Washing at 60C?

So for years we have been encouraged to do our washing at lower temperatures and machines and detergents are all designed to operate at 30C.  But now we are told 60C to kill Covid virus and to clean home made face coverings.

Strangely very little advertising or comment on this sudden turn of direction. 

No adverts (YET) for detergents guaranteeing bio destruction.

No adverts (YET) from clothes brands saying garments will wash and wear well at the higher temps. 

No mention of costs for hard pressed families - apparently it could add up to £5 a month to costs!

No screams from the ECO warriors as we turn up the dial and use extra heat or put on extra loads.

Limited mention of this washing advice by mainstream broadcasters (as far as I have seen/heard).

We will be making an extra load if we do go shopping etc. I am insisting "going out clothes" (as my Mother would have designated out "best" dresses) will go straight on a hot wash along with face covering/masks on entering the house. Along with shoes off at the door and coats hung to air in outer passage. 

I am feeling very old fashioned these days.

When writing this blog I came across this advice - https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-8225325/Should-wash-clothes-60-degrees-help-beat-coronavirus.html

The bit about not leaving the washing in the machine is so true - it does tend to make a particular smell if you do that doesn't it?

Time to break out the hot mat!

Its seed sowing time for early vegetables. We use an electrically heated mat to get the early seeds up to temperature. This goes in the conservatory at first so we can control the ambient temperature around it and not have to heat the whole green house. The mat gets filled, seeds come up, move out, new trays refill and so on about 6 times during Feb and March. Its a bit of a process.

I hope this video extract works! If not, its on Youtube!

This hot mat works well. These seeds went in on 2nd Feb and by 8th the first seeds were up.

Just posted my 7th episode about the seeds sowing preparation on my YouTube channel Growtoeat. When I told my eldest son his response was "Oh Good. We let the kids watch that when we want  them to go to sleep. They could do with a new episode."  Thanks, son. Glad to know this Grandma and Granddad (who live miles away) have some uses.  And are obviously, totally boring.

Welcome to new followers - it is lovely to see you!

Please turn it off!

Not what you would expect on a cold day in the UK!

The boiler controls have gone nuts and the radiators are boiling and its 25C in here.

Husband -  Please turn the heating off!!!

(Sean the plumber can't come till early next week)

Electrify rates

So we agreed a 2 year deal based on our last 2 years usage.  We have a Smart meter so we can check usage and keep within budget no problem.

• After 6 months they wanted to change the monthly agreed amount upwards. Disputed.  
• After another 6 months they wanted to reduce the monthly agreed amount. Disputed.
• After another 6 months they wanted to change the monthly agreed amount upwards. Disputed.
• After another 5 months our deal is coming to an end, would you believe, they inform us our unit price will be more or less the same for our more or less the same usage band but the standard charge is going to increase by 25%. But if we change to a new tariff it will save us £3.50 a week. Not saving on the old agreement, of course not. Saving on the inflated threatened new rates. Annoyed rant at Customer Service ensured - how can you be sure of what you are offering us if in 4 years you can't make up your own mind???

Switch?  Possibly but we may have to have a new smart meter installed and it means work trolling through reviews and recommendations. Even the industry watchdog said the other day that the cheapest deal is not necessarily the best deal if you take into account time and money wasted on poor customer service. Putting by a day, and 2 packets of chocolate biscuits, to tackle this problem.

I don't need electricity supplier I could be supplied by the steam from my head!

Watching the SMART meter

Having exceeded the budget for the last calendar month I have been taken to watching the SMART meter like a hawk even writing down the changes and what was on when.  The meter only goes red when the electric shower is running  and it ticks over at 40 watts when everything major is turned off in the house and just standby things are happening.

Then my husband changed the reading to ££££ and gosh, that concentrates the mind!  I am reminded of my early childhood and my mother feeding silver shillings into the meters.  If we were still doing that I think £2 a day would just about cover things for electricity.  Our oil, gas and wood being separate.

For example, discounting all the background standby stuff happening, between 7.30 and 9.15 am we spent 21p on kettle, radio, toaster and 2 showers. Two days later it was a bit colder so the boiler was working harder and I had put on a short wash when I got up and we spent 27p.

Husband has always maintained it is the dishwasher and washing machine that eat the electricity. But both are new and I have now proved that they only add a few pence to the drain.  I do agree with him that the oven is a nightmare - between 4pm and 7pm one evening with boiler going from 5pm, the oven on from 5.30 to 6.30, then the dishwasher and the main TV on and lights in 2 rooms, we got through 67p!

We monitored a few more evenings and realized that our 12 year old large TV is probably not helping things at all. An evenings' TV can rack up 30 to 35p extra.  It throws out loads of heat as well. So now the argument is new TV with a better electricity rate??? The man of the house obviously wants the latest gadgets, personally I can live with turning it off!

There was  a news article about poverty and energy (again) the other day and a focus on SMART meters.  I don't think just having a Smart meter "helps" , that is far too simple, it is about the working out what is happening, what is costing and what you can do/not do with what you can afford. I get cross at the news commentators/journalists sometimes when it is reported as glib headlines as I am sure if I was stressed a lot and worried I could not "sort it out" in my head.  I then heard about a new "app" that stopped you, via your bank, overspending on gambling and other addictions.   I wondered when it would be applied to other bits of our lives like fuel bills.  Is that an extension of my mother and the meters?  When she "overspent" the meter ran out and we went without!

Winter Fuel Allowance

UK readers will know us State Pensioners get a "bonus" payment to help with winter fuel bills in November.   Ours arrived on Wednesday and by Saturday we had spent it. This is what ours looks like.

A lovely big pile of logs.  Now stored in the old outside loo which is part of the sheds just outside the back door. So much better than last winter when they were 100 yards down the garden and needed a  wheelbarrow to bring a load back to the house and it got muddy in wet weather.

That was 75% of the allowance the rest goes towards a gas cylinder that fuels the cooker top for a year.   These two things mean we can be comfortable if there is any long term electrical cuts!

We are watching our SMART meter like a hawk. Despite having agreed to a fixed monthly amount for 2 years,  the suppliers wanted to increase the amount from the £36 pcm they calculated (based on 2 years accounts) to £43 pcm because we had one expensive quarter last March!  We want to keep it within the budget again this month so we can argue to keep the lower rate.

The hanging baskets on the sheds are lasting amazingly well.  It is bidens something. Originally the baskets had surfinas  as well, which finished in mid September, which I took off.  The bidens suddenly had room to fill out and have been splendid ever since.

Window problems

Our bathroom is a single story 1970s extension that faces due east at the back of the house so not a great assert but functional.  We always have the window open day and night to prevent mold (previous owners had it fully tiled so moisture lingers from even the shortest shower) until this week.  With this extraordinary wind, so called Beast from the East, we wanted to close it tight but somehow the top opening frame had got twisted out of shape and would not seal!  The central heating is not on during the day I put the NHS free thermometer on the window sill where it read 10C in seconds. It went up to 12 C by the time I reached the kitchen table.

The solution last night was some plastic and some wide tape.

OK its not pretty but it cut the draft but still left us with a high pitched keening noise of the wind coming in the millimeter gap at the top of the window.  Not quite whistle, not quite a moan. We should record it for a background noise in a BBC spooky drama.

When the weather improves and we can look at the seals and the plastic window frame is soft (perhaps in August) see if we can adjust it to fit better.

I recall living in my parents 1950s council house with single glass windows and no heating at all upstairs.  The bathroom really was cold all the time especially in the bad winter of 1963! My Dad left the taps dribbling to stop them freezing up and the water puddling in the sink or bath froze solid overnight after the coal fire and paraffin heater downstairs were out.  Probably why I find this modern trend for laying in a bath with candles and wine so strange - "lingering" was not something I grew up with. Nowadays we have to wait for a luxury break in an overheated hotel when I get to fill a bath to the brim and spend time in there.

As the snow has melted off the back windows we have discovered the wind blown snow must have picked up a lot of dust or soil from the very dry conditions and the windows are thick with dirt. Glad its nearly all over with the setting sun.

Kestrel

A flash of brown went past the front windows and landed on the telegraph pole next door but one. Just about got a picture with my little digital camera of the local kestrel having a rest on the access ladder things near the top of the pole.

(Husband and better camera not around.)

Apart from that excitement I have been doing nothing much all day. Cleaning, dusting a corner and re arranging the Cds and player and some books. Its wet and foggy here.

Yesterday was mild and I managed a bit of veg bed digging over - I can do about 10 feet by 5 feet patch before needing a sit down. I hope I get fitter before the spring or nothing will get grown.

I was checking our food budget (including all household cleaners, basic toiletries  and loo rolls etc)  for the last 3 months we have existed on £40 a week for the two of us. That includes all costs in getting the food to the cupboard. If we have not grown and stored it, Supermarket delivers for £1 every fortnight or I cycle or bus(free) to shops.  I spent £50 on meat and fish last week and that should last a least two weeks. I had intended we have a few more protein rich meals but when we tried to have a full chicken leg or a generous pork chop each we were both bloated and a little sick feeling. So its back to sharing just about 200gms of meat or fish per meal between us. I shall be spending a little bit more on making the meals spicy or tasty. For example I  brought a bottle of BBQ sauce for 65p and used it to spice up some bacon in a roll and then some more to marinade 200 gms pork loin  cubed. This was acutely really nice. I added nearly half of one of my giant white onions from the store as they are very sweet and soft when cooked and took up the sauce really well.

I shall up the salads too. I really need to shed some weight and get fit for summer.  Meanwhile will be encouraging husband to plant some mixed salad leaves in the poly-tunnel for some early home grown.

Our weekend treat was to have a newspaper. Mostly for the big crossword which we delight in filling in 50% without using any reference books or the WWW.  I then scour the paper for interesting stories you don't get on the news. Two struck me. One about an energy company (French owned) reporting a good drop in domestic usage of electricity in the UK. Hurrah! All those SMART meters are having an effect; especially on the power company's income. The second was about de-cluttering or spring cleaning. It was actually a hopeless article except the bit by a journalist de-cluttering his phone. How did end up with 6 betting apps? The outcome that was interesting is that he de-cluttered his mind and went out side and heard the birds singing!!!