'small promiscuous behaviour at the end of the road'

I'm guessing from my various witterings on this blog that you've gathered I'm an advocate of living as simple and sustainable a life as possible; this is partly out of a desire to try and make and grow as much as we use as realistically possible; and was inspired by reading Rhonda at Down to Earth's fantastic book.  

The other part of living a simpler life is to try and become as financially resilient as possible.  We have both turned 50 and we bought this house last October.  We don't have a massive mortgage but we want to pay it off quickly; we also want to ensure we remain debt free as well.  This means several things - living off of one wage (the other goes directly into savings), not having a credit card, saving to buy things we need and shopping differently.

It's the shopping differently that I wanted to write about a bit today.  I caught this really interesting article on the BBC website; which is where the title for this post comes from - a hilarious quote from the head of consumer research at Deloitte - I thought I was food shopping!

The death of the weekly shop

Unknowingly Jean-Luc and I appear to be following a trend.  We no longer shop weekly; what we do is about once a fortnight we go through the store cupboard, pantry, fridge and freezer to see what staples and bulk goods we need and Jean-Luc picks it up from the supermarket on the way back from work - he also checks for any bargains in our usual purchases and bulk buys those for the pantry.  I then top up our fresh fruit, veggies, bread and milk at the local store, market or other stores in town.  We don't stick to one shop and we go where the bargains are...... apparently the same as many others.

To be honest I don't mind being part of a trend like this - it's a swift kick up the pants for major supermarket chains that have slowly been monopolising the market and eroding the high street and local shops; not to mention the ludicrously low prices they expect to pay suppliers and farmers while demanding perfectly shaped fruit and veggies; all year round supplies of seasonal produce and charging them for instore promotions.  If you're interested in reading more about this then Joanna Blythman has written some excellent books and articles on a variety of food based topics including supermarket domination of our foodchain. 

Right time to go and be promiscuous at the end of the road again the Nu is out of kibble.

 

 Quelle horreur!

Room with a View

Bizarrely in our house the room with the best view is the bathroom.  From its window you can see across the neighbouring gardens and back fields.  It is in fact perfect for taking photos from and for the Nu to patrol the garden on wet days without getting her fur wet.

It is also fast becoming my favourite view in the world.  Intimate garden views with sheds, green houses and washing lines give way to fields of grass and cows, hedgerows and ponds which in turn give way to distant blued hills melting into blue sky dotted with clouds - on a good day; on a wet day we get tones of grey with interspersed rainclouds of violet and slate looming over horizon.  all, however, beautiful in their way.

The hawthorn blossoms have been stupendous this year with the local hedgerows looking like the most fairytale of bridal sprays, absolutely dripping with petals, turning the countryside into a symphony of white and spring green. And the scent - it makes just breathing seem like the greatest treat at this time of year and as I step off the train I take in a huge lungful of air and the scent of blossom and green growing things just overwhelms me, letting me know I'm back home again.

The garden is also taking shape.  We've got the flower beds sorted, whilst Jean-Luc has been building and assembling, I've been indulging in manual labour and digging over the beds, digging out dead tree roots ad planting up ferns and assorted annuals. It's not looking too bad.  I'm now playing the gardener game of waiting until next summer when they have established a bit more and look less like islands of green and more like a flowing border of colour and texture or at least that's what I hope for.

 

It looks a bit suburban with its edges and neatly mown grass but that's a compromise with Jean-Luc's passion for tidiness; I'm hoping that as the plants develop we'll get some softer edges and sweet disorder will creep in, if not everywhere then in enough places to meet my desire for a wilder garden.  To be honest if it were up to me it would be huge borders, small wildflower meadow dotted with orchard trees and no lawn; but the art of a happy relationship is compromise and so we both do so.

The big golden conifer on the left is an important landmark; firstly it's the Nu's preferred shelter from both rain and sun and secondly, it marks the start of the veggie growing part of the garden.  The plan is that from there down to the paving in front of the summer house will be raised veg beds, fruit bushes, comfrey, and a compost heap; separated from the first part of the garden by a trellis up which my Fuggle hop will grow.  that's the plan anyway.  Obviously we won't get the beds in for the growing season this year as we had to get the greenhouse in before anything else could be built; so this year it's be chard and a few other things in pots; and of course, our stupendous harvest of tomatoes.

   

 (note the wild garlic in front of the shady 'woodland' border - yum)

 I'm determined that next year we'll be growing a good selection of veggies for us to eat.  I don't aim to provide everything we'll eat but I would like to provide fresh seasonal veggies that the supermarkets don't appear to be able to.  Rainbow chard, fresh beetroot, beans, peas, courgettes, spinach, kales, peppers, tomatoes and chillies to name but a few.  I want to experiment and see what survives and thrives; I know there'll be disappointments but I can't wait to try.

Domestic Bliss

In the midst of all the gardening and preparation for the greenhouse arrival I’ve also been trying to re-engage with the daily round of cleaning and keeping the house tidy.  I keep trying new regimes – a day dedicated to cleaning; a room a day but I think I’ve finally figured out that for me the best regime is to do downstairs at the beginning of the week and then upstairs just before the weekend.  This means we start off the weekend with clean sheets and a clean bathroom and that the living areas get sorted out after the chaos of the weekend and I don’t get overwhelmed with guilt if the house doesn’t look perfect all the time. 

In my battle with the daily grind of house hold chores I have found some fabulous allies.

My trusty broom, dustpan and brush.  They are a true pleasure to use on wooden floors and much easier and friendlier than a vacuum cleaner. I like the cheery dot pattern too - it makes cleaning easier when you like your tools.

My household cleaners; caustic soda and oils for making soap, soda crystals and borax for making laundry liquid and bicarbonate of soda for making bathroom cleaner. These and some tea tree oil are all the chemicals I really need under my sink - yes really Jean-Luc,, return that cleaner to the supermarket and stick to the shopping list!

Just under 9 litres of homemade laundry liquid, scented with tea tree and lime essential oils.  Recipe as usual on the fabulous Rhonda's  Down to Earth blog - do visit her; her blog on simple living is fascinating and full of useful tips and recipes as well as being a damned good read.

 And lastly, my old favourite jeans finally got holes in, so having an even older, more threadbare of jeans waiting in the wings for just this sort of thing, I cut them up and patched my beloved favourites.  Perfect for wearing at weekends and in the garden - probably not perfect for being the first pair of jeans you throw on in the morning prior to a meeting with a partner agency, as I did the other day - I only realised as I sat on the second train staring idly at my legs thinking 'these are really comfortable'.  Lesson learned - pay more attention when getting dressed. Doh!

Growing Green

One of the things I want to do at this new house is to grow veggies now we have a garden; part of this includes a greenhouse for the obvious suspects – tomatoes, peppers and chillies – so with this in mind Jean-Luc and I (mainly Jean-Luc) spent the latter half of our holiday week after Easter sorting out the base for said greenhouse.

This is where it's going - next to the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden.

 

The trenches for the sleepers which the greenhouse will sit upon and the sleepers that will go in them.

The sleepers were originally all 8 foot long and Jean-Luc cut two of them down to 6 foot with a handsaw! My hero.

                           

The path dug out and the edging in place.  All we need to do now is break up the base soil and get the greenhouse up.  

The greenhouse arrives on Friday, just in time for us to spend the May bank holiday weekend putting it up.

This has all happened due to the wonderful Jean-Luc who has worked like a Trojan and done a fantastic job of building this foundation.  It's amazing watching a man build something from scratch; having the skills to do this - even more so when you know his day job is desk jockeying in IT management. Guess that's why I love him.