Preparedness for when

annie123

Is the FX channel on freeview?

D&DD I'd love to rummage through you private library when I've finished ready the 128 garden magazines, I've only got 125 to go :eek::rotfl:

thriftwizard

D&DD, have a look at foundationsrevealed.com/ - there seems to be quite a lot of good info on there, most of it free. I did my course at a local sewing school (the new tenants of my old shop, in fact) and for me, it was money well spent although it wasn't cheap; I have two daughters (17 & 20) & a trainee daughter-in-law (also 20) and I didn't want to make any expensive mistakes when it comes to wedding dresses! I've had two friends attempt them & get hopelessly lost with several hundred pounds worth of fabric & lace, and have to call in professionals at vast expense. Better to know roughly where I'm going before I set out...

D&DD

Meme same here I bought the snow shovel and have only had one light sprinkling since! I have lots of rocksalt too but at least we have it in case eh

Thanks Thriftwizard thats a great link will have a good read later

Alison I'll clear you the comfy chair all the rest are filled with heaps of stuff ATM

Its a beautiful day here today but quite cold so dusting off the thermal hat and gloves to walk Rosie then got some tidying up to do,men are so messy :whistle:

The winter clothes have all been freshened up and the thick quilts are on *snuggly* I may even dust off a bit of knitting this week if I have time

SpikyHedgehog

fuddle wrote: »

I was never allowed anything red to eat as a kid incase it had cochineal in it.. my mam thought it was squashed bugs blood that coloured the items. Probably correct somewhere in her logic

We weren't either, becasue we've been vegetarian since I was 2, nor jelly... There's a lovely picture of toddler me being given jelly by grandma with mum looking on with an expression of disgust! This would have either been when mum & dad where planning to go veggie but hadn't quite made the shift, or when mum was trying to explain to grandma all the things that contain meat or meat based stuff.

valk_scot wrote: »

I'm trying to think of the most useless craft I've learned...useless in the SHTF sense anyway. Crepe paper peg dolls? Mug painting? Embelishing felt with sweetie papers?

ETA: Ah AF cous-cous! I was just sitting here thinking about whether I should make baked potatoes to go with the baked ham tonight but no, perfect opportunity to get some of the AF cous-cous out. Thanks!

Batik. I can see a use for pottery (making bowls when there is no more Denby in Debenhams), karate (kicking the zombies out of the way of the Denby so I can grab it all), patchwork and quilting (quilted cases to protect the Denby, or quilted jerkins to protect my ribs from others doing karate), first aid (patching up my ribs after DS1 has practised karate on me) drama (projecting my voice to call for help)... But no real use for batik. I don't think I have my tjanting any more anyway, or I could use that to spray molten wax at the zombies?

Except for keeping spirits up with beautiful work :rotfl:, and that's also where your crepe paper dolls will come in handy. The mug painting will be useful combined with my pottery so people will know who's mug is whose, and the embellished felt will add warmth to the spirits as well as warmth to the body/house.

mardatha wrote: »

Well I didnt mean that really Popps, there are many ways of helping.. You can watch the boards and see who sounds or feels down, and then try to cheer them. You know? Think outwards instead of inwards.

Pops, there are all sorts of ways of helping others - as Mar has said, cheering people up on the boards is great. The other thing I thought about, is you don't often talk about seeing other people?

I go to work 4 days a week, so I see other people there - becasue I work in a urban preschool in an area of deprivation, there are lots of ways I can help other people there, from helping them get spaces in preschool/school/finding toddler groups for them to take babies to; to listening to them talk about the problems their other children are having in school.

Then, I take DS2 to school and pick him up from school, so I talk to other parents at school - there I can help by offering to pick up their child with mine, offering to pass on outgrown school uniform, talking about my experiences with DS1 in school - most of my friends at school don't have older children.

We go to church on Sundays - our church has things on in the week, but that's when I'm at work, so I don't get to them - we go to the 10 o'clock service and stay for coffee, biscuits and chat afterwards. So there I can help people by getting their coffee for them, taking their excess veg from their allotments, listening to them talk about how they got on at the hospital...

There's a theme running through here - a lot of the help isn't physical practical help, but talking and listening. I feel better because I get to meet other people and talk to them, they feel better because they've talked to me.

Because of work, I can't commit to going into school on a regular basis to listen to children read though I did that when the boys were younger. Because of my health, I can't commit to volunteering with the school garden on a regular basis. Because I'm a single parent with a young child with additional needs, I can't give the Scout's committee all the input I'd like to as Chair or Secretary, but I can as an ordinary committee member.

Try not to look at the can'ts but look at the cans!

Thinking about food - a lot of families these days may well cook from scratch, but don't involve the children in cooking - when we get the kids at preschool to make their own sandwiches, they have so much fun, but they're learning a basic life long skill, as well as using their fine motor skills to spread and cut, developing their language as they talk about what they're doing, mathematical awareness of shapes and sizes, personal , social and emotional self-knowledge as they think about what they want on their sandwich and see that it's different from their friends. I could go on (and do at work!).

I think teaching your children to cook is a prepping skill for anyone wanting to start but not sure where to begin - if you have children, that is!

Fifer73

For others that may be interested in amature radio
information on your nearest club will be here
http://www.rsgb.org/clubsandtraining/

I just googled amature radio fife to finf my nearest club, as at the time didnt realise this site was here

I am mainly interested in the operating nights ( which i still have to see as my local club dont do this every week )
I have been told that my yearly membership will be £20 and £1 a week to go into the tea and biscuit kitty.

The foundation licence course gets done over a weekend and i really must do this to understand how all this comes together, cost wise is around £32

It might not be for everyone as most at my local radio club have different interests, operating ( like what i want to get my teeth into ) some do morse code, others are there to build and repair from scrach arials, and other bits of kit etc, and others for the wider communications.

Untill i get my first operating night under my belt, cant really post much more , my foundation course will be mid november as club needs another couple of people ( not just from this club , but local area ) to make it viable to do a group sitting for the foundation course. And again once i have sat this , will post on what its like.

keep up the good work preppers

2tonsils

So pleased that so many on here have commented that they enjoy reading my posts. Thank you for your comments.

We had another night of tremendous storms last night with the continuous lightning and thunder. In the end I found the loud thunder quite soothing and slept like a log...its amazing what you can sleep through if you are warm and cosy. Actually it was a bit too warm, its been very warm and muggy for the last couple of days. In the end I took all the covers off me and enjoyed the cool breeze from the open window and bedroom door. It still feels very stormy and someone told me it will last till Wednesday before it stops raining and returns to sunshine. We saw four trees down on the way home and lots of gravel on the roads from when it flooded so it was pretty dangerous driving even in the car.

Talking about the weather, a friend of mine who does worldwide forecasts tells me there is a good chance of really bad weather hitting the UK from the Atlantic late next week. Has anything been mentioned on your weather forecasts? I will try and find the link if I can get onto my facebook account, but its not looking hopeful as it becomes very hard to access in the storms for some reason. It's much easier to get onto this site for some reason.

We are on a gap between storms at the moment so thought I might try and post on here as it messes with my signal. We had a ride out to have a look at the car boot sale and the new catalogue shop (unusual for any shop here to be open on a Sunday ...so hope they don't get raided for flouting the trading laws which forbid Sunday opening..). The car boot sale was a dead loss as only two stalls were set up. One selling old clothes and computer gadgets and one selling very expensive herbal olive oil and home made orange spirits (3.50 a 300 ml bottle, very expensive!)

We got up this morning to find a small pool of water on the tiled floor near to the radiator and have no idea where it has come from. The radiator has not been yet, there is no sign of a leak anywhere and none was spilled.Have now dried it up and put white kitchen paper down to see if we can spot where it is coming from, but at the moment its a mystery!

Hope we can move back to preparing for SHTF type comments on here now, its getting a bit difficult to follow at times with various diversions.

Personally I am a bit worried by this weird weather we are having, it just should not be this hot at this time of year and the horizontal lightning freaked me out although I am not normally nervous in storms.

This morning I complained of feeling light headed and slightly sick and my OH commented that he was feeling exactly the same way this morning. In the past when we have felt like this Greece has had earthquakes. It's a distinct feeling, very like when you are on a roundabout and it stops and you feel like your brain continues spinning. We both feel fine now so hope it has passed..

Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks and have a lovely week ahead xxx

ab.da54

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

After my divorce I had to move area, away from my friends, away from places I knew. I received the grand total of £11 in benefit when I first left my ex, this was 10 yeas ago & I was 51. I moved to an area that is ok, but has it's moments, lol. Such as when a neighbour set fire to his GF's car as she wouldn't answer the door to him, such as when a dealer knocked on my door by mistake as he thought I'd ordered some blow! It took me 2 years to get a secure but low paid job as I'd worked with my ex & had no work history. I took in lodgers & doggie lodgers to make ends meet, I still do 2 jobs & yes I remarried, hubby is also in a low paid job as he is partially sighted. My ex still has the 6 bed house, holidays in the Caribean & a new car every year. Hubby & I will have to downsize when we retire, but that's life, it isn't fair & it isn't just. But moaning does no good, I've had to pull myself up by my boot straps & get on with life & make the most of it. We are happy, we sit wrapped up in quilts reading, we go to bed early to keep warm, we go for walks along the river which is nearby. We make the best of what we have. I'm not whinging or whining, I'm just having a rant, lol.
Hester

I think this is the case with most people - have an occassional rant then get on with living. Do best to get on with the cards dealt, change where you can and accept where you can't.

A constant negative outlook only drags you down.

fuddle

I heard some mams talk it about snow coming 2tonsils but I've not read nor heard anything official yet, if ever lol

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

I myself am wee, quiet, and ladylike. Never heard and rarely seen.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

2tonsils, I really enjoy reading your posts as well, although I have never been to Corfu itself, I have been to Crete several times and love it. It's deeply-fascinating to read a grounds-eye view of another country. We can all read the big headlines but it is the minutiae of everyday life as it is being lived which we miss out on.

Very interesting about having symptoms related to possible earthquakes. I was reading about the big quake which happened in central Italy a few years ago and how various animals, even amphibians, had behaved strangely for many days prior, even to the point of ponds full of frogs suddenly disappearing. I have only ever experienced one earth tremour strong enough to notice (my bedstead jumped about 1 inch and the fire alarm in the building next door went off) but I am on a gravelly area of a floodplain right beside a river, not on rock, which I imagine would be more counductive.

What I have always had is pressure headaches of a certain distinct kind, like a clamp inside my skull all over my brain at once, which seem to be triggered by changes in barometric pressure as storms approach. When it's really severe, it's accompanied with nausea.

Very much hope that your odd sensations aren't the precursor of earthquakes, or if they are, that they will be very minor ones.

My prepping at the moment is more by way of bringing the allotment into good order to get a fresh start and also getting my h.g. potatoes down from the lottie shed to the bike-shed at my block of flats. This is a small space, mine own, and locked but I don't keep things of great value in there as there have been burglaries. I have to do the tater-transport a bit at a time as only have a pushbike.

I always used to keep my potatoes in paper sacks, nestled in the centre of my wooden allotment shed, well-wrapped in newspapers and old blankets and this worked very well for several consecutive years and they stayed in good condition and were used until the new ones came ready in June.

I got badly-burned in the winter of 2010-2011, however, when we had those terrible hard frosts from the beginning of December, which aren't common this far south in England. The spuds got frosted and then rotted and suppurated in the most disgusting manner. They were blowing bubbles of white froth with accompaning sound effects, it was like a horror movie.

I was so cross with myself for not having anticipated this. I cannot store sacks of spuds in my flat; there is both literally no space unless I parked them on the sofa, and the flat is very warm and they wouldn't keep as well as they do when cooler.

So, pecking away at the food storage issues. A lot of us moderns have never had to consider the mechanics of food storage in the way that the old-timers would have had to esp as fridges and freezers have only been affordable for a couple of generations.

Back in the day (and maybe going forward, who can tell?) if you didn't get your food storage done properly you and your family would be looking at starvation before spring. Sobering thoughts.

On a happier note, I have picked up a hardback copy of Food For Free for £1.50 from the c.s. It's in good condition overall but the dust jacket is ripped to beggary so I shall do the very OS thing of making it a brown-paper wrapper. Illustrations are superb.

There was a time when if you went to anyone's home who was even slightly of the alternative persuasion, you'd be sure to find this book on their shelves. Seemed to be a mandatory text.

OK, time for a bit of luncheon and then off to wrangle with the basics. One allotment writer described having an Inner Saxon Peasant side, and I feel like I have my ancestors looking over my shoulder with approval when I'm digging away.

Laters, GQ x

Butterfly_Brain

I have heard that snow is on its way too

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/forecaster-predicts-brutal-uk-winter-weather-for-2011-2012/

2tonsils this might be helpful on earthquakes

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/