Preparedness for when

jeanniefaethecarse

We were able to pick up a couple of the more traditional zed-beds for our youngest son's room in the auction. They were new, and cost us about £10 for the pair. They come up quite regularly. His room is quite small and he folds it all up when he gets back from school (note not in the morning so the bed has some airing time) and that way he's got room to lounge about. The spare one is used for visitors and very useful it is too, and much comfier than a shakedown on the floor or sleeping on the sofa.

For storing supplies, I asked one of our local take-aways that also does ice cream what they did with the ice cream tubs after they'd finished with them. They just threw them out. Same with the deli which gets olives etc. in those useful round tubs with the secure lids. I got a load of them for free, in fact they were very happy someone was getting the use of them. A great size, stackable, and food grade plastic too.

Has anyone thought about visiting their local fising tackle shop and putting together a small lightweight tacklebox? I have one of these as I fish pretty regularly in Scotland and walk around the lochs and rivers. (it's pretty cheap and do-able here if you avoid the main salmon rivers and go for trout only tickets, or get angling club tickets for salmon which tend to be cheaper than the big commercial beats) I'd highly recommend nipping in and speaking to them about what might be useful in the way of a beginners rod, hooks, lines, that type of thing, and where locally you could have a go to gain some skill.

I've succumbed and bought one of the Ikea solar lights. I bought it on ebay though. Our nearest Ikea is either Aberdeen or Edinburgh and I'd waste more on fuel getting there! It should be delivered either tomorrow or Tuesday and depending on how well it goes, I'll equip all the children's rooms out with them and the office too. Anything to cut fuel bills!

Confuzzled

GreyQueen wrote: »

Some people reading this might think, gawd, paranoia or what?! but I know that I have emergency accomodation for homeless singles (mainly fresh out of prison and often junkies) 30 yards away and several homeless hostels within 300 yards. They cause chaos on a daily basis. The Police control centre is right across the region but if you tell them the postcode they don't faddle around because they know that the Towers is bad a lot of the time and if any of us can be alarmed enough to hit 999, something really bad is happening here....

Excellent idea about having some supplies off-centre. I have had to use some unconvential storage at home purely on space grounds but am considering getting a strong tin box and having some stashed in the depths of the lottie shed. Wouldn't have anything other than tins up there as woudn't want to attract the rats and mice into the shed. And, whatever I did keep there would be stashed under a lot of low value stuff like empty compost bags and flowerpots.

John Wesley Rawles' book has some useful tips about hiding a "deep larder" behind boxes of low value things like baby clothes and old magazines, in hopes that any intruder would only dig down thru a few layers and give up in disgust before getting to the good stuff............

it's not paranoia if it's from experience, even if it's not your direct experience! i studied psychology at university, (and for many years prior to uni and after uni of my own interests) believe you me, i have no questions about what is likely to happen if things are easy and pretty and plenty like they are now.

if the shtf GQ if you can make it up to scotland i'd love to have you in our group!

the allotment cache is a very good idea, most people would raid the allotments for obvious food, maybe steal some tools for helping them get by and for weapons then leave. why search through a bunch of rubbish when you have food laying on the ground! why search for much of anything when you have food laying on the ground in an open area that makes you a target!

i've got numerous escape plans and i'm working out long term end destinations along a particular route i hope to be able to follow if things ever reach that point. in a way it's fun, i've always enjoyed post apocalyptic films and much preferred the after side of things not the before that most films focus on. so i don't see this as depressing, right now it's sorta a game to me and to my daughter who is enjoying learning to light fires, going camping and foraging. it's just nice to know that if it ever becomes NOT a game i'm at least prepared far more than most.

i've also always loved converting buildings into other spaces so whenever i go somewhere i often think of how it could be used otherwise which has led me to some rather clever ideas for use of a location very close to my home that may be very defensible especially if i have a few others to help out. it's not ideal but could do for awhile...

one thing i wanted to mention whilst i'm thinking of it, in a true run for the hills shtf scenario, if you can find a place you can stay and have a reasonable quality of life that is wonderful however, aside from the obvious forms of security a few things need to be considered as extremely important and i fear many would overlook these.

1. always take different routes back to your location and hide your tracks. what if someone is watching you, binoculars help you see a long distance without being seen or heard. what if they case the place, i mean if you keep bringing food back to the same location they are going to know you have food and you have a safe place to keep it!

2. if you have a stable location you will likely have better hygiene, this is excellent for health BUT when you go out hunting etc it would be better for everyone in your safe haven if you rubbed leaves and burrs into your hair and dirt on your face, under your nails some on your clothes. maybe have some dirty clothes just for going out in if you can.

if you are clean they will KNOW you have a safe haven. if you are dirty you can hopefully run off away from your camp, and whilst they may give chase if you don't seem a worthwhile target they will give up eventually. if you are clean, i guarantee you you WILL be followed, only people with a nice place to hole up will be clean in this kind of scenario. just like the line from monty pythons holy grail 'how do you know he's the king?' 'cuz he ain't go !!!!!! all over 'im'

ginnyknit

I live in a very similair area here to you GQ and there is a different mentality which would certainly come to the fore if the SHTF. As the only reasonably able bodied person here if DS moves out it would all fall on my shoulders thats why I try to keep reasonably fit and organised even now. OH can summon adrenalin and be calm in most situations but is prone to panic and breakdown at other times. We have had a lot of scary situations in the past not far from the front door and with a large number of junkies over the road I take care not to have OH's drugs delivered, I always collect them myself and hide them in my basket as opposed to carrying a chemists bag. Morphine is a valuable commodity even in peaceful times. No one around us knows about OHs illness's except the few trust worthy neighbours.

GreyQueen

I'd be honoured to be considered worthy of your group but there's several hundred miles between me and Scotland and in a SHTF situation, I'd be very leery of covering that amount of ground as a solitary female personage. In event of dramatic sea rises, I have seen a topo map of the country and will be heading for the Highlands tout de suite...........

I'd be inclined to hunker down in my own region, where I know the countryside and a fair few places to lurk in the woods if necessary. Plus the familiarity with the local flora and fauna would be helpful.

I don't believe in the zombie apocalypse but I do absolutely believe in the dangerous potential of my fellow human beings to aggravate any crisis. I wouldn't want to have to fight with a young man half my age and twice my strength for food supplies.

My Dad is a deeply-thoughful man, a keen amateur student of history all his life, and the last person to be given over to histrionics. We were talking as we were gardening yesterday and he used the phrase blood on the streets as a predictable outcome of the current trend for savage social security cuts.

Some able-bodied working age people may be content to loiter around on benefits and be disenfranchised from the wider society, and I see them all the time, but should the drip-feed of subsistence income be stopped or dramatically-curtailed, there will be big trouble in this land.

Some s0ds have no compunction about helping themselves to other people's property at the moment; imagine if they were utterly destitute and facing starvation. Not a comfortable thought. Life being life, they wouldn't be systematic and loot the decision-making classes responsible for the cuts, they'd turn on the nearest available sources, which would often be ordinary folks like me and you who don't live in moated manor houses (duck houses optional).

There are serious things only a heart-beat away from happening; the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park in the USA is about due to blow. The predicated outcome of that would be death to anything within 2,500 km and ash covering the whole contigious continental USA and Canada, destroying all crops, of course. The ensuing famine would be unspeakable.

Then there's a peril closer to home in the Canary Islands (La Palma) where one flank of Cumbre Vieja is teetering over the sea. Experts say it could fall any day or in 10,000 years. It will fall, however, and the resulting tsunami will crash into North Africa, the Atlantic coasts of Europe and the USA and even reach southern Britain, although the more far-flung places from the Canaries would have a bit of warning. Given the volume of rock due to fall, the megatsunami created would hit the nearest land at 1 km tall, and even hit USA at 50 m tall. Nothing could stand in its way.

Scary thoughts, heh? Maybe we should all move to Scotlandshire immediately............

[Deleted User]

GQ - If we all did that Scotlandshire would probably sink and then where would we be ? Atlantis I suspect!! Cheers Lyn x.

Confuzzled

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'd be honoured to be considered worthy of your group but there's several hundred miles between me and Scotland and in a SHTF situation, I'd be very leery of covering that amount of ground as a solitary female personage. In event of dramatic sea rises, I have seen a topo map of the country and will be heading for the Highlands tout de suite...........

I'd be inclined to hunker down in my own region, where I know the countryside and a fair few places to lurk in the woods if necessary. Plus the familiarity with the local flora and fauna would be helpful.

I don't believe in the zombie apocalypse but I do absolutely believe in the dangerous potential of my fellow human beings to aggravate any crisis. .....

There are serious things only a heart-beat away from happening; the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park in the USA is about due to blow.....

Then there's a peril closer to home in the Canary Islands (La Palma) where one flank of Cumbre Vieja is teetering over the sea. ...

Scary thoughts, heh? Maybe we should all move to Scotlandshire immediately............

staying in places you know is def a good plan if you know of places you can hunker down. i lived in the highlands for several years and have traveled through it extensively, and it's sparsely populated with loads of opportunities for foraging, hunting and fishing not to mention most people have no clue how to survive in it's harsher climes without their creature comforts so for me that makes it a more desirable destination.

i don't believe in the zombie apocalypse either though we do use it as a lighthearted way of dealing with the scary aspects of prepping. pandemic is a vague concern but that means bugging IN and i'm not as concerned about that as IN is pretty well prepared, OUT is the big concern.

as for volcanoes you forgot katla in iceland, if that blows they worry it may set off a chain reaction of some other volcanoes in the region. as of now the experts have it on their radar to blow, it could cover all of europe in so much ash it could be years before we could have a crop. this happened previously i believe in the 1700's (don't quote me on the exact dates) i'm not even sure how much damage it would do otherwise as in creating tsunami's etc as i've not looked that deep into it, the crop part was scary enough.

my personal major concerns are more along the lines of the world wide crop failures combined with long term world wide recession, draconian measures on benefit reforms, even though i'm self employed it will be vicious to me (they seem to have it in for the SE!) but so many people get some form of help and we can't afford to have more taken away when the rich are getting tax cuts and still more businesses are closing taking away, yes you guessed it, the jobs needed to NOT be getting help. then there is the euro teetering on the edge of collapse. it's not a good combination, i would not be surprised if there is rioting when UC really kicks in, blood in the streets as your father referred to it.

basically i'm seriously concerned about hyperinflation, financial collapse and rioting, food shortages from crop failures worry me less than hyperinflation as i think that will come first however crop failures will only exasperate hyperinflation, it's a terribly vicious circle.and if we make it through volcanoes, mass riots, food shortages, hyperinflation and pandemics, it looks as if we already hit peak oil awhile ago, they don't go looking to obtain oil from tar sands and shale unless they are desperate but i'll just shove that worry to the back burner of my fantastic ghillie kettle, i have more pressing catastrophes to plan for as mentioned above

Confuzzled

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

GQ - If we all did that Scotlandshire would probably sink and then where would we be ? Atlantis I suspect!! Cheers Lyn x.

:rotfl:

i used to joke when i first moved to the uk that it's amazing that an island with so many 'holes' (lochs, lakes etc) could stay afloat

GreyQueen

Confuzzled wrote: »

:rotfl:

i used to joke when i first moved to the uk that it's amazing that an island with so many 'holes' (lochs, lakes etc) could stay afloat

But it's the holes that let the flavour flood out.

Or was that Tetley tea bags, I get so confused with the ambient temperature above 20 celcius...........?

vanoonoo

starting on the grab bags for the pets this afternoon

mardatha

* Wondering if we should all lose weight so we can fit more people into Scotland without it sinking*
I moan sometimes about living where I do, but it's good training for "life going down the tubes" scenarios. If you've never had it easy then you never miss it eh! But all we can do is what they did during the war - get on with it ! LOL