Getting away

I’ve just come to the last day of a holiday, and I’m glad to say I’m not dreading going back to the normal daily routine. Its been a wonderful time though. A whole week where I haven’t had to do anything I didn’t feel like doing. There was so little washing up that you hardly noticed it. The bed seemed to make itself, and I had so few possessions with me they didn’t need tidying. And I couldn’t have asked for better weather!

I’ve done so many things that I did want to do that my body is a tad achier than normal, but having conserved all my energy for going out and doing interesting stuff its hardly noticeable. And anyway, it’s worth it.

The holiday accommodation is fine, maybe a little dated but that doesn’t matter. Its clean and everything works. The folks who own it live in the adjoining house and are everything you’d want from the owners. However, they do have a habit of popping out from nowhere every time you go out, like the troll from under the bridge trying to catch a Billy Goat Gruff. I don’t know how they do it. Some sort of surveillance system would be my guess. But they are so nice and helpful I don’t mind. 

Their cat also keeps an eye on us.

I’ve visited tranquil Buckfast Abbey and come away with a couple of bottles of their famous tonic wine. (Yes I did pay for them, and yes of course they are only for medicinal purposes). I’ve been to three castles, visited otters and butterflies, been to the zoo,taken a trip on a steam railway and had a walk in the woods. I’ve spent time resting, reading and just doing nothing.

So, why am I looking forward to going home? I’ll tell you…

1.     I miss my little dog. Feeling guilty for leaving him behind, even though its been a break from the responsibility of looking after him.

2.     I also miss our coffee machine. Haven’t had a single cup of coffee all week that tastes exactly how I like it.

3.     The Wi-Fi here is rubbish. You just cling on to it by the skin of your teeth then it cuts you off. Then you’re back on, then you’ve lost it again.

4.     Nobody told me how hilly Devon is. I’m well used to the rolling hills of Somerset, but Devon is in another class altogether! My poor leg muscles don’t know what’s hit them.

Now that lot sounds like complaints, but I’m not complaining really. I’ve had a wonderful refreshing time. I just love my normal life and miss a few home comforts.

So its back to normal tomorrow. I'll be taking with me not just the tonic wine and a sizeable bottle of scrumpy from the welcome basket. There's a new enthusiasm for getting out there and experiencing things outside the home. As Saggy put it so well last week - living, not existing.

Living, Not Existing...

 

I’ve been watching a lot of homesteading videos recently, mostly all from the US where they seem to have acres of land with trees that you can buy quite cheaply, erect your own log cabin and everyone is fine about it.

It looks so simple and enticing, and the main message is: escape the rat race and live off grid to your own set of rules and your own time table. They grow their own food, they keep livestock, they hunt and fish. The more I am drawn into these videos, the more I realise that I cannot do that here. Not in England, with the lack of space and planning regulations and such. Well, maybe some people could and perhaps did, but for everyone who managed to hide their mud hut under turf in Wales, there is another story of people evicted from their ‘illegal’ home-built cabin in the middle of their own land.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3688320/Family-hoping-live-Good-Life-face-evicted-smallholding-building-shed-live-without-permission.html

But we still have the ‘rat race’ here, and we may want to escape it – so I began to think how I could do that while still living in the suburbs within walking distance of the town centre. I have chickens [3 whole ones who are still alive, thank God] and a vegetable patch and 2 allotments. Yesterday I picked beetroot and purple sprouting broccoli from my allotment, and cooked them up today for lunch. I have just been out to my veggie patch in the garden and pulled up a leek and snapped off some chard leaves. They have just been popped into a pan of simmering lentils to make a nourishing soup for my tea. We live in a detached house with a nice lot of garden all around, including space for my cooking cauldron over an open fire;

 

But there’s more…

When I had emergency surgery about 17 years ago, the consultant gave me some lifestyle advice instead of a prescription for antidepressants, he said;

‘God didn’t make man to spend all day cooped up inside concrete buildings. Go out into nature. Feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your face…’

Which was, looking back, an odd thing for an NHS professional to recommend, but I did go out into nature. I went out every day and looked at the green fields and trees, and breathed in fresh air. And I got better. Sometimes, when we are cooped up in our homes or offices or factories or schools, we forget about outdoors so much that it becomes a place we never think of being in, unless it is hot and sunny and there is a beach involved.

My husband and I have started to go on hikes, and to cook outdoors on our Trangia [honestly, go and buy one… http://trangia.se/en/ ], to walk through woods and throw stones in rivers. Life is too short to stay indoors.

If you live this way, I salute you, and may give you a wave if you pass us while we are setting up our cooker by the side of a stream. Perhaps we could share our soup. If you are not in the habit of getting out into the countryside and cooking over a camp fire – give it a go. Start watching YouTube videos and you will be drawn in. Trust me.

 We are both in our early 60’s, and my husband has Parkinson’s, but even though we live in a town, we are going to get out and do stuff before we get senile.

We are going to live, not just exist… 

43 years of walking the same road together

Waste not...

I am on a mission to cut down on food waste. See all these lovely veggies? I am going to try and make sure that none of them end up in the compost bin. That is what usually happens to approx half of the veg I buy. Partly because the supermarket sells some things in quantities enough to feed a family when I only need enough for myself and one vegephobe, and partly because I lack the imagination to be able to make vegetables interesting before they start to rot. I need the culinary skills to make green vegetables attractive to a Glaswegian. This is a big ask, so if anybody could help me with that one, I’d be grateful!

What I really need, I guess, is a good greengrocer a short walk away so I can buy a little at a time. You see, I do tend to buy enough for a week with the hope of staying out of the supermarket as much as possible. I just don’t need the temptation to spend that lurks inside. They have only just stopped ambushing us with Easter eggs for goodness sake! But I do buy lots of lovely looking veg (it does look so appealing, doesn’t it), then it sits in the fridge for days while I try and work out what to do with it. Yes, I know I should make a weekly menu and shopping list. I don’t find this as straightforward as I used to for various reasons. Something to do with being overwhelmed with choice I suspect.

If anyone can teach us something about reducing food waste, it must be the wartime generation. Our mum was brought up when severe rationing was in place and used to regale us with horror stories of just how little butter/cheese/meat or anything else was available. Especially sweets. But maybe that’s why she had an 18 inch waist as a teenager. Many people grew their own veg. They had to or they would have been very hungry indeed. So anyway, food was very precious and was never wasted. As a last resort, if something was way past edible it would go in the pig bin.

A little of this attitude was still around during my own childhood, as rationing only finally ended the year I was born. But back then there was hardly the cornucopia of foodstuffs available and/or affordable. As a child, I had never heard of aubergines, mangoes, peppers or any of the many things we are urged to eat in quantities these days. Green veg meant cabbage, and beans came out of a tin. Asparagus was for the wealthy (it still is), and garlic was just plain… foreign!

I have been amazed at the ‘past it’s best’ food the elderly are prepared to eat rather than waste it. Community carers often come across out of date food, especially cheese sprouting whiskers, and are asked to serve it up for a meal. Now, there are rules about this sort of thing. You may not serve somebody food that is out of date, mouldy or whatever. Why would you do it anyway? But try telling that to the elderly. They have always eaten cheese with whiskers and it never did them any harm. Or so they tell you. Besides, there isn’t anything else to eat. So you have a conversation with the Powers That Be that goes something like this:

Carer: Mrs X insists on having out of date food for tea.

PTB: You must throw away all food that is past it’s use by date.

Carer: But Mrs X won’t let me.

PTB: You must throw it away. Do it when she isn’t looking.

Carer: But she knows exactly what’s in the fridge and gets angry.

PTB: Sigh. OK, leave it there – it’s her choice. But you mustn’t give it to her to eat.

Carer: But there isn’t anything else.

PTB: Heavier Sigh. Just use your initiative.

Carer: She can’t eat my initiative. If I go out to buy something I won’t have time to cook it AND she won’t pay for more food when there’s something in the fridge already.

PTB: ……..?

They never throw away food, even if it’s mouldy. Just scrape off the mould, cut out the bad bits and eat it.

I like a bit of mouldy cheese myself, but prefer the sort that is supposed to have mould. I’ve got this cheese still in the fridge, opened a few weeks ago. Now I’m not sure if the mould is the sort that is supposed to be there, or has grown there since. I must be getting old, because I’m going to eat it anyway.