Preparedness for when

catznine

The airport has been extended and is a nice place to wait for your flight, duty free shop and snack bar.

Byatt I must say I didn't see any of that sort of behaviour where we were but we were at a very quiet hotel in Kalamaki, the sort where everyone is reading books around the pool with quiet background music. Very relaxing place to be. No noisy bad behaviour at all, I guess all that happens down the road at Laganas!

Making soup now, as every night we had a different home made soup before dinner, made me realise just what a delicious and economical meal a home made soup can be! Tonights will be tomato with onion, garlic, courgette and leftover shredded lettuce!

Byatt

Catzine, your holiday sounds perfect to me, this was back in the 90's. My ex was showing me who he really was, I just didn't listen at the time. Not sure what town we were in now, it was quiet but the outings were a bit riotous...hairy trips in coaches near cliffs...

catznine

(((hugs))) Byatt! You deserve better than that! Sounds like north of the island as it is all steep cliffs around there!

Soup smelling good which is a relief as I didn't use a recipe, just threw it all together! Fingers crossed!

Tinned soup is so expensive now and this should be better for us!

[Deleted User]

Not sure what variety one of ours is D & DD but it has two monsters of pumpkins on it that are ripening really well despite the weather. The other plant is a MONSTERA given by a friend and apparently can grow up to 500 lbs, you'll be pleased to know that I dont think it's going to make 20 lbs, it flowered late and then well, you've had the weather too!!! I'll still have one for Halloween so I can play again this year - trouble is I'm scary even without makeup and a costume!!!!!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.

2tonsils

Glad you survived the horrendous flight to Zante...it must have been very frightening. My friends flew from the UK to Corfu and the plane had to detour over Italy, they said they looked out of the window and the storm looked like a hurricane from above! He hates flying so the flight did not do him a lot of good...he was still pale two days later from the fear.

We once got stuck on a flight that could not land in Corfu due to a storm, they sent us to Italy to refuel and they refused to let us land. Nine hours later we were still in the air on what should have been a 3 hour flight. In the end they landed in Northern Greece and put us up at a hotel for a few hours, they gave us dinner but charged us 5 euros for a soft drink and ten for a whisky for my OH!

They wanted us to get back on the flight and I refused as the lightning was striking down to the ground at the airport. They made me see the Greek doctor at the airport and he confirmed my blood pressure was too high with fear so they stopped the flight for four hours lol. I have low blood pressure but the fear got the better of me. When it was time to fly and my bp was down the sky cleared and it was beautiful again ....

National strikes and demonstrations taking part all over Greece today over the austerity measures. some of the families are trying to live on just 300 euros a month and many have not been paid for 18 months. Their families have been trying to keep them but it can't go on forever. There are no emergency benefits here, no housing benefits, unemployment money is very restricted and is expected to be cut even more this winter. People who have worked in tourism all summer will not get unemployment money in the winter even though they have paid contributions. The chemists will not supply drugs to you on prescription unless you pay the full price as the government owe so much money.

The government has not announced the new measures yet (I think they are afraid it will bring them down...) but I saw last night that the EU say Greece will have to find 20 billion in cuts on top of this....where on earth can they cut? we are paying for meds and doctors and we still have to pay contributions into a health scheme we are getting no benefit from!

I can't see any end to it all. Two out of three of all the shops here have closed already and many more will not make it through the winter. I am glad we have prepped as I can't see this government lasting much longer and the S is going to HTF big style. I have faith that people will try to help each other out as much as they can, but it is so difficult. I saw today that the soup kitchen in Athens is feeding 8000 people each day now, and that is only the ones who are turning up to ask. Many will be too proud to do that.

I am trying to survive by using OS tactics and I am reading most of the threads to get new ideas. I can't think of any way to make any money as no one has any to pay out....even doing the car boot sale they were reluctant to pay 50 cents for a winter jumper...in the end I gave it all to the people in our village who needed it to wear this winter.

betony

I am aware there are OSers on here who complain about this thread being 'scaremongering' or over the top. This proves to me that they don't read the whole thread properly, don't see that they can cherry-pick what is releveant to them and don't get that there are many levels of preparedness. (Or that much is tongue in cheek :cool:) There is also the fact that if they don't agree with it, they're not being coerced into doing any of it.

I can give a real-life reason why some prep is a good idea. I live in Morpeth. Yes, you may have heard about the town on the national news yesterday - we had severe floods. Again. Fortunately, we ourselves weren't affected, despite living about 10 yards from the river wall. Others weren't so lucky and had to leave their homes. How many of them had a BOB or emergency plans in place, I wonder?

It's now hit home that, had we been flooded out, we would have been one of those families who had to leave with practically nothing . I have talked to my OH about BOBs and contingency plans, but he is very dismissive of any kind of prep and doesn't even like me buying 'extra' bags of flour, tins or anything else for that matter. This event still hasn't changed his mind, but s*d him, I say what goes here and will prep without his knowledge, or just tell him I'm doing it regardless

Now, in some strange irony, our water has gone off without warning :eek: Luckily, my OH always overfills the kettle, despite my nagging him not to, so there's enough for several cuppas in there, so I'm sorted for now :rotfl:

ETA: Just as I was posting this, the water gurgled back on. I'm not telling the OH, as I've told him to buy a couple of the 5l bottles of water just in case. They can do for the next time, can't they? *need a devil smilie*

grandma247

Betony that is a good post. I would ignore dh too.
Fortunately mine has been on board for some time now.

I read a story about a woman in New Orleans when Katrina was about to strike. She heeded the warnings and got out with her young son but her dh refused to believe it was that going to be that bad. He did survive but had a horrible time. He apologised to her and said he would listen in future because she did the right thing.

2tonsils

Glad you escaped the worst of it Betony! My friend has a gym just down the road from you at Bedlington, but luckily he escaped the worst of the flooding as well.

It's hard when others do not support you on the prep..perhaps you should just pack your own BOB then if you ever have to evacuate he will see how handy the bits and bobs are to you LOL....yes, get the water in, you never know when you might need it.

I told my friends in the UK on facebook that our news in Greece had said that the tail end of a hurricane was heading to the UK...it was on my facebook about a week ago.......and they all laughed for a couple of days saying nothing had happened. Perhaps they will listen to me next time...... I am so sorry for the people who are flooded out and the awful mess they will be cleaning up for months. I hope they are all insured, it doesn't make things right but it helps a little.

I don't think this thread is scaremongering (although I have been accused of that myself lol) and most of us are wise enough to know that the most we have to fear is price rises or floods etc. But there is no way of knowing what kind of **** is going to hit the fan for you.

Living in Greece I have more risk of earthquake and forest fire, our flood risk is usually up in the winter and the price rises are already happening. Zombies seem a pretty low risk, especially this winter when there are no direct flights and the ferries are halved to cut costs. The risk of an armed uprising or civil war are not beyond a possibility with the current atmosphere of doom and gloom and disatisfaction here.

So I am hedging my bets by preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I am ever an optimist...

D&DD

Today has just been one of those days here..

Betony sorry to hear of your troubles I thought I remembered someone posting they lived there.Hopefully the worst of the weather has passed now *crosses fingers*
I wonder if the water going off was to do with the pumping station getting flooded,I remember during the last bad floods there was a problem somewhere with this?

OH has just walked in and wants feeding back later XX

catznine

HJ I didn't read that post as an attack on you, rather that a lot of us are coming to the thread to read it (moths to a flame iyswim) I love dipping in and am finding 2tonsils posts in particular very interesting and informing. I am not panicking either just trying to find new ideas for cutting back and coping on less.