How would YOU survive an Irish winter?

Doc Ruby

So, it's happened, for whatever reason you've decided to put a bit of distance between yourself, the people you care for, and the rest of humanity. Maybe there are a lot less people around than usual, maybe it's an educated choice, same result in the end. It's October and your job is to get through the winter.

What do you do?

Rules of the game:

• No predation - you can't kill people and take their stuff
• No predation on property - You can't hunt some farmer's sheep
• You can't break the law unless you think you won't be caught, excluding the above two restrictions
• You can use anything and everything you have to hand at this moment
• Do include family and friends in your replies
• You aren't being hunted

So tell us survivors, how do you survive? Do feel free to include local wildlife, vegetation, terrain and resources, and mix in the possibility of storms, hurricanes, deep snow and floods. If you make it to April you're doing well!

mawk

Good idea for a post..

I've thought hard about this for nearly 60 seconds now and come to a conclusion.

I know some remote coastal spots only accessible from water that would afford me good shelter, easy walk to higher ground and access to rabbits, shellfish and since I'll bring my kayak, access to seals.
I'm going Inuit on it!

Markcheese

Well , I was going to my rural bolthole, turning up the oil central heating ,ordering loads of food from tesco online and settle down to a winter of box sets.... But that mightn't be within the rules....

Doc Ruby

One Eskimo who lives to fight another day, and one more notch on Captain Trips' headboard! Good stuff, keep em coming.

To be honest I'd rather brave a winter in somewhere like Finland than be stuck out in Ireland, at least the weather and conditions are consistent there and you have large game wandering around. People actually do spend a lot of time trekking in the wilderness midwinter in parts northern. Here you never know what conditions you might be facing and the neccessaries for survival might be randomly sporadic.

Doc Ruby

Just to expand on the Captain Trips thing, before making good one's escape one should probably Google Tesco's delivery radius

which puts the fortress of solitude within 15 minutes drive of any major city - if they can get to you so can everyone else

.

Another problem is that it's going to take a few vans to get six months of supplies out to the oul homestead, so you've got a bunch of delivery drivers who now know there's a lone individual all set up to ride it out away from any possible help or assistance.

Not to cast aspersions on the good character of Tesco's delivery drivers, but when people start dropping, friends, family, young and old, those canteen chats might start getting a little hushed if you know what I mean.

Markcheese

Actually following on from water accessible sites, buy a small yacht(plenty on done deal cheapish) load up with plenty of preserved/dried food .. And head west to your preferred bolt hole... Possibly a small west cork island... You'd need to be able to anchor the boat well and live on the island... But if things go wrong you have a way off / or out , somewhere to go if your cabin roof blows off and a decent fishing platform ....
If you're building your cabin/yurt/bender from scratch you somewhere to stay while building...
It'd be a long winter living on rabbits, seabirds, fish and of course lidl tinned pineapple..