Sustainable

I’ve just started studying for a masters level course in sustainability. I have attended my first ever online lecture (rather scarily in the Department of Mechanical engineering). Its brilliant- its given by Karl Henrik Robert who was originally a cancer specialist dealing with bone marrow transplants. He became concerned about sustainability and the issues arising (global warming, death of wildlife etc). He was concerned that there was no common framework to understand the science produced and set out to produce one. He’s working to establish a set of concepts we can use to analyse all the separate bits of science. 

One of the interesting things he talked about is the lack of trust between people and there leaders- the idea that we don’t have a shared mental picture with our leaders; we tend to feel they are just interested in power. And the idea that taking care of each other doesn’t seem to be institutionalised; we feel we have to rely on ourselves and our families. It seemed quite pertinent in the current climate- I’ve not spoken to anyone who feels Brown has a vision- let alone one they share. We see the increase of apathy, people feeling disconected from politics…

Obviously we get to the science soon which will be scary. The book has differential equations…hmm I might need to call the chicken into help.

Vegan update

This is going really badly!

I’ve resolved the egg issue with a slight morall fudge; whilst we have the chicken the eggs might aswell be used. If I give them to other people they will avoid buying eggs from other less happy chickens and therefore whilst egg eating generally isn’t great egg sharing is good.

Due to haveing the fore mentioned relatives to stay I have eaten too much cheese- arguably any is too much but over the weekend I ate too much by non-vegan standards! My father-in-law isn’t at all happy about the idea of vegetairan meals and I’m afraid I couldn’t quite face introducing the idea of veganism…so with meals out, family dinners etc I probably ate more cheese than before my vegan attempt.

The family dinner was provided by a caterer who was very confused about vegetarianism thinking that perhaps we would eat fish but not mushrooms. She was a lovely lady with a smashing housecoat…

I do feel sorry for my father in law. He believes that a good meal has meat and that he isn’t really full without it. However he has raised not 1 but 2 vegetarian children; both of whom are bringing up vegetarain children…its a mystery to him.

Anyway; today is another Day 1 in being vegan. I haven’t eaten any dairy.

Vegan dilemas

This is Day 2 of my new vegan diet. So far its not going well! Predictably my gran made blue cheese and walnut pasta last night. She’s 82 and has only just stopped serving vegetarians chicken so I just didn’t worry about it. I’ve identified 3 vegan lunches available near where I work (avocado sandwich, humous sandwich, baked potato with veg chilli) which is good news for days when my organizational skills defeat me!

I’ve started taking my tea black but I’m struggling with coffee- I tried putting oat milk in yesterday but it simply sank to the bottom and skulked. I stirred it vigorously but couldn’t entice it to mix with the coffee. It tasted quite sweet too so I threw it away and had herbal tea…Trouble is now my caffine addiction has kicked in and I have a terrible headache.

Other issues to address; the cheese, yoghurt etc in the fridge- should I eat this to use it up or not to support the lifestyle change?

Chickens- not eating chickens even I can see thats inconsistent with being vegan but the ones in my backyard that lay eggs. I know that they are well cared for, free range etc and loved pets. But should I eat the eggs? If not what should I do with them?

Today is the day I become Vegan

I have decided to become a vegan; well actually I should rephrase that I have decided to try and become a vegan. They are a number of reasons; health, weight, forcing me to eat more food variety; the condition of animals in the diary industry. It feels like the right thing to do. Its a more efficent way of using land to generate food for a growing population.

So far (3 hours in) I’ve not beeen entirely sucessful! I had milk in my tea this morning because I forgot today was the day…I’m having muelsi with oatmilk for breakfast and rice and vegetables for lunch so no problems there. I’m going to my Grans for tea tonight which is likely to involve cheese but I decided to start today anyway….A person can wait a long time to find an auspicious moment to start something new.

Languid and Lazy

At the festival we visted the Green Fields and saw some wonderful stalls run by people who worked the land- in an environmental community kind of way. Reed beds were used for filtration of water; a bread oven was built into the earth. The people worked together on the land; thrashing with a horse….Wow I thought that’d be amazing; outside working feeling fit eating the produce of your labour… Living with other people…Hmmm I thought I wonder if I could do that?

There are however a few obstacles standing between me and my ideal life:

 When left to my own devices I’m terribly lazy. I lie in bed and read; maybe listen to music- eat easy to cook food…I’ve been reading Birds Without wings by Louis Debernieres and I remind myself of Rustrum Bays mistress who loves luxury and works on ensuring that her life allows luxury. Given a perfect world the high quality lazing may well be interspuserd with sex….Again like the mistress who delights in the smoothnes and roundness of her curves….

I have chittled potatoes sat on my window sill at this minute making me feel guilty…I think I was supposed to plant them in May; I have strawberry plants in pots that I haven’t yet planted but have started producing delicious strawberries…I have a big bare patch of earth that I dug 2 years ago and haven’t yet planted up.. Its safe to say I don’t stride out of my house in the morning ready to throw myself into physical exertion.

I have a list of things I should be doing rather than lazing; firstly I really want to do an MA in Sustainability funded by the Swedish government; I’ve applied and must now send of my degree certificate; secondly I’m supposed to be preparing to teach a new subject in August so I’m reading up on audit….it makes me sleepy; thirdly my house is a mess; fourthly its a week until my summer hoilday and I’ve lost the flight details…

Its not looking good for finding and joining a working community….anyway do you think I could live and work in a community and still be an accountant? I don’t think I want to give up my job…

Glastonbury Festival (and time out)

Recently I’ve had a fair bit of time out from being a mum. I’ve loved it- I feel like a different person. First I went to paris on Eurostar for a long weekend and was very arty. Then I had a staff conference and I’ve just come back from Glastonbury. 

I’ve just come back from Glastonbury festival. It was fantastic….we saw some great things. Wandered round looked at things…

 Jay Z was really good fun- because he worked really hard with the crowd.. Fat Boy Slim was great fun although I did think he was a smug bastard. He came on with a lap top- shouted 1234  occasionally  bit of pretend running…a smug grin. Whats so cool?? The crowd went wild- actually the crowd went wild before he really started- he tried to tease us but we went wild anyway. I loved it! Leonard Cohen was boring…He was very good and I like him more than I did before however…he was dull. Although given that he famously became an alcoholic to overcome stage fright it seems mean to say- he’s not a natural performer….

 Looking at things was cool- lots of crazy circus acts; green technology; food; hippy junk….insane people. We were especially taken with a 50 year old wearing a triathlon suit; fairy wings and dancing to Mr Cohen.

 Lots of people had children with them; lucky not us! It looked really hard work!

 The walking; all day walking and standing…I was exhausted and didn’t go as wild as I wanted! On Sunday I set out to get pissed but after 2 pints of home brew peasant cider (lovely) and some apple brandy I went on the gyroscope and to be honest couldn’t drink anymore! I had to lay down for several hours…

 The gyroscope was soo cool- like floating. I loved being apple to move my body so fluidly and easily….  

The best thing was spending time with my wonderful husband when we didn’t have to think about work, family, responsibilities. We were just having fun together….

And suddenly my life changed…

 

My life has changed…I always felt that I didn’t want to be one of these parents who were defined by their children; you know the type; who reply to every query with a little anecdote about little Jonny…so a casual ‘how are you?’ is answered with a discourse on little Jonnys sleeping patterns…And such a funny story about the time little Jonny ate broccoli…

 

However my life has changed; its changed because my son has changed. He’s met people who are more fun than me! (I know imagine how fun must they be!). But there are now people who he’d rather be with than me. And I’ve started inviting them round to our house; or meeting up with their mums….Its like I can breathe again.

 

These other people (lets call them friends) actually want to play Thomas or gnomes or made up superheros for as many hours as he does; which lets be frank- I don’t!

 

And I’m not pregnant….so I don’t have to start again and can get back to planning my trip to China!

Previous attempts to change…

I’ve rejected alcoholism as the most obvious way of dealing with the boredom that invades my life…So I’m looking for something else….I’ll start by reviewing things I’ve tried so far:

1) Change my job. I tried this 2 years ago; I quit my teaching job and went to a big firm to do public sector audit. There was a challenging career path, competition, excitement, more money. I lasted 2 weeks! So what went wrong…I really really hated it- the challenges weren’t challenges I cared about; the people were dicks and I had to drive miles and miles each day. I came home every day for 2 weeks in tears. I missed my teaching; I like the organization and the people I work with. I care about what I do. I phoned my boss and asked for my job back. Within a week I was back at my desk planning courses. Changing jobs seems like a good idea but I can’t think of a job that has advantages over the one I have. Mainly other jobs look like more work for less money; I need more than that to make it seem worthwhile.

2) Having more people around. One of the problems with raising children is that once you come home your kind of stuck in the house….me, husband, housework… So a year ago I got a lodger; the theory was that having somebody else around would help us to create grown up time as they wouldn’t be exhausted from the evening rush and we wouldn’t all ready know everything that had ever happened to them. This worked really well for a bit…then our schedules changed and we always seemed to be on top of each other.  We gave him his notice and he refused to move out; when he eventually did go it was a great relief!

 

3) Studying. this is the most obvious- I’d like something more to think about. I started an open university course about 9 months ago. I picked an MA in online and distance learning. I mainly chose this because my employer agreed to pay for it. The first unit was called The E-learning Professional. God was it dull….it dealt with things such as ‘what is a professional’. It was also quite easy- in my opinion not really post graduate standard as I found I could knock of an assignment (around 2,000 words) in a day with no prior reading and still get 65%. It wasn’t really challenging. I just had this guilt that I should be doing it…I finished the unit and was SO GLAD. So if its going to be studying it needs to be interesting!

 

The next step is to make a list of things that inspire me!