Does your family know...

[pseudonym]

Get well soon Jansman and Mr Su

[FEISTY]

Echo that: Get well soon Jansman and Mr Su x

I like to think my kids are capable, but here's what made me think again. The kids are off school and I had nothing on this evening either. Hubby was on holiday today too, but went into work for a while and then took a couple of visiting work colleagues for a meal (on the company!) and said he'd bring something in. What he brought in was juice, bread, milk, etc, etc. No actual meal. Having waited for and expected takeaway (a treat) it didn't happen and it was already quite late. So I set about finding something quick to feed my famished offspring and myself (and get some fruit into my husband while I was at it) and started preparing melon for four. I asked my 16 year old daughter to get some pasta into a pot and said we'd use one of the frozen sauces (tomato and mascarpone). She didn't follow from her room, so I went to get her again and got the usual teenage reaction (anyone with teenagers will know exactly what I'm talking about). Much dragging of heels later, she appeared in the kitchen, grumpy at having to do this tiny amount of work and then went into a strop because she didn't know where the pasta was, didn't know what size of pot to use and didn't know how much pasta to put in it. She obviously hadn't learned that the first thing you do in the kitchen is fill the kettle and get it going while you sort everything out, so people got even more famished while I had to go though everything with her and she resisted all the way. I thought I was pushing my luck expecting her to know how to open and defrost the sauce in the microwave, so I got on with that while she stood by the hob, with instructions not to let the pasta water boil over. I had to intervene and make sure the pasta wasn't clumping together, switch it to a bigger pot, because she chose a slightly too small pot and used a bit too much pasta, but, hey ho . Then she nearly had an aneurism when I asked her to strain the pasta, put it back in the pot and stir the sauce in and make sure it was piping hot. She insisted on removing her pasta first and, wait for it, didn't want sauce. Son got pasta with sauce on top and I got mine mixed in eventually. I was too exhausted by this time to add the usual vegetable side. You may wonder why I didn't ask my Son to help, but he had not long cleaned out his hamster's cage and had done a few chores (eg recycling) the previous day, whilst DD had done pretty much nothing. I felt it was fair. My daughter is hopefully a year and half away from uni and if she leaves home in this state, I fear for her ability to stay alive in ideal conditions, never mind if the SHTF. Having said that, I am assured that she is likely to be at home for quite a few years - we'll see. Anyways, this was a real eye opener. It's clear that my explanations as I cook have gone in one ear and out the other and are no substitute for actually doing it yourself. Most students can at least make spag bol from scratch and my daughter can't even cook plain pasta for three without going into meltdown. I've now realised that school cookery lessons taught them almost nothing (as I suspected) and weekly cookery lessons from me are now on my prep list.

In terms of everything else, I am used to doing most stuff. My hubby is no demi-God when it comes to the fabric of the building or the garden and he's away a fair bit too and when home overly fond of disappearing into a book, so I end up doing mostly everything. I'm a wee person, so I think that, one day soon, I'm just going to fall down and not get up again, but a sort of prep is pulling together a support network, the like of which I've never had before.

My (not really) OCD showed up again and I am in the middle of going through many years worth of guarantees, instructions and receipts. I'm chucking out paperwork for stuff we don't have anymore, stuff we are getting rid of and I've even only kept the English bit of all the instructions manuals, cutting out the Japanese, Norwegian and Dutch. You'd be surprised how much of a half an inch thick instruction manual is in English - a few pages at most. They are now in alphabetical order, so that, if I'm looking for the instruction manual for the microwave, I know exactly where to look. I'm still only about two thirds of the way through and have already filed four thick hanging files in the cabinet. The reason for doing this is that, first of all, I can never find the instructions I'm looking for as quickly as I'd like and, secondly, all this stuff is useful if you get broken into, assuming they haven't tipped all your paperwork out on the floor. This is also why I've used a whole tub of bulldog clips to keep bundles of papers together. Has anyone noticed the Direct Line ad on TV assuming the couple have sent photos of all their stolen stuff in with the claim? I think only a tiny amount of people would ever systematically go through the house and take photos of everything, but this is what I plan to do. Those photos will never make it onto a social media site, but they'd make life a whole lot easier if the worse came to the worst. I will probably ask my younger brother to keep a copy in his safe .

[Deeps]

Echo that: Get well soon Jansman and Mr Su x

I like to think my kids are capable, but here's what made me think again. The kids are off school and I had nothing on this evening either. Hubby was on holiday today too, but went into work for a while and then took a couple of visiting work colleagues for a meal (on the company!) and said he'd bring something in. What he brought in was juice, bread, milk, etc, etc. No actual meal. Having waited for and expected takeaway (a treat) it didn't happen and it was already quite late. So I set about finding something quick to feed my famished offspring and myself (and get some fruit into my husband while I was at it) and started preparing melon for four. I asked my 16 year old daughter to get some pasta into a pot and said we'd use one of the frozen sauces (tomato and mascarpone). She didn't follow from her room, so I went to get her again and got the usual teenage reaction (anyone with teenagers will know exactly what I'm talking about). Much dragging of heels later, she appeared in the kitchen, grumpy at having to do this tiny amount of work and then went into a strop because she didn't know where the pasta was, didn't know what size of pot to use and didn't know how much pasta to put in it. She obviously hadn't learned that the first thing you do in the kitchen is fill the kettle and get it going while you sort everything out, so people got even more famished while I had to go though everything with her and she resisted all the way. I thought I was pushing my luck expecting her to know how to open and defrost the sauce in the microwave, so I got on with that while she stood by the hob, with instructions not to let the pasta water boil over. I had to intervene and make sure the pasta wasn't clumping together, switch it to a bigger pot, because she chose a slightly too small pot and used a bit too much pasta, but, hey ho . Then she nearly had an aneurism when I asked her to strain the pasta, put it back in the pot and stir the sauce in and make sure it was piping hot. She insisted on removing her pasta first and, wait for it, didn't want sauce. Son got pasta with sauce on top and I got mine mixed in eventually. I was too exhausted by this time to add the usual vegetable side. You may wonder why I didn't ask my Son to help, but he had not long cleaned out his hamster's cage and had done a few chores (eg recycling) the previous day, whilst DD had done pretty much nothing. I felt it was fair. My daughter is hopefully a year and half away from uni and if she leaves home in this state, I fear for her ability to stay alive in ideal conditions, never mind if the SHTF. Having said that, I am assured that she is likely to be at home for quite a few years - we'll see. Anyways, this was a real eye opener. It's clear that my explanations as I cook have gone in one ear and out the other and are no substitute for actually doing it yourself. Most students can at least make spag bol from scratch and my daughter can't even cook plain pasta for three without going into meltdown. I've now realised that school cookery lessons taught them almost nothing (as I suspected) and weekly cookery lessons from me are now on my prep list.

In terms of everything else, I am used to doing most stuff. My hubby is no demi-God when it comes to the fabric of the building or the garden and he's away a fair bit too and when home overly fond of disappearing into a book, so I end up doing mostly everything. I'm a wee person, so I think that, one day soon, I'm just going to fall down and not get up again, but a sort of prep is pulling together a support network, the like of which I've never had before.

My (not really) OCD showed up again and I am in the middle of going through many years worth of guarantees, instructions and receipts. I'm chucking out paperwork for stuff we don't have anymore, stuff we are getting rid of and I've even only kept the English bit of all the instructions manuals, cutting out the Japanese, Norwegian and Dutch. You'd be surprised how much of a half an inch thick instruction manual is in English - a few pages at most. They are now in alphabetical order, so that, if I'm looking for the instruction manual for the microwave, I know exactly where to look. I'm still only about two thirds of the way through and have already filed four thick hanging files in the cabinet. The reason for doing this is that, first of all, I can never find the instructions I'm looking for as quickly as I'd like and, secondly, all this stuff is useful if you get broken into, assuming they haven't tipped all your paperwork out on the floor. This is also why I've used a whole tub of bulldog clips to keep bundles of papers together. Has anyone noticed the Direct Line ad on TV assuming the couple have sent photos of all their stolen stuff in with the claim? I think only a tiny amount of people would ever systematically go through the house and take photos of everything, but this is what I plan to do. Those photos will never make it onto a social media site, but they'd make life a whole lot easier if the worse came to the worst. I will probably ask my younger brother to keep a copy in his safe .

Hi Feisty, Ref your daughter, you might get a surprise when she goes off to uni, I had a similar thing with mine and after showing her how to knock up some simple healthy (and a few not so) meals she struggled to replicate things but when she did 'sod off' she surprised me (and probably herself) by getting a bit more into it. I don't know if they're trying to show their new friends how grown up they are or whatever but I was pleasantly surprised by how much she had dredged up from somewhere to feed herself.

[Hamradioop]

My Three Offspring were all encouraged to cook at an early age by their Mother, and have kept the skill alive. My daughter is an excellent cook and if she is baking it is surprising how full her house gets with friends and relatives just popping in.

[DustyDog]

Hope you get better soon Jansman, in my home i'm the only one who can chainsaw and split the wood with the axe, which can be a problem, as as soon as the ice and snow melt, i've got 14 tonnes of the stuff waiting in a woodyard to be delivered.

Add to that only the Wifey knows where my baskets of tinned food preps are stored, plus fuel for oil lamps etc.

As others have said, this sort of thing that has happened to you makes us all realise how our situations can change so quickly.

All the best friend.

[SgtP3pper]

Echo that: Get well soon Jansman and Mr Su x

I like to think my kids are capable, but here's what made me think again. The kids are off school and I had nothing on this evening either. Hubby was on holiday today too, but went into work for a while and then took a couple of visiting work colleagues for a meal (on the company!) and said he'd bring something in. What he brought in was juice, bread, milk, etc, etc. No actual meal. Having waited for and expected takeaway (a treat) it didn't happen and it was already quite late. So I set about finding something quick to feed my famished offspring and myself (and get some fruit into my husband while I was at it) and started preparing melon for four. I asked my 16 year old daughter to get some pasta into a pot and said we'd use one of the frozen sauces (tomato and mascarpone). She didn't follow from her room, so I went to get her again and got the usual teenage reaction (anyone with teenagers will know exactly what I'm talking about). Much dragging of heels later, she appeared in the kitchen, grumpy at having to do this tiny amount of work and then went into a strop because she didn't know where the pasta was, didn't know what size of pot to use and didn't know how much pasta to put in it. She obviously hadn't learned that the first thing you do in the kitchen is fill the kettle and get it going while you sort everything out, so people got even more famished while I had to go though everything with her and she resisted all the way. I thought I was pushing my luck expecting her to know how to open and defrost the sauce in the microwave, so I got on with that while she stood by the hob, with instructions not to let the pasta water boil over. I had to intervene and make sure the pasta wasn't clumping together, switch it to a bigger pot, because she chose a slightly too small pot and used a bit too much pasta, but, hey ho . Then she nearly had an aneurism when I asked her to strain the pasta, put it back in the pot and stir the sauce in and make sure it was piping hot. She insisted on removing her pasta first and, wait for it, didn't want sauce. Son got pasta with sauce on top and I got mine mixed in eventually. I was too exhausted by this time to add the usual vegetable side. You may wonder why I didn't ask my Son to help, but he had not long cleaned out his hamster's cage and had done a few chores (eg recycling) the previous day, whilst DD had done pretty much nothing. I felt it was fair. My daughter is hopefully a year and half away from uni and if she leaves home in this state, I fear for her ability to stay alive in ideal conditions, never mind if the SHTF. Having said that, I am assured that she is likely to be at home for quite a few years - we'll see. Anyways, this was a real eye opener. It's clear that my explanations as I cook have gone in one ear and out the other and are no substitute for actually doing it yourself. Most students can at least make spag bol from scratch and my daughter can't even cook plain pasta for three without going into meltdown. I've now realised that school cookery lessons taught them almost nothing (as I suspected) and weekly cookery lessons from me are now on my prep list.

In terms of everything else, I am used to doing most stuff. My hubby is no demi-God when it comes to the fabric of the building or the garden and he's away a fair bit too and when home overly fond of disappearing into a book, so I end up doing mostly everything. I'm a wee person, so I think that, one day soon, I'm just going to fall down and not get up again, but a sort of prep is pulling together a support network, the like of which I've never had before.

My (not really) OCD showed up again and I am in the middle of going through many years worth of guarantees, instructions and receipts. I'm chucking out paperwork for stuff we don't have anymore, stuff we are getting rid of and I've even only kept the English bit of all the instructions manuals, cutting out the Japanese, Norwegian and Dutch. You'd be surprised how much of a half an inch thick instruction manual is in English - a few pages at most. They are now in alphabetical order, so that, if I'm looking for the instruction manual for the microwave, I know exactly where to look. I'm still only about two thirds of the way through and have already filed four thick hanging files in the cabinet. The reason for doing this is that, first of all, I can never find the instructions I'm looking for as quickly as I'd like and, secondly, all this stuff is useful if you get broken into, assuming they haven't tipped all your paperwork out on the floor. This is also why I've used a whole tub of bulldog clips to keep bundles of papers together. Has anyone noticed the Direct Line ad on TV assuming the couple have sent photos of all their stolen stuff in with the claim? I think only a tiny amount of people would ever systematically go through the house and take photos of everything, but this is what I plan to do. Those photos will never make it onto a social media site, but they'd make life a whole lot easier if the worse came to the worst. I will probably ask my younger brother to keep a copy in his safe .

Hi Fiesty, not sure if this is helpful to you, but (depending on how computer confident you are & if you have a good internet connection) you could store those insurance photos on a cloud-based file storage service. This is what I do, obviously if the house burns down I'll loose my computer with the pics on.
If you have a hotmail or Gmail account you already have it available to you but there are other free options available too like dropbox.
Also, many appliance instruction manuals are available online now, you may be able to download them and stick them in your cloud storage too.

One caveat: don't think of these cloud services as a backup, more a very convenient 2nd copy . Stick with your plan of using your brothers safe for a true backup.

Apologies if you know all this already, just thought I'd mention it.

[Decaff]

Hiya Fiesty x when my teenage son was a bit younger I would get him to help out in the kitchen adding more help to each dish as he got better at things. A good place to start is to peel and chop up the vegetables, then the other ingredients adding one at a time. Then get them to actually cook the dish whilst keeping an eye on them till you are both sure they can manage on their own. He can now cook spag bol, chilli, curry, do a fry up, frenchbread pizzas, homemade coleslaw, pasta sauces, rice, noodles,crumbles, and many other dishes I can't remember lol. A good basics cookbook is a good way to start them and if DD is going to uni then a students cookbook is a great starting tool too. Keep on the case and she will soon be cooking treats for you all xx I'm determined that h will be able to look after himself should he need to, I get him to do his own washing and room cleaning every week and yes better at it all than Mr Decaff!!!

[featherstick]

Hiya Fiesty x when my teenage son was a bit younger I would get him to help out in the kitchen adding more help to each dish as he got better at things. A good place to start is to peel and chop up the vegetables, then the other ingredients adding one at a time. Then get them to actually cook the dish whilst keeping an eye on them till you are both sure they can manage on their own. He can now cook spag bol, chilli, curry, do a fry up, frenchbread pizzas, homemade coleslaw, pasta sauces, rice, noodles,crumbles, and many other dishes I can't remember lol. A good basics cookbook is a good way to start them and if DD is going to uni then a students cookbook is a great starting tool too. Keep on the case and she will soon be cooking treats for you all xx I'm determined that h will be able to look after himself should he need to, I get him to do his own washing and room cleaning every week and yes better at it all than Mr Decaff!!!

We do this too, and Leo is now saying he wants to cook something entirely himself from scratch - he's only 7, so I'm quite proud. I've started keeping a recipe book of tried and tested family dishes - things we know have worked, cribbed from other books, made up, or borrowed. I like to think the kids will have their own repertoire which they then develop and hand on to their children.