10 Oct 2024 post begun 1148hrs BST

 

I'm just about finished with Christmas and winter shopping - feels good although I know we'll be deep in 'the bleak midwinter' and I'll discover I've missed something vital.

 

Still, all stocked (again) with long johns and janes replaced (imagine that - those clothing items need replacing every five or so years, sheesh!), base layers I think it what we're meant to call them nowadays based on what the invoices call the fleece lined leggings and thermal cotton long-sleeved tee-shirts I've stocked in for Paul and me. New duvets washed-dried-folded-stored (OK, I admit it, duvets at my house need replacing as often as every two years because I wash duvets-covers-etc once a week on a hygienic 60C wash with Dettol AND detergent). Tins of soup for those days I can't face cooking, bags of charcoal for the barbie (so so so useful when power is out but we still need to eat and boil water for cleaning), spare batteries...all the standard winterising preparations done. 

This winter looks to be just a bit more worrying than last - if we're lucky it won't be a harsh winter (but I doubt we'll be lucky, after all, we have a Labour 'government' and that is the most unlucky of all). Many of my kitchen gadgets are now manual as opposed to electric, decluttering is just about finished (for this year any road) and routines are settled in.

All lessons learned during my 'Gulf of Mexico' years - be prepared or face the consequences, lessons my dear Paul once thought extravagant and not really appropriate in the UK...until that first winter I was here (2010-2011) and if I'd not been 'extravagant' with preps we would have frozen and gone hungry and so would the young mum with two under 7yo children we carried through ten days of ice-encased roads meaning fuel and food lorries couldn't make the trek up our glen. 

 

Every year since that first winter I have prepared just as I once did back on the Gulf. This year is no different than previous ones - again I have Christmas-Boxing Day-NYD dinners including trimmings in the freezer and store cupboard. 

 

Harsh or mild, winter cometh. We're as ready as I can make us. The big 'problem' now is how in the bloody hell to cope with the uncertainty this evil Labour 'government' has dropped on all our heads. We Scots thought the SNP 'government' up here at Holyrood was bad and bordering on evil, how gosh-awful is it the UK now has a Labour 'government' demonstrating how evil evil can be?