Xmas Puddings NOvember 30th 2007

Day 62

Friday 30th November 2007

You thought I was lost. No such luck. But writing and Xmas hamper cooking do not go well together. I have cooked more in the last week than I have done in the last month. But I have to show, pickled onions, 20 jars, chutney, 15 jars, xmas puddings 4 of, xmas cakes three tiny and three large of. I have marzipaned the cakes and iced one for the xmas fayre at the chapel on Wednesday night. The others will be iced tomorrow. The puddings are all wrapped up in muslin and labelled and the decorations for the cakes have been purchased. How did I manage without plastic, brilliantly. The market, Holland & Barrett and Wilkinson have provided me with everything I needed. I got greaseproof paper – 10 metres for 69 pence from Wilkinsons. I also got china pudding bowls from Wilkinsons for the xmas puds. No wrappings either. The xmas cake decorations came from the paper stall in the market as did my marzipan. The butter and eggs all came from the market. The flour came from my local shopkeeper who also, by the way, tells me he has one of the very short supplies of gravy browning in the County. Family Fayre in Cilfrew has gravy browning. From the material stall in the market came the fine muslin cloth I wrapped the xmas puddings in. They look wonderful and I am putting on a picture for you to see what is possible when only shopping in the market. All the fruit and veg for the chutney plus the vinegar came from the market also. Brown sugar was a problem outside the supermarkets but my local shop again came to my rescue. Local shopkeepers are brilliant. I could not walk into a supermarket and ask them to get something for me, this is what I really call supply and demand, my local shop. I have also made four huge loaves of stolen, a german type heavily fruited bread with a thin marzipan layer running through it and coated with melted butter and icing sugar. I had to freeze it as it tastes so heavenly I would have eaten the lot. Again I did not need to go outside my usual suppliers to make this heavenly xmas treat. Now icing the remaining cakes and making the brandy snaps. Tomorrow I will start again. Then all I have left is toffee, chocolates and boxes to put them in. I cannot wait for xmas, I will be too exhausted to eat I know but it will be a plastic free one.

Day 53

Day 53 – Wednesday 21st November 2007

Wednesday is the day when one starts to panic that another week has gone and Xmas is creeping ever closer. I will survive, I know I will but paperwork and more paperwork has ruined my routine this week. The power plant has been passed in Port Talbot also which is another nail in the coffin of Neath Port Talbot. They call it green energy because they weigh the carbon it outputs against the carbon the plants they use took in whilst they were growing. As they are bringing the trees from South America it seems perverse to me to attribute the carbon sinks of South America with the output that will land on my village. But there you are, they say we have to be aware and realise this is ‘global’ warming and we must all work together. Ok I say then stop the profit being drained out of this country also then and make our own energy as we used to do and if we can make more sell it. Not allow Companies to come in to this country and take all the profit out while we suffer the consequences of that energy production. Anyhow the omelette today was scrumptious and tomorrow I start on the Xmas cakes.

Day 52

Day 52 – Tuesday 20th November 2007

Today I ate the remains of the Sunday chicken with a jacket potato and a load of fresh vegetables. I indulge myself too easily. No weight loss this week but all that fresh bread last week was obviously too much of an over indulgence. I have a failing too. What is the point of having fresh bread if it is not thick with market butter and has a wedge of farmhouse cheese alongside. Ok next week I am back on the soup. But I did not put weight on did I J
Today I got back on the sewing, well it is a start, then I got bogged down with paperwork. Tomorrow the sewing will come first.

Day 51

Day 51- Monday 19th November 2007

My trek to Cardiff started on a crisp November morning and ended in Cardiff with lashing rain. Only thirty miles but a season away with the weather. The weather for beef casserole and creamy mashed potatoes. Salads do not entice me or my family in this weather. Summer salads and winter vegetables should be the order of our life. This is what we have grown up eating and I honestly do not think that having salads in warm centrally heated houses helps us when we have to go out into the winter chill. It is no good having warm hats and boots if your inner being is not strengthened with fuel. Remember the Ready Brek advert. Well it is true. Porridge for breakfast, even made with water will keep you going until lunch. Toast made with processed bread will leave you starving within a couple of hours. My son in law took me to the station in the lashing rain as soon as he got back from school as I had to be back in Neath for a meeting. MY youngest grandson who started at Welsh school in September shouted ‘hwyl fawr mam’ as I got out of the car to run to the shelter on Dinas Powys Station. It is so easy for three year olds to pick up a language, every child in Wales should be given the opportunity. Guess what every train on the way back was right on time.

Day 50

Day 50 – Sunday 18th November 2007

Only 34 days to go. It is madness to see Xmas and my finishing date approach so quickly. Will I revert? I do not think so. The market has become the way I will always shop now. There is a security about seeing the same faces every week, there is a wholesomeness about seeing the boxes of fresh herbs on the counter. This week I bought sage and thyme. They are hanging in my kitchen, symbols of a house full of love and nurturing. To see people look at you and smile when you arrive on their doorstep to me if far superior to passing through a checkout, paying your money and the person chatting to the worker on the next till not knowing if you are animal vegetable or mineral as you pass out the other end of the process. Smiling faces mean well being and I have a secret called the answering smile, where you look at someone and in that instant of looking you know if you are welcomed. I am welcomed at the market, I am a person, no a nonentity. Each of us needs recognition, you do not get it in the supermarket unless you meet someone you know on the way around. The Xmas decorations will go up on the stalls soon. I cannot wait for the atmosphere, but it is not yet, it is too early, although the jars of mincemeat have crept on to the shelves in there. I went to get some to take to my daughters last week, they had sold out. It has to be one of the best mincemeats you will ever taste. People have been in the marley this week searching for gravy browning which apparently has disappeared off the supermarket shelves. The bacon stall has gallons. Sage too is in short supply, everywhere, but in the market. I can buy about 95% of my needs in the market. I discovered this week that if I wanted to I could go to MacDonalds as all their packaging is paper. I can go to the fish shop, no thank you I do not want a carrier bag, just the paper. The world is not restricted when one does not produce waste, the world is cleaner, fresher and you will feel a sense of control which you will only get if you shop locally. I adore the town of Neath, it is where I grew up. I remember the wooden floor boards in Woolworths and the bacon and cheese counters in there. But the market has not changed an awful lot. That is the beauty of it, that is the tradition which must carry on in Neath as it does in other famous market towns. The only way to ensure that is to use it and use it well. Today was a traditional day, as Sunday always is, James returned to Newport and his college week, my daughter was here yesterday with my grandchildren and tomorrow off to Cardiff on the train. My bin? Pardon? A bin? Sorry, I do not own one J

Day 49

Day 49 - Saturday 17th November 2007. I have been sewing for three days and completed my first quilt apart from some embroidery and hand stitching which I will do in the nights with my feet up hopefully. I have the lists for the ingredients for the Xmas puddings and the Xmas cakes. I will make brandy snaps also for the hampers as they are easy to do and filled with brandy cream at Xmas they make a scrumptious treat. I have all the materials out for my next quilt which is all creams and browns. I found some lovely silk to go with the cotton and brocade to give the quilt texture. While I was digging and delving I found some interesting yellows and lemons that might make myself a new quilt, when I finish all the others. This morning I went shopping in the market and this was the first time since Tuesday for me to go out and spend money on food. I counted up my bill. I spent £14.80 in the butchers on one and a half pounds of beef pieces for a casserole, a free range chicken, half a dozen extra large eggs and a pound of best loose butter. I went to the sweet stall and spent £2.80 and then to the veg stall £9.00. So this week with a quick calculation I have spent on food in total £ 50.65. With this and what I will spend with the pop man on Tuesday which I estimate will be around £7.00 again I will have fed myself for 2 weeks and my 6 foot 2 inch son for 3 days as he came home from college on Thursday and will go back tomorrow. I will not go shopping again now until next weekend. I have also stashed away in the freezer two small loaves of bread for next week. My bill for cleaning products is the best though. I reckon it works out over a year at about 3 pounds per week. This includes all shampoo, conditioner, soap, lavender water and washing powder. I also use lemons for cleaning but account for them in my fruit bill. I do not consider this an expensive way to live.

Day 45

Tuesday 13th November 2007 - today on the way back from Cardiff I called in to the Market at Neath. My purchases - a small jar of crushed chillis which I find invaluable as they sit in the fridge for when I run out of fresh chillis and a new bottle of balsamic vinegar from the delicatessen for £3.50. The veg stall was potatoes, carrots, swede and 2 lbs of ripe tomatoes for sauce which cost me £5 and the butcher for two lamb chops a half pound of best loose butter, half a pound of cheddar and half a dozen of the big, big free range eggs for £7. I think I am now right for food until James turns up for a long weekend. The pop man came today and I replenished my store cupboard with some more potatoes, again a big Gower cauli which I know is fresh because the slug that crawled out of it was still crawling. I remember the days when we would have to wash and wash the lettuce and cabbage to make sure you got all the little slugs out. Today supermarket produce seems to be slugless, which to me sends out a warning signal straight away. If it is not good enough for the sluigs, is it good enough for us ? Well the popman cost me another £7 and on top of the potatoes and cauli I got another 2 glass bottles of pop, a bunch of green grapes, 2 pears, 2 oranges and 4 tangerines and all carried into the house for me. Life is still good and my bin is empty. I went to Slimming club and have lost another 2 and a half pounds. Since commencing my challenge I have now lost 10 and a half pounds and have eaten like a queen. Some things I have noticed about my eating habits are that I no longer crave bananas which I had always had one a day. I now prefer fruits like apples and pears for some strange reason. I am eating more protein than I ever have in eggs and meat and cheese. Prior to this challenge I had always eaten very little protein. Now I am eating more fruit and vegetables than ever and more meat, fish and cheese. I also no longer crave nuts as I used to and visited Holland & Barrett today where I bought porridge oats for £1.55 and was not even tempted by the bags of nuts. Even shopping more often and walking to the market combined with the physical exercise needed to prepare my food is working in enabling me to eat well yet not put on weight. I am impressed and binless and believe the biggest most important point of all this is the inability to just reach into the fridge grab and eat. Every meal needs thought and preparation and this is definitely in my book not a bad thing.

Day 44

Monday 12th November - today was my daughters birthday and I travelled to Cardiff where I cooked all afternoon to prepare for her tea party. With a 3 year old and a seven year old one has to have a cake, never mind how old one is. So I made beefsteak pie, vegetarian quiche a fantastic mincemeat tart, a jam tart for the kids out of the left over pastry, real mams oven chips and a pink birthday cake. I stayed over night in Cardiff and came back Tuesday morning. We had a lovely day as James came from Newport and joined us for the party and brought a sack full of washing to be done while he was there. students learn fast how to delegate. So back to the grindstone on Tuesday as my daughter has a bin which to me is now an alien being, I still feel guilty when I flip the lid.

Day 43

Today is Sunday 11th November 2007 and today is one of the rare Sundays where I have been alone all day. My daughter and grandchildren visited yesterday and as James is not home I am free. I froze my free range chicken as it was too big to waste on just me and tomorrow to Tuesday I am in Cardiff, staying over as it is my daughters birthday. I I will stay to babysit for Jane and Justin to go out to the pictures and for a meal. The cenotaph is outside my house and so I watched the laying of the wreath this morning then decided to have the rest of the quiche I made for the family yesterday for my lunch with lots of cauliflower and little carrots and the remains of yesterdays salad. I have a little paper built up and when I come home on Tuesday will have one of my fires again. Today I started my Christmas sewing. I have a lot to do before Xmas and am determined to get it all done. I have a lot of applique to get through and a lot of cooking to prepare Xmas cakes, chocolates, brandy snaps and I will have to spend more on the delicatessen stall in the market to get small whole cheeses and pates in ceramic dishes for the hampers. But today I have started. I stayed up until 1 am as once I start to sew I have to keep going. I will get there and am quite proud of my start. I will photograph all the presents I make for Xmas as a permanent record of this year that I had the time to do it. Only 6 weeks, I had better get a move on. I am over half way through my challenge now. $3 days out of 84 gone, on the home straight and count down to 23rd December. I have taught myself a lesson. Lets hope I continue to heed it.

Day 42

Saturday 10th November 2007 - Today I start counting the cost of my living without a bin. My shopping bill today at the butchers was £8 exactly. He knocks off the pence. For that I had the biggest free range chicken I have had yet, a real beauty and half a pound of best loose butter. I went to the veg stall and spent £5.21. I did not need a lot today as my son is not coming home this weekend. The price of petrol has gone through the roof so it means he cannot afford as a student the petrol to get back home as regularly as he has. Petrol is at this moment here over £1 a litre. For my £5.21 at the veg stall I had three large tomatoes, a bunch of water cress which makes a fantastic salad, a pound and a half of new potatoes, a big dirty parsnip and a pound of little carrots which I just top and tail and steam. Apart from this the only other money I spent this weekend was £5.19 at my local shop on 4 double packs of Andrex toilet rolls, because they come in paper and an extra half pound of butter as I made fairy cakes for the children and an apple charlotte out of my frozen stewed apples. I had in my store cupboard everything else I needed.

Day 41

Friday 9th November 2007 – Day 41 – Last night I found out that the LNG pipeline has been filled with gas. If there was a day when I could have broken out of the mould it was today. But food never entered my mind in the turmoil. Two years of fighting National Grid is in effect over. No one could have fought more than this little village I live in, this village I am an integral part of, my family having lived here for over 400 years that I know of. Now people will have to live with a threat for the next 30 years here. Times change. I feel today to talk about food is inappropriate, yet the gas pipeline only actually affects the people who live alongside it. Everyone else thinks themselves lucky that they are not living alongside it. In an age when fossil fuel is said to be destroying this planet why are we still being encouraged to burn gas and it appears that coal is going to make a come back. If we all change to new light bulbs and start walking more is this going to be just so the multi nationals can continue to sell us fossil fuels and to promote growth in all fields such as transport and technology. It just does not seem common sense to me. Tomorrow I will talk about food again, today I just ate it. But a bin, no longer figures in my life. It is now automatic to put my newspapers in a bin for lighting my fire when I need to and cardboard goes in with it, while any crumbs is given to the birds in the morning. There is nothing else so my bin is still empty.

Day 40

Thursday 8th November 2007 – Day 40 – 40 days and 40 nights I have been bin less. If I could only show you how easy it is I would be so very happy. Starting this weekend I will try and show the cost. I find I need less food as the food I eat is more satisfying. I no longer crave yoghurt or cream. I think the custard cured that craving. I also find I am no longer eating bananas as I used to and now prefer apples and plums. I have tangerines and my two pints of fresh orange juice from the milkman together with pop if I feel like some although I have never been a soft drink drinker, being more of a tea and coffee drinker. I am eating more eggs than I used to as I am trying to cut down on bread although the bread I make is too tempting, so I have to freeze a lot of it, which means I do not have to make it very often. I have currant bread in the bread maker as I write and the wholemeal bred is in the warming draw proving. I prefer to split the dough and make two small loaves so only mix the dough in the bread maker and then prove and bake traditionally. I have made onion and cheese bread and dried tomato bread which is a treat. I feasted today on vegetable lasagne and welsh cheese with lots of fruit and fresh made custard. No wonder I am not hungry.

Day 39

Wednesday 7th November 2007 – Day 39 – A day of paperwork. But I spent a relaxing one and a half hours tending to my incinerator. I sit in a garden chair and feed my old metal animal feed bin with any newspapers I have bought and burn any food waste which is invariably my chicken bones, greaseproof paper that meat and frozen goods have been wrapped in, Leo pea boxes and lentil boxes etc. My daughter just informed me in the phone about people on television complaining about 2 week bin collections and saying their bins are maggot infested. I despair when she tells me the council are sending a man around to tell them what has caused the maggots. Do people see no other life than that big black monster called a waste disposal bin. I have a friend in Canada who tells me every house there has a waste disposal built into the kitchen sink for waste food which is pulverised to mush and then washed away. There are more ways than we realise of negating the need for a waste disposal bin. I sat by my fire and reminisced. I get dirty, I have to get in a bath straight after, but I feel like a child again, I am achieving my own waste disposal and am asking no one to take away from my house my waste. Why are people not encouraged to do this instead of Councils moaning about how much it is costing to recycle and talk of charging for taking away rubbish and maggots in bins escalate. Why does an alternative way have to be so hard. Logic is lost in the window of time. Bring it back before it is too late please someone. If more people used the pop man and the milk man this would create full time jobs for people within our own communities which in turn means that money is invested back into the community. No profit going to some obscure offshore island while we are submerged under mountains of plastic that take 500 years to disintegrate in the ground.

Day 38

Tuesday 6th November 2007 – Day 38 – Last night was bonfire night. We in this village are lucky, we have the remnants of an old society where people come out onto the streets for any events going on and Guy Fawkes was one of the biggest. The bonfire put together by the children of the village was huge. People all over the village use the opportunity to get rid of old wardrobes or chairs or beds they do not want and they make bonfire night a night to remember. There were about 50 people out when I got to the street where you look up to the bonfire. My daughter and son have attended this same bonfire as children. My friend Dilys was with her twin grandsons at their first bonfire as they are not yet 2 years of age. They enjoyed splashing in the muddy water and were totally unimpressed with the huge fire and the noise which I am sure gets louder every year. Older children roasted potatoes in the fire as is the custom. Today the pop man called. I was thrilled to get 3 litre glass bottles of pop on which I paid the deposit as it was my first week, I had orange, lemonade and cherryade, and I had a huge cauliflower from the Gower in Swansea, just down the road, for the sum of £3.40. Not bad for glass bottles and a local cauliflower. MY life improves daily and by bin and recycling non existent.

Day 37

Monday 5th November 2007 – Day 37 – Off to Cardiff on the 7 am bus and the 7.25 train. I do not drive so sometimes have to put up with public transport. I am used to not driving and still get mad if the bus does not turn up but feel it is a small price to pay for being chauffer driven. I love the independence of being able to go to the market in Neath any time I want really on the bus as we have an hourly service and also the train gives me a freedom. I can go anywhere in comfort, no traffic queues and because I do not travel on commuter trains much I find the trains I do catch are 90% on time which is wonderful today. I can get to Cardiff and use the lift and tunnel to get on to another platform to catch the Barry train to Dinas Powys where my 9 year old grandson ran to meet me along the long winding path to the station while his mother watched him from the car. He took the music case he had left behind with me last weekend and took my bag and carried it like the little man he is getting to be. MY daughter had an organic fruit & veg box delivered on the weekend which she was disappointed with as the apples were so small. I used some of the carrots and swede to make a thick beef casserole for them. The carrots were exceptional. I cut slices and popped them into my mouth as I cleaned the veg. The taste was of my childhood. We tend to say that our taste buds are not as good as when we were yo9ung so the food does not taste the same. I can now tell you that is rubbish. Those carrots tasted exactly as the ones we dug up from our garden did when I was 5 years old. The swede also was of my childhood. The frost had permeated it and it was succulent and as fresh as it is possible to get. After eating her casserole with organic mashed potatoes my daughter is re ordering the veg box for each week. Food such as that is an experience not a necessity and if you can find it grab it.

Day 36

Sunday 4th November 2007 – Day 36 – I spend all day Sunday between cooking sorting out material for patchwork quilts. I am single-handedly going to try and utilise all the cotton material I can find in charity shops and turn them into worthwhile products. Cotton takes a tremendous amount of water to produce and because there is a market in the West for cheap clothes India and other places are producing cotton material at a cheap rate to the West but at a premium rate to India who then thrives. But can this last ? I look at it logically. Lakes are disappearing in the pursuit of material wealth but what if West can no longer buy the cotton or does not need it. The water has gone. Surely water is a more precious commodity to India so they can support themselves by growing the food they need. This is the reason I will not buy unless I absolutely have to anything. It is time we protected what we have for the future generations. We do not inherit the earth, we are custodians of it for our children and their children.

Days 34 & 35

Day 35 – Sunday 4th November 2007. Sunday roast day and again we had chicken. Next week I think I will have to have some beef but James had pork steaks from Sizzles last night and I love my chicken so he was fine with chicken again today. The dinner was as usual lovely and we had apple crumble for dessert with cream from Cardiff, gleaned from the top of my daughters organic milk. James returned to Newport in the afternoon and I will get back to my normal quite home in a day or two. It has been a good week and a week in which my challenge had a few blips and a few fillips. Each week brings revelations and this week the pop man will call. I am on the verge of a new product being added to my store cupboard. Things are good.

Day 34 - Saturday 3rd November 2007. My daughter Jane made a big saucepan of porridge for breakfast. She spent ages over the cooker perfecting it and was it worth it. We are lucky the children in this family love porridge and with the organic milk from Cardiff it was the best porridge ever. Jane has more patience than I do so her porridge is the best. The little one loves honey on his porridge and will eat it any time of the day so he had local honey from the Neath Market and his bowl did not have a morsel left in it. We visited the Market this after noon and I stocked up on vegetables and meat, bought my son some of his favourite welsh cakes and a new cheese to try a welsh one. My container came out for my meat and is now working extremely well. I was presented at the veg stall with a small hessian sack to bring into the market for my potatoes in future. It gets easier week by week and I just wish people were not afraid to try this way of living. There is no need for a bin, well not as we know it, things will change and we will get back the good local food that is still there and which we should not have lost in the first place. All we ate today was from the market at Neath. My son, daughter, two grandchildren and myself.

Day 32

Thursday 1st November 2007 – Today I passed a calendar month 31 days of no bin. I am proud of what I have done because I have done it and proved it is not as extreme as I once thought. It can be quite normal. I have converted one person to the milkman in this village and hope to convert a few more before I finish. MY daughter turned up with a pot of cream for me that she has been collecting off the top of her milk in Cardiff. There she can get organic milk in milk bottles. On the organic milk the cream rises to the top and she pours it off for me and freezes it daily in the pot. When it is full she fetches it for me. This is the only cream I can get at the moment. I hit a problem with brown sugar this week as I cannot get it in Neath out side of a supermarket. The health shops do not do sugar. I love sugar and need it for my cooking but only like brown sugar as it is unrefined and has far more taste. White sugar comes in paper but it seems brown sugar now comes in plastic. We need to revert a little, we need to ditch the plastic. Same as my toilet rolls. I would be in trouble there if it was not for Andrex, whose 2 packs are in paper. However the 4 packs have gone over to plastic. Come back I say, 500 years for a plastic bag to decompose! It is just not on where there is no need. Today I also in the audience of question time in Swansea University. The experience with Edwina Currie and the supermarket issue which was the warm up question before they started filming set the scene for the rest of the night. I was ignored. Well Edwina Currie stated Tescos was the best thing since sliced bread and that the supermarkets were customer driven. Rubbish, the customer was made an offer they could not refuse. You have to pay extortionate car parking charges in the towns now, walk miles carrying your shopping through pedestrian areas and not find everything you want there as the super markets have killed off the competition. I only had a small discussion with Mrs. Currie but it seems they would then not allow me to speak on anything else. The only thing I got out of it was a bad arm as I held it up for the whole show. Oh well next time do not do the warm up question and get them half way through with the punch line.
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Day 33

Day 33 – Friday 2nd November 2007 – today was the mother of all days for a while. Dave Robinson from Milford Haven completed his walk along the whole pipeline from Milford Haven to Cilfrew which he has done in legs. I spent all day running around between Trebanos and Cilfrew and Rhos making sure people got there and back and getting the press for the arrival of Dave into Cilfrew with Alan Marr of Brecon who accompanied him on his last leg. First thing in the morning I was making currant bread in the bread maker so I had something to offer people. The need was negated however, there was not enough time and snatched cups of tea and coffee were the order of the day. They were late getting back and it was dark, but I managed to take some pics. The photographer from the local paper and reporter had to leave so was a bit of a shambles really. The night of November 2nd was spent at the Community Centre in Hells kitchen trying to cook cheese burgers fast enough to serve them. Not my food, not my kitchen, but what kids love, music and burgers. It was a treat to see the kids all dressed up and worth it all. My daughter stayed over night with my grandchildren and my son returned from University for the weekend. My quiet house erupted but still no bin. Anything my children fetch into my house that has plastic on it they know they have to take back out. I do not serve them anything that came in plastic. My fridge was well stocked with home baking. This week I was prepared.

Dave Robinson of Milford & Alan Marr of Brecon at Cilfrew