Prepping amidst Pandemic - Thread 17

[Sprayitall]

Hi all, starting this thread to continue from preppers thread 16. Because we are amidst a pandemic now, I have changed the title to prepping amidst pandemic than “for pandemic”. I hope all of you keep well amidst this and get all the help, support and hope needed to cope during this challenging times. Feel free to add your thoughts, preps and ideas here.

@OhYou Conservatory has an all glass roof and all glass sides and an orangery has solid roof but glass on all sides , it can also be a solid construction with half walls and windows

Found out today that universities in Sweden will continue with digital learning until the 8th of Nov.

I might brave Sainsburys and Asda tonight for some school uniform and cheap kids summer shoes.

I have two boys with ehcps in indi SEN schools who have been back for weeks now. It was a choice of my ASD reverting and becoming mentally unwell or going back in. Once he was in we accepted the risk and sent his brother back to.

I went to Aldi on Friday. It was my first food shop and a good 30% of customers and 100% of staff got close enough to lean in a kiss.

I have no doubt the R will go up so I'm using this window to get what I need

I ordered kids clothes in the Sainsburys 25% sale online. I'm not going in store and my local sainsbury's has stopped selling clothes. The clothes area has been converted to sell more food.

tuclothing.sainsburys.co.uk/c/kids/kids. 25% off including school uniform.

Hello dear wise people, it's really helpful to read everyone's current take on where we are.

I haven't noticed anyone mentioning something I'm thinking about which is full spectrum/anti-SAD lights.

I have a tiny lean to conservatory (about the size of a big porch) and thinking about making it a bit more winter proof as a growing space so adding light and heat which will be good for plants and, I hope, people.

Hope you're having a good day

@Neome I have a small square full spectrum light that I bought for seeds a couple of years ago - it's currently still in my living room hanging from the curtain pole & making us look like the red light district!

I'm going to try growing salad indoors this winter. I won't go too mad Trying to grow too many things & will be more of an experiment than anything but would be good to have something. Really need a greenhouse here. If you have any room outside I'd recommend growing kale as it needs no attention & if winter is fairly mild just keeps growing. It's the only thing I'm still after to plant. My plants from last year or year before are flowering so will try to gather seeds for the first time this year

@Neome Try changing to white lights in the living room. This helped my friend lots after I suggested it to her. She suffered worst from SAD and just these lights made her feel lots better. So may be try it? Bright cool white is what I have in and yellow lights only for bedrooms! I have never understood why people here in the U.K. love the yellow lights! 😂 I can’t even differentiate colours properly in that one.

Who else is feeling a strong need to prep more and more, the more things outside return to some normality? It feels a bit like being in the eye of the storm and it's all very quiet but then a second wave will hit us. I don't know how true that is - I'm just going on instinct.

Some days I think 'Come on, it will all be fine now' and then I remember that the virus is still doing it's thing and although autumn and winter seem far away now, they will be here soon and may not be pleasant. Add in recession and not knowing if I'll have work then (I'm self employed) and I find myself in the co op again buying pasta sauce or tinned fruit. Is it just me who feels compelled to stock up and then some, while supplies are plentiful and queues fairly small?

I am also stocking up on things that went out of stock during the panic buying mode. I'm planning on staying out of the shops in the winter as far as possible. Items on my priority list are:
Loo rolls
Antibacterial cleaning products
Masks
Hand gloves
Baked beans
Tinned tomatoes
Part baked bread rolls
Bread maker
Yeast
Bread flour

I've also secured 2 extra delivery slots so will add heavy, bulk items like washing powder etc.

Rhubarb my instinct was to step up prep in Feb but initially I felt daft doing it until I came on here and knew I wasn't the only one, sooo glad that I did.

I have times when I think to myself 'surely I don't need more x' but then I think well I can buy it now and store it so why not, but I almost have to physically force myself to do it sometimes. I don't think one can regret prepping unless it turns out you need the cash for something else you didn't forsee.

In short yes still adding to stores and thinking ahead, have you seen the Winter 2020 prep thread? Some useful ideas on there.

I would like to avoid having to queue up outside a shop or even go that often so building on alternative supply lines now.

I think for us the main thing is for my family to learn now that we have to eat what we have, might not be what we fancy, might not have all the usual trimmings, probably won't be fresh as in tinned or frozen. I am having a go at making sour cream today for a cheesecake and tacos tmrw, can't get it from milkman but can get cream so trying to think about stuff like that.

Joining back in as the threads helped me massively in Feb. DH thought I was mad but soon saw the benefit of having a good stock.

Bringing to get some extra stuff in now too. I think there will be little waves over the next couple of months but it’s the winter I’m worried about when other viruses hit too. Not really sure what to stock up on or how much to be honest. Any advice appreciated.

I have cleared out some stuff we won't use and replaced with stuff we will, and will keep on top of my freezer stocks of meat etc, which will be key for us. We have regular deliveries from local places for a lot of stuff so will maintain that

I'm not overly concerned about the kids going back to school, I don't feel the risk to them is great, nor us. I work in their school and while it will be different, it will still be a positive place for them to be. Nothing like that fake picture on the chalked playground.

What do you eat a lot of? We have a good stock of pasta & rice & frozen veg & some tins. Trying to regularly review stocks now & want to try a monthly meal plan for June. Then halfway through if it's working, hope to up supplies & have a regular rotation of meals. May do a plan A for when fresh things are easily available & plan B for eating mostly from the stocks.

Things I have in extra prep - large bags of dried apricots, mango, cranberries. 16kg bag of bread flour & yeast & breadmaker. 5 cartons of long life milk. Cleaning products & extra freezer. Just bought a vacuum sealer for stuff for the freezer to prolong it. Hot water bottles - long ones & electric ones.

Would like to increase - some bottles of water. Have a few 2L bottles but would like some more. Will try to plant some more winter veg - planning to do for this. I'm counting on the electric not cutting out for long otherwise I'd be after solar panels. If I was in England I'd get some dried egg - less likely to be a supply issue in NI & db keeps hens & sells quite a lot of eggs from an honestly box at his house so less concerned about this.

@IndecentFeminist was that a fake picture? I hope so, it was really grim

I'm not sure about dc going back to school, would love some more concrete reassurance but know that's not possible-yet.

Also check medicine stocks for winter & work out what you can repurpose for helping recovery from
Any illness. Common colds will have us ostracised if we are re-integrated I think so I have cough meds & vitamins & a single induction hob which can be used for steam inhalation in isolation room in case of any virus.

Some books & jigsaws have been ordered.

I feel like other than 6 boxes of tissues for my snotty ds I am ready to stop doing much more or else I won't know where to stop! Easy additional ideas would be welcome.

Apparently it was, don't know for certain though. Certainly won't be happening at our school

I’m not prepared to send dd to school either. Her school has tiny classrooms with higgledy piggledy tiny corridors. Social distancing is impossible but received a pushy email saying for kids who aren’t going to be back to school they will be only offered reduced support for home learning. Yes my dd might miss out a little being in school but I think it’s negligible when compared to the safety and social distancing required now. I’m just angry at the news gaslighting people who are social distancing and making them look like we have misunderstood the rules. Prepping for the second wave and I am still buying usual stuffs and upping things that I would need a lot like disinfectant wipes etc. @buckeejit add on items would include that’s seasonal and weather dependent. Plan for the change of weather and things you would normally do. For us, most of our birthdays And celebrations come in the later part of the year so buying the gifts ahead is in the list along with Diwali and Christmas gifts. A good garage clean and organising is on the list too to make space more manageable.

Checking back in..

Fucking bloody hell. I was worried about chick peas. Emptied the back of the "cupboard" 25 fecking tins.

Need to group things together better so I can tell at a glance what we have.

Also use up the pre December stuff and replace. Mainly tomato soup, rice pudding, evaporated milk.

But FFS stop increasing stocks.

Here you go @BlackeyedSusan you're going to need this:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/chickpea

@BlackeyedSusan if it’s tinned it should have a long expiry date anyway isn’t it. But thanks for reminding me, I’m actually running out of them and have just two tins left 😂
I can’t find dettol spray anywhere either , I just have one refill left .. I might very well change my nick into spraynoneatall 😂

We use them in "curry" and when I have energy, for hummus or with couscous.

Some will last to 2024

I am getting low on red kidney beans. I have used a few tins trying to preserve the chickpea stocks only to finally sort through and find lots of chick peas and not many rkb

I have reorganised some tins to check what we have. Grouped them together more to see what I need to reorder. They were mixed as I stashed in the order bought. Rather than logically. Some storage is mixed in hidden spots.

The things I need to get back to high stock levels are: raisins, dried apricots, rkb, butter beans, antibac spray.

I have built up the red lentil stash slowly tinned tomatoes quickly as all the sorts I ordered from Asda came, including 3multipacks of four. Oops.

I need fizzy water and a top up of bottled water too. All right for this summer but need to get organized for winter.

Having a mental image of chickpea mountain! we use them but not as much as tinned toms and beans. Jack Monroe has a recipe for a loaf with tinned toms and chickpeas that is good with soup.

I am finding it hard to put a few more tins by as seem to eat what we buy. Might need to just not use any until autumn or buy in bigger quantities.

Finding it hard to build up stocks only going to the shop occasionally. Have signed up to Iceland deliveries as need to stock chest freezer and see they do loads of other things too, haven't looked before as never had a freezer big enough, interesting.

Enjoying a lovely day in the garden, high hopes for harvest this year, need rain though, water butts are empty

Hi all. Have been on a much needed mumsnet fast but popping on for a quick catch up. Thanks for the timely reminder about lightbulbs. It’s something I intended looking at before lockdown but I didn’t get round to it and I’d like to get them sorted before the winter. Somehow we’ve ended up with lights that are too bright in the bedrooms and too dim in the living rooms and nothing is interchangeable as there are about 40 different types in the house. It wrecks my head!!

I’ve been quietly creating a three month buffer in anticipation of the winter. I know that’s baby steps for some of you lot and once that’s in place, I’ll start building up to 5 months. I’m nearly there with non perishables and toiletries.

We were supposed to be building an extension and thank goodness we hadn’t started but now I’m not sure if we should go ahead or not. One part of me is risk averse and saying sit tight for another while. But then I think of all the lovely storage I’d planned

The biggest problem I’ve had so far has been with books. Ds is a voracious reader but also not great with screen time so I don’t want to encourage him onto a kindle. I got 30 books from the library before lockdown and he read them in a fortnight. Usually I buy books in the charity shops and even second hand sellers online are about five times as expensive. It’s funny, as I never would have given a thought to books, but they’re now on my winter prep list in case of a second wave.

I'm starting to think about autumn/winter stocks now.
My first job is to use up freezer contents and anything on which the date is close.

I will need to find the optimal time to stock up on crisps. It turns out I become obsessive when denied them!