Brexit preparations

M Thatcher, who went on to commit damage to our country that rivalled D Cameron's, was once vilified for stockpiling groceries in anticipation of upcoming food shortages [1974], which she countered was nothing more than good housekeeping. “I am just being prudent”, she said, in an eerie prescience about G Brown as Chancellor.

The lady was quite correct, of course, and the Frau and I are prudently stockpiling things that we regard as essential, and likely soon to be in post-Brexit short supply.

In alphabetical order, our stockpile now contains:

• Fat balls for the birds: Much loved by the bluetits, the starlings seem able to defeat the counter-squirrel measures, and the little ones don't get much of a look-in.
• Guitars: it will be important to be able to make our own entertainment in the bleak desert-island future, so we have amassed more guitars than we properly need. Actually, one of them belongs to Ben, while another is held together by half an Embassy Regal packet [circa 1972].
• Pickled beetroot: In point of fact, it looks like a stockpile but a better explanation is that we forgot how much we had, and it is stored in a dark corner on a top shelf, which only 50% of us have any chance of reaching. It's home produce, so all in all, a Very Good Thing.
• Prescription pharmaceuticals [various]: The merit of repeat prescriptions is that the GP will routinely sign them off because we are obviously to be trusted and it would take time to check our aggregate consumption.
• Rock salt: Which takes us back to Thatcher. During the 1974 Sugar Shortage I worked for British Rail Catering on York station, and had access to a limitless supply of sugar cubes, easily converted back to sugar with the aid of a rolling pin. Later that summer, a newspaper floated the possibility of a salt shortage, and within days supermarket shelves had been cleaned of the stuff. You can't be too careful [although I believe the wet bit to the west of Aberystwyth still contains a fair amount of it].
• Wholewheat Fusilli: Clearly an "at risk" foodstuff. We have cornered, we believe, Ceredigion's entire stock of the unusual reverse-threaded spiral variety.

In other measures, we continue to nurture an indoor slug population, so if things become desperate we have a source of protein [always assuming we can catch one - they seem to move at quite a pace].