This year next year

This year, next year, sometime but probably not never.

I quite like reading New Scientist. I bought it quite regularly with the daily papers. Then we went through a patch where money was tight. It got cancelled along with the papers. Money is still tight, but when I read the ‘headlines’ on this week’s issue I felt I could justify buying it.

Sometime ago, perhaps around the time of 9/11, I arrived home needing a cup of tea. I went to put the kettle on only to find no water. I cannot remember what emergency forced the water board to turn the supply off without notice, but that is what happened. It was inconvenient, nothing more. However, with the somewhat far fetched talk of dirty bombs and the like, made me realise just how vulnerable we were. We have a combi- boiler which heats up water as we need it. We have neither, a hot water nor a cold water tank. This means if the water supply is cut off there are no reservoirs of water in the house. Had I been at my daughters house I would have used the ‘hot water tap for tea. After all I would be boiling the water!

As a consequence, I bought some supplies of bottled water and filled some empty containers so that I would have something for washing. I also tried to move away from the modern it JIT approach to supplies. (JIT stands for just in time and in business it seen as an important way of avoiding tying lots of unnecessary money in stock) JIT on the domestic front means I call in at the supermarket on the .home to buy the things I need to cook for tea.

I do believe that we have a responsibility to do what we can to help ourselves. This may not be much but I know that there were food shortages during the 1918 flu epidemic, so having a well stocked food cupboard does seem something that I can do, and perhaps the only thing that I can do. It is against this background of ‘I aught to stock up and prepare in case…’ that I read these particular headlines.

Bird flu know your enemy
How serious a threat is it?
How bad would a pandemic be?
What can you do to protect yourself?

I found the first page rather incomprehensible but the rest was good. I think that I was beginning to persuade myself it was not going to happen. Of course it may not be nearly as life threatening as is feared. The page on how to protect yourself was informative. That bit is excellent but it has made me realise how ineffectual my preparations are so far.

Gill