Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Molly41 wrote: »

She sounds like a modern day version of Miss Marple:T:T:T

She is. She's been involved in community/police activities for donkey's years. She's watched some of 'em grow up from uniforms to plainclothes. It can get a bit mental down at the Towers (we have a region-wide rep among the Polis as a sin bin).

A not-untypical situation is that SuperGran goes out to the bins and a running man charges by and is closely followed by another running man, recognised by SG as the plod in mufti. Quick gasp of Whichwaydidhego? and she points in the right direction. You wouldn't do that if it was Joe Anybody chasing.

They bring newbie police officers down here on orientation exercises, I've seen it many a time. Polis grumble this place is a maze and you have to know your way around it or they'd chase someone inside and then lose them. One day we even had two store security officers chase a tealeaf down from the precinct and that's a goodly run. They got him, too. :rotfl:

I don't bother with TV, live in a soap opera a lot of the time.

[Deleted User]

VANOONOO Hugs, you will become used to the fact that she isn't with you any longer, it is a very gradual happening and one day you'll have a happy memory and it won't hurt quite so much and then you'll have a memory that makes you smile but it's such early days and it's not wrong to grieve pet, be easy on yourselves, it's OK to be sad!

My storeroom is the room over the garage, it's too cold to use as a bedroom but just perfect for storage of food. We've shelved it entirely and have floor space for bigger items that won't go up into the loft like the big tower fan and an armchair. It works for us.

Did anyone see the news item this morning regarding the power supply in the future? If they are taking coal and oil powered generating stations out of commission 3 years early in 2015 and not making adequate provision for replacing them until after 2020 we might be in for interesting times. My first instinct ws to think of getting some really top rate solar lamps, DH's was to buy a good solar charger and some rechargable batteries. We are also going to try and find a really good quality reliable wind up radio. The little one we have has only ever been for emergency use (although I must say I do use it indoors as it has a solar panel on top and if I leave it on the windowsill in the sun it stays charged) and if we have power outs the TV, which we do watch will be out of action. I still like to have contact with the media and a good radio would give us that and music with better sound reproduction that my little one. We are trying to work out how to make a good light from a car headlight (very bright) a solar panel, an inverter and a car battery. DH who knows about these things is bending his grey cells to this end! We have the woodstove so could cook on that, limited but I have done it and can improvise with equipment, and we do have the outdoor woodstove for using to cook on in better weather. I could feasibly see there being a 'power' rationing applied to individual households although that has not been mentioned yet. The best way would be voluntary reduction of power use, but I don't think many other than we few would consider that sensible. I'd be interested in anyone elses thoughts on this, we need a brainstorming session to generate viable ideas my friends, over to you!!!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.

pineapple

In order to save on fuel, I've been thinking of getting either a thermal cooker or a pressure cooker or both. The thermal one acts on the old haybox priciple.
http://mrdscookware.com/
In fact you can cook food under a heap of quilts and blankets but it's a bit of a palaver - not to mention one's bedding smelling of lamb stew..
Unfortunately - if you go for stainless steel as opposed to aluminium, a pressure cooker can be an expensive piece of kit. Thermal cookers aren't cheap either. So Pineapple is currently weighing up the cost v potential fuel savings (bearing in mind her great age and likely longevity)

GreyQueen

Hi, Mrs LW, I came into a Radio4 feature about that very thing this morning. I did hear something early last year which was similar; the people charged with keeping the lights on in this country are very worried about their ability to deliver the goods and the crisis isn't some considerable time away but bearing down on us imminently.

Some of us may recall hearing about the "rolling brown-outs" i.e. intermittant power outages in California in recent years as the demand overloads the capacity of the systems to provide it. They had summertime crises caused by air conditioning units upping the pull on the grid but here it would more typically be a wintertime problem.

People middle-aged (like moi) and older will have clear memories of the fun and games with the power supplies in the 1970s but younger peeps may never have encountered more than the briefest of powercuts and have no idea how bad things can get. A lot more people have freezers nowadays and the potential financial loss could be steep. Good time to check your insurance policy and see what you're covered for.

I was also very alarmed by the same feature today pointing out that our gas and electicity is very cheap compared to what other European countries are paying and 16% cheaper than what the Japanese pay for their gas. They have to buy theirs in from the global wholesale market, we will be buying ours in from the same and will really be over a barrell.

Considering how many households are struggling to pay their utility bills now, it doesn't bear thinking about. I suspect there will be a run on solar and windup anythings from the more thoughtful sections of society. Or the tin hatters like us.;)

[Deleted User]

True GQ that is why we are going to try and be ahead of the rush and get what we need sooner rather than later, with demand comes price hikes, whatever the commodity!!!

PINEAPPLE I have a thermal cooker, got it from Fleabay a few years ago and it was advertised on there as an Asian Rice Cooker, think it was under £20. It is very useful and works to perfection, the only problem is to use it properly the inner pan needs to be nearly full to keep the contents to the correct temperature and this thing is enormous!!! We would have to eat stew every day for a week to use it all up, something to take into account if you are a small family unit! Cheers Lyn xxx.

pineapple

When I lived in Uganda we were subject to scheduled 'load shedding'. Folks like me (without a generator) had to adapt to several hours each day without power. One day it would be in the morning, the next it was in the evening. I used to have my torch, candles and battery radio ready for 7pm on those evenings. In that part of the world there is no protracted sunset - the daylight disappears almost like someone turning off a light.
It was no big deal. That said, we didn't need power for heating. The main issue was refrigeration. I ate an awful lot of tinned pichard during that time... :eek:.

GreyQueen

I lived in a bedsit with no fridge for 3 years and ate an awful lot of tinned sardines at 24p a can (as they were in the eighties). Was years before I could face eating them again.:)

[Deleted User]

You lot are amazing, ask a question and you get the answer, did you eat anything other than tinned fish? Seriously though, the human race managed for eons without electricity and used other methods of storage and food preparation and lived with the sun not artificial light. I know it would be difficult in the beginning but we are very adaptable as a race and once the moaning was forgotten I think we'd still thrive. Even stone age man worked out how to keep grain fresh in pits in the ground, there will always be a way, we will have to work all the old ways of surviving out again, but it is do-able!!! Cheers Lyn xxx.

This may be an abberant thought but it popped into the ageing brain so I'll ask the question. For the very first time today I have had the realisation that I have been prepping for an emergency that would be of a finite duration and probably sorted out and life back to normal having coped in the meantime. Has anyone else of you had the thought that any changes will probably be permanent and not reversible back to 'before' and that what we are probably prepping for is a different future? It is quite hard to get my head around but I can see it being that way and really need to gear to that and not back to comfy as soon as possible. Does that seem possible?

Butterfly_Brain

I have been watching the weather reports because we have to travel to London on Thursday and as it is an orthopaedic appointment, I really can't miss it. So DH has done all the car prep, oil, water, anti freeze, tyres, screen wash etc and he has even cleaned it :eek: bound to snow now :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:.
I have sorted some blankets spare clothes and extra jumpers, and will make a hamper of food and hot drinks, just in case. Probably won't need it because we have family in London, but I would rather get home if we can.

As for power cuts, I was a child / young adult of the 70's I remember power cuts and food shortages well, so I am off to get some more candles in (I remember the profiteers who charged £5 for a box of candles) and will get the multifuel cooker toot suite plus collect wood and buy smokeless fuel as soon as I possibly can. I have ordered my kelly kettle so that should be here soon and DH has built a rocket stove in the back garden, I have a good store of canned and dried food and will concentrate on stocking up on those sorts of foods. Anyhow my freezers are full to bursting, so that would be a better idea personally.

maryb

Mrs L, it could well be that things never get back to their heyday but they probably won't remain in crisis mode either. James Kunstler's book The Long Emergency is based on this idea. Sharon Astyk is also good on thinking about how to live a different future without having to bug out. She calls it Adapting in Place.

The Long Emergency was one of the first books I read when I heard about Peak Oil. I have to say that things make a lot of sense when you think of it in the context of no more ultra cheap oil. We are sort of ricocheting from expensive oil causing a recession to the price falling and growth starting up again but not getting anywhere before rising oil prices choke off growth again. Fracking and shale oil might buy us a bit more time so we could see a last hurrah. And they might work out how to make carbon capture doable and cost effective so that we could use our coal reserves again. Or Piers Corbyn could be right and we are in for a Little Ice Age in which case $od the CO2, burn coal and generate some global warming!!

But it will be a real scramble to get anything in place in time. And EDF are the only ones left in the game for nuclear power stations and they are now saying they won't do it unless the govt can guarantee their returns will be sufficient - nuclear power having a rather long payback time - returns which will go to benefit the French shareholders. Seems to me that if the govt are going to have to do that we might as well go back to the state building and operating power stations - capital is always cheaper for a government that it is for a private company.

Sorry, that's all a bit stream of consciousness. I don't have a feeling of imminent doom atm but I do feel that the medium to long term future is very uncertain as to how it will pan out. I'm retired and DH retires in a couple of months and we worry a lot about whether we will have enough in retirement. Lots of people retired in the 1970s on what they thought were good pensions and were reduced to utter penury by high inflation and high tax rates resulting in negative income on their savings