Victoria Brown Poet

A Bird in the Bush on ‘The Pending Pandemic’

Monday 27th April 2009

Well, our family has been waiting since the last SARS outbreak for the next bout of fatal respiratory influenza. A good friend informed us last year that it wouldn’t be a case of ‘if’, but ‘when’ another viral ‘flu, be it bird or otherwise, mutated and gave the world a shake up. “Were we prepared?” she asked.

Discussions ensued on how we would cope if we had to batten down the hatches to avoid any contamination from those people in the nearby environs who may have contracted the disease. There would be no trips to town. We would go into lock down mode. We would have to be self sufficient. My husband, The King, came up with the idea of a commune, for a select few, at Hill Plains. It became ‘the’ conversation at every district dinner party. We have been sounding out possible recruits from friends and family ever since.

It’s quite simple. If you have a skill to share you’re in. If you don’t……er…..sorry, you’re out. But me no buts. That’s the rule. I swiftly grabbed the position of Entertainment Officer, for fear of ending up with Washer Woman, Cow Milker or Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. (I have to leave some positions for the less skilled….. mercifully.) The King is so useful he can fill a myriad of positions, all of which are extremely useful and manly, so he’s definitely in. Plus he’s the only truly useful person in the family when it comes to hunting and gathering, so we can’t argue with him anyway. Dictator is a word that springs readily to mind when I glance at him across the kitchen table. He wasn’t totally convinced that we really needed an Entertainment Officer, but as I have a few physical attributes that he finds highly entertaining, and which I threatened to withdraw his access to if I couldn't take on my job of choice, the position was reinstated very swiftly.

The phones and emails have run hot today with the first few city friends booking their places. So far we have had offers for the positions of nurse, communications and intelligence officer, wheat grister, cider/beer maker, a lady with a recipe for making yeast, as well as an email from a couple in Leederville:

Subject: Crisis

Requesting permission to seek refuge at Hill Plains for the near wipe-out of mankind. We will require abluting facilities and power and in return will be the vegie garden growers.
Yours …..etc

Tomorrow I will be joining ABC Radio’s Ted Bull on his program, to discuss just how the commune plans are progressing. I have a sneaky suspicion he might be angling for a berth in the commune, and that he will put himself up as T-Ball Coach, for which I fear I shall have to tell him, there is no position. Knowing him he will then ask if it is OK if he brings a bottle of wine instead. I shall reply, “If it’s a bottle of Grange, Ted, you’re in. Actually, make it a case.” That’s reasonable. We can’t be giving away beds here.

One good thing to have come out of this pending crisis is that the children have all of a sudden become uncharacteristically helpful about the place, displaying hereto unknown cooking skills, pouring over an old cook book favourite ‘101 ways with mutton’ and displaying physical attributes such as swinging on axes. It’s been a long time coming.

Yesterday I retrieved from the bowels of the pantry cupboard the large esky filled last year, in a moment of panic, with emergency survival rations in case we were isolated from the shops for a few weeks. It is supposed to contain vast quantities of pasta, rice, tinned foods, dried fruits and vegies, matches, batteries and most important of all…….chocolate. The only problem is that I keep flogging bits and pieces out of it when I run out of things and then totally forget to replace them. Also, some stuff has already passed its use by date. Well, I guess that’s not actually news in this household. The kids found something in the back of the fridge last week that had Use by: Mar 2001. I hadn’t the heart to tell them I cook with that sort of stuff all the time….

Maybe our immune systems will be able to fight off the disease after all…..