We just aren’t self sufficient as we used to be

THE recent storm Emma was a frightening time. For us in the NorthWest the weather really didn’ t interfere with our lives that much. But for those in the East, Midlands and South East it was a time for staying indoors. What I found most frightening about it was the aftermath.

As the snow stayed on the ground in Dublin supplies to supermarkets and shops outside the capital ran low.

If the blizzard like conditions had continued for another week what would we have done in the west?

The day before the storm was due to hit there wasn’t a flake of snow on the ground. Yet my local shop was completely sold out of bread and milk, even buttermilk, there wasn’t a drinkable dairy product to be found.

A few days later I was in a supermarket in town and it was like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Shelves were bare, there wasn’t a potato to be found and people were almost scrambling for what was there and there was a bit of tension in the air.

It made me think of the BBC sitcom The Good Life. Richard Briers left the rat race to live a simple self-sufficient life with his wife Felicity Kendal.

They converted their garden into a farm to grow crops and have pigs and chickens. Their upper class neighbours Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington spent every episode guffawing at their minimalist lifestyle. But maybe there is something to it.

My aunt recently told me about the first time my grandmother bought a head of cabbage in a shop.

My grandfather had become too old to look after their vegetable garden and so while in town she decided to buy cabbage to go with their bacon.

My grandmother was extremely upset and embarrassed to have to buy the vegetable.

She thought as a country person, the town’s shopkeepers would laugh at her having to come in to buy one.

But I know for myself if the food supply to the west was cut I would be in trouble.

I remember my mother for a short time trying to grow potatoes in our lower garden.

When I suggested this to my husband he said that was where the run off for the septic tank went, so in retrospect I’m glad she wasn’t green fingered!

I think a lot of the simple arts are dying out. I heard someone joking that if the bread ran out at least she could make her own.

It dawned on me when I got home that I hadn’t even the ingredients for making bread in my presses!

We live in a world of super convenience but perhaps it may be time to take a step back.

We should have a certain degree of-self-sufficiency as its all well and good when stocks are in ready supply but another when supplies start to plummet.

Maybe it’s time we all took a leaf out of that BBC sitcom and ensured that no matter what we will all enjoy “The Good Life.”