I'm feeling very in front of the proverbial wave these days. This morning, Gordon Brown was urging people to shop and waste less. He was mainly referring to food; if we didn't all let our lettuces rot in the fridge there might be enough to go round. I'm afraid I've been a sinner on that front in the past - and sometimes still am - but my guilt valves were opened when we lived in Kenya and every scrap of uneaten food was carefully preserved in the fridge (kerosene), in itself a luxury. Giving up supermarkets has also helped a lot, and Ethi eats pretty disposes of all leftovers (barring salad). We still eat far too much.
But it also holds true for all manner of shopping. What Brown said about food could easily be shifted to clothes/toys/cars, even books. We're just too greedy, and we've got to stop equating the acquisition and consumption of stuff with happiness. Maybe I'm turning Buddhist or something, but I honestly feel much lighter since giving up non-essential shopping (in all ways apart from the literal: shopping, it seems, has an inverse relation to chocolate eating).
And it's been such a quick journey. This morning, Mark picked up a lovely plastic singing bird, one of a dozen Chinese-manufactured, ridiculously expensive - for what they are - which I'd bought to adorn the tables of my Joanna's pre-wedding dinner 2 1/2 years ago. At the time, he'd questioned the point of it, and I'd told him that it made me smile. It still does, but through somewhat gritted teeth. I'm not sure I'd smile less if it wasn't in our life.
July, for us, is kids' party season, however, and it's proving impossible to get through without a certain amount of buying. I managed to get through Alfie's birthday without party bags, at least, though Mark bought him a bike (which, it could be argues, is a green present - though a second hand one would have been better). I haven't a clue what we're going to get Notty - though her friends are leaving with old-fashioned sweets rather than plastic. My challenge is to get them to eat at least half of what gets put on the tea table.
It'll have to be sausages.
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About Me
- Samantha Fletcher
- I'm the Green Party candidate for Chippenham, a marginal constituency in the heart of Wiltshire. I have lived here for nearly 14 years, with my husband, MArk, a wildlife film editor and GP candidate for Devizes, children, Alfie, 9, and Notty,7, and black collieXpoodle, Ethi. When not campaiging, I am the author of six books, including the international best-seller, A Fish Caught in Time - the Search for the Coelecanth, Pointing From the Grave, which won a Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction, and The Moneypenny Diaries trilogy. I am a member of Friends of the Earth and various local climate groups. I'm keen marcher and protester, grow my own veg, and walk or bicycle whenever possible. As a family we gave up non-essential flying four years ago, and don't have a tumble dryer. Over the last few years we have cut our carbon footprint by 90% with no obvious change to our lifestyle (except for not flying). I gave up shopping for 2008, and still do not use supermarkets.