Preparedness for when

westcoastscot

ragz wrote: »

You knowledgeable lot should be able to answer this one. Hubby just asked if a 100% wool jumper would be expensive, would it be worth buying one or are they really hard to wash, why don't you see that many these days? I am passing the question on as I don't really know the answer, but I would guess that is would be a good investment, as long as I don't ruin it in the first wash!
I am thinking prepping should include clothes that will last and can be repaired, as so many of ours are cheap rubbish that I really struggle to sew when it breaks as it just disintigrates!

GQ - now I have seen that already and it was too scary for me the first time!

Ragz have a read at this - from a blog I read
http://tomofholland.com/2013/10/17/can-the-campaign-for-wool-support-wool-week-for-100/
WCS

[Deleted User]

But you're still just as prepared for Z if you prepare for A aren't you?

craigywv

mines is hidden and well played down to family....................I tell or show nothing forgot to mention WALKING DEAD startsagain tonight ME SO EXCITE

ragz_2

Thank you to everyone for the wool advice, I am glad I was thinking along the right lines. DH would like one so I am going to keep my eyes peeled. DS2 had one but he found it too itchy, he is allergic to things though. I will keep a look out, looked on ebay but too pricey for my budget and I am sure there are plenty out there being unloved that I could adopt

Put a curtain halfway up our stairs yesterday. We are renting a townhouse and the downstairs gets really draughty and cold in winter, you can feel it when you walk along the middle landing. We were going to put a curtain across the top but the screws kept going through the ceiling and losing the rawl plugs, so we have an extendable shower rail halfway up the stairs with an old curtain I had in the loft (from freecycle) on it. Already noticed a difference this morning! Looks a bit silly and I am sure many of my friends would baulk at the idea, but I try not to be too worried about things like that (I try, it creeps in sometimes!).

Taking a load of food I collected to the food bank, good deed of the week.

DH bought more filter coffee and Gold bars for the store cupboard yesterday... there's a man with priorities!

RAS

ragz wrote: »

Thank you to everyone for the wool advice, I am glad I was thinking along the right lines. DH would like one so I am going to keep my eyes peeled. DS2 had one but he found it too itchy, he is allergic to things though. I will keep a look out, looked on ebay but too pricey for my budget and I am sure there are plenty out there being unloved that I could adopt.

ragz

Try the charity shops; I got a very nice cashmere sweater for very little once upon a time (now gone to the great shoddy mill in the sky). You can also sometimes find embaressing coloured bin ends which make great inner or intermediate layers when it is very cold.

From the SHTF point of view one of the biggest advantages of wool is that it remains good at retaining heat when wet. A cotton vest or t-shirt when wet is worse than nothing particularly in wind. Wet wool will keep you alive and wet cotton can kill (comment made in memory of the guy who died under a caravan near Gunnerside one Easter).

Butterfly_Brain

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I'm not being cheeky.

You asked for a photo of me, sans shirt, so I posted one.

And very nice it was too :D

Wyre

craigywv wrote: »

mines is hidden and well played down to family....................I tell or show nothing forgot to mention WALKING DEAD startsagain tonight ME SO EXCITE

I set the season reminder yesterday. Not that my son would let me forget anyway!

daftmummy

what channel is walking dead on? we only have basic cable package. We watched the last season on the internet as we didn't have the channel. Does any one else do that?

Wyre

It is on Fox (formerly FX). Previous series were being shown on 5. We have the channels all bar anything you have to pay extra for (so no premium kids channels, sports or movie channels). I didn't know anywhere on the net was showing The Walking Dead tbh.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Well, the secret policemen tried to get into Shoebox Towers last night to arrest me but the were beaten back by the zombie hordes. We shall man the communal wheelie bins again tonight and prepare to repel boarders.

ragz, I think the curtain on the stairwell is an excellent idea, and anyone who thinks it's a bit odd isn't anyone who is going to be paying your utility bill. Offer to take it down in return for a contribution?

I enjoy the archdruid as well; the man speaks great good sense and has a sweeping knowledge of history which fascinates me. As I've grown older, I've come more and more to the intermediate path in many actions; shades of grey, of compromise, of adaption.

If I can't do it all, I can do something. Like cleaning part of the bathroom just now. I expect the floor will still be there tomorrow when I'm ready to clean the rest.

We won't continue to enjoy rising consumerism as the decades pass into the mid-century. Some of us middle-aged or older may live through the beginning of the end of the Petroleum Age. IMO, children born today will have a dramatically different old age to that which their grandparents are experiencing now.

Our infrastructure is poor in the UK and the USA is in a parlous state; look up bridge collapses. We have an electricity and water systems which were built a long time ago for a much smaller population.

I look around my inner city neighbourhood. This particular few hundred square meters has been built on for well over 1,000 years. When I first knew this neighbourhood, there were various plots which were occupied by businesses or were even carparks. They have all been re-developed for housing. High density housing; townhouses and flats, not the more spacious layouts with gardens you get in suburbs.

I used to know a water engineer with the local water company and asked him something which had interested me; when places are re-deveopled are the sewers and mains upgraded to cope with the additional demand? He told me that they're not, and that although the water company can make representations via the planning process, there is no need for their concerns about capacity to be considered, and they are ususally ignored.

A quick back-of-envelope calculation reveals that there are about 2,000 more occupants of my little patch than there were 10 years ago. That's a lot of loos, washing machines, water being used. Once or twice in the past several years, something catastrophic has happened and raw sewage came out of a pipe into the river by the Towers - rank.

What I can see happening is that things which are imported or driven around are own country will become more expensive, and we will see rationing by cost. Poorer people will have to go without, and it will spread up the economic ladder. Did you know that pineapples were once so rare and fashionable that people used to rent them as centerpieces for posh dinner parties? I could see the situation where we might have to describe some of these things to youngsters who will never have seen, much less tasted, the real thing.

I see things happening as a chart; there will be a steady decline in just about everything, with the odd jagged spike where things get particularly rough for a while before re-setting at a steadily lower level.

There will be a boom in salvaging and re-working and re-making existing things for operation at a lower level of energy input. People with sense will want to get themselves skills, and non-electric equipment to support those skills. As some things become unaffordable, the only way to enjoy them will be to substitute skill, time and talent for buying in energy.

There's time now to learn some skills which are transferrable to a low-energy economy, to build networks of like-minded and supportive people, to perhaps adapt in place, or relocate to a home which is more sustainable.

Today I am making a bit more of a reconsituted candle and then going out to visit a poorly friend with another friend. We're taking the makings of supper. One of us could easily afford a restaurant meal, one of us could but shouldn't due to consumer debt, and I couldn't - end of.

We shall cook together and eat together and play board games and pet the cat and have a fine time for a small amount of dosh.