Preparedness for when

Alison_Funnell

thriftwizard - We are quite close to the centre of a smaller city, we have no cable either, too much archaeology to be found round here. Even Time Team have been here twice!

I would love to live in the country. I grew up in a tiny village but for us it is not feasible financially also I am very aware of the issues of power outage, bad weather issues etc. Here we are within walking distance of drs, dentists, hospitals and pharmacies.

As for growing, we are very limited to any greenhouse/poly tunnel size on our plot so as yet we haven't seen the point to one. Not big enough to grow much
in. Not fair seeing as earlier plots have very big ones. Maybe next year if funds allow.

mardatha

I don't mind living remote, I like it and I think need it. I lived in Edinburgh for a bit and felt smothered and very down.. I could live ok without elect, the only thing I'd miss is this laptop and you lot. Washing big items like sheets would be a pain but we'd manage. (wash in the bath and out of the bathroom window to hang on the line, See I have a plan )
Fuddle when you get really into the wartime books it's amazing what you learn. Like as somebody else, said Churchill and the Tories were against rationing, they wanted "rationing by demand". Which = if you can afford it you get it and if you can't then you do without :mad:
And going further back, in WW1 they only introduced rationing when they found that munition factory workers were taking too many days off and losing production because they were faint and ill from hunger. There were some good men in govt in wartime, I think Lord Woolton must've been decent, and Nye Bevin.
But the big huge difference then was that politicians sometimes had a real job before they got into parliament - now none of them have. They haven't ever worked in a rotten job for a bad boss or been down to a totally empty purse or wallet, not ever in their lives.

Alison_Funnell

PRINCESSX87 - Hi. We have a limited income (under £8K), no benefits, OH has work but it is a zero hours contract so it is on an as and when basis. There are 3 adults (DD student living at home so gets no additional funding...) and occasional this goes up to 4 or 5 when mum and the DD boyfriend are about. Plus the excess of [STRIKE]cats[/STRIKE] z scarers! 8 in all. :rotfl:

PRINCESSX87

Alison_Funnell wrote: »

PRINCESSX87 - Hi. We have a limited income (under £8K), no benefits, OH has work but it is a zero hours contract so it is on an as and when basis. There are 3 adults (DD student living at home so gets no additional funding...) and occasional this goes up to 4 or 5 when mum and the DD boyfriend are about. Plus the excess of [STRIKE]cats[/STRIKE] z scarers! 8 in all. :rotfl:

OMG! :eek: How do you manage? Some days i struggle to even get out of bed. I've also forgot to add, I have two kitties & 2 greedy piggy dogs that could eat me out of house & home.

Alison_Funnell

No matter what, you have to manage, to be honest.

We are lucky that we have no mortgage or rent - in a nut shell.

We have only been like this for the past year when OH was made redundent/took an offer from his former firm. Gave us a way to pay off the mortgage. 3 years ago I was signed off from work (work related depression) and then decided for my on welfare to not go back. If he gets work this adds to the 'pension' he recieves but despite promises it is very sparodic and sparce. :cool:

This saves us money though as we no longer travel to work, buy work clothes or buy anywhere near the takeaways etc because we were too past it to cook!

I definitely have days when I am in the mood for only my quilt but I can never tell if it is because I am ill (like yesterday), my insomnia is playing up, depression, or just a lazy mare (the latter is highly likely!:o:o).

I do suspect we could be slowly sliding in to financial oblivion,:eek: I need to tackle that in a week or two when lurgy has passed and Mr F has got all his meds etc sorted.

The cats are essential though an expense. The amount of fun, chaos and cuddles they create no matter how awful we look etc makes them worth while.:heartpuls

maryb

OOH Caterina your mention of Boris reintroducing the 60 plus free travel prompted me to go and check and applications open tomorrow!! The scheme starts on 1 November. I've still got 18 months to go but DH is eligible already.

the_cake

thriftwizard wrote: »

I think there's something that those who live in urban or suburban situations often miss when they're incredulous at some of the preps some of us outside the major population centres make, which is that we are much more vulnerable to disruption in the supply networks. If you live somewhere with lots of supermarkets & medical centres within walking distance & good public transport links, you probably don't need to worry too much about fuel shortages or food stocks unless things have gone very seriously awry. But for those of us who know that our already-infrequent buses will be cut first, whose little shops are last on the supplier's lists, whose doctors & teachers may not be able to get to work if their home village is cut off (which happens every year, even here in the South) whose broadband signals & gas pressure are low to start with, need to be a bit more on the ball.

I've had discussions with people who cannot understand why we don't just switch to cable when our internet connection isn't reliable & is more expensive than theirs; the fact is that there is no cable out here & we've been told there never will be - it's not economic to run it this far (5 miles) out of the city centre. And the last village my brother lived in simply didn't have any mobile phone signal worth mentioning; ours is quite dodgy. The vast majority of people live in the cities & quite rightly, if anything serious should ever happen, that's where the relief efforts will be concentrated; the rest of us have to be prepared to look after ourselves, for a while at least.

There are plenty of compensations; fresh air, bigger gardens, low crime rates, and we're surrounded by potential food for most of the year if you know what you're looking for & how to deal with it. BUT we all know we're on our own when things come unstuck, and it'd be downright irresponsible not to be able to fend for ourselves do what we can to free up resources for those most in need.

Quite agree with all of the above! We are 12 miles from the nearest supermarket, 6 from a GP, and the same from a small food shop. Our internet connection is horribly slow, and we had a powercut for 4 days a few winters back. (Did get a bit of compensation money, but it was still quite a challenge.) We are also 12 miles from the nearest police station, and know that if we needed them quick, it would not be ... we have a small fire station staffed by (wonderful) retained (is that the right word?) firemen about 6 miles away; when our neighbour had a big chimney fire last winter they arrived in about 10 minutes, but watching the flames shooting out the top of her chimney and helping her evacuate her animals it felt like a very long time indeed. Our lanes are never gritted when it snows, and often flood, blocking both routes to the main road (a mile and a half). These are a few of the reasons I prep; the other main one being that OH and I are self-employed and have incomes which swing from the OK to the ridiculous, and I worry about the endlessly rising food prices. We and nearly all our neighbours keep a variety of animals, and all grow fruit and veg. with varying degrees of enthusiasm and skill! On the upside, it's really friendly, peaceful, generally very safe, and we have lots of storage space.....
This thread is wonderful, swings along with all sorts of helpful and useful advice, sometimes get a bit skittish as we all have different ways of coping with the stresses and strains of life, but always a great resource. Thank you all! xxx the cake xxx

Lotus-eater

GreyQueen wrote: »

Wars shake things up in more ways than the obvious, such as the popular song in America about how will you keep them (meaning black people) down on the farm now that they've seen Paris?

That was nothing to do with black people. It was a WW1 song written about the young farm boys from all over the USA.

catznine

Going back to Churchill - I read somewhere that when he was confronted with a weeks worth of rations for 1 person, he assumed it was for 1 day and thought it just about right! :rotfl:

Mind you he did indeed pull together the country when we needed it! He was a Liberal before crossing the floor to be a Conservative! My Gran was a Labour councillor and worked hard to get Labour into power after the war, she really cared about young families and set up a welfare clinic in the area, although her vote was cancelled out really as Grandad still voted Conservative and so both posters were on display in their windows:o:).

My daughter thinks Boris should be in charge of the country, she lives in London and says he has done so much good for Londoners!

My prepping at the moment is for my dental treatment (coming up soon) so stocking up on soft foods (App Foods have large bags of vegetarian orange jelly crystals in and also angel delight type mixes), also stocked up on patchwork supplies (duvet covers) from our local charity shop. Around here the Salvation Army shop has the best prices and it is located right next to where my sewing/knitting groups meet!:j
I am hoping that keeping busy will take my mind off the pain!:(

I can't believe the latest about allotment holders being blamed for the potato blight! :eek: Stupid man! Makes me more determined to get my veg patches going again next year! I had to forgo gardening this year after injuring ligaments in my foot, couldn't even stand on it for a long time! It seems to have been a good year not to garden after what I have read on here!

Right better get on, (((hugs))) to those that could use one and a big hello to all the newbies!

Catz x

Lavandula

This is very useful:

http://www.p2snetwork.co.uk/psclite.html