10 year retrospective

[Tarrel]

10 years ago we made the move from southern England to our little bolt-hole in Scotland's far north. The words of a quote were ringing in my ears; "Find a resilient place and way to live, and watch a momentous period in history unfold". (Can't remember who said it. Can anybody help?). The impacts of the financial crash were still reverberating round the world and Europe was in the grip of the Euro crisis.
We settled in, started working our woodland, put in our wood fired heating system, made friends.. and gradually the world we'd left got back to normal. Everything seemed to be on a roll. House prices in the south were soaring again. Fear of missing out started to kick in. Had we made a dreadful mistake?
Of course, looking back now, we hadn't. We were just a bit early I guess. It reminds me of Chris Martenson's quote (he of "The Crash Course"); 'Better to be a year early than a minute too late".
Why am I writing this? Just to say, don't leave it too long before making preparations (whatever that means to you). It's later than you think.

[Vortex2]

Our smallholding is 2 miles from a key nuclear target, so we can't really escape a major nuclear exchange .. but if that happens you are also stuffed TBH.

That said, Mr Amerzon is dropping off stacks of interesting & useful items every day.

These items won't be wasted long term .. and we can buy them whilst our money is worth more than peanuts, and whilst items are still on warehouse shelves.

We are setting up rain capture, greenhouse expansion, barbed wire, generator, battery bank, gas heaters, gas storage etc.

However a full size PV system is beyond our budget - and also won't work for several dark weeks a year, and is also liable to theft .. and even confiscation by Our Betters.

We do however have a 256 watt PV system which will be able to charge phones, torches and PCs etc should the power go off for weeks.

We also live in an eco house, so we should be able to keep warm SOMEHOW whatever happens.

Still to do : get in some bulk food, buy more warm clothing.

I have family locally ... they are spending their money on foreign holidays and house extensions etc.
Who knows? Perhaps they have the right attitude?

[Vortex2]

Re far North of Scotland.

IIRC Back in the 1970s many of the remote uninhabited islands were fitted with with decent telecomms systems.

I wonder why?

[UndercoverElephant]

It's later than you think.

Totally off topic, but this is now going round in my head:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuxMWsTZ-TQ

[Vortex2]

Excellent track!