Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

mardatha wrote: »

And the scares re the vote tomorrow are ludicrous. We've had so much scaremongering thrown at us this last few weeks, will serve them right if we all vote YES just to disassociate ourselves from these liars. And yes Oor Gordon was right up there in it

And I would not blame them. I was watching Mock the week a few days ago and Ed Byrne hit it spot on about the negativity of the No campaign was like a jilted partner who said "You're going to leave? You'd be nothing without me!"

I also read somewhere that 88% of independence votes actually voted for independence.

Even if there was a yes vote the scots will be better off without the insolvent banks anyway. Not much will change for a couple of years what ever happens.

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally, having watched some of the tactics being used would be enough, all on its own, to persuade me to say absolutely nowt about which way I was voting and then vote without fear of retribution (thank goodness our forebears had the sense to make sure ballot boxes are secret).

With that, I am wondering if a lot of people are deliberately not saying which way they will vote or maybe even lying and saying they will vote the opposite way to what they actually intend to (cant blame them for protecting themselves on this occasion by doing that) and will then go into the ballot box and think "No-one but no-one can stop me now and I'll never admit to what way I voted but...the champagne is chilling in the fridge for surreptitious celebrating later this week". It would be a bit dependant on which area I lived in as to how honest I felt I could safely be by the look of it.

Possibly the vote isn't as close run a thing as it appears to be. Personally, if I were there (particularly in some areas) I'd lie right now and say I was going to vote Yes, but I wouldn't be...

[Deleted User]

Evening all, interesting reading through the past few days posts and seeing everyones comments. If and probably when things go pear shaped big time there won't be any debating about the rights and wrongs of the situation we find ourselves in, there will be those who sit and expect to be bailed out by TPTB and perhaps they are the ones who will perish first because by the time they come to the realisation that 'they' aren't coming because 'they' are in the same mess the rest of the population will have aquired anything useful and there will not even be pickings left. The way I see things your own responsibility is to help yourself not to expect someone else to tell you what to do, and where to go and then give you anything you need until 'normality' is re-estabilshed. There are some events that you can't do a damned thing to prepare for and then you do what you can and hope for the best but there are so many possibilities that can be considered and contingency plans made for and most of them overlap when it comes to preparing for them so many scenarios will have elements of the same solutions. It doesn't take much to have a store of tinned foods in case there is bad weather and the shops can't get restocked. It doesn't take much to store some bottles of water, it doesn't take much to buy a couple of hot water bottles and a couple of extra charity shop blankets to keep you warm. It doesn't take very much to pack some bits in a car to make sure you have food, drink and warmth should you be caught in snow, stuck on the motorway because of a bad accident or stuck in a city if the trains are out. None of what we do as preppers is hard or difficult we just have a different mindset to most of the population and have taken responsibility for our futures and those of our loved ones. It's a case of prioritising what IS important and not only living for today with no thought of what may happen tomorrow. I think I would rather we were a bit self sufficient in times of difficulty and have the means to stay out of the world for a while so as to NOT be part of the problem. Then when things settle down perhaps have the experience and skills to be part of the rebuilding of whatever society emerges after the event. I'm not greatly expecting things to be 'back to normal' and 'business as usual' any time soon after a big disruptive event that effects the whole nation/world.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

if there was a vote in wales tomorrow, I would vote yes....

mardatha

Well in the end, politicians are a separate breed and I'm not going to get heated about it on here lol. Fuddle, miners are the salt of the earth lol.

GreyQueen

Well said, as always, Lyn.

A lot of what it amuses the world to call prepping in our era is what our not-so-distant ancestors would have called commonsense. Alas, some modern peeps are a tad lacking in this.

An example would be to wear your car instead of a coat, which may be fine if you're going door-to-door and the heating in the car works, but which leaves you in a very bad situation if things go wrong. Or you only have fancy shoes rather than anything you could walk in comfortably.

A Russian woman explained how matters were done in her home city of St Petersburg; ladies went out for evening dates/ parties in their boots and carried their dress shoes in a bag, changing footwear at their destination.

I've seen daft besoms who obviously had this inner dialogue when dressing that day; Okay, there's 2 inches of snow on the ground already on top of ice, more falling right now, weather forecast is even more today and my route will take me up a very steep street. I know - I'll wear my slick-soled stiletto-heeled boots today, they'd be just perfect in these conditions!

And then they fall over and hurt themselves and this is called an accident.

I was amused on that same day to exchange a knowing smile with a stranger, a woman of about the same age. We were dressed like peas in a pod as we'd made the same choices from our respective wardrobes to encounter the snow; full-length black wool coats, scarves, gloves, fun-fur hats and hiking boots on our feet.

Yup, winter is cold, water is wet, heating can fail, water can be cut off with no warning, and if the trucks can't get the just-in-time deliveries to the supermarkets, they might run out of food, which means you'll be running out of food, if you rely on them.

All these things can easily be mitigated against without turning full tin hatter or breaking the bank.

Oh, I think I had something recently from Gooo Oootdoors about those flat butane fuelled stoves at £8 on offer, may still be valid?

RAS

GreyQueen wrote: »

An example would be to wear your car instead of a coat, which may be fine if you're going door-to-door and the heating in the car works, but which leaves you in a very bad situation if things go wrong. Or you only have fancy shoes rather than anything you could walk in comfortably.

It is even scarier when you are wearing high heels, a thin jacket trying to walk to the next junction on the motorway in a foot of recently fallen snow, at night ......... and a gert big police landrover just cruises by. As happened to a friend.

I decided that I was not even going to get to the motorway and did a U-turn at the roundabout (had taken 3 hours to crawl one mile). Avoided the abandoned cars and made it up the hill to the petrol station just before closing. An hour later I made it to friends' house and banged on the door to raise them. That was about 2 miles from work.

[Deleted User]

FUDDLE the calor/camping gas room heaters are perfectly safe to use indoors, it's what they're made for. You can get a special fireguard that actually bolts on to the front of the stove to make sure the kids can't stick fingers in to the flame, the guard still gets hot but limits the chance of actually coming into contact with the actual flame. We got ours from MAKRO when they were on offer many years ago, does your DHs firm have a MAKRO CARD that the staff can use too? if so that's the likeliest source of affordable stoves. the Big gas cylinders are available at hardware stores and you pay quite a lot for the first one but then you only pay for the new gas and exchange the cylinder for another one so after the initial outlay for stove and cylinder running costs are relatively low, Lyn xxx.

nuatha

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

FUDDLE the calor/camping gas room heaters are perfectly safe to use indoors, it's what they're made for. You can get a special fireguard that actually bolts on to the front of the stove to make sure the kids can't stick fingers in to the flame, the guard still gets hot but limits the chance of actually coming into contact with the actual flame. We got ours from MAKRO when they were on offer many years ago, does your DHs firm have a MAKRO CARD that the staff can use too? if so that's the likeliest source of affordable stoves. the Big gas cylinders are available at hardware stores and you pay quite a lot for the first one but then you only pay for the new gas and exchange the cylinder for another one so after the initial outlay for stove and cylinder running costs are relatively low, Lyn xxx.

There's some brands of gas canister that don't charge a deposit, flogas springs to mind, sure there are others as well. They all have the same fittings so are interchangeable with the Calor cylinders. Worth having a spare full canister, if you've the storage space.

jk0

nuatha wrote: »

There's some brands of gas canister that don't charge a deposit, flogas springs to mind, sure there are others as well. They all have the same fittings so are interchangeable with the Calor cylinders. Worth having a spare full canister, if you've the storage space.

I did use Flogas cylinders when I lived in an area without gas as they were about half the refil cost of Calor.

However, now my Calor heater is only for SHTF, I have a Calor cylinder, as I think they would be the last company to go bust if S does hit the F.

Incidentally, my heater came with a free bottle of gas from Calor:

http://www.calor.co.uk/shop/in-the-home/portable-gas-heaters.html