THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Karmacat

DigForVictory wrote: »

Never apologise for being healthy - just here, there are more folk for whom it's another thing to keep tabs on & thus who have experience of when things go sideways in various areas.

I think it was about the hospital bag in *case* of need, DforV, like me.

It was a beastly cold windy snowy slushy why-am-I-Outside-At-All sort of day, I had a cheque I needed to pay in & as I dripped & shivered & dried hands before handing over bits of paper etc, the lovely assistant asked if I had the banking app. Yes, (wonderful thing!) why? As you can now pay in cheques under £500 by sending a photo of the cheque in through the app. So there's me, clearly not au fait with the latest tech & thus tempting pneumonia & I could have taken a picture?

Oh my! I'm a newcomer to proper smartphones, so I don't have any banking app at all ... this sounds amazing. I'm wondering what you do with the cheque when you've photographed it? I'll investigate with my own bank at some stage, but its not really an issue for me any more

GreyQueen

Karmacat wrote: »

Sounds horrendous, GQ the amount of energy that takes is absolutely insane.

Tell me about it!

This week's rigmarole (thus far)....

Tues 13th 4 pm-ish - go to Boots after work. Stand by the pharmacy desk. Always in past year, a woman assistant has approached with a smile, seen my ID, fetched my prescription quickly and with a smile, checked what date I would want the next one and off we go.

This time stand there like a numptie. No assistant other than on on a till on the next counter serving a constant stream of customers buying toiletries. Can see a pharmacist and another bloke standing over a computer in the pharmacy with their backs to the counter. Wait for them to look around. Ten minutes pass, my feet are singing little songs, I eventually call Excuse me.......? politely.

Both look around. The pharmacist slouches over like a truculent schoolboy, glances at my ID, slouches off for a quick mooch around the shelves of bagged scripts for 15 seconds and comes back to tell me indifferently that they have nothing for me.

Ask is he sure (he has only taken the briefest glance at my ID) and he's sure. I am not 'on the system' apparently and he clearly doesn't give a toss about mislaying a customer of 12 months standing and not supplying a script for life-saving meds.

Smile brightly and say I'll talk to my GP.

Home and ring GP, automated intro to the phone system states they don't take calls about repeat prescriptions, you must either come in or email. Go on their site. Email. Will be giving them 72 hrs by the time I get down there tomorrow. Am expecting more delays.... sigh.

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

2,500 people is a village around here! :rotfl:

I live in a village with a population of nearly 18,000.

mardatha

My village has 150 houses including includes the outlying farms and cottages spread over 50 sq miles; we have 34 kids in the primary school.

Karmacat

GreyQueen wrote: »

Smile brightly and say I'll talk to my GP.

Part of me wants to say I'd be pretty challenging, and sometimes I *am* challenging, but in your situation I'd be feeling like they were literally holding my life in their hands it just seems so wrong that they can lord it over you like that.

jk0

Evening all,

Just to let you know I'm still reading along with you all. (GQ you have the patience of a saint with the NHS. My Boots is the same! )

Just even to leave this message has required me to log in twice, so I can't keep going through all that rigmarole just to hit the 'Thanks' button.

moneyistooshorttomention

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I live in a village with a population of nearly 18,000.

I'd call that a town.

On the other hand there is a village of about 2,000 people that calls itself a city - on the grounds that it's got a cathedral (ie St David's in Pembrokeshire).

Me - I go by the size of a place basically and what it has (or hasn't) got in the way of facilities generally.

So I'd say personally it goes somewhere around the lines of:
- Under 100 people = hamlet
- Under 2,000-3,000 people (dependant a bit on reasonable rate of facilities generally) = a village
- Around 4,000-5,000 up to 99,999 people = a town
- 100,000 or more AND a wide range of facilities (including a university) = a city. It has to really be a university - and not a college that has been re-named as part of a widespread University "campus" stretching over a variety of towns).

DigForVictory

I was taught a hamlet is measured not by Population (nasty modern habit, mutters she reflectively) but presence or absence of a Post Office.
So, local scattering of buildings, with church & pub = hamlet. Over mountain ridge on major road, larger scattering of buildings, with post office = village. Even after it got a school a pharmacy (leaving that aside!) & a police station, it was referred to as the village (and I mourned when the grocer, butcher and several other businesses had to "adjust their niche" &/or close to accommodate a supermarket), and the still bigger collection of buildings with a railways station & a market was a town.

Of course, we're all far more modern now, with decimalisation, metrication & smartphones, but I quote like adhering to the old ways just to startle to young. One of whom grumbled "you know a lot of stuff" & I pointed out that many folk my age & older were in fact wikipedias on feet. Child was very quiet for several minutes!

That said, GQ, I'd be thoughtfully sharpening a few arrowheads. Never heard of someone "inside" going without their meds - violates their human rights... Cramps the prepping style a bit tho.

ivyleaf

Now, I understood that the difference between a village and a hamlet wasn't size, as I'd previously assumed, but the presence or absence of a church rather than a Post Office.
Church = village.
No church = hamlet.

Or alternatively there's Bill Bryson's definition; one is a place where people live, the other is a play by Shakespeare

Glad to see you're still with us, jk0. Was that you posting as JamesO the other day?

jk0

Nope. Wasn't me.

Though I'm wondering if MSE are trying to get rid of the forums by making it difficult to interact?