Green House

We spent yesterday with friends, and I was acutely aware of how greenness has taken over our lives. Everything I talk about seems to have greenish highlights. It doesn't particularly feel that way to me - which, I suppose is a measure of the extent to which it has become internalised, part of how we think, which must be a good thing?
We went to a movie with the kids and afterwards, Sally suggested picking up a pizza from Sainsburys. 'No can do,' I said. She asked what I was up to, and I gabbled on about setting up an Eco Mums' support group. We talked about holidays and I admitted that Mark hadn't come to South Africa because he refused to get on a plane. And so on. I do hope I'm not getting boring.
I was up in London last week, and a friend asked how it was going on 'Planet Green'. Oh God. I had subjected myself to a 24-hr succession of not-buying opportunities. First, a friend's gallery opening, in which at least a quarter of the paintings were of our fields/trees/hills. I was itching to buy 'Sam's duck house', but managed to restrain myself (or, rather, the price ticket did it for me). We went to an after-party at an obviously very well off Spanish divorcee's house in Knightbridge. A butler in white gloves opened the door, while Philippino ladies wearing starched white doilie aprons handed around plates of canapes before dinner. At least half the food wasn't eaten, and I can't imagine they had a wormery in which to dispose of the excess.
I stayed the night with Fev, who offered me yoghurt for breakfast. I opened the fridge to get it, and found a punnet of Chilean blueberries nestling temptingly on the bottom shelf. 'I'm sorry,' she said. I gobbled the blueberries gratefully and wished she hadn't felt ashamed.
Kate was holding a sale of James's sister's kids knitwear at her house. I would have loved to have got some. I took my cup-candles along, but only J & Kate, Alice and Allie bought them, under pressure. I am going to use the money as seed capital for 'the Eco Mum Movement', perhaps to buy a domain name?
Allie is pregnant, but stressed that she wasn't going to be the sort of mother that pushed the pram around, or kept the baby attached to her hip. I bit my tongue. We bumped into her Mark later, and when I congratulated him, he said, 'It's going to be the Philippino's baby.' I am sure, when it comes, they'll feel different. I hope so.
I know that my friends in London think of us as some sort of curiosity, while I feel that is they who are behind the curve, with their hot houses, fast cars, and long haul holidays.
I came home. I mixed up some dough and put it in the airing cupboard. I hung the washing in the hall, and watered the broad beans growing rapidly across the way. I guess we can't kid ourselves. Mark may have spent months making a greenhouse at the end of the garden, but he needn't have bothered: we're already living in one.