Frugal Friday - It's all in the planning

What do you think when you hear the word "frugal"? For many people, it conjures up visions of hard work: growing vegetables, making bread, patching clothes, servicing the car, building your own home etc. After all, isn't that the way frugality is portrayed in the media?

It makes good photo opportunities, but there is more to frugality (and less effort involved) than that. The Frugal Zealot, Amy Dacyczyn, split frugality into two camps: active and passive. The things I listed in the first paragraph are all examples of active frugality. Passive frugality is about not doing things: not shopping, or not upgrading your mobile phone just because a new model is on the market. I'd like to add a third category (although I'm struggling to come up with a name): semi-passive frugality. (See what I mean? Still struggling.)

Most of the time, being frugal doesn't take any more effort than not being frugal, but it does take more planning. And that is why I call it semi-passive frugality: apply a bit of forethought now and save money in the long run. For example: imagine you are tired and late home from work. You're hungry and "Want dinner now!". Doesn't it seem so much easier to order a take-away than cook a meal from scratch? Now, imagine you had planned for this scenario and, last time you cooked a chilli you made a double batch and froze half. Instead of spending £15 on a takeaway (and having to wait 45 minutes for it to be delivered), dinner is waiting the freezer and just needs zapping in the microwave. That is semi-passive frugality.

It takes very little effort to cook a triple batch of dried beans / frying up 3 or 4 extra onions when you cook a curry and freezing them as base / preparing a double quantity of shepherd's pie/lasagne/meatloaf/nut roast, having one now and freezing the second for later on. But you have to plan for these activities so that you can take advantage of the opportunity when it arises.

Tonight, I prepared a double batch of Parsnip & Cashew Nut Roast. It took 2 minutes to peel the extra 2 parsnips and 3 seconds to select a larger onion. In a month's time, when I'm struggling to come up with dinner, I'll have it in the freezer waiting to fall back on. No more Chinese takeaway on speed-dial for me.

- Pam

Sing as you mean to go on

Guess what I just found? A clip of a choral concert I sang in last year at the Cadogan Hall. We're singing Handel's Messiah. Enjoy.




Did you spot me? I'm third from the left at the back. You can just see a blond head behind me.

Saturday was our latest concert, Orff's Carmina Burana. The performance was amazing and I had a ball. Sadly, no recordings have come to light so far but, if I can find one, I'll post it.

- Pam

Frugal Friday - Frugal Gardening and Horse Manure

For the past three years, I've attempted to grow a vegetable garden. Last year, it was potatoes and tomatoes with a couple of pak choi and one purple sprouting broccoli; the year before, it was courgettes/zucchini, broad beans, two sweet corn, and bell peppers. My success rate has been pretty dismal - I did get broad beans but the sweet corn were still born (I didn't know, then, about how they pollinate). Something ate the leaves off the bell peppers before they'd been in the ground five minutes. The tomatoes were doing well and I was looking forward to bottling some home-made tomato sauce, until the night I came home from work to find the vines had turned black. (Like everyone-else's crops last year, they'd got blight.) Even my success-story courgettes have a one-in-three plant survival rate.

This year, I'm growing potatoes, approximately 50 onions (bought as "sets"), 12 garlic, six broad bean plants (only two planted out so far), one courgette (I planted out three), 8 or 9 sweet corn (not planted out yet - I think the 9th won't survive), and 3 butternut squash. It's raining, so no photos of the garden, but here is a shot of the "nursery" beside the big kitchen window:

Corn to the left; broad beans and butternut squash in the middle; just planted sunflower seeds to the right. The blue trays are the ones the supermarket sells mushrooms in. The clear plastic, 3-inch pots are yoghurt pots.


So far, I haven't spent a huge amount of money on this year's vegetables: I've purchased fresh corn, courgette, sunflower and broad bean seeds. (Around here, packets of seeds cost between 69p and £2.) The other seeds are survivors from last year. The onion sets were £1.95 for a bag of 100 from the shop in Kew Gardens. Whilst I was there, I spent another £1.90 on three supposedly "disease free" garlic bulbs, only to find them riddled with that grey mould when I went to plant them out. Therefore, my garlic comes from a couple of bulbs bought for cooking, which sprouted whilst I stored them in the shed. The butternut seeds were rescued from the innards of a butternut squash I used in a stew.

My main expense comes in the form of organic peat-free grow bags, which I buy for the compost they contain. At £2.46 each, they are the cheapest way I can buy a peat-free growing medium for the pots/potato tyres and they're the largest bags I can lift at the garden centre (I think each grow bag holds 40 litres of compost). On Wednesday, I lugged home four. Grow bag compost is what that seedlings are growing in.

Also on Wednesday, I purchased a packet of seeds of a variety of late summer sprouting broccoli. When the corn gets planted out on Sunday, I'll fill their blue tray with compost and try growing them. I could have bought seedlings, but they weren't that healthy.

Our soil is my biggest problem. In some places it is impregnable. (I planted a couple of lavender once, only to have one die because its roots couldn't penetrate out of the hole in which it was planted.) One of the gardening books I read suggested growing giant sunflowers because they have really tough roots which break up hard soil - sort of nature's rotavators. Hence the sunflowers I'm attempting to grow.

My other great-white-hope for our soil is our compost bin, a.k.a. The Dalek. And that is the source of today's Frugal Friday tip:


Locate your nearest stables and collect some free horse manure to compost.

Two weekends ago, we took a couple of flexi-tubs, the big fork and spade, and popped into the local stables. For a "Please Ma'am, may we raid your manure heap?", we collected enough horse manure and discarded bedding (wood shavings as well as straw) to half fill the Dalek. It cost us 15 minutes and a smile. I'm tempted to do it again, to fill the Dalek up completely, and then get a second compost bin. Heaven knows, we need the stuff!

- Pam

Twenty Years

Twenty years ago today, I landed in the UK for the first time. I was on a working holiday visa and my plans were simple: work, travel, train as a midwife, get some experience then go home. I expected to stay maybe 3 years, 5 years tops. I had dreams.

I was a nurse who wanted to work at one of the legendary London hospitals: St Bartholomew's, Guy's or St Thomas' ("Bart's", Guy's or "Tommy's"), before increasing my skills and qualifying as a midwife. British midwifery training was sold to us as being the best in the world, a step up from the training I would have had in Australia. Unlike in Oz and the US, pregnancy and childbirth are almost entirely midwife-managed events in Britain. During a normal pregnancy and delivery, the mother never encounters an obstetrician. Since my ultimate plan was to go work in a remote hospital in the Bush, I needed the best skills possible. I wanted to study midwifery at Tommy's or at Queen Charlotte's (Charlie's). I'd tried applying from Australia, but all the hospitals wanted you to be in the UK first - they wouldn't even schedule an interview - so here I was.

The midwifery dream collapsed with the nursing dream. Within a year of arriving, a bad job at a certain south London hospital killed my confidence and removed me of the desire to ever nurse again. I ended up as a secretary until the firm I worked for trained me as an accountant.

I'm not sure what I expected when I got here. I certainly wasn't prepared for what I found: a country where the cost of living was double what it was in Australia, even before you factored in the exchange rate (if a loaf of bread was $1 in Australia, it was £2 here); a job that barely paid a living wage and certainly paid less to a qualified nurse than what I'd earned as a first year student nurse; a banking system 50 years behind ours (Aussies could walk into the London branch of Westpac and check the balance of their accounts in Australia, move money around, make withdrawals, all within a few clicks on the computer; I couldn't withdraw money from a different branch of Barclays without them phoning my branch to check my balance! And then charging me £10 for the privilege). The $1,000 I'd brought over in traveller's cheques vanished in the blink of an eye. I was instantaneously broke.

Looking back, I wonder if I was naive. I was certainly a romantic fool. If I could take a husband back home with me to Australia, so much the better. Posh Englishmen had a certain cache - blame Brideshead Revisited - and my mum would have loved it if I'd married a Jewish doctor. Add to that the fact that life had yet to cure me of the reactive response: the deeply embedded one that says you have to date someone just because they fancy you, because it's better to have someone than no-one in your life even if they treat you like dirt. (Pretty, popular teenage girls recover from that one early.) I tried not to believe I was capable of such a thing, but it is how I ended up dating Dumbo (also, I think I was blinded by his Oxford MA). I was such an idiot!

Even the travel dream didn't come off. I'd flown into the UK after spending 5 days sightseeing in Copenhagen. Apart from a weekend in Paris with some girlfriends to attend a Eurythmics concert, I didn't leave the country again until I flew home for my mum's funeral. I didn't see that much of Britain, either. Dumbo's idea of a holiday was the Conservative Party Conference each year (which I inevitably paid for) and I couldn't afford to go off on my own.

Gradually, painfully I grew up. I'd have sworn, 20 years ago, that I was an adult, but in reality I wasn't. I was a fledgling, just emerging into independence. It wasn't until I chose to walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel of my relationship with Dumbo that I think I came into myself. The life I'd settled for wasn't the life I wanted. It forced me to give up so much of the essential me: my love of travel; my crafts; my music. Oh, how I mourned the music - I didn't sing for 15 years and Dumbo's idea of music omitted everything between Bach and Blue Oyster Cult, so I didn't listen to classical, rock or pop music either during the years we were together. I even gave up knitting.

One hot summer's day in 1998 I decided enough was enough. My world had crashed down around me and I saw what my life was really like. That was the day I decided to divorce Dumbo. Slowly, gradually I began to reclaim myself and build the life that I wanted.

I think I'm lucky now. All the essential bits of me are back: I knit. I sing. I've built a new career. I've met and married the love of my life. We travel, go to concerts, listen to music as diverse as Nickelback and Mozart. He shares my dreams and I share his.

I wonder what the next 20 years will bring.

- Pam

Frugal Friday - Growing Potatoes in Tyres

Years ago, on an episode of Gardener's World, Bob Flowerdew demonstrated his method of growing potatoes in tyres. I remember watching fascinated, thinking "one day, I'll try this". It didn't use much space, didn't seem to need much equipment and (important for me) didn't require a whole lot of effort.

Potatoes, Bob explained, need to be earthed up so that you get the maximum crop. But in a regular garden, that requires space. Bob used tyres to earth up his potatoes, stacking a new one on whenever the potato stems got tall enough and filling it in with compost. When he unearthed the potatoes in the autumn, Bob got 100-odd from just one stack.

At the bottom of my garden is a semi-barren patch where I've spent the last five years fighting weeds and brambles. Everything is covered in weed suppression cloth. The soil is like iron (about an inch down, it's pure clay. They used to make bricks around here). This is where I am growing my potatoes.

This year, I'm growing two tyre stacks worth. The method is simple. For each stack, you need four tyres (in total) and a sprouting potato. Place a tyre on the ground and fill it with compost / a grow bag / soil (if your garden has decent stuff). Bury the sprouting potato in the centre of the tyre, just below the surface of the soil, and water well. Water daily.

They grow fast. Here are the potatoes I planted three weeks ago, which I earthed up on Monday.
As you can see, they've grown a lot. We've had a little bit of rain this week (Monday evening, Tuesday) and a lot of sunshine. The ones in the foreground were more than ready to be earthed up again. I wasn't so sure about the ones at the back, so I plonked the next layer of tyres down and measured them up.

(The tyres are worn out ones I begged from the local tyre shop. They were free. I only took four the first time, so this afternoon I went and got some more.)

I decided against earthing up the one at the back. There weren't enough leaves peeking over the top. If I earthed it up now, it would struggle and possibly not develop as many potatoes.

So I just earthed up the front one, packing the soil under the rim of the tyre as well as filling in the centre. I'll continue earthing up the potatoes until the tyres are stacked four deep.

Not sure if you can see from the above photo, but the second batch of tyres is larger than the first. They must have come from a bigger vehicle (I didn't have any choice this time - the tyre shop only had four in their "to be disposed of" pile). You can get a better idea from the photo below.

It isn't as precarious as it looks. Next time, I'll use all the large tyres in one stack and the smaller ones in another.

The frugal part? The tyres cost nothing and the potatoes effectively cost nothing (they were sprouting in the veggie basket). To fill them in, I'm using up a 100 litre bag of "soil improver" (a.k.a. compost) purchased from the garden centre last year for three or four Pounds. Next year, when the Dalek compost bin has done its job properly, I'll use compost.

- Pam (looking forward to home grown spuds)

Don't Panic Mr Mannering!

Are you as underwhelmed about Swine Flu as I am? Looking back over the last four weeks, it seems like the proverbial storm in a teacup. It seems to have morphed into a damp squib.

I have a theory about why Swine Flu isn't as virulent outside Mexico as it appears to be within it. It's quite simple and doesn't involve higher level genetics or virology. My theory boils down to this: Mexico is a poor country without a nationalised health service. To see a doctor or be treated in the ER, you have to pay. Therefore, I reckon that only the sickest of those infected sought out treatment in Mexico, the ones who were already at Death's door. Following on from that logic, it means that for the 100-odd deaths in Mexico, hundreds of thousands of people were infected with Swine Flu and have recovered from it. They weren't so ill that they would spend their hard earned dollars on a doctor's visit.

It isn't SARS. It isn't Bird Flu. It isn't that virulent. Journalists of the world should get over it. The rest of us should just employ good hygene, avoid touching our faces and washing our hands often.

- Pam

Pattern: Fingerless Mittens

It seems rather ironic to be writing about fingerless mittens on the hottest day of the year so far, but less than two weeks ago, I was desperate! My office has two temperatures: winter icy cold, or summer boiling hot. The cold radiates inwards to my desk from the outside wall. Even when the heating is on, it does little to counteract the drafts.

For years, I've had a pair of commercially made, acrylic [spit] fingerless gloves in my desk drawer, which I wear as a last resort. Because they have fingers, they make my fingers feel fat and heavy, and it is much harder to type accurately. When I finished the Berrocco socks, I decided to make these from the leftovers:-



Ingredients:-

35 grams leftover sock yarn - 4 ply or fingering weight*
2.5mm double pointed needles ("DPNs")

Garter Stitch Rib:-

Row 1: knit all stitches.
Row 2: *K2, P2. Repeat from * to end of row.

Methodology:-

1. Cast on 56 stitches and divide them over 4 DPNs: needle 1, 10 stitches; needles 2 and 3, 20 stitches each; needle 4, 8 stitches. Ensure the cast on row isn't twisted and join the yarn by knitting from needle 1 onto needle 4.
2. Place a marker at the start of your first row (I suspend a row counter from there).
   
3. Work in K2, P2 rib for 10 rows.
4. Rows 11 - 51. Work in Garter Stitch rib, ending with a first row.
5. Row 52: commence on the thumb hole. At the marker, turn back on yourself and work as if knitting flat. *K2, P2 until you get back to the marker.
6. Row 53: turn the work and knit until you get back to the marker.
7. Repeat rows 52 and 53 eight times.
8. Row 68: joining row. Slip the marker from the left needle to the right needle. Knit into the back of the first stitch on the left needle, taking your yarn over the needle instead of in the usual way, under the needle. You want to make this stitch as tight as possible. K1, *P2, K2. Work from * to end of row.
9. Continue in garter stitch rib for 9 more rows, until row 77.
10. Work in K2, P2 rib for 10 more rows (86 rows total). Cast off in rib.
11. Weave in your ends and you're done.
    

- Pam



* Thanks to the postal scale at work, I know each mitten weights exactly 16 grams. I didn't quite have enough yarn so used a couple of grams of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Ecru to finish off each mitten.

Stepping back in time

Tonight, my mind is on events of nearly 70 years ago. For most of the last two hours, I have been a lifetime away, focused on the day to day events of the first year of the Second World War. In reality I'm in the middle of North Lincolnshire, staying at my regular hotel, on my monthly visit to Site, but it doesn't feel that way.

I have been attempting to finish Simon Garfield's excellent collection of diaries from the Second World War, We Are at War. I know I've written about it before, but I have to comment again about the power of the writing. The diarists are so eloquent as they chronicle their personal War: the privations; the sky-rocketing food prices; the crippling taxes; their fears over being bombed and the possible invasion. The War was hard on the civilian population, particularly those who were struggling to begin with. Once again, I find myself marvelling at how people survived and how they "made do".

I was so completely absorbed tonight that it took an effort to refocus my mind on my life, on the present day, on the waiter who brought my drink and the waitress who cleared the plates away. I'm looking forward to reading the other two books in this series: Private Battles, covering 1941 to 1945, and Our Hidden Lives, covering the post-War period 1946 to 1948.

- Pam


(If you're curious as to why this book wasn't finished months ago, the answer is simple: I don't get much reading time at home. It's too noisy or there are other things demanding my attention. I tend to do most of my reading when I'm travelling for work.)

Don't you hate it when this happens?

I have been knitting for 36 years, since I was seven. For 35 of those years, I worked from the outside of the ball inwards, unravelling the ball as I went. My mum tried to convince me to work the other way, from the centre out (her argument was that it kept your yarn clean), but she failed.

Last summer, Kate convinced me to try doing it the other way, working from the centre outwards and, also, to role centre-pull balls. Her logic was unassailable - if you work from the centre outwards, the ball doesn't need space to roll around so I wouldn't need to take my ball of sock yarn out of my small sock-knitting-purse. Fewer chances for it to roll off and get dirty.

Yesterday, I started knitting my latest pair of socks. And was rapidly reminded why I'd given up on centre-ball-outwards knitting 36 years ago:

Two rows in, I tugged on my yarn and hauled out a huge tangle from the centre of the ball. It took 50 rows to knit out. I'm now at the 73rd row and I'm still fighting tangles.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

- Pam




PS: It's Opal's Harry Potter sock yarn in the Draco colourway.

Frugal Friday - the Rice Trick

It's fair to say that we eat a lot of rice. Considering the number of curries I cook, you probably aren't that surprised. (I can hear certain readers of this blog going "Yeah, and....?" even as I type. Bear with me, guys.) Have I ever mentioned the "rice trick" to you before?

The Rice Trick only works with white rice; the variety doesn't matter. It is simple, saves fuel and stops you having soggy rice. You'll need rice, boiling water and a saucepan with a well-fitting lid. This is the Rice Trick:-

1. Next time you're cooking rice, measure the quantity needed into a measuring cup or jug. Make a note of where it comes on the jug. Tip it into the saucepan and then measure out double the quantity of boiling water, adding that to the saucepan.
   
2. Cover it with the lid. Bring it to the boil and, keeping it just below the point where it will boil over, boil it for two minutes. Use a timer.
   
3. Switch off the burner and let it sit there for the next 15 minutes. (Again, use a timer.) Do not lift the lid until the timer goes off for the 15 minutes.
4. Take off the lid, fluff up the rice with a fork and serve.

And there you have it. Freshly cooked rice that isn't soggy. And you've only used a quarter of the usual quantity of gas/electricity to cook it.

Note 1: Always use the proportions: 2 water to 1 rice.
Note 2: This doesn't work with brown rice. Even if you boil it for longer. I think the outer layer is too hard for it to soften sufficiently without the aid of heat.

- Pam

Sock it to me!

It's hard to believe that it was only three years ago when I started knitting my first ever pair of socks. At last count, I think I've now knit 25 pairs! And given two-thirds of them away.

And yet, it all started so unpromisingly. I was SO not a fan. Aunty Glady (my honourary non-grandmother) had knitted me a white, lacy pair of knee-highs when I was small. Which I wore once. They itched. The ribbing was tight. The purl ridges left painful indents in my feet under the spot where I laced up my school shoes.

More recently, when other knitters wrote about how great hand-knitted socks were, I had a hard time trying to understand their appeal. (See previous experience, above.) Surely they'd be too thick to wear with regular shoes? Also what was it with all the colour? Didn't coloured socks go out with the Eighties? How could I wear them to work? (90% of my socks were basic black - great for work when worn with loafers under a trouser suit and perfectly OK for the rest of the time. I think the rest were denim blue.)

And then there was the actual "knitting socks" part. Somewhere I'd heard that turning a heel was really difficult (that bit of misinformation came from Terry Pratchett*). Also, I'd had a bad experience with DPN's doing the v-neck ribbing on my first sweater, back when I was 11 or 12, and I didn't want to go back there ever again.

Finally, the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules book convinced me to have a go. We were going to Spain for five days in May 2006 and I wanted some knitting to take along. I knew from bitter experience that, in a hot country, anything that rests in your lap will make you feel hot, sticky and uncomfortable in very short order. (Growing up in Oz, I did crochet, embroidery or tatting in the summer, and then only if I could find somewhere to sit where my hands were cool enough not to be swollen or sweaty.) So I needed something small to take along and sock-knitting fitted the bill.

After a fruitless browse in the Reading branch of John Lewis for something labelled "sock yarn", I resorted to Google, typed "sock yarn" into the search field, ticked the UK checkbox and crossed my fingers as I hit enter. What I wanted was someone to hold my hand and tell me the correct needle size to use for whatever yarn I'd buy plus the correct quantity to purchase; what I found was Angel Yarns, who sold me an Opal Sock Knitting Kit complete with a set of Addi DPNs. (I think the Addi's were a consolation prize from their customer services department because my first choice of colourway (something blue) wasn't available. They also sent a pair of teddy-bear needle huggers.)



I didn't knit until we got to Spain. Casting on, I felt nervous; a new sensation for me as a knitter (I've been knitting since I was seven and tackled lace and stranded colourwork fearlessly as a teenager). But I gritted my teeth and worked through the first half-a-dozen rows with the DPNs before concluding that "Hey, knitting with DPN's isn't so bad after all. I can do this!". The self-patterning yarn intrigued me. I left Spain with one of these:

And I was hooked!

I can't say that first pair are the best I've ever made. The heel seems to go on forever (it's much too long) and I kitchener-stitched the toes the wrong way around so that there are purl stitches on the outside. Also, I had several lessons to learn about picking up the gusset stitches so that there wouldn't be a hole in the corner (look carefully and you'll see the hole), or down the sides. And they're slightly too big, but they're mine. I wear them ocasionally when my other handknitted socks are in the wash. They're like a walking demonstration of my skills.


Just as a comparison, here are the latest socks I've knitted, using the Berrocco Sox yarn that MOI sent me.

See how far I've come? These have a French/reinforced heel. Also, I've learned some tricks about matching up the pattern repeats that would never have occured to me back in the early days.
Once again, MOI, thank you for the yarn. The socks are lovely.

And no, I haven't a clue where all that guff about "turning a heel is difficult" came from. It is easy.

- Pam


*Terry Pratchett is a knitter. And a spinner. Yarn Forward interviewed him last year.

Good-bye Old Friend

I was putting the rice on for dinner on Tuesday night when it happened. I'd measured the 1.5 cups of rice, poured it into the pot and was measuring/adding the 3 cups of boiling water when it happened.... There was a popping noise. I looked down and saw that my 18 year old cup measure had cracked!

You can just see it on this photo.


(No, it's not the handle. DH broke that years ago.)

We've been together a long time. I've used that cup measure almost every night for measuring out rice. And there have been numerous cakes and pizzas made along the way.

Good-bye old friend.

- Pam

In the "You learn something new every day" department

My car insurance bill just got £60 cheaper per annum. Why? Because I changed DH's status from "honoured to drive the Toy when Pam feels like it" (a.k.a. "Named Driver") to "He signed on the dotted line so can't get rid of her that easily" (a.k.a. "Spouse").

It had never occurred to me to even mention it to the car insurers. We've lived together for 9 years, since before I purchased the Toy, and I didn't think we'd get a discount just because we formalised matters nearly six years ago.

I wonder what else we can save?

- Pam

A huge "Thank You"!

is due to one of the most generous people I have met on the internet. Thank you, MOI, for the wonderful sock yarn which arrived on Saturday. It is truly an amazing present.

Thank you, again.

Pam

Living your principles

Twenty years ago, Australia hosted a conference about pollution and climate change. In multiple venues relayed via video link, scientists met and discussed the implications of global warming. My flatmate, Marg, took me along to the evening, open session at the Dallas Brookes Hall.

Looking back over the distance of twenty years, it seems as if global warming has always been with us, always been an issue. And yet..... I can trace my knowledge to that evening. It was one of the bomb-shells dropped into my life that night. (The only other item I remember was the damage caused by dioxins in paper bleaching.) One day, I was in complete ignorance; the next... well, it was as if I'd been handed a live grenade to juggle and I didn't know what to do with it.

To be honest, I'm not sure many of us did back then. My own actions didn't seem to matter. The focus was about putting pressure on governments to face up to what was going to happen.

And yet, at the time I lived a fairly "green" lifestyle. I walked to work; I switched off the lights when I walked out of a room; I used the cold cycle to wash my clothes and hung them on a clothesline to dry. The one conscious change I made then was to buy unbleached, recycled paper products (why does anyone need toilet paper made from virgin wood pulp to wipe their bottom? Why??). I bought the "Green Consumer Guide" and read up about organic vegetables and cleaning products, then promptly forgot most of it and got on with the business of living.

Now, though, I wonder how I measure up. I wonder how far I've drifted from my first, passionately green principles.

We buy our vegetables from a local farmer, our meat from a butcher and the rest of our groceries from a supermarket. We live in your classic 1930's semi-detached house, which was last renovated in the 1970's. It has double glazed windows but needs cavity wall insulation. The central heating is old and hard to control (the boiler is on its last legs). I switch it off as early in the year as possible and rely on a the gas fire to warm the lounge in the evenings. We recycle glass, paper and plastic bottles. We wash and re-use plastic bags.


DH gets the bus to work. I drive long distances in a relatively low emission vehicle (the Toy clocks up 119 g/km).

(Note: For the best part of 10 years, I didn't have a car so took public transport to work. I only started driving to work when public transport became the more stressful option. If you've ever encountered London traffic, you're probably spluttering in shock by now but I had to go from South East London to West London at the mercy of 4 separate rail companies; to get to work required 3 changes of train and I was never sure, when I got to Paddington, from which platform my train would depart. Crawling passed the Elephant & Castle under my own steam was the more relaxing option. (If I worked up in London, I'd still go in by public transport, but working where I do - it's impractical both in time cost (I'd more than double my journey time) and in monetary cost (also double).) )

Oh, and for the record, I still wash my clothes in cold water and line dry them.

We're getting ready to do building work on the house. I daydream about photovoltic cells on the kitchen roof, a solar hot water system, and a small wind turbine attached to the chimney. The reality of our finances means that we will have to settle for more prosaic changes: the aforementioned cavity wall insulation; a new, energy-efficient boiler; a wood-fire stove to efficiently burn waste-wood and heat the house (added benefit - if the power goes out, we'll still have heating and cooking abilities). Maybe we should do a before-and-after green energy audit?

When I mention these things to colleagues/friends, some come back with the inevitable "Why bother?". I know that the actions DH and I take in our small corner of England don't have huge ramifications around the world. I know that they don't mean much ON THEIR OWN. But I also know that if EVERYONE makes "green" changes and cut down their food miles and their energy consumption, then perhaps we can make a difference. Every little action on my part does matter because it is the cumulative effect of all our actions that makes a difference.

Am I in a better or worse place than I was 20 years ago? I don't know. But I know that I won't stop trying.

- Pam (I'm getting this post in early for Earth Day.)