Recipes for the Valet” does not begin very promisingly: “We need hardly dwell on the boot cleaning process.” However, she does manage to continue for at least two pages, not describing how to clean boots; apart from gentleman’s top boots, which, she assures us, “are still occasionally worn by gentlemen.” So if you are an aspiring Mr Darcy, you will be able to clean your top-boots with the help of Mrs Beeton!
However, within her scanty advice on cleaning boots, she mentions in passing that the valet should take great care when cleaning a lady’s boots to make sure that he doesn’t leave hand-prints on the lining as these “are very offensive to a lady of refined tastes”.
More intriguing for today’s readers are the recipes for making your own boot polish and blacking. Two recipes are given for making your own boot polish:
Recipe 1:
4 oz ivory black (Ivory black is also known as bone char and is obtained by burning animal bones in a low oxygen condition. It still has its uses not just in the commercial cleaning, but mostly for refining sugar, and crude oil to make petroleum jelly.)
4 oz treacle
1 oz sulphuric acid
2 spoonfuls of “best olive oil”
1 ½ pints best white wine vinegar
Mix the ivory black and the treacle together, then add in the other ingredients one by one “until thoroughly incorporated.”
Recipe 2:
1 oz pounded galls (from oak trees, I presume)
1 oz logwood chips
3 pounds red vin ordinaire
½ pound of pounded gum arabic
½ pound of lump sugar
1 oz green copperas (iron sulphate – no copper involved – available as a moss killer)
3 oz brandy
Boil the first three ingredients together until reduced by half. Dissolve the gum arabic in it, then add the sugar and copperas. Lastly, mix in the brandy. You have to wonder how often the valet took a little more than just the 3oz brandy and had a little nip on the sly…
Boot blacking recipe (best one out of 5 possibilities):
2 oz ivory black
2 oz brown sugar candy
1 T sweet oil (almond oil? sunflower oil?)
1 pint cold vinegar.
Mix the first three together, then gradually add the vinegar. Stir thoroughly.
Oh yes – Mrs Beeton does tell us how to clean patent leather: the best way is to wipe it with a wet sponge (preferably wet with “a little milk”), then dry with a soft cloth. Occasionally wipe with “sweet oil”.
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The best time to prepare for Christmas is three months beforehand. We all know this, but how many of us really get organised enough to buy presents when they’re on special in July? And how many of us stagger out of bed on Boxing Day every year vowing that we were never, ever going to get into this mess next year?
Stress in Christmas comes in several different forms: financial, social, healthwise and for time. We worry about the money we end up having to spend, we worry about whether we’ve forgotten anyone that we ought to send Christmas cards (and presents) to, we are pushed by the desire to give our children a perfect Christmas, we worry what all this rich Christmas food and drink is going to do to our health and our waistlines, and we’re pushed for time with every organisation we belong to having Christmas parties, Christmas plays and Christmas dos…. and we throw Christmas parties where you try to throw the most lavish spread possible with perfect decorations and delicious food. Peace on earth? Not bl***y likely!
While it might be impossible to skip the madness completely, there are a few things we can do to make things a bit easier:
Don’t go completely to town with making Christmas dinners out of the biggest, best and fanciest ingredients. As Christmas is at least a nominally Christian festival (and it’s just as appropriate for Hanukah), you might to well to remember the Biblical proverb “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted calf with hatred” (and we could add in other negative attributes instead of “hatred” such as “stress”, “exhaustion” “anxiety” and “worry”). If you’re having Christmas alone with your immediate family, keep it simple. You don’t need to have a whole turkey and a ham for five people (you’ll be eating it for weeks) – just have one or the other, or even consider having a chicken with a “special” stuffing instead of turkey (cheaper, too). If you are holding a joint celebration with another family, then share the cooking duties – one family can bring the vegetables, another can bring the drink, another can bring the dessert while the host family does the meat. Also remember that Christmas puddings no longer have to be boiled for hours wrapped in string and cloth – the microwave can do one in ten minutes.
Christmas presents can be just token presents for non-immediate family. If you want to be lavish, then save lavish presents for birthdays – or for an “unbirthday” present. They’ll be more appreciated, too, at other times of year. Home-made presents are often more meaningful than store-bought boxes of chocolates (although chocolate always goes down well with most people) and these can often be made in a big batch. Jars of jam with labels written with fancy pens always look nice, and handmade chocolates are also able to be done in big batches. Handmade chocolates are easy to do. Melt chocolate buttons or chocolate chips in the microwave or in a double boiler, then add in chopped nuts and/or apricots (or ginger, raisins, liquorice, etc, etc). Roll the mixture into balls then dip them in hundreds and thousands. Pop them into paper cupcake frills and leave to harden. Arrange them on a tray and wrap. This is so easy that children can do it – but make sure that they (and you) don’t eat the lot.
Prioritise the amount of Christmas dos you go to. Think about what’s most important for you to attend. Your work “do” and children’s Christmas plays are pretty important. It’s sneaky, but if the pressure gets too much, you can easily plead a clash of functions – even if you have to call time at home with your children serenely putting up the decorations a “special Christmas function that my children are involved in” – and get away with it (and you don’t have to lie – it is special, it is a Christmas function and your children are involved in it).
Don’t ask for trouble when inviting people to your home. Christmas is not really magical (it only seems that way) and putting people who have been feuding with you and/or each other in the same room with alcohol is a sure-fire recipe for bitterness. If you really want to try to heal a breach, then do it by phone and don’t do it on Christmas day. Save it for New Year (a fresh start with a fresh calendar year is a good excuse), or else make the peacemaking phone-call well beforehand.
Don’t feel obliged to visit every single relative you have on Christmas Day, or every set of in-laws. One system (which works with this writer’s household) is to have a rotating three-year cycle where you visit his parents one year, her parents the next year and have Christmas at your own home on the third year.
If you have a large family, you can cut down on present costs like this: have a pre-Christmas afternoon tea or conference (which can be done earlier in the year) where everyone who will be there for Christmas day puts their name into a hat. Then everyone pulls a name out. You buy a present for the person whose name you drew (obviously, if you pull out your own name, you should start the draw again). This method can be spiced up a little by not revealing who bought the present for whom, and making the receiver guess who their mystery donor is.
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Sometimes it feels like staying healthy and in good condition costs a small fortune. But there are a few things we can do to cut costs here and there in the area of health and beauty.
* Remember, first of all, that if you need to see a doctor, don’t try to skimp and not see her/him because it’s costly. Poor health will cost you more in the long run.
* Don’t throw out old broken lipsticks or lipsticks that have worn down to a stub. Scrape out the leftover lipstick and put it in a little pot. Apply it with a brush – an ordinary paint brush works well. When you add in another stub of lipstick, blend the new addition with the old. You’ll end up with a new shade that is probably quite flattering.
* Learn to live with your natural hair colour to save yourself the cost of dyes and trips to the salon to retouch roots. Grey is beautiful, anyway. Wearing your hair longer also saves on regular trips to the hairdresser. If you’re a woman who wants the “clean” look of shorter hair, an old-fashioned chignon or bun gives this look without cutting.
* These days, men can grow their hair long, then sell it to a wigmaker. My brother has naturally curly red hair and can get a very good price indeed if he wants to – lucky him! But other colours and textures are also wanted. If you’re not sure where to find a wigmaker, try asking a cancer clinic or charity, as they deal with people needing wigs.
* A hair-trimming kit will pay itself off, especially if you have a few males in the household. The basic “short back and sides”, a same-length-all-over and a crewcut are all easy cuts to do and one of these will look good on most guys.
* Don’t bother with “proper” shaving cream. Lather from ordinary soap works perfectly well, whether you shave your face, your armpits or your legs.
* Save thin slivers of soap and melt them into goo with boiling water. The resulting goo makes a good liquid soap.
* Walking is excellent exercise. Instead of paying for a gym subscription, buy a pair of running shoes and walk to the shops, to work or just for fun. This can also save on petrol costs. The same applies to bicycles, although these will require a bit more initial outlay. It will still cost less than a gym subscription.
* Rent exercise videos from the library rather than buying your own or joining gym classes. If you stick with the same one, then you can learn it off by heart and do it to your own music without the video.
* If you want a weights workout, you can start off by using tins of baked beans instead of dumbells, then progressing to bottles filled with water. A full three-litre bottle of water weighs three kilos. Other home-made weights include housebricks wrapped in cloth so you can hold them easily.
* If a friend or neighbour owns a swimming pool, offer to keep it clean for them in exchange for using once in a while.
* Once you can’t squeeze any more out of a toothpaste tube, cut it open. It’s amazing how much more you can get out. The same applies to anything else that comes in a tube, such as hair conditioner and hair gel.
* Shampoo can be avoided altogether. It should never be used on curly hair in the first place. Those with straight hair can use plain soap worked up to a lather then rinsed out well. Adding a splash of vinegar to water and using this to rinse the hair after soaping will get rid of any residue. My husband found that stopping using shampoo and switching to soap cleared up his oily hair problem.
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“Mend and make do/to save buying new,” rang the jingle from World War 2. Today, we might not be scrimping and pinching because our coastlines are blockaded by U-boats and the majority of our raw materials are being put towards the war effort, but the old wisdom holds true. Today, we want to reduce the amount of fuel that gets used to ship or fly goods into our country, and we realise that those raw materials aren’t unlimited.
Few of us these days are as good as mending as we used to be – although this isn’t a bad option, especially when it comes to clothes. Don’t throw out that blouse that’s missing a button or that pair of trousers with a split seam up the backside or that pair of children’s pyjamas with the popped elastic. You don’t even have to get rid of that favourite skirt that is too big now that you’ve lost weight (if you didn’t like the skirt that much and you want to reward yourself by buying a replacement skirt, you are allowed to donate the old one to charity and get a new one.). These are all quick mending jobs that can be done by hand with a needle and thread. So you’ve got no excuses.
And as for making do, well, is your redecoration really necessary? Sure, if the paint’s peeling and the carpet’s threadbare, then you can. Similarly, if you’ve just moved into a new place painted in a hideous colour that you can’t stand, then your redecoration is necessary. If, however, you just feel like a new look, then don’t. Not only do you have to buy heaps of paint, etc. but you also have to expose yourself to all those fumes… even if you do buy eco-paint.
Of course we have to buy things for our homes periodically. Things do wear out and need replacing. But you don’t have to buy new.
Buying second-hand stuff instead of new stuff is not only better for the planet as a whole (items are being re-sold and re-used instead of dumped) but is usually better for your wallet, with the exception of online auctions, which can get pricey. We all know about charity stores such as the Sally Army store, don’t we? These are great if you like to shop for fun – you never know quite what you’ll find, and you can often turn up some real treasures. This makes a pleasant change from shopping in your average mall, where all the clothes in every single shop seem to look the same. Second hand shops come in all shapes and sizes – you can find shops selling second-hand office furniture, salvaged construction materials and more.
And if you do have to go down to the dump, keep your eyes open for what other people are about to biff away. It’s amazing what people throw away – I’ve managed to get a number of children’s books, a silk shirt and a tricycle, while my brother found two perfectly good brand new pillows in a skip.
Other places to find second hand goodies include:
* garage sales and the like (rummage sales, white elephant sales, jumble sales)
* the classified columns of your local paper
* friends – you may be able to take part into a deep domestic cleaning London session and find items to swap which are great for a girls’ night!
* police auctions.
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Take the time to think back a few years to the end of 1999. While some of us were preparing to “party like it’s 1999” (how many times did we hear that song on the radio in that December?), many of us were wondering about, worrying about and preparing for the Y2K bug to bite us.
For those who don’t remember the Y2K bug, the story (myth?) went that because most computers only had two-digit dates, they wouldn’t know what hit them when 2000 rolled around, and they would think that it was 1900 and go into meltdown. Predictions ranged from power and water supplies being cut off for days until the programming was repaired to major banking meltdowns, a New World Order being ushered in and the general end of civilisation as we know it. This writer remembers watching the street lights carefully to see if they blinked out at the stroke of midnight. They didn’t. Nothing happened, apart from a few odd stories about doctors having to argue with their computers that their elderly patients were 103 years old, not 3; and a few folk getting sent king-sized overdue fines from libraries.
We laugh now, but we should have all learned a few things from the pre-millennial tension and the preparations a lot of us put in just in case our utilities were cut off until things got sorted out. The fact is, we should all be prepared for a disaster. Those people who said that if nothing happened back on January 1st, 2000, then all they’d have to do was tip several litres of water down the drain were wrong. They should have kept that water for the rest of 2000. Because emergencies do strike and they don’t have any consideration for the calendar or the clock whatsoever.
Storing water just in case was the disaster-survival aspect touched on by most of the media this writer encountered. So before this information is packed away for another thousand years (or another hundred years), here it is again.
The reason why water is so important in emergencies is because it is a basic human need. You can survive a week or two without food, but you won’t last more than a couple of days if you don’t have water. Having access to clean water is particularly important, especially if your regular water supplies become contaminated, as they can very easily after earthquakes or flooding.
People need at least 2 litres of water a day. You will also need a bit extra for cooking and for washing. You should also probably have some water stored for pets, although animals aren’t so fussy about clean water and can get by with drinking from dirty puddles. How long should you have supplies for?
Three or four days is a fairly safe bet, as water is a key utility that would be very high on most priority lists. So for a family of four, this means 4 x 2 x 4 = 32 litres, plus maybe another 10 for cooking and washing (and that’s being very stingy) for a grand total of 42 litres.
The best place to store water is in plastic bottles. You will need quite a lot of them, but they are safer than other options, such as plastic rubbish bins, which may leach chemicals from the plastic. You should add some bleach to the water to make sure that it doesn’t grow bacteria while being stored – use 5 mls of bleach containing 4% sodium hypochlorite to 20 l of water. Once the chlorine has done its work, the water won’t smell or taste of chlorine. If it doesn’t, don’t drink it, but use it for washing or for general domestic cleaning London.
In an emergency, you can look for other supplies of water other than what are now referred to in this writer’s household as the Y2K bottles (yes, we had a cupboard full of big 3-litre containers full of water). All sorts of pots and pans can be used for collecting rain water, and don’t forget that your hot water tank, your header tank and the toilet tank (not the bowl!!!) all hold water and don’t cut off instantly. If you collect rainwater from the downpipe of your house, remember to filter out any foreign bodies and to boil the water before using it – you’ve probably had birds perching on your roof.
The Y2K bug turned out to be a storm in a teacup. But it’s good to know that the Y2K preparations showed us to make sure something’s in that teacup if a storm cuts off your water.
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The first thing that anybody at all sees of your house is the front approach and the front door. So, seeing as first impressions count, neatness doesn’t just start inside the front door – it starts at the front gate.
One of the first things you will have to bear in mind if you are planning out a path or driveway is that it should be obvious which door is the main entrance and exit. In urban homes, this is usually the front door. In rural houses, it’s often the back door. Make it obvious to visitors which one to use – the old-fashioned welcome mat in the right place can help, as does arranging things like boot scrapers, pot plants and the like near the main door. If you’re putting in a path, make sure the path leads to the main door.
The property should be welcoming from the moment your visitor leaves the street and enters your property. If you have a front gate, is your gate easy to open? A gate can and should have a child-proof lock to stop small children running into the road, but this child-proof lock only needs to be child-proof, not adult proof – nobody likes a complicated mechanism that pinches fingers if you don’t get it right. If you have dogs on the property, while it may make sense from the security point of view to have “beware of the dog” on the gate, this can be alarming to innocent meter-readers and postal workers. It may be best to set things up so the dog is running free in the back section, allowing people free access to the front door, but there to do the business if the caller is there for nefarious purposes.
The path should be free from obstacles. Too many people are injured by tripping over items left on paths in the dark. Yes, the front path may be an excellent place for somebody to learn to ride a bike or a skateboard, but skateboards can be lethal left on paths. So can hoses, bottles, garden implements and toy cars. Let’s not even start on unpleasantness like dog dirt.
Sweeping the path should be a weekly domestic cleaning London job (at least), or more frequently in autumn if leaves are about.
The front door itself should be fitted with something so that callers can announce their presence without battering their knuckles or scratching your paintwork with jewellery. Provide a knocker and/or a doorbell. Make sure that the doorbell works and that you can hear it clearly in most parts of the house.
Battery operated doorbells are handy and easy to install, with a range of interesting chime tones, but the batteries do wear out eventually, so have spares on hand. Door knockers should be easy to use, and should be kept polished, especially if they’re brass, and lubricated so they operate smoothly.
A shabby front door makes a bad first impression even before your caller gets inside. Many of us forget to dust around the outside of a door, but this does need to be done, even if less frequently than inside dusting. Peeling paint is an appalling sight on a front door, and should be the first thing painted when you have a painting session. Also make sure that welcome mats are clean enough to wipe boots on. To clean a welcome mat, take it a good way from the house, hold it up and give it a good shaking and banging. You may also need to hose any dirt off – dry it flat before replacing it.
A boot-scraper is a nice touch, especially in winter. Buy one, or make your own out of the head of an old stiff broom – simply “plant” it handle downwards or nail the head onto a board.
The other thing for front doors is more for you than a visitor: security. Install deadbolts on the inside, and have a security chain on the inside so you can half-open the door and see who it is before fully opening the door. Another alternative to a security chain is a peephole or even a security camera. While having a spare key handy in case you lock yourself out is a good idea, don’t put it anywhere obvious like under the doormat or in the pot plant nearest the door. Be more imaginative in where you keep your “secret key”.
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