Giving up Rubbish for Lent

I always try to live as green a life as I can, and I've long been a fan of The Rubbish Diet blog - however, my own rubbish diet has slipped a little in recent months and I needed a bit of a kick up the bum to get going again.  So I've decided that, along with the rubbishy part of my actual diet (takeaways and ready-meals) I'm giving up throwing things away for Lent.  The lovely Karen over at The Rubbish Diet invited me to write a guest-post for her, which you can read here (and hello if you're joining me having read Karen's blog!)

I think I can do this - we're lucky enough to have pretty decent recycling facilities in York, and my new composter means I needn't put any food waste in the bin, but there are a few things I think I might have to throw away - unless anyone has any brilliant ideas!

• Bottle tops - while the council collects bottles and jars for recycling, they don't take the lids.  Work is collecting milk bottle tops for a local charity, but what do I do with the ones that come off peanut-butter jars and bottles of beer?
• Food wrappers - I usually stuff a cereal bar of some sort in my back pocket when I go out on the bike, and when I get home the wrapper goes in the bin.  Most of them are plastic, but some are foil-lined as well.  Can the plain plastic ones go for recycling with my old plastic bags?  Does anyone do cereal or energy bars in fully biodegradable wrappers?  Butter wrappers are an issue, too. Marks and Spencer's organic butter used to come in a paper wrapper but they changed to a foil laminate last year.
• Feminine hygiene products - I've yet to make the big leap to Mooncup or washable liners, and don't see myself doing so imminently.
• Plastic tubs - the cutting out of ready-meals & takeaways should minimise the number of these coming into the house, but the odd one will still sneak in - I usually get through at least one carton of crème fraîche a week, for example.
• Blister-packs - the pain relief I use for my arthritis comes in blister-packs, and I don't know if I can get alternative packaging without getting the tablets on prescription (which is about four times more expensive!)

I shall try to update weekly on my progress - but in the meantime, wish me luck!

The Green Johanna

Thanks to my voluntary work with York Rotters, I recently took delivery of a Green Johanna compost bin to try out.  The GJ is not your standard garden composter - it is a hot composter, and also designed to be rodent-resistant*, meaning that it is suitable for composting all types of food and garden waste - yes, including cooked food and meat and fish.  Having struggled with Bokashi composting in the past, but not wanting to throw our occasional cooked leftovers or chicken carcases in the bin (all else aside, with fortnightly collections the bin becomes horribly smelly) this sounded perfect.

The instructions weren't terribly clear - but once I got the box open it was a simple enough process to put the thing together, just a matter of clearing a suitable patch of ground - the instructions specify that the composter should be placed directly onto soil, in a shady spot so that it doesn't overheat in summer (it was designed for year-round use in Sweden, so the average British winter shouldn't trouble it) then stacking the segments in the correct order.

It even comes with a stirring device!

With this little area between my bird feeders and bike shed cleared (nothing grows there anyway, it's too shady for most plants) I picked a spot for the base-plate and started stacking.  The Green Johanna goes together a bit like Lego, and screws are provided to make it all a bit more permanent.  Unfortunately, on mine none of the screw-holes quite matched up so I didn't bother - perhaps when I've a little more time on my hands I'll drill some new pilot-holes and fasten it all together.

It's pretty imposing when it's built up, so I'm glad I tucked it away behind the wall!

The last step of setting up is to prepare the Green Johanna for your kitchen and garden waste.  In order for air to circulate well the bottom 10 to 20cm needs to be filled with twiggy material - our hard winter has provided well for this, and I topped it off with my dried out Valentine's bouquet!  The next layer needs to be green garden waste - the instructions suggest grass-clippings, but as we've yet to mow the lawn this year I made do with as many weeds as I could pull up from the garden.  A third layer, of garden soil or well-rotted compost, is needed to add the micro-organisms that will do all the hard work for you, then you're ready to add your first kitchen scraps or garden waste proper!

Super-simple, and now I need never throw food in the bin again!

* The manufacturers claim that it is 100% rodent-proof, I am naturally cynical of such claims, having seen what rats can chew through if they've a mind to!

Good Housekeeping

New, Improved National Cycle Network Route 65 - 

 

makes me wanna get my head down & pedal!

I devoted a little time yesterday to revamping my weekly schedule.  Last year I set up a Google Calendar for all my household chores (and bike rides, of course!), with each room or task given a specific day and time and SMS alerts set to remind me when to do them.  Much as I wanted this system to work, I quickly discovered that it wasn't for me as I found it all too easy to ignore the reminders, or they'd come when I was out of the house and be forgotten before I got home.  So, the new system is this:

• Monday is bike day - a long ride to push myself.  I also need to devote a little time to either cleaning the fridge or sorting the recycling in readiness for...
• Tuesday, which is either bin day or recycling day (our council now collects on alternate weeks.)  Tuesday is also housework day.  By the time I've gone over the kitchen & bathroom I have a reasonably comprehensive shopping list, too, so I can spend the afternoon doing a shop.
• Wednesday morning is when my veg box arrives, and as I don't usually start work until lunchtime there's a little time in the morning to plan my menu for the week.  In addition, as my commute takes me past the Household Waste Recycling Centre, once a month I'll load up my panniers with the bits that the recycling collection doesn't deal with. 
• Thursday is a work day so I've tried not to commit to anything extra, though as it's also pay day it's a good day to get any extra bits of shopping done, especially the odd boring supermarket bits.
• Friday I usually only work until lunchtime, making it a good day to get another ride in - lack of light will necessarily make it a shorter one for the next couple of months, and having to be on my feet all day Saturday means I need to take it a bit easier than on a Monday.  Also twice a month I need to pick up meat from the Community Supported Agriculture groups I'm part of, so my rides will have to come home via the collection point - and I'll have to remember to carry a rucksack!
• Saturday is a work day (and the busiest of the week) so the only item on the schedule is a hot bubble bath when I get home!
• Sunday always, always begins with a long lie-in, featuring breakfast in bed, the Archers omnibus and Saturday's papers.  Sunday being Sunday it's not a very structured day, the afternoon may involve a gentle social ride or just be spent watching old movies or pottering in the kitchen.  My aim is for it always to involve a proper Sunday dinner though.

The rest of yesterday was given over to a ride - a slightly windswept loop north of town, taking in the newly improved NCN Route 65, Skelton, Sutton-on-the-Forest, Flaxton and an ill-advised stop at the new "improved" Evans Cycles store at Monks Cross (the less said about that the better!)

Still a few icy spots.  This corner's tricky enough on a good day - 90 degree bend on a narrow path, at the bottom of a steep slope.  With the addition of ice & standing water I got off & walked.

The first half of the ride was great fun - Route 65 has had its gates widened, so you no longer need to come to a complete stop to manoeuvre your bike through, and at long last the final off-road half mile (leading to the Overton road) has been paved.  Having that set of beautiful swooping bends (see pic, top) finally covered in race-track perfect asphalt instead of sticky mud and gravel put a grin on my face that lasted for miles!

 

Song of the day.  For some reason this popped into my head somewhere around Clifton Ings & didn't go away.

 

Almost every pedal-stroke was helped along by a gentle breeze from the south, making for swift progress, until I turned the corner to leave Sutton-on-the-Forest where the gentle tailwind become a stiff headwind - the sort that forces you to change down a gear even downhill.  After barrelling along at a pretty fun pace (I haven't yet got round to fitting a cycle-computer to my bike so I don't know how fast I was going) the remaining two-thirds of the loop was a tedious slog.  The fact that it was apparently heating oil delivery day didn't help, with three or four cold, mucky showers from passing tankers doing little to improve my day (though fortunately going out in full waterproofs saved me from the worst.)  There were some lighter moments on the homeward part of the loop, like discovering a village I'd never even heard of before, despite having lived in this area for almost all of my life.  I didn't quite make it all the way to Farlington, but it looks pretty on StreetView and has a pub so maybe it'll be the target of another ride soon. 

Route map
31.1 miles
3 hours
average speed 10.4 mph

The Pantry

Neat, tidy, clean, organised (it'll never last....)

 Time for a progress report on that to-do list. December 30th was spent - yes, in its entirety - taking inventory of the food in the freezer and pantry. Many ancient jars and packets found their way to the compost heap and recycling bin, shelves and containers were wiped down, re-arranged and refilled, and the conclusion reached that, certain perishables aside, I probably don't need to shop for most of the month of January.

The list itself ran to about five pages, so I won't be posting it in full, but here are some of the meals I am planning:

• braised lamb with beans.  (had this on Sunday, served with carrot & swede mash & roast potatoes)
  
• pumpkin & artichoke lasagne. 
• lamb kebabs with naan bread (a quick & easy post-inventory supper)
• Jansson's temptation. 
• shepherd's pie. (made with leftover lamb & beans on Monday)
• chicken stew & dumplings. 
• roast chicken & stuffing. (coming up on Sunday when the family are here for lunch)
• seafood linguine. 
• macaroni cheese. (post-ride comfort food on New Year's day. Given the amount of cheese in the house this will be repeated often through the coming weeks!)
• risotto. 
• curry. 
• kofte.
• cheese-stuffed chicken breasts. 
• sausage & black pudding bake. (Tuesday, with the remainder of Sunday's beans)
• lamb chops & polenta. (with sherry-vinegar reduction & some brussels sprouts, a special New Year's eve dinner)
• corned beef hash. 
• nut roast. 
• paella. 
• tagine. 
• pizza. (Tonight. Probably. If I get organised enough to make dough.)

As for The List:

• schedule some bike time  - and how! more to come on this later
  
• catch up on the laundry, take inventory of my wardrobe & look to fill any gaps in the sales
• write a workable chores schedule - and actually use it!
• finish up the final bits of the guest room - frame & hang pictures, make the sheer curtains & swag, buy some new bedlinen - & share the results here.
• sort out & tidy our bedroom, which became the dumping-ground for all the stuff that was in the spare room
• wallpaper the stair risers, make curtains for the hall, hang pictures & buy lampshades. Again, a project to be photographed & shared!
• make the second curtain for the bedroom (I'm ashamed to say that we've had one curtain & a blanket clothes-pegged to the rail for over a year now!)
• tidy away all the Christmas decorations, wrapping paper etc.; find homes for the presents we received & dispose of anything that a new item is replacing
• count the small change in the "penny jar" & bank it
• take inventory of the pantry & freezer, write a shopping list to fill any gaps and plan meals for as far ahead as possible - can I do a month's worth of menus in one go?
• prep for a work project & contact the people I need to speak to about it.

Packing up Christmas

Well, the festivities are over and twelfth night is upon up already - and with it, it's time for the decorations to come down.  I'm sure I can't be the only person who finds the prospect of an un-decorated house a little bleak, so I like to make a little ritual of putting everything away.  The tissue paper is smoothed out and stacked up and one by one I wrap the baubles, reminding myself of the story behind each one.

The three tin Santa Clauses (or more properly Père Noëls) were discovered in a very chic Parisian homeware boutique.  Tom had surprised me with a weekend in Paris for my 29th birthday - he'd organised everything from Eurostar tickets to hotel to presenting me with a guidebook as we got on the train to London, and even arranged my time off work!  I spent much of the weekend half expecting him to propose (which he did, a year later, on a second trip to Paris.)  As it was October, I really didn't mean to start shopping for Christmas, but these guys were just too sweet to resist, and I'm so glad I didn't as every Christmas I have a special reminder of a wonderful trip.

The beaded fruits were collected on trip to Italy.  One winter I took myself off to Rome to do my Christmas shopping.  I found a cosy bed and breakfast near the Porta Pia and spent four days walking all over the city, exploring the Colosseum and the Pantheon, buying delicious treats from the Christmas markets and little delis, refuelling on pizza, gelato and incredibly good espresso.  I was a single girl then and never bothered with a Christmas tree, instead I would pile a beautiful bowl with fruit and baubles, so when I found these in one of Rome's most glamorous department stores they seemed absolutely perfect for me.

My Gnomies have been with me for as long as I can remember.  As I understand it, they are a German tradition, brought into our family through my Steiner education.  Every December, instead of an advent calendar, my mum and I would construct a Gnomie garden.  Moss would stand in for a lawn, some twigs & pine-cones became trees and a scrap of tinfoil made a shiny little pond.  The Gnomies would magically appear overnight (in reality, painstakingly handmade by mum from pipe-cleaners, felt & wool), and each night in Advent they would bring a new gift - something simple like a tiny purse, a pretty gemstone or a sugar mouse.  Although it's years since I made them a garden, I still like to bring the Gnomies out of hibernation each year.

New decorations are added to our collection every year - the angels, snowflake and the handmade green glass bauble were gifts from my best friend and her parents, the tiny solid glass fruits were a sale find a couple of years ago - the boiled-sweet colours catch the light so beautifully - and the red mercury glass baubles were bought in the faded gentility of Jenners in Edinburgh, for the first Christmas after Tom and I moved in together.  And now they are all wrapped in tissue paper and cardboard and put away in the big box marked "Christmas," ready to come out again next December.

Itch to pitch

Toni over at The Happy Housewife has come up with a great little piece of motivation - the Itch to Pitch challenge. With before & after decluttering pictures to be posted every Monday, there's nowhere to hide! I've already posted a few pre- and post-move photos, but check back next Monday for a bit more of a proper project.

And the mess goes on...

That big jagged line is where the plaster has come away from the wall

A month ago today I wrote my last post, in the midst of panic attacks and not-yet-packed boxes. Today, with my broadband up & running (thanks Sky - for all Mr Murdoch's faults, your customer service is marvellous!) I'm sitting in the midst of plaster dust and not-yet-unpacked boxes!

There has been progress - the bathroom has been decorated, in very pleasing shades of mocha & duck egg

the outside loo has been converted into a utility room (though the loo is still sitting in the yard and the top of the washing machine is stacked with boxes); the exterior doors have been painted Oxford blue; one of the outhouses has been transformed from dumping ground to bike shed;
the pantry has its extra shelves and is well-stocked

and dinky spice shelves, too

the bedroom is a beautiful & usable space

if still curtain-less and rather cluttered, and check out the wardrobe!

On the down side, this is the current state of the kitchen, complete with this week's to-do list on the fridge (I do love my dry-wipe markers!)

and as for the spare room...

Surviving

It's now three weeks since we picked up the keys to the house, the re-wiring was completed yesterday afternoon and the pantry, wardrobe and master bedroom have been painted. There has been (and continues to be) much mess, stress, cussing, shopping (mostly for paint & power tools), and tomorrow we move in.

I am by no means ready to do so - only half of our possessions are packed, and the house is still, fundamentally, a wreck (the kitchen is far from usable and there's no plaster on some of the living room walls, never mind paint, wallpaper, curtains...) I start hyperventilating every time I think about it, so I'm going to stop doing so, head on up there & re-lay the bedroom carpet, so we'll have just one room that we can say is done.

There's unlikely to be any blogging for the next four weeks - for apparently that's how long it takes to get broadband set up these days (surely it should just be a matter of flipping a switch by now??)

A week is a long time in new home-ownership!

View Larger Map

The story so far - since getting the keys last Thursday, we have:

• removed the vile stair carpet and sanded, primed & undercoated the stair treads & landing. I've sprinkled fine sand into the undercoat to reduce the risk of slipping (especially outside the bathroom door, which is opposite the top of the stairs!)
• Still to do: paint stair treads & landing black, wallpaper stair risers, paint woodwork & walls.

• Stripped the kitchen of wall-units, tiles and wallpaper.
  
• Bought two rather handsome lights to replace the horrid strip-light (which is tucked in behind a beam so half of the kitchen is bright & half dingy)
• Still to do: Too much to even think about! To begin with, though, a coat of white paint (although eventually it'll be yellow to match the pantry, there are currently at least three different colours on the walls which need covering up) and some shelving to design & place brackets for before the re-wiring begins, so the electricians can fit the countertop lighting and extractor hood.
  

• Painted the pantry walls (Homebase "Lemon Juice.") It took four coats, but at last the Germolene pink does not show through! Primed & undercoated the window frame and given the existing shelves a first coat of white gloss.
• Still to do: Add more shelves, including space for my bargain marble slab (picked up in a charity shop this morning for £1.50!), add wine rack, give shelves & other woodwork a coat of shiny white gloss, add corkboard to inside of door for combined insulation & recipe display.

• Stripped the top layer off most of the living room wallpaper. I curse the name of the person who invented anaglypta. Vile, vile stuff. The steam from the stripper doesn't penetrate the top layer, so that has to be scraped off (for which task I'm loving my blade-on-a-stick), leaving the backing paper to be steamed off later.
  
• The gas fire has been disconnected (it was broken, and therefore dangerous) and the surround offered up on Freecycle - though why anyone would actually want a plastic, sorry, teak-effect gas fire surround is rather beyond me. My opinion has been borne out by the complete lack of replies.
• Still to do: finish stripping this bloody wallpaper, then, well, everything, really.

I'm waiting for the quotes to come in from the two electricians, and meanwhile I'm writing epic shopping lists for Ikea (with my mum on Thursday) and the rather wonderful DIY store/ timber merchant, handily en route from old place to new (Friday, when he has his next delivery of carpet edging doo-dahs.) The tininess of the storefront belies the absolutely vast range - he seems to have pretty much every bit of timber we could possibly require, and the tools & accessories to turn it into useful bits of furniture!

We have a house!

Or rather, the bank does, and we're paying them for it for the next two and a half decades...

We also have a lot of work to do.

1. The kitchen. Nothing on this end wall is level (no, it's not just the photo.) I went to our local DIY mecca as soon as I'd picked up the keys, where a couple of very helpful gents sold me a heavy-duty scraper and a pair of safety goggles so I can make a start on the destruction of the tiles this afternoon.


2. The pantry: On the (absolutely massive) plus side, I have a pantry. On the minus side, it's extremely pink. It also needs more shelves, at least one of which needs to be stone (OK, would be nice if it could be...)


3. The hall/ stairway: two bannisters on such a steep stair might be a good idea - the fact that they are at different heights is just irritating. As for that carpet...

The yellow can stay, it makes for a lovely warm welcome to the house, and, inspired by Anna at Door Sixteen, I intend to wallpaper the stair risers - in fact, I've already bought a roll of this Sanderson wallpaper.


4. The master bedroom urgently needs de-wallpapering, before the pattern gives me a migraine! I've got paint for one wall already, and fabric for blinds, now I need to decide on colours for the rest - my starting point's lavender, if anyone's got any suggestions!



5. The living room is probably the least in need of work, except for the small matter of electrical outlets. It has three. All on different walls. And our TV set-up alone needs about five. One of my jobs for this afternoon is to arrange quotes from electricians - we're working on the basis that wiring is a messy job, and is much better done before we start decorating & moving furniture in so we'll probably get the whole place rewired now, bugger the cost.

Part of me wants to build shelving across a whole wall, but that may have to wait until funds allow.

Eventually, this gas fire will be going, too. In fact, maybe sooner rather than later - I'm happy to be without a fireplace for a while. And the gas-man will be coming anyway to check the boiler & install our cooker...


6. The second bedroom & the bathroom are low priorities - they're liveable for now. They'll get some form of window treatments for privacy, and a lick of paint, and we'll work out the rest later.

7. The garden: My good intention is to leave it a year to see what comes up before I start digging it all up & moulding it to my will. I fully accept though that this is unlikely to happen, I'm far too impatient.

Spring is... springing

This morning my allotment was basking in the (not terribly warm) spring sunshine. I was shivering in not-quite-enough layers and

• Planting a tree ("Serbian Gold" Quince, Cydonia oblonga)
• Watching the birds crashing about in the hedge, and a magpie trying to use the tiny feeder designed for robins and sparrows
  
• Checking on my seedlings - red drumhead cabbage, pak choi, and boltardy beetroot are all showing their faces, and the onion sets are starting to sprout
  
• Finding more & more things springing to life. Very pleased that my rose-scented geranium has survived the winter. The hazel tree has leaves all of a sudden, the gooseberry has tiny flower buds, more tulips are coming into flower every time I visit, and three of the four fruit trees I planted over winter are budding (the fourth is a Victoria plum, which I believe/ hope is slower to start than apples, pears & cherries.)

I came home to the wonderful news that we've got a (provisional) completion date for our house purchase - and it's only about three weeks away! So, this year's project list:

1. Rewire, decorate & move in to new house (hopefully in that order)
2. Plant & maintain allotment to provide a steady stream of veggies, fruit & flowers for the whole year, and especially flowers for Laura & Nick's wedding in May
   
3. Plan & plant new garden, perhaps to include space for a chicken run
4. Keep trying to conceive