Eco audit: making your own entertainment

I don’t mean you have to gather round the piano.  (But you can if you like.) I’m thinking about ways to relax, be with others, that are also not too draining on the environment.

In my teens, it was books and music – and TV at points.  The obligatory Friday night long soak in the bath.  But it was also sitting round the table together over meals – laughing, chatting, and so on.

When I went to Poland, it shifted a bit more.  We didn’t have a TV – and we wouldn’t have been able to understand that much if we did.  So we listened to music; wrote to people and enjoyed receiving letters.  We went and visited the kids in the boarding houses at the school where I was working.

We went sledging at night.  We climbed a long way up a hill to reach a famous lake that the kids couldn’t see (because they were blind) – and that was frozen.  We went to church.  We took lots of photos (all on film, at that point). We went to judo classes with the kids. I sang in the choir.

We travelled about – by train, by bus.  We went for walks – we did a midnight row on the lake during a summer camp.  Because it was Poland, there seemed plenty of people ready to bring out a guitar at the hint of a bonfire, or another opportunity to sing.

I loved it.  And funnily, university wasn’t that different.  When there’s not much money, you spend your time with people.

When I shared a flat with two friends, we clubbed together and bought a second hand piano – that was in fact entertainment for us, and for others.  Sometimes we would invite musician friends over – they would play, we would cook, and we’d all eat together.

My teenage self would be familiar with some electricity-based entertainment.  I wouldn’t have dreamed of the rise of ‘devices’: laptops, iPods, phones doing so many different things.  Nor of the plethora of chargers needing packed for holidays.

What happens when you have a little money? Sometimes it goes on power-based entertainment: films, concerts, shows.  But in amid all that, there are still the freebies: going for walks, being with friends, reading to each other.

There is something to be said for making your own entertainment.  It can be challenging to tread that path as a parent: to show the current generation growing up that entertainment without a power cable can be worth it.

But parenthood, with its associated reduced levels of cash, also means a rediscovery of free or lower impact entertainment.  Walks. Playgrounds.  Riding a bike.  Creating stories and tall tales. Talking about the world, how it works, how it doesn’t.

Running round and round with a pot of bubble mixture.  Inventing your own imaginary worlds.  Playing I spy, and a hundred other verbal games. Reading, reading, going to the library for a new stock of books, more reading aloud.  Making your own models.

Not everything that is ‘free’ is low impact.  But the things you can use multiple times, without cables – books, games, quality toys – and then pass on again to others: these are worth our time, as well as our investment.

And they give us some pointers to what life can be like when making your own entertainment – with creativity, and with enjoyment.