2020 Vision

Water water everywhere and ne’er a drop to drink, wash, flush, or feed the spuds. The South East is leaking! Now, I could care less if we run out of water in 20 years time since I’ll be 91 and supping on NAR, the ‘elixir of life’ invented by a scientific wallah from Kazakhstan. But if we don’t mend our ways our water pipes and reservoirs we’ll be dry as bones, and the future of our little green planet looks beige.
Now I am not one for bothering the key workers who do our bidding for very little remuneration, but since we’ve been without water since Tuesday my patience is grating like breaks on a clapped out old bike. Weirdly we’re adapting to pouring rusty water from the butts into one kettle to do the washing up, and pouring water from plastic bottles into another kettle so we can drink coffee and tea. We’ve had endless false predictions.10.00 last night. 5.00 a.m. this morning, 1.00 this lunchtime, and now at 15.30 we’ve been told that we will have running water in 2 hours time. And yet we are watching men in high viz jackets peering down holes in the road. There’s hot air from high and cold air from below as they blow down blocked water pipes. We have a local ‘What’s App’ group where neighbours can ping encouraging messages to each other.
CJ wrote – South East water should be ashamed of themselves – no investment. I’m going to a funeral and I’m stinking.
J wrote – I’ve come back from a five mile walk and I NEED a shower.
P – makes jokes
M – from our local pub said they had a trickle of water this morning but have now closed down.
And IF – works at the local council and says a delivery of water bottles have been left by the library.
‘What’s App’ has now told me they have found another leak 2 miles away.
CJ – wrote BULLSHIT.
Meanwhile Dennis the cat yowls. The dawter has driven off to her friend 15 minutes way and has come home smelling of roses and the old git is moving flagons of murky water around the garden.
So what is to become of us? An island race without water. A race of intellectuals without a generation of thinkers who have been upgraded, downgraded and Lou Graded by a team of adjudicators who think nothing of dashing a childs future with a swipe of their red pens.
I say let 2020 be exam free. Let 2020 be the precursor to a new era of kindness and generosity. Let 2020 teach us about conservation and sharing. Let 2020 be the beginning of the ‘Schumacher Principle’ where we exist in a local fashion – no Malls, no Hyper markets, no food that has accumulated more air miles than a Russian pedometer. Let us think small in a big way. Let 2020 be the beginning of eating consciously. Let 2020 deliver the technology that gives us clean air and water. Let 2020 be the birth of free gas and electricity. Let 2020 see us bury our hands in clean earth, where the land is tilled and the ways of the ancients are brought back from the dead. Let 2020 see an end to corrupt politicians and sly governments who sell weapons to the sly and corrupt governments who see its people fleeing bombs in little dinghies and are then turned away by the very governments that sold them the bombs, tanks and tear gas that took away the lives of the boat people.
I watched the lunchtime news whilst drinking a filtered coffee and swore that the newsreader had tears in her eyes after yet another story of misery and despair.
Enough already.
Lock down – Schmock down.
The invisible world is trying to tell us something and we are ignoring the signs.
Let 2020 give us 2020 vision.