Tesco's French Cauliflowers ?

Xmas quilts 2007

Wednesday 26th December 2007

My challenge is over. Now my challenge is to carry on going. I finished with 2 computer cartridges, one plastic tray, one plastic bag from around grapes and one empty washed tin of beans in my carrier bag after three months. I shall photograph them before taking them to the tip. I have no intention of putting out a bin. My microwave packed up on me just before Xmas and that is out side waiting to be disposed of. I think I will ask for a free collection from the Council to pick it up as that is the most carbon friendly way of disposing of it as the lorry makes lots of pick-ups on each journey. I am going to attempt to live without another microwave but will keep my options open. My son is not amused about that. I survived xmas with giving home made food and quilts which I just about managed to finish on Xmas Eve morning. I think everyone is happy and if there are any complaints I will own up. Only thing I will change next year is I shall start earlier with my xmas gifts and also will source throughout the year so I have more goods available. I also start right now not purchasing anything made out of the United Kingdom. I shall carry on this blog and list what I buy and where I sourced them. I have one major issue with Tesco's even though I did not shop there for Xmas. I was at my daughters. She had visited Tesco's. I am putting in here a photograph of the plastic wrapping which she purchased her cauliflower in from Tesco's. Who can tell me where this cauliflower was grown ? I asked my daughter who had frantically rushed around Tesco's in the crowds as had most people. She said, it is Welsh of course it says so on the packaging. I know I have bought plastic she said to me, but it was Welsh. Well it is not. It is French and surely this is misleading advertising. I will find out but would be grateful of feedback to see what anyone else thinks. This made me mad, how many people paid top prices for cauliflowers covered in bilingual messages believing them to be British at least. I rest my case of wine on someones toes, hopefully it will be Tesco's. I am appalled and I will be back.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all who have troubled to read my inane titterings for three months, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Day 80

Tuesday 18th December 2007

I am 4 days away from completion of this challenge. For the last week I have been frantically attempting to finish the quilts I should have started 6 months ago. People sayI work well under pressure but gosh it is killing me. I will get there but along the way I see new opportunities opening up in front of me. The red dragons I cut out last year were in the sewing chest and so I thought red dragons on the boys quilts. I finished stitching one but it did not suit the colours of my eldest grandsons quilt so now I have to do another and make 2 cushions for their beds with red dragons on. Then the books I promised them with their names in ages ago. I might make it. I shall let you know if I do. I am no diarist. Strange being a writer but I am not. But the ideas that are now flying around in my head daily will out in the next season when all is quiet and my son returns to college and I only have myself to feed. He is home for a month so life changes dramatically. Does he think his mother is mad? Yes and no. He gets frustrated with me but also respects what I do which I am thankful for. Otherwise his quilt would have daggers embroidered on it instead of playing cards. We mothers have ways of getting back. I am getting more light hearted as Xmas looms. I have faith in my ability to get there complete with the sewing challenge. My hampers are being consumed as I speak. I had texts telling me so. The weekend will be the culmination of a lot of things. Then I will go to a supermarket as my challenge will be over. There is only one reason I will go and that is to pick up cream cheese and lpots and lots of CREAM. I will make a baked vanilla cheesecake and a lemon cheesecake for Xmas a nd they will be seeved with lashings of CREAM. The two things I failed to get on this challenge that I missed, cream and glaze cherries. Impossible for me to get not in plastic. Other things I did without such as yoghurts and did not miss. In fact I have learned to live without them well. I have another 4 days and then I will have completed what I set out to do. I will write a book on the 'exercise of cooking' for it is an exercise of the mind and body and is how I believe we should be living for our well being. I am happy I ventured out as it has changed my way of life. I have no need to change it back, once I have sated on cream this xmas I will not crave it again perhaps until next Xmas. Who knows, I shall find out.

March Hywel Mountain Cilfrew

Day 73

Tuesday 11th December 2007

In 12 days my challenge will be over. I have not put out one waste bin or a scrap of recycling. This has not hurt me one bit. It has enhanced my life in so many ways. I have proved there is an alternative. Today is a sad day for Welsh people in that it has been outed by a farmer that 300,000 welsh lambs are to be slaughtered between now and January 4th next year as the Common Agricultural Policy ( CAP) from the EU has changed and the Tir Mynyydd supplements to hill farmers have altered which means with the rise in maize and other grain on the world market the farmers no longer find it a viable option to farm lamb. Our hills which are full of sheep will now dwindle. Yet yesterdays paper saw reports of Gordon Brown starting an investigation into security of food supplies in this country. The farmers will be paid £15 per lamb to kill them and incinerate them. No doubt to create electricity. Carmarthenshire County Council state they cannot afford to feed their schoolchildren an organic diet. A report in yesterdays Western Mail states people will not be able to afford welsh lamb in wales. We will continue to import New Zealand lamb. Is it just me or does this seem madness to anyone else?

Day 72

Monday 10th December 2007
Off on the train to Cardiff. I cooked a vegetable lasagne and a chocolate cake for the kids for their desert. I had some with icecream too. I resisted the second bit but was it lovely. On the train I read all the papers and read about BP going into Canada and destroying huge swathes of it to extract tar oil which causes 5 times as much emissions per barrel as does conventional oil well extraction. When will it end? When people start moving the right way even if Governments will no longer protect them because the drive for energy and oil takes precedence over peoples lives.

DAY 70& 71

Saturday & Sunday 8th & 9th December 2007

The weekend went in a whirl as usual with my 19 year old son home from University. He fills up with all Mam's cooking and then returns to his pot noodles and pop for the rest of the week. He related to me how he went into a garage and bought a tin of hot dog sausages and a pack of rolls. Then he forgot the tomato sauce so had to go back for it. More petrol I sighed. But he was in a dilemna, he had 8 sausages in the tin but only 6 rolls in the pack. What is the solution. Of course mam he said, being a civil engineering student, I would have to buy 3 tins of sausages and four packs of rolls then I would be ok. That is him fed for a week. It is the same today with most things. Packaging has destroyed sense. Remember the ironmongers, where you could buy 1 screw or nail if you wanted. B&Q are clever, you want 7 large nai9ls, you have to buy 2 packs of 6 to get 7. Then the other 5 hang about for years cluttering up your cupboards until you need them again and cannot find them. More petrol to go to B&Q and another 2 packs of 6. No sense is nonsense. We need to conserve not reserve at Argos.

Day 69

Friday 7th December 2007

The seasons mean a lot to people who live close to the land. Supermarket shopping has divorced us from this closeness to the land and to the seasons. I have not been able to get my favourite cheese with pickle in it from the delicatessen for weeks. It is the season of Christmas. I always made my children go without for weeks before Christmas. Without sweets, without biscuits and cakes. Then the plenty of Christmas was twice as plentiful. The Delicatessen stall owner will tell you, they are now building up the stock for the festive season for then people will buy luxuries they will not buy the rest of the year and they want to be able to supply. I have ordered my 5 cheeses for my hampers and myself. This penury for the few weeks before Christmas is what it is all about. It is a tradition that the nuts and chocolates and festive eats are not put out until the children are in bed on Christmas Eve. We would always cook the meat other than the turkey on Christmas Eve and when the men returned from the pub, where they would sing carols and meet people visiting their families for Christmas, they would return to the first plate of pork or beef with the pickles and chutney out on the table. Our turkey was normally cooked over night so the smell in the house early on Christmas day when the children woke excited was all set. Then they would crack nuts and dish out chocolate from huge bars and toffees from beautiful tins. This is what makes Charistmas for me and my family.

Day 68

Thursday 6th December 2007

It is hard now that Christmas is coming so fast to control myself not to reach out and buy. Even I am tempted when I enter a store laden with boxes of stamp machines etc. for my three year old grandson. But by experience I know this machine will not work as it states on the box. So I have desisted so far. My Christmas cooking is on standby until the week before Christmas as all I have now to make are such things as chocolate devil food cake which I will turn into small slabs with chocolate fudge icing on and decorate with a sprig of holly for a far moister and better version of the chocolate log. I am then making potted game with a shank of venison I have in my freezer which I will mix with boiled ham from the market and pound to a paste to mix with herbs and spices to fill small ceramic jars. These I can buy in Wilkinsons for about 50 pence each. They will be sealed with best market butter. Mince pies with which I will fill xmas cardboard boxes bought quite cheaply in many outlets and cheesecake for my grandsons. I have to wait until after December 23rd to make the cheesecakes as I cannot source cream not in plastic. The wait will do me good. I have ordered the small waxed cheese from the delicatessen stall to complete my hampers and boxes of brandy snaps with chocolates and pralines will complete them. Never before have I had so much food in my house and I have not entered a supermarket. Hopefully it will all be eaten and appreciated.

The start of Xmas Hampers

Day 67

Wednesday 5th December 2007

Christmas looms. I have been asked if I will have a white or a green Christmas. Both I hope. Christmas is traditionally a time of fresh fruit, fresh meat and fresh vegetables. But anyone with children will tell you that the amount of packaging thrown out is abysmal. How many of us have been frustrated at all those little wire ties that one has to release a child’s toy from. Some toys even have their own tool to release the toy from the wrapping. How many times have we all said, they prefer to play with the box to the toy. Local shopkeepers will now remove packaging if I wish to purchase something that is heavily packaged. I know this in a way defeats the object but I do know that the more people that ask for the packaging to be removed the more the shopkeepers will feed back to the suppliers and the better chance there is of less packaging. I have not accepted a plastic carrier bag for the last ten weeks. When a teenager I remember my mother having a line full of washed plastic bags drying in the wind. We were not used to wasting then so did not do it. Any plastic bags I have to take have been washed and are now reused over and over again for food stuffs which I then freeze. After ten weeks of going without ice-cream I now find out that in Skewen is Cresci’s Ice Cream Parlour and a man who has the only licence in Neath Port Talbot to produce his own ice-cream. I can produce my own container and have as many scoops as I wish dropped in. What a break through, milk and pop in glass bottles and now ice-cream in my own container. My world gets to be a more eco friendly place daily.

Day 66

Tuesday 4th December 2007

Today is day 66 out of a total of 84 days. Only 18 days to go until my challenge is in effect over. But it will not be over, it will be a beginning of a life without checking myself, it will be a natural progression into an alternative life. After writing this blog I intend to go down my garden on a drizzly day and sit in my garden chair and start my fire. I will sit there poking it with a long stick and contemplate my life. I will laugh at myself and will thoroughly enjoy the forced sitting down leaving my mind roam free and watching the flames, being warmed by the flames and controlling the flames. I think I feel good about doing this challenge as I am in total control. I control what I buy, I control what I eat and I control how I feel . It is an achievement to make food I know is good food. It is a pleasure to see the milk on the doorstep in the morning and the pop man who brings me cauliflowers from the Gower and pop in glass bottles which I can return now figures in my life where before there was nothing only a supermarket checkout. I do not miss the supermarkets in the least. I have no urge to visit them and do not think I ever will again. I will not revert to using a bin after Christmas. I will carry on doing what I am doing unless my life changes and I do not have time to do it. One day perhaps I will not be capable of doing it but until that time comes I am in control of my waste, I am in control of my life. I like it.

Day 65

Monday 3rd December 2007

Off to Cardiff on the train again. It was crisp and dry when I left Neath and raining and wet when I got to Cardiff. I opened my daughters fridge and saw a mountain of fresh vegetables. So I rolled up my sleeves and by the time the children got in from school at 3.45 pm there was vegetable curry and Mam’s oven chips made by par boiling the potatoes in huge chunks and then roasting them in the oven with butter and a little salt. There was a saucepan of vegetable and lentil soup which I know my daughter adores and a large vegetable quiche on the cooker top oozing best welsh cheese. My task in life now seems to be to cook. I wonder how long it will last?

Day 64

Sunday December 2nd 2007

Sunday 2nd December 2007

December 4th is my oldest grandsons birthday. He enters double figures, he is 10 this year. They arrived from Cardiff for dinner today. I had boned and stuffed the chicken and cooked a variety of vegetables. I also made a trifle with fresh fruit and blancmange. Blancmange is fine as it comes in paper and cardboard. My daughter brought the cream as I cannot source it with out plastic. I toasted some almonds for the top of the trifle and then used my little hand slicer to flake them. I also made some praline quickly using just butter and brown sugar in a saucepan for a few minutes, then tipping it out onto greaseproof paper. When cool put another piece of greaseproof paper on top and crush with a rolling pin. Sprinkle over the trifle with the almonds for a lovely crunchy nutty topping. I made a devils food cake covered in butter icing for a birthday cake. Everyone who tastes this cake enthuses over it as it is soft, moist and so chocolately. This year it will be devils food cake for xmas with my own butter fudge icing. We feasted like kings once again.

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.
.

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

the view I come home to every day

Day 31

Wednesday October 31st 2007 – Today is a cooking day. I have been on holidays but now back to brass tacks. The remains of the gammon were tempting so I foraged in the fridge and found a leek, some carrots and some fat for pastry. I ended up making a leek and ham pie, a quiche which will go in the freezer and two egg custard tarts. Oh and out of the little bit of pastry left a jam tart. The free range eggs make beautiful yellow quiches. The yolks stand up proud when you crack them showing they are fresh. The flatter the yolk, the older the egg was what I was taught. These are fresh. Today I had a little problem and made another discovery. Firstly the problem, for the first time on my project I had to empty the cleaner. What does one do with the contents of the cleaner without a bin. I took it all in my stride and sat down to contemplate. I do not have a bag in my cleaner which is a bonus now although a bag is paper and would have burned. But the mess I empty out of my cleaner is not pretty. I have a huge red wool rug that leaches hair like rain. How it is not yet bald I will never understand. Well I examined the contents in a cardboard box which is outside waiting for my next fire. They were not mineral, they were what I would call vegetable. Therefore they could go on the compost heap or I could burn them. Mainly fibres and little bits of dirt the compost heap will do fine. Now for my revelation. You remember the pop man who brought pop in glass bottles and took them back. Well he is still alive and doing very well. He is doing even better since I found out he still exists. Wait until my son and grandsons find out and wait until they see the bottles of pop. Not that they do not like my lemonade, but the bubbles, I failed to get bubbles in my lemonade so I can now legally buy pop and give back the packaging. I have ordered this pop man to come and see me next week. I just cannot wait, I was mad I had just missed him this week. I shall let you know of any other delights he may have tucked away on the pop van. Everyone I spoke to who has their pop from the pop man state they will never ever have plastic bottles of pop. What did they say, ‘ It just does not taste as good in plastic’. The list of available goods is growing weekly. I am thriving and my bin, empty as it has been since October 1st and today is October 31st.

Sunrise in Tenby on 29th October 2007

where all my peelings go

Days 26, 27, 28 & 29

Holidays - I refuse to tell you what I ate - suffice it to say I returned with no plastic - but I had wooden pencil cases and pencils - wooden pencil sharpeners and lots of books, blank paper, jigsaw puizzles, tracing paper and trumpet books for my eldest grandson. Chocolate from the Caldey Island shop made by the monks and chunks of beautiful bees wax and honey soaps wrapped in paper. Oh I can spend ok without buying plastic. Enough about my holiday. I returned and the food was mmmmmmmmm.

Day 25

This afternoon I had to pick up my chicken from the butcher as I am off on holidays to Tenby in West Wales tomorrow. This week my chicken will be frozen. I also bought half a gammon as my son would be home tonight and he needed something easy to eat in case he stayed at home for the weekend. I find gammon ideal for keeping as it keeps for at least a week once cooked and covered in the fridge. I use it then to make chicken, ham and mushroom pie and chunks of it in an omelette and if needs be some can be frozen for reuse at a later date. Tonight is the chapel coffee evening and I will buy cakes there for sonny Jim to eat while I am away. I can take my container and buy welsh cakes and chocolate brownies and fill tins with them. This saves me now I know exactly where to source food to give myself more time for other things. I persuade myself I am not lazy and the money is for the chapel restoration, so I can and must buy. My grandsons love it when I have been to the chapel coffee evening and they look in the tins expectantly. Not this weekend though as I am on holidays. Hip Hip Hooray.

Day 24

Wednesday October 24th 2007. Today the lady who lives next door took out my empty bin. Why would anyone take out my empty bin? I am not asking her but I had to get it back in quickly before I was accused of using it. Before the waste disposal lorry comes tomorrow. She thought I had forgotten to put it out but did not think to look inside it. So is the curse of the bin. It would not occur to anyone that you just did not put out a bin. It is such a simple thing to do and yet when you tell people their mouths fall open literally and then the realisation that you must be utterly bonkers is on their faces one and all. Then a puzzled look appears and the eyebrows crinkle slightly. Sometime you then get a nervous laugh as though they are thinking of running but afraid to move in case they alarm me. I have to smile then and reach out to them to assure them I am pretty average, pretty normal, but do not put out a bin. Such is our indoctrination into supermarkets, packaging and waste that to think of not doing it is just anathema and a startling revelation to realise that it can actually be done. I know there are going to be times when I use a land fill site, such as when a piece of electrical equipment breaks down and has to be replaced. But this should not happen with the frequency that it does. We need good quality goods that will last and can be repaired. I looked at the newspaper yesterday and noticed how the Welsh Assembly Government is giving a couple of million pound prizes to foreign companies in a competition to come to Wales and set up. Imagine if that couple of million pounds was used to train a boot and shoe maker to make shoes that fitted welsh feet of all shapes and sizes at a fair price and people would come from all over to buy these shoes that last. I hate it, just when I have broken a pair of shoes in and they are the most comfortable shoes in my life they fall apart and I have to start all over again. The shoe maker could then employ staff and train apprentices and when the shoemaker went to buy himself a new suit he could find a tailor in his town who could do for the shoemakers body what he did for the tailors feet. The farmers in the fields around us would grow our crops and raise our meat and we would all thrive. Utopia people say. I answer them – Better than playing with Mickey Mouse money that has no substance. If I cannot see it then it does not exist is a good motto with money. Anyhow my bin is empty and I am loving this.

Day 23

My bin remains empty. I now after just a few weeks know that I could live like this indefinitely with very little effort. My children are now trained well and would not dare bring plastic bags into my house. A friend who smokes suddenly said to me after she had sat and drunk a couple of cups of coffee ‘ oh! what do I do with my cigarette butts’. She went on ‘ I will have to take them with me, give me a plastic bag’. I looked at her and we both burst out laughing, ‘I forgot she said, you do not have a plastic bag’. This turned into a dilemma. How does one dispose of cigarette butts without a bin. Well they were burned. I thought of my compost bin but did not want to pollute it so I burned them in my incinerator. There were only two of them but I felt guilty about doing it yet could not allow a friend leave my house with her cigarette butts in a paper bag J I have to perform this service to keep any friends.

For the last two days I have eaten the remains of my Sunday dinner. I make more than I need for this purpose. Six hours spent cooking on the weekend allows me the freedom at the beginning of the week to concentrate on other things in my life like writing, campaigning and socializing. I have frozen some custard I made on the weekend and half the apple crumble I made. These will come for next weekend now. The freezer allows us to have the best of both worlds as does the microwave. I use all mod cons. They are there I have no problem with them. My problem is with items we throw away daily and which create land-fill. Anyone want the number of my milkman I would be only too glad to give it out.

Day 22

October 22nd 2007 - Today I was on my way on the train to Cardiff again. I love the train. For me it is an ideal mode of transport. I admit I would be a threat on the road due to slow responses. I have thought well about trying my test again after failing dismally a few years ago but have erred on the side of caution. So I understand too well the downfalls of the public transport system we have. I have no problem with waiting for a bus and as long as I can get onto the train and the bus I will use them. The towns I have more of a problem with than the means to get there. Because of pedestrian precincts it is only the fit that are able to enjoy our towns now. In Neath for example we used to have bus stops just outside the back of the market. Now you have a five mile hike to get to the bus. Something has to change if we are to retain our towns as shopping areas. The journey to Cardiff was uneventful. I watch people getting on and off the train and wonder where they are going to. I wonder how much litter they put in their bin and I wonder how many of them are aware of the fact they do not have to create landfill. On the way home the train arrived punctually and my journey was effortless in a comfortable seat. I read too many papers on the train though and get incensed enough to start writing letters as soon as I get home. But it is a way of getting your voice heard. It is a way of implanting into peoples minds the seeds of wasteful packaging and plastic milk bottles against which I wage war.

Day 21

Sunday rose with the lark, the sun shone and I was alive. My son was home for his Sunday dinner. He was snuggled in to his bed like an animal in a nest. He misses his bed I think more than his mam. Today was a round of cooking, fresh bread, the traditional cooked dinner with apple crumble to follow, fresh fruit salad and mams custard. Last night I cracked an egg for my supper knowing it was a double yolker. Two slices of toast and one egg, that cannot be bad. This is why I do not find fresh food shopping from local markets expensive. My own bread is far more filling. Every meal made from fresh ingredients keeps one satisfied for far longer. I do not know if you get guaranteed double yolkers from the supermarkets but I get them from ‘my’ market.

I spent approximately 6 hours today preparing vegetables and cooking but as I am alone from this evening what I have cooked will now see me through the first half of the week. Next weekend I am off to Tenby. Imagine three days of food cooked for me. I am definitely the most appreciative guest they will have. I guarantee also to not bring home one piece of plastic. I will have to look for something for the children which is not wrapped. There are two really interesting book-shops in Tenby. Our family loves books so another problem solved.

Day 20

Today we held a car boot sale to which one car turned up. That car was friends from Trebanos, Jan & Pat Frayne who like myself are pipeline campaigners. We have fought together for about eighteen months to get the safety of the huge LNG pipeline from Milford Haven to this village of Cilfrew out into the open. They are now good supportive friends and even though they were the only car in our car park
(the old pub car park in the village) we had a few visitors come from the village. We had a lift to bring the chapel long wooden tables and benches the couple of hundred yards down the road from the vestry and back again. Apart from that we carried from our homes all we needed. A few of us had made cakes, which were displayed on the chapel table covered in a white lace cloth on silver plates with doyleys. We had gateaux and cream and mugs of tea and coffee. So we sat there and had fun. In this village we are having fun again as we used to long ago, without using oil. The more events we can put on in the village the less carbon footprint we create and the more our community will thrive. The children love it. They help us carry chairs to the car park and they sit and listen to what we have to say. There is room there for them to kick their balls about and there are many people watching them. Children for far too long have been allowed to rule out of doors while the parents and grandparents sit and be entertained in doors. We now sit with them on occasions and see the far better side of our own children who await eagerly the next ‘event’. I feel it is up to us as the older generation to bring back our communities and not allow them to die and our children not know how to socialise and organise their own lives. This community living could be extended to our food also. We need local food, then we can have our own food events, our own fun, sustainable living with jobs and roles for everyone. It is not a dream, it is our children’s future.

Day 19

Friday 19th October 2007
Two days in town one after each other. But today the town smelled of smoke. Every shop was wrapped in smog as the icon of Neath, the Gwyn Hall which was nearing it’s first major refurbishment in it’s history was badly burned last night. The only saving grace was that no one was hurt or killed. The fire started at approximately 9 pm on Thursday night 18th October 2007. People cried as it burned and the sadness permeated Neath with the smell. The building was iconic and had held shows that almost every child growing up in this district must have visited at least once in their lives. I saw many shows there and I felt as sad as all the other faces I could see around me. The market was saved and I had to put up with the jokes from all angles through the gloom, such as, good job it was not the market, you would have been in trouble. They were right, the Market in Neath is about the only alternative place to shop. Without the market we would have nothing but supermarkets. I shuddered at the thought and then realised how lucky I really am. Lucky to still have this market as many towns might not have this facility. I spoke to a friend living in Minnesota in the United States who tells me that a butchers shop is something he has not seen since he left New York many years previously. Supermarket shopping is all they have now and when I tell him of the market in Neath he gets nostalgic and sad at a way of life lost to them in the United States. Fight to keep your market he tells me, for once it is gone you will be like us with no alternative and I hope against the odds that the façade of Neath Gwyn Hall can be saved for the town. We desperately need historical icons.

Day 18

Today I was let loose in a sweet shop. Neath Market boasts a sweet stall, which is huge. Guess what, they still do paper sweet bags. The sweets are all in glass jars or boxes on the counter. I can just go around and around choosing sweets all day. There must be hundreds of varieties there. Every day now I find more cardboard wrapped items I can purchase so I am slowly but surely building up a dossier of environmentally friendly packaged foods and goods with the milk bottle standing tall and proud at the top. I love glass, I always have. It is clean, wash a milk bottle in fairy soap suds and hot water and see it sparkle. Plastic will never sparkle as glass does. Then there are the colours, the ruby colours of glass. The Romans brought in glass to this country and examples survive until today. Coloured glass over one and a half thousand years old. I know plastic will last in the land-fill longer. I wonder will anyone ever get excited about unearthing a plastic milk bottle. I think not. I found baking tins in Neath without plastic packaging and bought a new stainless steel frying pan with only a cardboard label hanging on the handle. No thank you I smile, no plastic bag as I pull a canvas bag out of my shoulder bag. I have a few more in there also for emergency purchases. I found organic muesli in the market with the porridge oats, cardboard wrapped and I looked in Boots to see what I could buy. Not a lot, but if I ever need a new nail-brush or loofah or natural sponge I am ok. No plastic on those. I remember when we used to get toothpaste in little tins. Well you cannot get them any more. I am afraid if you use toothpaste it is impossible to get it unless you use a plastic tube. So the sage leaves and salt will be my only tooth cleaning products. Oh I discovered in Boots natural bristle brushes, with plastic covers on. I could have bought a plastic brush though without plastic on. I shall have to weigh up my options and keep my hair short. All in all a good day scouting for supplies.

Day 17

Wednesday 17th October 2007. Well Slimming World was a dawdle. I had to get in and out quickly due to my lift being in a hurry, so I did not have to stay and explain the no gain, no loss situation I found myself in. Perhaps the trifle balanced out the quiche. Next week I shall face the music. The market telephoned me today on my mobile while I was out in a meeting to ask did madam require a free range chicken this week. What service !! I commend the stall holders of Neath Market. No supermarket ever did that for me. I used to get mightily annoyed when I would go through a till at Tescos and the young person serving could have been taking money from an alien with a false hand as I would have been all the way through the checkout as she talked to her till mate next door, paid, exited the checkout and she would not have looked up once.

I hit crisis point today after my cheese and pickle sandwiches with fresh beetroot. I wanted a desert. If it had not been for Slimming World I would have made some pikelets quickly on the bakestone and covered them with blackberry coulis made quickly in the microwave. But there is next week and the self help group of which I would be the star if I did not try at least. I was pretty desperate but controlled. I took a large Hereford Crispin apple and cored it. I stuffed the centre with sultanas and put it in the microwave for 4 minutes. I then cracked 2 free range eggs which I separated and split a vanilla pod down the middle. I put a third of a pint of milk into my double saucepan and a dessertspoon of honey, dropped the vanilla pod halves in and warmed the milk gently. I whisked the eggs and added them to the hot milk and vanilla pods in the double saucepan. It took about 20 mins and then I removed the apple from the microwave, poured the custard with the little brown flecks in it like that upmarket vanilla ice cream and indulged myself. 2 hours later I am still full to the brim and smiling and warm like a cat who has had the cream. I have survived and on my cooker is a pot of vegetable stew with pot barley in which I can smell already. My bin is empty, I am full, my hair smells lovely with the Lush solid shampoo and I do not think I ever needed deodorant after all these years of using it. Oh well they say you are never too old to learn.

Sourcing is the key. I revel in the fact I can walk into a shop and go around the shelves searching for items I can buy instead of wandering aimlessly looking what would take my fancy. It is a whole new game and I am not adding anything to the mountain of waste which already exists.

Day 16

Tuesday looms wet and windy. The day for doing indoor things like cooking for the weekend. Tonight is Slimming World and the weigh in. I wonder if last weeks quiches will catch up on me this week. If they do then the trifle from last weekend should not show until next week. Where there is life there is hope. Yesterday there was a report saying the supermarkets need to get greener as they are not faring well in the grades set by some obscure body. I read every paper I can get my hands on while on the train so am clued up and pen happy by the following day. Yes the letter has gone to the Western Mail. Another report was about putting weighing scales in schools to weigh pupils and prevent obesity. What a load of codswallop. I was a large child and can remember well how embarrassed I would have been to be weighed and have the nod of disapproval from some well meaning interferer in my life. My mother could not afford to ply me with treats and I was one of four children. We had our own fowl and vegetables and pigs. What had made me bigger than the average brownie. The day I walked into brownies at 10 years of age. I had plucked up the courage to ask my mother to take me they looked at me, taller than average, a big girl and stated matter of factly, Oh! we do not have a uniform big enough in brownies she will have to wait to go to guides and then get fitted out. I never made girl guides. My career in the camp fire brigade finished that evening. I never went back and built my own fires with my brothers on the side of the river and went back to becoming head squaw. Something has happened to food to make all these people this size, something has happened to life styles to make all people what they now term ‘ obese’ a derogatory statement that in an instant segregates a huge portion of the population and sells slimming foods by the ton. Now we need face lifts, botox and infill by the time we are 30 and perfect teeth that cost ten thousand pounds a time. What next I ask myself, just where do we go from here ? All I ask for is fresh fruit and vegetables and local meat. Our children will grow strong then. Local bakers to bake bread without all the additives and food that mums cook and serve in that age old picture of health and contentment. Women today are denied that. They did not give it up, economic direction stole it from them. Can we ever get it back, perhaps we can try and rescue some of it. My bin is empty. When this rain stops I shall take a picture of it and my recycling bin and plastic bags. They are a thing of my past, what will be the future

Day 15

Monday and my week alone starts. I have decided to make inroads into the eats for the weekend early. I need to discipline myself to make through the week what I will need for the weekend. It is Monday and I am off to Cardiff to get my grandchildren from school. Meeting tonight and so good job I have another dinner put out for myself from yesterday. I am lost at my daughters house as she has a waste bin. I feel guilty and one week I know I am going to come home on the train with a bag of peelings for the compost. The only thing stopping me is in case the train crashes or I am rushed to hospital with a bag of peelings attached. They might think I am mad and rightly so. I ate my dinner at 10 pm and stayed up until 1 am to digest it. I slept like a log. But have I prepared anything ready for the weekend. Well not quite yet.

Sunday - Day 14 - 2 weeks gone

When you have children it is your duty as parents to raise them as healthily as you can. You have to trust them to go out into the world then and fend for themselves. The start you give them is their knowing how to do that. My daughter struggles to juggle working and raising children. Like most young professional people she and her partner cannot afford to not work. She feeds the family well by visiting the butcher and the fish market, cooking dinners and the best food money can buy. In this situation the cost of this lies with my daughter, who is under terrific pressure to attempt to do the best for her children whilst helping keeping a roof over their heads and giving them a chance in life to be able to sustain themselves well. Women have been used since the last war to create a mass production line to build material wealth. Some of this wealth has come down to the man on the street in the form of cars, which are using up all the oil on the planet, fridges, phones, dishwashers, waste goods and plastic wrapping that clog our planet. All this is at the whim of the Bank of England who set the bank rate. We are at the mercy of the multi national corporations and financial institutions. Some people say to me it is too late to change it. When I think of our dependency for the basic staples of life on imports and see nothing but cattle and sheep around me, and no crops, it gives me the urge to do things such as no plastic and no supermarket shopping. I need to be active in talking to people and telling them that to secure their food supplies for themselves and their children has to be a priority, has to be THE priority above all others. I will never believe it is too late to change it. I can at least try. To feed a family well does not only entail the cooking of food along the lines of Delia Smith in the kitchen once a week. Nurturing a family is a full time job. There is the thought that must go into every days meals, there is the actively getting the ingredients on the list one mentally formulates in your brain or on a piece of paper for the next day and the day after that. There is the preparation time which can be horrendous when one does not have the time to do it in the daily routine. Then there is the serving of this food, the cleaning up after and the starting all over again. Food is not fast and never will be and the better the food the more time it can take. Time our young families do not have in this throw away society which has to stop.

James's Sunday dinner which he ate before returning to his student digs in Newport on Sunday 14th October 2007 All food sourced from the Market at Neath and he gave his mam a clap when he had finished.

Day 14

Saturday 13th October 2007 and day 13 not 14 - I know I have gone wrong but cannot put it right. So be it :)
I have to get up earlier on Saturday. Because I was in Cardiff yesterday I had prepared nothing for the onslaught. James came home last night and today my daughter Jane and my grandsons Keelan and Daniel arrive for the day. This happens each weekend for most of the year. I had to get to the market. Trying to balance hungry children and Slimming World is no joke. It was to be a beef-steak pie then it turned into a casserole, in other words a pie without the pastry. I headed for the market and missed the first bus. Oh well off for a political discussion with my friend Dilys and one hour late getting to Neath. Lovely coffee she makes me and I duly arrived at the market with greaseproof paper and a napkin to wrap my free range chicken in. Into my basket it popped together with my Tupperware container containing my beef pieces and three jars of local honey. Across to the vegetable stall and carrots, onions and tomatoes joined my meat and off home on the next bus.

I started cooking at noon and was still cooking and peeling vegetables at 3 pm. By then the casserole was in the oven, the strawberries had been cut up in the strawberry jelly and the blancmange was in the fridge. We ate at 3.30 pm and everyone was hungry and appreciative. The rest of the day was filled with cups of tea, free range boiled eggs and mam’s bread toasted with market butter at 7.30 pm for supper, kids pyjamas on and they are in the car by 8 pm for the drive back to Cardiff. Yes I have to get up earlier on the days my family arrive because it takes so long to prepare and cook enough food for us all. By the time the house is quiet again there is no prepared food left and tomorrow I must start again.

Day 13

Friday 12th Ocotber 2007
My mother imparted a lot of things to me before she died, one was how the wage my father brought home from the mine was divided up each week. We must have talked a lot come to think of it. She told me of the time when my father would bring home five pounds as his wage.
We lived in a rented cottage for which the rent was three shillings and sixpence. I remember the electric light being put in to our cottage. When that one bulb was switched on it must have been like our ancestors on March Hywel mountain seeing the harvest sun rise on Good Friday when they would climb the mountain in the dark to offer bread to the gods for a good harvest. As children we partook in that festival but altered it slightly to all the children of the village climbing the mountain on Good Friday to roll down our hot cross buns. Well the one electric light bulb and the iron that was plugged in only during daylight hours obviously as one could not iron in the dark, cost one shilling a week. When the electric man came my mother got a rebate on what she had used and so it became exciting to see the man empty the meter on the kitchen table and stack up the shillings dividing them into two piles, one for the electric company and one for us.
Apart from this rent and electric there were no more bills. We had no television, our water came from a spring and my father had a radio. I think there was a licence for that of a few shillings a year. So the total outgoings were in our household four shillings and sixpence leaving four pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence to be handled by the woman of the household. Think of the wage today that would need to be earned so that when all the bills were paid each month the woman of the household would be left with over 95% of the wage or salary.
Today I needed to go to Cardiff for an interview. I ate lunch in Harry Ramsdens in Cardiff Bay. The first time I have ever visited a Harry Ramsdens and something I will have to own up to at Slimming World on Tuesday night. Guess what, Harry Ramsden did not live up to my own meals of late which win by a mile. MY mother would have had a fit to know how much I paid for fish and chips.

Day 12

I sat today and wondered where it all started. It was the bank. Before the bank our money was our own. Working people now all have bank accounts and so all their finances are hidden away in the vaults of someone else. Let us look after your money we were persuaded. Then when the milkman came for his money we had none to give him so the milk became integrated into the plastic shop which really did not cost us as much did it? Well the milk was cheaper and nothing wrong with plastic bottles is there? Cold callers are now regarded a nuisance.As a child in this village a man called ‘Id the Oil’ used to visit us once a week. He brought paraffin for the lamps and his little lorry was full of pinafores hanging in their dozen and pegs and bowls and galvanised buckets and wooden mop handles and cotton mop heads. This must have been the start of oil in our lives. Before ‘Id the Oil’ it was candles and coal. But then the banks took our money and now we use only plastic. The callers became an imposition, the computer now sells us everything without us having to go out of the door so our shops will all become like the new Amazon warehouse in Jersey Marine. Where the Tower Hotel once bragged ball courts and pavilions and walks onto the beach across what is now the main road into Swansea we have a massive faceless warehouse which is the future unless we start getting out there and finding out what is left to salvage of an interactive life. Today was spent in reflection. The food was all prepared yesterday. This is getting easy but the weekend is on the way.

Neath Guardian - Launch of my project - October 11th 2007

A DULAIS Valley housewife is hoping to convert more people to the “buy local” cause, by living on nothing but locally-sourced food for 12 weeks.
Linda Ware, of Main Road, Cilfrew, started her campaign on October 1, and plans to live for three months without entering a supermarket or using a plastic bag.
Aa well as boosting the trade of local traders, Linda’s campaign is part of a bid to reduce the “air miles” of food and reduce her own carbon footprint in the process.
“I’m using only local shops,” she said.
“The local shop in Cilfrew has got a lot of things in for me, and other local shops can get me anything I want.
“I’m going to be doing 90 per cent of my shopping in the market.”
She has made arrangements to buy all her staple foods – milk, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, fruit, vegetables, meat and herbs – from local sellers and plans to compost all her food waste.
She said anything with plastic packaging is a definite “no-no” – any paper packaging will be burnt in her incinerator.
She will have to do without anything that cannot be sourced locally, or that cannot be bought in environmentally-friendly packaging.
For example, she has been unable to source cream in a glass container – so will be forsaking it for the next 12 weeks.
And criticism of the project has even come from her own son.
Ms Ware said: “My son has just left for university – thankfully, he states – and so I am able to do this.
“He said his mother can do this mad thing without him.
“But he does support it, because he likes his good food.”
And there are other downsides to the project.
“Because I’m going without certain foods, I find I’m craving,” she said.
Ms Ware said she has had so much support for her project that she is now investigating the possibility of running a farmers market in Cilfrew.
“The interest has been fantastic,” she said.
“We’re going to try and hold the market in the old vestry.
“We just need to find out from the council if we can use the building to sell fruit and veg.”
You can follow Linda’s efforts in her weekly Guardian, or online at auntieplastic.blogspot.com

Day 11

The creative instinct comes with peace for me, comes with sitting in silence and letting my mind roam free. I had a chance today. I am full of all the things I want to do, quilts for my grandsons for Xmas, with appliquéd images that swim around in my head waiting to get created. I went through the full spectrum of things I must get started while I sat and peeled huge pears, while I added sugar to the hot stewed apples, while I sat and ate some more of that chicken with little chillis from the market and some more small onions and fresh tomatoes. I have to admit now that I made a bad mistake in my regime. I killed the yeast and my first batch of bread today did not rise. Unleavened it would have been called. There I was with this big lump of dough and no bin. I could not put it in the compost as it would have gone mouldy, I could not bury it as something would have dug it up. Then my daughter came to the rescue. I bet the birds do not worry if the bread has risen mam she said laughing. I spread the heavy dough out into a meat tray and cooked it. The smell permeated the whole house as though it was leavened. When I tipped it out of the tray onto the cooling rack it was like a rock. I thought of the flying birds and I groaned. I could not feed it to them and watch them crash to earth as they attempted to fly. So here is my confession. No I did not do anything bad. I went to the canal and broke it up and threw it into the water where it softened and the swans could not get enough of it. Fait accompli. It was not wasted and my bin is still empty. I will never kill any more yeast. So another day over and this is the life for me. Never again will I hear the thud of the flip top bin in my home. There is life without it, I can vouch for it.

Day 10

Ten days gone, I have 84 days in total to do, this leaves me 74 days to go to December 23rd 2007 when my experiment will end. But will it end? I can reveal to you now that having a bin was nothing but habit. I have not produced one single bit of waste so have nothing to give the recycling man and nothing to put into my waste disposal bin. I just cannot understand why it is so easy. It is now after a couple of weeks no problem whatsoever not to have a bin. I just think that if everyone did this then all those men who recycle and get rid of our waste could be digging up the mountains of Wales to grow our own food instead of importing it. What a thought. I could sit and watch them all day and wait for the carrots to grow. I know you are all dying to know. Is that free range chicken cooked? Well I can confirm that it is well and truly cooked and half eaten. I cannot find words to describe my stuffing, sublime, heavenly. Just think of the adjective and that is it, good all the way through. Whole little onions, my own bread crumbs, fresh sage and rosemary from the garden, rock salt and a big dollop of pure market butter. If I was not so full after the fresh fruit salad and raspberry coulis I would go get some more. Ah life! and not a plastic bag in sight.

Day 9

Tuesday 9th October 2007. Today I had to be away from home all day also. I had to attend a meeting that took me a couple of hours to get there and a couple of hours to get back. I had to eat out again and so my regime was non existent. I was embroiled in political discussions for the day and my free range chicken still sits on the shelf of the fridge. My bin is still empty and the date on the chicken says 11th October. Tomorrow I refuse to go anywhere. I will cook and eat my chicken with the butter and herb stuffing oozing out of it. My home does not smell the same when I have been out all day. It is bereft as I am bereft because outside life has interloped into my regime, into my home, today I am not allowed to be just a woman, today I must be something else, so I shall. Tomorrow I shall revert to being a housewife. My bread bin is stocked, I have fruit and vegetables. Thank goodness for the fridge. Without it my food would have rotted. Another reason that before refrigeration and the motorcar and oil women were needed at home to feed the family. No shopping for the weeks food then. It would have been rotten. I smelled my chicken. It is fine. Tomorrow beckons now today is on the wane.

Day 8

This day is a blur. Today I had to go to Cardiff to look after my two grandsons when they came home from school. Today I did not think about my food regime until I started to cook in my daughter’s house in Dinas Powys. I decided to make a chocolate cake for the boys for after their tea. I had to put things in the bin and after only one solid week and a bit of practice of not putting anything in a bin I found myself baulking at the thought of dropping stuff into one. I do not have a bin I said to myself and here I am putting rubbish in someone else’s. The alternative was take all the peelings home for my compost and all the flour and sugar bags to burn. Impossible I would have had to use a plastic bag. I carried apples from Herefordshire all the way to their house and strawberries too. They preferred the chocolate cake. I came home late and weary and my fridge still has my organic chicken. Too late to cook it now.

Day 7

The last day of my first week. Only seven days and already my life is turning upside down. I cannot understand why I have ever in my life put unnecessary chemicals into the drains, there is absolutely no need as far as I can see now. Washing powder I am using as it comes in a cardboard box, which I can dispose of and I do not own a scrubbing board even though I know what one is. The Fairy soap has become my saviour and should supplies ever run out Holland & Barrett do a bar of pure olive soap in a cardboard box for 79 pence. No perfume just good old soap.

I went today to Brecon and Hereford with good friends. Just over the border from Wales to flat farm land with huge farm shops and pick your own. I wanted to cry out, why here, what is wrong with my semi rural home-town that we have no fields full of cabbages, potatoes and swedes surrounding us any more. We can grow apples I wanted to say, why don’t we. Four hundred years ago there were in excess of a hundred varieties of apples growing wild in Glamorgan, I know. I have the names of them all in Welsh and English. There were also over twenty varieties of plums that a travelling man logged on his travels through Glamorgan. I watched the trailers full of dirty potatoes trundling along the roads and picked crispins, russets and bramleys to my hearts content. Local walnuts were dropped into my bag along with a net of four monstrous local organic beetroot for a pound. The farm shop boasted the best of every product, cheese, free range chickens, beautiful cured hams, jams of every description and empty glass jars of all shapes and sizes for you to fill with your own produce. I bought the Brecon & Radnor Express and read about the Hay Fire Festival, I read about Talgarth a little town in Brecon and how they have a regeneration society which is already, after just one year, making remarkable progress. get people back into our centres for local produce, we need to have fire festivals too. We need to have parking so people can get to the shops and the buses back so people can hop on the bus outside the market not walk half a mile carrying their bags to a bus station that reeks of the old cattle market stalls where they herded the livestock. Why did they build the bus station back to front. One can reach the top of Queen Street with heavy bags and see ones bus in the docking station. By the time you wait for two sets of traffic lights and force your way through the queues of people trying to get on their buses your bus has invariably gone. Planning !!!! Anyhow action speaks louder than words. I am purely selfish in my desire to see Neath regenerated. I cannot walk five miles to pick up my little bit of shopping. I need to retain my independence. I refuse to give a supermarket whose profits go to obscure places my money. I want to give my little bit of money to the person who will plough their profits back into the town and give me a smile and appreciate my custom and I want people to see the benefits of keeping our local areas alive. In a time of crisis it is these people who will help one another not the supermarkets, who when there is no money to be made will ditch areas without a thought. We need self sufficiency with food. For that we must all push, Wales can do it. We appear to be top of the pile for food innovation and up and coming restaurants according to statistics out this week. Well let’s grow our own food and complete the picture.