Ships Cat

Lol, it was a typo. Fruit in the bottom of the cooker, syrup if necc, and then quarter-sponge on top ... I do rhubarb and orange, or just rhubarb. Hedgerow fruit great - wild cherries, bullaces, blackberries and apples. Although Rhubarb is a veg, and tomatoes are of course a fruit ... Nutrients are preserved, apparently. Vit C not, that dies if you look at it, basically but all the others are I believe quite happy with the relatively low temps in a slow cooker. I've done a bit of research and yes, the older cookers would seem to be the best, I don't think I'd use a 'modern' one on high, it's a bit hot! Low and slow works better for me. Mine was new in 1995 and you can buy them in 2nd hand shops still. Browning meat first does two things - causes caramelisation of the meat which adds umami flavour, and also warms the meat up. You shouldn't put stuff in cold, add all liquids hot absolutely as a rule. The cookers are so low powered they will take hours just getting up to temp otherwise. Lamb? Mutton's FAB in the slow cooker. With lentils. And shrooms, both suck up flavour as well as add their own. There is a school of thought that says you should not put mince in a slow cooker because of the huge surface area that could carry bacteria. I've had three kids and ate runny cheese, runny egg yolks, rare steak and prawns right through both my pregnancies, and if I want to put mince in my slow cooker then I do. I make sure the liquids are hot and we've never been poisoned yet. I did once do meatballs and spaghetti in mine, you have to chop the spag up into inch long strips, and it all cooks in tomato sauce. Worked well. About four hours on high, depends on how big your meatballs are I suppose. Lasagne does ok too!

Quality sharp knives essential in any kitchen. Proper sharp, anything else is a liability. Just two for general use - a large one and a smaller one. I second a steamer, and pressure cooker. Stews in less than half an hour, and most of that's on a low ring, so long as the pressure's up it'll do it's business. Slow cookers are good for coming home to, you can even cook a whole chicken in one, but also make porridge overnight for breakfast and also makes for a good bain marie! I don't have a stick whizzer - my Kin knives do the business and then if I have to pass it through a sieve, I have to pass it. I also have a very large Pestle and Mortar for knocking seven shades out of things, which does the same as a whizzer but keeps me fit. Not good for a NB though (heavy, large, takes up space, and limited use) unless like me you do a lot of Moroccan cookery. Bashing things happens a lot then, I find. Mine's polished granite and as beautiful as my knives. I'd find space, I think ... If you do a lot of soups then a whizzer would be a sensible option. Passing half a pound of carrots through a sieve is a tad tedious. (I have a goblet whizzer, twas given and I use it about once a year).

Your two weekly move has to be from one system to another, not just round the next corner. It could be a long way. And you can't do one move and then turn round and come back again. That's not CC'ing and your licence will say you're a CC'er. You'll have to research transport links every time you move to make sure you can get to work when you have. You need to take the boat out of the water every 3-5 years for reblacking. £££ Boat safety cert ££ every 5 years - boat out of water for that so schedule with blacking. You may need to replate the bottom if the hull gets too thin, cheap boats are cheap for a reason. ££££ A repaint if it's so bad you get incessant rust is £150 a foot. £££ Your boat licence ££ Your 'Gold licence' for CC'ing or just a few licences for systems you can maybe go round in a loop in ££ - £££ Your batteries will require you to visit a marina once a month for a good recharge, or you'll be buying new batteries £££ - ££££ Insurance ££ Fuel - a litre an hour, thereabouts, and you cruise 6 hours a day. ££ and may go up to full Derv prices if the EU get their way. Maintenance - fuel pulp fails/water pump fails/prop shaft issue ££ - £££ It's not a cheap way of living. If you fall ill, you need to find a GP and go as a temporary patient but you have to stay there if you need to see that Dr again. It's bloody cold in winter. Insulation on NB's is pretty naff unless you put a LOT in and lose internal space. There's nowhere to put a nice working wardrobe, plus normal clothes, unless you buy a big boat.

Bourbon Calm's a Norwegian registered Supply Boat. I've seen her when on the party boat crossing from Hull to Holland, and looked her up. Quite a sight. There's quite a few Bourbon boats across the oceans, and some look like her too.. Congratulations, Rufford! Ed: You think a Woolwich bow is large? http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/showallphotos.aspx?imo=9083964#top_photo

I suppose the question is, are there any security systems out there that will make your insurer happier? £800 is very quickly used up - think laptop (various £, from £ to £££ for a Mac),and all that's light and easy to shift - what insurance co's call 'V & A' goods (valuable and attractive). Like houses, the harder ones to break into are the least tasty to the opportunistic thief. Bolstering access protection should be your first spending.

The rich like to hang onto their pennies - that's how they're rich. You don't get rich by giving it away. (oh ok well if you're names Peter Soros, maybe ...) They are upset about it, I know loads of sail boat owners who use minimal diesel but who are still hacked off by it, and I think our Govt knows full well how we feel, either way, they're on the point of being taken to court by the EU for non-compliance so I suspect they feel the same way ... Anti-EU feeling is growing, bit by bit. If we had a government which could do the job properly I'd say stuff the EU too but there's no sign of a quality government for us on the horizon for the next five years or so. No party has an adequate leader - not charismatic, trustworthy, personable and capable. Tall order? well, we have had such in the past ... As to which they are I will not be drawn.

Quite right, and I don't use as much water as I don't feel the need to do extra rinse cycles/allergy cycle in my machine to make sure the powder/liquid is truly out, since one of the kids itches with washing powder and none of us like clothes that smell of 'fragrance' when they're freshly washed. One of my kids can't walk down the washing powder or air freshener aisle in a supermarket without his eyes and nose running immediately and standing in a bus stop where someone's used a stinky wash medium or conditioner means we all have to stand outside, whatever the weather. That smell's left in the clothes - how are they clean? I've now done lots of washing with mine, including three kid's stuff after camping/lake swimming for a week, and everything is coming out clean on all fronts, in fact, I've just done a month-long survey about my laundry and changed medium half way through and there's been no other difference to report!. If there is any sort of stain that I don't think it will shift - thinking turmeric, for instance I'll do what I've always done - take a bit of olive oil soap and rub it on the stain and then wash as normal. And the girl's white school socks are impressively whiter than they were before I started using the EcoEgg. That I find hard to believe but the evidence is there in front of all four of us, and they noticed on their own, and wondered how I got them so clean. As to the plastic recycling, round here we can recycle coloured plastic, it's made from recycled plastic too and will last for a very long time I think. You can buy refills of the minerals as top-ups so what's not to like about that?

Make sure also the reg is the right size for the brand and bottle - Calor are 22 mm but MacGas are 21 mm for instance for the same size bottle. WHY can't they standardise them? Also, check your oxygen depletion sensor/flame failure device. The second's a bimetallic wire that sticks in the flame and is why you need to keep your finger on the hob button while it warms up or the gas cuts out. They are prone to dislodgement with over enthusiastic cleaning. It looks like a little bit of thick wire, usually.

I wouldn't buy a 2nd hand, over 10 year old car without a mechanic's survey and that's after agreement about the price, subject to findings ... And have saved hundreds. It's well worth it, IMO. gets the price down to it's correct value and gets stuff done that needs being done and then gives you a list of things in urgency order to sort yourself in your own time (bit like a full builder's survey on a house - wouldn't buy a house without one of those either and ditto the price agreement.) Can't see why a boat would be any different.

Glass - old newspaper, scrunched up, to dry windows. Streak free finish (except if you have white frames, they may need a wash down, depends how close you get with the carbon dyes from the paper)

And you can make a hammock, or a live-under shelter with it!

The yachting community (I have several friends who are members) is very unhappy about the recent revelations and have their own offensive, I believe. And yes, since it's an elitist hobby (Don't shoot me - any hobby that is regularly compared to throwing £50 notes down a large hole by it's own members can't be anything else), they carry some swing in political circles. BTW, Doorman, my hand's up, and I ended up out there in 91! Can't say how I knew but let's just say that there were people in Whitehall who knew too. Blair the sycophant - I can only hope that when Rockhopper find oil off The Falkland Islands that the Septics actually pay us back by lending us an aircraft carrier or two to hold the Argies off, instead of deciding to back the Argentinian invasion. Can you NB across to The Isle of Man? Bet they won't have to uptax red diesel.

Nikwax own the Paramo brand. And they are good kit indeed, as is Tog24 for value & sheer toughness. My kids have Tog24 and have yet to tear/break/destroy/wreck theirs after a year.

Gortex for sure. Long jacket, trousers with ankle zips so you can get them over your shoes. Or - yellow cape & sou'wester?

Me too. White vinegar costs about 40p a litre if you find it in the right place, and one tiny squirt of washing up liquid costs a nanopenny, and water costs nowt. Est cost of one spray bottle: £0.4p Two to the penny.

Sno prob, Doorman. I think the confusion is common, and distinctions are muddied. I don't think you can grow enough sugar cane to provide Ethanol for the rest of the planet any more than the planet can spare land to do it with rapeseed for SVO either. Algae is the only way to go, and they've just about cracked it, it's about surface area and large areas are easily achievable, they defo have the algae producing fuel. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826595.900-algae-oil-promises-truly-green-fuel.html Find a subscriber so you can read the whole article - I'm not at the mo (sadly, no funds). and http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028075.300-a-single-source-for-clean-water-and-fuel.html and http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/biofuels In fact New Scientist is a pukka site to wander round.

Burning Driftwood: The colored fire comes from excitation of the metal salts that have soaked into the wood. While the flames are pretty, the smoke given off of the fire is toxic. Specifically, driftwood releases a lot of dioxin from combustion of salt-soaked wood. Dioxins are carginogenic, so burning driftwoodfrom beaches is not recommended. Some coastal communities have considered burn bans on driftwood to reduce the levels of pollution from the smoke. All smoke contains particulates which can cause health problems when the smoke is inhaled, but you may have been unaware of the additional issue with burning driftwood. (Anne Marie Helmenstine, PH.D April 7 2013) For those who are burning just wet wood, there's no issue with sulphuric acid. It's if you burn coal with any wood, the coal supplies the sulphur, the wood supplies the moisture, and these mix to make acid rain. It eats buildings. Look around any town centre with municipal buildings made from sandstone, at street level. That stuff came out of exhausts. All fossil fuels have sulphur in. Pallets are easy if you have a reciprocating saw with a pallet blade in. Munches the nails lovely!

These above problems (cold starting, pump failure, filter bunging up) happen with SVO (straight veg oil) and WVO (waste veg oil - recovered). Suspect the biodiesel in Brazil is Ethanol from sugar cane?

That's quite a severe reaction you describe there. I had my first sting as a child, 2nd time one got inside the neck of my motorcycle leathers and did me on the side of the neck, and the third on my toe through my sandals cos it climbed in there and was squished a bit. The first two just hurt like hell for about an hour and a half (good job, the 2nd was right over my carotid artery!). The third one, my leg swelled to the knee by the time I was in A&E and they stuck an Epipen in me in the cubicle, and I had the equivalent of four others by intravenous over the following night. Guess what I keep in me fridge now? My GP has been informed that I am a likely Heli rescue case if I get stung again, road ambulance would take 20 mins and could be too late ... I regularly have bees nesting in my garden, wasp nests abound and I pretty much ignore them, as far as I can. I've been stung three times in 45 years so it's not a weekly event and my kids know full well what to do if I yell 'Ow STING'. None of them would dream of running round screaming waving their arms around if met by a wasp in a small space. They just watch it carefully and let it out if poss. Thus have I educated them. Hard winters and cold springs do the wasp population no favours. I've not seen a single one this year up here. Not that unhappy about it, to be truthful. Mind you, Ladybirds bite me too and we've had a fair few of those ...

Be thankful, spiders like it nice and dry - is why they come in, to get out of the rain. Your incipient food supply may well be secondary to their needs.

To be fair, they got rid of the ASBO's because it took six months to apply the blasted things so the kid had forgotten all about it. They're formulating something more immediate now. Near us, there's a 13 yo girl with two, and they make not a jot of difference. I have one police incident number relating to her on my desk and I've only lived in this house for a year. She and others throw stones at my house - I just video them, take dates and notes, and when a window goes I'll call again under the incident number and get them properly done. I'm not the only one, mind. When I was a kid, such a person would have gone to a police run boot camp for a two week holiday in the summer hols. Complete withdrawal of privilege until you earned it. It worked, the kids who came out were sh*t scared of going into prison and behaved themselves. You have to catch them young. I have dragged kids back to their house by the collar several times, for throwing things at me on my bike. They invariably run home, and I invariably catch up with them by the garden gate. They always look terrified, I have no idea why. Is it being chased down? By a woman on the edge of middle age? Or what will happen inside when I'm gone? I don't care, I pass these kids all the time and they've stopped chucking stuff at me. Result. I know one thing, when I get a boat it'll have CCTV. And I'll never be the one to start it ... and I may well share it with a very large GSD!

Not me!

I know I can vote online, but what about my credit record if I CC? It's very healthy and I'd like to keep it that way. I'll be proper CC, Poste Restante for anything that can't for some archaic reason be sent by email. No fixed address (abode is a bit different, lol)

Yes, if not just under the units. Shame they waste so much energy by not putting doors on the bloody things so they battle constantly against the air con which returns the effort, and the energy costs go to the consumer. Best place to site one then would be below a window so you can let the hot air out on warm days, and shut your thick curtains in winter to keep it in.

Since I frequently use bicarb, not much as they will balance out. In my spray bottle, it's a vinegar addition, not the main body - the biggest % of content by far is water. I'd say 3/5ths. And most of it ends up on the cloth I wipe down with, not down the sink. I'm not in the habit of pouring stuff I've paid for down the sink willy nilly. The cloth then goes in the washing machine where any vinegar (or bicarb) on it will be diluted massively. Yes, Tuscan, that is it indeed. Look, Carlt, I have a sciences degree and a background in aircraft engineering, not lentil-knitting. I'm as cynical as the rest. But I've heard it works from people I trust, and now I've actually tried it for myself, so have evidence that it works that I can SEE. More than you have.