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.]

Very quiet here. Fuel prices stayed the same again, as people settled down into a rhythm of the new way of life: more expensive to get around, more expensive to buy things from further away, but otherwise life goes on.

School has subtly changed since I went back. College is advising people not to take a fourth A-level (you need at least three for most unis) - instead they're offering 'life' skills. It's part of a new initiative by the local council and the transition towns project - teach us practical skills now that it's harder to produce stuff industrially, I guess.

Feeling like primary school kids, we went blackberry picking with our chemistry class, and our teacher taught us how to make jam. What a far cry from burettes and sodium hydroxide! In a few weeks he said we can take a pot home. It felt good to be using something that was just lying around waiting to be utilised. We've also got some DIY lessons on keeping things working, keeping water clean and even a little cooking! It's nice to have an hour or two doing less book-related stuff, that's for sure.

Uncle Andy's much better since he broke down last week. He's a little bit more like his old self, buzzing around the house doing odd jobs, converting parts that don't work, even making a Cantenna for wifi! The oil company gave him a little money to be getting on with and he said that he wants to use it to make his life (and ours) self-sufficient.

I bugged him to give me links to the things he was building: Solar Still and Cantenna instructions!

Things seem to be calmer around the world too, which makes me happy. It was hard listening to so many Netizens talk about violence and suffering - I hope the worst is over. It's like they say about poverty - it takes three months to get used to it. Well, we're it's been 5 months now. Maybe we can settle into a rhythm and survive as we are. I hope so.

But I'll still be looking over my shoulder for trouble after all that's happened.

-Mia


[author note: week 21. Just a small one today as I'm revising particle physics for my tuesday exam.

thanks to will without oil for taking up my congress-reporting challenge. From the wwotexts, here's another great example of netizens coming up with realistic pictures of how life (and politics) still goes on.

Again, via Daily Kos, here's a diary from today that details what americans today can do to help the way agriculture works in your country. People not having enough food has been seen frequently in the story of wwo and this farm bill essentially decides what American farmers grow - at the moment the tax and subsidy section of the farm bill is heavily weighted towards corn and other staples for ethanol and cheap foodstuffs. However, if enough people get involved at a grassroots level and encourage politicians to change the bill, these subsidies could be much changed to favour smaller, organic and local food producers instead of the huge national companies and giant mechanised farms producing factory-chickens and the like. Not only will this mean better quality food, it will also make it far more profitable to be a small farmer - reducing the dependence on massive corporations that ship food for thousand of miles to be sold - and producing more small farm jobs in the process. Not liking some of the horror stories about food in wwo? This daily kos diary details what is perhaps the most important way to change things before a real crisis comes along.

This video series about a group of youngsters studying in Iraq is a great example of what life after a crisis would be like - sure, things will be bad, but life goes on. You can do all you can to try and escape the worst of it, but in the end you have to settle with it and move on, even with the problems all around you.]

So I headed to this wonderful slow food market today. I've been before but not been able to afford anything other than to stare longingly at a lot of it. Today, however, was different. Because it's all local food, to help encourage British producers, the ration system is different - there's still restrictions but everything's moved down one notch - meaning locally produced meat is less restricted than the crappy stuff in the supermarket, even though it's so much more yummy!

There was only one ration card machine at the market - the way it worked was that everyone had to put their card in before they entered the market. The person at the entrance would swipe the card and give you vouchers for how many ration credits you had left. You could then wander round the market and get what you wanted, handing any left over vouchers back when you left to be put back on your card. A security guard watched the whole thing - not an uncommon sight these days but only a slight dampener on what was a lovely market.



When we got to the featuring many great locally grown and predominately organic produce like this vegetable stall:



and this bread stall:



as well as some fantastic meat, fish and produce like cheese, chutney and even spices! Mum bought us organic pies for lunch with one of our treat rations - I had one with chicken and chorizo in a spicy tomato sauce and I don't think I understand the word 'pie' could be such an amazing thing until I tasted it! We also picked up lots of vegetables for the week, bread and a little meat - it's still expensive but when the rations only allow you to buy three meat items a week suddenly it's easier to spend a little more on each one. I guess those health mags that said we should cut down on our meat eating are getting their desire!

You know another thing that's great about this new ration system? The market stalls were all cleared up, out of produce by the end of the day when we went past again. when everyone's allowed a certain amount, maybe there'll be less food wasted 'in case' people want to buy it. Maybe empty shelves will become a good thing rather than a bad one - a sign that the right amoutn of food was available and eaten, rather than a failure of the Just In Time Mentality my teachers taught us in geography.



the market was popular and as news of the new ration-system in place grows I expect more people will be coming here - especially as due to it being local food the new food mile taxes don't apply.

Once we got home mum sat me down and said;

"Mia, you've got to think about what A levels you'll be taking."

I was a little stunned by this. I'd kind of assumed the schools weren't around because of the crisis, or that mum would want me helping around the house. She shook her head.

"You're going to study," she said firmly, "and you're going to do something useful. College starts on monday. You better have a look on their website and decide what you want to do."

So now I have 4 days to choose my subjects! Eek! Still, although I know it's work I'm secretly quite glad - I didn't want my life to be a housewife or without education. It feels good to know that even after the crisis, I may be able to learn enough to make a major difference, somehow.


Oh yeah! On my way home I saw this on the window of an unnamed holiday shop:



The text says:

'Say NO to holiday tax

Gordon Brown is increasing the price of your holiday. Come inside and sign our petition against Holiday Tax now.'

*sigh* Some people just don't know what's good for them, do they? There's been similar uproar from some quarters about the new rationing system. And you know the funny thing? It's always from the small minority profiting from the way it was before. The minority of rich companies and individuals who don't want equality. Well, they can all go to hell.

-Mia



[author's note - week 17. The food market in the picture is held every Wednesday in Bristol's Corn Street, attracting a lot of growers and producers from the surrounding area. In addition to the weekly one, there's a larger market in the same place on the first Sunday of the month - this is the official 'Slow Food' one - and another on Whiteladies Road the first Friday of the month. The poster in the holiday shop is also real, just going to show just how blind some people are about the greater good.

A quick aside to say that due to the author's third year Phyics exams occurring four time over the next two weeks, posts to this journal may unfortunately be more sporadic or shorter than they have been. I'm going to try and post every day still but there may be some interruptions. Just thought I better say something in case anyone got worried about Mia's silence! Also, many thanks for some of the lovely comments and links by other diarists. It's nice to know you're enjoying what I'm doing in this blog. Shoutouts to lucy_1965 whose comments inspired this post and Deliberately for running an excellent slow food blog and was kind enough to post a comment to this blog - hope you like this entry too!

Also, a little appeal unrelated to WWO. In 2003 and 2004 I was privileged enough to attend the fantastic Alpha workshop in Pittsburgh, PA. It runs every July providing superb teaching for young writers of science fiction, horror and fantasy. I would not be the writer I am today without their help and the scholarships I received to travel over to the USA to study. This year they are struggling to provide enough funds for similar scholarships for promising young writers (14-19 year olds, mostly from the USA but also in the past from the UK, Korea and New Zealand.).This is a very different topic to WWO, I know but if anyone is interested in helping you can do so at this link. Thanks.]