Free Omega by Stewart Farrar

Chelsea.
    The following year she had gone alone, in her caravan, to those same hills and beaches; her love affair with the man had been consummated, but her love affair with Greece had not and she had been aware of the frustration all winter. She had driven home to London happy and she had never taken another hotel holiday.
    In nearly forty years of camping, Miss Smith had learned a good deal. She knew what she could eat from the fields and hedgerows and what she could not; when she toured abroad - as she had done in places as far apart as Finland and Morocco - part of the fun was seeing how much of the same lore she could acquire locally. It tickled her pride that she could identify at least three High Atlas cacti which would enhance a couscous and two Arctic mosses which gave a unique flavour to soups. Such knowledge was gratifying but of course exotic; the British Isles were hei real field of study and she could do well for herself anywhere from the Fens to the Burren, from the Hampshire woods to the Sutherland glens. She could light and maintain a fire in a snowstorm. She could pick herbs to staunch bleeding, soothe headaches or ease constipation. She was an accomplished (and so far uncaught) poacher; she owned a licensed .22 rifle but she could hunt silently when discretion dictated. She disliked snares but had taught herself to use them and she had even had passable success with a catapult.
    She did not object on principle to technical aids; her methane cooker was a beauty and she had a well-equipped medical cupboard; but she was wary of becoming dependent on them. She liked to feel she could manage if the gas gave out or the drugs could not be bought. Her little caravan library was strictly practical: road atlases, Culpepe r's Complete Herbal, Black's Medical Dictionary, the caravan workshop manual and so on.
    When Miss Smith had driven out of London into Epping Forest a week ago, she was only doing what she had done on more summer weekends than she could count (winter ones, too, come to that). But this time, from the start, the feeling was different. It was one thing to set off on a holiday of two or three days or weeks, knowing that the little house in Vicarage Road lay at the end of it, that minor extravagances were permissible, that whatever was used up could be replaced. It was quite another to accept that this was no holiday but the start of a new life-style, an open-ended journey that might never lead back to Vicarage Road. There were moments, in those first few days, when she asked herself if she was crazy. But her instinct told her otherwise, and in any case it was not Miss Smith's habit to brood on a decision once taken. So she slipped quite naturally into altered ways of thinking.
    She must be careful with money, but not miserly because she might as well make the best use of it while it retained its value; and if she was right about the approaching crisis, the time might come when it was so much waste paper. She must reckon on becoming immobile when petrol disappeared from the pumps; but a full tank, and the jerrycans padlocked on her roof-rack, would take her almost a thousand kilometres, so she topped up the tank regularly. She kept on thinking of simple things that might run out. For example, it would be a pity to be reduced to stick-rubbing through lack of lighter flints. ... So at the next tobacconist's she bought a dozen packets which should last for years as she was a non-smoker, and four lighter-gas canisters. (She had two lighters, which had belonged to her father; it was not till weeks later that she discovered that one could buy Aimless lighters, which annoyed her; such a silly thing not to know.)
    She busied herself with such thoughts and preparations but she saw no reason to be tense or solemn about them. While petrol could be freely bought, she was determined to have fun wandering.
    She had kept moving in short daily hops, circling London to pick up the Thames above Reading, and then on to