I feel a bit the same, writing. Some days, it seems a gale goes on before I can sit down and write, and I’m only really writing once a week.

But once I start to write, I feel safe.

I like the blogs where I feel safe when I arrive. I know what to expect, to a certain extent. I like to be surprised at times, too.

I mostly feel safe through the choice of the writer’s words, their topics, their take on life. They’ve shown up and done their work; I get to sit and enjoy it.

This way round, doing my own writing, I’m reminded of that choice to put things down, for others as well as for oneself. To be real. To be me.

Here’s another week. It’s me, it’s real, and I feel safe thinking it over, hands above the keys.

===

Over the weekend, Dan and I both get ill at the same time.

Head colds, not the worst things in the world, but it means we’re vying for spare hankies, and hot drinks, and trying to give each other a break while really just wanting to be in bed asleep.

Still. It is a good excuse to stay put, let the weekend unfold. On the Saturday night, there is a concerted Put the Kids to Bed, as we just can’t hold it together much longer.

But the reward is in the takeaway curry, which no doubt helps our colds too. Certainly our spirits.

By the end of the weekend, we’re doing better. We do a bit of perspective-setting: could have been worse. Easier over the weekend than on school pickups. No one was actually being sick, etc.

It helps that there’s been a birthday, and there’s marzipan in the house. (Actually, marzipan just helps. Full stop.)

===

Time for a craft order – or rather, the happy aftermath when the box arrives and you can look over everything. With luck, this will keep us going for a good while ahead.

The kids love their craft stuff. There is general oohing and aahing over thin pens and thick pens. New decopens, probably our favourite item, that can colour on pretty much anything: wood, china, glass and so on.

I get a pack of different colours of wool as part of the order, and try to do something about the noble art of darning. Having found a good post about it recently, I decide to have a go.

It helps that I rediscover a pair of wool slippers this week, ones that were worn and worn and then developed holes. I was sad, didn’t know what to do about it exactly, hung onto them in hope.

So now I get to benefit from putting them back into active use – but no one is exactly checking out the quality of my workmanship on them. Unless I put my feet up conspicuously.

I am wearing my slippers as I type. Fairly soon, I’ll try washing them, and see if the wool felts as promised, to fill up the holes a bit more.

===

I’m finding that sewing is helping in the evenings. Some of it is family mending-type stuff. Some of it is more of an experiment (like the darning).

But there is something about having something to do with my hands as part of winding down at the end of the day.

Colouring is taking a bit of a back seat, for now. It’s still something to do with my hands, true, but not as active, or something like that.

In the meantime, we are on to a new box set of a favoured TV series – one that doesn’t need me to keep my eyes on the screen all the time. Sewing is fitting in with it just fine.

===

Mini and I read The Paper Dolls this week. I am informed that we have had it out of the library before, but I’m pretty sure we haven’t.

In brief: mum makes girl a set of paper dolls. They get names, they have adventures, indoors and out.

There is a moment of high drama, which I won’t spoil, but by the end, the girl has become a mum herself, and is making a set of paper dolls for her daughter. Cue new adventures.

There’s that natural pause at the end, and you think: well, we’d better make some paper dolls, then.

With a bit of thinking, and a couple of goes, we created a couple of sets of paper dolls. One (round head shapes plus trousers) was criticised early on; the next set incorporated skirts and longer sections for hair.

The trousers set were given girl names, but soon became boys when it came to playing. The skirt set also got girl names (think Betsy, Getsy, Gretsy…etc), and soon the two sets were playing together.

Well, for at least a few minutes.

Mini was taken enough by the idea to want to make some more, later in the week. I demonstrated the arms bit so that they would stay linked up; Mini came up with much of the rest.

(And learned, fairly quickly, that drawing lines for high heels means that you can’t cut them out. Cut alternate footwear solutions.)

Whether or not Mini will go ahead and make sets of paper dolls, far into the future, I don’t know. But I do like planting a seed, and seeing what happens.

===

I am trying to do Paid Writing too – aka copywriting. I get some done this week, but it seems to take longer to get my brain in gear.

Once I’m underway, it’s all right, but it seems to take a surprising amount of procrastinatory cleaning to begin.

The house is benefitting from it, though.

Fiction writing still seems a long way off, for now. But I am in that January phase where I want to do new things. Even if it’s tiny things, like fixing a sock or a woollen slipper.

Maybe the words are more like migrating birds. Usually, they flock in around September, jostling, ready for some time indoors as the weather turns colder.

I’m not really sure where they are this year. But I keep turning up, once a week, to see if some of their friends are available. Maybe they’ll come and join them soon.

I hope so.

===

Rain upon rain. Cold winds too. It’s January, and I do understand why people find it so hard.

(It helps to have a January birthday, so there’s something to look forward to after Christmas. Even if your expectations for your birthday can include snow, torrential rain, or just greyness.)

We do what we can. One foot in front of the other. Keep the warm gloves ready for school pick up.

Mini continues in drawing mode. Junior has been set a Minecraft challenge by Dan, and both are delighted with the results.

I stick with some more baking for another week, generally enjoying the results. A little bit of a rhythm is building up.

And there’s generally about enough time left, at the end of it all, to restore the kitchen to relative normality. (Aka normal levels of food debris. You know the deal.)

It’s not all creativity. There is also the overdoing it that brings on colds; the ongoing issue of the sheer impossibility of eating breakfast and getting dressed, Mummy!

But alongside it, there seem to be fewer friendship issues for the kids at school. More of a sense of continuity.

The long autumn term is over and done; the pattern has been set, and actually a bit of routine is doing us all good.

====

I too am settling into coming here, once a week, putting down some words.

They are no great shakes, really. They are bits and bobs; the ongoing run of life with kids.

But writing about them allows me to pause. To feel the safety of it, for me, in the routine. Hopefully for the kids too.

Tonight, I can still hear my thoughts against the noise of the wind. And that will do for now.

The post Weekly snapshot: 28 January appeared first on Frydmania.

What to say of the last week?

—-

Peter Rabbit reigns supreme just now. Kind relatives bought Mini the whole set of Beatrix Potter books for Christmas, and we are working our way through them at bedtime.

It’s interesting to try books that I knew nothing of before. Ginger and Pickles run a rather strange shop, and go out of business fairly quickly.

We also have The Pie and the Patty Pan. Were I writing crime fiction, or something detective-y, this might be known as The Case of the Double Oven.

Suffice it to say, I am with the dog character on this: I would prefer not to eat mice pie, either.

Mrs Tittlemouse comes across as very OCD these days, but there are the wonderful characters of Babbity Bumble (the bee whose family has taken up lodging without asking), and the toad who sneezes when offered a plate of thistledown.

Reading more Beatrix Potter means we can also get out the audio CDs. Patricia Routledge and Michael Hordern are the readers, and you couldn’t want for more comforting voices.

Mini is very keen on The Tale of the Two Bad Mice. Maybe it’s the temptation to bash up the fake dinner, discovering that it was only plaster. Somewhat more overt violence for a children’s book.

For my part, I rather like the way that reading more in the series lets you meet certain characters again: the dolls of Bad Mice fame crop up again, visiting the shop which Ginger and Pickles own.

I have also introduced Mini to the Peter Rabbit series on CBeebies. This is generally going down well so far. Mini is less keen on the hectic guitar music for the series, and I have to agree – it’s a bit heavy, for such lovely pictures.

Whether or not we make it through the whole series remains to be seen. If so, I might finally finish Little Pig Robinson (started many years ago) for myself.

===

We have an early birthday celebration at my parents, which also allows for further Eating Up of Christmas food items. Two birds and all that.

To be honest, any offer of being fed that includes a) smoked salmon and b) me not cooking is generally to be seized. Swiftly.

Probably the main present of the day was the amazing views of snowy fields, as we drove out to the Borders. In one area, water had run off fields that slope above the road, forming brilliant icicles on the hedges.

Having driven through all this, the kids were fairly underwhelmed to see almost no snow on the ground outside my parents’ house.

Thankfully, Granny Ro was prepared to put boots on and go hunting for more snow with Mini. At least enough was found for a small snowball fight.

In fact, there was even some on the ground back at home, the following morning. The sledge, which gets more outings on grass on the back garden than anything else, did just fine on snow too, at a nearby park.

(It also worked well for dragging some snow back home after. I’m not sure if there was scientific enquiry, or just a thought to practise throwing snowballs at the fence. Probably more of the latter.)

—

The previously-mentioned joint project of building a hotel in Minecraft has gone a bit quiet. I’m not quite sure whether they’ve finished, or agreed to go back to individual game time.

In the meantime, Junior has decided to do a bit more work in Scratch, a visual programming tool which allows you to build little animations, and I’m sure much more.

Stop-motion is hanging in there as something to do when there’s ten whole minutes spare before heading off for school. And at other times too, if Daddy’s available for a bit more team effort.

I continue my own roles in this area: a) let them get on with it b) smile appreciatively when required c) leave Dan to figure out the rest when they get stuck.

—

Dan meanwhile has the opportunity to age by at least a decade. I’m trying out those patches for elbows, for when jumpers have holes in them.

So far, rather suspicious – and the stuff the patches are made out of smells a bit too. We’ll see how we get on. We can always remove the patches and go back to holes in elbows – it’s worked for us so far.

However, I am making some tentative attempts at darning – or at least, fixing a hole in one of Mini’s school jumpers with some embroidery thread.

It’s not quite the same colour. It’s not wool either. But knowing Mini’s abilities to expand holes in clothes, it’s a case of getting in quick now.

—

Buoyed by the success of last week’s apple cake, I did a bit more Solitary Baking this week. There were some gluten-free muffins, which I’d tried doing before and like.

I also had a go at making some granola, having found a new recipe with fewer nuts, but with the additions of ginger and cinnamon. So far, so rapidly disappearing.
I think that’s a good sign.

I think the kids are fairly happy at the prospect of me continuing this on a weekly basis, if they get cake for after school snacks. So am I really, if I get to eat some too. And there’s fruit or veg in too, so that has to count for something.

In the same session, I had a go at a kind of chicken pot pie. Chicken good, pastry bit not so much.

There was a reason why the recipe showed separate pie tins, and I’ve discovered it. There is actually such a thing as too much pastry after all.

—

Junior and I are doing a bit of language learning, to tie in with a series of books we’re reading. I’ve found that the textbook I used for it in the past is now online.

It seems that even this kind of practice is cool if you can drag and drop words into the right columns, and do other more interactive stuff.

And if you get them all right, on one exercise, you get a flock of butterflies covering your screen. Which, apparently, is an incentive as far as Junior’s concerned.

The real test is whether Junior can learn enough to teach a school friend, so they can both speak to each other without others knowing what they’re saying.

Nothing like spy requirements to put you under pressure to come up with the goods.

—

Meanwhile, day by cold (and by turns rainy) day, the light creeps back.

I know, from previous years, that by the end of the month, it’ll be light at five in the evening. It was almost properly light at eight this morning.

I walk round the park before pick up, and admire the allotments. The leeks stand proud like bundled ribbons. The other remaining veg appears to wear hairnets.

But despite the cold, the wet, the relative lack of promise on the ground, the birds are already singing more.

And on days when my hands are freezing, even despite warmer gloves, that’s a good thing.

The post Weekly snapshot: 21 January appeared first on Frydmania.

But it might be about not getting stuck when I don’t post for a while.

I like September. It’s often one of the best picture months on the calendar (have you noticed? Go and look at your own wall calendar and come back to me about it).

I like the sunshine without as much heat. I like the brambles (as referenced before, and once again, and so on).

I like the sense of purpose and routine – usually around going back to school – without the being completely worn out bit. That’ll come by the end of the autumn term, I know it.

One of my grannies had her birthday at the start of September. It was another reason to like it. And you should know that C. S. Lewis was a big fan of autumn – as I discovered when I read a biography of him some time back.

Here’s where we’re at this time round.

===

Sunshine. Day after day of it. Sure, the temperature goes up and down, you get the coat/jumper/length of sleeve bits wrong at different points.

Part of me is uneasy at the relative lack of rain (it is Scotland, after all). And part of me is very happy to send Junior and Mini back out to the trampoline after tea. Again. And again.

We experience that early September burst of summer. Year after year, back in my office days, I would set out around Scotland at this stage in the month, and enjoy sunshine all over the country. I smile at the prospect of it coming round again.

Sometimes, the sun and the light combine in magical ways. At the mid September long weekend, it’s nice enough to go down to the sea and paddle.

Mini has already dispensed with Crocs, trousers and sleeves pushed up as far as they will go. The swell of the Forth is coming in, and I watch a certain amount of wave jumping and sand scrabbling.

We retreat when a jellyfish is washed in (just in case), but in those few minutes, I breathe easier. And we take a little seaweed home to remember it by.

===

There is a trip to feed the ducks on the river by my parents. Suddenly, there is a benefit to the ongoing refusal to eat crusts.

The obligatory basket is brought out to put the crumbs in – and I learn that my mother used it as a little girl when she did the same thing. The binding around the handle is coming loose in one place, but other than that, it is the perfect size for a child’s hand to carry.

There are three adults to one child. The afternoon stretches before us. There is no rush. Plus there might well be pizza for tea.

===

We play and play and play at the park. At least, Mini does. I watch the process of increasing confidence; learning tricks from other children; coming back to the same elements day after day.

Small climbing wall. Scrambling net. Rope bridge (with added potential to swing it sideways, once you’ve built up the courage).

We discuss the possibility of making a list of all the new jumping and swinging skills. Maybe there’ll be enough for some kind of a reward. Mini thinks so. (I do too, to be honest).

We see a succession of junk model robots come home, courtesy of Junior Reader. In true inventor style, they have numbers for the new upgrades: Frank 1, Frank 2, and so on.

As I write, Frank 3 has come home today. He makes rude noises if you press his eyes. I am encouraged to do so.

===

I come to the end of reading Pippi Longstocking to Junior Reader. I am initially sad, then I remind myself that there are two more books still to have fun with.

I am not sure whether it sits in the category of books that are funnier to read to yourself than to read out loud. (The Hyman Kaplan books are also in that group, but those are a way off for Junior Reader.)

In the meantime, I discover a new Church Mice book, second hand. Junior Reader appreciates the dry humour, the word play, and all the little injokes in the drawings.

Mini discovers Meg, Mog and Owl. I have another opportunity to revisit my own childhood, reading and reading them over again.

We talk about which one we like the best – I still think Meg on the Moon is the greatest, with their tea of egg and chips floating around in zero gravity. (Sadly, I can’t show you the individual picture – but you can see the cartoon version online.)

===

There is one golden Saturday morning when Junior and Mini get up, eat breakfast and keep playing. No real squabbles. Dan and I look at each other, get our teas or coffees, and stay in bed as long as possible.

There is a discovery – and rediscovery – of Duplo. Larger and larger blasters are made. Longer and longer trains are put together, along with their various passengers. A clown figure pushes another clown figure in a Duplo pram.

There is a sighting of Yorkshire rhubarb in the supermarket. It’s not the early sprouting stuff, true, but it is also on offer. Rhubarb and brambles. I feel the need for a crumble, and maybe some custard to go with it.

===

There are plenty of other days and hours and minutes that are less moment-y. There are forgotten lunchboxes that come home smelling. There are abandoned socks and argued over food remains, pushed to the side of the plate.

There are attempts to use up food that don’t quite work out. Refusals to do X. Arguments over who gets to open the front door first in the morning.

Still, the light reminds me that we still live in the afterglow of summer. It is autumn, true, but of the pleasantest kind.

I choose to write about the brambles, and the light, and the swell of the sea on an afternoon that seems without end.

The post Moments: September 2014 appeared first on Frydmania.

You’re already accustomed to putting them first in so many areas: when you sleep, when you wake, when you use the bathroom independently (if you’re lucky) comes back to them.

And that’s OK. So too is planning a certain amount of things based on them: what they enjoy, their attention span, and how high their wellies are for certain active pursuits.

Lately, I seem to have added another level of awareness (or maybe it’s subservience, I’ve still to decide).

The one when you don’t necessarily make your own lunch: you just eat the various leftovers, after they’ve decided what they will or won’t eat that particular day.

===

I already have a commitment to leftovers (you may remember), so that’s one thing. I like seeing what supermarkets have on offer, and coming up with meals around that (you may also remember).

In defence, I think it sits as equal parts hating to waste food – and equal parts gluttony.

It’s easier when it’s fruit or veg on special: that’s pretty much a no-brainer. Other items…well, it may depend. On how much I want to keep items out of supermarket bins. (Particularly if they include marzipan.)

Weekends do see us eating leftovers reasonably often. Whatever Dan didn’t use up at the office during the week, whatever is still in the bottom of the fridge.

I think of these as ‘eatie-uppies’: everyone ends up with something different, but it means that there’s not waste. (Although I am struggling to find new uses for leftover mango chutney after a takeaway, I must confess.)

===

Today’s leftovers, for your delectation (and mine too):

– a small box of leftover chicken and rice. (Junior Reader is eating more – but I am still trying to gauge the quantities right.)

– a quarter of a tuna sandwich from yesterday. (Someone else couldn’t quite manage the whole thing.)

– a Babybel cheese. Because in my current run of food research, they may say they eat them – and they certainly like playing with the outside waxy bit – but they don’t really eat them. So this was the last one.

– a slice of raisin bread. Last one in the packet, also a supermarket discount item. And someone’s tummy dictates no more dried fruit for a little while.

– Along the way, and possibly yesterday, I believe that a certain quantity of cold baked beans may have been consumed. Probably because they needed to be used up. (Also because I have a certain fondness for cold baked beans.)

– I failed on finding a use for a small amount of uncooked cauliflower (food waste bin), but succeeded in adding a spare carrot and a certain amount of yellow pepper into a rice salad. (That one was pretty good.)

===

Despite all of the above activity, the fridge has a small amount of a ground rice pudding in a pot. And some leftover icing from a baking project, where the lead baker really wanted the icing – then decided they didn’t actually like the taste.

There is also apple puree and pumpkin puree which have been taking up space in the bottom of the freezer – and might just make it into a smoothie over the weekend.

I really don’t know what to do with the icing though. Other than dunk biscuits into it. Which I really shouldn’t be writing about at this time of night.

The post A life through leftovers appeared first on Frydmania.

Now we’re OK on this in a few different ways:

– Junior Reader doesn’t grow terribly fast (so far), so the T-shirt still has some life in it yet

– we’re pretty good about passing on clothes when they don’t fit any more, given that many of them are ‘new to us’ via helpful friends and family, or second-hand shops.

However. There comes a point when certain clothes reach treasured status.

And really, this one is a good one – nice red background (always a good start as far as Junior Reader is concerned), big applique design on the front that’s holding pretty well despite lots of use. (It’s a T Rex, in case you wanted to know.)

So Junior Reader came to me with a suggestion. Why not turn the T-shirt into a cushion cover? (Because, you know, we definitely need more cushions with dinosaurs on.)

===

Lots of people have clothes they don’t want to part with. Sometimes this is OK – fashion comes round again, etc. You may find out it looks great a few years from now. (If you have wardrobe space to wait this long.)

Sometimes, you only wear the clothes a few times a year, but it’s worth hanging on to them. (Quality wool coats; much of my ‘hot weather clothing’ collection.)

Sometimes, it’s time to think differently about the item. It’s part of the reason quilts and rag rugs work well. You get to hang on to some material that has sentimental attraction, but in a new form where it has a bit more use.

And why not add a T-shirt cushion to that category?

===

Junior Reader has clearly seen me fiddling with fabric enough to put the suggestion – and I like it. It is a nice T-shirt, plus it gives me a new project idea.

Junior Reader is now adding further complexity to the notion. ‘It needs a zip.’ Well, love, I can’t fit zips (as yet), but Granny R can. So maybe we’ll ask her, or…maybe I’ll bottle it, and we’ll use press studs instead, ‘cos I know I can sew those on OK.

A T-shirt is not so far off a cushion shape in the first place. And if I run out of pillow filler, I could go as far as buying a cushion pad for this one – which would then mean I might need to do a bit more conventional measuring to make sure the cover fits.

But beyond the cushion itself, there’ll be more leftover material. Fuel for the rag rug, I suspect.

Still, while the T-shirt still fits, this is more of a project to muse on for the future. We’ll keep you posted.

The post Making: new uses for treasured T-shirts appeared first on Frydmania.

There were a mixture of stalls. I liked some items; was less keen on others. But on one stall, there was a lady with strips of cloth, and a wooden implement which I can only really describe as a Bodger.

The woman had a loose-weave cloth, and she was using the bodger to poke strips of cloth through that backing. What she was doing was making a rag rug, something I had read about, but never actually seen done.

The woman had kits for sale, with the hessian backing, instructions, and a few pieces of coordinating material to start you off. The clincher, of course, was that the kit gave you your own bodger.

I was in.

—-

The thing with making rag rugs is that it immediately gives you a use for lots of tiny bits of fabric that might otherwise get chucked out.

These days, as the woman showed me, those bits of fabric can include fleece material, jeans, tartan, cotton, and pretty much anything else you care to cut into tiny pieces of fabric.

Once I got home, and looked at the instructions more, it seemed that the cutting of strips was to be greatly improved by the owning of a rotary cutter.

I did not then own one. So the kit stayed in its bag for pretty much a year. (I made an attempt at getting a rotary cutter at one point, only to find I had bought something else, and had to take it back.)

Fast forward to this summer. I have now acquired my rotary cutter. So all of a sudden, my new toy is not just for quilts/patchwork, but I can also get the rag rug kit underway.

—

While the rag rug kit was gathering dust, I did start to amass a pile of fabric to go with it. Then I had a big bout of spring cleaning and got rid of it. (I kind of regret that now, but only a bit.)

On the plus side, it might be the ideal use for lots of little strips of eco bag that I no longer want to use, but that could find a new purpose as a rag rug.

On the other side: what does one do with one’s rag rug? I have a feeling that it might turn into a teeny tiny rug for a teddy, in a similar way to the teeny tiny quilt.

The good thing about the rag rug work is that the pieces aren’t fixed in the same way as sewing. So if I try out some bits and don’t like the effect, I can always pull them out and start again.

I’m rather hoping that rag rugging – aka bodging – might be just the thing for doing while watching TV. Normally I don’t manage to make and watch TV at the same time, but I think this might just be the exception.

And then, if I like it, I can always buy more hessian, and bodge away a bit more.

===

Early results:

– fleece material is nice to use, fairly easy to put in and out

–  tartan material looks good but keeps fraying. Turns out I should have cut it on the bias. (I know the phrase – now I need to go off and work out what it means in practice. I think it means cutting cloth in a way that stops it fraying.)

– cotton eco bag material works very nicely. And those bits that had writing on – you only see a tiny bit of the writing for each ‘stitch’ of the rug, so it’s not distracting.

It’s more like those pictures of walls where an old advert was painted up there and is now flaking off in a reasonably charming way.

– folding the strips in half along the width makes for a neater ‘stitch’ but means that you get lots of flatter lines

– bodging can be done fairly easily while playing Settlers of Catan on holiday

– with practice, I can now bodge strips from the front of the cloth, which speeds things up.

===

So: will it use up scraps of material? Yes, just great. But I am now realising I will need a lot of scraps of material. (No wonder rag rugging was done by a whole family – you’d need to, just to create enough strips and get them into the backing.)

In consequence, it will Take Some Time to complete. But that’s OK. I suspect it could be a perfect project to pick up and put down when I need to.

The post Making: a rag rug appeared first on Frydmania.

What when they are ones that pick you? The DIY jobs that you really can’t put off any longer – the ones you also don’t know how to do?

===

Here’s how it goes. You agree that there is a task that must be done: taking out the old sealant round the bath and putting in new.

You don’t know how to do it – but one day, your local supermarket happens to do a deal on tools to scrape out the old stuff. So you pick those up, and a sealant tube, and hope that that will spur you on.

You invite your dad round – not to do the job, but to supervise, and show how to start it. He gets out the Trusty Penknife, starts things off. You learn how to keep going, without worrying that you are carving up things that you shouldn’t.

Your dad shows you a new and exciting sharp tool to add to the collection: a Stanley knife that you can use for DIY. It’s meant to be for getting paint off the edge of windows, but you discover you can degrime shower screens with it. Bonus.

Then you realise that you also need to regrout the tiles around the bath. You don’t know how to do that either.

But your dad tells you how to mix up grout, and you discover some left over from when friends did the job in the first place. So you add that to the list.

You begin to scrape out all the old grout around the bath. It makes a mess, it takes a long time, you work up a sweat. You start to learn that preparation in DIY really does take longer than the job itself.

You like the scraper tool, so you buy one. And a different sealant. And take the first back. And go back to the DIY place a few more times, now that you’re in the swing of things, to get radiator paint.

Because your dad has told you that you can seal the rust on the bathroom radiator that you’re embarrassed by, and the hall radiator would probably benefit from a lick of paint…and so on.

One time, you go to the DIY place twice in the same morning. The first time, because you’ve left your bank card in the wrong place. They smile and park your trolley somewhere helpful.

You discover that you have overcome another challenge, namely, driving a new route to the DIY place. And the supermarket nearby.

You touch up paintwork on the walls in the bathroom. And find yourself repainting the bathroom. With a very small brush, because there’s lots of fiddly bits. Good job it’s a small bathroom.

===

You enlist the help of your spouse. You seek out YouTube videos on how to do grouting and sealant. Or rather, he does, and you nod approvingly.

And go back to the DIY place, because now you need masking tape to do the sealant properly. And your spouse informs you that the local supermarket does not stock it. (But it does stock quick cook pasta. That helps. You’re tired by now.)

In the end, you chicken out, and let your better half do the actual grouting and sealant. He doesn’t seem to be as nervous.

You stand alongside and provide kitchen roll when asked for, and dig out one of those primary school style glue spreaders that happens to be the right size for pushing grout between tiles.

===

You discover that you don’t need to repaint the woodwork. What you really needed to do was to clean it properly in the first place.

You hunt around the attic for the sugar soap, and it does the trick. You are simultaneously pleased at the result and depressed that you let the grot hang around that long.

===

You have to remove part of a significant sticker collection around the window to repaint – and breathe a sigh of relief when you can do so safely and return them to their owner without ripping them.

You use one of those masks for painting the radiator. Because the DIY place doesn’t seem to stock radiator paint without significant fumes.

You feel halfway to a proper tradesman, but don’t understand why he doesn’t get headaches from the fumes if he’s doing this all the time.

===

You show up for school pick up in painting clothes. Three days running.

It’s only when you’ve finally finished the job that your child informs you that, one more day of painting clothes at pick up, and they might start to get embarrassed.

===

All of a sudden, you discover that you can redo a bathroom by doing the cheap bits that freshen it up. You feel very pleased with yourself.

But in the meantime, you eat a whole pork pie on your own, for lunch, because it turns out DIY can take it out of you. Even if you’re keeping as calm as you can.

The post Keep Calm and DIY appeared first on Frydmania.

Dan and Junior Reader are Lego afficianados. To be honest, it’s building anything – it could be K’nex, or Duplo, or anything else that you stick together.

I admire the things they create – they have a much more instinctive understanding of making than I do. Plus they can both think in 3D, which is a challenge to me.

But the downside of these building sessions is that there are lots of tiny bits, spread out. And when it comes to tidying up, it takes a long time, there’s quite a lot of harumphing over the tidying up, and there’s invariably a few bits that are found later.

So how would it be if you used a blanket for the spreading things out stage – then pulled the corners to form a bag? Then (carefully) tip the Lego into its drawers, and you’re done.

The plus side to this plan, as I see it, is the chance to have a nice comfy surface under you as you sit and build.

The question mark is: do you make it as a quilt? And the even bigger question: should the quilt look like Lego itself?

—

So here’s where I’m at so far on the thinking about this.

I like the idea, and I think it would be very useful. And I have those sturdy handles all ready to use. (More than I need for one blanket. Maybe I’ll make a second scooping-up blanket for something else.)

Downside of a Lego-style quilt: potentially difficult to see the actual pieces on if it looks like Lego too (ie Lego-type colours, similar shaped blocks).

BUT if I did a Lego style quilt, and put a plain backing on it, then you could use the plain side to build on, so you could see the pieces.

And then you’d have the visual joke of the Lego side for other occasions where you might like to have something to snuggle (thinks: Sunday film afternoons?).

Big plus of this: we know the Lego colours already. We know they work together. There’s no pattern matching to do. And the pieces can be Lego shaped, which could be fun to plan.

I think if I do this, I’ll probably aim for using Duplo blocks for sizing, rather than actual Lego sizing, which would be too fiddly to work with.

(After discussion with Dan, that size is probably too small too. Think bigger.)

It might also be an excuse to cut out little bits of coloured paper, and move them around to find a pattern I like. Plus I do have that rotary cutter now, so I should be able to cut suitable sized blocks of fabric.

—

It’s at this point that I see the addiction of making. It’s not just about solving problems; it’s about thinking about the best way of doing so.

I know that if I do this, it’ll be a lot of work. And I do my sewing by hand, so that could mean it takes a while.

But at the same time, I am really enjoying the sewing. If the teeny tiny quilt gets finished OK, then I’ll have some more skills for doing the next stage.

Plus I’ve got a LOT of quilt-stuffing material from those old pillows. I might as well make use of it.

If I can, I’m going to use the fabric left over from the eco bags, where I think it fits sufficiently with Lego colours. I’ve got time to plan it; maybe to hunt for scraps of material that would work.

But in the meantime, I’ve found the perfect scrap of material for another project – and one I’m going to complete first, I think.

It’s an end of bed tidy thing, sewn, with pockets. More on that next time.

The post Making: the scooping up blanket appeared first on Frydmania.

Supermarkets sold them to you; conferences pressed them on you (to hold all the paper that you then didn’t need anyway. Hmm.)

I started into eco bags a while back. They were quite often souvenirs of trips to Germany. I still have a couple which I love (and which have the frayed handles to prove it).

One is for a children’s book publisher, and has a very nice illustration of a cheery frog on a motorbike. The other has the Ampelmaenner (traffic light men) of East Berlin – you’ll see the ‘Go’ version as the little icon at the top of this webpage.

Eco bags are a nice idea, but they don’t really hold a lot of shopping. They’re fine if you’re off to the paper shop to collect your weekend newspaper, they’ll do a few bits and pieces, but not a great deal.

Cue my next use of them: for putting dirty washing in when on trips away from home. And when you’re home and doing the washing, stick the bag in as well, and it’s ready for next time.

But still. There were bags I liked, and ones I really didn’t care for any more. So I decided it was time to get the material back, use the blank bits (maybe more quilt activity?), keep the bag designs I did like, and ditch the rest.

And then I was able to justify getting a new sewing toy. The terribly sharp, terribly exciting rotary cutter.

—

You can use strong scissors to cut fabric, of course. You can even have pinking shears to make sure the edges don’t fray. (Though the main use of pinking shears, as I recall, was to reuse old Christmas cards and turn them into tags for next year.)

Once I’d read the quilting book a bit more, as well as a bit of looking at sewing sites, I realised that a rotary cutter could help things along nicely.

It basically looks much like a pizza cutter – but deadlier. (A pizza cutter doesn’t have a guard for the blade. This does.)

Lest it seem too dangerous for words, I have been practising cutting, carefully, on little scraps of fabric, to get the feel for the thing. Turns out it’s very nice to use – very smooth.

You do need to have one of those cutting mats to use them on – I think they call them self-healing mats.

The kind you can use for cutting out card designs with a Stanley knife. (We did some Christmas cards a few years ago, with lots of cutting, so we have the mat already.)

So the stitch ripper and the rotary cutter have been working together on taking apart these bags. A few are even coloured, and may make it into a different pile for a larger-scale quilt idea (if the first one works out).

I don’t quite know what I’ll do with the picture bits I’m saving yet. I don’t think they are quilting squares; most of them have words on as well, and I don’t want a quilt that’s too busy to look at.

They might be interesting cut into quarters and moved around a piece of fabric, as it were, so the effect is less immediate on the eye.

I do now have a lot of nice strong handles from the bags, though, which brings me to another idea: a scooping things up blanket.

(A blanket with handles, basically. I’ve seen things like this for sale online. Play on it, then pick it up by the handles at the end, and scoop up whatever’s inside, to make tidy up easier and quicker.)

I think the blanket might work for all kinds of small playthings – but I’m principally thinking the Lego collection. More on those plans another time.

Updated: the bits of fabric with words on turn out to be just fine in a rag rug. And more on that on a separate occasion.

Am I using up almost all the fabric? You betcha.

The post Making: reusing fabric appeared first on Frydmania.

Even further ago, I found myself teaching in Poland (second time around), again at a point where my hands needed something to do in the evenings.

(English teaching in the day meant that it was very hard to do anything words-related at night. So I ended up doing some sewing-type things instead.)

Fortunately, my teaching position came hot on the heels of an American family who had been there for three years before me. The mum seemed to have been into quilting, and left a box full of lots of odds and ends of fabric.

I made a few little bits of patchwork. The colour combinations were good. One became a kind of table runner for the low table in the room where I was staying that year.

Another made steps towards being the size of a cushion cover. It never got to those lofty heights, but it does now get more viewing time, as it were, by going over the top of a rocking chair.

I never wanted to fill the house with patchwork thises and thats. Part of me admires it, the colours, the shapes. Part of me also wants to avoid too much busyness on the eye.

But with some offcuts from my clothes-adjusting activities, I thought I might try to find a use for them. Cue: the teeny tiny quilt.

—

The point of this is that it’s a place to learn. It will probably end up the right size for a teddy or other soft toy, which is plenty big enough to work on, but not so crucial that I feel bad if it doesn’t work out.

I’ve kept the notion of the teddy quilt a secret from Junior Reader, but I hope that it will go down well, once I feel like it’s at a point where I can hand it over.

Part of the current attraction of the quilt is that it also gives me a chance to use up the inners of the pillows we recently parted with.

(I discovered that you can’t recycle them – they just go into landfill – but some online searching suggested things like using them for making soft toys or quilts.)

So far, we have simple squares. A bit of leftover red curtaining material (Granny R has been hard at work on new curtains for Junior Reader. Respect.). And the offcuts of those jeans I mentioned.

24 squares, and a colour way of red and grey. So far so good.

—

So I’ve learned to look at the useful book before beginning the project. (Turns out you shouldn’t create strips of 6 squares, but just do them in pairs. Back to the stitch ripper for a bit.)

I’ve just started combining the pairs into sets of 4. That took a bit of trial and error to work out how to match them so it looks (as best I can) like the seams actually line up.

Hopefully I’ll complete the 24 squares fairly soon. Then I need to think about what to put on the back, and how to tease out the pillow material so it forms the filling (or batting) of the quilt.

There is also adding some kind of binding around the outer edges to hold all the elements together. And after that, you get to do stitching through the different layers (the actual quilting), which I understand can be decorative if you want it to be.

—

So that’s all going fine. But then I discovered a set of fabric that was doing nothing, and decided to add to my material stash by cutting up: eco bags.

The post Making: a teeny tiny quilt appeared first on Frydmania.

My normal sewing levels are around attaching name tapes to clothes. Occasionally badges to judo outfits. Not much more.

I did learn to do backstitch (making a nice strong seam) in the teenage days of having a favourite schoolbag, which would intermittently fall apart under the weight of all the books.

Having finally found the perfect bag (large, green, canvas material, good straps), I was not going to let it go and have to begin the hunt again. So I think I must have kept it going a good three years in the end.

Which is good for schoolbags, all in all.

Over time, and with a bit of observation of my mother-in-law’s trouser hemming techniques, I have moved up to being able to take up trousers to a shorter height, should one’s junior reader require it.

(I have also on occasion managed to sew one trouser leg to another (temporarily, I didn’t leave it like that), but I’m better at spotting that in advance and saving all the unpicking.)

Although it has allowed me to buy a seam ripper, like the one I remember my mum having, which is a lot of fun to use.)

Having shown the level of my sewing credentials to date, down to the business of making.

—

No. 1: a pair of trousers belonging to Junior Reader. Having been taken up several times to begin with, once they were taken down, they had big bands of fold around the ankles.

They looked a bit like lines you’d find at successive high tides. So I asked if I could turn them into mid-length trousers, and was given the nod. (Phew.)

The trousers were cargo pants, and fortunately, had some detailing on them already which gave me a hint of where to cut. Then I hemmed them and: hey presto, new light-weight trousers.

Not yet tried out at the beach, but great for this ‘is it spring/isn’t it’ kind of weather.

These I have been able to see are a success, because they are getting worn a lot.

(We have also had the ‘how to take off your trousers carefully’ talk, after a certain amount of recent fixing and refixing of school trousers, and so far, cargo pants are doing just fine.)

—

No 2: a stage further up. Dan had a pair of jeans with rips on both knees. So I applied the same logic (and measured VERY carefully), and managed to create some cut-offs.

I think the point of proper cut-offs is that the hems are mean to be a bit raggy. But that doesn’t really build in your sewing skills, so I’ve gone for neat for now.

I think they may actually need taking up a bit more – they are a tiny bit Empire-builder for now. But hopefully we’ll get to see them in action (if that hot summer we’re promised comes round), and then we can fix on the hems for definite.

Updated: they’ve been worn all week on holiday. The length is good at the points when you sit with your knees bent. And really, they are just off, seeing holidaying action, so I think that’s a win.

—

No 3: same approach, different garment. Dan had a much loved long-sleeved shirt, with a hole at one elbow. No longer suitable for business meetings.

A spot more cutting, and cue: short sleeve shirt. This one I’m happy with for length of sleeve.

Somehow or other, there was also a hole near the lower seam. So I cut the lower seams and had a go at a rolled stitch, to make the hem very small.

The hems were a success, but it does make the shirt a bit boxy now. So I think we’ve settled that it’s one of those summer shirts that you don’t actually try to do up, but wear open over a T shirt or a vest.

—

Big plus point from 2 and 3: spare material. Just a bit, but nice enough to use for something else.

Which leads us to the next making update: a small attempt in the direction of quilting. (Fingers crossed.)

The post Making: new clothes for old appeared first on Frydmania.

It doesn’t seem to matter what the interest is – science experiments you can do at home, knitting patterns for tiny babies – there’s plenty to borrow from.

So I’m tentatively creating a new category here: making. Not because I think that what I’m trying to do is Pinterest-worthy (hardly, given that I’m still avoiding adding photos), but simply because That’s Where It’s At right now.

Making is probably not big news any more online – but there’s plenty more encouragement for what is effectively free-range creative endeavours. It might be putting together paper and cardboard, it might be making finger puppets, or all kinds of different things.

I’ve reached a point where my head is too full of chatter in the evenings. Sometimes, I drown it out with TV – that works fine, but it seems that my hands would like something to do as well.

So, little by little, I’ve been starting some making of my own. It’s not going to be a new and exciting invention, it’s not going to inspire other kids in the playground, but it’s going to be something that I made. By myself.

—

I do do making, of sorts. Cooking has been my big area of making, for a long time, but in a funny way, it doesn’t feel like making particularly.

In cooking, you have recipes to follow (or at least to use as a guide). There are techniques to learn; variants on how to use different ingredients.

I dare say the same could be applied to something like woodwork, but I have lacked the confidence to feel that I could then approach a new area of making, and extend my skills there.

So what I’m trying is a bit different for me – it’s in the following your nose kind of category of activity. I’m trying things out: no patterns, no how tos, no instruction booklets.

No one is telling me what to make but me. No one is devising the plans but me. That is partly faintly alarming and partly very releasing, because I can be on my own side. It’s about having fun in the activity, and hopefully it turning out OK.

—

The thing with making is that it encourages all kinds of useful skills. Learning through trial and error, thinking on your feet, improving techniques as you go along.

It’s a very arts/crafts way of thinking – much more what you can do with your hands than I’m used to. But that’s OK. I don’t want to write a thesis in the evenings; I want to relax, and maybe explore a little too.

I am worried about whether I’ll manage to be precise enough. I fear cutting into things and making mistakes, but maybe I’ll find a different idea as a result. (I hope so.)

—

So every now and then, I’ll share some making thing that I’m doing. I might even mention what Junior Reader is up to – there’s someone who loves making, and is not afraid to try new things. Maybe I can learn a thing or two.

I’m hoping that what I come up with will be a little bit eco, too, finding new purposes for things, spinning out the life of a garment. Stopping some fabric sitting doing nothing, and turning it into something useful.

If you’re really lucky, I might even take photos. Not for the how-to factor, but to prove to myself: I made something. I can do it.

And I can enjoy the process as well as the finished product.

The post Making appeared first on Frydmania.

A new broom sweeps clean, we’re told – and when you’re sweeping the same mess (or variants on it), sometimes you just give up. Or stop. Or hide those final few things that you can’t find homes for, because you can’t quite face doing any more that day.

One good thing is that we are finally putting pictures back up. We’ve lived with fairly clear walls for about a year, after finishing off all our building work (and the aftermath of putting things into new homes afterwards).

The wondrous height chart has a new home outside the bathroom. Now we can check where Junior Reader is up to – as tall as a red postbox? Bigger than a crocodile’s open mouth? Larger than an emperor penguin? (Better find out quick.)

We’ve finally agreed on what is going where for pictures and about half of them are up. Including framing a teatowel with this design – if you’re unsure why, read this post on the importance of Creamola Foam.

We are sweeping clean a bit on bedding – new pillows all round, after nearly 15 years’ wear (for some of us). Now to find a reasonably eco way to use the old stuffings. (I’m thinking stuffed toys, and possibly homemade quilts? That won’t happen overnight though.)

My mum and I have done a deal on some sheets and towels, extending the largesse of my granny’s linen cupboard a bit further.

And in a slightly different ‘reuse’ mood, our two blown-down fence panels have now made their way to join the wood pile at my parents, where they will be efficiently turned into heat for them (and maybe for us, when it’s wood stove season there again).

Nothing like a bit of swapping too to get the eco juices flowing. So I pass on some of Junior Reader’s clothes, now outgrown; I then get an invite to help clear someone else’s stash a bit. Which means that we now have some Hairy Maclary jigsaws. Bonus.

And Junior Reader has a monster-making project for school. That ought to clear at least three cardboard boxes. (I think.)

It’s little by little, but the broom is finally in motion again.

The post Sweeping clean appeared first on Frydmania.

Having never done this before, I was a bit unsure about how it would go. Having done one and a bit rooms yesterday, and the same today, my arms are reminding me that they can do big tough jobs but the aching could mean they are just checking they are still attached.

Other than finding that the floors take longer to dry than advertised, generally happy. I can put my eco hat on too, for a bit, hopefully prolonging the length of life of the carpets.

I’m sure it would be more eco to do without carpets, but a) Northern Hemisphere, cold climate b) lack of underfloor heating and c) feels nice underfoot, and quieter than wooden floors.

Part of the point of the carpet cleaning, I’m sure, is the inverse satisfaction that comes with seeing just how grotty the water is once the machine has sucked the dirt out of the carpet and into the machine.

It’s not just ‘look how clean my carpets are’ but ‘look how much dirt there was there in the first place!’. It rewards the endeavour, even in a rather strange way – because we’d rather not admit to how much dirt there can be at home.

I am finding myself pondering some kind of metaphor to do with the dirt that we hide away, down in the fibres of the carpet. I don’t feel the need to be all Borrower about it, and consider the dirt from much closer up – I know it’s there.

Maybe there are all kinds of things that we just let build up: personal habits, eating patterns, ways of relating to others.

Every now and then, we may spring clean them, through one set of prompts or another, and see just what we are doing to ourselves – and perhaps others too.

Right now, I’m not opting to do too much more close up dirt inspection. It’s tiring, it can take specialist input to do the clean up (sometimes), and we all know carpets are for walking on. The dirt will inevitably come back.

But the notion of keeping areas of life more ‘rubble free’ – I like the sound of that. As long as there’s enough coffee and carbs to help me through the heavy lifting.

The post Down in the fibres appeared first on Frydmania.

The clear out has been going well. Lots of paring down to what we need – and for those things where it’s harder to let go of them, at least some thinning of what we hold on to.

A lot of it is paper. Easy enough to deal with.

But some of it is special paper.

It’s the paper of an airline ticket, with your name on. With a significant date and destination.

It’s the entry stub for an amazing art gallery. The leaflet reminding you of a special excursion you took while on holiday.

You may well have the photos. You have the memories too, some clearer than others, but that’s OK. You may have others who were there, to swap stories with.

Do you need the paper proof too?

I find this one difficult. Various different parts of me have an opinion on the importance of the paper, and all of them are ganging up on me, telling me to keep it.

The linguist: remembering school teachers’ injunctions to collect real material while abroad, learn from it.

The communicator: appreciating the designs, the choice of what to say and what not.

The historian: looking at the significance of what we learn from documents; what’s intentional, what you read between the lines.

The aspects of our all so recent culture where you had to have a ticket for a flight – not a printout, not an email on a phone. Where countries you visited still had separate currencies.

A food label where it was typical to have the information in just one language, rather than the many that often grace our packaging these days.

There are souvenirs because you used to have to go to a place to see these things; these bits and pieces of daily life. A few might crop up in textbooks; maybe even in reference books.

But now I can go online and hunt up the packaging design for a potentially tooth-rotting childhood drink – or see photos of a far-off church I visited one time. All without getting up. (But you might have to scroll down to see the pictures.)

I don’t have to hold the paper to prove to you what life is like there – I can just open a laptop and show you. That is partly exciting, and partly unsettling.

I can’t open a box, and take out a horde of ancient coins, and let you handle them. There are museums for that, and they look after things well, too.

But I can pass you real items, parts of the past, parts of my past. I can tell you what was happening that day.

And you will learn some things from handling that leaflet, that piece of paper, that you cannot learn through a glass case, or on a screen.

Maybe the solution is going back to scrapbooks of some kind. I don’t just want the items on their own; I want to include the story that goes with them.

So maybe some day, someone who knows me can hold the whole thing in their hands. As a gift. As a passing on of life, of story.

That partly sounds self-important. It isn’t meant to be.

It is the pieces of life that I would like to know about for the generations before me; the ones that feel everyday and ordinary, but that still show the passage of time and events.

I have things that belong to my grandparents; in a few cases, great-grandparents. But I don’t necessarily have the stories that go with them. I would really like both.

That will take time. I want to avoid feeling guilt for the process taking time – I also want to avoid putting it off because it takes time.

I want to find a level of doing this that doesn’t mean I’m hoarding every last bus ticket to tell my story. But maybe I can find a balance.

And just as importantly, a place to house all these memory-making items while I work out how to do it.

The post Rethinking souvenirs appeared first on Frydmania.

Quick answer: why keep information? It’s All Out There Anyway. (The end.)

Is it really as simple as that? Yes, with more and more information online, one way or another, there is less need for me to keep some of the things I’ve kept in the past.

University notes. Recipes. Addresses and phone numbers of companies.

The reason I’m grappling with this is that I am an inveterate keeper of cuttings. (My mother will tell you this started way back.)

From what I can think back to, it may have begun with recipes from women’s magazines. (I don’t even remember where the magazines came from. Maybe they were passed on to us.)

I would read them, as I would read pretty much anything that stayed around long enough for me to do so. And as we’d been told they didn’t have to be returned, I would take cuttings out of them. To keep. In case they came in useful.

It went on to other things. TV listings for programmes I’d really enjoyed and wanted to remember. (No catch-up TV in those days; if you’d not videoed it, that was that.)

I had scrapbooks for these. I like scrapbooks in the first place. Every now and then, I might go through them, take out things I was no longer interested in, paste some more in over the top.

And so it went on. For a long time. Saturday Times magazine articles that had been particularly good. Sometimes profiles of people I admired: actors, writers, and so on.

Later on, other things were added into the mix. Health tips. Travel recommendations. Places offering children’s parties. You name it, I would see ‘usefulness’ in it, and file it away.

Except, often, it was putting it in a folder and hanging on to it. I didn’t know what I had, necessarily. I was forging ahead, out to find the next useful piece of paper.

===

I’d like to blame some kind of hunter gatherer tendency for this. That would help. It might mean I can cite genetics, rather than label myself as a hoarder.

And yet. (You knew there was one coming, didn’t you?)

When you study, when you research, you do need to keep an eye out for things: not just what you think you’re looking for but what you come across as well. You hang on to it. You have a hunch about it.

Being a parent can be much the same. It’s not just what you need now, it’s what activity might appeal to your child in the future; that present idea for the great-aunt; the suggestion for something new to do with mince. (It can be more exciting than just mince recipes, too.)

And so I kept them. But as part of my grand sort-out, I am finally reviewing what I have kept – and realising how little I refer back to it.

Why keep several centimetres thick of photocopies – when I could buy the book if I want to keep reading about that topic? (Bye bye, some of my social sciences notes.)

Why keep some of the health or nutrition information when I’ve researched beyond that now? (You sure end up doing lots of online reading if you start cooking gluten- and dairy-free.)

Why keep the clipping about that summer camp when I can make a note of the details, and recycle the paper?

===

So far, it’s going well. Lots of recycling, yet more paper to add to the scrap paper collection.

Old habits die hard, though. I still love researching, one way or another. These days, I am trying to keep it what I find out in Evernote instead. Easier to record; easier to search and find again.

I’m trying something new: a file that tells me what I’m keeping in the flat, and where. (So if I do need to find my TEFL notes again, I know for certain which box I’ve put them in.)

The bigger change is one where I ask myself: do I really need that? Will I go back and look that up again – or will I just research it anew? And which one will take less time (quite apart from storage considerations)?

I don’t want to throw away useful things for the sake of it. That doesn’t sit right with the reuse-recycle part of me.

But as with other areas of last year’s eco sweep: it’s reducing that’s the hardest bit. Accepting that life is short; that we won’t need to reuse everything; that what we need now may not necessarily meet the challenges of the future.

There is a growing line of argument to suggest that education should move away from accumulation of knowledge – because so much ‘general knowledge’ information is easily accessible online.

What we need instead is synergy – making connections between different, seemingly unrelated areas. Turning them into something new.

Maybe it’s OK to keep some stuff then. Or at least to know where to find it.

So I can put it together with the new things I learn along the way – and make something that reflects who I’ve been, as well as where I’m going.

The post Free the information appeared first on Frydmania.

(Junior Reader is eating more and more now, though, so maybe the garrison is along the right lines.)

So it’s a bit strange to find myself avoiding food shopping, several times in a row.

I blame illness. Looking after someone else who just keeps being sick, you go off and hide when you need to eat something yourself. Dan helped out a couple of times, I cooked lack-lustre dishes at other times.

Then I blame spring-cleaning related injuries. Or rather, aches and pains that might turn into injuries if I go and do a full food shop. So I identify the essential to buy at the local shop that I can walk to, and put things off a bit more.

After that, I can blame a shift in routine. Conflict of interests on my usual food shopping day? Put it off again. And so on.

It may also be part of the general clearing things out phase at the moment. You get rid of things in one corner of the house, you do the same in another. You try not to bring any more in. You continue not to go food shopping.

So then you start to see how much you have in the house that you can turn into meals. Turns out, a good amount. Tins, grains, protein in the freezer one way or another.

I thank my earlier self for cooking bulk at times – and work my way through the stores.

Last year, I ended up reading about food spending challenges – where you set a budget for the month and stick to it. By week 4, everyone is cooking weird combinations of what’s left at the back of their cupboards, and hanging on in there.

I’m not at that point. But in some ways, it’s good to try. I remember challenges where you voluntarily reduce what you eat for a period of time, thinking of others for whom that level of eating is their regular diet.

(I found it harder to find examples of this online, but Meat Free Mondays are a step in that direction, even if the focus is more environmental than in support of others in poverty.)

Or the Oxfam banquet-type meals, where a percentage of people get a banquet, and others sit on the floor eating rice and beans – or less. (I think these are maybe not happening so much now, but here’s an example.)

I’ve reached the point where I have to do the food shop tomorrow. So I will. Really.

My garrison doesn’t run well on bread and water rations. And we are fortunate in the West that we can choose (and choose and choose) from so many products.

But maybe that trolley will end up a little less full. And I can save my wrists and my back for more of the sorting out.

The post How to avoid food shopping appeared first on Frydmania.

Call it age increments. Call it January. Call it taking a stance against clutter. Call it spring cleaning, even.

Whichever of these it is – or isn’t – the archiving is continuing apace. New steps: tackling the collection of oddments in the tool cupboard that are often held onto ‘in case they turn out useful’.

With my parents happily using their woodburning stove, I now have a place for offcuts of wood. (I might even relegate the important stick collection in that direction too. Shh.)

We finally culled the poster collection – which has partly meant looking out pictures that we do like, and that haven’t actually made it onto the walls. They have been bumped up a notch, and others that we no longer love so well have been quietly recycled.

Time can be an asset here. I went back through some TEFL notes I had been keeping. I could tell that I didn’t need advice on how to use the-then all new, all singing and dancing interactive whiteboards. The information had already moved on a great deal.

We have created an archive cupboard – one that is normally hidden a bit by other furniture. It’s the new home of the much-thinned-down study notes collection. And the CDs, because we normally listen to an iPod. And so on. We’re not parting with them entirely, but we also don’t need to get to them that much.

We have started using terms like ‘let’s keep this for a [limited period of time], and if we haven’t used it, then out it goes’. For people who are good at keeping things, particularly if there’s any chance they might be useful, this is Progress.

I am even trying some things like electronically scanning receipts, so I don’t have to keep a pile of paper that may not get referred to anyway. If it’s important, it gets scanned. If not – you guessed it.

It’s not just an attempt at reducing clutter. The more folders and files I can get rid of, the more space I have for books, you see? Perfect.

Book space is more of an issue, since Junior Reader has now commandeered two large bookcases, and we got rid of one other one. (After 30 years of noble service, and increasing lean, it too went to the woodburner.)

Despite getting some new shelves tucked into the attic, we still have less shelf space than before. This thought exercises me from time to time.

So I part with what I can, and decide what needs to stay. (Need is a relative term, for book lovers, but perhaps it’s more related to those books we care about most.)

My inner environmentalist is generally happy, because, so far, we are finding useful homes for things.

A piece of flat pack furniture, now too big for the attic, that has been taken back to its constituent parts, and used as duck boards inside cupboards. (Easier to move heavy items around on them than on carpet.)

Clothes to give away; lots more scrap paper to draw on. Cardboard to recycle. And so on.

Thinking about a title for this post, I found an image of a snakeskin that had been shed. It is very fine, almost like a scarf. Something like I imagine a gold-threaded medieval belt to be.

They are beautiful in their own right, I can see that. Some people collect them, I understand.

For all that, I’ve decided not to do so. Too much effort going in to parting with old collecting habits, let alone acquiring new ones.

The post Sloughing my skin appeared first on Frydmania.

If Britain is truly a nation of shopkeepers (and yes, I know the actual quotation is only about England), surely this should be our finest hour?

I don’t know about you, but there’s a reason I’m at home at the moment, writing this rather than fighting for bargains. And it’s not just because of online shopping.

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Christmas Past

Back in the days when sales were (yes, it’s true) only occasional, they took on almost mythic significance.

Think of this in terms of hunter gatherers. All year, it’s roots, shoots, berries, maybe some smaller animals that are easier to outrun or trap. It’s fine.

(I suspect that hunter gatherers didn’t necessarily find these even as often as I’m suggesting, but hang in here – the analogy is coming.)

One day, your scouts bring back news of a mammoth on the horizon. Possibly even a family of mammoths. Preparations begin in earnest. You lay traps. You prepare weapons. Your stomach growls, waiting for  the feast to come.

Imagine now that your tribal observers have been able to determine that the mammoths come this way when the sun is at a particular point; when frost covers this side of the tree but not the other.

Now you begin to anticipate some more; to plan some more. But maybe more clans have been tracking this too. Maybe when you show up, and the mammoths do too, you’ve got company.

Welcome to Christmas sales shopping. The chase of the rarely sighted beast; the thrill of the pack.

But sales shopping does not require the team effort that mammoth hunting does. It looks like a pack, but it’s really every shopper for themselves.

Because if they get the bargains, then maybe I don’t.

—

There have been some points that I have geared up for sales shopping after Christmas.
The days when money was a lot more scarce, and Christmas present money was a way to equip the flat, bit by bit.

Department stores can be very helpful in this regard. It might be buying better quality towels that you couldn’t normally afford. Or cookware that will last well, but that makes you wince at original price per item.

There have also been times when I needed to make wardrobe purchases on the cheap. Starting office work, needing to invest in some slightly smarter clothes.

So I’m not knocking sales, as such. There are plenty of items around the house that were manageable to buy because of sales, or Christmas vouchers, or a combination of the two.

The trickier bit (the ones our brains are less experienced in) is knowing when to stop.

—

Christmas Present

These days, weapons are still those of classic bargain skirmishes: sharp elbows. Moving forwards, always forwards.

Some will still arrive at very-dark-o’clock in the morning. For the big sales, some may still consider camping out overnight.

(You have to think that they must get through all the turkey and presents bit pretty fast on Christmas Day to turn around in time to head out and queue.)

But these days, sales are more like migrating animals. They appear in packs. They are with us all year round, or so it seems. Why do we feel even a hint of scarcity?

Because our hunter gatherer brain tells us that rich pickings are not to be passed up. And yes, sales can be rich pickings, if you have something particular in mind.

But you can get it online, can’t you? Even on Christmas Day, if you want to.

—

I’m not great with crowds. I lack the conviction for true sales shopping. I don’t need to fight off others to get what I prize.

This year, there wasn’t a particular need to go sales shopping. Barring a certain company that makes winter socks that I like (and which I prefer not to pay full price for), we are doing OK.

We are doing more than OK. Compared with the hunter gatherers of old, we live in a time where mammoths are commonplace.

And the roots and berries are looking more and more attractive, especially after Christmas feasting.

The post A Christmas Carol: sales shopping appeared first on Frydmania.

The fridge: the leftovers. The paper hats and bits of crackers. The little drifts of new items that don’t yet have homes (particularly if you’ve been staying at someone else’s house).

You’re all done on food, all done on presents. You may still be with others, and unable to legitimately sneak off to read your new book (or even, your husband’s new book that you bought for him, but fully intend to read yourself).

What to do?

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Christmas Past

Christmas Day: batten down the hatches. Family. Being at home. Presents, food, etc.

Boxing Day: let socialising commence! The glory years were those in my teens when we would get together with our neighbours and their wider family. Sometimes our other good friends further up the hill would come along too.

Immediately, you have new people to eat your leftovers (and you can eat up theirs). Any tensions that may have built up the previous day can get diffused through being with others.

There was snooker playing. Usually some impromptu oratorio singing (with musical people in all three families). Jokes, teasing. A coal fire on for atmosphere – less for warmth – already having lots of people together.

There might be a spot of TV, if there was a comedy thing on that most people could relate to.

There might well be dog walking at some point (two out of three families being dog owners).

The common was a popular choice (with the option to find extra wood to put on the fire) but it might just be a quick dash across the road to the park, then back for cups of tea.

I regularly reference myself as an introvert, but this kind of party I could handle.

I knew the people, I knew what to expect. I knew that there would be a good time, and one that didn’t require me to be other than myself, on home turf.

===

Christmas Present

Today, it’s bright. Quite chilly – but not so bad if you’re moving about enough. Time for a walk then.

Boxing Day walks are enough of a minor tradition that they gain newspaper recommendations for what to do, where to go. We settled for a walk by the river; the securing of a newspaper (with big general knowledge crossword).

The river is high – though I am told not as high as it has been. There is a strange combination – a river in spate, rushing along, and elsewhere, ice that has formed on the standing water on the banks, remaining from previous flood levels.

There is much to examine, if you take the approach of Junior Reader: including the quality of mud under your shoes (and up onto your clothes until they get tucked into socks).

The potential for stick-rattling on the playground railings in the park. The shape of suitable sticks: are they pistols? Light sabres? Pirate cudgels?

The smaller puddles with ice on can be tested with the same sticks. Later, a large black labrador careens through a huge icy puddle and comes out, shaking vigorously and ready for more.

The texture of the wood-chips in the playground is different – ice is still on them, in the shade. It feels rather like what I think it could be to walk on very large-scale breakfast cereal.

The remains of storm damage can be seen, further up the park. We admire a tree, partially rotten inside, that has now come down – and the poor bench that broke its fall, and lost the wooden slats on the back of the bench for its trouble.

There are birds to admire; little shelters to hide behind (ideal for surprising one’s grandparents on the way back). And, as in earlier years, there are pieces of broken tree to pick up and bring back for the fire.

Later, we are about to eat turkey for the third meal in a row. We tuck into soup first, and no one seems to mind.

The post A Christmas Carol: Boxing Day appeared first on Frydmania.

Some people have to wait till their other half is out of the house to get underway. Others get underway with paper and tape when the kids are in bed.

Wrapping presents is somewhat affected by your present buying policy, for starters. I think it’s the unspoken reason why vouchers are useful. No prizes for realising you can lick an envelope quicker than you can get the scissors out.

If you want an eco steer on present wrapping (and gift tags), it’s all here, back in the series I did earlier in the year.

(And as I discovered yesterday’s music post covered quite a lot of the same ground as one I’d written further back, I’ll spare you the same again.)

===

Christmas Past

When I was keener on buying presents, still with some inspiration, the wrapping of presents was also good. I would enjoy the whole process – the wrapping bringing you an extra step towards the anticipation of handing over the present.

I don’t so much remember wrapping family presents, but probably more the ones for school friends.

But present wrapping is a tradition in its own right – getting the bag, the tag, the scissors, the tape. I’m sure what I remember more is helping my mum with wrapping other people’s presents.

There is something about ‘helping’ as a child. You feel the whole process. You are convinced that you are an integral part of what’s happening – putting your finger on the string as the parent ties a knot.

The parent is perfectly able to do the whole thing, of course, or you wouldn’t get your own presents so easily. But that part doesn’t seem to come to mind.

But in sharing the activity, you share some anticipation. Truth be told, children have all the anticipation with more to spare – so maybe it’s for the adult’s benefit.) And to let off some steam from kids’ Christmas boilers, so that the pressure isn’t running quite so high.)

===

Christmas Present

Nowadays, the main present wrapping is kids’ ones: and somehow, I can retain some anticipation there. There is more prospect of excited faces, squeals and all the other deeply satisfying indicators that the present Done Good.

But sometimes you need a little extra nudge. I would tend to put The Music on (if Dan would let me), particularly if I was wrapping presents earlier in December.

This year, I had a different take on it all – I got to help put together Christmas hampers for the school’s Christmas fundraiser.

I also discovered that wrapping things in clear cellophane does make things look great (even if the eco worrier in me is less sure on whether it can be reused or not).

I don’t as yet know who has won the hampers. But even so, putting things together was fun – partly because I’d only had to donate one item, and so had everyone else. I didn’t have to relive a lengthy shopping expedition when the wrapping began.

I quickly discovered that Jenners, Lakeland and the like will not be employing me to pack their official hampers. I don’t have enough of the visual knack – but that’s OK.

Large hamper, fewer items = pretty look. Smaller hamper, lots of items = less fancy, but hopefully more satisfying for the winners.

I’m glad we were packing more of the latter type. Whatever your present is (even, however much it’s ‘yours’ or not), you want it to be a satisfying one. (Fingers crossed.)

===

Christmas Future

Who know what future presents will be like? Will we just activate them online? Will there be anything physical, any items to put under a tree?

There’s no need to wrap an activation code. But then, if the best things in life are free (so we’re told), do we need to wrap those either?

I realise that writing a blog is a bit of a present wrapping service. I use words to package the items of my life, the thoughts, the moments.

I smooth out the paper of unruly remembrance, and do my best to get the punctuation to line up in the right place. (A bit like trying to match the pattern on wrapping paper.)

Not every blog post is fancy. They certainly don’t all come with bows and ribbon. But I take time in going back and looking. Arranging the folds of the paper, as it were.

When I write, I like to package the free things – the moments that I seem to write a lot about. I unpackage them for myself as I write, and put them together again by the end.

Sometimes, they’re as much for me as they are for anyone else. But they are meant for others too.

Whether it’s sharing the same sentiment, laughing at similar things – these can be presents too.

The post A Christmas Carol: wrapping presents appeared first on Frydmania.

I’m not a Christmas tree decorator: fresh with new ideas and seasonal themes. (I quite like the odd blue tree, now and then, but it’s not what I have in my Christmas decorations box.)

I’m not here to have the debate about when the Christmas tree should go up. (I will confess it took me by surprise when I learned that some families in the States put up their Christmas tree straight after Hallowe’en.

But then there seem to be so many variants on this, including putting up the tree on Christmas Eve itself, that there really doesn’t seem to be one pattern to follow. Other than,
I think it’s fair to say, enjoying it when you do.)

I am a fan of real Christmas trees – but I do understand if you are not. (That’s why the eco box is ticked, folks, but also because I have specific memories about real Christmas trees, which I am happy to continue to re-experience as best I can.)

There. Cards on the table (if not pegged to strings, hanging from stairs, and so on).
I think I can now begin.

I hope you are sitting comfortably, because it often seems to take longer to unpack a box of Christmas decorations than it does to actually put them up. Just saying.

===

Christmas Past

There was the memorable year when we did the proper thing, bought the tree with roots, planted it in the garden after Christmas. Whereupon it waited until November the next year to turn yellow and give up the ghost.

So as a result, the trees I remember had a certain pattern of Effort connected with them.
The tree would be acquired, yes, but then it would sit in a bucket of water in the garage until The Time arrived to bring it into the house.

(I can’t tell you when the time was, of course. See rules above.)

The tree would be brought into the sitting room, followed by a certain amount of puffing over getting it upright in its stand, putting Christmas paper round to hide the bucket.

The second Herculean task, in the old days, was (part 1) the unwrapping of the Christmas lights and (part 2) the painstaking working your way along the string, working out which bulb needed replacing so that the whole string would then shine when you plugged them in.

Only after these tasks were completed, and the lights were onto the tree, could the decorating begin. And while the decorating took place, the music played. (I am working up to telling you about the music.)

I suspect that everyone has their favourites when it comes to Christmas decorations.
With a younger brother to contend with, there might be small skirmishes over who got to hang up which items.

I suspect also that there are some decorations which one family member dislikes but another champions enthusiastically. So I loved the little cardboard angels, finger puppet size, that you could pop over the end of a branch.

My liking for them was tolerated – and when I was old enough to be doing my own Christmas tree, they were passed on to me. So everyone’s happy in the end, really.

===

Christmas Present

I think the thing about decorating the tree is that it feels like it’s really and truly Christmas soon. The magic starts in earnest, even if it officially began earlier in the month with the advent calendar.

I think it’s also fair to say that parents are keen to see children decorating the tree. There’s something about the ooing and aahing over particular decorations that a child can do.

It gets the adult in that particular spot where that little flicker of magic still exists inside.
(A pilot light in our Christmas boiler? Why not.)

I know our own first family Christmas did something to stoke the heat again. The fervour isn’t always the same every year, of course.

===

Christmas Future

I realise now that we approach the Christmas tree decorating the way we approach many familiar tasks in December: with a freshness and anticipation (if we’re lucky), or with a certain tiredness and grumpiness (depending on how much else has been going on).

When decorating the tree is the gold standard for setting the Christmas mood, anything other than joy and wonder doesn’t work. And that can lead to disappointment, tears and other things that you really didn’t want to receive for Christmas.

All I can predict here is that the mood will change year by year. The importance of it, the impact of the tree (especially at night, with lights lit) will be different at different times.

That’s OK. I think of it a little like an attempt to make a plant bloom, at a time of year when many plants are looking thin, leafless, and rather chilly.

The effect won’t last forever (at least not with a real tree). Needles drop, trees yellow, ornaments sag after a bit. (To say nothing of the dangers of marauding cats.)

But at a cold, dark time of year, it’s good to dream of trees that grow. Of plants that bloom. Of stumps that put forth shoots.

It begins in the cold time, when growth is happening, but we can’t yet see it. We hasten it along a little, by our own efforts.

It’s not the tree of life, not by a long shot. But it can remind us of it, if we choose.

The post A Christmas Carol: decorating the tree appeared first on Frydmania.

I don’t want to adopt the Scrooge approach. I read a bit today about Saint Nicholas, and his frequent and anonymous gift giving. That seemed like a good thing.

At the same time, I seem to have reached a point in life where presents seem less important. I am lucky to have the things I need, and more.

As relatives grow older (clearly I do too), it can become harder to work out what to buy for them, when they too have what they need – some may already be giving away possessions.

And yet. There is something special about receiving a present – and something equally special about planning the right item for the right person.

====

Christmas Past

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, who was excited about presents, but not so clear on the notion of keeping secrets. So one year, pre-Christmas, she rushed up to her daddy and said, “We’ve got your Christmas present! We got you SOCKS!”

I have moved on a little since then. (And my father has been known to receive more than socks.)

In my teens, I would think carefully about what to buy – for varied school friends, as well as family. I would even do a special day trip to look for more unusual presents than I might find in our fairly small town.

Once I was old enough to travel a bit further, independently, that was an even better source of presents. Painted wooden candlesticks, bowls and so on from Poland.

Linens from one place – honey from many more. (My mum likes honey, and likes trying different kinds.)

It was fun to go looking, trying to find items typical of a particular place – or things that were just beautiful, and right for someone I had in mind.

It didn’t always go right, of course. The item that I loved might not be so appreciated by a relative who already knew what kind of calendar she liked, and didn’t want a fancy Italian one. Even if it was on beautiful paper.

But mostly, there was joy on both sides. Certainly on mine, as the giver.

====

Christmas Present

These days, going across town can constitute a work trip. Going abroad takes lots of planning – and more effort than I remember in the past.

So I am left with my imagination, a few ideas from the Internet at times, and whatever I might come across when doing regular food shops. (This is fine, convenient too, but it’s not always a place of  great gift inspiration.)

What has also changed is my realisation of just how easily gifts can be bought, added to, stockpiled. And all of a sudden, that item that you thought long and hard over, hoped would be treasured, is now just one in a collection of many.

What’s left is a desire not to buy things people don’t want. Which tends to mean I mostly buy tokens, give cash, or (with some relatives) make donations on their behalf.

There’s a small counterbalance to this. It’s less fun to open an envelope than a present, so in some cases I do both: the money for them to choose, and something small to open there and then.

Back in the spring, when I did my eco series, there was one post I had meant to write, and never got round to. The notion was: buy items that can be recycled.

I don’t mean that the person takes them straight off to the charity shop – or into a recycling bin. That would suggest that you had seriously got it wrong.

But items that are made of natural materials; that can be used up (food, of course); that can have a further life with another family, or in a charity shop, if and when you choose to part with them.

Books. Food. CDs, maybe. Games that can be passed on to others in turn.

(If I’m honest, I would just buy books for everyone on my presents list, all the time. I can get excited about that.

But I appreciate that it’s not everyone’s idea of a present – and sometimes even the avid book collector may question the need for another book.)

=======

Christmas Future

What about you? Are you still a keen present buyer – or recipient? Has it all paled a bit?
Do you look to the kids’ generation to be excited about present giving again?

St Nicholas gave to those who needed it – used up his inheritance that way, in fact. The Christmas story tells us of a priceless gift, one longed for by some, overlooked by others.

I want to come back to something of that sense of value and honouring in the gifts that I give. I don’t know exactly how, in a time and location that seems more about excess than value.

But I’m thinking about it. And as we’re told, it’s the thought that counts.

The post A Christmas Carol: buying presents appeared first on Frydmania.

I like buying food (mostly). Today, the supermarket I like the best decided to have a major increase in its world foods range. New ingredients from other countries (affordable sushi rice?), even some of my regular ingredients from world foods stockers (yes please, butter beans).

So having put it all away (in cupboards etc, you understand, I didn’t eat it all), I’m trying to decide why what I thought would be a medium shop turned out to be…rather larger than expected.

Back in my eco month, at the height of the building work, I started looking at what it would be like to reduce the things around us. That process is happening, little by little.

(Clue: if you really want to do this, take a sizeable proportion of your possessions. Pack them into a room very tightly, so you can’t access them. Leave them for six months. Remove and ask yourself, ‘Why did I keep this?’ Then decide whether it really needs to stay.)

However, that process of simplifying doesn’t yet seem to have happened to my kitchen. Or at least, it did a bit. I turned out some of what I hadn’t been using in the cupboards, started using it up. (I even photographed some of that using up process, so it might appear on here some day.)

But it’s easy to fill it up again. This doesn’t mean it gets wasted (I hate wasting food) – it does get used. But I wonder which alternative ‘stomach’ I am filling when I feel the need to buy in more food.

I guess that when you are cooking quite a lot of gluten-free and dairy-free food, whilst also reading some vegan recipes on blogs, it’s easy to get pulled in different directions, ingredient-wise.

At the same time, I’m thinking about learning to preserve a few foods that currently end up in the freezer (tomato-based sauce, at least). So I might save some freezer space – and add to some cupboard space instead. Hmm.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty to be cooking with. So maybe it’s back to being grateful for access to a wide range of foods – and perhaps also for a small kitchen that limits my inner quartermaster.

The post Stocking – or hoarding? appeared first on Frydmania.

Snap is a good game with kids because it’s a level playing field. Either side can do well if they can spot the matching cards quickly enough. That tends to encourage kids to keep going – and me too.

1) Know your moves to win

Here is the question: what is the move that gets you a win? Is it shouting ‘Snap!’ Is it banging your hand down on the matching cards?

It’s a moot point.  I go for the former; Dan goes for the latter.  House standard has therefore headed towards doing both, which makes it even more frenetic.

Junior player loves this, of course.  Sometimes combining your game-playing backgrounds means that the outcome is even better.

2) Disqualifying your opponent if they get the moves wrong

Pernickety game playing can start as early as snap.  I have seen serious arguing erupt – that a ‘Snap!’ was overruled because it wasn’t made with the correct move(s).

It is up to you whether you are a stringent rule keeper here or not. Mind you, junior players can be even more vigilant than adults, I find…

3) Pans!

I used to live near three sisters, elderly gentle ladies in the best terms.  They all lived together, and had a great sense of humour. Part of the humour included shaking things up a bit: you only won if you shouted ‘Pans!’ (ie ‘Snap’ backwards).

You may not get as many takers for this, but it can be good to see if others can adjust to a rule change for a round – and remember which thing to do to win.

4) Choosing your packs

The other nice thing about Snap is the opportunity for variety while essentially playing the same game. We played a Jungle Animals one a lot for a long time – it was essential packing for train journeys.

That’s part of the fun of simpler games – you can play them many times over, and they still work for you. If they’re familiar, that can be encouraging for those who find it hard to lose – because the cards may also remind them that they win too, at times.

We also picked up a large format set of cards with pirates on, at a school fair. These have alliterative names, so we learn a bit about language along the way. Plus it’s quite fun to say the names as we play the cards, particularly if it takes a while to get a matching pair.

5) When to stop

It’s a moot point.  Playing as a twosome, it’s rare to get to a point where one person wins all the cards.  Sometimes you feel it’s fairer to stop.  Sometimes junior player wants to risk it, even though they’ve not got many cards left to play.

It’s learning about games along the way, risking – or deciding to limit the damage. (It’s also a chance to count the cards to see who’s won, for a little more stealth maths.)

Snap. Pans. Any other suggestions?

The post Game on: Snap! appeared first on Frydmania.

Some of what I felt self-important about in my teens – like basic recycling – is now mainstream. Some of it is growing in public consciousness – and also public action: like buying locally.

There’s a whole set of eco behaviours around food. Some feel like second nature – and some I could do better at. And others are in that complicated area where eco principles and world trade meet.

I’ve found the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra a helpful one when looking at different areas of activity. I feel quite happy on reuse, generally, but I realise that reduce is the one that is often hardest to do.

Some areas have been debated a lot in the press – like flying. And others, like heating, have come up higher up the news cycle, as heating costs rise, and fuel poverty with it.

I realised that many of these eco behaviours are also frugal behaviours. When there’s not a lot of money to go round, you do what you can with what you have – and often find it satisfying in the process.

Making your own entertainment. Crafting. Mending. Not glamorous, but, increasingly, a source of pride for those who are going back to it more.

Equally, when we have a bit more money in our pockets, it’s easy to spend – and to be driven by societal expectations. I still think that this is the area my teenage self would be the most shocked by – the growing monetarisation of lifestyle, the increase of brands, and the temptation of luxury.

Sometimes, equally, we seem to rebel against plenty, and go off to find ways to live more simply – even if it’s just a week or two away.

At other times, our decisions to simplify are carried along on a wave of governmental concern: increase walking, not necessarily to cut down on carbon emissions, but because it may reduce obesity.

Sometimes my thinking moves on a stage, as a result of writing on a theme for a month. Sometimes, life circumstances combine with a theme, and help it have particular resonance. We can reduce, but we can also take up opportunities to renew – to gain a new mindset, and new permission to change.

Although I still want to nudge myself on a few behaviours, I recognise that gaining momentum for change is even more important. Yes, it can help to tick some boxes, and know that things are different. But it is even more freeing to think bigger than this – and find the capacity to change is still within us.

It remains hard to watch the news at times. To see the reality of environmental change. But the experience that change is possible – and that we can act on it – means that we don’t have to feel we are drowning.

Others are acting, in unique ways, in their own parts of the world. As with so many things, starting locally – as locally as our own homes – can mean that we begin to change how we feel about environmental issues.

My ongoing challenge to myself is to continue to change: and to use each step forward as an incentive to keep going. Stop by again, and ask me how it’s going in the months ahead.

The post Eco audit: results in appeared first on Frydmania.

For one, I went to places where eco was made accessible, possible – and carried out as a mainstream way of living.

I went to other places where life was still familiar, but noticeably different. Simpler. Challenging in some ways, freeing in others. When I came back to the UK, it was to look at it afresh – and decide what I liked, and what actually bothered me quite a lot.

I’ll tell you the story of the mini pink doughnuts, because that summed up for me what was not working in the society I saw as home.

I came back from Poland, and although it was good to be back, it was also hard work.  At one point, I went to the big supermarket in town with mum.  Reasonable activity, but a bad move for me.

I felt overwhelmed – rows of products, massive amounts of choice. Did we need a whole aisle of breakfast cereals? Where did all these things come from, anyway?

At some point on our journey round the supermarket, I came across a fresh baking section. In it was a box of mini doughnuts. (I have a feeling ring doughnuts were less familiar in the UK at that time, so they stood out.)

Each doughnut seemed to be individually wrapped.  And then the whole lot were packaged together in something like a large see-through egg box. And the doughnuts were pink and sprinkled and whatever else it is people do to doughnuts.

I recoiled from it. That sounds over the top when I write about it now (particularly when others are ooing and ahing about the arrival of Krispy Kreme doughnuts close to home). But it was all too much – about three times over.

I queried what the society I knew had been doing when I had been away for only half a year. Who had come up with these ultra-packaged – and, to me, unnecessary – items? Why, equally, were others buying them? (And what was going to happen to all that packaging after the few moments of eating?)

Despite being back for only a few days, I took up an offer to go away again for a few. I went for walks, smelled the sea, and got some simplicity back again. And I continued to think about it all after I came back.

It’s become one of those things about gap years: that you learn about life by seeing how others live. But the other side of the coin is the equally powerful aspect of seeing your own culture afresh when you come home.

If we’re lucky, we can have this form of stopping short, and questioning, through an engagement with the alternative. I chose to be vegetarian because of reading a book that impacted me strongly – and managed to follow through on my response.

But as life goes on, our ways of living, our habits, become more and more fixed. We stop questioning what is around us, and those moments where we can see something afresh – they may not become fewer, but we tend to forget to look for them. To stop in them.  To take in what we are learning.

So sometimes it takes a bigger change to offer that impact. I may not be able to spare six months to live abroad again, to reconsider what my society is like.

But I have now had several months of living in a different way in my own home (thanks to the building project). And the longer I live with things being different, the more I wonder about what I really need, what can still work even if it’s different.

Giving yourself a new start can also allow you to change. With a ‘new’ room, there is the opportunity to live in new ways. To organise life differently – and make different choices.

I didn’t expect to see my society differently through living abroad – but it happened anyway. I didn’t expect to read a book that changed what I wanted to eat, overnight, but that happened too.

Sometimes, the significant thing seems to be staying open, in a new experience, not just to what we think we are taking in on the surface, but also the deeper messages that come through.

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I’d been thinking about an eco theme for a while before I started writing in February. Reading new blogs, coming across new ideas, enjoying some of that reflectiveness that can come at the end of an old year.  Add in a dash of what’s in the news, what friends are interested in – or grappling with – and a theme emerges.

Where it became interesting (for me, anyway) was going back to the older posts I’d written. As I’ve written on a particular theme for a month, I wanted to see whether some of the older posts could be viewed in that same light.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s been reading more than a few of my posts that food keeps coming up as a theme.  Reading about it, cooking it, thinking about it – no lack of things to write about. It was a category before – so it was easy to continue writing in that vein.

But had the environment been such an abiding interest over time? I wasn’t sure. Part of the reason for making my theme – a conversation with my teenage inner environmentalist – was a suspicion that I used to be keener.  More concerned.

In part, yes. Add in a bit more money, a lot more busy, and it’s easy for the environment to be just another topic on the to do list – and one that can slip off when day to day stuff crowds in.

And in other ways…I discovered that at least some of it had been there all along. A fervent commitment to picking brambles (the subject of several blog posts) – about food, yes, but also about the environment. (As well as about childhood memories.)

Similarly, the food-swapping party – again about food, but also about the environment. Finding out how to keep food; developing community, pooling resources – and having an excuse to eat cake in the process. (I’d love to do it again, too.)

Sometimes, it was a time of year that brought a particular musing. Winter brings soup – and soup becomes all about using what’s in season, using things up. (It works quite well too alongside notions of eating more veg, and the environmental (and health) benefits of that.)

Re-exploring driving brought its own set of musings – in part because my teenage environmentalist had urged against driving for so long.

Driving trades off with a love of public transport – but also an enjoyment of walking. Yes, I don’t have to worry about finding a parking space.  Yes, it also happens to be eco.

Sometimes the debates shift as life moves on.  We’re still on the same topics, and thinking about them afresh, because our circumstances have brought us to doing so.

Sometimes, when we’re feeling demoralised, or that what we do isn’t making enough of a difference, it can be worth remembering that we can change.  We’ve done it before.  We can do it again.

And sometimes, the change is reminding ourselves that there are skills we already have that we can pick up again. Ways of responding that work for us, work for the place we live in, and the people we live with.

I started with the image of a pulse, and actually, that’s one I’d like to hold onto for eco issues. We know that our bodies work best when our pulse isn’t racing too fast, or equally too slow.

It’s not about a grand rush, and then nothing. Slowly and steady runs many an organism – including those with ecological intentions.

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I know I’m allowed to write about writing, reading, food, and so on, because they are such familiar aspects of life to me. I have my opinions all worked out – or I’m updating them as I go.

But sewing? There are so many others out there on the web, for whom sewing is A Way Of Life.  And I’m not in that camp.

So why mention it? Because I was thinking about what I might have reasonably considered environmental in my teens – and somehow, sewing, or rather mending, hove into view.

Remember all that school bag carrying I mentioned? Those bags took quite some pounding. And I tended to be a bit particular about what I wanted in a bag, so when I got one, I didn’t want to give it up just because the seams were creaking a bit.

The solution was mending: sewing, and resewing, the seam at the bottom of my bag.  In fact, I’m sure it happened on more than one bag.  After a while, I learned to use double thickness thread, and sewed backstitch to make the seams extra durable.

What else can I manage. Sewing on nametapes? Check. Taking up hems on kids’ trousers. Check.  Resewing seams on clothes, where the thread has worn? I think so.  But not that much more.

I have reasons for wishing I could do a bit more sewing. My mum knows how to use a sewing machine – and I do not. (Well, only a bit). I remember trying to have a go as a child – and then being scared by how fast it went when you pressed the peddle too hard.

I equally have a friend who sees a project – and does it. Sew your own sofa cover? OK. Done it before? No. Didn’t put her off – and results good. Do I feel like I can do the same? Less so.

I take fright at all the potential of making a mistake – cutting the material in the wrong place, getting the sewing wrong. (I stitched the two legs of a pair of school trousers together recently, when taking up the hems, so I know my potential for error.)

Maybe I need to find some projects which allow me to repeat what I already know how to do. Put sewing machine fear on one side, and stick to hand sewing.  Enjoy the feel of material in your hand. See something take shape, slowly but surely.

What I do have in common with other sewers? An enjoyment of fabric. Of patterns, of the feel of a particular cloth.

I had a small phase of doing patchwork, back in my second time in Poland, when I ended up inheriting a collection of scraps from the teacher who had worked in the language school before me.

Not that long ago, I gave up on my bag of scraps when it coincided with a sewing project at school, and the request for bits of fabric.  I know that it’s gone to good use, but I’m caught now between thinking ‘finally it’s getting used!’ and ‘I gave it away just before I wanted to use it again’.

But I still have another bag, one with larger bolts of beautiful fabric.  That one stayed.  I don’t know that it will become mini quilts, as I’d originally planned.  But my intention is to start using it, rather than saving it for a day when I really know what I’m doing.

We don’t always line up all our skills, and then start. Sometimes, the opportunity is there for the taking. We may make mistakes (will, in fact). But if we can hang on to the feeling of what it may be like to make something – a new something, made only by us – then maybe we can agree to start.

So far, so good.

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Among all the encouragements to spend are the ones in the grey area: the spending that’s ‘OK because the products are environmentally friendly’.

As the analogy goes: we all still need to buy…[X: loo roll, shoes, whatever else] – so let’s make positive buying choices.

In my teens, I think there was little of that.  I know that there was recycled paper – yes.  I bought it.  The other main choices you seemed to be able to make at that time were to buy lead-free petrol, and aerosols without CFC propellants.

Avoiding animal testing for cosmetics. Not buying fur. That’s about all I can come up with from the early 90s, for now.

Well.  I think it’s fair to say I would be astonished by all the eco-buys that are now out there:

– household cleaning products (non-petrochemical based; ones that biodegrade naturally)

– toilet roll, kitchen roll (recycled products)

– toiletries and cosmetics (including non-synthetic ingredients, and limiting packaging)

– clothing (choosing natural materials but ones that don’t involve lots of bleaching or dyeing)

– food (local, organic, supporting growers over supermarkets etc)

– home decorating (where your wood comes from; whether your paint has low VOC content)

– wind up or solar power or rechargeable items (radios, phone chargers, fans…)

…and that’s just a few categories for now.  There are of course plenty more.

It’s interesting as a psychology.  We are no longer in the place of that cartoon of a mass of penguins, all crying out ‘But I’m only an individual – what can I do?’  There’s plenty we can do.  But the challenging part is around the buying.

If you’ve been following my train of thought this month, you’ll see that reducing and simplifying are some of the most challenging parts of the environmental mindset. And yet, for many of us, the immediate way we can show our green credentials is…to buy things.

In fact, despite my teenage self not having lots of eco-buying choices, I realise there were still some other principles going on, which brought an environmental perspective to life at the time.  (These are also ones that are mentioned in today’s advice on green lifestyles.)

I came across another useful maxim in the last few weeks, which has also helped me think about my eco activities:

‘Use it up, wear it out

Make do or do without.’

I’m guessing this is where the wartime ‘make do and mend‘ came from – or if not, the sentiment is the same.  The one above is evidently from the days of the Great Depression in the US.

Just as Britain has rallied around other wartime sayings (Keep Calm and Carry On – and all its subsequent variants), bloggers in the US are looking to what the nation knew during the Great Depression, and how to use that earlier wisdom.

So in the spirit of use it up…etc, I thought I would see what buying choices I made in my teens that are still going strong.

1) Buy something that will last: it helps you reduce (because you don’t have to keep replacing it). Case in point: rucksack bought before I first went off to Poland.  Some bits of it have disappeared (part of the waist strap), but much of it is fine.

Can I still lug things around in it, 20 years on? Yes. Do I need to replace it? No.  I’m hoping to get many more years, or use-it-ups, out of it.

2) Buy something that will be flexible: it helps you reduce (you don’t need to keep buying more) and to reuse, in a sense (because you get more uses out of it). Example: items of clothing (or shoes) that will go with lots of other things. If it still looks OK, if it still works with other clothes, if it still fits, do I keep it? Yes.

So three cheers for a few items that have survived since my teens (court shoes for occasional smarter occasions, a batik blouse), and others that have at least a decade on them. Wear it out? The onus is on me to take better care of them in the meantime, perhaps, and to be wise about what really does need replaced.

3) Buy something that does the job (with a little TLC): there’s a certain bookcase that has done me nearly three decades. OK, I didn’t buy it myself, but as soon as I had a place I could furnish, out it came. It’s wooden, it’s simple to put together, and to take apart.

Sometimes, the taking apart is easier than the putting together. At one stage, I lost the screws for it, and had to prevail upon a more practically minded friend to replace them, and the metal lugs that hold up the shelves.  But it is still going strong.

These days, said bookcase needs a little support.  Another bookcase to lean on, to be precise.  Being attached to the wall, so that it doesn’t sway sideways.  It doesn’t fit with the other bookshelves, but on the grand scale of making do, it does the job just fine.

4) Resist the siren song that says you must have a certain thing. In fact, looking back only a couple of decades reminds you that you did just fine without…a mobile phone.  A car. And plenty more.

Part of me might quite like a big food mixer – and part of me knows that my granny’s hand mixer, handed down, does me just fine for most recipes.  And for others? I’ll get round – or do without that recipe being part of my repertoire.

Given that we have more and more choice as shoppers, it’s no bad thing to have a few ideas about to guide your purchases.  They may not be eco products – but the spirit is still eco, as is the emphasis on not getting more and more things.

We are fortunate in this day and age.  We may make do in some areas, do without in others – but so many things are within our reach, far cheaper, than was ever the case for earlier generations.

It can feel like an academic exercise to avoid buying – until you try it. And realise how much of your energy, time, emotion and so on can be diverted into thinking about The Next Purchase.

So here’s to a balance of wise purchases – when we really do need to buy – and a spirit of ‘that’ll do me just fine’ for the rest.

The post Eco audit: to buy or not to buy appeared first on Frydmania.

My dad passed on his bike to me – a racer, with a crossbar. I quite liked that. It had gears and drop handle bars.  At some point, mum bought me a gel-filled saddle – well appreciated after you’ve been cycling for a while.

I was learning to drive. I wasn’t very confident. But I could cycle. And I was lucky that I could also get out into the country fairly easily. So I had a phase of heading off on the bike, finding some country roads, even a corner of a field that I could see was public access.

But you can’t get to school with all the bags and the cello.  Or maybe you could, but you would need greater skills of balance than I possess. I wasn’t ready to attempt to cycle in Worcester and deal with the traffic.  So it was back to blagging lifts for the bulk of day to day life.

Next biking moment: tandems. I was working with children in Poland who were blind or visually impaired.  So to get out and about together, we had a few goes at riding tandems together.  Both of you can get involved.

All went well until the front fork of the bike snapped one day. Poor child on the back of the tandem I was on was rather rapidly precipitated to the ground. Glad it was a quiet lane. We did finally get back to the school, and thankfully there were others with us who could help.

Fast forward to university days.  Others cycled. I didn’t. I had carefully lived only 5 mins from lectures for three out of four years, so I didn’t need to.  And I knew that getting your bike nicked was quite a regular concern, so I hoped I was well out of that.

The flip side of living in a city where you can walk to many places is…well, you walk. Bikes add an extra level of complexity.  There’s the whole helmet thing too, of course.  So I kept on with the walking, and left the cycling to others.

And yet…if there’s one easy eco movement to spot, it’s the increase in people cycling – and the astonishing improvement in cycling infrastructure.  National cycle routes.  The promotion of cycle paths that allow you to stay well away from busy routes – and enjoy a spot of nature as you whizz by.

We do have bikes.  We don’t really use them much.  We are at a point where we are planning to donate two, and maybe make off with one reconditioned one.  Then we might finally all get out biking.  I think.

For my teenage cycling self, this is definitely a ‘could do better’.  I don’t have to take on cycling as my main way of getting around town – for which I’m grateful.  Cycle lanes in some areas, but clearly not in others.  I don’t plan to argue with double deckers, either.

But maybe the solution is to look at health benefits.  Enjoying the environment that is there – and that is accessible.  If I love trains for the way they can access areas of countryside that roads don’t, maybe I need to embrace cycling again for doing the same – particularly where cycle paths get me to areas of the city I might otherwise not reach. (And help me reach more bramble patches.)

So. The only thing to identify is: do I have get recycled bicycle clips?

The post Eco audit: on yer bike appeared first on Frydmania.

Going to a country on the other side of Germany may not seem that far. Not that different. Which was, I suspect, why there was more of a surprise factor. There were a lot of differences, sure, and some of those were also down to the particular location I was living in (a boarding school connected to a convent).

But one of the factors that really struck me was space. How much of it – or not. We were situated not that far from Warsaw, and many of the people working at the school would not have afforded to rent a place in Warsaw or nearby.  So they lived on site.

One of my friends lived in the female educators house (I think they called it). It was not unlike many halls of residence for universities – I mean those when I was studying, rather than those that have been built in the last few years.

(New halls of residence are built more for the people who will rent them, and make money for the university, while the students are not there in the holidays. In my humble opinion, as they say online.)

My friend was proud of her room because there was enough space on the floor beside her bed to fit another mattress.  That meant she could invite someone to visit her. And that was luxury indeed.

Most homes in Poland are small, unless you live out of a city, and (importantly) have enough money to build your own place. When I did my recce trip to a different part of Poland, after my studies, to see if I would teach there, I stayed with someone who still shared her bedroom with her sister.

They were in their 20s, and they still shared their room.  And their parents slept on the sofa bed in the sitting room.  It is taken for granted that parents will sleep in the sitting room. In fact, it’s pretty much taken for granted that your bed is also a sofa bed, even in a child’s room, and that you make it again every night.

Towards the end of my first stay in Poland, I remember going to cash some travellers’ cheques. I needed money to pay for the big train journey home.  The place I went to was above a hotel, in downtown Warsaw. All very nicely appointed.

The bit that was tricky was going up the escalators, from floor to floor, and seeing how much space was wasted. I would look at the corridor as I went up through the building, and mentally calculate how many people could be housed in that space.

My perspective on living space had changed.  Which was just as well, in some ways, as I was about to make the shift to student life – where your living space is very much affected by your ability to pay.

Why spin this story? I guess because sometimes we have to undergo some kind of a change in order to evaluate what we already have.  It has become popular to make fun of people having ‘gap yahs‘ but they can still be profound in their impact. And it doesn’t have to be a gap year either – I am finding just as much challenge in the building project just now.

Much of the time, we need incentives to change.  We need examples to see it’s not that hard – in fact, life goes on just fine in the new arrangement. The longer we become used to the new way of life, the easier it becomes to keep going.

The youngest member of the family seems to be coping just fine with arrangements at the moment.  The floor space is smaller, there are fewer toys available – but it doesn’t seem to matter.  Playing is still taking place just as much as normal.  (Which kind of bears out some of the simpler living stuff that I’m thinking about.)

As a teenager, eagerly anticipating change, life that we can shape for ourselves, it’s not so hard.  Change becomes harder as you get older.  I now know the comforts of having the same of certain things: the same mug for coffee, the same products from a food shop, perhaps.

So. Yes. We can live with less space. We can live with less stuff. We can simplify, and we are not less ourselves. It helps me that I’ve experienced new perspectives, earlier in life – it helps me know the benefit of it.

But right now, my teenage self may well be looking ahead and encouraging me to continue seeking them.  Which is really the point of this month’s set of posts.  It’s OK to go in a certain direction – eco behaviour – but we can still find sticking points. Blind spots.

Time to shake things up again, I think.

The post Eco audit: new perspectives appeared first on Frydmania.

I’m not a huge clothes person. I’d better say that at the start. I’m not going to tell you that I have loads of vintage items, because I really don’t. There is something of the ‘got to be up to date NOW!’ of fashion that I recoil from.

So why think about second-hand clothes? Because there is something special about them. Like trying on a wardrobe item for a theatre show, that you know has been worn by others before you – and will be worn by others after you. The history is part of the appeal.

I performed a peculiar form of rebellion in my teens. I decided to look more like someone from a Victorian or Edwardian period – at least in part. (I think the main influence was the Anne of Green Gables mini series, but I certainly had a much-loved blouse with leg of mutton sleeves, rather as the Anne characters wore.)

So round about the time that I discovered the joys of shopping in Oxford, I also discovered second-hand clothes shops. I bought a dark-green greatcoat that I wore and wore.  A black felt cloche hat (that was more to do with watching Peter Wimsey on TV, I suspect), even though it didn’t really fit the shape of my head.

Later, at university, I discovered the delights of second-hand velvet jackets – although the fit I found meant you couldn’t move your arms much. As long as you could be around others, and avoid hailing a cab or making sudden dramatic gestures, you were fine.

Clothing is one of those eco areas that I am coming to later on. I don’t tend to buy many clothes, and I was schooled by my mother to look for better quality material, so that ‘so cheap you can throw it away!’ movement mostly passed me by.

I realise it is very trendy to buy vintage. In fact, trying to sell genuinely vintage clothes can be tricky, when clothes shops are full of them. So should I be looking to buy what’s already there – or buy better of what’s new?

Some of my favourite clothes have been second-hand ones – but then there is that aching moment if they don’t fit, or develop holes, and you can’t genuinely replace them, because there’s nothing like that available now.

I am trying to contemplate fabric in a different way for the future.  I’ve enjoyed reading about using second-hand fabric for craft projects – that appeals to me out of frugality, and the general joy of second-hand shops anyway.

I’m looking at where I might make eco choices where I do buy new – like whether to buy fabric made from something like bamboo rather than cotton, for replacing bed linen. (It would be good to see what the feel is like first.)

I have also looked at where items can be repaired, rather than replaced, with somewhat variable success. Maybe I need to hone my sewing skills some more, and finally get round to learning some more mending techniques.

When they called it the rag trade, how long did they plan for clothes to be worn, anyhow?

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Today, we tend to forget that.  We recognise that things have to be made – but we seem to think that there is a race of super robots in China that actually make all the things that we can no longer make, but still need. Or something like that.

Where does making things begin? With example, I suspect.  With realising that it can be done, by seeing others do it.  By hearing stories, even, of people making things – and finding out that you don’t have to buy them in a shop.

My mother in law is a case in point.  She makes things – pottery, mainly.  She grows things. She grew up with a father who made many of her clothes (a tailor by trade) and a mother who knitted most of the rest.  Her father also made her bedroom furniture.

So to make things is normal. And I think I knew some of this in my teens.  But we have increasingly forgotten that we can make things – because a) we enjoy being able to buy things and b) because we are all too busy to make things.  We think.

In fact, I suspect that when we do make things, we derive pleasure several times over – from the making, from the using, from the sustaining ourselves, and even (if that thing we make lasts) from the multiplied memory of all of this every time we use it.

That thing we have – it entered our lives in a particular way.  It was purposed.  It was laboured over, perhaps.  It is prized – certainly. It is enjoyed – without question.

Some of the making in my own family happened more before I have clear memories of it happening – but I know it did.  My father did wood working – he made my dollshouse, my brother’s boat for the bath, the wooden sledge for heavy snow (thank you, Blue Peter, for the template), and my garage.

The garage I remember, because I helped to make it. I got to paint the roof, in thick black paint.  When it was finished, my father hung a string of tiny paper flags in the window of the garage. The roof comes off to take cars in and out.  (I don’t entirely remember  why I had a garage – I wasn’t into cars in the same way Dan was – but I love the garage in its own right.)

My mother made clothes for herself, and for me. She made curtains – in fact, all of our curtains at home are made by her. She knitted – and has picked up knitting needles on behalf of the youngest, in recent years.  And now both of them return to growing things – taking up an allotment again, growing more of their veg, as they did in the past.

Interestingly, a balance is shifting in today’s society.  There seems to be more and more handmade stuff.  Crafters’ markets, the popularity of Etsy selling handmade items, people’s blogs detailing what they make and salvage – they are on the increase.

There is an eco aspect to this: because we are also more likely to hold onto something if it is clearly ‘made’. And we are prepared to spend our own time making – which fits quite well in that category of making your own entertainment.

Sometimes, we come across items that strongly remind us that they needed human intervention. We have in our house a sheepskin rug which a relative made herself, many moons back.

She no doubt kept and fed the sheep in the first place.  She learned how to cure the skin later.  And now we have a rug, passed on to us more recently, which is clearly a made item. Still warming toes. Still going strong.

There is a balance.  We need to know where our skills are at, to begin with. I’m not setting out on the path of the sheepskin rug, but I can think about what I know I can do – and perhaps what I can reach towards, over time.

Part of my autumnal blog reading included lots of craft sites, lots of how tos.  I didn’t set out to read those – I found them along the way.  And they reminded me of the pleasure of making, of using your hands, the materials you have to hand.

This year, I asked for money for my birthday to make things.  I’m starting with some cross stitch, to make a needle book.  I may go on to sew some things.  There has been a request for a quiver, to house a collection of wooden ‘arrows’.

I’d quite like to make that myself. And now, thinking about it, there is the further pleasure even before the making.  That of contemplating making, considering how to do it, how to bring a project like that together.

No instructions. (No manual, either.) Equally, no timescale by which it has to be done – only a desire to make something. Something that will last.  Something that will do the job.

Something that makes me smile, even before it exists, as I type these words.

The post Eco audit: making things appeared first on Frydmania.

But still.  I want to keep going on this month’s series – while also being overtaken by what’s current in the flat, and how those two things might come together, in words.

This post’s title reminds me of Alice, combining her ‘grow bigger’ and ‘grow smaller’ intake to try to get to the right size.  She found it hard.  So am I, right now.

I wrote earlier this month about the difficulty of reducing – buying less, consuming less.
The other side of the coin is what we do with what we’ve already got – we may commit to bringing less in through the door, but do we also reduce what we have, and keep it that way?

I am thinking of my teenage self, focus for this month’s posts.  In my teens, I lived in one house for a long time (all of my secondary school years, anyway).  And I got a chance to put down roots – including in the space I lived in.

We use our homes to ground us, as well as to say who we are. I found it hard to let go of clutter in my room, in my teens – because it summed up who I was, but also the stability I wanted.  This was partly that teenage search for identity, partly the result of moving house a lot, and having to keep changing things.

At that stage in life, I was happy to buy my recycled paper, lecture my parents on recycling, and make what environmental decisions I could.  But reducing what was in my room? No thanks.

Now, we’ve lived in one place for the longest time I’ve ever lived in one place.  And with the build, it feels like we are simultaneously still at home, and also moving house.

Why should this have an impact? Because moving also does things for you on the eco front.  It allows you to reconsider what is around you, and what you take with you into the new place.

Coincidentally, I have been reading more about living with less – not just from an environmental point of view, but to reduce stress.  What I’ve been reading is purposed at reducing stress for kids, but with benefits for the whole family.

So what’s preoccupying me is: once the new room is ready, do we just shlepp all the piled up stuff into that space? Or do we use it as an opportunity to think again about what we live with?

For various reasons, we’ve been living without access to a certain amount of stuff for some time.  It’s been piled up in the study, and I made decisions on what we needed to get at, and what we could live without for a while.  So in fact, that helps in making decisions – because we know we’ve genuinely done without it for a time, and it’s been OK.

We are collectors in this family, (all right, hoarders), but we are also recyclers, repurposers. We are shrinking right now, in our living space, in order to grow into a bigger space once the building work is done.

I don’t know what that will look like.  But I hope that we can make the right decisions to help us all ‘grow’ when the whole flat is available to us again.  I think that growth will be different if we can agree to live with less, and to keep going that way.

Wish us luck.

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So it seemed as good a point as any to come back to food, and what we do with it.  And equally, the times when we expect to arrive, all ready, as though our kitchen was a replicator on a space ship.

In my teens, it’s fair to say, I wasn’t cooking much of my own food.  Doing rather ambitious amounts of subjects at school, music in lunch times and after school, some part time work, some babysitting even…no, I was firmly in the role of being a food consumer only.

But on the occasions when I had space to put something together, I could. A brunch for one on a Sunday, snacks after school.  I might consume rockbuns with as much alacrity as my (then rapidly growing) brother, but I also knew how to make them.  The recipe was internalised, I could operate the mixer, and so on.

I was in the generation which had cooking at school.  That helped.  I was also in the generation where you could buy some stuff ready made, but that tended to be around biscuits and cakes.  You might open a tin or a jar, on occasion, but you would still expect to cook an evening meal pretty much from scratch.

Jump forward a few years to starting university.  Having had a year out between school and university, I was put in a student flat  with others who’d (mostly) done the same.  Six of us.  One regular sized fridge.  One cooker.  Not much money.  Time to cook.

And so the cooking continued.  As these things do.  Day by day, year by year.  When you’ve got your head over a saucepan, you may not realise the revolution taking place in the supermarkets in the meantime – where it becomes easy not to cook.

Ready meals may have been there when I was in my teens – I don’t know.  And I’m sure many wise words have already been written about the generation that wasn’t taught to cook, and the impact for them, and their children.

I also know how much food education is part of schools now, way beyond what I knew at school – where crops are sown and harvested, and the children learn to cook with what they have.

I admire the effort to connect it up – even while I struggle with the increasingly heavy-handed vetting of food that they eat, via Five a Day Committees and Healthy Snack wallcharts in classrooms.

My teenage self would be astonished at just how many foods you can buy that require no cooking, just heating up or assembly.  Not just the tins and bottles, but the pre-cut veg, the chicken breast cut to stir fry size.  The pre-grated cheese. And the ready meals, stretching off into the distance of the supermarket aisle.

When I started this series, I declared that I was preaching at myself, not others.  I suspect the declaration has slipped a bit.  Some of my eco habits have waned, and can cope with a bit of a dusting off.  Others I suspect have remained, and grown stronger over time.

But. I am also a parent. I have been a full-time office worker.  So I do get why it is convenient to have things that are quick to prepare when you are exhausted – not just for me but for small tummies that suddenly turn ravenous.

The thing that feels harder about all the pre-prepared stuff is just how much of it is swathed in plastic. (Yes, back to my packaging hobby horse.) And, quite frankly, how small some of the portions are.  There’s no point avoiding cooking when you get hungry and practically need another meal after the first one.

There is a scene in the film The Fifth Element where the female character is learning about the new world she’s in.  To fuel all the learning, she puts a plate and some capsules in what appears to be a microwave, presses a button, and take out a full plate of food, steaming hot.

Some days, when my culinary sap is not rising, I wouldn’t mind.  But the further along that route we go, the less we understand what we are putting into ourselves – let alone caring where it comes from, how far it’s travelled, how it was grown or farmed, and so on.

In my childhood, you might still get chided for not eating all your food: ‘think of the children in the world that don’t have enough food’.  I’m glad we’ve moved beyond these comments as an unsubtle way to get children to eat (whether they like the food or not).

But there is an echo in those comments of wartime experiences, of life often being one where food is not so plentiful. And yes, when we walk in the modern cathedrals that are supermarkets, it is hard to remember that there are many places where food can be hard to afford, or even to find, in the first place.

I can still challenge myself again to look at what’s in my supermarket trolley, and work out how many of the items I could make for myself.  And see whether I tip the balance a bit more. I may not knit my own muesli – but at least I think I could have a go.

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One of the great gifts my parents gave me was to take us somewhere in the country for our summer holidays.  Not quite off-grid, in modern parlance, but sometimes, that too, if there was a storm and a power cut.

If you have a family bolt hole to go to, that doesn’t cost you to use, then of course you use it.  Even if it’s several hundred miles from home, involving two or three ferries, and lugging most of your food with you.  Perhaps especially because of all that.

I’ve written before on holidays to Jura, and I will no doubt keep writing about it.  I have a theory that Jura ensnares the first in each generation in particular.  My dad has it; I have it.  His brothers, mine – they’ve been, they know it it, but they don’t seem to go as crazy for it.

Perhaps it’s that second child thing – more sociable, more gregarious, and more likely to notice that somewhere is wild and a bit remote. The oldest child, perhaps more influenced by parents, tends to pick up on their thing, not always that of their own generation.

Staying in a cottage (latterly one that is well equipped) isn’t roughing it.  I appreciate that.  We did have a go at camping as a family – a couple of goes, actually – but we used existing camping sites, and still felt it wasn’t quite us.

The more important issue, though, is going on holiday and not necessarily expecting all mod cons.  When we went to the original cottage on Jura, there was no TV.  The cottage was small, really one bedroom which I had to share with my brother, and the sitting room, which included the not very comfortable sofa bed where my parents slept.

So you were either all in one room – which of course happened as soon as there was lots of rain – or outside. Which was just as well, because the point of being somewhere so beautiful is that you really want to be outside.  (Except when the midges are out.)

Nowadays, it’s what people pay good money for – isolation.  They may well want to be somewhere where their phone doesn’t work; where there’s no internet access (and maybe also no squabbling over gaming privileges).

And what do you do in such places? You go for walks.  You get wet.  You come home again and eat your way through lots of cake.  You play board games.  You sulk when you lose. Your parents remember to leave the door unlocked again (at least partly to avoid seeming like the total incomer.)

You play at the beach as often as you can, building sand castles, attempting to dam the little burn that runs out across the beach and into the sea. You go out in the dinghy, and learn to row.  You learn to fish on a small line off the back of the boat – at night, if you’re really lucky (and if your mum has packed enough chocolate digestives).

You do I-Spy books and collect points for spotting seals, sea otters, different types of deer. You build driftwood boats out of whatever wood you find on the shore, and an old potato bag.  You make smaller boats out of reeds along the shore, and sail them off the jetty.

You do the grand day trip to the next island – and go for walks there.    You go to the bookshop and buy more books because you have already read all the books you’ve brought AND any extra books that have been sent in the obligatory parcel which has to be sent to you while you’re there.

When I think about it, it sounds remarkably like what I was trying to sum up in a recent post, on making your own entertainment.  And in some ways, in my childhood certainly, it probably wasn’t so different from day to day life anyway.

What I’ve noticed through so many of these posts is that when there’s not much money, it’s actually easier to be a bit more eco.  Time as a student reacquaints you with this, as can time as a parent.

But in the background, expectations move on.  Society demands that your holiday bolthole come with internet access.  That you still get a power shower.  And in some ways, I know why camping wasn’t the family thing – because when you finally get a holiday, you might just want a bit of comfort.

We are trying, for our part, to offer some of the same in our own family.  To go to Jura, and to another cottage, nearer to hand but still reasonably in the wilds.  Where the days spent at the beach are still the highlights, where jigsaw puzzles get a bit more attention, and where you wake up the wee one to show them the night sky without pollution.

The environment is there.  We just have to slow down enough to remember it.  And, on holiday, we might just manage it.

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Not really a huge discovery.  Except that it’s got to the stage that Kids Don’t Walk.  And thinking back to my teens, it wasn’t so different, sadly.  You get to a certain age and stage, and the amount of stuff you have to carry means you can’t so often do it all yourself.

I blame the cello.  But then, there was the music case accompanying the cello.  And the sports bag.  And the school bag. Even with a few lift shares among others in the orchestra, there was still a lot of carrying things.

There was still walking, though.  There were plenty of days when I walked home, even if I got a lift to school.  My mid teens were at that point when you could still (just about) walk home on your own from places, without immediate considerations of safety.  (And I was generally walking home in daylight.)

The other main trick with walking is picking your area to live in.  Choose well, and most of your journeys can be on foot – or at least, a lot of the regular ones.  I can’t take credit for this in my teens – but my parents did indeed choose well (after a lot of house hunting).

We lived very close to a supermarket, so many food shops were done on foot.  (In the days before limiters on trolleys, I have a feeling that we might have just wheeled the trolley round to the front door, unpacked, then took it back.)

Doctor: walking distance.  Optician: ditto.  Post office: the same.  Walkable distance to station: check.  Walkable distance to pub my parents went to on Friday nights: also check. Pretty much ideal.

For all of that, it also helps to have good public transport to support when walking won’t work, is too far, there’s too much to carry or it’s late at night.  That side wasn’t so good in my teens – but then I wasn’t much bothered with going out at that stage.

Spend much time in Europe, and you’ll generally find that public transport will do you fine in many places. (And if you happen to be going to a Germanic country, better, much of the time.)

I’m grateful too that despite applying to various campus universities, I ended up in a city – one with really good public transport (yes, I really think so), and one which is also so walkable.

We have a little joke that I always live close to a bus route.  It’s been partly planned, in the days before having a car, and sometimes the access is better than first anticipated.  That’s great for getting to work, seeing friends in other parts of town and so on.

But what I love right now is rediscovering walking – because it really works for our area.  We can walk to: local shops, library, doctor, dentist, hairdresser, post office, chemist, after school classes, a couple of charity shops…School is a bit further for small legs, but we’re starting to get there, and I generally walk to afternoon pick up.

Why all the fuss? Because I don’t go to gyms.  But I like a little exercise I don’t have to pay for; fresh air and clearing my head (and even getting some time to myself); not having to worry about parking at busy times and in busy locations.

And I love…the chance for chats, when I am with a small companion.  The opportunity to stop at points, sniff flowers, admire diggers, spot cats and other local wildlife.  The chance to have some nice routes to walk (even where others are traffic-heavy, and more than a bit polluted).

Every now and then, I even meet people I know, or at least recognise.  We may not be having cheery chats at the butcher’s, as in days of old, but there is a chance to have a sense of community, to belong to a neighbourhood, to know your location really well.

My world is smaller these days than it used to be.  A lot of shorter repeat journeys.  And that suits me just fine.  I may be lucky – we may have picked our area of town even better than we first realised.

But I also want to model something as a mum: that’s it’s not all about Mum’s Taxi.  Nor even about bus passes, useful as they are. Putting one foot in front of the other reduces daily stresses, often.  It’s cheap.  It’s functional.

And it gives you much more attention to focus on your walking companion, their detailed knowledge of Moshi Monsters – and the moment you happen to find yourselves in.

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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.

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I’m trying to remember what leftovers were like when I was growing up.  I think there weren’t a lot of them…we liked our food! I do remember the joy of the cold leftover sausage (and indeed of leftover baked beans, though I appreciate this is a specialist interest).

I also remember the pre-empting of leftovers: the mopping of plates with bread, particularly after something like mince and potatoes, when there was still gravy for the soaking.  My parents were fans of using the heel of a loaf for this (ie the end bit), so clearly not everyone could have a heel at the same time, but there is something particularly good about using a thick piece of bread for this.

I do also remember occasions of making jam tarts, and being allowed to make things with the pastry trimmings.  Begging to eat the apple peelings from Bramleys apples (yes, I know they’re sour, but so are many great tastes), if mum was cooking apples for something else like crumble.

Food habits can be formed by daily life – how soon we need to get food on the table after we get home; whether cooking is a pleasure or when we just need to Fuel Up Fast.  But they are also informed by what we read about food, what we eat, and what we absorb from all this about how to use food in the first place.

Part of my starting the year was looking at the kitchen cupboards: what was out of date? And then (feeling a little guilty for some of the spices and so on that were well out of date), looking to see what was still in date, or just about.

What could be used up? Some of it was things I had in small quantities, and just needed one dish to go; some were ingredients that I use less, now the gluten- and dairy-free cooking has taken over more.

In the Pippi Longstocking stories, Pippi decides to be a Turn Up Stuffer: someone who just finds interesting things along the way.  I love the description of reaching into the hollow tree and bringing out all kinds of things that must have been planted there already, but seem magical to her friends Tommy and Annika.

I decided to become something like a Use Up Stuffer – but I suspect that kind of title might cause a few problems online, if I used it regularly.  So I’ll casually share it here in the text, and then you’ll know what I’m talking about if I mention it again.

In my literary food education, using things up, turning variations on a theme, has been praised.  It’s part of traditional Scots cooking, with that heavy emphasis on multiple uses for oats.

It’s part of Italian cooking, where no little bit of bread goes to waste; no leftover clump of pasta is abandoned.  And it’s part of Polish cooking, with dishes like pierogi (dumplings), where fillings can be as varied as you like, depending on what you have available.

Back to my teenage environmentalist.  I already knew about being able to buy food in and out of season.  But what I suspect I would  not have been familiar with is the social pressure to buy a big range of food – to have the full fruit bowl for example – whether or not we eat it.

There’s been a lot of effort to raise public awareness of not wasting food, including advice on how to use up leftovers.  If you get hooked in this area, there’s a great book I found, which draws on lots of different food cultures in how it uses things up.

Again, we come full circle.  Wartime Britain got very adept at making dishes out of all kinds of things – and making up for what it didn’t have.  We move through a growing time of plenty, aided by importing food by plane.

And we come through to a time where we have to be educated about not wasting food – while there are still food shortages, and malnutrition, in many places around the world.  And many in-between places where nothing is wasted, still.

I’m realising that my soap box might be coming into view, so I’ll stop.  My point in starting this series was to check myself first.  And I can report that the using up stuff project is going OK – including discovering a few new recipes along the way.  Always a pleasure.  (I discover also that I am not alone in setting myself a store cupboard challenge.)

I’ll admit, I’m some way from the ‘use everything including the entrails’ school of culinary thought.  Not that form of cucina povera (or ‘food of the poor’), though I’ll happily make a stock from chicken bones.

But things like stock, breadcrumbs, a spare carrot – those are like paints in the box.  You know you’ll have a picture out of them – and hopefully a feast for the eyes, as well as a the stomach, at the end of it.

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But another reason for writing in bed is because it’s cold.  It’s still February.  Snow is coming and going.  And when you are the only one in the house, it can seem easier to be in bed, where it stays warm, than writing somewhere else when it doesn’t.

Trying to write when your hands are cold is miserable.  Pretty much doesn’t work, when you mostly type to write.  So this is my solution.  (Plus, if your bed is comfy, and you have pillows to prop you up, you are already in the most comfortable place in the house.)

What does all this have to do with the environment? Plenty.  We’ve all seen heating prices go up – and up – in the last few years.  Plus we are seeing more signs of the impact when heat runs out – remember parts of Russia last year, when there were issues with gas supply?

In my teens, I had a few different models when it came to the heat/not heat dilemma.  One school friend’s family lived pretty frugally, partly so they could then travel to interesting places when the holidays came round.  (This was back when flights were expensive, and it would cost a lot to take a family of four abroad.)

One of the impacts of the frugality was that there wasn’t much heating on.  I got used to ‘puffa heaters‘ when I came round, and cups of tea, and generally we were OK.

Another model would be my great aunt, who is (finally) having heating ‘redone’ in some way. The pattern is this: you spend much of your time in one room.  You use electric blankets to get beds warm quickly – or hot water bottles.  This does make sense when you still live in a big house – and also when you have grown up with cooler indoor temperatures as a norm.

My father took a different tack.  He didn’t go for subtropical heating, but he believed in a good quality of day to day living – which also meant not being cold.  This meant that we didn’t go anywhere fancy on holiday, for much of my childhood, but year round, we could stay warm, and eat well.

When I first went to Poland, my mother packed me off with thermals – because, after all, it was colder there.  (It was – for six weeks.  Down to minus 16 C in central Warsaw one day.  I was wearing hiking boots and thick socks, but I remember my feet hurt, they were so cold.)

Except.  It wasn’t cold indoors.  Even though I went after the end of Soviet times, one of the legacies of that period is a certain overarching response when it comes to heat.  Winter – heat on.  Wear thermals? You’ll swelter.  Drying washing indoors? No problem.

Yes, you put on all your layers to go from building to building – and took them off again when you got there.  It became a bit of a ritual, but in a country with reverence for good quality wool coats, and an appreciation of coat and hat stands, this works fine.

My second time in Poland saw a similar approach regarding heat – except that I lived above a church building, as did the man in charge of the heating decisions.

So whereas in the past, heat would go on on a set day of the year, and then off on a (later) set date, he would also be at the mercy of those living on site – who would beseech him if a cold snap came on after the ‘off’ date.

Heating is what you are used to.  Potentially, what you can afford.  It’s also the decisions you choose to make about how you live, at times.  But, increasingly, as fuel prices go up, there is the spectre of fuel poverty: where costs mean a decision between being warm – or having enough money to feed yourself.

I’m grateful that I’m not in that position.  But I’ve had a few little reminders of what it does to change the amount of time the heating is on.  We had a point of changing to showers for all the family, rather than also heating water for a regular bath for the youngest, and suddenly saw quite a drop in our fuel bills.

Which has brought me to where I am now.  Writing in bed.  I am happy to make the decision to have the heating on, if it’s cold and if there’s two or more of us at home.  But it has to get pretty nippy before I put the heating on just for me.

Right now, as I write, I am hoping our own heating solution is taking shape.  (I am in fact writing this in advance, for logistical reasons – hope it’ll make sense in the reading.)  After quite a while in our home, we are getting some work done – which includes a new boiler.  Hopefully there’ll be the opportunity to level out the heat more regularly in the house.

I knew about cavity wall insulation in my teens; loft insulation too.  But I would not have expected the government grants that have come in to offer both, free.

We’ve taken both – no loss to us (and in fact a rediscovery of a hat stand from the crawl space in the attic).  But the plan just now is for more (and better) insulation into the attic, which should mean that we can get better use out of the room all year round.

Somewhere, in the recesses of our conversations as a couple, is the notion of self-build: where you can put the insulation in at the start.  Well.  Where you do a good job with solar panels, ground source heating and other clever tricks, that make a house much cheaper to heat when you need to.

That is the dream.  And I hope it will become the reality more.  But for now, this is where we live.  This is what we can do to make the heating better.  (I am reminded of the father character in Moonstruck, explaining why copper piping is the one to choose: “It costs money. It costs money because…it saves money.”.)

I still suspect I’ll keep to writing in bed, though.  There are some things that also warm the heart – whatever the weather.

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Forster might well have been surprised at how well his phrase works in the multi-connected world of today.  But our world may well need its own encouragements to change.  Because one of the shifts that stands out the most for me, over the last two decades, is the rise of the consumer society.

Yes, you can argue that it had its roots much earlier – perhaps with baby boomers, determined to put the privations of wartime and rationing behind them.  But we don’t now seem to believe that ‘we’ve never had it so good‘.  We still seem to want…more.

Out of the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra, I’m beginning to see that reducing is much more of a challenge than it sounds.  Put things in the right recycling bins – tick.  Find another use for something? Fine.  Stop buying more things in the first place? Hmm.

It’s hard to do – because the notion of scarcity seems hardwired in us.  As does the ability to spot something new.  Both must have been everyday experiences for our ancestors – scarcity their normal place.  Spotting something new could keep you safe – or present you with an opportunity, perhaps.

However you square it, people don’t seem to need to have it explained – they know what to do.  Buy stuff. And hang on to it.

When you’re in your teens, you want new stuff, partly because of how (you hope) you’ll feel when you get it, partly of course to show that you’re keeping up with your friends.

This is why selling to people under 20 is so lucrative – you don’t really have to convince them to buy.  Plus they may have come into a little more money, if they do a part-time job AND their parents may not yet be asking them to contribute to the housekeeping costs.

I’m noticing a finance, and life stage, trajectory to all this.  Start in your teens, maybe with some good examples from your parents, or others who’ve influenced you.  Move on to student days of little money, and early working days, also without so much money.

It’s the ‘dual incomes no kids‘ stage that makes it easy to acquire – because there’s a bit more money to go round. And parenthood? You have less money – and yet more reason to spend it on your little treasures, rather than yourself.  And kids are just as single minded about Getting Things as adults – more so, in fact.

Buying second-hand can be great – often cheaper, reusing and all that – but it can also allow you to justify buying.  Nothing like a bargain to set the pulse racing.

In fact, looking back through the old blog posts revealed I’d written about this before, and what is actually going on in our bodies (hormone-wise) when we find a sought after item.  Talk about the thrill of the chase.  No wonder it’s hard to overcome the urge to acquire.

When I started thinking about environmental issues again, before the new year, reducing the amount that I buy was the one that emerged as an immediate improvement – and an immediate challenge.

There are others out there who have written books about trying to go through a year without spending.  I wasn’t setting out to do that, quite, but more to see how long I could go without contemplating scoring second-hand books, my main weakness.

About two and a half weeks, I discovered.  The local library had a box of books that were being taken out of circulation.  In fact, they were offering them for free! I still made a donation, but there it was: the combination of the word free and the availability of books.

I think I’ve gone about another three weeks since then.  And yes, it gets easier (even where it concerns books).

It’s probably a bit like giving up something for Lent – you don’t just notice the not following through, you also notice the time that’s available when you don’t have to think about it.  (Or because you are not out ‘hunting and gathering‘.)

If any of my posts so far is directed squarely at myself, it’s this one.  (There’s a next step, which is to sit down and read more of the stock that I’ve bought in before.  I’ll let you know how that goes.)

When I came up with the title, I realised it could be seen to do with slimming.  Sorry if that’s what you thought I was going to write about.

But you know what? People notice if you’ve lost weight.  There are lots of incentivising methods to help you do just that – and celebrate it. But who is watching when you choose not to buy? Who is offering encouragement? Cheering you on, even?

Maybe we have to start – as with slimming – to see if WE feel better first, before concerning ourselves with whether others notice.

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So what do you do when you’re in the supermarket, doing your weekly shop? Do you make a point of choosing food in containers that can be reused? Does it matter?

I wrote earlier about recycling jars and cans.  It’s probably one of the easiest places to come in.  So point one: if you can recycle it, once you’ve used the contents, do so.  But it doesn’t have to stop there.  Yes, recycle, but you might find you can also do some reusing before that point.

You don’t need to read much Jamie Oliver to learn that a humble jam jar comes in handy for mixing up a dressing for a salad.  Or craft sites, to discover that you can use them for making lanterns.  Or keeping spare screws.  And so on.

When I was at university, and a few years beyond, it became popular to reuse glass jars to store kitchen ingredients in.  Nice jars can be good to look  at – and work just fine for seeing your ingredients too.  (This was also useful before the arrival of IKEA in our neck of the woods, and the ease of buying glass storage jars.)

In my teens, I had a bit of a thing about coloured glass.  Those wine glasses I brought back from Germany: they had coloured stems.  So I would hang on to blue glass bottles – because I loved the look of them.  I think we ended up inheriting the collection of our friends now in Italy, when they headed over there.

Ironically, as a parent, it can become trickier to recycle – if you have a small maker nearby, who is convinced something exciting can be made out of just about anything you are about to put in the recycling.  No cereal packet is safe, of course.  But there are also the plastic bottle tops from milk cartons, other bits of packaging that suggest buttons on a robot, and so on.

Packaging plus imagination is a combination I prefer to support – even if it has been to pass on some of the recycling to nursery for the inevitable junk models that come home.  (On the plus side, when you/they tire of them, or run out of window sill space, you’re bound to be able to recycle at least some of the model.)

Some of my other items – plastics, and others – have made it into the toy kitchen.  It’s easy to buy items for a toy kitchen – wooden or fabric if you want a sustainable material.  But you can also extend it when you get a small item of packaging that would be hard to recycle – but would add to the cooking and restaurant play.

Little cardboard packets that raisins came in.  Ditto for ‘sweetie sticks’ (aka the sweetie cigarettes of my youth. Except they can’t call them that any more.).  But also small plastic bottles that are just the right size for a dinky kitchen – and little hands.

It can also be fun to make new things out of packaging that would otherwise be ignored. Those cardboard boxes that internet purchases are delivered in  – they can find new uses. Fired by seeing homemade cardboard arcades online (Caine’s Arcade, that has become a hit around the internet), there was a certain degree of designing and building, post-Christmas.

We now have our own arcade game, complete with Lego Stormtroopers to guard the hole where the ball is meant to go in.  And the beginnings of a cardboard robot costume that isn’t quite finished.  (But it packs flat, at least, until it gets looked at again.)

Here lies the struggle.  It is cheaper to transport plastic than glass.  It is convenient to see through the packaging of what you buy – which you can’t do with cans or cardboard.

But given that, so far, only plastic bottles can be reliably recycled in most places of the UK, there is still masses more packaging to do something with.

How am I doing here? Not always so good.  I do have mesh bags that can take fruit and veg at supermarkets.  I don’t always remember to bring them with me.  And equally, it can be harder to buy loose items at supermarkets.

Those pre-bagged items – they are also to speed you up and get you through the checkout faster.  So more people can buy.  When I did more of my weekly shopping at our local Coop, they would see me coming – and ring to open another till.  Weighing fruit and veg takes time for the checkout person.

I’m trying to make a few shifts – one to buy a type of (well-liked) pudding in Tetra Pak rather than plastic, so I can recycle it.  To avoid buying items in lighter plastics which can’t be reused in the same way as sturdier ones, like margarine cartons.  (My freezer owes much to the stackability of margarine cartons.)

Given that further uses of packaging can be thought of, ad infinitum, I will finish here.  But I will tap myself on the shoulder when I do go food shopping – to see what I am putting into the trolley in the first place.

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In your teens, it is important to find a few ways to be different from your family.  To embrace causes.  To have high and lofty ideals.  And, on occasion, to Make Life Difficult for your Mum.

So being a vegetarian ticked all of these boxes.  And thankfully, my mum did cope.  She may well have been fed up behind the scenes, but she didn’t say I couldn’t.

I come from a family of Good Eaters.  (I will calm down with the caps, soon.)  There were a few things that each of us didn’t like, but we mostly all ate the same.  We ate healthy food, we ate homemade food, and we didn’t tend to leave much, if anything, on our plates.

So starting to eat differently from the rest of the family was a challenge.  Luckily, there was cheese.  If I had been keener on egg, that would have helped, but I’m not.  (I discovered Spanish omelette towards the end of my main vegetarian years, and it was a bit of a revelation.)

However, it wasn’t so odd.  There were a few other veggies about.  There was still plenty we could all eat together at home – and when others were having meat, I was probably having veggie burger things.  So it generally worked out.

When I visited my German penfriend, I had much more of a sense of going against the dominant food culture.  Germany is a country that has good health food shops – but it is also a country which is serious about its meat.

Luckily, the mum of my penfriend was already on the case.  She wanted lighter food, things that were better for you.  She was finding ways to cook with tofu before I had any idea what it was. I was impressed – and grateful that I could eat what I wanted.

Fast forward to the last few months.  I am now cooking gluten-free and dairy-free food.  It’s not every meal, but there’s significant amounts of food planning, label scrutiny, and so on.  And when you live in Europe, with lots of meals including wheat products, and/or dairy, you can bet you will feel like you are going against the dominant food culture.

It has been interesting to learn how much of the world is dairy-free – in main because of lactose intolerance.  And you can also pick out places where wheat is much less the big deal: corn-based products (think Latin America, and proper corn tortillas), and of course rice-based products (much of Asia).

The best place to be gluten-free and dairy-free is probably somewhere like Thailand.  Rice noodles.  Coconut milk.  But that is somewhat at odds with what food can be produced in the UK.  And therein lies an extra complication: what it means for the environment to ship in those foods that can be tolerated.

Of course, there are UK options that work just fine.  Three cheers for potatoes, as a starch with loads of variations.  Fish and chips.  Homemade roast dinners.  Boiled eggs as a great standby. All good.  And we do those too.

Fortunately, it’s getting easier and easier to buy, cook and eat food in the UK that is gluten-free.  It’s not mainstream, but it is more and more familiar.  I’ve been able to find almost everything I need from regular supermarkets, which is a big help.

Dairy-free – a bit less familiar, but also still doable.  Think cakes made with oil, instead of butter.  Think almond or soya milk on your cereal – both a little sweet, like regular milk.  The main recipient of the cooking isn’t a tea or coffee drinker, so there isn’t that shift to make. This one was actually the easier shift to make.

But both? It’s a double whammy.  Your cafe, out and about, might have gluten-free, but is unlikely to have dairy-free too.  We have a new respect for meringues (sugar and eggs).  And we are the lucky ones, I feel – because we don’t have to worry about eggs, soya or nuts, that can cause such tricky reactions for those who can’t tolerate them.

Last year’s droughts had an impact on world harvests for wheat, potatoes and soya.  And we use 2 and 3 quite a lot.  Food sufficiency in the UK is becoming more of a thought – and a dilemma.

It’s one thing to want to buy locally produced food – it’s another when you can’t necessarily manage it. Maybe it’s up to those of us at home who can still eat what we want to support UK produce.

And to think a bit more – again – about what goes into the supermarket trolley.

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I don’t know that my parents were choosing to do it for ‘support the farmers’ reasons.  I think we did it because it was fun, because the fruit was so fresh, and because it made a family outing out of the process of acquiring food.  It may also have made jam making cheaper.

I don’t remember childhood strawberry picking (though my parents will tell tales of me in a sunhat, managing to sit on the largest strawberry).  But I do remember it in my teens.  We were fortunate to live in a fertile part of central England, good for fruit-growing.

So pick we did.  Strawberries.  Raspberries.  Gooseberries, I suspect.  Being not far from the border with Herefordshire (home of apple orchards), some of the farms also sold their own cider.  You brought along a plastic container, and filled up.  It was pretty strong – but I was allowed to taste.  And take in the wonderfully fresh, appley aroma.

Thing with pick your own: you tend to need a car to get to the farms.  So that put it out of reach for quite some time, until we owned a car.  We went to one in the Scottish Borders a couple of summers ago – partly as a family outing.  And it was wonderful.

The pick your own practice has moved on a bit in the last couple of years.  It doesn’t seem to be the thing to bring your own boxes for collecting any more.  (Or maybe people do fruit picking more on the spur of the moment? I don’t know.)

There are cardboard baskets, as well as plastic punnets.  (The baskets now see use elsewhere – one holding boxes inside a kitchen cupboard, the other as part of the equally important toy kitchen set up.) The owner is a little less friendly than those in the past – but this is a specialist fruit farm, rather than one which diversifies and also does fruit.

The gooseberries are gigantic.  My small helper soon tires of the task of dodging the thorns, and is sent back to help in the strawberry area.  It is all on a bright, surprisingly hot summer’s day.  We take the strawberries to friends for lunch, take the leftovers back later for making summer pudding.

But what happens on the overcast days? The ones where the produce is not quite as tantalising? I have not really got that far.

Like I said before, we all seem to find areas of environment to adopt – and this is one I haven’t got to. So far. Other friends took to ordering boxes of veg much earlier on.  Or frequenting farm shops.  That was their area to support – and they did.

And this is the struggle.  Because we have got used to having choice, of a wider range of veg than is locally available.  This was something that was coming in in my teens, but has expanded to far greater numbers of fresh ingredients – and far wider areas of import.

In Asterix the Gaul, the druid character is making a potion, supposedly to make the Romans strong.  But he is toying with them.  He asks them to get strawberries, supposedly a missing ingredient – which are almost impossible to find.  Then he and Asterix eat them, comment on them – and ask for more for the potion. (Oh, the many ways of winding up the Romans.)

That sense of seasonality has stuck with me.  So I don’t buy strawberries out of season – because the proper thing tastes so good.  But I don’t always manage to stick to purely seasonal veg – much as I love root veg.

There is a whole interplay of factors here: food miles; supporting local producers and eco systems; supporting growers of organic produce; being prepared to cook your way through a box of fruit and veg that someone else has chosen for you.

This is an area where I am still contemplating what to do.  There are a couple of good farm shops I can drive to – but then it would make sense to do more of my shopping there, to make it worth the drive and the petrol.  I like to plan meals ahead of time – how do I balance that with the ‘what is fresh right now?’ aspect?

So I buy Scottish where I can; British where I can’t.  I buy some fruit and veg imports from Europe, but ones that I know could be transported by road or rail or boat, rather than flown over.  Where something is seasonal, plentiful, I may buy more and cook it up for future use (parsnip soup being a bit of a favourite in this household).

To go the further step – of also buying only (or almost only) what is produced closest to home – I’m not there yet either.  I know about the Fife Diet, and others that have followed on, where you really stick to buying what is produced within a fifty-mile radius, say.  But I guess I am thinking about it too.

Whatever I do adopt, in the end – I hope it will be also for reasons of taste, of pleasure, of respect for the land.  And that I will find ways to squeeze the food budget in other areas so that I can try this out, at least a bit.

And I would also like to commit to eating more strawberries.  Hand picked – by me.

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I can visualise my mother doing this.  The pinking shears were a particular source of interest, given that a) they were hefty and excitingly dangerous-looking and b) they didn’t appear very often.

And yes.  I still do this.  I don’t have the pinking shears.  I don’t feel the need for the crinkly edges on the tags.  But it works just fine – and you recycle the back of the card, by the way.

There was also an expectation that you would keep, and reuse wrapping paper.  I don’t know whether Mum took it and ironed it before reusing it (though I have a feeling brown paper did get ironed and reused).  No surprise – I have my stashes of wrapping paper to reuse.

When you meet your Significant Other, there are many things to work out.  Subtle ways in which families differ.  Does your beloved favour saving wrapping paper – or just rip it open?

When I have been known to open some presents with scissors, cutting the tape so you can reuse all the paper, you can imagine that some eyebrows have been raised.  (All those who wish to check OCD tendencies may as well begin here.)

Dan did however put me on to the notion of buying plain wrapping paper, in colours like red or gold, which can work for any time of year, any occasion.  Still useful.

What would my teenage environmentalist be familiar with – and surprised by?  Perhaps that there would be so many shopping services taking on the task of doing the wrapping for you.  The rise of internet shopping, leading to the growing number of Jiffy bags about.

Jiffy bags, however, do not always cross cultures.  In the UK, we’re fairly familiar with reusing these – as long as your new label is clear, you can keep sending them on, and on.

But when I tried doing this in Poland, in my second time living there, I was taken to task by the local post office.  The implication was that the parcel looked like it had been tampered with.  (Perhaps not so unknown in Communist days.) Thankfully I did get my parcel sent at last, but it was a bit of a battle.

What gives us a good half-way house is the present bag – whether bottle bag or something bigger.  These again can be used over and over – new label, new sellotape at the top, and you’re away.  And the paper is often too tricky to tear, so people just open them.

In fact, I’m not the only one who finds the wrapping paper thing tricky.  But these days, you can read craft websites that direct you in making fabric bags for present wrapping, that can be used almost indefinitely.

You can also do fancy paper reusing – the one I liked most had presents wrapped in old newspapers but tied with lovely ribbon.  (Which could itself be reused.)

Is it a big deal? Is it just me and packaging again? There again, I don’t know how many rolls of wrapping paper are sold each year – and how many are just crumpled after the present has been removed.

In the meantime, I need to find a use for the little scraps of wrapping paper that are too small to actually wrap a present – but might still have another purpose.  Any suggestions?

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I lived in a smallish town, with a larger town about half an hour away.  I could have gone there.  But going to the big city had a certain attraction.  Some of it was more independent shops.  More choice.  (And a chance to look at the dreaming spires, back in the days when I still had thoughts to study there.)

What did I buy? Probably somewhere I’ll have a notebook that tells me.  (I know.  Back to those lists.) I do remember buying things that I couldn’t as easily get in the larger town: some of them imports from China, and from South America.

They made good presents.  They were beautiful, and also practical. Wooden Chinese steamer baskets, a spoon my dad still uses.  The items from South America, I remember less, but they might have been an early version of craft items to support local crafters, and local traditions.

Buying local wasn’t really something that was thought of, at that time.  Of course you bought local – because, in most cases, you had to go to the shop to buy it anyway.  If you live most of your life in smallish towns, with less selection, you are inevitably buying local.

Beyond this, I knew there were some ‘One World‘ shops out there – Edinburgh, anyway – where you could buy present items hand made, to support local communities in various parts of the world.  (I certainly supported the makers of wooden elephants.)

My teenage self might have expected it to get easier to buy things from different countries.  But I wouldn’t have predicted all the internet shopping, the free shipping worldwide, and all those things that mean we can pretty much buy from wherever we please.

I wrote yesterday about the issue of flights abroad.  When I did go abroad, I did also buy local presents to bring back.  The Polish craft shops, Cepelia, had good trade from me, as did Russian markets, and places selling the lovely blue and white Boleslawiec pottery.

It didn’t really matter where I went – whether in the UK or abroad – it was an easy way to buy interesting presents on the hoof (harder to manage when you’re working fulltime).  And for certain destinations, like Jura, we would buy local products to support the islanders producing them.

My teenage self would not have anticipated the possibility of China producing huge numbers of products, in vast quantities.  And certainly, over time, it did get harder to buy items actually made in the country I was visiting.  Nor would I have forseen the emergence of Amazon (or eBay) as places to buy anything and everything, seemingly.

And yet.  We still know that certain products are made in certain places.  They retain a cachet, a stamp of respectability – and authenticity.  For all of it becoming easier to (seemingly) buy anything from anywhere, we will still be interested in these special items.  That can be a good thing, certainly, for the producers, and the traditions of that area.

And we balance this with listening to the growing appeals to ‘buy local’ – because if we don’t use what is near at hand, on our doorstep, we will likely find it gone pretty soon.

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So by my mid-teens, I had been abroad about four times.  Once to Germany by plane c. aged 2.  And back to Germany again for school exchanges – by coach, ferry and train.  All three school exchanges.  Because it cost too much to fly.

When we did start to do a couple of family holidays abroad – we didn’t fly.  We drove, went by ferry, drove some more.  (I say we.  Dad did the driving.  I picked the music to listen to in the car.) Again, because of cost – and luggage, and use of car for self-catering, and so on.

So possibly the first main time I flew again was going to Poland in my gap year.  It certainly felt unusual to be in an airport.  And it made sense to fly, because my placement was near a capital city, and my hosts (whom I had never met) could meet me there.

It wasn’t the earlier era of flight where only the rich and famous flew.  But it certainly wasn’t the easy experience it is today.  My teenage self would be amazed at how easy – but also surprised at all the discussion that has come up about off-setting air travel, not part of the environmental conversation 20 years ago.

The internet has transformed travel booking – not just for planes, obviously – but the whole process has been made much quicker and easier, and easier to contemplate.  But the biggest difference is all those low-cost airlines. And, gradually, the rise of social cachet to fly more often.

In my office days, working for an organisation with offices in lots of countries, travel was an assumed part of the picture.  I wasn’t as travelled as some of my colleagues – much of my travel was still around Scotland, day trip stuff.  But for others: two weeks away, to distant destinations.  Where overland travel there and back just isn’t possible – unless you want the two weeks to be the there and back.

Meanwhile these days, for a whole range of workplaces, when Busy is Good, then you fly.  You fly to save time, so you can come back the same day.  And complain about the early flight when you’re back in the office the next day – not really rested, but back.  So you can be Busy again.

There were a few years in which, yes, I was able to ‘notch up’ flights.  Feel a bit important.  Yes, I also liked the chance to be abroad; to do the key business of the year; get to know colleagues abroad better; help our applicants over the first few days of Living Abroad for a Long Time. It felt like it had a purpose.  But it was still flying.

All that time, I was choosing public transport for the rest of my travelling, work and personal – but then getting on a plane, and ‘blowing the budget’, as it were.

Because we don’t always want to hear about the impact of what we’re doing. And if the society around us condones it – encourages it, even – we are less likely to spend time checking it out. It has taken the rise of social awareness – and an improvement in corporate travel policies – to make that shift.

The other factor that greatly affects decisions on travel is – being able to drive.  If you don’t, for whatever reason, your holiday travel relies on good public transport.

Thankfully, travel in Europe is generally OK in this regard – and it can be a source of satisfaction to see just how far you can travel by public transport.  I’ve made it from the far north-east of Poland to central England, all by train or ferry.  I didn’t do it all in one go, quite, but I’m glad that I had the experience.

Things change again with kids.  Money goes down.  Need for flexibility goes up.  And inviting locations, like sand and waves, can be found much nearer to home, in a place like the UK.

My passport expired.  It didn’t get replaced for a couple of years.  We used the train, or drove, to holiday destinations in the UK.  And much of that has been just fine.  When the logistics of just getting everything ready to leave, go away and come back get more complicated, why make the transport harder too?

Soon, we’ll all board a plane together for the first time.  It’s still an excitement.  And it will feel like a treat, a rarity.  Which is probably a good thing. It’ll feel like coming full circle.

Will the world go back to not flying? No.  Should we use trains more? Yes, if we can – though I recognise that family railcards do make that more affordable than just buying tickets for adults. (It helps if you like trains a lot.  Which I do.)

Does that mean we stay in the UK, explore its beautiful and diverse scenery, but travel to our destinations by car – and put that impact out of our minds? Hmm.  What is the best solution, given that some places just can’t be accessed by public transport?

That answer lies with us individually – where our families and friends are, our budgets, the logistics of carrying our luggage (and that of small people, who may not be able to carry much).   Complex.  But still worth thinking about.

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So how did my teenage environmentalist respond? Buy recycled paper.  Reuse paper where possible.  And when you’ve got all the use out of that bit of paper – recycle it.

Let’s start with those in reverse order.  Recycling paper – again much easier than it used to be.  They’ll give you a bin to put it in, they’ll come to your door.  And it’s not just writing paper they can take – paper packaging too, if it’s clean.

That means things like paper wrappers on the outside of some chocolate bars. Paper bags you get in supermarkets for mushrooms.  Labels from tin cans.  Let alone flyers that come through the door, old magazines, what’s on leaflets, and so on.

If you’ve got a compost heap, some of it can go there.  If you’ve got a food waste recycling system of your own, bits of kitchen roll that have been used for wiping up food can go there too.  So far so good.

(Of course, not everyone has a compost heap – let alone a food recycling system.  I’ll probably say some more on those another time.)

What about the reusing bit? Fairly OK.  It’s become familiar practice in many offices to have bins for ‘used on one side’ paper, and it’s great for jotting notes on.

I use it for shopping lists, to do lists, moments when I need to do a diagram to prove how many Star Wars films Obi Wan Kenobi appears in.  (And at what age.  Parental responsibilities, you see.)

It can get trickier when the printing on one side has personal information.  Easier if you are in an office, and have access to shredding collection services.  (Yes, we can buy shredders for use at home.  Yes, I seem to have gone through two already, and they don’t seem to cope with larger amounts of paper.)

So, I’m feeling fairly good so far.  Then I remember where I came in: buying recycled paper.  School: good.  University: generally good.  Later on: not always so good.

Recycled paper from the 80s and 90s, when I was mostly buying for notes, was generally browny-grey.  Distinctive, good for identifying with visits to Germany and buying it there.  But yes, less beautiful under the hand and the pen than new paper.

In the present day, I seem to have slipped into the trap of picking up pads of A4 paper (for the occasions where I do buy new) and not thinking too hard about where they come from.   I don’t use them much, but I can think about changing this when I next buy.

Recycled kitchen roll, recycled loo roll – generally OK to get.  And, more recently, easier to get non-bleached baking parchment for baking cakes with.  In fact, that last item actually feels more satisfying to bake with.  It’s nice to see your finished item (hopefully brown), nestled in a mid-brown from the baking parchment.

It would help if I could cut the amount of flyers for takeaways that come though the door.  (Can I do mailing preferences for that?)  But then I could turn them into logs (so I discover) a) if I have a fireplace and b) if I want to burn paper.  Hmm.

I could turn newspapers into plant pots for planting out seedlings?  That one seems better.  Although we have been reducing the papers and magazines that come into the house, over the last few years.  So actually I don’t have much newspaper at home.  Unless I take home the copy of Metro from the bus that would have otherwise ended up under someone’s feet.

Audit result: could do a bit better on the new paper.  Fine on reuse and recycle – but the hardest one is to reduce.  That’s also the one to work on.  Good job all these words are going online, rather than on paper, as I write this.

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I’m sure my teenage self would be surprised at how much glass and can recycling has become mainstream.  It’s one area in which I think the UK has ‘gone with the programme’.

But the main surprise is not that there are recycling facilities, or that people use them, but that local councils will come to your door to collect recycling materials.

I live in a city which gets better and better at this every year.  But even a few years ago, it was still the case that, if you wanted to recycle things, you needed to take them to a recycling centre – or to a local supermarket which had those can and bottle banks.

And the main factors there are a) distance and b) having a car.  For a number of reasons (which will probably work their way into becoming a post at some point), we didn’t own a car until fairly recently.

Immediate environmental conundrum: do you drive but recycle, or do you not drive (‘keep cars off the roads!’)- and end up with recycling that you can’t shift?

Even if you are cooking for two, even if you are making a fair amount of your own food, you will get through bottles and cans.  It’s hard not to.  Even if you grow your own, you still need to find ways to preserve your food after a while – which often means jars.

At university, I remember asking my parents if they would help me take the bottles to the recycling.  In my first year, living in a flat for six people (and with two out of six on a course which offset very hard studying with very hard partying), that added up to a lot of bottles.

Later on, in another flat, there were facilities we could walk to – which was a help.  But I know that, by the time we were in our second flat after being married, the recycling facilities for the closest supermarket were at the top of a steep hill.

Yes, you could fill your rucksack with bottles, lug them up the hill, empty them, do your shopping, and walk home with the bag full of food.  But it was harder work.

I think we asked a few favours for getting the bottles to the recycling bank every now and then – and I suspect more cans went in the bin than should have done.

But coming to your door – fantastic.  No problem if you don’t have a car, or if you can’t carry the weight of the bottles far.

New conundrum: where do you keep your recycling while it’s building up? Do you nip out to an outside store with every can or bottle as it becomes available, or do you keep them inside?

As it happens, I think we’re in a good place with this bit.  It’s easier at home – harder in work environments, where recycling facilities aren’t always so good.  Where it’s easy to put a can from your lunch in the bin, and no one bats an eyelid.

You can of course take yours home.  Petition for recycling bins.  Perhaps rescue items from out of bins, if you’re feeling brave, and there’s a sink nearby.  That’s where nudging, rather than lecturing people, helps.

The thing that struck me once, heaving bottles into the bottle bank, was why we break the bottles as we recycle them? Why not return them to supermarkets, as happens in Germany? Why not bring back that notion of getting a little money back on a bottle by returning it to where you bought it?

Answer? Back to transport, space, ease of carrying and so on.  If your house has space for crates of bottles, and you have a car, and   you even have space in your boot, then it works.

Even for an area like this which has become mainstream, it’s not all sorted.  And it can get equally confusing when you go on holiday, even just to another part of the UK, or a couple of hours up the road, and discover that you have to arrange things differently for recycling.

But…it’s going in the right direction, I think.  But I’d still like to know what to do with used lightbulbs for the weekly recycling pick up.  And broken glass, which recycling people understandably don’t want to pick up.  Any suggestions?

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