I was in child in the 1970s and can just about remember the power cuts, bread shortages, fuel oil shortages (closed my junior school for what felt like a month, that winter). That and the constant reminders of the ever present threat of nuclear war...
Then occasional problems like a broken foot, or lack of transport when living a couple of miles away from the nearest shop, snow, power cuts trust mean that ships in town cannot trade, have led me to always keeping a few weeks' to a month's supply of food in the house.
When there were the COVID lockdowns, we need enough food in the house to get by, but they buns weren't emptied for a long time... I had two full recycling bins on the day collections stopped. By the time that collections started up again, I had an even bigger collection of glass bottles and jars, cans and paper, but the non-recyclable waste bin was still not full. We didn't feel like we were living on rations, daughter was still at home with us (son had already moved out).
So, laying in stores for "emergency" situations of an idea that I understand well and I'm wholeheartedly in favour of it. SWMBO jokes that I'm too young to have known wartime shortages and thinks that I'm over cautious, but my approach to this aspect of life has, I think, been validated more than once.
The houses I grew up in as a child reach had a stone table down in the cellar. My mother tells stories of her father keeping cheese down there and occasionally slaughtering a chicken. Her parents didn't have a fridge until she was in her teens, mid sixties; the milkman brought fresh milk each day (except Sunday) and hey mother would go out for fresh produce at least each day, sometimes twice a day.
It's a whole different way of life, now. Jump in the car, drive to a supermarket, full up your freezer once a month.
Then occasional problems like a broken foot, or lack of transport when living a couple of miles away from the nearest shop, snow, power cuts trust mean that ships in town cannot trade, have led me to always keeping a few weeks' to a month's supply of food in the house.
When there were the COVID lockdowns, we need enough food in the house to get by, but they buns weren't emptied for a long time... I had two full recycling bins on the day collections stopped. By the time that collections started up again, I had an even bigger collection of glass bottles and jars, cans and paper, but the non-recyclable waste bin was still not full. We didn't feel like we were living on rations, daughter was still at home with us (son had already moved out).
So, laying in stores for "emergency" situations of an idea that I understand well and I'm wholeheartedly in favour of it. SWMBO jokes that I'm too young to have known wartime shortages and thinks that I'm over cautious, but my approach to this aspect of life has, I think, been validated more than once.
The houses I grew up in as a child reach had a stone table down in the cellar. My mother tells stories of her father keeping cheese down there and occasionally slaughtering a chicken. Her parents didn't have a fridge until she was in her teens, mid sixties; the milkman brought fresh milk each day (except Sunday) and hey mother would go out for fresh produce at least each day, sometimes twice a day.
It's a whole different way of life, now. Jump in the car, drive to a supermarket, full up your freezer once a month.
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