In early December I lost my ability to watch most tv shows, now my days (much to the dismay of the teens) are spent with the BBC news channel and Sky News on in the background. You see, I'd reached a point where I was so worried about the effects of a no deal Brexit and the consequences that are likely to happen if such a thing occurs.
Now you may laugh at me and I expected Iain to think I was over-reacting, as someone with ASD he's always very pragmatic and doesn't do drama, just the facts. What I found though, is that he actually encouraged me to do it because he'd seen the news, he'd spoken to people and in the event of a no-deal Brexit it's quite possible that we'll end up with not only food shortages but also the possibility of rolling power-cuts and in extremes, issues with our water, given that the chemicals used to clean it all come from France.
The more you look into the facts, the scarier it gets and yes, I guess with my mental health it doesn't help as I'm anxious and paranoid about the health of my family but I also think I'd rather stock up now than have a situation where we have hyper-inflation and price rises beyond our control.
Let's think about this for a moment. My main sources of income are photography and blogging, they're not what you would call essentials, no one is going to want their small people photographed if they can't even afford to feed their family. I'm already seeing the effects of the continued lack of resolution in the withdrawal agreement within the businesses of The Inspire Network, naturally it's the smaller businesses which will suffer the most and currently families, like yours and mine, we don't want to make any big purchases because we still don't know what is going to happen despite knowing we're leaving on the 29th March, or are we?
I joined a great Facebook group called 48% Preppers and it's full of the most valuable information about what you should stockpile and what's likely to run out first in the supermarkets. If you've looked around over the last few months you'll already have seen how much prices are rising and so with my own family, at least one of whom has a restricted diet I cannot afford for the food to run out.
Just after Christmas I started to reorganise our house, our cupboards and my life (although that's another story completely) and over the last few weeks I've simply been purchasing just a little extra, pasta, rice, noodles, flour, tins of vegetables and fruits, all of the things which we could potentially survive on as well as some luxuries we'll really appreciate should the shit hit the fan.
It's scary how much we rely on electricity and yet in a power cut, I'll lose wifi, light, heat even as my heating may be gas but it needs electricity for the pump and to light the boiler. Lose the gas and it's not much better although I do have an air fryer and an electric pressure cooker plus a fan heater and a small electric fire.
If you're a parent I would go and join the 48% preppers group, yes, most are preparing for the worst case scenario but if you read all of the advice and the reasonings behind it, none of it sounds like scaremongering, it's just the facts so this year I plan to grow more fruit and vegetables in my own garden, I plan to grow my own potatoes in pots and mushrooms, well they can be grown anywhere dark like the airing cupboard.
I plan to keep buying extra with my weekly shopping, it's surprising just how much stuff you can get at Aldi or Lidl in comparison to Sainsbury's.
If the worst doesn't happen and if we actually agree on a deal then you know what, I'll donate it all to a foodbank or I'll just have it there to reabsorb into my usual grocery supplies but for me as a mum and a cat and dog owner, no way am I risking not being able to feed any of them. Holly Bobbins should be okay, her dogs dinners are made in Devon, doesn't mean I'm not making sure I don't have a couple of months supply though just in case.
Looby will be okay, she'd quite happily survive on pot noodles and vitamin tablets, Iain, will do the same but on beans and smash if he has to, and I could eat pasta every day if I had to. I'm lucky really, I can cook pretty well, in fact I'm well known amongst my friends for inviting anyone who'll come to my house just so I can feed them too. We'll be okay, we still have lots of room left that I can pack stuff in if I want to, thanks to Mrs Hinch, most of my food supplies are all in stackable baskets and the Brexit cupboard has lots of space to spare.
You might think I'm crazy or insane and yes, I do carry the cloak of madness with me at all times but honestly, as a parent, would I not be foolish to think this whole thing is going to be a party at the palace? Even the Queen has a plan to escape London I hear...
1 comment
Hi Mandy. We are in a similar position, and totally second what you say about the 48% preppers group. I joined early last year and have learnt so much in that time. It's a scary thing, I just can't imagine not being able to feed my children. I read an article somewhere that summed it up for me. We have spent almost the last 70 years living in peace and stability here in the UK. As a result, we expect peace and stability, but a no deal Brexit could cause chaos. Lots of people say that we fed ourselves without relying on imports after the war we could do it again - but we couldn't. We just don't have all the land for farming we had back then and we have a significantly bigger population! And lots of the supply/industry chains are intermingled too, I think lots of our animal feeds come from the EU etc, so we would struggle to feed the animals without imports! I'm worried that we are heading for another recession, but I really hope it doesn't come to that!
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