Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Confuzzled wrote: »

in this country it often is, in the states it's normally something that might look a bit like dried
btw, burning bay leaves smells a lot like waccy baccy smell, i had a lot of pagan friends that used it for purification purposes (bay leaves!) i noted this as i personally like the smell, just not the effect of waccy baccy

My neighbours regularly partake of the weed, obviously not understanding that it's so pungent that the reek escapes their flats, even with doors and windows closed.

I don't particualrly object to the regular stuff wafting about but skunk gives me a splitting headache so I feel a bit hard done-by if I'm minding my business at home and getting a sore head from somebody's drug-use on the floors above.

Well, yesterday was a lovely example of a mid-January day; weather was chilly but sunny, early frost but I times my gardening to be up there 12 ish til 3 ish so had the best of the day. Saw a kestrel hunting the site and stooping on prey and making other birdies nervous. Well, except the gulls, who I think are probably the louts of the sky and just face down the hawks. And I disturbed a wee froggie, so cute.

Today has a flat grey-white sky, no frost, looks like it could be up to something but not sure what. I think if it doesn't do something unpleasant, I'll head lottiewards in the afternoon.

Got to keep pecking away at the ground to be ready to sow. Already have my onion sets (£land) and will be buying seed spuds mid-Feb as usual.

siegemode, I know where you're coming from about trying to suggest loved ones or dear friends/neighbours get a few preps in. A lot of people I know only have a few days' worth of supplies by them and would be majorly-inconvenienced by disrupted deliveries due to serious snowfall.

Yet they can't seem to join the dots. I think it's because so many of us haven't seen a bad winter for a long time that we've become complacent. My parents shop 2-3 times a week for bread and milk, adding other items from Aldi/ the indy butchers as needed.

Mum is a good baker but tends to make cakes and my suggestion that having a little breadflour and dried yeast at home in case the supermarket is breadless fell on stony ground. Their household of 3 uses 10 loaves a week, approx 1.5 per day, so even 2-3 breadless days would be a PITA. Got nowhere with that one, other than jesting about baking cakes if it got really bad..........:rotfl:

Ach well, you can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead, as the immortal Stan Laurel put it.

pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

My neighbours regularly partake of the weed, obviously not understanding that it's so pungent that the reek escapes their flats, even with doors and windows closed.

I actually quite like the smell and do my best to stand downwind of any emissions - inhaling deeply :rotfl:.
Sky News this morning had riveting footage of blokes shovelling grit into a grit wagon. Only in the UK eh? It was accompanied by the usual platitudes about how well stocked and prepared we are. Which almost guarantees that we will be treated to the usual scenes of transport chaos as soon as the first centimetre falls.
Not to diss the severe weather warnings - though it sounds like the second tranche will be the one to watch. But we all know that just an inch or so will of itself have a devastating effect - so heaven help us

[Deleted User]

Morning all, or is it afternoon yet? Re the encouraging others to be prepared it is really difficult to convince most folks that there will ever be a need for it. I think it is incomprehensible to most people that the infrastructure actually could fail in any way and that includes the supermarkets failing to supply every want and need. We are so used to being told by TPTB what to do, what not to do, what to eat, what not to eat, what to say, what is unacceptable to say even what to believe in some cases. I am afraid I don't have blind faith in 'They' will fix it, or 'They' would never let that happen, we would get help if it got to that situation or any other cliches you can name. This is probably because I'm an oldie and have seen what happens when things go awry, I have vivid memories of the 3 day week in the 70s and all the problems that came with that. I am not scared of stuff happening, I like to be in charge of my life to some extent and to do so I make contingency plans for all sorts of things, including food being not as readily available, there being problems with the power or water supply, a fierce winter period keeping the roads closed. Just because you don't think it will happen doesn't necessarily mean it won't. Better safe than sorry is me!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.

pineapple

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I make contingency plans for all sorts of things, including food being not as readily available, there being problems with the power or water supply, a fierce winter period keeping the roads closed. Just because you don't think it will happen doesn't necessarily mean it won't.

When we had that prolonged cold spell 2 or 3 winters back and disruption in supplies, I can remember fisticuffs almost breaking out at the local shop as people tried to nab the last onion. Yes it was the only onion in the village... :huh:

missrlr

We live near possibly the worlds biggest MrT not that far from a major motorway and the scenes of aggression and locust-like behaviour were frankly gobsmacking due to 2 lorry deliveries not getting through, as they couldn't leave their depot to get to us!

Confuzzled

pineapple wrote: »

When we had that prolonged cold spell 2 or 3 winters back and disruption in supplies, I can remember fisticuffs almost breaking out at the local shop as people tried to nab the last onion. Yes it was the only onion in the village... :huh:

i don't suppose it was grabbed by *puts on her best over the top welsh accent* the only gay in the village? :rotfl: sorry, i have visions of daffyd in his overfilled latex clothing slapping away hands so he can have it all to himself :rotfl:

in all seriousness though, even though i'm only in my early 40's i think i've been fortunate enough to have really really paid attention growing up. i was treated like an adult, surrounded by adults and soon figured out i had to think like adults if i wanted to get by ok.

sadly i was profoundly disappointed at a young age and that coupled with poverty taught me a few hard life lessons very young.

mind you they're serving me well now. i only had a brief period of about 5 years after i got out on my own where i was a spendthrift, after that i soon wisened up to being resourceful with money, time and resources. part of it was due to once again, being poor but part of me delighted in the fact that by being clever i could be poor but still have most of the things i really wanted.

so while it was carp at the time growing up, i guess i wouldn't trade it for the world now. thankfully my daughter has been raised this way, i certainly wasn't which is probably why i had that 5 year spending spree

she's incredibly practical, makes me so proud! i always aimed for her to do it 'my way' because it is sensible and makes life easier rather than having to have it forced upon her sometime down the road as i've felt something big coming since she was just a baby.

i feel sorry for those that were raised to be wanton in spending and using resources, their lives will be hit very very hard as it all crumbles around us all, physically we'll all suffer but how do you survive if you can't deal with it mentally as i fear many will not be able to do

mind you that sympathy only extends as far as having a moments pity. if they want anything else from me they can bloody well be useful and get on with it like i do :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

MiddyMum

*Subscribing*

katieclampet

I have also noticed that many people are not interested in prepping, even to the extent of having a few extra tins and a couple of bottles of water in the cupboard. My nearest and dearest have small store cupboards with everything necessary to keep them going for a couple of weeks, if bad weather etc hit. I have menetioned prepping to friends and colleagues and just been met by blank looks.

I have also noticed that it is sometimes those that could do with it the most, are least likely to take an interest in money saving. I have a dear cousin, who is up to her eyes in debt, has fancy house, car, loads of holidays and up to the minute electronic gadgets. She constantly moans about her debt.

I used to be really supportive, pointing her in the direction of MSE, offering her advice and trying to help her cut back and pay off her debt, but she wasnt interested in the slightest. She still has a lot of debt, moans regularily but I just nod and look sympathetic.

She often says to me "Its alright for you".
She has a bigger house, better car, earns twice as much as me. I have stopped explaining how I live relatively comfortably on a much smaller income.

I think prepping and money saving is a bit of a mind set thing, and until someone has their "light bulb" moment, you cant do much to help them.

katie

ps really cold today, very grateful for my £3 primarni theramal tights!

ALIBOBSY

I know our members in Scotland will be getting snow, but out of interest who else has got it?

Here in lancashire its been snowing for about an hour, but not sure its big enough to stick. As other posters said the second winter blast due at the end of the months looks to be a biggy.

Toilet decided to start playing up today with water just pouring straight into the bowl and the tank not filling. OH had a mess but decided it needed a new "part" inside-don't ask. Its one of those new type systems with the weird new type of ballcock etc. So £20 of new parts and an hour of no water later its sorted.

Only you guys on here would understand this-OH popped into asda on his way back with the toilet parts, for a few bits and spotted reduced sun cream so bought some for the stores lol. Anyone other than you guys would be scratching their heads at buying sun cream on a day like today, but £1 a bottle can't be turned down :money:.

I have a couple of citrus plants in the greenhouse and they were ok till this last blast of cold. I wanted to keep them cool and make them hardy (the varities were supposed to be good to minus 5), but they are looking a bit sad now. Brought them into the cool, but much warmer than greenhouse, front porch. Think they will have to stay in now till Easterish.

Just off to bang my bread in the oven and prep the meatballs for tea.

Ali x

GreyQueen

Welcome in, MiddysMum.

Mrs LW, I can remember the 1970s tolerably-well, was in secondary school well before the end of it. Some things stick by you, like images on the TV of rubbish piled for weeks in the streets and of refrigerated lorries holding the bodies of the deceased, as the gravediggers were on strike.

And the power went on and off very frequently, as I recall, and there were shortages of all sorts of things. Mum enjoyed the 3 day week bar the 3-day pay packet.

I've also talked to Dad who was a farm worker in the severe winter of 62-63 and about how crops were actually frozen into the ground and couldn't be lifted and sent to market. In his garden, he's dug up root veg with a bliddy pick-axe because te ground was too hard for a spade or a fork.

Read a wartime memoir and this lady said it was very hard to get onions, and they're such a staple of most dishes, that this caused them to be very valuable. She'd even seen onions taken as a present for a new baby and the parents being delighted.

I think modern society is incredibly vulnerable. We have a predominantly urban population with no idea how to do so many things, even elementary cooking is uncharted territory to a lot of people. I had a tradesman in my flat before Xmas who told me that a lot of the homes he visits don't even have a cooker and that the residents brag on it. They eat takeaway and the odd ping dinner.

Our supply chains are global for food and many other items; I've know building projects held up in recent years because they couldn't get the steel.

Imagine a few things happening at the same time; a flu epidemic, an Iclendic volcano chucking ash across most of Europe. Or Vesuvius blowing, gawd help the Italians. Add into the disaster climatic effects causing poor harvests around the world. Countries which export staple crops could easily ban those if their own popluations were starving and the ruling elites feared they'd be toppled if the food went abroad.

I work for an LA and year after year of cost-cutting has left some "departments" consisting of one or two people. Who are as prone as the rest of humanity to sickness. We struggle to cope with the consequences of one stormy night, never mind a real SHTF situation.

I think a lot of people are holding a blind faith in someone called They who will make all the bad things go away. We have rules of engagement in this country which mean that certain people have priority claim on certain essential resources, but they can only be allocated to the point where they run out.

My city has plenty of times when it has zero emergency accomodation for people who have to be housed under homelessness legislation whilst their cases are investigated. Zero, nada, zilch. So, if you're one of those throwing yourself on our doorstep, your bed might be across 3 county lines.

That's just one example. So, I would say to anyone who is wondering Why bother to prep because They will take care of me, think again, or risk having a very rude awakening somewhere down the line.