Surviving The Evacuation (Book 1): London Read Online Free PDF Page A

milk, but I'd rather drink black tea than mix that stuff into a brew!
    No, there's been no real milk since before I went into hospital. Of course since the fridge no longer works there's no way of keeping the milk anyway. No fridge. Not that there was anything much in there and what little there was had gone off whilst I'd been in hospital. I didn't do much cooking. Sandwiches were about the extent of culinary expertise, ready meals were for when I was feeling extravagant. Usually I ate out, never anywhere particular grand, but it was better to spend a few extra quid each day than have all my clothes smell of cooking.
    No more fry-ups. I had an electric stove, a two-ring affair on top of the world's smallest oven, but even if it was gas that wouldn't help, that was shut off the morning of the evacuation.
     
    Today's lesson; you really can't make tea with cold water. I knew, in the same way I know the sun's a long way away, that tea has to be made with boiling water, but I'd never tried it before. I tried making coffee with cold water, but the granules didn't dissolve. Maybe they would with some other brand, but not with the stale jar I've got.
    No more bread-maker. I used to set the timer so there would be a fresh loaf when I got home. Oh, the smell of fresh bread... I rarely ate more than a couple of slices; it was coming home to that smell that I liked. Oh, yes, fine, it was wasteful, didn't I care about the starving children, etc. etc. Well I didn't care. I don't care. I think I did enough good in the world to deserve that small extravagance. I've still got the flour, about half a kilo, but like I said, it's an electric oven.
    No films, TV or music, but I can live without those. I never had much time for TV and definitely no time for the cinema. As for music, I rated it on its ability to block out the sound from outside, not on any artistic merit. I regret that now. There's no heating. It's a small room, but it's a big draughty house and I’m well aware that I’m the only thing radiating heat in here. Technically it's spring, but it still feels like winter. At least there's been no snow since the end of January.
    They never said how long the water would be on for, but if the power's out here how long will it be before they redirect it from the pumping stations?
    Chin up, be positive, each day will be warmer than the last, and there's the radio! It's a wind-up thing with a solar panel on the top. It was another Christmas present from Jen, a private joke after I missed the segment on a talk show I was about to appear on. I thought they were talking about TB in badgers, but they'd moved onto the MMR jab, so when I started talking about culling... Well, the station got a lot of calls that day. The solar panel bit never worked and you have to wind it up for an hour for every half hour you want to listen too. Usually it's plugged into the mains, now keeping it running is my principal form of exercise. Since the evacuation all they've broadcast is “Listen for Announcements” followed by the dreariest choral music. I think it's on an automated loop.
    Even before the evacuation it wasn't much better. After the first twenty four hours or so the TV and radio went back to almost normal programming. They'd still have updates in the news bulletins, but by that stage I think all anyone cared about were those few words at the beginning “There are no reported outbreaks in the UK”, whether they believed them or not. For the rest of the time it was music on the radio and old sitcoms, war-time movies, and sports on the TV.
    There was a lot of sport on television during the fortnight before the evacuation. They'd shut the stadiums but the matches were being played anyway. With the pubs closed it kept people indoors. I watched about ten minutes of the West Ham vs Arsenal match but without the sound of a crowd it just didn't work. I think it was the sight of those empty stands that really brought home how much our world had