Kitchen Garden Forum

Oh dear Snooky let's hope it's ok and treatable, I had a tumour suddenly found and removed in March, now it's a waiting game to see if it worked, it's easy to say, but I find putting a positive spin on each day lifts my spirits.

PUZZLED. Just had a communication from my fuel company. They are deducting the |Government fuel grant from my monthly Direct Debit. Surely as fuel bills are going to go through the roof. It would have been better to leave things as they are.

Think there,s a conspiracy with or national institutions to send us all quietly mad.
Renently had minor surgery & received letter requiring me to attend hospital outpatients clinic for checkup. Turned up, having had to hire taxi so my OH could better manage me in a wheelchair. Despite 30 minute search trailing around the hospital no outpatient clinic to be found. On further checking hospital then told me it was supposed to be "a telephone consultation"

Then discovered hospital had emailed my GP complaining nobody had responded to the phone when our landline was called,! Doubly annoying as hospital has a policy of two "non responses" and you are automatically discharged. Wonder how many other patients were also sent the wrong type follow up letter.

Left hand definitely does not know what the right hand is doing, I had an email from my energy supplier telling me that the money sent by the government to them to offset my fuel bills will be sent to my current account in the next 10 days, nice, but where did that rule come from? Oh well.

Sorry to hear your news, Snooky…..try and keep positive thoughts in your head…i’m sure it helps.

I've heard from several folk that we are supposed to be having a mild Oct/Nov or even longer dependent on who you are chatting to. I admit the days are mild but we have had our first frost, only a very light one that just nipped a few dahlias. Anyone else heard about this positive long range forecast or knowing among you all there are keen weather watchers & recorders is this fact or fake?

All I can think of is if it is a late autumn will it be a hard & longer lasting winter? Is there a relationship between these two variables?

I had to go to my dentist to have a tooth removed my original dentist has gone my new one I first seen her about a month ago she is Rumanian I think slightly built no sign of any muscle in her arms first time I seen her she give me a five day course of antibiotics as the tooth ache was coming from a tooth that had been through a deep root canal filling she said it could not be tooth ache as there was no nerve in the tooth and was confident the antibiotics would work they didn’t yesterday was the day she was trying to avoid to be fair she told me of all the pitfalls like the tooth being brittle as it had been filled ,she injected my gum with four jabs gave it 5 minutes then started she started slowly then went full steam with her assistant holding my head she was pushing back and forth then she slipped ramming the pliers into the rear of my mouth and check she picked herself up apologised and started again she succeeded in breaking my tooth off with the roots just below the gum she then told me I would have to see the specialist with that I was sent out

Hmm? Would I be right in saying you will be looking for another dentist robo?

We had a Polish group move into a practice & they went NHS so I joined them. I had a gold filling in my tooth for about 30yrs but they said it should come out & I should have a cap. No issue as no nerve in that tooth so they went ahead. Well the cap thing lasted one day & fell out, they fixed it & I got about a week, then pretty much the pattern repeated & they were charging me for their bodge. I went to a private dentist & he said it was the way they filed the existing tooth down & the only way to fix it was an implant. Methinks not with quoted price, so now the cap is held in place with the emergency dental pack filling you buy for holidays. Good stuff as I can get months not days. BTW I never saw the gold again either!

robo. Think you should have followed your instinct Done a runner, and found another Dentist, preferably built like a Front Row Prop.

The suns out and it's too nice not to be in the garden, just a bit of moving pots into winter quarters and light pruning/tidying up, not too much as the wildlife needs somewhere to hibernate. Bird feeders now up and full, well untill the Sparrows have eaten it all.

Cleared the sweet corn and squashes out of the greenhouse and moved in half (24) of the chrysants, trouble is we are still getting tomatoes off the plants in the other half.

Westi. You should have asked for the gold back for the tooth fairy. Over the years thwt could be a nice little sideline earner .
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Meanwhile my two large trays of picked green tomatoes on the wi dowsill have newrly all ripened naturally without shrivelling so ai have no need to worry abiut trying to find an empty drawer for them.

And a separate topic. Read a cookery article today saying the preheating an oven for up to 15 minutes before cooking something is a waste of energy as most foods will start cooking slowly anyway from cold and cooking will soon speed up. Apparently this advice dates back to many older recipe books were printed when ovens were "ordinary". Modern fan ovens are more efficient and it,s suggested you switch off the oven for longer cooking items for the last ten minutes and let them cook in residual heat for a few minutes longer if necessary.

OH - better not tell Cook. She might wonder where all this knowledge is coming from snd tell you to cook your own next Sunday roast beef and potatoes. Apparently even sourdough bread can be cooked from a cold oven in this way if cooked and covered in a cast iron container.

Where is Straivaig? We need her to test this theory out? !

I don't bother pre-heating. I used to, but when I upgraded the oven to a fan one it seemed a waste of time as I was setting the temp & timer but it did not need the amount of time to reach the temp stated so was sitting empty on full temp for 5 mins.

Some of you may have pretty empty green houses in winter.

We,re not fortunate enough to have one but it occurred to me that if you do and have a small rotary clothes drier and one of those heavy metal parasol bases you could set up a useful clothes drying facility in there to avoid winter rains. Just open a small window for ventilation and it cancels the need to use an expensive tumble drier.

PS Having seen that photo of Geoff's greenhouse I don't think this would work in his !!!!