Preparing for winter

Yes, I know, preparing for winter in the summer sounds a bit daft, at the very least I should probably wait until September. But we all know how quickly a month can go by, and since I've had a few days off work in July, and have another week off at the end of August, now seems like a good time to get a few things ticked off to get ready for the colder months!

Even if it doesn't snow we should get frost!

Car prep

It's not just getting the car through the MOT (mine is due in November so I have to get any problems sorted in the summer anyway), it's making sure that if you get caught out by the snow then you have things in the car that will help. Along with my wellies (which live in the boot of my car from autumn onwards) I also have a little bag with some extra thick socks, gloves, a scarf, a woolly hat, an energy bar, and a torch. Should I find that I have to abandon my car at the bottom of a hill and walk the rest of the way home, I'll be a lot more comfortable doing that walk with multiple layers and some food in my stomach!

My Dad had to walk home from the nearest town several times over the years, and every time it happened he wasn't prepared for it and had to do the walk in smart work shoes! Even if you don't drive, get your other half to prepare a little kit to go in their boot, just in case!

Food prep

I'd love to make some jam but it sounds difficult XD

I doubt we'd get snowed in to the point where we can't get any food, if only because there's a One Stop 5 minutes walk away. But I find that the winter calls for more homecooked food, in the summer I can throw together a cold Tesco quiche with a salad and some oven chips for dinner after a long day, but when you've just got through the front door in January a cold quiche isn't going to cut it.

Since we've moved in I haven't got round to doing as much batch cooking as I would like, so my plan is to top up our stocks of bolognese, and add some more chili and a lasagne or two. We went to IKEA last Saturday and restocked on meatballs, and I've already done a batch of half a packet with some tomato sauce (we had a taste test for dinner and they were lovely!) so that's safely tucked away in the bottom drawer of the freezer. I'm also going to keep an eye out for some more yellow sticker food in the supermarkets so they can be put straight in the freezer after purchase and will make a nice quick hot dinner in a pinch.

One of our wedding presents was a slow cooker, so I'd also like to do a few casseroles as well. But that may have to wait until autumn as I don't think a nice beef casserole will be a great thing to eat in the middle of August XD

Stocking up the medicine cabinet

With winter comes colds and sneezles. One of the worst feelings is to get up with a bad headache, head to the medicine cabinet, and find that there's no Neurofen left. So I've started to stock up with headache pills, Lemsip Cold and Flu capsules for me, and the Lemsip drink for my husband. I'm not a fan of the drink as it always makes me feel a bit sick, so I'm happy to take the pills instead.

I've also now signed us up to our local GP, several months after we moved to the area XD But it now means that if one of us falls ill with a chest infection or the like then at least our local surgery will have our medical records and we won't have to fill out extra paperwork to get an appointment.

Need some more blankets too!

Around the house

Because we've only been living here for four months, there's still quite a lot of things we need to get done around the house. Recently we've been focusing on things like decorating and furniture. But we know that our central heating needs some work (a lot of the radiators don't heat up properly), and the gutters at the back of the house are partly blocked. Since winter brings with it cold weather and rain, these are things we really need to get sorted out before it gets too cold, so booking some companies for quotes for the work is definitely on the table. Oh, and I also need to stock up on some nice warm blankets!

Hopefully this has given you some ideas on how to prepare for winter. What do you want to do for the season?