Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

I lived in Scotland in the 1980s for 5 years and have vivid memories of both the 1987 general elections and the poll tax debacle, which I was busily involved in opposing.

One thing that disgusted everyone about the '87 election was that every single Tory in Scotland lost their seat but nothing changed; Scotland was still ruled by Tories from the Scottish Office. That's fundamentally undemocratic - your vote counts for nowt. Abominable.

I've been talking to friends and colleagues and acquaintances who are part of the large number of English-resident Scots. Some are absolutely bliddy furious that they don't get to have a vote today and some are indifferent to the whole matter. One woman I know, married to a Scotsman for 40+ years, is rueful about how her MIL sneeringly refers to her to this day - Thut Unglush Wumman. Clearly no love lost there, then!

I would always want to live in a world where your birthplace and what nationality is printed on your passport is as irrelevent as your skin tone and facial features in determining how your fellow human beans treat you.

Feeling a touch thoughtful today, wondering what shape my country will have tomorrow, and what it will mean for those of us who live in the varous parts of GB and who may find ourselves living in different countries shortly.

Well, time to get my gardening duds on and head up to the allotment to show some cold steel to various weeds and any slugs I can catch slithering about their business. Whatever the politics of the world does, land will be tilled, fish will be fished, dinners will be cooked and family life will continue as per normal.

[Deleted User]

pm2326 wrote: »

I have a gas boiler but cooking and fire are electric.

Doesn't the gas boiler also require electricity to operate the control system?

Most do.

As for tea-lights, matches and lighters, GQ is right.

One tea-light is as good as useless for lighting, as I found out during the first power cut we suffered in the 70s, when the whole family were gathered around a single tea-light.

As for matches, one of the £stores (£world if memory serves) sells a multipack of 4x240 K TWO brand matches.

Likewise, the £stores sell disposable lighters in packs of as much as 6, and refillable lighters in packs of 2.

£world also sell Zippo type petrol lighters singly.

thriftwizard

Back from a day-long trip up to The Smoke with DD2 yesterday, and in thoughtful mode: long spiel warning!

The coach passed through parts of London we lived in 30 years ago, virtually unrecognisable now. Little old blocks of flats & houses have been replaced by vast buildings with glass walls, clearly lived & worked in by people with serious "lifestyles" and carefully-placed minimalist designer furniture, and they're all out there on the streets, teetering around in 6" heels & pencil skirts or running to the gym, earphones in & sports drink in hand, completely disconnected from the world. Not just the youngsters, either, though I don't think I saw anyone older than me (mid-50s) but maybe they're just all in better shape! Mind you, I managed to tramp the halls of the British Museum & Camden's assorted boot shops & markets for 9 hours without flagging; 4 short sit-downs on either the Tube or to eat, then 19 y.o. Madam was off again!

I'm not holding any candles for many of those old flats & houses; various friends lived in some of them, and they were often damp, draughty & insanitary, and you really wouldn't want to eat anything grown in the dark, soot-covered gardens, always supposing that anything but rhubarb would grow. But the new places don't seem to have any community feel to them at all; apart from the weather, you could be downtown in any city anywhere in the world, surrounded by people speaking any language, which doesn't matter because you're not about to try to communicate with them face-to-face anyway. Everything does look brighter & cleaner & almost scarily professional, but also faceless & somehow a bit like an ant-heap, in that individuals don't matter & individuality might even be a bit threatening. There was life-as-we-know-it going on outside the pubs, but it all looked work-related. Mind you, we were of course just travelling on a main road & didn't see a lot of the back streets.

I suppose it just reinforced my feeling that city life is not for me. I have no doubt that in a SHTF situation, any support & resources available would be withdrawn from us bumpkins & concentrated on the cities, but I can't for the life of me see how life there, long-term, is sustainable, and whilst I can see the glamour, I'd never feel safe relying so totally on an extensive & untested support system that's so completely outside my control. I'd also worry that those glass-fronted flats, whilst beautifully light & spacious-looking, would be very difficult to heat or cool without external power, and probably don't have a lot of storage. And one building we passed, which hasn't been there all that long, shaped almost like a mushroom, with the top much wider than the base, had concrete clearly spalling off the supporting struts at the base, which then run through the walls & up the inside. I'd not be happy in that one. And don't look closely at the underside of the Hammersmith flyover; our coach was stuck under there for 10 minutes & the cracks are clearly visible. That said, they are working on them, as they have been for the last few years!

However, I suppose Nell Gwyn or Samuel Pepys would have been surprised to see what London looked like 25 years after they'd left it. And it has endured and thrived despite things like the Fire & the Blitz. Maybe I'm daft to worry; there's no prospect of me ever going back, but I think Madam would move up there like a shot, given half a chance, and live in a glasshouse and not throw stones...

pm2326

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Doesn't the gas boiler also require electricity to operate the control system?

Most do.

As for tea-lights, matches and lighters, GQ is right.

One tea-light is as good as useless for lighting, as I found out during the first power cut we suffered in the 70s, when the whole family were gathered around a single tea-light.

As for matches, one of the £stores (£world if memory serves) sells a multipack of 4x240 K TWO brand matches.

Likewise, the £stores sell disposable lighters in packs of as much as 6, and refillable lighters in packs of 2.


£world also sell Zippo type petrol lighters singly.

yep boiler needs electric...was just explaining my situation apologies i didnt make that bit clear.

as for candles i akso have a small stash of pillar candles which i intend to expand on if i see them in cs. i also have one of those gas lighters + refills from the £1 shop.

[Deleted User]

I wonder if the real difference between those who prep and those who do not is the lives and experiences we've had to deal with as individuals? If you've had an experience of life where you have never had anything happen that is disruptive and have been successful at school and work and are from a stable and supportive family and in a stable and contented relationship with no financial worries them the idea of preparing for anything is ludicrous, why should anything happen to pierce your own bubble? Life would be seen as unchanging and safe and unless you ever experienced difficulties would continue (in your mind) that way forever.

Those of us who have experience of hardship, unhappiness, turbulent family lives, broken relationships, disruptive events will naturally see things very differently and have the idea that being prepared to help yourself is a much better idea than assuming that life would always be rosy and happy, because we know that it isn't always from personal experience.

Prepping seems to be only common sense in these uncertain times, the world is an unpredictable place, the weather is also becoming more extreme and weather events, very often out of the blue, can mean you may have only your resources and ingenuity to rely on if you have problems to deal with. Social unrest, while not frequent, does happen and is very disruptive to areas where it occurs, potential terror acts also out of the blue need to be taken into your preps and you can't assume it will never happen to you.

Being prepared isn't necessarily having all the survival gear and stores and alterative heating, cooking and lighting equipment and the right clothing and footware and a big knife and a rifle, it's more being aware of what might happen, hoping that it doesn't happen but being prepared to deal with it if it does. Actually thinking through what you would/could do to get safely through events that are out of your control is such an easy thing to do, it needs a different thinking head to the everyday one, it needs to become habit to look for the exit wherever you are, work out an 'out' route from wherever you are, decide on a safe place to aim for if you know of one and if you don't, then find one, have a contingency plan for everything you do at home or out and about. I can't guarantee it will keep you safe but it will most certainly give you a better chance than living your life in blissful oblivion!

GreyQueen

Ooohh, have been driven indoors by the heat, it's a scorcher out there today, perfect early autumn weather; flawless blue sky with leaves starting to show autumnal colours and a few leaves starting to drop. Too hot to garden once you got past midday.

thriftwizard, wow, sound like Lunnon Town - which I avoid like the plague - is turning into something even more adrift from the rest of the country. I wouldn't like to live in a glass house/ glass apartment, I even look askance at French doors as I consider them a security risk. Clearly reliant on a lot of inputs there, from heat to perhaps even air con, not the best architectural choice, IMO.

Yes, in a crisis, things like bridges/ tunnels/overpasses would be very vulnerable to lack of maintenance, as would water works and dams. Lots of things require regular inspection to identify problems before the become catastrophic failures. In a crisis, things like that would be unlikely to happen and things could start to unravel.

[Deleted User]

The K TWO matches I mentioned, are currently in £land, at 3 boxes (720 matches) for £1.

They also have Bull Brand lighters (disposable and flint operated) at 6 for £1.

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Being prepared isn't necessarily having all the survival gear and stores and alterative heating, cooking and lighting equipment and the right clothing and footware and a big knife and a rifle, it's more being aware of what might happen, hoping that it doesn't happen but being prepared to deal with it if it does. Actually thinking through what you would/could do to get safely through events that are out of your control is such an easy thing to do, it needs a different thinking head to the everyday one, it needs to become habit to look for the exit wherever you are, work out an 'out' route from wherever you are, decide on a safe place to aim for if you know of one and if you don't, then find one, have a contingency plan for everything you do at home or out and about. I can't guarantee it will keep you safe but it will most certainly give you a better chance than living your life in blissful oblivion!

Also having the gear is no use if you do not know how to use it. So practice starting a fire with a fire steel if that is what you have planned on. Personally I do not plan on bugging out but will be making plans around things that I think are most likely. Though I will start to load up my BOB with weights to get used to walking distances with it. I might cheat and collect my shopping in it, and as it is a 12 km walk to and from the nearest big supermarket it will be good training as well.

Butterfly_Brain

How's this for shtf toilet
http://thehomesteadsurvival.com/emergency-sanitation-porta-potty-toilet/

mardatha

Grey and drizzly up here GQ.