Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

pineapple wrote: »

The woman at the end has form for venturing out in her car when the rest of us are playing safe. She invariably comes to grief then plays the little woman expecting the usual 'good neighbours' to come to her rescue.
I saw her slithering past this morning and promptly closed my Hilda Ogden nets.
I am not going out. Repeats: I am not going out!
No more Mrs Nice Guy - could be my new sig line

Too right. You'll only encourage her to keep on doing silly things and with about two more weeks of this predicted, it'll grow stale quickly.

I cat-footed around the city centre, returned SuperGran's overdue lib book and got some of my own, inc How to Live Off Grid by Nick Rosen. I've read it before but I think it's interesting enough to read again.

There's no more snow expected here until tomorrow, according to the weather wallahs, which I'll translate as going to start a blizzard any moment. Very overcast but prolly just above freezing point. I have everything I need and quite a lot of stuff I don't need at all but thoroughly-enjoy, so all is well with me.

Can't recall who it is that's low on washing powder, but I did read somewhere that the largest ingredient of commercial laundry powers is actually washing soda aka soda crystals (sodium carbonate dehydrate). According to the packet you can add this to laundry detergent to boost the cleaning power but I was wondering if, in a pinch, you could use it on its own?

Anyway, I'm sure someone old-stylish will have tried it. HTH.

ETA thriftwizard, teachers ain't what they used to be, that's for sure. The ones I encountered in the seventies were bywords for commonsense and probity and (although we'd never have dared imagine them) sensible knickers, I suspect.

Daft little boogers, living in the sticks and expecting to be able to access all amenities, at all times, regardless of the weather.

missrlr

thriftwizard wrote: »

If you want to live in glorious seclusion, surrounded by "wildife" (i.e. things your financier hubby likes to shoot, under other circumstances) you have to be prepared!

I'd be telling them to get out and provide supper then, OS MSE right there!

Also have lots of stuff needed and lots that is just to be enjoyed :j

grandma247

I keep washing soda and tablets of smart price soap in just in case to either make laundry gloop or powdered laundry wash.

2tonsils

Glad to hear you are all doing well in the snow and ice and well done to the 'newbies' for putting their prepping into action before the SHTF!

Suffering from shock here as we had the first day of sunshine for weeks...granted, there were horrible black clouds over the distant mountains and they were scary.....but it dried up, the wind dropped and it got to 14 in the shade and 18 in the sun. I threw open all the windows and doors and threw myself into spring cleaning. I even opened the shutters, but I suspect I might have to nip out and shut them later before the gale force 9 wind arrives and minus four degrees!

Still, it was a lovely day, the house is aired and I got two loads of washing done and mostly dried. Great stuff!

One of my weather friends told me we may well have a deep freeze and very bad storms coming our way so I am enjoying the odd nice hour while we have it!

The temperature keeps changing outside during the night and you can feel it even when you are in bed....too hot one minute and ducking under the covers the next. My sister sent me some woolly bed socks and they are great but I wake up too hot and have to take them off LOL

We can't use sat nav here as the magnetic influence on this island sends them haywire, so they don't hire them out to tourists. Even the maps are unreliable, the only one that has correct distances and all the places on is a hand drawn map produced by a hiker who recorded them all accurately by walking between villages and up and down mountains.

Stay warm and safe folks xxxxx

THIRZAH

I keep a "spare" of essentials like soap powder, washing up liquid, flour, tea etc. As soon as I open a new packet I add it to my shopping list so I rarely run out of anything.It took a while to get in the habit of doing this but it's been worth it.

DD informs me that she and SIL are planning to do their weeks shop this evening. With snow forecast for their area tomorrow I hope there's something left in the supermarket!

BigMummaF

boultdj wrote: »

My crap-nav was an unwanted birthday present by a gadget mad Dad & OH, told the pair of 'em I'd rather use a map[goes off grubblin' how THEY! never listen to me] ....

I hear you Sista :mad: One year I asked for a decent jack as I was motoring a fair few miles every week & a good bit of it was through the back of beyond.When it came to the big day, I had book. A beautiful, coffee-table type book I'll admit, but not even a diagram of how to change a ruddy tyre so a BIG help


The bacon is lust right for me--falling apart --but good taste. I used me nuddle too & threw some diced yellow pepper, parsnip, cougette & celery into the liquor along with driea pinch sage & coupla handfuls of red lentils I fast boiled on the stove. I left the SC on low for about 4hrs so it'll taste as good as it smells as a soup tomorrow. My SC & soup repertoire is extremely sparse, so if this does come good, you'll hear the cheers from Space :rotfl:

siegemode

elaine24, Wow. you sound so organised well done you.
GreyQueen; love the idea with the maps thank you. I shall be getting some sticky back plastic (always makes me think of blue peter) next time we venture out. I absolutely hate sat nav things with a passion. It makes me so angry how people have come to rely on them and ditched maps. I don't feel comfortable with their tracking abilities either. No wonder the younger generation are so bad at general geography. I heard recently how a friend of a friend had to book into a hotel as they were away from home when their sat nav broke and couldn't find theier way home and couldn't read a map and daren't ask anyone. They had to be met and lead home about 70 miles :eek:
I have various opinions on the reliance of technology these days but would be branded a conspiracy nut by most.

craigywv;58728089]glad you didntlaugh at my buying stuff off myself meansalot knowing i not totally crackers, [/QUOTE]

Sounds a great idea, but not sure if I am organised enough to see it through but will try it.

Still waiting for proper snow here. Having prepared I feel strangely relieved but slightly disapppointed. We got such a light dusting it seems to have virtually melted and gives mother the perfect excuse to accuse me of being alarmist after I warned her to be prepared.

Laptop crashed again yesterday and although it is back up and running now I'm starting to worry if our security is comprimised. We have norton 360 and all scans have found nout but not sure if I totally trust it. Will now copy all passwords in book so that if problems persist that I will not be so lost when using the playbook. Also going to copy all bookmarks.
Next job fix printer and start folder as suggested by GQ. Another of my pet hates is kindles. I know they are useful to some but I fear that so much will be lost if people stop buying books. In a shtf senario how good will they be without power.

missrlr

Ooh. Soup sounds scrummy
Need to get a skedaddle on to sort out myself for staff do tonight but have to dog duty before that!

siegemode

Have a couple of boxes of tins in the shed including about 50 of heinz bb that were free with vouchers prior to Dec. No room in house, do you think they will be ok in such low temps ?

thriftwizard

siegemode wrote: »

Have a couple of boxes of tins in the shed including about 50 of heinz bb that were free with vouchers prior to Dec. No room in house, do you think they will be ok in such low temps ?

I'm sure they'll be fine, unless you are a whole lot colder where you are than we are, just inland from the South Coast. I've kept tinned stuff out in my garage for years & nothing has come to grief yet. But I remember quite clearly that our host in Oklahoma also keeps tinned food out in his garage, and whilst OK isn't exactly far north, they do get ice storms & much more extreme temperatures than we do.