| After watching the new TV drama 'Survivor' on | | | | countryside rather than an empty concrete jungle. |
| television this week, it got me thinking. What if there | | | | The first thing I would do is find a nice country mansion, |
| really was some kind of killer virus that ravaged Earth's | | | | no, make that a cottage. I would make friends with the |
| population? Would we really be able to survive? We | | | | local squirrels for company, salvage whatever |
| take it for granted that when we turn on the tap or the | | | | vegetable seeds I could from the nearest garden |
| shower, water comes out. We don't think about where | | | | centre and stock up on bottled water. |
| the water is coming from, who operates the supply | | | | Think about this. If everything disappeared tomorrow |
| and how it gets from the reservoir to the end of the | | | | then what would anything you have done in your life |
| spout. Milk would go off pretty quickly too, and I have | | | | count towards? Would you even have the basic skills |
| no idea how to milk a cow or how to pasteurise it | | | | it takes to survive? No more gas and electricity, no |
| afterwards. I have never before grown vegetables, I | | | | showers, no fresh meat, no running water... What |
| once made a fire whilst in the Guides or the Brownies | | | | would you do? |
| (supervised of course) and I can barely make cookies | | | | All the years I have spent in education, my job, my |
| let alone flour for bread. | | | | career aspirations and everything I had worked |
| I came to the conclusion that every element of my | | | | towards would mean nothing. I could kiss goodbye to |
| daily existence relies on other people. From the clothes | | | | my dreams of travelling abroad because I can't fly a |
| that I buy to the food that I eat, everything depends on | | | | plane or steer a boat. I don't know how I would kill and |
| someone else doing the basics for me. | | | | prepare a wild animal to eat, or which native plants are |
| I would be completely incapable of surviving if I was | | | | edible. Hell, I can't even read a map! |
| left alone. If I was near some kind of civilisation I would | | | | You would hope that in one of these situations you |
| have to resort to breaking into supermarkets to nick | | | | may be lucky enough to get stuck with let's say, a |
| food. I could probably survive on this for the rest of my | | | | doctor or a surgeon. Possibly if you were lucky you |
| life just as long as there weren't too many people to | | | | may get a farmer in the mix, but I wouldn't count your |
| share it with. I do think though, if civilisation had been | | | | chickens (haha) unless you were in a TV show. |
| wiped out, that I would like to spend my time in the | | | | |