Bits and pieces

Went round to look at the fire surround this morning. Dark wood with a turned rail and adjustable width. It was a little too wide at it's smallest so the donor is going to ask her husband to take about 3" off it for me. When its done, I plan on painting the fireplace tiles silver with a black mantelpiece and the hearth surround black. Trust me, it will be fine, lol. So far the ....Freecyclers I've met have been really friendly, interesting people. Restores your faith in humankind!

Mum was in a jolly mood tonight (thud) and has decided she does want to have Christmas dinner with us after all. Well thank goodness for that. I have resigned myself to cooking dinner next Christmas - I'll try to get a drop-leaf table from Freecycle for the back room and hopefully by next year, I'll have redecorated the kitchen.

I forgot to mention that of course the whole point of local Freecycle groups is to save perfectly good stuff from going into landfill and to reduce the carbon footprint of manufacturing duplicate goods with all the associated transport pollution. I offered a rusty set of fire irons today and four people want them!

brownie points to TK Max

Have just bought a snuggly pair of pyjamas, a bra and a blouse from TK's and carried them out the door in my arms like a really cool shoplifter. TK now have a policy of not giving you a carrier bag unless you pay 10p for it, to reduce consumption of plastic bags, and are quite happy for customers to take their purchases away, unwrapped. More of it I say!

It's not easy being green

I have made small steps towards an eco-friendly lifestyle today, although I fear I've probably done plenty of other stuff to cancel out the good. I had a water conserving shower but have had the washing machine running ever since - used the eco-balls my son gave me for Christmas to wash the towels (but biological powder for the white wash because I wasn't confident that the balls would be as effective). I rinsed out glass and plastic bottles for the recycling box and took shopping bags to the supermarket to save using their plastic bags (but drove there - no public transport and too exhausting and too cold and wet for the bike). I suppose I could have done my shopping yesterday when in Morrison's with mum but my brain just seizes up with the effort of trying to get her to buy enough food for herself, let alone think about what I might need. On the subject of plastic bags -I do recycle them, they go in all our rubbish bins in the house, they're invaluable for de-pooping the garden and I take stuff to work in them where they're used again to line the rubbish bins in the offices. I don't know what I'd replace them with if I had to give them up. Thankfully we've lived in the country for many years now so manage quite well without the heating on during the day - not like these soft townies!

Oh dear

Having been inspired by the excellent example of John Cossham I had a go at calculating my carbon footprint . For my first attempt I didn't get out the fuel bills or go round the house counting the light bulbs and other appliances but took an educated guess at the questions asked to get a general idea of how our household measures up. Up being the operative word - 12.24 tonnes per year - yikes! Perhaps I over-estimated in some areas (otherwise known as clutching at straws) and should probably have another go with proper statistics. One thing the carbon calculator site doesn't seem to take into account is recycling, a shame as we do quite a bit of it. Not just the usual paper, glass, tin and plastic (I've been told the latter is a bad thing - creating plastic mountains in China apparently) but also I get most of my clothes second hand from charity shops and eBay (ok, I'm a bargain-loving cheapskate). Must do better. Watch this space.