Emma Zeth - The Lucky Prepper - A Gardener's Story of Surviving a Pandemic

Robert was in his greenhouse, pricking out the seedlings from trays into individual pots. Like me, he had a lot of old seed packets and had more than enough to grow the food he needed.

‘I’m going to need to save the seed from the veg this year,’ I said, ‘I just wish I didn’t have so many F1 varieties.’

‘It will add variety,’ said Robert cheerfully, ‘we won’t quite know what we will get when we plant the seeds.’

I smiled, ‘I wonder if the garden centre has spare seeds,’ I said, ‘open pollinated varieties. I wish I could make contact with the people there, I’m sure we could help each other.’

‘You mean Ben?’ asked Robert.

‘Do you know them?’ I asked in surprise.

‘I was there when they first arrived,’ he replied, ‘Ben worked in the store, he lived in Wembley but when people started falling ill, he moved up here. He brought his sister and her family with him, I think. The owners were leaving to stay with friends in the country, so they gave the keys to him in return for him keeping the plants alive while the place was shut.’

‘Do you see them at all?’ I asked, I was curious to know what they were like.

‘Not since that first day when they moved in,’ he said.

‘Would you go with me to visit them?’ I asked, ‘I left my wheelbarrow with all my perishable food at their front gate when I left.’

‘Sure,’ said Robert, ‘we could go this afternoon, if that suits you?’

‘That would be great,’ I said, ‘I’d quite like my wheelbarrow back.’

For lunch, Nina cooked a spicy Mexican dish with beans and rice. William and Rachel seemed to be recovering nicely so I put my mind to obtaining baby formula. It wasn’t something Frank or I had collected so we discussed where we were likely to find some.

‘How about the pharmacy?’ said Alex, ‘Did you check it out already?’

‘Yes but there were a lot of medicines and we had no idea what most of them were for, we only took things we recognised.’

‘Ok well, let’s go back there and have a look.’

I wasn’t due to meet Robert until two o’clock, so Nina and I nipped down to the pharmacy whilst Alex watched the kids. We stepped over the shattered glass frontage and into the shop. The shelves were stripped bare, just a couple of bottles of sunscreen and hair products lying around. I had been inside several times over the past nine months but this time my eye zoned in on kids’ products. I moved into the back area where the medicines were stocked.

‘Perhaps it would be easier if we tidied up,’ said Nina, ‘pass me everything back there, and I’ll stack it on the counter so we can see what we have.’

‘There’s still quite a lot here,’ I said, as I began passing it though the hatch to her.

Eventually the shelves were all empty, and I turned my attention to the cardboard boxes on the floor. Most had been opened and contained small white boxes of medicines. I passed those through also. Behind them, right in the back corner under the bottom shelf, tucked away was a couple of sealed boxes. I pulled out my tiny knife and slit the tape on top of the first; more white boxes of pills, then I opened the second. Inside were large cans.

‘I’ve found something called Aptomil,’ I said, is that any good?’

Nina gave a shriek and bounded round the door, snatching the can out of my hand. ‘This is perfect, it’s infant formula, but that should work fine.’

I brought the boxes round to the front and stared at the mass of pills, jars, and bottles. ‘What we really need is a catalogue, listing what all these are,’ I said, remembering the book my dad had used, before the internet became the go-to source of knowledge. ‘Then we could arrange these over the shelves and have the book on the counter and people could just select what they need.’ I looked around, that was for the future, for now Nina was eager to get back to her children and it was coming up to two o’clock, I had an appointment to keep.

Robert came to my house and I re-introduced him to Nina, William, and Rachel, he was shocked at the state they were in and apologetic that he hadn’t been to check on her. I took him round to Leila and Taz, partly so I could ask after Liam, and then we popped in on Alex who was making great strides in the garden. The new beds were taking shape and would be ready for planting soon.

‘This is great,’ said Robert to Alex, ‘come up and see me at my place and I’ll get you started with some seedlings.’

We then walked up the road to the garden centre where Robert rang the bell on the gate, we waited, looking at the empty beds surrounding the car park… all that arable soil and nothing planted, it was such a waste.

‘Do they know you are coming?’ I asked.

‘No, I just assumed they would be here’ he replied.

‘They probably are,’ I said, ‘but I think they are still hiding.’

I wondered how long they would stay locked up in the garden centre alone, and if they would be surprised to see how well we were getting on, working together.

I turned to leave ‘we’ll find another way to get in touch,’ I said, as we walked back down the road.

We parted in front of my house and I walked in yawning. I was tired after my early start to the day and all I really felt like doing was sleeping. I checked in on Matty and Nina and then succumbed to temptation and went for a nap.

I was woken by the doorbell. It was dark in my room; I must have slept for hours. I dragged myself out of bed, as I heard voices at the door. Naps always made me drowsy. It was Freya and Mark, back from their stakeout, and standing between them was Jack.

‘I’m starving,’ he said with a smile, ‘is dinner ready?’

Nina had let them in and now she backed away into the living room so I could get closer.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I fell asleep… but I have a surprise for you guys also.’ I grabbed my jacket and indicated they should go out. We walked over to Leila and Taz and rang the bell. I heard a muffled shout from inside the house and then the door opened. It was Liam, looking much refreshed.

‘Liam!’ said Freya and Mark together, moving in to hug him simultaneously. There was a bit of a crush on the doorstep.

‘How did you get back?’ asked Mark.

‘Did you escape the soldiers?’ asked Freya.

‘Is there any food?’ asked Jack.

Liam answered the last question first. ‘Taz is cooking, she went over to your place first,’ he said, looking at me ‘and when she saw you were asleep, she started on dinner.’

‘But how did you get here?’ said Mark again.

‘Let’s go inside,’ I said, ‘we’re letting all the warm air out’

We trooped into the kitchen where, yet again, Leila and Taz were producing delicious smells. They had magicked up a lentil and chickpea curry with rice and homemade flatbread. They were delighted to see Jack but after the initial round of hugs went back to the cooking.

‘I wasn’t worried,’ said Taz, ‘I knew you were ok.’

‘No-one would ever catch Jack,’ said Leila to me.

‘I’m sure you have some good stories though,’ said Taz.

‘Shall we get Alex first?’ asked Leila, lifting the pot of curry off the stove and onto a trivet on the table ‘so we can eat?’

I went out to let the kids have their own private reunion. Alex was hungry as usual and I sent him over and went back to check on Nina and Matty and the children. Matty was still sleeping and I was beginning to worry. Surely he should be awake by now. But I believed in the curative powers of sleep, so I let him be. Nina was fine, she had correctly assumed Jack was another of the kids that had escaped with me and was busy giving the children their first feed of milk.

‘Taz and Leila made curry, so I’ll bring you back some later,’ I said.