The return of TWW

Well I haven't been here in ages!

The first thing I did when I found myself again (hehe) was read some of the old posts.

The photos are all gone.
This is because the host decided to start charging and of course, no one in their right mind is going to pay.
So I'll have to find a way around that.

My computer decided to go knees up so all my old stuff was lost except that which was backed up onto hard drives.

It's okay.
Life doesn't rely on having things saved for ever and ever.

More about Kindle Unlimited

I thought I would write today about Amazon Kindle Unlimited once again.

About a year ago, I did a 1 month trial and was not really impressed.
This year I was offered a 2 month trial and decided to give it a go again considering its had time to improve.

This time I borrowed 10 books at a time on various subjects in which I have an interest.
The first thing I noticed was, there are now more books to choose from.
While some are still not very professionally laid out or well written, at least there are enough on offer to find one or two diamonds among the rough.

I borrowed on the following subjects

3D printing
Programming
Frugality
Cookery
Sailing
Make your own
Money saving
Living Without money
Learning Spanish
Camping
Prepping

and a few more I cant remember

Over the two months, I think I borrowed around 250 books which I opened and read or skimmed through.
The skimming was because some of the books were so obviously a waste of time.

I did not borrow any fiction except for the Spanish (some were children's stories) .

At the end of the two months, I cancelled the membership because as before, the books available were rarely so interesting that I would have  thought myself lucky to have paid the months subscription instead of the usual purchase price.

One book I particularly wanted to read and the main reason I eagerly clicked yes to try the two month trial, was not actually available to borrow on UK kindle unlimited. It kept redirecting to a message saying that it was not available as a free read outside of the USA.

Under Canvas

Wow Its a long time since I posted on here!

I thought I would jot down the things we have been up to lately.

This year we decided to get back under canvas.
Really it is a sort of nylon ,not canvas at all but anyway.

In May we hopped in the car and trundled down to the countryside.
The OH had a bit of a cold and a headache but was sure it would improve...

May Camp

Accomodation

We took our old 4 man tent with us.
This is a tent we bought for family camping about 20 years ago.
It is a sort of widened out dome shape with 2 side inner 'bedrooms'.
The middle is just the open space between them.

Bedtime

Instead of taking our camp beds, we took the double blow up Matress that we bought when we used to go up to Scotland to visit the student kids (now both graduated).

That is a massive luxury, it feels just like being in bed at home.
As it was May,we took 4 sleeping bags , socks for bedtime, wool hats for same and hoodies and trackies to wear over our pjs if we needed em (they were used every night so good thing we took em).

Lighting

We took 2 new wind up lamps  and  a little cheapo hand cranked torch and they did pretty well.
The torch was hung in the centre of the main tent and one night after a blowiy cold visit to the loo , I forgot to unhook the little torch and left it alight all night. It was still alight at about 4am so was running for a good 6 hours .

Cooking

we werent sure the old stove was operational so we bought a little butane stove, the kind that fits into a plastic case. You have to buy cylinders of butane to fuel it.
What a useful thing it is.
Just fix the cannister in, turn the switch and it is lit. No matches or anything.
It was like using a gas cooker at home but much smaller.
The cannisters dont last long, we were gone 3 days and used 2 for only light water boiling.

For cutlery we brought knife fork and spoon from the cutlery drawer at home. We used to have those clip together sets but no idea where they are apart from our son's which is in the drawer and was most recently used when he was a sea scout (about 15 years ago).
For bowls and plates we bought some cheapo picnic versions although we do still have a few enameled plates in the cupboard..
Cups we had a plenty, 2 metal camping mugs and a plastic one. They hold about a pint each.

The mess kit is a nesting kind. Its all aluminium. The little kettle fits inside it.

I made pot cosies out of reflective silvered bubble wrap bought in wickes DIY store.
They are basically a shell pot and lid for each billy can,stuck together with duct tape.
I was very impressed by how well they performed. When cooking pasta, we boiled the water with the pasta in, then put it in the cosy in its pot while we did the rest and it was cooked through when we were ready with the sauce.

Entertainment

We didnt take a lot with us this first camp, mostly because we didnt remember what worked ,what didnt.. We forgot the games and books and so were reduced to playing paper and pencil games (I luckily found both in my backpack).
I have a mifi thing so we can get internet. You need to buy a sim with Data loaded on and then away you go.
(You do still need to be able to get a phone signal though).
We only used it for a small amount of time to check a few emails and such so my 12gb sim was maybe overkill.

The little android tablet was very handy as we had a couple of TV shows to watch on a usb stick.

Electricity and other energy

For the first time ever, the solar panel went with us.
We had 2 at that time .
One is a solar briefcase and quite big. The battery for which, lives in a plastic box complete with its charge controller.
The second is a smaller solar gorilla which I only bought at the beginning of may.
Both these chargers powered my big power bank 33,.6 ah..The 12 volt battery 12 ah and hubs little power bank (about 6ah I think).

The lamps of course were wind up but also could be charged with the usb on the solar gorilla or banks.

This set up meant we had both our phones, the tablets and lamps powered easily for three days and could top up the banks via the 12 volt at night.

Furniture

This was quite basic as we werent sure what would fit in the little car.
We took 2 little seats which fold up and are backless.
The mattress of course.
A ground sheet for inside the tent.

Outings

We took our bikes atop the car.
Mine is 34 years old and still fine.
OH had a new old bike about 25-30 years old which he got on ebay.

We cycled 8 miles to the seaside one day(we only camped for 3 remember) .
It was a goodly long ride and we used google maps for navigation which was not particularly kind to us regarding hills and involved much getting off and pushing.

My allergies seemed to be getting going again and I was knackered way before we got where we were going.
Luckily we had energy drink in our water bottles and an energy gel and that helped enormously.

we lunched out and the ride back was via a cycle network route we found  on the internet on OH's phone while we were eating . It was a fantastic ride back, much less hilly and less heavy traffic and of course we had both fueled up.

One day we ventured down the road and along a foot path ( over a style and across a sheep field) just for a walk. The field was soggy and we were glad we had a change of shoes and socks at the tent.

The last day,we went in the other direction and found the old pumping works.
It was an old industrial looking building  with steam engines pumping away (water).
The interesting thing there for me was the nuclear bunker built right beside it .
We went in and marvelled at the massively thick door (at least 12" thick),  the showers (no cubicles, just on the wall. The loos (chemical toilets) and the bunk rooms with bunks hanging on the walls by chains (just like the wartime underground bunkers we saw in the  museum in Holland).

An enticing half height door led to an escape shaft.
Looking in it was a dark hole with a ladder at the back but the little boy who ventured in to see better ,discovered it was about 6" full of water and had a very soggy surprise.

We managed to drive over to Hastings too  as we hadn't brought much food.
We went up the vertical rail for the first and last time.
When I was small and we went to Hastings, the rail was mentioned and discarded as a fun idea.
OH said his Dad had refused to take him and his siblings   on it too.

Now we know why...It is a cable car thing. You get in and sit down and wait.
Then it slides up the hill pulled by cables along a rail.
It takes about a half minute.
At the top is the top of the cliff. You can walk on it.
Luckily the ticket gives you two way travel (once only) so you can then get back in and slide back down again, get out and walk away.

There were some Japanese tourists on the trip we took in it and I could swear one of them said it was a rip off, when we passed him on our cliff top arrival.




 By the last night, I had a streaming cold and a headache and OH was just starting to get over his.
I guess that explained the allergy feeling and the knackerdness of a bike ride.





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Natural Home remedy Sinus drip fix 

 

Please note...........If you take any kind of blood thinner medicines already or have trouble with blood not clotting, you shouldn't try it without checking with your doctor, as it would cause problems and might be dangerous.

  

Today was the first day I have been able to run in what feels like about 8 months.
Last year I developed a sinus drip that meant I couldnt do anything without my nose pouring or my eyes streaming accompanied by sneezes.

I am not one to go to the doctors for such things, I dont see the point when all they will do is give something to counteract the result and nothing to  find the underlying problem.

In the UK the allergy treatments available are laughable even assuming they had proper tests for allergies in the first place. You are more likely to be put on steroids and given an inhaler for the rest of your life than be actually helped to help yourself naturally.

My online researches led to my belief that it is most likely mould somewhere or maybe dust mites but despite frantic cleaning binges, the situation prevailed.
Sometimes I would go 2 weeks without so much as a sneeze, grow complacent about it and get back on the treadmill and then have a week solid of sneezing and streaming nose.

This is added to my self diagnosed dairy intolerance/allergy (I found avoiding all dairy has improved my health hugely ) which I already address through diet and careful reading of labels in grocery shops.  No more exzema or constant need to pee. No more flaking fingernails and bad breath or acrid body odour.

 

Getting back to the sinuses...
I tried various things to cure or at least improve the Sinus situation .
I think it may have been a longer term thing because prior to avoiding dairy, I had post nasal drip for about 10 years.
That is also sinus related and is really just the sinuses draining down the back of the throat.
Once the dairy was eliminated, so was the Post nasal drip.
It is only this last several months that the sinus thing alone has returned .
I would rather have had a return of the post nasal drip because having your nose streaming and needing to sneeze so often is not much fun , interferes with excercise and makes simple things like preparing a meal, a much less enjoyable experience (hand washing after every single sneeze or handkerchief use).

Most nights have been horrible, really blocked sinuses so that I have had my mouth open to breath.


So anyway.
I tried nose filters.
These are little tiny filters you wear inside your nostrils . They did help hugely at night but during the day not so much. Also they were quite expensive for something that looked like I might need it for years.
Manic cleaning..
Speaks for itself really and didnt make any differentce.
Nasal irrigation..
Really just a nostril wash using salted water,it helped for a matter of minutes.

Inhaling steam with tea tree oil.
Worked short term(maybe an hour) each time.

Oil pulling
You swoosh oil around in your mouth for 20 minutes each morning.
This was somewhat effective (it leads to clearing your throat as residue seems to be pulled up and into the oil and gets spat out) but not very long term although it does wonders for firming up gums and whitening teeth.

Then I found something that actually works!

About a month ago I read about natural antihistamines of various kinds.
This is of great interest to me because all the antihistamine tablets I have found, have included dairy in the ingredients in the form of whey.
Anyway, two of the natural antihistamines I took note of, were Honey and Turmeric.

I had both Honey and Turmeric in the cupboard and so I took a teaspoon of honey with 1/3rd tea spoon of turmeric and went to bed.

I slept all night without having my mouth open.
Next morning the usual nose tickle was returning that usually indicates the start of the sneezes, so I took another dose.

I went right through till evening without a sneeze or need for a handkerchief.
This went on for about a week.
Each time that  I felt a slight tingle or thought my nose felt a little like I had the start of a cold coming, I would take another dose.

Following advice online, I kept it to less than 2 teaspoons of turmeric over a day.
Now I take 1 in the morning, one at night and sometimes one mid way through the day.
I havent had one debilitating day since I began so it looks like for me at least, this is working.

Taste... It tastes a little like sweet cough medicine when taken by the teaspoon.
I read that it is also a popular treatment for arthiritis due to the anti inflamatory properties of the turmeric and that, in India, it is often taken with hot water and sometimes lemon as a curative drink.
It works well as a drink I found.
Sometimes a person will also take pepper with it to enhance the properties of the turmeric.

I decided to make a portable version.
A sort of tablet.
I bought some more turmeric from Amazon and a jar of honey( just the ordinary kind,nothing fancy).
I poured some of the honey into a little bowl and added turmeric until it made a paste.
Then balled the mixture into well...balls. It's quite sticky .
I dehydrated the balls for 24 hours and then packed them in airtight wrapping.
The balls are very slightly soft still but they dont stick together and can be carried in a bag or pocket in a little jar .

A dose is tiny, about 1/3rd of a ball so about 6mm . Easy to swallow and tasteless like a tablet (unless you take a while to swallow them down ).
Turmeric apparently thins blood and so helps against cholesterol troubles .

Remember If you take any kind of blood thinner medicines already or have trouble with blood not clotting, you shouldn't try it without checking with your doctor , as it would cause problems and might be dangerous.

Amazon Kindle unlimited is it worth subscribing?

I joined Amazon Kindle unlimited at the end of January to try out their 1 months free trial.

Right from the start, I thought I would borrow from it to the max
to firstly discover,
Is it really unlimited?
And secondly to see
What the quality of the books on offer in the kindle borrowing library were like.

I borrowed my first 10 books and opened my Kindle reading program which is on my PC.
The archived section had 10 new items showing.
Clicking through they show that they are  there but have yet to be downloaded.

I clicked and clicked on each one and eventually it downloaded.
One click seemed to do nothing.

Once downloaded they are in the downloaded folder not the archived section.

Anyway to get to the point..

I now had 10 new books to read.
A quick peruse showed me that 9 out of the 10 were very poor in quality.
One was only 4 pages .

One had terrible grammar and spelling.

How to books really should describe how to actually do what the title states they will.


I speedily read all I needed to of the first 10 books and returned to amazon for 10 more.
You can have any amount of books but only 10 at once so each new book is a replacement for one that you have previously borrowed.

Every day for 1 month I did the same thing and so borrowed between 15 and 25 books a day.

All the books I borrowed were non fiction.

Strategic book authoring

A new idea revealed itself to me.
Not my idea, but that of many of the kindle book authors.
Write a vague book on any subject and just add links to your affiliated pages.!

Some of the books with links, go to empty domains which is not great either.

A second strategy was quite common too and that was the 'series' style books.
They come in 3 flavours.
1 is the  Part book. It is part 1 of a series of books all around the same subject for example
circus tricks part 1 circus tricks with balls
circus tricks part 2 circus tricks with knives
circus tricks part 3 circus tricks clowning around
circus tricks part 4 circus tricks acrobatics

Then there are the series but not that different variety for example
Women's hair secrets
Men's hair secrets
Pet's hair secrets

Last of all come the speed written series which relies entirely on the name to sell
For example
how to keep a diary for Barrington rovers fans
how to keep a diary for Collywood scrubs  fans
how to keep a diary for Hedgerow united fans
how to keep a diary for Eggbert city  fans

Some Authors kindly offer a free book or advice if you click through to their website as a reward for 'buying' their book.
On clicking through it isn't unusual to find that the free book is only available if you type in  your email and you are signing up to a newsletter .

Sometimes the link is not to a free book but  a subscription to lessons or a paid for book presumably not hosted on Amazon.

Dubious content

During my 1 months trial, I read books which suggested stealing from shops.

Some books talked about selling broken electric items to people at boot sales because they cant check them until they get them home.

One book suggested getting  food from food banks even if you can afford to buy it anyway  because it is free and easy to get!!

A most unscrupulous author described buying and gutting electrical items and then adding weight,sealing and returning them for the purchase price. I hope he was joking but it was difficult to tell.

It does lead me to believe however, that an ebook submitted to amazon for selling on their website may not actually get looked at before it is offered up for sale.


It wasn't all bad
There were a few gems floating in the scummy waters of the Amazon.
Out of some 400 books that I downloaded and read in my trial time, I came across maybe 20 that I would have liked to re-borrow a second time and ONE that I might possibly have bought .

Value for money?

So is it worth it at £7.99 a month?

Well I would say No.
Not unless you read voraciously and spend more than that every month on books.

A better way to use it would be to go onto Amazon when you are looking for a particular book, check whether it has the ' borrow this book with Amazon kindle unlimited' label and if it does, see if the price for that book is cheaper than one months subscription.
If it is and that is the only book you are after, just buy it
If you need to read several books ,they are all in the unlimited library and you could do so in 30 days, then subscribe for the month .
Obviously you can re-borrow a book that takes longer than 30 days to read but that means subscribing for that next month also.
If it is more expensive to buy it than to subscribe for 1 month and you arent going to read it more than once, then subscribe for 1 month and borrow it to read.

You can delete a book from your device but it is still 'borrowed' until you actively return it or the 30 days runs out.

£7.99 does not buy any of the books remember. If you borrow one, read it and like it, you would need to go back onto Amazon and actually buy it .

Since finishing my trial which ended on the 26 th of Feb , I have bought one Ebook on Amazon.
It was The Goldfinch by Donna Tart and was not included in the unlimited books offered .
In fact no single book that I searched for on first joining, was listed in those that I could borrow.

Anyway,if you are interested to see for yourself, why not give the free trial a try?
Write yourself a message on paper to remind yourself on which day the 30 days runs out and stick it by your computer (or kindle) .

© 2015 theamazingwitteringwench

Sugru and other squidgy mendy stuffs

I have been quite busy recently with a home made version of Sugru.
While i love the idea of Sugru and think that the inventor is a clever old clog, I cannot warrant spending £8 or £12 on a few tiny little blobs of it when I can make whole blocks of it If I want just by going to instructables or Youtube and typing oogoo into the search box.

Anyway.

Oogoo or Sugru is a silicone based putty  which sets in the air and becomes flexible and rubbery.

It can be used to mend many things and is quite strong and waterproof.
Stands heat and cold well and can be made to be almost any colour.

The official version Sugru  is available in lots of places and comes packed in foil with a 6 months life span or 18 months if you keep it in the fridge.

• I have used my homemade version to mend a dustpan.
• Make it a new squeegee edge.
• Make hooks for the kitchen
• Pan lid holders
• A knob for a saucepan lid.
• A handle for my deep fat fryer
• hooks in the bathroom
• Some washers
• A holder for my wifi dongle so it sits on top of the monitor
• Buffers on the top of our old loft ladder so it doesn't scratch the wall paper.
• A Grip for the flask lid which gets too tight to undo
• Mended the  end of knob on cup rack
• A new cover for a penknife which I found trodden into the mud when we were out.

Future plans are

• More bathroom hooks
• More kitchen hooks
• More pan lid holders
• Tidier way to fix the laptop connector on two of the fixed laptops
• Some rubber stamps for craft
• Fix my yarn winder to be more robust
• Fix the seal on the double glazed sliding door that leaks

I'm sure I will find other uses .
So far that is 13 things mended and 7 planned.
I don't know how many packets I could get through of the commercial version.

If you are interested in using the sold stuff.
Consider looking around the house first and finding all the things you want to mend with it.
Write a list and what colour you would need.
This stuff comes in black,white ,yellow,blue and red which are all the primary colours meaning you can mix almost any colour with them.

The home made version is slightly more versatile because you can of course make any colour you have in paint , including I think gold,silver and fluorescent and with glow in the dark powder, there is that option also.

Samba broadband dissolved and my already earned credit is now non existent

A couple of weeks ago, Samba broadband folded.

At least they didn't exactly FOLD.
What they did was to stop the service and email everyone to tell them that they had ceased trading.

They actually are still a company and apparently are running in another country but as far as the UK is concerned, they are no more.

Their email pretty much said that they could not negotiate future prices to be as competitive as they had previously been doing and so they were stopping .

I actually expected the broadband credit that I had accrued, to continue to work because I had earned that previously and as far as I was concerned, that would have been earned and credited to my dongle (run under subcontract presumably with Three mobile broadband) .

That is not the case however and my dongle which I hammered hard all day on the closing day to at least use up some of my credit (I had 15 GB saved on it) now does not connect to the internet with Three . I can get on Three's site but I apparently have no credit.
I guess I managed to use about 800 mb that last day.

Thanks Samba! You apparently did not actually have any kind of agreement then with the members but only with Three whom you decided not to pay out of your profits from my and a few thousand other peoples viewing of your adverts.

My 15 GB of non expirable credit stayed in Samba's pocket along with the major earning they got from all my viewing of adverts.

To put it into perspective, each video was 3.5mb that works out that I watched  4388 advertising videos.
A while ago I worked out that we were paid about 1.5 pence a video and so they had 65.82 of my earnings because they just wiped it out on closure.

Plus at least 65.82 they also earned as profit because lets face it, they weren't a charity, I think it was most likely more than that but so what?


I did email to ask about it but they only have an automated reply stating they are so sorry but they have closed due to mean old Three not letting them have such good prices any more.

I am one of the lucky ones.
My Sim cost me £1 and my dongle was free as we unlocked one we got from somewhere else.
Some poor saps had only just bought a Samba Dongle, literally the day before their 'closure' and some people were using their regular 'top up' with cash .

They stated they would reimburse the cash top ups if they had been bought in  that month .

Anyway..
I was not impressed by the deceit. They could easily have put up a message online to say they were closing and people would have used up their 'credit' and no one would have ordered more top up credit or bought a dongle for nothing.

If you are in a different country and Samba is offering free broadband for watching their adverts, think carefully about it before deciding to go ahead and certainly be very wary about actually buying anything from them with 'real money'.

.

Ovivo is dead

Sadly the Ovivo mobile phone connection provider went out of Business on Friday.

I have one phone that was using an Ovivo sim and after hunting around for a cheap PayG sim,I decided on Three's 123 sim and hopefully will be getting one in the post in the next few days.

Ovivo were very good while they lasted and I didn't pay anything out other than the initial £15 for the sim 5 months ago. So my own use worked out at £3 a month.

I think they shot themselves in the foot really because the sort of people looking for free mobile use, are not going to be doing an enormous amount of topping up or buying offers from them so most of their income was likely to come from their advertising on the free data they offered .

I imagine any user not using an android phone or smart phone probably wouldn't get to see the adverts (which would have accrued most of the revenue for ovivo). I certainly never saw one .