Charity begins at home

It’s that post-Christmas time when you are allowed, nay encouraged, to do some thinning of your possessions.  Spring may feel far off – it certainly did this morning when I was soaked by hail at the bus stop – but it is clearly never too early for spring cleaning.

Charity shops have long been on our high streets, and certainly within my sights for second hand books.  Now they seem to be getting bigger business, or perhaps rather, understanding how to make things easier for people to donate.

This week saw two different bags put through the door to encourage us to donate items.  Usually it’s clothes, shoes, linen.  You can safely watch any amount of clothes shows that encourage you to have a good sort-out of your wardrobe, smug in the knowledge that you didn’t need prompting.

The second was one of a newer type – they are open to you putting in other items, and even include the fateful words ‘bric-a-brac’, just in case you were in doubt as to how much in the way of household junk you could include.  They also included a useful bag design so you could a) get lots in and b) tie the handles at the top. all for the good in encouraging you to put in lots.

I’m starting to think that, for all of local councils encouraging recycling, charity shops are filling many of the remaining gaps.  I’m not saying that we should give them our dross – we shouldn’t – but there are always items that are not quite packaging for regular recycling, but that could find a new life somewhere else.

However, the key touch today, when I came home from work, was finding a card through the letterbox from the charity which did today’s collection.  They said thank you for the items, and they indicated just what a local charity shop could hope to achieve in a day, week, month, year, through our contributions.

Importantly, they encouraged me to keep going.  I’m sure I could choose to sell some of my stuff on eBay, but I’m now all the more excited to find out how much of a PhD I am indirectly funding to help with cancer research.  That’s better than a quality seller’s record – and much easier than all those trips to the post office to send off the items.

On the principle of awarding merit where it’s due, support Cancer Research, folks.  They know what they want, they declutter you better than an article in a woman’s magazine will do - and they remember to tell you why it matters.

Foody street

Hurrah for a half day on my birthday!  I left early today so that I could fulfil a small ambition of mine, and browse the shops on Broughton Street on the way home.

Now Broughton Street may be known for various things, but I’d suggest, increasingly, food.  It has the long-established RealFoods at the top, which does health food and much more, but also some brand new places that have opened up in the last few months.

So, started with RealFoods.  They are doing all the Gillian McKeith type stuff – lots of alternative grains and so on – but the shop must be a godsend to anyone with food allergies.  You name it as an alternative flour, they have it, plus masses of oriental ingredients, along with all the dried fruit, muesli to scoop out of a sack, and so on.

I came away with linseeds, and ful medames beans – the latter are very popular in Egypt, so I’ve read, and there’s a recipe I’ve been meaning to try with them.

Broughton Street also has Crombies, the high class butcher, well known for its sausages.  I decided to play fairly safe, and came away with some very smart beefburgers, which should be good to try.

I missed out the fishmonger at the top of the street, also long established – Something Fishy.  I thought it might take too long to finish my shopping and head home, by which point the fish might be complaining a bit.  But it is an aim of mine to try proper butchers and fishmongers this year, so I can see what the difference is between supermarket stuff and the specialists.

So, now, to the two new arrivals.  Artisanal coffee, chocolate and honey can be had in a fairly new shop that also sells takeaway coffee.  Their owner only sells the coffee beans that he likes, but will happily recommend and let you sniff them to see which you like.  I made off with some Sumatran coffee which I think is meant to be his favourite.  My bag certainly smelt wonderful all the way home.

The other newcomer is a shop selling all the things you might need for cocktails.  Again, its owner is chatty, and knowledgeable.  He didn’t seem put off by me saying I wasn’t too good with drinking spirits, but told me more about fruit syrups, and so on.  He also has glasses and all the other kit for making cocktails.  I am hoping he will stock some fruit purees so I can finally try a Bellini (prosecco and white peach pulp).

I didn’t go around explaining it was my birthday – thought that might be a bit obvious – but it was nice to have time to browse, and equally to chat with the shopowners.  Certainly RealFoods has so many different lines of stock that you need a good forty minutes just to look round and see what they have.

I should add that it’s been a happily foody morning too – my colleague who does her own bean sprouts, and has been coaching me with my first attempts, gave me some mung beans to try sprouting.

My manager found a couple of mini bars of dark chocolate to slip inside my birthday card.  And the piece de resistance was battenburg cake, brought in or for another newer colleague who shares the same birthday. (Can’t resist marzipan and cake combined.)

Meanwhile, it’s now about time for a cup of tea.  Nice thing about birthdays – the everyday pleasures as well as the special treats.

The monsters are back…

For those who have been waiting for their next fix of sci-fi on TV, there is relief.  Even light relief.

January saw the return of both “Primeval” and “Torchwood”.  As each was new last year, their return is meant to offer both more of the same, and better…

Generally, so far, so good.  There are still plenty of dinosaurs in “Primeval“, and this time they are getting to roam around larger venues: shopping centres, office complexes.  I think there’s a theme park next week.

As a holiday company is supporting the programme through advertising – “holidays for you and your little monsters” – Dan and I are speculating whether the theme park is belongs to the holiday company and is therefore a further version of advertising…

Meanwhile, “Torchwood” seems to be aiming to be both darker and, well, lighter.  Doing an adapted version for children so that it can be shown before the watershed, as well as the original after 9pm, it’ll be interesting to see what is offered in each version. I anticipate that the violence will stay, in most, but I don’t know quite how much of the relationship jumping between the characters will get to stay.

However, there is also monster-lite.  Digital channels allow you to see ever increasing amounts of Star Trek, and all its variants.  At the time of writing, you can watch Deep Space Nine at 8pm every day.  With a repeated version at 9pm in case you got distracted the first time.  Clearly you can tell I know whereof I speak, but we try not to base too much of our lives around this.  Honest.

Why bother with monsters?  There’s other sci-fi that refuses to use them – “Firefly” has just humans, and the only monster-like characters are gradually revealed to be humans that have gone bad at the edge of space.  But there again, surely we have enough humans gone bad in real life?

It can be suggested (which really means I’m parroting a certain amount of writing about sci-fi in the newspapers) that when we have more ‘monsters’ around us in the world, we invent more in fiction or entertainment as a way of dealing with our feelings about the real-world ones.  In this current climate, where working out who is a ‘monster’, and who is not, is getting harder to do, having more ’rounded’ monsters in film etc may be a way of dealing with the difficulties of this situation.

Perhaps the one certainty is our monstrous appetite for scaring ourselves – in a safe setting…Contradictory.  But then, these days, so are the monsters.  “Battlestar Galactica” has made a reputation out of developing the characters of sensitive ‘baddies’ and ‘goodies’ who are none too moral in their dealings with others.

And if monsters show us what we are capable of, with all our own contradictions, then perhaps we need to remind ourselves occasionally what that is.  If only to fly our spaceships in the opposite direction.

Soup-er sized cooking

Starting preparations for a joint party with a friend.  We have birthdays around the same time, and we have seized on the idea of soup and bagels to feed the multitudes.

Jesus had loaves and fishes.  We will hopefully have some loaves too, although the fishes have regretfully been left out (smells) in favour of large quantities of carrots.

I like a spot of bulk catering, but I’ve not made soup for 25 before.  I’m quite looking forward to the challenge, which is really only making double a normal quantity, times three pots of soup.  I can make use of my enormous ladle (a wedding present which doesn’t get much use for quantities under 6 people), large cooking pots, etc.

We are probably feeding 30 at the cake stage, but as both of us are making cake, that’s only 15 each.

3 cakes a-piece should do the trick.  Mine all seem to be fruit related, but it’s also a case of seeing what I want to use up.  Time to defrost the overripe bananas in the freezer which are kept for such purposes (a helpful tip from a former flatmate).

The last time we did one of these joint parties, Dan and I were still living in Inverleith.  A very large sitting room made parties fun.  Now we have more, but smaller, rooms, so a bit of ingenuity is required.  Hopefully the kids coming will agree to play in one room, and we’ll keep the soup etc in the other.  It may be just as well we don’t like our sitting room carpet that much…

In these days of ever more scrutiny of diets, ever more opportunities to point the finger at us as consumers – and over-consumers – bread and soup strikes a fairly quiet note, I feel.

Cake doesn’t really get excused…but then I am a firm believer that cake should be encouraged.  Not daily, true, but it is a sure-fire way of filling up lots of people.

And I learned that lesson as a student.  Should you want to feed the multitudes, trying to feed 3 guys, one of whom was running triathlons at the time, and a girl with a ‘healthy appetite’, is no bad place to start.

I’ll give you the line-up of cakes on another occasion.

The soundtrack of my life

Mid-January appears to be a good time to do many things.  Bump your car (18 Jan being day of most traffic accidents in the UK).  Be depressed (24 January coming up for that one - evidently the day of the year that is most ‘difficult’ for people).

Do your tax return (for the self-employed – I think that’s another one to avoid if you can).  Beyond that, there’s braving the ‘really honestly end of the sales big savings now!’ sales.

Out and about today looking for some shoes for Dan.  I think I was probably aware previously that part of the ‘buying a lifestyle‘ that affects our society today extends to the rest of the shopping experience.  But today, as after Christmas when we looked round some clothes shops, I increasingly realised how much the music played in shops is part of the deal.

If you want to live in a ‘hood, you may find that Schuh is the place to buy your box-fresh trainers.  I can’t quite remember what the outdoor shoe shops offered…which is perhaps the point.  They could have played “I’m a lumberjack“, but then they would have to sell high heels, as the song goes, which would make it harder to climb mountains.  (I’m sure they could get round that by discounting ski poles at the same time.)

So where did I feel more at home?  Rogerson’s shoe shop, which sells Ecco and various other ranges.  They played soundtracks.  I didn’t have to look cool in front of the sales staff.  In fact, Dan commented on the soundtracks, and was told they have three or four albums on rotation, including Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, and a classical one.

This is the place where the music seems designed to make you go ‘ahh’, in the same way that you go ‘ahh’ when the shoes are comfy – and potentially a bit pricier than you might go for.

Whereas if you want to get something tight-fitting, and need to go ‘ow!’ at the same time, head for somewhere that plays Prince, perhaps.  At least you’ll be following in his (high heeled) footsteps.