One foot in front of the other, walking thanks for being alive

What I did today:
Took all the glass down from the very top cupboards and took almost all of it to the dump. Bought some more bread for the freezer and some sterilising tablets. Cleaned some plastic bottles and gave some to Mary K for her emergency water supplies. The hardest thing for me personally about yesterday was finding Mary K shaking with fear beside the radio, listening to the news of the quake and unable to reach any of her family who live in Christchurch. Thankfully, within the next two hours we found that they were all safe. Not everyone has had such assurance. I know that my cousins are all okay but the stress for my aunty was such that she is now in Chch hospital, having suffered a heart attack last night.

Back to today. I went to the supermarket and grabbed some more bread while I could. Last night I spent up big time at the supermarket - $340 is an enormous shop for us. I was grateful that I could, that we have financial resources to enable us to prepare (and already be prepared - the cupboards were mostly in fairly good shape, possibly due to my genetic food hoarding inheritance). I thought of John Key's callous comments last week that beneficiaries who cannot pay their bills are people who make bad choices. Oh really? My aunty (the one in hospital) and uncle are both pensioners who I think make good choices. Yet after spending all night by his wife's bed, my uncle had no money to get home this morning (I expect he had some at home but hadn't remembered to bring any with him to hospital and the money machines in central Chch are not working at the moment). Thank goodness for my cousin who could collect him. I think of people without savings, people without spare food and toilet paper and torches and all the things which are not so hard to get a bit extra of during the year if you are a middle income earner and yet which are absent from the homes of many beneficiaries. Mr Key, what better choice should poor Cantabrians have made? Not lived in Christchurch? I do hope that our prime minister has the grace to apologise for his comments and sometime soon at that.

I spent more time with Mary K and we talked about plans and preparations for emergency situations here on the coast.

I went to a union meeting which pissed me off no end. I'm not able to speak about it now for a variety of reasons. I took Brighid with me as I'm reluctant to leave my kids if I can avoid it in the current climate of natural disaster and in the case of Brighid, her health. Earlier on today we had enjoyed a teddy bears picnic at kindy. I got in touch with the hospital and her appointment for her foot will be rescheduled when the clinic reopens next week. Meanwhile it is causing her increasing amounts of pain but the main thing I have to focus on is that she is alive and that her life is not under threat.

I also cut back the gunnera which is taking over the front garden and threw a chicken in the slow cooker. It wouldn't win a cooking competition or be bought twice in a restaurant, but slow cooked chicken served with quickly cooked noodles and chopped raw carrots and red peppers does deal to the challenge of having no cooking time most effectively.

And I rang my friend J in Chch and she is alive and safe.

Comments

Ange said…
In our household, we have torches and batteries and a radio and baked beans for a year piled away, but there've been times that we had to break into the emergency stash just to get through the week. Freaky to think that preparedness becomes a luxury. Awesome that you and yours are all safe.
Isa said…
with regards to John's comments: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Food-on-a-budget-with-John-Key/167676619947245

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