The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Thriftygifty

I hadn't thought about that with regards to the children,  5yr old does carry a rucksack for school but that is about it, they haven't needed to for anything else as we go in the car to most places. The bobs I was thinking of packing was for incase of fire, grab and go kinda thing, one of my friends dishwashers caught fire late and night and they had to just get out without anything, everything was lost with the smell of smoke. I thought 2 main bags for DH and I to just grab and chuck out of the already opened window in our bedroom and grab kids and get out. Our baby has specialist formula currently and a bottle, if we had to get out we wouldn't be able to get anything until the morning or 24hrs for him forumla wise, we could probably get him oat milk even if he is still to small to move to it.  The thought of fire scares me. Especially as I have boys who sleep though smoke alarms, I was thinking of getting the alarms fitted with the speaking voice as apparently they can hear that more but I need to research. I was thinking of doing a fire drill with them in the dark. Thoughts... 

VJsmum

It is certainly worth planning for fire.  We did a drill with ours when they were smaller - e.g. DS's bedroom is over a small flat roofed extension (it's the somewhat tiny utility room that used to be a shed) so the drill was "meet on the landing and if we can, we go downstairs and out the front door.  Otherwise it's into J's room and out of his window on to the extension".  We keep door keys in the (inner) front door in the night and we don't lock J's window with a key (I realise it makes it a little easier for a burgler, but i'd rather be burgled than burned).  THe only time the smoke alarm has gone off in the middle of the night, the kids were on the landing just as we were so it does get through to them. We don't know why it went off, there was no fire

SOme people not far from us died at their front door in a house fire so we are paranoid about keeping keys in the door.

Greenglockenspiel

Our front door has a night latch and a deadbolt. I’ve stopped OH from doing the deadbolt at night due to worries about being able to get out in case of a fire - we don’t keep the keys by the door. I agree, better burgled than burnt! There was actually a commercial vehicle fire about 100ft from my house quite recently and I realised I didn’t have a BOB prepared if we needed to evacuate in case it exploded or the fire spread. Fortunately the fire brigade got it under control quickly but it’s definitely something I’m thinking about now.

thriftwizard

A lovely lady from the Fire Brigade came to our house just before lockdown (by invitation!) and did an assessment. She was delighted to see we had keys by the door; I didn't have the heart to tell her that that was supposed to be temporary, OH being an ex-copper who thinks that keys should be a long, long way away from any door that they might open! But in the end, we've kept them there. She also fitted two fire alarms, as our old ones had died, checked that the carbon monoxide alarms were working properly, and that we had Sensible Plans just in case. A wonderful service, entirely free!

When the kids were small I used to line them up & get them to repeat what to do in case of fire, i.e. down the stairs & out through the porch if possible; if not, out through DS3's room onto the flat roof over the kitchen & down from there. If neither of those were possible, out through the front windows onto the flower beds, which are at least a soft-ish landing - apart from the rose bush. I'm still relieved we never had to put it into practice. And some friends of ours are currently spending 8 weeks living elsewhere, thanks to their tumble-dryer catching fire & basically melting their kitchen & utility room and smoke-damaging everywhere else quite severely. Luckily they & all their pets got out safely. I'm very glad that space constraints mean that our tumble dryer has to live out in the (detached) garage...

daz378

Watched a real cheerful series on amazon...over the weekend...doomsday 10 ways the world could end.  Im about 5 in of 10    dinosaur  meteor hit, black hole, rogue planet, nuclear war   and CME    solar flare    seems a tad more likely  ..hopefully  non them will occur in near future....stay safe

3secondmemory

daz378 said:

Watched a real cheerful series on amazon...over the weekend...doomsday 10 ways the world could end.  Im about 5 in of 10    dinosaur  meteor hit, black hole, rogue planet, nuclear war   and CME    solar flare    seems a tad more likely  ..hopefully  non them will occur in near future....stay safe

The Blackhole one was really good - that one didn’t seem too appalling but, as for the rest, I don’t know that I really want to survive a cataclysmic event. 

Karmacat

As far as keys are concerned, I keep them near the front door but out of sight of it - anybody who hasn't been in the house could possibly know where they are.  I have to go past that spot to get to the door, so I'm pretty safe on that.

halfamo

We got our rucksacks in the Mountain warehouse sale a few years back.Ours are their own make 65L I think. They have a pocket on the bottom that can hold rain gear which has proved really useful. You can unzip the partition between that and the main pocket to just have a bigger main pocket. They have a waterproof cover stowed away in tits own pocket too and I ve used that numerous times to save library books etc from a soaking.

thriftwizard

Had our first jabs today, and it all seemed very well organised & smooth. They're doing about a thousand a day at the centre but it really didn't seem at all crowded & the only time we had to queue, there was only one person in front of us. It was sad though to chat to the volunteers and hear that a number of them have been subjected to abuse when they're on their breaks out on the sea front. I can understand people not wanting to have the jab themselves, but to scream abuse in the faces of people who are giving their time for free & trying to help others is just so out of order it takes my breath away.

MrsCD

Had my jab this evening. Really impressed with the organization. Car Parkers told me to wait in the car until 5 minutes before my appointment time then go in to register that I was there. Once inside I had a few minutes wait in a queue of 7 or 8, then straight in, answered the questions and all done. 5 minutes wait to go back to DH waiting in the car and home. All told 20 minutes from going in to coming out. The nice volunteer at the top of the queue said the vaccinators work from 8am to 8pm every day. He'd been there from 3.30 today. All were very polite and helpful.