Good morning world. For a long time I have struggled with the fact that we are told by the powers that supposedly know, energy is running out, yet we are encouraged to use more of it. Being a logical creature ( i.e. woman) I fail to understand why people are urged to come on line when North Sea gas is all but run out. I fail to see why we as a nation have to transport a liquid gas half way around the world to this little island when as a child I knew a life without gas. I knew a life without oil also, being the ancient age I am. I have no problem with new technology, as one can see with my use of a computer, the bus is my saviour and the car has been a boon to my tired knees on many an occasion. However I have a major problem with the waste of food, clothing, toys, furniture etc. of the throw away society created and ultimately the energy wasted.
Small shops in my local town of Neath in the Borough of Neath Port Talbot, South West Wales are struggling. In fact they are disappearing at an alarming rate. This week the independent book shop that has been for quite a few years outside the railway station in Neath closed. The market which has a charter going back eight hundred years is no longer thriving. The quality goods which were once on sale in my local town can no longer be found, although many cheap foreign imports which I do not want can be sourced there. If the people are no longer in the towns, the traders will not survive, which means we are totally dependent on the supermarkets. Small independent shops do not waste as do the supermarkets. Huge bins of waste food being destroyed from every supermarket daily. The small shopkeeper would eat or use what his customers did not buy. I want my market and my town to survive. If energy is running out and global warming is being exacerbated by the use of fossil fuels it is madness to use energy to provide food and goods we waste. I hope to show in the next three months that it is possible to not be instrumental in the heinous waste supermarket culture generates.
So I set out on my journey, from today nothing will be disposed of from this household. I am alone all week and on weekends my son will return from University to fill up his internal tank on mums cooking. My daughter and two grandsons will spend a day with me each weekend. I shall provide all they eat without the supermarkets and without disposing of any waste. Everything I purchase will be monitored by a friend. The number of hours I spend daily on obtaining, preparing and cooking will be shown here in my daily diary. I look forward to the next three months and I look forward to perhaps being able to show how the possibility to live differently whilst moving forward is there for us all.
We do not need new forms of energy, we do not need more land fill sites, we need quality back in our towns and a sensitive use of the energy we have.
