Community Fridge

Today I visited our local Community Fridge for the first time.  This is run by a local Community Enterprise, run by volunteers who are passionate about keeping food (and other things - I'll post about the paint hub another day) out of landfill and looking after the community.  At the end of each day they go around the supermarkets and collect food which would otherwise be thrown away because it's at the end of it's shelf life.  Every morning at 10am, they give it out in return for a £1 donation.

I decided this warranted further investigation, so this morning I took the wiggly dog for a walk down to the community fridge venue.  

There was a queue outside the building, so I tied the dog to a post, and joined the back of the queue, which was made up of 18 people.  They were an interesting mix: young and old, with children and without, well-off and not so well off.  A lady came around exchanging a ticket for each £1.  Once everybody had one, she offered a second ticket (one ticket = 1 basket) to anybody that wanted one for another £1.

Then the queue began to slowly move forwards.  The ladies brought out baskets that had already been sorted.  They share out the food evenly into the baskets before you arrive so you don't end up with the people at the front of the queue grabbing all the good stuff.  Then you pack your basket into your bag.  They also give a choice of white bread or brown bread, veggie or meat, and if they have lots of something, you can take as much as you want (in this case - bread rolls and past their best bananas).  The lady in front of me explained that the numbers today were about average, and that what you get each time is a bit of a lottery, but it usually contains fruit and veg and bread.  She said sometimes you get a bit less, and sometimes a bit more - depending how many people are queueing and how much has been donated by the supermarkets.

I was amazed by how much I got - and soon realised that if I was coming back I needed a bigger bag (the lady in front had a spare thank goodness!) and should definitely bring the car.  I came home with two loaves of bread and three packs of bread rolls, cherry tomatoes, salad tomatoes, a pepper, 2 punnets of strawberries, 2 figs, a satsuma, some apples, slightly past their best bananas, green beans, salad, parsnips, carrots and potatoes.  A veritable haul of freshness and all for just £1!  

When I got home, my first job was to hull the strawberries and chop the bananas and chuck them in a bag in the freezer so they are ready for Miss Busy to whizz into smoothies whenever she wants one.  I then chose which bread to put in the bread bin and which bread to put in the freezer.  Everything else went in the fridge but has helped me determine what to cook over the coming days.  Some batch cooked sauces and things like that seem a good bet.

I am delighted with this find.  Not only will it save money on the groceries, but it's making good use of food that would almost certainly end up in landfill.  It also benefits those in the community who really need that help with the cost of food - they do also have a weekly "food club" (food bank) with donated non-perishables which gets given to those who need it in addition to the fresh food.

Bravo to Remake: Cornwall!

Being green is hard!

We all want to save the planet. We may not be signed up to Green peace or Extinction Rebellion, but very few of us are blind to the problems that face Planet Earth and the part that humans have had in the crisis.

So we should do something about it, right?

I love to read books about being green. My latest two are:

However, I find that a lot of people who write or blog about being green seem to live in their very own little utopia (I'd love to be corrected on this, so please feel free to comment). It's just that, while actions are suggested with optimism and energy, there's very little acknowledgement of how hard these changes are for people in the real world. We all want to make the changes, but it's not as simple as waving a magic wand.

So we should all shop local and seasonal, buy at farmers' markets or make use of those brilliant zero waste shops? We should leave the car at home and cycle everywhere?

Fantastic idea!

However:

• We don't all live in a metropolis where we use public transport to get to work and wander past little rows of shops with a grocer.
• We don't all have a lifestyle that allows us to get into town when the market is on.
• Most of us have to drop the kids off to school on the way to work, then rush to pick them up and get them to their next activity.
• We live lives where we balance work, family life, voluntary work, pet care, home care and maybe even a little self-care or sleep - there really isn't much extra time in there!
• Most of us live in places where public transport is shoddy at best and costs a fortune.
• For most of us, going to town (where the grocers and the Farmers' Market and the Zero Waste shop can be found) involves driving and paying for parking.

We all know that supermarkets over-transport and over-package their goods, but sadly they have developed to offer convenience and efficiency for those of us who live busy, rushed lives.  It's hard to walk away from that, even though we know it needs to be done.

Use less plastic and eat less meat?

I agree with both of these.

These are definitely changes we need to make to help our planet. However, again, we don't all live a life where that's easy to do.

Most of us live in families.

It's hard enough to change our own habits, let alone to change other people.

If you're making packed lunches for four, switching from pre-packaged (in plastic) snacks and products to home-made goodness is appealing, but takes time and planning. Equally, eating less meat requires you to learn new recipes, meals and ways of cooking, which need to be delicious enough to convince certain members of the family that get confused if a meal has no meat in it.

So of course we want to be greener, but let's just acknowledge that part of the reason we are in the predicament we are in, is because we are in a crazy spiral where lifestyles rely on convenience and convenience relies on lifestyle. Some of the changes we need to make will require big changes to our priorities and our lives.

Let's just acknowledge that this is not an easy thing for people to do.

Let's also get rid of the idea that the only way to make a difference is to go the whole hog and become a green, vegan, tree-hugging super-hero. I mean, hats-off to those green super-heroes, but let's remember that every little helps (oh no! I see what I did there!). If we all look at the problem and think that it's too big to solve, that there's no point because we can't do it all, then the problem won't get any smaller at all.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" Lao Tzu

 If we all do one small thing to make a difference, what a great big difference that will make. Once one change in your life has been successfully made, you can start to make another.

We're going to do this. We have to do this. But we can do it one step at a time.

Resolution Time

It's that time of year again where we all start making plans for the coming year.

Creating my own resolutions got me thinking...

Where do New Year Resolutions come from?

We know that more than 4000 years ago ancient Babylonians
celebrated a New Year festival called Akitu. Akitu lasted for twelve days and in this time the Babylonians planted crops, crowned a new king or pledged loyalty to an existing one, and made promises to the gods to repay debts or return borrowed items. It was felt that keeping their word would give the gods cause to look favourably on them.

The Ancient Romans created the calendar as we know it, with New Year falling on the 1st of January, a month dedicated to the two-faced god Janus, who looked back into the previous year and forward into the next. The Romans made promises and sacrifices to Janus, vowing good behaviour for the following year.

So... 

What do people resolve to do?

According to statistics in the UK, almost half of the New Year resolutions made for 2020 were to do with losing weight or improving diet. Other popular resolutions were saving more money, taking up a new hobby or cutting down on alcohol or giving up smoking. 27% of people have never made a New Year resolution.

If you're looking to make a real impact on your life, it's better to frame your resolution positively. Decide what you are going to do rather than what you aren't. Instead of "eat less chocolate", try "eat more healthily". That way you can make a positive choice instead of feeling that you are sacrificing something or losing out.

After such a strange year as we've had this year, I imagine there will be a lot of New Year Resolutions about spending more time with friends and loved ones (as soon as we are allowed) or cultivating hobbies and activities we've missed out on. 

I know that during the first lockdown in the Spring there was a noticeable improvement in public spiritedness, a willingness to muck in, a benefit to the environment - as the covid crisis has continued those benefits appear to have worn very thin, but perhaps enough people remember that some of those might feature on Resolution lists.

Here are some positive Resolution ideas you might like to consider:

• Create a positive morning ritual - whether you take your coffee outdoors or start the day with a meditation or you commit to a wholesome breakfast.
• Keep a journal / take more photos - commit to preserving memories of your life.
• Shop local - our independent local shops, restaurants and cafes have taken a massive hit over the past year. Supporting them keeps money in the local economy and helps preserve the individuality of your local area.
• Find your tribe - who have you missed spending time with this year? Friends and family are so important as a support network. Loneliness and isolation are hard to bear - find people who resonate with your values and commit to spending more time with them for a happier life.
• Learn a new skill - whether it's leather-working, computer-aided-design or speaking Spanish. Learn something new this year.
• Volunteer - the world needs you, your time, your energy, your kindness and your skills. Whether it's the local Scout group, hearing readers at the primary school or gardening for an elderly neighbour, your contribution will make the world richer.
• Go for more walks, in all weathers, to get to know your local area and to rediscover a connection with the wilder world.

My New Year Resolutions this year:

I'm quite happy with these. I took my time over the wording, as I wanted to frame them positively and for them to be about the life I want to live. Of course, my plans for the year also include more gardening, decorating the pantry and the dining room, lots of plans for Scouting... but I had to whittle it down to the core essence of what I want for 2021. These aren't measurable resolutions either, but I will know if I am following them.

Join me on my year of making it count, activity, living life more slowly, creatively and adventurously!

Pressing the reset button on society

The Covid19 crisis affected the world in so many ways.  So many people were sent home from work either furloughed or to work from home; children were sent home from schools; shops were closed; health workers were clapped.

Life was on pause.

It has led many to reevaluate their lives.  Maybe parents found that spending more time with their children and supporting them with their learning was a joyful experience that they would like to continue, and decided not to go back to work and school at all.  Maybe people realised that they could do without all the shopping and evenings out that they had thought were vital to their existence.  People realised that the things they really missed were family and friends.

Now though, as restrictions are lifted, don't press play yet.  

Before we rush headlong back to life as we knew it (or this weird 2m socially distanced "new normal") can we reflect on what needs changing?  Don't be in too great a hurry to go back to "how life was" because there was a lot wrong with "how life was".  Instead, let's think about "how life should be" and try to build that instead.

At the beginning of lock-down people talked about hope, they talked about standing together, they talked about helping the vulnerable.  This seems to have been forgotten pretty quickly.  People out there still need help, just as they needed help before the crisis.  In the rush to get back to Primark and get the kids back to school have we forgotten that?

Let's stop.

Let's think about the world we want to live in.
Let's make our headlines about positive changes to build a better society, and not about which statues are up or whether social distancing should go from 2m-1m or what Trump has tweeted this time.

As well as talking about how we can help the most deprived children, who maybe haven't been able to engage with home learning, to "catch up" and as well as making sure they can eat during the Summer... let's talk about why we still have deprived families and lets talk about what we can do to bring more equality to society.

Instead of this dreadful polar argument about whether those "lazy teachers" who've been sat on their backsides since March (or, more accurately, who've been supporting their classes and their families through home-learning and supporting key-working children in school) should be teaching through the Summer... what if we look at whether the three term, long summer holiday system and 9-3.15 school day is actually fit for purpose in today's society and take this opportunity to hit reset and build something better.

Instead of worrying about whether we can travel safely to work on public transport, let's ask ourselves whether there's another way?  
We have grown used to astronomical house prices and a buy now, throw away later culture that requires a high income.  Have we learnt from the lockdown that we don't need all those things?  Could we live somewhere cheaper and buy less so we don't all have to go out to work at all and can stay home and educate the kids?

Our local environments have enjoyed an unexpected surge of biodiversity with reduced traffic and industrial pollution.  Could we ask ourselves if we can keep that going?  What have we done without that we can keep doing without?

If you were keen to volunteer in your local community at the beginning of lock-down, remember that your local community values volunteers at all times, not just in crisis.  When things like Scouts and Guides, local litter-picking groups and homeless centres get back to normal, could you continue volunteering?