Preparedness for when

Caterina

Am with Annie on that, being even softier and even more southerner, and a total Townie, if I could I would live in Selfridge's! However, in my own little ways I also crave the wide spaces and horizons, would love to be more in touch with Mother Nature, but I am afraid of cows, dogs, creepy-crawlies and heights, so there is very little hope for me!

When I was younger I was a lot tougher and often expressed the wish to live in a more rural situation, but DH refused because he would not get work anywhere else (read: he is not comfortable with change) so we stayed put in London.

So I have to make my own little rural reality in my garden and allotment and with walks in Greenwich Park instead! We have been talking of moving out of London when he retires but it seems highly unlikely now, unless, of course, the ZA happens in our lifetime and we will try to escape, or more likely become Zombie fodder!

born_blonde

Does anyone have any ideas on what to do with lots of small very seedy grapes?

Apart from wine that is.

I have a vine that always has loads of grapes on and they nearly always get eaten by the blackbirds.

Caterina

Grape jelly with the juice boiled up with sugar and dripped through a muslin! Use the leaves to make Dolmades, by cooking them lightly ands stuffing them with rice, spices, pine nuts, sultanas and (if you eat meat) lamb mince.

maryb

I've been thinking over some of the themes on this thread and it's clear that some people are uncomfortable with thinking about some of the more extreme situations. I was wondering whether it would be worth looking at it in the way that a lot of businesses do when they are doing risk assessment. I apologise in advance for the length of this post but it's hard to explain in a few sentences.

The simple way of doing this is to imagine a graph with two scales. One is the probability of a particular scenario happening and the other is the impact on you if it did happen. Another way of looking at it is to have four boxes
High probability/high impact
high probability/low impact
low probability/low impact
low probability/high impact.

Depending on the mix of these two factors, you may or may not need to prepare for it.

If you decide the probability is sufficiently low you don't prepare for it even if the impact would in theory be very high - zombie alien invasion type events:D

Other types of event might have a slightly higher probability but the impact on individuals will be different. Eg civil unrest because the unions call a general strike. At the moment I would say that is still a low probability but the point is that if you keep up with the news, you will be in a position to judge for yourself. The impact would be different for someone in a city centre than it would be for those of our posters living in remote areas who are unlikely to look out of their windows and see shopping malls set on fire. If you think you might be affected, what would you do? Chances are it's the usual answer, make sure you have enough food in the house so you don't have to go out if you don't need to, think about how you would get home if transport is disrupted, think about how you. would keep in touch with family

Other events will have a high probability but may have high or low impact. Bad weather sometime in the year is a high probability but the impact will vary depending on the type of bad weather and where you live. If you live on top of a mountain, you might get roads closed by mudslides if there is torrential rain but your house is unlikely to be flooded. So low impact for you and therefore not much preparation needed. GreyQueen on the other hand who lives very close to a river in a ground floor flat has to think about how she would save as much of her stuff as possible.

The point about this approach is that you consider EVERY possible scenario, if the probability is more than negligible, consider the impact and then think whether there is any way you can shift the impact lower down the scale. It's not about eliminating any possible impact - that's not doable and trying to will just make you panic

Concentrate on the high probability, high impact scenarios of course - if you live in a remote place which is regularly cut off by snow in winter, you can't reduce the probability but you can reduce the impact. With the low probability high impact scenarios think about whether the things you do to prepare for the high probability scenarios will help in other cases.

I don't know what the probability of war in the Middle East is but preparing for power cuts and shortages in the shops probably covers what I could do in practice.

The key thing is to consider everything you can think of. That's not scaremongering. Once you have decided that you have done all you reasonably can, put it out of your mind and don't worry about it

VJsmum

mardatha wrote: »

And my daughter went to a horse event in Birmingham and came back in shock. She said its like another planet mum! I read of Scots living all over the world and always feel very sorry for them - when in reality they're probly very happy - but if that was me, the first Hogmanay I'd turn into a wee soggy puddle of misery and have to come home !

thriftwizard wrote: »

Mardatha - can't help feeling that Birmingham, bless its little business-like socks, is indeed a little other-worldly wherever you come from! Seems very strange to us down here too.

Enjoy your meet!

OI!!!!! Some of us live near Brummagem ya know!! :rotfl:

My OH is a Brummy but you wouldn't know it if you spoke to him - not a trace of the accent. I come from Kent but have lived in or around Brum for the majority of my adult life. It's come a long way since I first moved up here in 1983.
It's alright, once you get over the language problem :cool: - there's loads to do and it's easy to get to other places.

Having said all that - OH and I would love to move to Shrewsbury once the kids leave home.

Very sensible post, MaryB

fuddle

Having gotten mixed up in the realms of risk assessment for work there's no way I fancy doing that for my home life. A really good post though. It makes complete sense to me but still, I'm happy with my my pantry, my first aid kit, winter car box for DH, plenty of blankets and a means of cooking if we loose power for a few days.

That's being prepared for me, just as much as having an underground shelter and a paracord bracelet is for others. Non of us are in the right or wrong.

I think the negativity might stem from whether the talk of zombies are OS related. Being prepared, of course is OS but maybe sometimes the thread goes off topic in a OS sense. Maybe too, the 'I'm all right Jack' sense isn't in keeping with OS traditions of sharing, caring, muddling together and getting through times.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with what we talk about here. The topic is relevant to OS, just the themes that run alongside maybe aren't in my opinion. The tough thread even once got demoted to the Inn because it would go off topic. It happens everywhere, you're not just targeted here.

I hope I haven't caused any upset. I do like this thread but I can see both sides and wanted to give my take on why I think there's friction on here sometimes.

ALIBOBSY

I think Mary has made a great point, you can't prepare for every eventually and if you tried you could end up like some of those in the US who are totally obsessed. What would be the point spending your whole life prepping and worrying about something that may never happen.

I think for any sensible prepper (and I reckon those on this thread fall in that area) its about making a few purchases and plans as an insurance just in case, not about being obssessed.

Like Mary said you weigh up the different scenarios and make your choices. We have decided that we believe its unlikely that a wholesale colaspe of society will occur (zombies/disease/nuclear war etc) and tbh if that happened you might not want to survive anyway. Hence we aren't that keen on the whole bug out bags thing. I reckon we would hunker down and try to make it were we are (although we would love and hope to be able to buy a house with some land and become much more self sufficient in a couple of years, but it may not happen).

We have decided the most likely scenarios involve shorter term issues of looking after yourselves until the powers that be get things sorted/up and running again.

It is almost a definate that because of the bad summer effecting harvests worldwide, on top of fuel and petrol costs rising, that food prices are set to rocket over the next few months (they have already been rising fast). So to us buying in bulk and on bargains/offers is money in the bank savings wise.

Most likely events-power cuts either from strikes or other issues like in the 70's, snowed in so difficult to get to shops and for the food supply to keep going, petrol shortages-again effecting ability to go out and the food supply chain, flooding.

The above most likely events mostly result in you needing to have alternatives to central heating and cooking plus plenty of stocked up food in as well as wind up radios/lights etc.

The only big events we believe are possibilities on the radar are one or more of the big icelandic volcanos going off (Katla was getting quakes again in August and is well over due) which may effect air traffic and weather patterns-both having knock on effects on the food supply chain. Or a solar flare (the sun hits its maxima sometime in 2013 and has been more active recently) we will likely get hit by some solar flares during this period, but of course some types we don't even notice and some only effect certain areas around the poles. If a bigger flare leads to geomagnetic storms they bigger areas or even worldwide could be effected and communications and electricity could go down and be off for a while. We should get some warning as NASA are constantly watching the sun for these so power stations etc will get a short chance to shut down turbines etc and try to protect against surges, but power lines and unprotected cars and electrical items could all be fried. Again the gov and power companies etc would be working hard to get things up and running, but if a hit was uk wide thats alot of wires and electrical items to get sorted and remember most modern trucks and vehices would likely all be scuppered because of their computer control systems so you are looking at a period without power or transport and food supply badly effected or even stopped for a period.

Therefore our plans revolve around being stocked up, and prepared for a lack of electric and gas for upto a month (although could go longer if pushed). I just can't see this stocking up for years business, surely if things go that badly wrong you look to a new way of life with foraging and GYO like people had to thousands of years ago.

Ali x

Possession

Sensible post MaryB. Yes we should all prepare for our own level of SHTF-ness, but also think out all possible scenarios. For instance, where you live may be impossible to flood, but if areas around you are flooded there will inevitably be supply-chain issues and you may very well not be able to source much food. In which case it makes sense to have some back-up stocks.

maryb

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

It is almost a definate that because of the bad summer effecting harvests worldwide, on top of fuel and petrol costs rising, that food prices are set to rocket over the next few months (they have already been rising fast). So to us buying in bulk and on bargains/offers is money in the bank savings wise.


Ali x

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/9561143/World-on-track-for-record-food-prices-within-a-year-due-to-US-drought.html

High probability / impact on all of us.

2tonsils

Hi everyone, sorry I have been missing in action but my friend told me some news and I was so angry and upset I was spitting feathers....so I took some time off to go to the beach and swim in the sea to cool off a bit. I am a tad calmer than I was now...

My friend in our village lost his dad a couple of weeks ago to lung cancer. He had been ill for about a year. The terrible thing is that he told me his dad had been denied the last course of chemotherapy and pain killers because of the pharmacist/doctors strikes. I can't begin to say how much his news affected me. To even think of the man suffering without the drugs is horrendous. But now I have heard there are many in the same situation with cancer, heart problems, diabetes, kidney problems etc. The pharmacists are still on strike (this is the second month with a short break in between) so no one can get meds on prescription unless they pay in full for them and if they are available.

The chemists cannot afford to buy them in stock as the government owe about 150 million euros for the meds supplied in the past. It's horrendous. I dread to think what the winter is going to be like when the usual flu virus and other illnesses start to do the rounds. There are many old people in our village.

I heard of a group of volunteers who are collecting meds that are no longer used (ie if someone dies) that are still in date...and they are distributing them here to people with prescriptions who need them. I think the scheme covers other parts of Greece as well. It's better than no access to life saving drugs.

Thank God I have stocks of my thyroxine that I have to take every day and my OH's blood pressure tablets.

Otherwise there is chaos here..there was a big row when an minister refused to cut pensions any lower (some are living on 300 euros a month) and the EU inspectors left for a week to cool off.

A rich businessman (Greek) who lives in America got a group together and they offered to buy the debt of Greece so Greece could pay it back slowly instead of paying it to the EU and getting ripped off with horrendous interest rates. The government have not even looked at the details of the deal....

A list of 33 corrupt politicians (past and present) has been sent to the Supreme court for investigation for money laundering .

The schools are protesting today about all school buses being withdrawn here due to lack of money. There will be no heating oil for the schools either as its going to be 1.65 a litre, the same as road diesel for cars. I don't see how they will be able to get through the winter and keep the schools going as it gets very cold and wet here during the winter months.

There is a big general strike on Wednesday affecting all offices and shops, but I realised the ferries will be on 24 hour strike which may affect some food deliveries and fuel. So checked on all the stocks I have in and we are okay..well prepped! Petrol has just gone down to 1.82 a litre so the car and both scooters are full. Luckily we have a heat wave coming so we will continue to use the scooters till the rain breaks out.

After Wednesday we are going onto the rolling power cuts. I am not sure if we will know in advance when its going to be our area. I can't imagine them going round all the little villages in advance to let us know.Usually if there is a long power cut you can claim for damages to freezer stuff etc from the Electricity board...but I am not sure if it would cover you for a rolling strike rather than something like a storm.

Hope you are all okay weather wise, it looked a bit wild on the news! Stay warm and safe everyone.