Well, things in school don't look like they'll ever get back to this kind of stress. Our local exam board has scrapped the AS levels that were introduced for 17 year olds a few years ago. Someone came into class and told us they'd rather us spend a year learning productive real world activities than have another year of stressful examinations.

I've been more and more perplexed by the news from English Villager these last few weeks - I've been seeing such a different world to him. Whilst here in Bristol we are safe, it seems there's a few pockets where panic is the rule. The government is proclaiming that things are back under order but it seems some of the army have 'misinterpreted' their role in all this - to make some profit? It turns out that English villager believes these army officers may have gone rogue! How exotic! sounds like something out of an action movie but according to him that's how it is there.

He sent some relatives in a convoy to Bristol, apparently, counting on the stability here. I think those relatives got a big shock when they arrived, seeing how the crisis has calmed these last few weeks. Mum said it's more like the recession of the eighties now - lots of people are out of jobs and unhappy but the violence has gone to much lower levels - it's still much higher than in the past but it's back to being crime rather than disorder - localised rather than everywhere.

I haven't seen them yet. It's a big city and a few cars is going to get lost in the midst of it all. I hope they made it here ok, and that english villager gets out of there too. When I told Uncle Andy about it he said it sounded like an episode of the Twilight Zone...

It's nice to see someone from Manchester posting. I hadn't heard much from there and from Birmingham, but if he's doing ok then hopefully things are evening out. Certainly the overwhelming majority of people seem to be ok now - we're adjusting, we're poorer but we've survived...

Transition Towns are running daily meetings, coordinating with central government. Uncle Andy's been so hyperactive since he confessed what happened in the middle east and hes been helping that a lot. More and more places are having cheap old radiators put on their roofs to heat water - and Greg's out all day and night fitting solar panels. The downs, which used to be a common land, are rapidly being dug up and the grass replaced by allotments, which have been assigned to the people signing up - first come first served, and heavily policed! We managed to snag a plot within walking distance of the house. Andy immediately went to fence our portion off - It's too late in the year to do much with it but come spring we're already planning what that little eighth of an acre will do for us.

It's getting colder. Lots of wool being imported from Wales and sold in rations, for people to make their own jumpers. There's even a lunchtime class for it in college. We probably won't be able to get gas for the boiler, what with Russia playing up about it. Greg said his company will get us a good solar water heater but that we wouldn't be able to power the radiators with it. I hope this summer isn't too cold, or we're going to be very very ill

Other than that, things aren't looking too bad!

-Mia

[author note: week 22. Again, not as in depth as I wanted due to too much revision. Expect similar tomorrow but after that I'm hoping to explore a few things before the project ends next week.]