Fuel for Thought

[Scythe13]

I would have sent my wife off in my car. It looks like a screwed up ol' Vectra, but it's amazing what a lack of hubcaps can make people thing. Granted it's a 2.2 TDi, so the fuel issue wouldn't be too bad. Plus I have a minimum of 25 litres of extra fuel in the boot in cans, BP seems to think I'm planning to open my own petrol station haha.

I do need to start storing petrol for the wife though. Her last car was diesel, but now she has a petrol, that changes everything. I need to start getting petrol stored for her...that's more cans, more variations, and all when I'm trying to get us to standardize everything! Women hu?! haha

Okay, so, if I was in that situation, wife at her mothers, and myself at home. I'd get one of our neighbours to watch the house. Tensions are pretty high, you said, but we have a good community, regularly having BBQ's where at least 4 or 5 families meet together. We help each other with DIY, gardening, and things like that. So I'd feel safe enough leaving someone to watch the house. We have a neighbour that's a prepper, so I would feel more comfortable. I'd let her know and ask her to keep an eye on the garden. She's very trust worthy and we hang out with her pretty much everyday.

Before my wife set off, I'd give her one of the radios, and get her to leave it on and keep it on a specific channel. That way we'd always be able to contact each other. Batteries are on charge, so a full battery would be there for her. She knows how to use the radios, so that's what's important. We have already spoken about this scenario, and have 2 already agreed routes. Both converge on a single meet point. At this point if she was not able to wait there, she would provide a mark on a preset obstacle, e.g. a certain tree, or a drain cover, that would tell me the route back she had taken from there. So either she will be waiting for me, or I'll know she's made her way back down Route A or Route B. Both routes are very low profile.

The most logical MO from where she is, would be to swap to her mother's car or to siphon off petrol from her mum's car, and use that to get back. The wife knows how to siphon fuel, and there's a hose pipe at her mothers (but this is an awesome reminder of my need to include a couple of siphon pumps in our boot kits as well as sort the wife's fuel needs...thanks Mary) so she can just cut a length of that.

Maintaining good comms would be the key to getting through this situation for us. Thankfully the MIL only lives a pretty short distance from home, and I know they can both cycle that distance (they're both VERY healthy, MIL plays tennis regularly and loves to cycle) so I'd probably tell them to bring a couple of bikes too. Hopefully this should cover any issues. But I'd rather they didn't take the bikes....for the reason below.

I would demand that the wife takes a gun with her. Not to be kept in full view, maybe just slipped into the footwell or something like that. They should still be able to make it all the way home with the cars though, so no need for the gun. Let's say the car option is not there. If they had to go on foot, the weapon would not be an issue as the routes are already very concealed and they're unlikely to be spotted travelling back. Only a few small areas where they may be spotted. Nothing major.