Surviving.

I am sticking on the book theme for tonight and deliberately avoiding the man subject. No doubt, I will explain in a later Blog. I have been reading the sequel to The Legend of Heorot. I have Blogged about this before. The sequel is called Beowulfs Children. I read the original book 20 years ago and last month read it again.

The original book is about colonising an Earth like planet that seems friendly but as the colonists discover more about the planet, it becomes apparent that they have misjudged the Ecology and have to fight for their lives when they discover a terrible monster called a Grendel, hence the Beowulf theme.

I think what entranced me about the original book was the question... If you were going to a Planet that would take you 100 years to reach, what would you take with you? What would you need to survive? Imagine a sort of Noah's Ark of the future. Every sort of plant seed, human/animal embryo, mining equipment, ad infinitum. The list went on. How would we survive if we had to start from scratch?

In our modern western world it would not take much to kill off most of us. As a bone fide Donut Child my father and I discussed this one night about 10 years ago. 'Just take out the power and most of us would be dead' said my father gleefully. I disagreed with him and said 'Nah, I know exactly what to do to survive.' He concurred that I probably could but how would I cope if I was older. So here I am, 10 years older and much wiser, about the art of survival but also much weaker, more unfit and finally realising that if the power went off I could probably survive longer than some, but not much....

Why am I fixated on this question, you ask? Well, first of all because I am a Donut Child and second because of what is happening in our lives today. The recession bites ever deeper, The Daily Mail adores scaring the pants off us with scaremonger articles and I have to admit, even that scurrilous little rag does have a point.

There is a new survivalist Middle England emerging through the financial crises. Many people are buying food and household items in bulk because they do not have any idea as to what will happen next. Garages that once housed Porches and Lamborginis are full of bottled water, baked beans and pasta. American companies who supply longlife food packs are cashing in - the cost of their foods are astronomical. One British man has sensibly decided to ignore their marketing ploys and adds two bottles of water and four cans of baked beans to his weekly shop. His attitude is that if the shit hits the fan, he will at least have something to eat. Frankly, if I had that much tinned food in my garage, I may just decide to buy a gun and seal the deal! Those of you who know me understand that I do have cupboards bursting with long life food because I have obviously watched far to many disaster movies and I have been brought up to understand that YOU are the only one you can rely on. Erm...Ray Mears also features heavily.

I suppose the big question you should ask yourself is 'If the little Western bubble that we live in did break down what would I do?' For me the answer is simple. If it was a Nuclear War then I would try and get into the centre of London, get extremely drunk and welcome that big blinding light. If it was a nasty virus/contaminated water system then I'd probably find a chemist and make sure me and mine were blissfully asleep before anything painful happened to us. Anything else? I suppose I'd try my best to survive. I'm not sure how long I would manage it though.

We all have the will to survive, it is part of who we are. The challenges that daily life throws at us are ever changing and in some way we manage to wind our way through the maze of our individual worlds and persevere. For me, I think I'll carry on with the bottled water and the pasta but ultimately the day to day thing is a lot harder than the planning for Armaggedon. Ce La Vie - Thats Life!

Cold turkey and Survival

My broadband crashed a few days ago and I am only online because of The Gits laptop Dongle, which I stole from his bedroom a few minutes ago. I had to steal it because I am suffering with a sickness. This is commonly known as going cold turkey from the internet. Sweaty palms, an unquenchable thirst for information and bad dreams all feature heavily. In fact I even found myself searching for an old Dongle of mine the other night with the desperation of a 40 a day smoker looking for that last fag in a pack down the sofa!

I digress. I have been doing a lot of reading recently, I always read a lot but having no internet has meant a book every couple of days. I was musing through the shelves in Asda and came across a book called 'Outpost' by 'Adam Baker'. It's about a skeleton crew on an oil rig called The Kasker Rampart in the Arctic Ocean. They are waiting to restart the fuel pipeline and boredom features heavily in their daily lives. A deadly virus hits the planet and they lose all communication with the outside world. They are marooned and have to somehow survive the long Arctic Winter as the deadly virus is heads their way. That is all your getting of the plot!

I could not put this book down. I was still reading at 4am when I fell asleep clutching it. 'Outpost' fired my imagination and the characters were so well written that you actually thought you were part of the crew. I felt as though I was on Kasker Rampart. I knew my way around the rig and could visualise every scene. I could smell and touch my fellow crew members. As an avid reader I often get pulled into a book but I haven't been so enthralled since Huxleys 'Brave New World' and Niven, Pournelle and Barnes' 'Legacy of Heorot'. Adam Baker is a force to be reckoned with and I know a brilliant future beckons him. I read a lot of Sci Fi and the usual horror books as a young woman but haven't in recent years, so why did this book suck me in and leave me wanting more?

I guess it is because I am a Donut Child. My father was Forces then GCHQ and he taught me an important lesson about the survival of the fittest. Throughout my childhood I was completely convinced that 'The Bomb' would drop at any moment and I spent the long evenings of The Winter of Discontent planning how we would live under the stairs with a torch, a mattress and some baked beans until help came. My father encouraged this by keeping our house warm, well lit and even powering a portable TV whilst eveyone else shivered in darkness. Personally I think he must have lifted a few batteries from the comcen where he worked but who am I to judge!

My childhood fears morphed into a full blown interest in survival guides, Ray Mears and an unhealthy interest in all things Triffid and the series Survivors. I am an adult (as I remind myself on a daily basis) but I still carry this monster obsession with me. I have a well stocked larder full of tinned and dried goods, buy bottled water and worry that I don't have my own generator, fresh water well or an emergency battery supply big enough to power a nuclear sub. On top of all this I start to fret the minute there is unrest in the world. When trouble started in Tunisia, I was unable to sleep and told my 23 year old son not to go on holiday to Morrocco as I was convinced the trouble would spread....

So here we are with trouble on our own doorstep and the unease I felt all those years ago is right back with me. I cannot help it but here I am, desperately trying not to place that ebay bid on a deserted ex cold war bunker and empty supermarket shelves of anything remotely long life! Deep breath here. I am a Donut Child, and think I can survive anything because of my background but the reality is that once the power goes off and the water trickles to nothing we are all dust. Shiver! I guess I have answered that age old question: "What would you do if you won the lottery?"

Sleep safe in your beds

Muse x