Life Plus 2M
Entry by: Seaside Scribbler
2nd September 2016
Dear Denise,
Congratulations! I cannot believe that by the time you get this, Zane will be fourteen weeks old. I wish there was a way to get news faster - how I miss the internet. I bet you're an amazing mother. I bet you're like Mum with a twist, a bit more craziness, a little less planned. You didn't say much about the birth - not sure how the hospitals are with you but here everyone's struggling a bit - (we now only get stories in the round-up papers at the end of the week in each town) and I've heard about a lack of drugs/pain relief and a total shortage of midwives.
It pisses me off that everyone saw all of this coming, and did nothing. But you know all this, no point in me ranting any more.
I want to meet Zane more than anything in the whole world. I am saving like mad but it'll still take me years - beraks my heart to think of missing all these early months. I'll keep doing the lotto - keep everything crossed.
Jake and I are okay. The kids are fine, working hard and hoping to get into the science projects over in the Highlands. There's been a massive investment in the projects lately and apparently the buildings are huge towering things that you can see for miles. I've not been up there, just too much to do here, but I've seen pictures. Leo is good at maths and chem, and Lexi's a physics whizz. God knows where they get it from - not me, as you know - and Jake's still as into farming and solid earthy stuff as he ever was. I hope they get there. It's probably the only future I trust at the moment.
We hear stories from Aus, the ships bring papers and news but I dunno how much can be trusted and anyway, by the time they get here everything's six weeks old. I hear it's still hot, you are still getting plagues of insects and the fires are nuts, but at least you're getting more rain than before. I so hope I can see it for myself one day. The latest fares are around £17,500 per person. Jake and I can pull in about half this from anything we need to sell in a good quarter, but it goes, like a finger click, to pay for life and food and everything. We're stuck, really: if we grew our own we'd survive and not need to buy but then we'd have no money at all. Despite this I've managed to save. I've £2,000 in the bank, roughly. Jake's got some stashed in in the farm somewhere (he won't even tell me in case I let it slip to the gangs) but realistically it'll be years before we make it.
I miss you so much. Life here's good in many ways; we're still healthy and the kids can still learn. Our part of Scotland was pretty empty before as you know so the vanishing land hasn't had too much impact as yet. But however lucky we feel compared to some, I will never ever forgive myself for not coming with you when the fares were reasonable. I should have listened to Mum. I'll not go there, I go there every letter and it does me no good.
Has Zane got your eyes? Is he cheeky, like you were? Does he look like his auntie Lynn at all? I bet you'll be a great mum Denny.
You asked about the house. It's still here. The water's about three metres from the door at the highest tides. Last time I wrote it was four, so the rising's happening quicker than they all said. Nobody will buy it but, amazingly, the government has been good at making flood defences. We're getting insane storms and the house just gets engulfed by waves. We'd have washed away by now if not for the New Walls they've given us. Basically they're like huge sheets of plastic that have been put up all around the house - we've had them about two months now (did I write that we were getting them last time?) They got dug into what was the garden at low tide and they're higher than the roof. They're clear, so we can see through, but it's still like living in a goldfish bowl. If the house goes, we do get compensation but I don't dare tell you how much - it's practically nothing. No point moving until it goes, so we've stored all the important stuff in the high field in the barn, and the rest is stuff we can live without. The New Walls have doors, all water tight of course, and at high tide we can't enter or leave. It's so, so strange. Dad would have hated it and I'm so glad he's not here. Mum saw a little before she went to the home, but she's not seen it like this. She'd be heartbroken about the garden so we just don't tell her or show her pictures.
She's not doing too well actually Den. I don't know how much longer she'll be here. I'm glad you got to say goodbye properly. She has no regrets, just tells me to tell you you did the right thing. And you did. All that space you have in Australia whilst we huddle on a shrinking rock, climbing higher with every tide, losing more land every week. Estimates say we've lost a tenth of the habitable land in the UK. It feels like more.
But we try to stay happy. I sound upbeat, I know. It's a habit I've got into for the kids' sakes, and it's hard to stop it.
The truth is though, we're terrified, Denny. Every day I wake up expecting to be wet. The sea's come faster than they said. It seems like a dream now when I think of how it was. Every morning I look outside through the weird New Walls and see the world, whitened through sea spray, the farm a little smaller. If the house goes we'll be moved to one of the new settlements over at Cairn o Mount. They're like council estates from the early 2020s - remember the ones they built during the first housing crisis? Tiny ugly practical things with hardly any space per family. They're free, that's about the only bonus. We'll get allocated one as soon as we become homeless.
Maybe the rising will stop. After all, the ice has all gone, the travel rules have prevented any further air pollution. The limit on electricity will help, as will all the chem bans. But I feel it's all too late. Like I said, we knew this was coming. Remember the conversations we used to have about 'doomsday'? There was a guy in the papers last week saying how he felt doomsday had already come - that day when the damage done was too bad to reverse, whatever legislation we make now. I think he's probably right but we've got to hope, right?
I'll have to go. I can feel myself getting down and I don't want to do that... in the end I'll just end up telling you how shit it all is, and how we're all doomed here and I'll say again how short sighted I was not to come with you. See? I'm off already. I'll have to go and get this to the delivery office so it'll catch the boat on the 12th. I'll see it all the way, in a bag, making its way to you across all those massive oceans.
Anyway, I'm not down all the time. We keep upbeat. We can still buy whisky, when the tide's out it's almost like old times. Ha - do you remember when the garden first got a bit soggy and we thought it was the extra rain or a diverted spring? Then that wave, that just kept on coming? I often think of those early days, when you were still here, when it was all still media hype. I often try to call backwards in time down the years to younger versions of ourselves, to tell them to do something. Nobody would have listened, though. Everyone thought they were just crazy anarchists... crazy people who wanted to cause chaos... remember Paula, and how she stomped off to London with all those petitions? Most of what she wished for has, by necessity, been banned.
I miss all of it.
I want the world back.
I want my sister back. Come home... No, don't ever come home, it's not good here and it's going to get worse. The amount of people and the amount of Hill Houses just doesn't add up. I hope I'm dead by that time.
I said I wasn't going to get sad. I'm sorry Den.
I love you, and I love my new nephew, and I'll keep lottoing and get the rest of us on that boat and come and join you. I can see your farm in my mind's eye. All that space.
Give Zane a big kiss for me, little sis.
XXXXXX
Lynn.
Congratulations! I cannot believe that by the time you get this, Zane will be fourteen weeks old. I wish there was a way to get news faster - how I miss the internet. I bet you're an amazing mother. I bet you're like Mum with a twist, a bit more craziness, a little less planned. You didn't say much about the birth - not sure how the hospitals are with you but here everyone's struggling a bit - (we now only get stories in the round-up papers at the end of the week in each town) and I've heard about a lack of drugs/pain relief and a total shortage of midwives.
It pisses me off that everyone saw all of this coming, and did nothing. But you know all this, no point in me ranting any more.
I want to meet Zane more than anything in the whole world. I am saving like mad but it'll still take me years - beraks my heart to think of missing all these early months. I'll keep doing the lotto - keep everything crossed.
Jake and I are okay. The kids are fine, working hard and hoping to get into the science projects over in the Highlands. There's been a massive investment in the projects lately and apparently the buildings are huge towering things that you can see for miles. I've not been up there, just too much to do here, but I've seen pictures. Leo is good at maths and chem, and Lexi's a physics whizz. God knows where they get it from - not me, as you know - and Jake's still as into farming and solid earthy stuff as he ever was. I hope they get there. It's probably the only future I trust at the moment.
We hear stories from Aus, the ships bring papers and news but I dunno how much can be trusted and anyway, by the time they get here everything's six weeks old. I hear it's still hot, you are still getting plagues of insects and the fires are nuts, but at least you're getting more rain than before. I so hope I can see it for myself one day. The latest fares are around £17,500 per person. Jake and I can pull in about half this from anything we need to sell in a good quarter, but it goes, like a finger click, to pay for life and food and everything. We're stuck, really: if we grew our own we'd survive and not need to buy but then we'd have no money at all. Despite this I've managed to save. I've £2,000 in the bank, roughly. Jake's got some stashed in in the farm somewhere (he won't even tell me in case I let it slip to the gangs) but realistically it'll be years before we make it.
I miss you so much. Life here's good in many ways; we're still healthy and the kids can still learn. Our part of Scotland was pretty empty before as you know so the vanishing land hasn't had too much impact as yet. But however lucky we feel compared to some, I will never ever forgive myself for not coming with you when the fares were reasonable. I should have listened to Mum. I'll not go there, I go there every letter and it does me no good.
Has Zane got your eyes? Is he cheeky, like you were? Does he look like his auntie Lynn at all? I bet you'll be a great mum Denny.
You asked about the house. It's still here. The water's about three metres from the door at the highest tides. Last time I wrote it was four, so the rising's happening quicker than they all said. Nobody will buy it but, amazingly, the government has been good at making flood defences. We're getting insane storms and the house just gets engulfed by waves. We'd have washed away by now if not for the New Walls they've given us. Basically they're like huge sheets of plastic that have been put up all around the house - we've had them about two months now (did I write that we were getting them last time?) They got dug into what was the garden at low tide and they're higher than the roof. They're clear, so we can see through, but it's still like living in a goldfish bowl. If the house goes, we do get compensation but I don't dare tell you how much - it's practically nothing. No point moving until it goes, so we've stored all the important stuff in the high field in the barn, and the rest is stuff we can live without. The New Walls have doors, all water tight of course, and at high tide we can't enter or leave. It's so, so strange. Dad would have hated it and I'm so glad he's not here. Mum saw a little before she went to the home, but she's not seen it like this. She'd be heartbroken about the garden so we just don't tell her or show her pictures.
She's not doing too well actually Den. I don't know how much longer she'll be here. I'm glad you got to say goodbye properly. She has no regrets, just tells me to tell you you did the right thing. And you did. All that space you have in Australia whilst we huddle on a shrinking rock, climbing higher with every tide, losing more land every week. Estimates say we've lost a tenth of the habitable land in the UK. It feels like more.
But we try to stay happy. I sound upbeat, I know. It's a habit I've got into for the kids' sakes, and it's hard to stop it.
The truth is though, we're terrified, Denny. Every day I wake up expecting to be wet. The sea's come faster than they said. It seems like a dream now when I think of how it was. Every morning I look outside through the weird New Walls and see the world, whitened through sea spray, the farm a little smaller. If the house goes we'll be moved to one of the new settlements over at Cairn o Mount. They're like council estates from the early 2020s - remember the ones they built during the first housing crisis? Tiny ugly practical things with hardly any space per family. They're free, that's about the only bonus. We'll get allocated one as soon as we become homeless.
Maybe the rising will stop. After all, the ice has all gone, the travel rules have prevented any further air pollution. The limit on electricity will help, as will all the chem bans. But I feel it's all too late. Like I said, we knew this was coming. Remember the conversations we used to have about 'doomsday'? There was a guy in the papers last week saying how he felt doomsday had already come - that day when the damage done was too bad to reverse, whatever legislation we make now. I think he's probably right but we've got to hope, right?
I'll have to go. I can feel myself getting down and I don't want to do that... in the end I'll just end up telling you how shit it all is, and how we're all doomed here and I'll say again how short sighted I was not to come with you. See? I'm off already. I'll have to go and get this to the delivery office so it'll catch the boat on the 12th. I'll see it all the way, in a bag, making its way to you across all those massive oceans.
Anyway, I'm not down all the time. We keep upbeat. We can still buy whisky, when the tide's out it's almost like old times. Ha - do you remember when the garden first got a bit soggy and we thought it was the extra rain or a diverted spring? Then that wave, that just kept on coming? I often think of those early days, when you were still here, when it was all still media hype. I often try to call backwards in time down the years to younger versions of ourselves, to tell them to do something. Nobody would have listened, though. Everyone thought they were just crazy anarchists... crazy people who wanted to cause chaos... remember Paula, and how she stomped off to London with all those petitions? Most of what she wished for has, by necessity, been banned.
I miss all of it.
I want the world back.
I want my sister back. Come home... No, don't ever come home, it's not good here and it's going to get worse. The amount of people and the amount of Hill Houses just doesn't add up. I hope I'm dead by that time.
I said I wasn't going to get sad. I'm sorry Den.
I love you, and I love my new nephew, and I'll keep lottoing and get the rest of us on that boat and come and join you. I can see your farm in my mind's eye. All that space.
Give Zane a big kiss for me, little sis.
XXXXXX
Lynn.
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