I didn’t really want to make this video, because if I’m honest it feels a bit… negative. Like you’re inviting badness into your world. But after a really frustrating run-in with our water supplier (South East Water) — where the tap water was coming out brown and they called it “mild discoloration” — I’ve had “backup plans” rattling around in my head for years. So I’m trying a bit of what I call gentle prepping: not doomsday stuff, just a small fallback for minor infrastructure hiccups. In this one I walk you through my very first time buying and using a 20L metal jerry can. I give you a quick tour of the classic design (handles, stackable shape, the pin, the lid, the spout), why it’s basically a thing of beauty, and then I show you the exact moment it goes wrong at the petrol station. I got flustered with a queue behind me at Costco, couldn’t get the pin to line up, assumed the lid was “on enough”… and promptly covered the boot, the floor, and my oat milk in diesel. Lesson learned: the “idiot proof” design still needs you to actually latch it properly. In the end, I did get it sealed and stored in the garage, and it genuinely does feel reassuring having 20L of fuel as a backup — especially when the nearest hospital is a 25-minute drive. I’m just going to keep it out of my eyeline, focus on the good stuff, and treat it as a quiet safety net.