environmental stuff

Snow clumps and snot

January 6 2010 7 0 filed under: environmental stuff

In case you missed it the first time round, or haven't read my about me page (which is called introspective, because that's all fancy and stuff), I am an Australian.

I've lived here in old blighty (yes, i AM allowed to call it that, I paid my dues!) for nearly 14 years now. Some of it feels like home, which is a disconcerting thought. But after over a decade, parts of daily life in Britain are as familar as the opening strains of the muppet show theme tune, and almost as likely to make me smile.

Things like chunky powerpoints, victorian architecture and all day breakfasts.

And then there are some things that I refuse to accept as normality, and that category includes black pudding and the weather.

Because honestly, black pudding is a seriously bad idea in anyone's book, and the weather over here seems to be missing a whole season (the summer one).

Still, I forgive the weather all its vagaries when it goes and snows.

Coming from a hot country - for me - snow is always exotic. Snow means ski trips and holidays. Snow is one of my longest running fantasies from childhood. I used to dream that it snowed in Sydney, the harbour froze, and we all went skating on it. I still in live in hope.

So when it snows in London, which it does every year for about half a day, I love it.

I don't care that the news is reporting the financial cost of the snow days as 8 million pounds per day.

I just want to go and jump in the stuff!

While we were in Sydney for christmas, putting up with 38 degree heat (God, I love it!) it started to snow over here in London. You may recall, I was not so pleased. The idea of a white christmas occurring the one year I was not here for christmas was particularly untenable.

Luckily for me, they got slush. Winner. Who cares what they wanted, it's all about me me me.

My girls love the snow too. They were disappointed to have missed out on the snow while we were away too. The fact that it was actually a terribly severe spell of weather that brought misery kinda bypasses us. Because I was insanely jealous when I heard that some people were stuck in John Lewis and they got to sleep there.

Imagine that - stuck in a department store all night. What child hasn't dreamt of that? The manager who was also stuck fed 100 people and made up the beds for them to sleep in. How do you think that went? Who gets the waterbed? And do you get to keep the sheets - they can't sell them after that, surely?

Did they all lie there saying "Goodnight Clarence!" "Goodnight Gwendolyn!" "Goodnight Mr Rochester!"

Sheer bliss. I wish I'd been there. Even though I snore. (Allegedly. I don't believe a word of it.)

I hear Dixon's wasn't quite so accomodating. But then again, I don't think they sell electric blankets.

By the time we got back from sydney, all that snow was gone. We had to scrape two weeks of ice from both the inside and the outside of the car in Heathrow carpark, but there wasn't a hint of real snow anywhere.

But last night it all started again. Our backyard filled up with snow as flurries hurried down. It would have been lovelier if I'd not been out, and had to drive home through the snow in a car with non functioning wipers. That was a challenge. Every 100 metres I had to stop the car, get out, and manually push the wipers back and forth across the windscreen.

It wasn't a spectacle that other drivers appreciated - especially not when I mistook a side road for a curb and stopped in the middle of it.

I have a feeling that may have been somewhat illegal. I hope the police aren't using blogs to crack down on idiot women crimes.

But I got home safely and parked halfway down our street, then got to walk back up in the virgin snow. (Virgin, *snort* !) Anyone twitching their curtains would have seen a seemingly grown woman hopscotching up the road so that she could leave amusing footprints behind.

Apparently this is a coldest winter since 1985. That fact isn't so joyful for many people. Especially the ones who are facing temperatures of minus 18 degrees. They probably don't think snow is quite as delightful as I do.

And I bet the people stuck all night in a traffic jam on the A3 aren't big fans either.

Or the people whose pipes freeze and heating breaks down. Or anyone whose car slides on the ice and squashes the neighbour's dog.

But APART from those conditions, snow is joyful. It brings happy.

What better way to pass an afternoon than by throwing clumps of solid water at one another until you go home with frost bite in most of your extremities? Or to build a triple icecream cone without the cone and stick squirrel food in it? Or see the delight of small children laughing at the sheer insanity of the outside world resembling the freezer, but without the fish fingers and leftovers.

Or to marvel at frozen boogers and blue tipped fingers, just before they realise that they are so cold that it hurts and we leave the park in tears.

And on a serious note - how beautiful it is to see the landscape transformed from grubby and ordinary to magical and mysterious. Although it's pretty quick to transform into slushy and even more disgusting after that.

I love snow.

But just for ONE day, Gods of weather - OK? I need to go shopping on the weekend. I have priorities!

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One green bottle...

September 15 2009 7 0 filed under: environmental stuff

One green bottle, hanging on the wall, one green bottle, hanging on the wall, and if one green bottle should accidently fall, it will bounce softly because I got a soft padded zip up jacket to go with it - woah me.

Ok, so I bought the girls new drink bottles for school this term. We have literally thousands of the things (ok, about eight). But I've just bought them new ones because last term I put Molly's in the freezer (with the LID OFF I might add) and it split. Jagged metal splits right down through the puppy's face. Ooops. I got to peel it back like a metal orange and crow-bar the cylinder of ice out of it with a fork. I do live a dangerous life.

The horror was etched into her face for about 10 seconds before curiousity at the inside view wormed its way in. But in memory of that horror I promised to buy a new bottle for her for year 3.

The trouble with drink bottles is that they taste pretty bleah. I know this because I find myself drinking from them when I've delivered them to drama straight from school and I end up sitting in the waiting room parched and desperate enough to drink from one of them. I unscrew the top rather than use their popup whatsit (I am the one who washes it, so it's probably best left out of the loop). And they just taste bleah. If they are plastic, then they have that peculiar and fully disgusting plastic aftertaste that manages to make fresh water seem stale. And if they are aluminium I have visions of myself dying of aluminum poisoning the way a hamster of mine did. That was brutal.

So someone suggested one green bottle, which advertises itself as BPA free water bottles, and we had a look. Not bad - and they happened to be having a sale! Whoop. I ended up buying one for each of them despite the 7 remaining ones lurking in the cupboard. I also bought the insulating jackets. Not so much to keep the water cool, but to cushion the blow when they get dropped on the playground asphalt 6 times a day. The order came with a spare sports lid, the gesture of which impressed me no end.

I should have bought one for me too though. I have a habit of buying Evian once every 3 months and then using that bottle to refill and reuse for aerobics classes, beside the bed, in the car, down the allotment and anywhere else that a refreshing splash is appreciated. I think Evian have got wind of my duplicity. They've deliberately started manufacturing their lid hinges to break after 3 days. I could switch to franklin spa, but I prefer the style with the little hingy lids to the sports pull up kind, because when I want water, I want it HARD and FAST. Please calm down sir.

So I pop back to the onegreenbottle website (where I notice that it DOES say free cap with every order, but I like the way it made me feel to get that without knowing it was going to happen. I feel speeeeshal.) And there is a NEW product. The "waterdog". The description alone has me slack jawed with awe. "It enables rapid hydration through its unique sports cap". RAPID. I now NEED this.

The problem is - it looks like a fire extinquisher in blue. It almost looks as if RAPID might be just a bit TOO much. I'd really hate to fire it up and squirt my eyeball right out of the socket via the nasal cavity. The mess on the floor in Studio E would be a bit much and I suspect that they might suspend my membership.

I think I might take the plunge anyway, and I'll just close my eyes really tight when I drink.

When they sent out the two we've already ordered, their leaflet came with some recycling advice. It also came with a smoothie recipe, but I want to avoid drinking anything that includes an avacado in it and is intended to be liquid. Most of the recycling tips were things that we do anyway. (Since I am apparently a recycling nazi according to Mr Boxer Shorts, but if he puts paper in the plastic bin just one more time I am going to recycle his ASS. Yeah, so there.)

One of the tips - ditch disposables: wash and reuse cleaning clothes, hankies, nappies gave me pause. I would have said that it is something we already do. Well, not the nappies anymore. (Anyone in the market for a large collection of fitted cloth nappies and the various accoutrements that go with them??) And we'd sort of stopped using hankies in preference to balsam covered tissues that are kind to your nose - and if you catch, kill, bin a cotton hankie I have to go rooting through the garbage while swearing a lot.

But the first one - cleaning cloths I would have just nodded and said yep. I have a cycle of chux that I use and wash all the time. (I think that's an Australian brand name, so if you don't know what a chux is, think of those thin kitchen clothes that come in blue and white or pink and white stripes. They have NOTHING whatsoever to do with incontinence!) But recently I saw an alternative that I really like and want to try. They are knitted cleaning clothes made by a person I know who sells her knitted stuff on etsy. The cleaning cloths just look so CUTE! She knits them in really good colour combinations. I could use them exactly the same way as my chux. My question is - will they last longer than the chux? And will they start to smell iffy when Mr Boxer Shorts uses them and then fails to wring them out and leaves them in a heap leaking milk and cornflake slime? And could I hang a row up in front of the window to dry and it look really funky rather than like a nasty collection of wrongness?

These things need to be found out I think.

I am now off to buy a fire extinquisher, a knitted cloth, then make the avocado smoothie and see if it really IS as disgusting as it sounds.

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Summer blow out

September 10 2009 2 0 filed under: environmental stuff

"Daddy is this really summer?"

I had a discussion (read argument) with Mr Boxer Shorts about the weather the other day. He objected to my use of the word "crap" when used in conjunction with the word "summer". This is how that conversation went.

"It's been yet another crap summer."

"Crap?! What are you talking about? It's been a great summer."

"No it hasn't, it's been mediocre at best."

"You just love to moan, don't you?"

There really is no point continuing that one - once I get accused of moaning the conversation is simply over. That's his knee jerk response to anything I say that he doesn't agree with.

"The government is going to take away our children and turn them into robots."

"Oh no, look - you're moaning again."

So he thinks summer was great and I don't. His definition of great and mine are worlds apart. And if he really DID think that summer was great then his expectations are so pitifully low that he really needs saving from himself.

I grew up with great summers. Long, hot, dry summers. Just talk to any Australian farmer, and they'll tell you how long and hot and dry our summers are. Actually, they'll probably just start moaning about drought and crops and harping on and on about their dying cattle... maybe they aren't the best references to use!

What I loved about summer was disappearing down into the backyard, which was an acre of bushland, crossing into the national park, and then playing by brown's waterhole in the undergrowth for a whole afternoon. I suspect it was called "brown's" after the brown snakes that lived there, but at that age I didn't spend my life fearing things that I couldn't see, and we made enough noise and vibrations to scare them off for miles!

Or rollerskating on the street outside the house with my friend Imogen or my neighbour Christina from across the road. Or jumping on the trampoline with a sprinkler going underneath, which made it like jumping in a shallow puddle. We spent whole summers running about in swimming costumes leaping through sprinklers or throwing ourselves at slippery strips of plastic (a home made slip n slide) and ending up in a muddy puddle at the end.

None of this is possible were we live here in the burbs of London. The road out the front is dangerous and crowded with parked cars, and the backyard is a skinny strip of land fenced in on all sides. There is enough room for a sprinkler or a slip n slide, but the girls dip one toe in the water then go and play inside. Or do I just have wimpy British kids?

The worst thing about this summer was the wind. It was blustery all the time. The sun was there, but constantly being smothered by skudding clouds and light showers. The wind made sure that I didn't put up any umbrella's in the backyard (because they'd have blown into the next yard), and when the sun sail was finally blown apart (the wind managed to unscrew the double hook that holds it to the house) I folded it up and put it away and declared summer over.

And six days later we had the hottest day of the whole summer. The girls were back at school - wearing winter uniform - and the heat hit. It was like a Genesis concert - " FOR ONE DAY ONLY!". And back to cold and windy.

An indian summer would be nice.

I've just harvested the first tomato from our tomato plants. The first one. The season is nearly over and I've managed to grow ONE tomato. I am going to have to put the doors back on the greenhouse to protect them from frost now. And they are in the sunniest position, and I didn't plant them out late. They just haven't blossomed as I'd have hoped. My peppers on the other hand have - and more surprisingly, so has my aubergine. It will be a small one, but that's one more than last year. My melon's failed completely.

So, seeing that this is the third summer on the trot that has been completely and utterly pointless, I think we need a new name for this season. It's like a fruitcake season. A mixed bag of good and bad. Most of the days of summer could best have been described by the words "OK". OK is not good, and OK is definitely not great. OK is mediocre. Here's hoping that this winter will pull its finger out and snow for 2 months. A white christmas could make up for at least 2 bad summers in my book.

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re-use, re-pair, re-cycle, re-buttal

July 29 2009 2 0 filed under: environmental stuff

Apparently the boffins are now claiming that man's pollution is having diddly squat effect on the whole global warming malarky. Which gives rise to that subset of internews that revolves around the idea that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by government to make businesses pay more tax.

The point that seems to be missed on a daily basis by both extremes is - does it matter what the exact long term result will be? Whether our pollution is killing our earth or not, is not the finer subtext of the whole argument the question of whether we want to live in clean or dirty air? Isn't the most important part of the equation the quality of life of not just the rich majority, but every child on this planet?

It can't ever been seen as a bad thing to cut down on our pollution. There can't be a loser in a cleaner and greener environment. And the process of working towards this point doesn't have to be immediate, but it does need to be a path on which we travel and don't deviate.

Right now there is rubbish being brought back from Brazil where a company in the UK quietly sent it. Toxic and harmful rubbish. Until there is a way to shoot our garbage straight into the sun - the universe's largest and cleanest incinerator, then we really have to look at a way to cut down on all the crap we leave behind. We really could end up like the planet in Wall-e

Some of the worlds biggest polluters are third world countries, who without the income their industries bring in would suffer a massive blight to their quality of life. Their outputs are cheap, which is why the western world use them, and this means there isn't much leftover to research cleaner processes.

As the perpetrators of this commercial relationship, therefore we should all be working together to bring advances to all industry. And we shouldn't therefore expect that £2 t-shirts are a right. What on earth makes the average person think that a t-shirt - sewn by a person, using woven cotton grown in a field - is worth a mere £2? Disposable fashion is very much a culprit in lowering the expectations the average shopper has, and increasing their righteous feelings of "entitlement".

Where we live (my family) is the burbs, but it has a village atmosphere. We have a car, which gets used, but fortunately not very often. We walk to school, walk to swimming lessons, walk to the park, walk to the library, and walk to the local shops. On Wednesday's my daughter goes to drama, where we can't walk or catch public transport, so we drive. But we take 3 other children along with us. Generally there is one car taking all 4 girls there and then back again on most weeks.

And I'd buy a hybrid car in a heartbeat if I could afford one.

Our council has just changed their recycling collection to include food waste as a seperate box, so that we now have four different collections - paper, plastic, food and everything else. This is a good change, but many people find the sorting and dividing a hassle.

The argument that most average people give back when told to be cleaner and greener is that their small efforts make no difference. But who grew up with the saying "take care of the pennies/cents and the pounds/dollars will take care of themselves" ? All those small efforts add up and make one big change.

But at the heart of this problem it's not idividuals, but businesses that are against changing. Because to make industry greener requires money, and they don't want to spend it. So they'll argue that industry isn't causing any more problem than the collected fart gas from the local pig farm. But whether we as a society are responsible for killing off the ozone layer, the greenhouse gases, global warming, Johnny's asthma or Mr Spiggot's cat at number 33, don't we all agree that we don't want to live on a filthy planet?

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dwizzle

November 18 2008 0 0 filed under: environmental stuff

For a shining moment there, we almost had a proper autumn here in London. There was a glorious three weeks of dry crisp autumnal weather. Clear blue skies appeared overhead and crunchy brown and yellow leaves underfoot.

Thankfully, equilibrium has returned. The weather has recovered its senses and started behaving normally. Now we can go outside and get thoroughly drenched in rain that is more like mist with attitude. The leaves on the ground now hide fetid and slimy surprises, like diaretic fox scat, mouldy dog doo and slugs with their innards bursting out from the last boot that trod on them.

I have just dropped Miss Wonder Teeth (daughter number 1) off to her before school gymnastics club only to find that with the teacher away they'll be playing sport in the drizzle. Mr Boxer Shorts thinks that's perfectly normal. That's how he grew up and he doesn't see any reason to move to a country where it's dry 90% of the time and you don't have to crack the ice off your clothes after sport.

Apparently, not wanting to stand in the sleet and make happy facees is a sign of weakness. Call me weak. So Miss Crazy Legs and I will hide inside until we're forced to dash to her swimming lesson. Why on earth is it called global warming anyway?

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Wind and rain - a perfect english summer

September 6 2008 1 0 filed under: environmental stuff

The school holidays come to an end in 2 days, as the toothless wonder goes back to school on Monday. In the past 6 weeks however, we've had less than 4 days of sunshine. It's been cold, it's been windy, it's been rainy. And if not those at the same time (which it has been) it's been at least totally grey and gloomy.

I really can't understand anymore why I am still living in this country.

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