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Preparedness for when

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  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008
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    edited 9 October 2013 at 5:37PM
    Bedsit_Bob wrote: »
    The volume of your snoring? :p.
    :D Heh! Be glad I'm several hundred miles away. Very glad.

    The archery last night was fantabulous. The authorities banned the use of bows in 1645, apparently. Couldn't really ban bows themselves or every bendy stick and bit of string would have to have been rounded up.

    They still hunt with bows in Europe. We were shown a modern hunting arrow with a rubber end like the ferrule on a walking stick. You don't fire arrows with points up into trees after squirrels or birdies as they get stuck in the wood. The force of impact with the rubber ended arrow is fatal. Hopefully the prey and the arrow fall and can be recovered.

    I hope I never have to stalk woodpigeons or squirrels with a bow to feed myself, but it's a fun sport and a potentially useful skill to have. If it goes horribly wrong I know where to find some great big fat cabbage-guzzling wood pigeons - my lottie.

    JayneC, one set of my great-grands lived about 3 miles beyond the village and used to have their bread delivered by the baker's roundman. There were 11 of them at home. He was a humourous type who liked to tease great-grandma by saying he'd seen her "daughter-in-law" - he meant the woman with whom her youngest son had a longterm affair, a very disgraceful thing to a Victorian like her. Mere mention of it would make her blood boil. But when the village got snowed in and the van couldn't get thru (the great-grands only had a pony and trap) he put their bread in a sack and struggled up there through the drifts, saying that they needed it with so many in the house.

    I think he was forgiven the many DIL cracks after that.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • Maybe SMUG was not the right word to describe the feeling. Perhaps the word I'd use is enlightened, and I don't mean a eureka moment in a beam of light saying prepare, for the end of the world is nigh! what I mean is not ever totally believeing that all progress is actually progress in the right direction. Keeping the thought in mind that perhaps new ways are sometimes good and sometimes not. Never allowing myself to believe the adverts that say take the easy way, look we've made it instant, ping meal, pre-done to save you time to do what you want to do in life. Never trusting that someone else will take responsibility for keeping us fed, housed, warm, well, safe even. I feel we all have the same choices to make in life and people choose to take different paths as is thier right and the path we chose was to be just a little bit self sufficient and to make some provision for our own lives as we got older. I do feel sorry for those who have only the electricity to support all thier home comforts in the event of power outages they will undoubtedly have big problems, that doesn't make me feel smug, just glad that we made the choices in life that we did, I hope that's not unkind?
  • Now my hubby loves gadgets and tools etc, so which would you think would be the best one to get???

    Leatherman are about the best, but they're far from cheap.

    Gerber are a good make too, but still not particularly cheap.

    Of course, where knives and the like are concerned, good quality and cheapness seldom go hand in hand.
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008
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    edited 9 October 2013 at 5:54PM
    :) Lyn, I could never in a million years imagine you being unkind.

    My own take on it is this; a lot of people haven't been tested by a truly dreadful winter like 1947 and 1963. They have no personal recollection of power outages. A lot of people have never seen what strike action can do.

    Because they haven't seen it, they often can't imagine it. And, although it is poor logic, many of us hold firm to the idea that because something hasn't happened, it won't happen.

    If we do cycle into a period of uncertainties, and I'm afraid I regard it as inevitable, especially economic uncertainties and peak oil, a lot of people will be initially unprepared. I sincerely hope that they will only suffer inconveniences not life-threatening hardships.

    If and when the electricity supply becomes unpredictable, there will be a lot more interest in purchasing candles, lanterns, lamps, torches etc etc. If there's a run on something, there tends to be rampant inflation of the price of that item, and sometimes out and out price-gouging by unscrupulous vendors.

    It would be better for everyone if they quietly, discreetly and undramatically added a few little preps to their routine shopping, but many won't see the need until experience demonstrates it to them.

    Human beings are marvellously adaptable and we can learn to cope with all sorts of circumstances, but we need to understand that the way will live now is a historical anomaly and that we may not always be able to enjoy this standard of living.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • Thank you JayneC I had heard of leatherman. Anyone know where would be the best ( cheapest) place to buy one???

    Amazon UK is probably as good a place as any.

    But don't expect much change out of £50 for a decent one.
  • GreyQueen wrote: »
    :) Just been out and about and went to a B00ts to buy surgical spirit. They wanted £4.95 for a 500ml bottle. I baulked and said I'd check elsewhere. Went to a Savrs and got 4 x 200 ml at £1.29 each = £5.16. Which meant that I paid 21p more for an extra 300 ml.

    They have surgical spirit and witch hazel in these brown glass 200 ml bottles with a child-proof cap. Stored near the TCP type ointments; I had to ask as they weren't leaping out at me.

    I use s.s to swab the grime off my computer keyboard, but it has many medical uses. I shall also experiment with treating the soles of my feet as my walking holibob in July revealed that I was painfully ill-prepared. When you can barely walk, you feel incredibly vulnerable.

    Well, you are incredibly vulnerable - end of.

    I'm also buying several of constantly used and long-life items when I see them at a good price, such as 3-in-1 light oil for my pushbike. You can also use this kind of oil for the locks and mechanisms of uPVC double glazing, but not WD40 according to the manufacturer of mine (a major national company).

    Many of these useful things are products of the petroleum industry and will be hard to find in a crisis. And as the price seems to be on a constant upward trajectory, having a few by you, should funds stretch to it, seems to be a prudent idea to me.

    Righty, going up the road to drop in on a shopkeeper pal and see how they're doing. They usually have a cuppa on offer, too. ;)


    Reminds me of when I was a professional dancer - we used to soak our feet in surgical spirit to toughen them up for pointe work!!!
    :j[DFW Nerd club #1142 Proud to be dealing with my debt:TDMP start date April 2012. Amount £21862:eek:April 2013 = £20414:T April 2014 = £11000 :TApril 2015 = £9500 :T April 2016 = £7200:T
    DECEMBER 2016 - Due to moving house/down-sizing NO MORTGAGE; NO OVERDRAFT; NO DEBTS; NO CREDIT CARDS; NO STORE-CARDS; NO LOANS = FREEDOM:j:j:beer::j:j:T:T
  • pineapple
    pineapple Posts: 6,931
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    edited 9 October 2013 at 6:19PM
    GreyQueen wrote: »
    They have surgical spirit and witch hazel in these brown glass 200 ml bottles with a child-proof cap. Stored near the TCP type ointments; I had to ask as they weren't leaping out at me.
    The Bodycare chain is also quite reasonable for these things. I use witch hazel as toner (diluted 50:50 water). I tend to switch between the two stores. Prices can vary a little between the two but generally both are a lot cheaper than Boots!
  • nuatha
    nuatha Posts: 1,932 Forumite
    Thank you JayneC I had heard of leatherman. Anyone know where would be the best ( cheapest) place to buy one???

    Leatherman go up to serious money (just got quite a shock at what the top end ones go for. You can find Leatherman Wingman for under £40 for example its a belt pouch rather than a pocket tool - unless you go in for multiple large pockets.
    Bedsit_Bob wrote: »
    While those kind of situations are mainly what we are prepping for, we should also be prepping for the minor emergencies/inconveniences.

    Actually those are the main reasons I prep. It so happens that prepping for everyday emergencies may well put me in a better position in a Zombie Apocalypse or EOTWAWKI scenario, but they are far less likely to occur.
    Reality is that the brown stuff hits the fan regularly, a fall put me in hospital a couple of weeks back (and incidentally wrote off my mobile phone) Herself ended up back in hospital yesterday. Frankly both things that we could do without but made easier by having hospital bags prepped and spare/backup kit. There are EOTHWAWKI scenarios that I'm not going to survive for long, there are others that I don't want to survive, but just surviving the World As We Know It and the hurdles that it can throw in our way is far easier as a prepper.
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008
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    :D No danger of me going on pointe. The mere thought of it is hysterical as there was never a less ballerina-type person than me.

    It took 5 whole weeks after the holiday for every last trace of blisters and peeling skin to be eradicated from my poor feet. At the worst point, I was hobbling and that's not good on a walking holiday.

    I recall reading a memoir from a man of one of the Apache tribes, who had been a boy in the period when they were in their final conflicts with the US Govt. At one point, the group that included his mother and his siblings were in a quasi-reservation type system, more an outdoors prison camp. His mother didn't trust that the truce would last (she was right) and had the children practise their running to keep their feet hard and their lungs good.

    I need to practise hiking more often, as I tend to use the pushbike too much for anything much over a mile. Although I did walk a mile + each way to the archery club last night.

    Keyboard, mouse and stereo remote control are all pristine so might as well use the bit of spirit left over in the dish on the soles of my feet. Waste not, want not.

    ***** Exerunt GQ stage left, with a grande jete towards the kitchen******
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • ALIBOBSY
    ALIBOBSY Posts: 4,527
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    Oh yes! Mature crab apple, sloes, damson-esque plums and mushrooms (just not brave enough although they are definitely edible) all tucked away quietly.

    I've found a big sweet chestnut tree about half a mile closer to dog walking territory and you can already see where some stupid person has been ripping branches down to get to them, even though they're not ready until at least the end of October.

    You can see where someone has got into a couple and found them underdeveloped and chucked them back on the ground. All very well but why pull a good 40 or so off the tree at the same time :mad:

    Found a new crabapple tree tucked away on the walk down by the river near our house. This appears to be a golden hornet and is covered in little yellow apples. They are tart, but not as much as I expected so must be a bit sweeter (or more like less tart) than other crabs we have had. So should make nice jelly.

    Shame about the chestnut tree, what a waste. Like all those people who have fruiting trees in their gardens and don't pick the fruit and its all over the footpath/their lawn, rotting away.

    Ali x
    "Overthinking every little thing
    Acknowledge the bell you cant unring"

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