2025 - A DAY OF MY LIFE IN BORDON ECO-TOWN
The 44 ton hopper truck delivering Norwegian wood chips to the incinerator woke me as usual at 6.05, rattling the 6th floor triple glazed windows of the flat, the other side of which overlooked the grassed expanse of Cowper Peoples Park, where Hogmoor Inclosure had been. The first of the day’s mammoth procession along Hogmoor Road. Rolling out of bed, I stumbled towards the shower. Three minutes would be all I could allow this morning. The end of the quarter was near and the smart meter was saying my quota is nearly up. A gallon over, my water charges would double and the bank would levy a penalty for exceeding my overdraft limit. The girls would have to get up now and shower with me for the next 5 days. First I would tell them not to flush the toilet until we had all done our business.
Milk was out, so no breakfast cereal. Hadn’t managed to fit a half gallon into the two bags I’d had to carry home in the rain from the Tesco hypermarket yesterday. The free bus hadn’t turned up and using the car was unthinkable, even if it were roadworthy, with the four pound per mile charge to drive in town. Just getting it to the service garage in Farnham would bring on the ten pound electronic cordon charge, taken automatically from my account.
Ever since Tesco had been allowed to double their floorspace, the last remaining independent shops had closed down. Seeing my neighbours all wearing identical Tesco clothes reminded me of those images of Chinese workers in their blue uniforms long ago. Made the girls some toast, with black tea.
The lift was kaput again, so I walked down the six flights, stopping at the cycle store to make sure the girls’ bikes were still chained and in one piece. Getting them to the new school on the other side of town was no joke in winter fog on the Hollywater Road with the Liphook Link double decker behind, threatening to run them into the ditch. It was only a matter of time until someone would be killed before the road would be widened, traffic would worsen, and the cycle would repeat itself.
Getting to my job as a classroom technician at Alton College for 8.45 was like Russian roulette. Most days the hourly bus in that direction was full with people who could not afford cordon charges, even if they shared. Dodgy taxis cruised slowly past the bus stop, but anyone who had been fleeced once knew better than to flag one. A man on a motor scooter looked furtively around before stopping to take a waiting worker on the pillion for a couple of quid. I could have risked the B3004 lorry traffic to and from Basingstoke and cycled the 7 miles in the darkness and rain, but I had a streaming cold and wasn’t ready to battle pneumonia.
Work was enjoyable and a relief from eco-hell but evening finally came. I’d forgotten that the bus drivers’ strike had started but luckily hitched a ride with a lorry as far as the A325 where it meets Station Road, still with no chance to stop for milk.
Gasping at the top of the stairs, I turned the key in the door. Molly, in her bathrobe, looked up at me with sad eyes. Soaked to the skin on the way home by the splash from a passing bus, Kathy had got her into a hot bath to warm up. I sighed, silently thanking the stars that she was all right, then turned to see what there was for tea, imagining the smart meter and overdraft charges clocking up in my dreams.