Preparedness for when

Hollyberry

No longer free on Kindle (but now a princely £2.52) is The Back Door Man by Dave Buschi - subject of SHTF when the credit cards stop working, and the cash you have in your pocket is it. Maybe worth checking to see if it goes back to being free again. I read the preview and was riveted, but I'm trying to save it for a loooonnnggg flight later in the week.

Btw - my colander is white plastic. I must be doomed. :eek:

Cheapskate

Quick question - do I have to trawl am@zon for free k!ndle books, or is there a quicker way? I don't have said device but load onto my ipad.

TIA

A xo

Hollyberry

Cheapskate wrote: »

Quick question - do I have to trawl am@zon for free k!ndle books, or is there a quicker way? I don't have said device but load onto my ipad.

TIA

A xo

I use https://www.dailyfreebooks.co.uk, which is searchable ("prep", "apocalypse", "frugal" are in my predictive text ). Sometimes I trawl amaz@n for the same searches, but generally the freebie site is pretty good, and has sufficient blurb to make your mind up if it is worth hitting the link for amaz@n. Happy reading.

Cheapskate

Hollyberry wrote: »

I use https://www.dailyfreebooks.co.uk, which is searchable ("prep", "apocalypse", "frugal" are in my predictive text ). Sometimes I trawl amaz@n for the same searches, but generally the freebie site is pretty good, and has sufficient blurb to make your mind up if it is worth hitting the link for amaz@n. Happy reading.

Many thanks for the link - you do realise I'll be late to bed now? :rotfl:

A xo

Hollyberry

Cheapskate wrote: »

Many thanks for the link - you do realise I'll be late to bed now? :rotfl:

A xo

I don't want to be the only one with a bad reading habit! :rotfl:

GreyQueen

Hollyberry wrote: »

I don't want to be the only one with a bad reading habit! :rotfl:

Don't worry, I'm a 6-book-a-week hardcore book junkie. Darned good job I don't download e-books, my habit it bad enough already.

Just watched the first half an hour of Robin Hood. Too late a start to watch it all tonight but I just wanted to see some arrows whizzing about. Looks pretty realistic, apart from the bit where Cate Blanchett casually shrugs the string onto what looks like a 5 ft longbow onehanded. Yeah, right, that happens just like that IRL.............:rotfl:

I'm away to bed. I have to work for munny agin termorrer. Such an imposition on a busy and fulfilled life; don't they know I have broad beans to plant and Stuff to do?

Laters, and don't stay up too late reading or you'll all be good for nothing and clootiesmum has some heavy hardware to tote aroung and needs to keep her strength up. GQ xx

vivatifosi

sb44 wrote: »

We have an electric cooker so are stuffed if we have a power cut for a long period. Well, almost stuffed, we do have one of those little gas burners, but I was looking at building a rocket stove for the garden.

However, I was thinking of using concrete blocks instead of house bricks.

Does anyone know where I can buy them and what is their correct name?

I have been searching B&Q and Wickes for concrete blocks, breeze blocks.... but had now success.

https://plus.google.com/photos/112659849870715614107/albums/5442477694501774737?banner=pwa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmDYUrVHPWc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSKj3xYe3T8

Drat, sorry I've been meaning to ask for about the last 10 pages. Have you thought about using storage heater bricks. You can pick the up on freecycle and stuff and if you Google storage heater ovens some people have already built them.

Reason I asked is I'm getting new ones, so disposing of bricks, but I don't think you are near me if you know about missing dogs in Wales.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Just squeezed a wee bit of prepping into the day. Have been into the BOB and also the little drawer where I keep my prescription meds and my OTC meds.

I always have them on my person and several months' supply by me, in various places. This I did by filling the prescription as soon as the date came up and, over time, without reducing my dosage, built up a surplus.

The reason for being hyper-cautious about the meds is they are keeping me alive. Not better than I'd otherwise feel, but living as opposed to dead. This focusses the mind wonderfully and is my personal bottom line.

The meds come with about 2+ years' date on them so I keep some in the BOB (several months' worth), some in my daily work bag and some at my parents' home. I rotate them regularly for the most recent prescriptions and have just rotated the oldest out of the BOB and was pleased to find 12-15 months' date left on those. I'll use those next. The next script will be used to rotate the ones which I keep in the daily bag and the ones at my parents' place will be rotated out at Easter.

I also have small amount of an injectable form of my meds for emergencies which has a 10 month expiry on it, so will diarise when I need to get the GP to re-issue that one.

I also looked at the non-POMS; the asprin, paracetamol and ibruprofen, all generics. Have plenty of dates on all of them, and a nice sequence up to 2018, so have written the dates on the tops of the packages and stacked them neatly in date order. My goal is not a single one being used out of sequence and no waste.

I have been reading bits about people caught up in floods and one thing I have heard is that some people are in a bad way because their meds are in homes they cannot access, or they have gone away with only enough meds for the anticipated short trip and now cannot get home. It was the same when the Icelandic volcano exploded; some news reports had mention of the stranded travellers running or about to run short of essential medications. And imagine a sink-hole, gas explosion, fire at home with you out of there with your day's regular bag or rushed out of home by the emergency services barely-dressed, like one woman in the Hemel Hemstead sinkhole incident this week, with what she stood up in and not even her handbag..............

Please, lovely peeps, look after your meds. It there is a major disruption to society, even if only lasts days, you may not be able to fill prescriptions on your normal schedule. If you can (and those on opiates may not be able to) think about having some extra by you. And definately factor in the scheduled public holidays when filling your scripts.

Spoke to the parents' this week. Mum & Dad opted out of the care.data thingy yesterday and kid bruv last week. I persuaded them it was a good idea, but was pushing on a half-open door; once they knew what was going on, they were furious. Mum is part of the long-term study called the Million Woman thingy, but that's her informed consent. I've also given my informed consent for anonymised data from my outcomes of a relatively-new surgical procedure to be released to NICE but I was asked before I agreed to the surgery and checked several times to make sure I still consented, which is a bit different from care.data (still no leaflet chez GQ, folks). Or Chez Anyone-I've-Asked. :mad:

No probs at the surgery; their receptionist has opted out herself as have the rest of the staff. And now the grubbyment are postponing it for 6 months. By which I hear OMG we got caught out, let's kick this into the long grass for 6 months and wait until the fuss has died down and do something about it when the spotlight is off, preferably when everyone's on holiday. Or just let it die the death.

I'm diarising that as well. And I will badger my torydemcon muppet about it. About time they felt the Wrath of [STRIKE]Khan[/STRIKE] umm GQ.

Righty, time for some brekkie and then it's hit the ground running to order fencing repairs and dispatch tree surgeons and pest controllers left, right and centre. Anyone'd think there'd been some storms or summat.

You wanna rat onna stick? I can getcha rats and my ole pal CMOT Dibbler can do you a luvverly meat pie.

greenbee

Thanks GQ. You've reminded me that I need to check the dates on my emergency medication, check that it is in all the places that it should be and speak to my GP about whether I still need it and if so probably get a new prescription. I haven't needed to take the stuff for about 18 months, but I'd hate to be caught out abroad (and realistically, with work, it's a possibility... I'm travelling for 2 weeks next month) without it.

Good for your mum on her participation in the Million Women study. I'm participating in the Generations study (with my mother, otherwise it doesn't really work...), but as you say, that's informed consent.

Memory_Girl

jk0 wrote: »

The recent controversy regarding whether Scotland will continue to use the pound made me wonder if it might mean Scottish Banks would be safer:

If they will no longer be bailed out by the Bank of England, won't they be less inclined to take silly risks with their money? They won't be able to lend money out of thin air by writing the numbers in someone's account. They will only be able to lend monies that someone has saved. (Rather like building societies used to be.)

Am I wrong?

Funnily enough that is exactly what one of the proposals is that is being looked at - smaller regional banks (like Germany) - with little of the casino banking held at National level.

Of course ............ its all a long way off but makes me think - if there is no need of "Lender of Last Resort" - is there any need for a Fiscal Union. Would instead make more sense to peg the Scottish Pound to Sterling instead.

But what do I know? Eh? Tell you what I do know - the Banking system we have right now isn't fit for purpose .... so why not look for a different way of doing things?

MG