This is something we all hopelessly depend on global corporate industries for. In the past I've made some little moves to free myself from this dependency: when my kids were little I used to make at least half their clothes myself out of the salvaged parts of clothes other people bought them after they'd been outgrown.
I won't say I have any particular skill at it, and I never had any lessons, but what I made was serviceable and didn't get us ridiculed or anything. I just used to take apart clothes that had been bought and use them as templates to make more like them out of any suitable expanse of fabric I could get my hands on. Charity shops are good places to go for old tableclothes, curtains, sheets and suchlike that can easily be converted into clothing, as well as recycling actual clothing.
I need to dig out the sewing machine and start doing that again - it tailed off once my kids stopped growing and started getting their own clothes from their allowance. But thinking about getting hold of locally produced materials to work with, my gut feeling was that I'd have to lump it and suck industry c**k for cotton, linen and synthetic fabrics. Wool though - surely I can get Lincolnshire wool?
Yes, I can. Just look at that wonderful wedding dress on there! Isn't it fantastic?
Now, the challenge is to learn to knit! In a rare moment of inter-generational bonding, my mother taught me the bare basics of knit and purl - enough to make a scarf - when I was a small child. Since then I've had a little go at doing more with the help of written manuals, but never got too far as I think this is something best shown and learned from someone else. With the manuals, I ended up tied in frequent, confidence- and motivation-sucking knots.
So I thought: surely there's somebody nearby who'll teach me to knit? And once again turned to the trusty Google, which yielded one "UK Hand Knitting Association". There I found a list of knitting groups in the county, including two fairly near to me (bearing in mind that nothing is very near me, so it's all relative). However, much to my annoyance they have one of those annoying pop up things for emailing the contact people. You know, where it asks you which program you want to use for emailing, which kind of sucks when you just go through your browser to a non-mainstream email service. It means I've got to do all kinds of technical shenanigans before I can email them. Why can't people just put an email address or phone number on the screen? Argh!
Then I went to church on Sunday and realised I was sitting amongst lots of kind, old ladies. Surely one of them would be able to show me a few things on the knitting front? So, shamelessly and without regard to my macho image (largely as I don't have one) I started asking around and a lady called Jean kindly agreed to bring some things in next week to show me :)
Tuesday, 30 September 2014
Monday, 29 September 2014
Lunch in Spilsby
Yesterday I was joined by K, my 17 year old. She's had to move in with a friend in the city because the amount of travelling she had to do to get to college while living at home made her life a nightmare. She has a little scooter that I got her when she turned 16, which she's been driving with a provisional licence and CBT, and a year later I gave her a choice: either I'd get her a car and get her through her tests for a full driving licence, or I'd help her leave home and pay her a weekly living allowance as long as she's in full time college.
She chose the latter, partly because she'd rather not have to do all the travelling in the first place, but I suspect largely cos she's 17, and wants to make her own way. Her time at boarding school made her more used to independence than the average teen (I suspect), and when she chose to come home and go to college rather than continue boarding for sixth form, the relative freedom of home as compared to the strict timetabling and control-freak rules of the boarding house soon gave way to frustration with Dad's rules!!
Anyway, she was over visiting at the weekend, and my best pal Wayne also joined us for that dinner yesterday. Today K decided to skip college and come with me and Wayne to meet Charlie for lunch in Spilsby. First though, I had to take S to school in Boston.
On the way back I went to Handson's in Mareham Le Fen and got my hands on a mixed grill pack (£5.99) which includes two beef steaks, two pork steaks and a couple of Lincolnshire sausages, and 300g of minced beef. I also stopped at a bungalow in Carrington and got another 7lbs of spuds for £1 and a dozen eggs for £1.30.
Monday is market day in Spilsby, and the little town really comes to life, with hardly a chain store in sight. We chose the Just E11even Café on Market Street, which I wanted to try out as I saw it advertised in the latest Good Taste (the magazine from Select Lincolnshire). After a satisfying lunch, we all agreed we'd recommend it and I left with a jar of orange curd and a plum loaf. I happen to believe that Moden's plum loaf is the best there is - better even than the famous Meyer's - but that's a personal thing.
I went around the market stalls and in a couple of greengrocer's shops, which made today's yield look something like this:
The eggs not included as they couldn't fit in the frame! Suffice to say that'll keep us going for the week, especially as I still have stuff leftover from previous scavenging. That's some cheap shopping - I'm feeding me and Soph for barely over a tenner this week and as you can see, we're not exactly roughing it.
However, the whole reason why all these people were visiting me was to help me with decorating the kitchen. So as you can imagine, nobody was in any mood for cooking from scratch in a disordered kitchen, after all that hard work. So the vote was cast and it was takeaway time. Was this going to mess with the local food project? Was it heck! Fresh Grimsby fish and chips from Boston potatoes at Mermaid Fisheries in Horncastle - I timed the journey at 9 minutes from the shop to my front door, which should convince my friends that my house isn't quite as remote as it seems!
Now I suppose I'd better finish off that kitchen!
She chose the latter, partly because she'd rather not have to do all the travelling in the first place, but I suspect largely cos she's 17, and wants to make her own way. Her time at boarding school made her more used to independence than the average teen (I suspect), and when she chose to come home and go to college rather than continue boarding for sixth form, the relative freedom of home as compared to the strict timetabling and control-freak rules of the boarding house soon gave way to frustration with Dad's rules!!
Anyway, she was over visiting at the weekend, and my best pal Wayne also joined us for that dinner yesterday. Today K decided to skip college and come with me and Wayne to meet Charlie for lunch in Spilsby. First though, I had to take S to school in Boston.
On the way back I went to Handson's in Mareham Le Fen and got my hands on a mixed grill pack (£5.99) which includes two beef steaks, two pork steaks and a couple of Lincolnshire sausages, and 300g of minced beef. I also stopped at a bungalow in Carrington and got another 7lbs of spuds for £1 and a dozen eggs for £1.30.
Monday is market day in Spilsby, and the little town really comes to life, with hardly a chain store in sight. We chose the Just E11even Café on Market Street, which I wanted to try out as I saw it advertised in the latest Good Taste (the magazine from Select Lincolnshire). After a satisfying lunch, we all agreed we'd recommend it and I left with a jar of orange curd and a plum loaf. I happen to believe that Moden's plum loaf is the best there is - better even than the famous Meyer's - but that's a personal thing.
I went around the market stalls and in a couple of greengrocer's shops, which made today's yield look something like this:
The eggs not included as they couldn't fit in the frame! Suffice to say that'll keep us going for the week, especially as I still have stuff leftover from previous scavenging. That's some cheap shopping - I'm feeding me and Soph for barely over a tenner this week and as you can see, we're not exactly roughing it.
However, the whole reason why all these people were visiting me was to help me with decorating the kitchen. So as you can imagine, nobody was in any mood for cooking from scratch in a disordered kitchen, after all that hard work. So the vote was cast and it was takeaway time. Was this going to mess with the local food project? Was it heck! Fresh Grimsby fish and chips from Boston potatoes at Mermaid Fisheries in Horncastle - I timed the journey at 9 minutes from the shop to my front door, which should convince my friends that my house isn't quite as remote as it seems!
Now I suppose I'd better finish off that kitchen!
Sunday, 28 September 2014
Corned beef & veg hash; apple pie
Today I was volunteering at Heckington Windmill, where I restocked my flour and jam supplies. On the way back I stopped at various roadside stalls and came home with all this:
The apples were 20p per pound from a cottage in a layby between the A155/A153 roundabout at Coningsby and Mareham Le Fen. The cabbage was 50p from Frog Hall on the New York Straight (B1192). I put this lot together with previous gleanings and came up with this corned beef, pumpkin, marrow, apple, pear and potato hash:
Which basically involved just chopping everything up and putting it in two roasting trays and roasting till it'd shrunk enough to all fit into one, then adding the corned beef (which came from Southern & Thorpe in Ruskington) and roasting for another half hour. The only seasoning I've used is salt and pepper, but the sweet juices of the fruit & veg gave it plenty of flavour without needing to complicate things with herbs & spices.
For pudding I made an apple pie by first simmering chopped apples in a little water with raisins and unrefined sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon until the apple was soft and the liquid thickened:
Then I rubbed 150g of Lincolnshire Poacher butter into 300g of flour with 3tbs sugar, added 3 egg yolks then rolled it out to fit the appropriate dish:
I used the egg whites to glaze the pastry and made egg custard by following this recipe (though I used vanilla essence, not pods) so when it had baked for about half an hour it looked like this:
Now you will spot that there were a few non-local ingredients in there - cinnamon, vanilla, sugar and raisins. These are things I already had in stock before I started this project, so there's no point not using them. But I'm making a note of them and looking into alternative sources or versions as I go, so that when they run out I'll be able to replace them with something local if possible, and if not, then at least something from the British Isles or nearby continent.
But there's no point in being puritanical and fanatical about it - I've no intention of being any kind of "purist". I'm trying to do this as strictly as I can practically do it at the moment, mainly as it forces me to learn more quickly what the limitations are, and which things can be overcome. But I do live in the real world.
Trade, in principle, is a good thing - good for us economically, for greater variety in our diets and for the valuable cultural exchange that comes through it. I'm not against trade at all.
But in the current global food industry, trade isn't done for those good purposes. It's all geared primarily towards profit for the big corporations that dominate the industries, to the detriment of the environment and our health.
So, while some parts of my diet and lifestyle that came through trade (eg sugar, spices, wool etc) may be wholly or partially localise-able if I look for British beet sugar and producers growing things in polytunnels, other parts (eg tea, coffee, cotton) are obviously not. My plan there will be to find ways to, wherever possible, buy direct from producers who work with a sense of environmental and social responsibility.
The apples were 20p per pound from a cottage in a layby between the A155/A153 roundabout at Coningsby and Mareham Le Fen. The cabbage was 50p from Frog Hall on the New York Straight (B1192). I put this lot together with previous gleanings and came up with this corned beef, pumpkin, marrow, apple, pear and potato hash:
Which basically involved just chopping everything up and putting it in two roasting trays and roasting till it'd shrunk enough to all fit into one, then adding the corned beef (which came from Southern & Thorpe in Ruskington) and roasting for another half hour. The only seasoning I've used is salt and pepper, but the sweet juices of the fruit & veg gave it plenty of flavour without needing to complicate things with herbs & spices.
For pudding I made an apple pie by first simmering chopped apples in a little water with raisins and unrefined sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon until the apple was soft and the liquid thickened:
Then I rubbed 150g of Lincolnshire Poacher butter into 300g of flour with 3tbs sugar, added 3 egg yolks then rolled it out to fit the appropriate dish:
I used the egg whites to glaze the pastry and made egg custard by following this recipe (though I used vanilla essence, not pods) so when it had baked for about half an hour it looked like this:
Now you will spot that there were a few non-local ingredients in there - cinnamon, vanilla, sugar and raisins. These are things I already had in stock before I started this project, so there's no point not using them. But I'm making a note of them and looking into alternative sources or versions as I go, so that when they run out I'll be able to replace them with something local if possible, and if not, then at least something from the British Isles or nearby continent.
But there's no point in being puritanical and fanatical about it - I've no intention of being any kind of "purist". I'm trying to do this as strictly as I can practically do it at the moment, mainly as it forces me to learn more quickly what the limitations are, and which things can be overcome. But I do live in the real world.
Trade, in principle, is a good thing - good for us economically, for greater variety in our diets and for the valuable cultural exchange that comes through it. I'm not against trade at all.
But in the current global food industry, trade isn't done for those good purposes. It's all geared primarily towards profit for the big corporations that dominate the industries, to the detriment of the environment and our health.
So, while some parts of my diet and lifestyle that came through trade (eg sugar, spices, wool etc) may be wholly or partially localise-able if I look for British beet sugar and producers growing things in polytunnels, other parts (eg tea, coffee, cotton) are obviously not. My plan there will be to find ways to, wherever possible, buy direct from producers who work with a sense of environmental and social responsibility.
Saturday, 27 September 2014
Scavenger hunt
I did get a bit preachy yesterday, I know. Don't worry, I won't be like that all the time - just like to pin my colours to the mast (as it were) early on, so y'all know where I'm coming from. Anyway, moving on...
Yesterday I had a bit of a scavenger hunt on the way back from school (S goes to school in Boston, so it's up the A16, left at Willow's Lane and onto the B1183 and then north, north, north for about 11 miles). It yielded the following:
From the house next to the train tracks on Willow's Lane, 6 eggs for 80p.
From a house near some garages at Carrington, 7lbs of potatoes for £1.
From a farm entrance at the north end of New Bolingbroke: Marrow (40p), bag of pears (30p), net of onions (50p) and a cucumber (30p).
I had some leftovers from Wednesday's dinner so we had those yesterday, and today I cooked this simple but hearty soup with yesterday's scrumpings:
Started off by peeling and chopping about a quarter of a pumpkin, three pears and an onion, which I cooked in a little local rapeseed oil with a few sprigs of thyme from the garden and a spoonful of honey. Then I added about 700ml of vegetable stock (I confess I used Oxo as it was already there, but I'm looking into local versions and/or making my own). Whizzed it with a hand-held blender and got this:
Which we'll eat later on after S is home from school, with some of the bread I made earlier with flour from Heckington Windmill. I sampled a bit earlier and it's pretty tasty!
Those onions were real eye waterers, but full of flavour - I had a few bits in my Lincolnshire Poacher cheese and 8 Sail Ale Chutney (also from Heckington Windmill) sandwich for lunch :)
Yesterday I had a bit of a scavenger hunt on the way back from school (S goes to school in Boston, so it's up the A16, left at Willow's Lane and onto the B1183 and then north, north, north for about 11 miles). It yielded the following:
From the house next to the train tracks on Willow's Lane, 6 eggs for 80p.
From a house near some garages at Carrington, 7lbs of potatoes for £1.
From a farm entrance at the north end of New Bolingbroke: Marrow (40p), bag of pears (30p), net of onions (50p) and a cucumber (30p).
I had some leftovers from Wednesday's dinner so we had those yesterday, and today I cooked this simple but hearty soup with yesterday's scrumpings:
Started off by peeling and chopping about a quarter of a pumpkin, three pears and an onion, which I cooked in a little local rapeseed oil with a few sprigs of thyme from the garden and a spoonful of honey. Then I added about 700ml of vegetable stock (I confess I used Oxo as it was already there, but I'm looking into local versions and/or making my own). Whizzed it with a hand-held blender and got this:
Which we'll eat later on after S is home from school, with some of the bread I made earlier with flour from Heckington Windmill. I sampled a bit earlier and it's pretty tasty!
Those onions were real eye waterers, but full of flavour - I had a few bits in my Lincolnshire Poacher cheese and 8 Sail Ale Chutney (also from Heckington Windmill) sandwich for lunch :)
Friday, 26 September 2014
Richard
On the way back from the school run this morning I went over to Wilksby, thinking to just try my luck at the dairy farm there anyway. I ran into a farmer called Richard, who seemed happy to stand and chat with me for a while, sharing some of his views and experiences from his life in livestock and agriculture.
The first thing he said was that the sanctions our government has placed on Russia are having no less effect on the Russians than the ones Russia has placed on us, which has driven the cost price of our dairy produce through the floor, so that our own farmers are struggling even more than ever.
Then he talked about the "four moves" rule that the slaughterhouse chains have imposed "for no logical reason, just because they can". This is the rule that says if an animal has been moved from one location to another four or more times, the slaughterhouse only pays the farmer 40% of each animal's value before its fourth move. He went into some detail about this: there are only four slaughterhouse chains monopolising the whole UK meat industry, and they work together with each other to set livestock prices to their advantage, thus squeezing the put-upon farmer ever more.
Then Richard told me about one of his neighbours who was "lucky" to take over the tenancy of the dairy farm on his father's death, which was only possible because of a support scheme available to those who qualify as "young farmers", thus enabling him to make 1.5p of profit per litre of milk (on a cost price of around 24p).
Next, he told me how the current prices that farm produce is generally being bought at are about the same as in 1980 - "If only we still had 1980 costs!" he bewailed. And then Dyson's fortunes coming back from Malaysia effectively doubling the price of agricultural land, so that the average age of farmers continues to climb as the next generation can't afford to break in. Although, as profits are so low "and you can't make your £30,000 living, which is what you need at least, to support a family", it's only "us old fellas that can't change" that are doing it any more.
"It's unsustainable," he said. And I agreed. I asked whether it's any help to him that a growing number of consumers nowadays are looking to buy local produce direct from farmers and he paused to gather his thoughts before replying. "I'm not knocking it," he said at length, "but you need more people doing it. And if you think about it, back 30 or 40 years ago most households were just one man supporting them, and the wife did whatever part time work she found. So you had about 1.3 wages. But you can't support a family on 1.3 wages today. You need two and then some. So people haven't got time to go round all different places when they've only put aside an hour and a half to do their week's shopping. That's why they just go to the supermarket."
I said that personally, I've been avoiding supermarkets for quite some time. I've found that in that hour and a half time slot I can easily get into Horncastle, go around the various small, independent shops and get everything I need, then get home. It's no more time consuming than using the supermarket, but much more enjoyable and invariably a little cheaper to boot.
Richard's reply to that was that "people just don't think about it - it's just a habit, they go to the supermarket 'cos that's what everyone does". We then lamented together how it isn't so much that two wages are genuinely needed to support a family - but they're needed to support one in the "aspirational" lifestyle.
This we defined by talking about how, back in the 1970s you'd have one or two rich families in the village who had all the latest gadgets and fads, and as kids we'd find ways to end up at their house so we could play with the rich kids' toys, but most families didn't see the need to work both parents to death so they could take their collection of luxuries beyond the fridge, freezer, washing machine and TV set. Whilst nowadays kids consider themselves deprived unless every family member has their own laptop, tablet, smart-phone, TV & DVD player, collection of games consoles and enough designer clothes "to patch every sail in the navy" (the colourful metaphor he used). And a mere fridge isn't enough any more - it has to be a gigantic, pantry-sized fridge with drinks dispenser and ice crusher.
Small wonder that people are feeling exhausted and overworked when that human habit of mistaking wants and desires for needs has been fanned out of all proportion.
Yes, you could say this sounds like just two old men moaning about changing times. But I see a clear connection between the sense of entitlement to live at an absurdly high level of luxury and consumption that prevails in today's society, the pressure on the farmer, the power of the global food industry, destruction of the environment caused by ever more intensive farming methods and the increases in natural disasters, poverty, suffering and political instability around the globe as the West scrambles to maintain its unsustainable lifestyle at any cost.
You may say I'm just a rural yokel, hiding away in the depths of Lincolnshire, where, surrounded by stunning landscapes, I lead a leisurely life pottering around local markets and taking tea with vicars, oblivious to the rat race. Guilty as charged. But I'm also an international studies graduate, and have a very strong sense of myself as a world citizen. I'm afraid I just cannot bring myself to just look at my quality of life in comparison with others in this country and whine because I'm in the lowest 5% of incomes.
I'm very much aware of my position (along with the rest of the British working class) in the top 10% of household incomes in the world, with over 12 times the global average income and a quality of life far beyond anything my ancestors imagined - better than the majority of people in this world can hope to aspire to. Having lived in the bottom 1% in the UK and spent years skipping meals so my kids could eat, my life has improved five fold to be where I am now. And I'm grateful - deeply, deeply grateful for it.
Every time I have a hot shower, snuggle into a warm, comfortable bed, eat a tasty meal, put on a nice garment or take tea with a friend, I'm acutely aware that my life is good. That these comforts have had to be fought and worked for - not just by me, but on the backs of the global many who must suffer daily so I can have a fridge, never mind a huge one with bells on - and must be earned again each day if they're not to be lost again. And I'm not willing to use what resources I have irresponsibly, nor purchase unnecessary improvements to this life at the expense of what little opportunities others have to do the same.
To my mind, it's everyone else that's isolated themselves from reality, from society - world society, that is - and shrugged off all sense of responsibility for the wider consequences of their habitual choices and assumptions. By living my simple life here, and doing what I do to reconnect with my homeland, I'm also acting on this awareness of my place in the wider global context and doing what I feel is the best I can do for Richard, for myself and, in the long run, for everyone.
Years ago I was a member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis, a group of Anglican lay people committed to helping each other live out the principles of the Gospels as interpreted by the visions of St Francis of Assisi. At a meeting one evening someone shared a motto that they'd come across: living simply, so that others can simply live.
That's what I'm talking about here - it's not about guilt, or wringing our hands anxiously while throwing money at organisations that exist for the sole purpose of helping the victims of our continued luxurious lifestyle. What we all need to do is to just see our lives in perspective, and act accordingly. Act locally.
The first thing he said was that the sanctions our government has placed on Russia are having no less effect on the Russians than the ones Russia has placed on us, which has driven the cost price of our dairy produce through the floor, so that our own farmers are struggling even more than ever.
Then he talked about the "four moves" rule that the slaughterhouse chains have imposed "for no logical reason, just because they can". This is the rule that says if an animal has been moved from one location to another four or more times, the slaughterhouse only pays the farmer 40% of each animal's value before its fourth move. He went into some detail about this: there are only four slaughterhouse chains monopolising the whole UK meat industry, and they work together with each other to set livestock prices to their advantage, thus squeezing the put-upon farmer ever more.
Then Richard told me about one of his neighbours who was "lucky" to take over the tenancy of the dairy farm on his father's death, which was only possible because of a support scheme available to those who qualify as "young farmers", thus enabling him to make 1.5p of profit per litre of milk (on a cost price of around 24p).
Next, he told me how the current prices that farm produce is generally being bought at are about the same as in 1980 - "If only we still had 1980 costs!" he bewailed. And then Dyson's fortunes coming back from Malaysia effectively doubling the price of agricultural land, so that the average age of farmers continues to climb as the next generation can't afford to break in. Although, as profits are so low "and you can't make your £30,000 living, which is what you need at least, to support a family", it's only "us old fellas that can't change" that are doing it any more.
"It's unsustainable," he said. And I agreed. I asked whether it's any help to him that a growing number of consumers nowadays are looking to buy local produce direct from farmers and he paused to gather his thoughts before replying. "I'm not knocking it," he said at length, "but you need more people doing it. And if you think about it, back 30 or 40 years ago most households were just one man supporting them, and the wife did whatever part time work she found. So you had about 1.3 wages. But you can't support a family on 1.3 wages today. You need two and then some. So people haven't got time to go round all different places when they've only put aside an hour and a half to do their week's shopping. That's why they just go to the supermarket."
I said that personally, I've been avoiding supermarkets for quite some time. I've found that in that hour and a half time slot I can easily get into Horncastle, go around the various small, independent shops and get everything I need, then get home. It's no more time consuming than using the supermarket, but much more enjoyable and invariably a little cheaper to boot.
Richard's reply to that was that "people just don't think about it - it's just a habit, they go to the supermarket 'cos that's what everyone does". We then lamented together how it isn't so much that two wages are genuinely needed to support a family - but they're needed to support one in the "aspirational" lifestyle.
This we defined by talking about how, back in the 1970s you'd have one or two rich families in the village who had all the latest gadgets and fads, and as kids we'd find ways to end up at their house so we could play with the rich kids' toys, but most families didn't see the need to work both parents to death so they could take their collection of luxuries beyond the fridge, freezer, washing machine and TV set. Whilst nowadays kids consider themselves deprived unless every family member has their own laptop, tablet, smart-phone, TV & DVD player, collection of games consoles and enough designer clothes "to patch every sail in the navy" (the colourful metaphor he used). And a mere fridge isn't enough any more - it has to be a gigantic, pantry-sized fridge with drinks dispenser and ice crusher.
Small wonder that people are feeling exhausted and overworked when that human habit of mistaking wants and desires for needs has been fanned out of all proportion.
Yes, you could say this sounds like just two old men moaning about changing times. But I see a clear connection between the sense of entitlement to live at an absurdly high level of luxury and consumption that prevails in today's society, the pressure on the farmer, the power of the global food industry, destruction of the environment caused by ever more intensive farming methods and the increases in natural disasters, poverty, suffering and political instability around the globe as the West scrambles to maintain its unsustainable lifestyle at any cost.
You may say I'm just a rural yokel, hiding away in the depths of Lincolnshire, where, surrounded by stunning landscapes, I lead a leisurely life pottering around local markets and taking tea with vicars, oblivious to the rat race. Guilty as charged. But I'm also an international studies graduate, and have a very strong sense of myself as a world citizen. I'm afraid I just cannot bring myself to just look at my quality of life in comparison with others in this country and whine because I'm in the lowest 5% of incomes.
I'm very much aware of my position (along with the rest of the British working class) in the top 10% of household incomes in the world, with over 12 times the global average income and a quality of life far beyond anything my ancestors imagined - better than the majority of people in this world can hope to aspire to. Having lived in the bottom 1% in the UK and spent years skipping meals so my kids could eat, my life has improved five fold to be where I am now. And I'm grateful - deeply, deeply grateful for it.
Every time I have a hot shower, snuggle into a warm, comfortable bed, eat a tasty meal, put on a nice garment or take tea with a friend, I'm acutely aware that my life is good. That these comforts have had to be fought and worked for - not just by me, but on the backs of the global many who must suffer daily so I can have a fridge, never mind a huge one with bells on - and must be earned again each day if they're not to be lost again. And I'm not willing to use what resources I have irresponsibly, nor purchase unnecessary improvements to this life at the expense of what little opportunities others have to do the same.
To my mind, it's everyone else that's isolated themselves from reality, from society - world society, that is - and shrugged off all sense of responsibility for the wider consequences of their habitual choices and assumptions. By living my simple life here, and doing what I do to reconnect with my homeland, I'm also acting on this awareness of my place in the wider global context and doing what I feel is the best I can do for Richard, for myself and, in the long run, for everyone.
Years ago I was a member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis, a group of Anglican lay people committed to helping each other live out the principles of the Gospels as interpreted by the visions of St Francis of Assisi. At a meeting one evening someone shared a motto that they'd come across: living simply, so that others can simply live.
That's what I'm talking about here - it's not about guilt, or wringing our hands anxiously while throwing money at organisations that exist for the sole purpose of helping the victims of our continued luxurious lifestyle. What we all need to do is to just see our lives in perspective, and act accordingly. Act locally.
Thursday, 25 September 2014
Dairy
I can foresee that, ultimately, some of the most tricky customers to localise are going to be tea and various herbs and spices. But I'm well stocked on tea for the time being, having been in the habit of buying several catering size packs at a time of Taylor's Yorkshire Tea for some years. This wasn't for any other reason than the baffling difficulty of getting the hard water version in the economy size boxes. I mean to say, everywhere within a huge radius of me is a hard water zone, and yet for some strange reason all the shops stock the normal blend in gigantic boxes and the hard water blend in tiny ones (if at all), so I've been buying in bulk from Amazon and have enough in the cupboard to last probably until Christmas.
More immediate however is the issue of the milk I still can't quite wean myself off having in my tea. Now, given that milk isn't a product that lasts out the distance of long journeys, you would expect most of the milk on sale here to be relatively local in any case. A dairy farm in Wilksby (2 miles from me) for example supplies Sainsbury's stores in the area. But I want to be sure, and I want to buy direct whenever possible, so our local producers can get a bigger proportion of the price I pay, rather than most of it going into retailers' and marketers' pockets.
My house is in fact inside a hedged enclosure in the middle of a field full of cows, so I figured it'd be a simple task to find out who owns them and strike a deal. Now, one of my neighbours - in suburban terms you could say next-door-but-one, although it's about a quarter of a mile away - is a building labelled on the OS Landranger as Dairy Farm. So naturally, it was my first port of call.
Unfortunately (for my purposes) it turned out to be derelict, and in the process of being converted into a sort of social healing/retreat centre - which I Googled when I got home, found really interesting and emailed them about getting involved with. But no milk.
So I went up to Grange Farm, where I'm told a lady I know from church has lived all her 90-odd years (they go in for long term tenancies on the Revesby Estate!), and inquired of the two chaps I found there, kicking their heels whilst waiting for an engineer. Nice people, and good to meet more of my neighbours - they told me the cows are owned by Hall Farm and not milked. It's a beef herd: the calves drink the mothers' milk, nobody milks them.
Eventually, having exhausted all avenues that I had time to explore before S (15 year old daughter) made my head explode with her insistent insisting on going home so she could have her post-school caffeine fix, I went home and turned to Google.
That was when I found out that the Lincolnshire Poacher people (whose delicious cheese I've been buying from the Coop for years) sell their own milk at the local farmers' markets. And what's more, a peruse of their website told me that the butter problem I'd also been anticipating could be solved through their humble market stall. That's a relief - I remember churning butter at the age of about 8 or 9 when, out of curiosity, I spent several hours shaking a coffee jar of our goat's milk to see what would happen, and I really didn't fancy adding that time consuming task to the existing daily grind.
Annoyingly, they won't be at my local farmers' market for another three weeks, unless I can find another excuse to go into Lincoln next week to justify the diesel... But that's one problem solved, and something to look forward to anyway!
More immediate however is the issue of the milk I still can't quite wean myself off having in my tea. Now, given that milk isn't a product that lasts out the distance of long journeys, you would expect most of the milk on sale here to be relatively local in any case. A dairy farm in Wilksby (2 miles from me) for example supplies Sainsbury's stores in the area. But I want to be sure, and I want to buy direct whenever possible, so our local producers can get a bigger proportion of the price I pay, rather than most of it going into retailers' and marketers' pockets.
My house is in fact inside a hedged enclosure in the middle of a field full of cows, so I figured it'd be a simple task to find out who owns them and strike a deal. Now, one of my neighbours - in suburban terms you could say next-door-but-one, although it's about a quarter of a mile away - is a building labelled on the OS Landranger as Dairy Farm. So naturally, it was my first port of call.
Unfortunately (for my purposes) it turned out to be derelict, and in the process of being converted into a sort of social healing/retreat centre - which I Googled when I got home, found really interesting and emailed them about getting involved with. But no milk.
So I went up to Grange Farm, where I'm told a lady I know from church has lived all her 90-odd years (they go in for long term tenancies on the Revesby Estate!), and inquired of the two chaps I found there, kicking their heels whilst waiting for an engineer. Nice people, and good to meet more of my neighbours - they told me the cows are owned by Hall Farm and not milked. It's a beef herd: the calves drink the mothers' milk, nobody milks them.
Eventually, having exhausted all avenues that I had time to explore before S (15 year old daughter) made my head explode with her insistent insisting on going home so she could have her post-school caffeine fix, I went home and turned to Google.
That was when I found out that the Lincolnshire Poacher people (whose delicious cheese I've been buying from the Coop for years) sell their own milk at the local farmers' markets. And what's more, a peruse of their website told me that the butter problem I'd also been anticipating could be solved through their humble market stall. That's a relief - I remember churning butter at the age of about 8 or 9 when, out of curiosity, I spent several hours shaking a coffee jar of our goat's milk to see what would happen, and I really didn't fancy adding that time consuming task to the existing daily grind.
Annoyingly, they won't be at my local farmers' market for another three weeks, unless I can find another excuse to go into Lincoln next week to justify the diesel... But that's one problem solved, and something to look forward to anyway!
Introduction
I was always told I'd be a late bloomer. My thirties are fast becoming a thing I talk of in the past tense, though it still feels weird to say "when I was in my twenties". But the main difference between who I was and who I am now is that while I used to be happy to talk a lot, then make excuses to put obstacles in the way of actually doing anything, nowadays I've run out of excuses so I guess I'm just going to have to knuckle down to walking the walk. As the man said, ain't nobody gonna walk it for me!
The thing I always talked about wanting to do was to have a go at doing for myself what my dad tried (and to a degree succeeded) to do when I was little. That is, self-sufficiency. He moved us out to the middle of nowhere and worked a fair sized plot of land with fruit, veg, livestock and so on whilst striking up deals with locals to get the things he couldn't produce himself.
I dare say in some ways that was easier in the late 70s and early 80s, when health & safety legislation wasn't as prohibitive to the smallholder as it is today. But on the other hand, he had 7 or 8 mouths to feed while I have only two (and sometimes three): myself, my 15 year old daughter and my occasionally visiting 17 year old who just left home to live in her friend's spare room so she can be closer to college.
Another advantage I have over my dad is that I live in a time of EU grants and subsidies, and I live on a large country estate where I rent my home from the aristocrat that owns it - along with various tenant farmers who, as per the landlord's preference, practice sustainable, organic farming methods. I live between two deer parks and the meat from the shoots is sold at the local butcher's. I also regularly volunteer at a working historic windmill which produces flour from local grain by wind power.
So, since I haven't got the excuse any more of being a single dad with two small kids in a small flat on a city council estate without a driving licence, it's about time I began to put my money - and my time and the work of my hands - where my mouth has been all these years.
This blog will chronicle the process of me trying to obtain increasing proportions of my diet and daily necessaries from within as small a radius of where I live as possible. Here in the heart of Lincolnshire - England's bread basket as it's called - it shouldn't be difficult.
But unlike dad, I don't aim towards self-sufficiency. My aim is more to get myself into harmony with the land here that I love, and to let it provide for as many of my needs as possible, though that doesn't mean I have to produce everything myself. I want to find out what others in the area are producing and coordinate with them, get producers and consumers in the area talking to each other.
That's the theory. Time, and this blog, will tell!
The title and URL are inspired by one of my favourite folk songs :)
The thing I always talked about wanting to do was to have a go at doing for myself what my dad tried (and to a degree succeeded) to do when I was little. That is, self-sufficiency. He moved us out to the middle of nowhere and worked a fair sized plot of land with fruit, veg, livestock and so on whilst striking up deals with locals to get the things he couldn't produce himself.
I dare say in some ways that was easier in the late 70s and early 80s, when health & safety legislation wasn't as prohibitive to the smallholder as it is today. But on the other hand, he had 7 or 8 mouths to feed while I have only two (and sometimes three): myself, my 15 year old daughter and my occasionally visiting 17 year old who just left home to live in her friend's spare room so she can be closer to college.
Another advantage I have over my dad is that I live in a time of EU grants and subsidies, and I live on a large country estate where I rent my home from the aristocrat that owns it - along with various tenant farmers who, as per the landlord's preference, practice sustainable, organic farming methods. I live between two deer parks and the meat from the shoots is sold at the local butcher's. I also regularly volunteer at a working historic windmill which produces flour from local grain by wind power.
So, since I haven't got the excuse any more of being a single dad with two small kids in a small flat on a city council estate without a driving licence, it's about time I began to put my money - and my time and the work of my hands - where my mouth has been all these years.
This blog will chronicle the process of me trying to obtain increasing proportions of my diet and daily necessaries from within as small a radius of where I live as possible. Here in the heart of Lincolnshire - England's bread basket as it's called - it shouldn't be difficult.
But unlike dad, I don't aim towards self-sufficiency. My aim is more to get myself into harmony with the land here that I love, and to let it provide for as many of my needs as possible, though that doesn't mean I have to produce everything myself. I want to find out what others in the area are producing and coordinate with them, get producers and consumers in the area talking to each other.
That's the theory. Time, and this blog, will tell!
The title and URL are inspired by one of my favourite folk songs :)
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