Enough sitting around! Now that school's out, me and Jodie and Alun decided we'd go plant some vegetables! We got some rocket, basil and lettuce seeds for now. I'll try and get some pictures whilst we plant them over the next few days and weeks. Mum said it's a bit late in the year but at least we're doing something!

I wanna make these! lead_tag, I accept your challenge! if i can find some old tires, I'm gonna give it a go! I'll see if I can ask someone at the garage if they have any spare. this self-sufficiency stuff is fun!

things are getting a little hairy around the world - milwaukee has had some deaths, Romania's oilfields no one knows what's going on and four more tankers like uncle andy's got attacked. rory23 sounds like he has it worst - i hope it doesn't end up where I think it will. cycleboy_wwo had it bad too - a riot on student campus is never a good idea!

I managed to find some positive stuff about Bristol though! I thought we'd be in trouble to stay here if things got REALLY bad, and that it'd be better to move to dad's in Brecon. Turns out, there's a great group of people working for the Transition Towns project, in this very city! I hooked up with the Transition City Bristol people over email - they seem to have been aware of this long before us - just look at This event held in week 1!

Plus, we have a new prime minister! Brown was sworn in today, with Blair leaving. Mum said she hoped Brown would be a bit more sensible and stabilise us in this time of crisis. Greg (a tory - bleaugh) said Cameron would be better but at least if Brown kept the economy as well as he did as chancellor we'd be ok.

His speech was good. Mum made us sit and watch it on the 10 o'clock news. David grumbled but I was happy to see what Brown said.

Some major points from the speech:

- He's planning to go full-out aggressive on containing any trouble. Economically we're shielded because we tax fuel so high anyway, so the shock should be less.

-a lot of money being put into public transport all of a sudden, to stop the price gougin (maybe some of those cheap train tickets will come back)

-plans are being drawn up to ration fuel. Those that don't use their credits can get reduced fares on public transport - that's great for me!

-food prices are being fixed at their current levels, except those flown in or shipped from far away. No more mangos for me, eep!

-the one that got most people's heads turning was the withdrawal. Brown's decided that the troops are needed back here and a lot of those in Iraq will be withdrawn within weeks. The Afghanistan ones like my friend Ally's dad are staying though.



Sounds like our government is at least trying to do something about this. I've never really thought about Politics before but this speech, while a bit boringly spoken, really got me excited. Will it work?



[author's note - Tuesday, week 10]

Many thanks to wwo_mitchtrix and gracesmominnh for putting me onto the Transition Towns project. Like Mia I was totally unaware of their work in Bristol!

Having mentioned Brown over here, I'll be interested to see if any of my US compadres talk about how the presidential candidates are spinning the crisis. by the end of the wwo we'll be near the primaries, after all.

I accidentally posted this in draft form yesterday - apologies to anyone that got a brief look at the unfinished entry!]

Finally, I stole time when mum wasn't around and dad was online. phoned him on Skype and he seemed surprised to hear my voice.

"Hello Mia," he said, "does your mum know you're calling?"

"No," I said. She was next door with Greg again but I didn't tell him that. "I just wanted to see how you were doing, with the oil crisis and all."

"Oil crisis?" he sounded puzzled. "I wouldn't worry about that."

Now at this point I should explain about my dad. He's not the most... concentrated of people. He didn't fight custody of me and David because he didn't want conflict. Sometimes that makes me angry at him, sometimes I just wish I could see him more. He's a hippy that lets a lot of life pass him by but he's my dad and he makes me feel safe.

"I was thinking," I said to him, "If things get bad, we should come to the farm and stay with you, just until things get better."

"I'm not sure," he said, sounding a little freaked by the idea of his ex-wife and estranged kids visiting his new world. "I mean of course I'm here for you love but I wouldn't want to upset your mother."

After that I lost my enthusiasm for the conversation and it was just small talk about the plants and animals on his farm. He sounds like he's pretty comfortable - there's lots of meat from the lambing season, the veg are starting to be harvested and that solar panel he invested in last year is keeping the fridges cool through the brownouts - although he told me the electricity supply is pretty good because of all the wind turbines in the Welsh hills. I saw on the news that the Prime Minister's having another 100 installed asap.

"well love," he finished with, "If you want to come up with David for the harvest, we'll sure be happy to have the help! Now I've got to go, the cows need to be brought in."

"Alright dad," I said. The call hung up. What a let down. When I'm with dad he makes me feel like I can do anything. When I'm talking to him from afar, it's like he hardly remembers who I am. I can tell he's scared to see mum again, too. Looks like I'm stuck here in Bristol after all.

I also had my last GCSE exam today, which means my school is over for the year. I think I did ok but I have to admit that all the oxbow lakes and igneous rocks made me feel like perhaps my geography exam was a little outdated. After all that' s been going on, I had to resist the urge to rant about Peak Oil on the essay question!

A couple of the girls in school were talking about getting summer jobs. Lindsey said the shop she worked in last summer isn't taking any people on this year - with the increased bills from transport they can't afford to pay anyone else. Doesn't look like that gift shop's going to do too well... One of the subways seems to be closed too. The other ones are still open but pretty empty a lot of the time.

Uncle Andy was airlifted out of Yemen yesterday following the tanker incident last week. Mum was getting really worried - Andy told us there's been a load of riots near the hospital, that a lot of the people there are really poor and don't want their oil and gas to leave the country... A terrorist group claimed responsibility, as well. they said they wanted energy independence for the middle east, like Venezuela a few weeks ago. We're just glad he's ok. He says it'll be a few weeks before he's back in the UK.

I'll feel safer with him around. Greg keeps trying to suck up to me but he's pretty bad at this whole social thing. I hope mum isn't planning to marry him - I've already got one emotionally-deficient dad, I'd rather not have another. Still, he did bring me back one of these phone chargers from his work - his company looks like they're trying to take advantage of the crisis as much as possible but it's a great way to keep connected - I even checked my emails on my phone whilst the power was out last week!

I've made some good friends over the past few weeks just talking about this crisis. youporkchop has been having some problems with his job, and i'm also rooting for nitefoll, wwo_mitchtrix and mtalon_wwo. Hope things don't get too much worse for any of you. lead_tag is in Iraq - do you think these riots are going to hurt him? I hope not.

I wonder what the world will look like next week?




[author note - Thursday, week 9

There's a couple of things I wanted to bring up but couldn't think of ways to draw them into my plotline. Firstly, the hurricane season should be well underway now that it's July - will we see a Katrina-style event catalysing a breakdown somewhere? Secondly, it's not a zero-possibility that Avian Bird Flu could have an impact a few months ahead - it's not a certainty by any means but over the next few years the chances of it crossing to humans is not negligible.

I haven't seen a place for me to introduce such storylines in Mia's story - Hurricanes are far less prevalent in the UK than the US and if bird flu did cause a problem it would probably start in Asia. But I thought I'd throw those plot morsels out there for anyone that wants to give them a go.]

turns out I couldn't phone dad on skype. We had a blackout Saturday like this one in London. Was a little frustrating to be without the internet, just as I'd started getting interested in finding out just what was going on with this oil crisis.

Greg from next door came around to eat on our camping stove. He works in electronics and he gave us a couple of those wind-up torches. We played monopoly for a bit but David went off in a strop when he lost. Mum blushes when she talks to Greg. I think she likes him. I'm not sure whether that makes me angry or not.

The gig I was going to see next month for my 16th birthday has been cancelled. Jonah Matranga said he couldn't afford the air fare to get out to the UK. I was really looking forward to that.

We had some bad news on Monday. Uncle Andy works on a tanker transporting oil from the middle east to Portsmouth. His ship left Dubai a week ago and was heading back to the UK. Whilst they passed Yemen, a small boat came up to the side of the tanker and exploded. No one's claimed responsibility but a lot of people's thoughts are on Al Quaeda. The picture of the tanker with tons of oil and fire pouring out of it looks like something out of that terrible Kevin Costner movie. Waterworld? I hope it doesn't sink. Just think of all the animals around there.

We heard about it on the news, of course - we just didn't think it would be Andy's ship until mum got the call. He's ok - they got everyone off the ship pretty quick - but he's in some terrible hospital and doesn't know when he'll be back. Mum stayed out at Greg's that night.

I went on the computer to phone dad again but he wasn't online. I keep getting worried about staying in Bristol - the papers keep talking about all the burglaries and car thefts increasing. I want to go see dad in Wales - there's no one around for miles and there's plenty of food. A lot of this online stuff is pretty pessimistic - for all mum's stockpiling of rice and toilet paper, will we be able to hold up if everything goes crazy?




[writer's note: week 8, Wednesday

I originally intended to have the tanker captured but figured this would be impractical and unlikely. Instead I based my incident around this one in 2002.

Of course, though I don't want to ruin the perspective in my story by overly analysing something Mia wouldn't fully grasp, this incident could have major implications for oil and share prices and as the ship was carrying gasoline to the UK, prices here can expect to rise as a major proportion of incoming supply is removed.

(This is a fictional account from the fantastic alternative reality game World Without Oil join in! )]