Stuff and Nonsense

It's been a funny couple of weeks. Grandchildren-minding was replaced with cat-and-goldfish (separately!)-minding while Owen, Jess and the children took off on a skiing holiday, Gareth got some sort of fluey cold and chest infection and we’re back to the drawing board with buying a house. I've been keeping myself busy with the zero-plastics thing, home economics and a fair bit of dog walking. Here’s my new update on the plastics thing:

Well, I've found a couple of things on-line that are helpful and I posted the links on FB. Others who are going zero-plastic suggest taking your own wrapping and containers when shopping. Some have found refill stations for naturally derived cleaning stuffs like Ecover, and are buying ethically produced cosmetics packaged in paper, cardboard or jars. I'm interested to try the soap-bar shampoo that these pioneers are using, but it does sound a bit weird. They also advocate using bamboo toothbrushes and have even found cotton buds that aren't plastic. Inevitably these things are pretty expensive compared with the bog-standard stuff you buy in the high street so it's fortunate that I’m not a big user of cosmetics. There are signs of some small local initiatives setting up to sell food without plastic and a refill station would be great! This week I prepped and froze a load of veggies and I'm still putting my little food processor to work on making hummus but I don't relish the thought of making all of my own cleaning products and toiletries like some tree-huggers do (I just had to check that predictive text didn't screw that word up for me!). While I am up for the challenge of living more lightly on this planet, I still want a life while I'm here, and I don't want that life to be permanently in the kitchen!

Changing the subject, aren't programmes like Masterchef and Bake Off a phenomenon? We aren't big TV watchers but now we're in the caravan we do seem to catch these during stupor time. The number of times we've eaten a worse-than-mediocre meal while watching Master Chef, I wouldn't like to count. I haven't learnt a single thing from these programmes and they only serve to highlight the fact that while I have chosen to be plasticly challenged I am culinarily challenged by dint of total lack of talent! I'd like to blame the ineptitude on my limited kitchen facilities, but that would be a sorry excuse for the lack lustre fare I've been dishing up lately. I ruined a beautiful and expensive goat cheese that I'd bought from an independent deli, wrapped, as I'd requested in paper instead of plastic film. I used it in a frittata and destroyed its flavour completely! I don't think I'm in danger of anyone putting me forward for Masterchef, unless it's as a joking contestant.

Stream of consciousness stuff makes me now think about cake. In my youth, my working mother would have me and my sisters help with the weekend Bake-In. For us it was more of a Bake-and-Off-Out exercise as we resentfully assisted in the production of pies, tarts, scones and fruit cake to last through the week. Romantic liaisons and meeting friends had to wait until mother’s larder was satisfactorily stocked. The produce was always sweet. Our parents each had a sweet tooth. Maybe it was something to do with the absence of sugar through the war years and the rationing that was still in existence when I was a baby, but there was always pudding after a meal and always cake for a snack. Dad loved his golden syrup - no wonder he became diabetic. None of that weekend baking would be worthy of featuring on Bake Off as my mother wasn't much of a cook and her sous chefs were in too much of a hurry to finish their shift to be very creative either; except, of course, when we wanted to impress a boyfriend. In most cases, though, our creativity wasn't matched by skill and new boyfriends had to politely chomp though some inedible offerings. Showing my age there, aren't I? How many young women now seek to impress a possible future husband by cooking for him (I deliberately kept that as a heterosexual reference because back then I knew nothing of same sex romances).

It's Tuesday today though I keep thinking it's Sunday and I'm not sure why I mention that. Maybe it's to do with my stream of consciousness taking me back to those weekends of my young years and picking up now on the way that time drifts. It's so quiet here at the caravan park. The dogs are curled up showing no sign of wanting to chase rabbits for the moment and all I can hear is the shooshing of the sea. The world’s problems feel far away and Time seems almost irrelevant; stopped for a bit. There is such freedom in being retired from the world of work. However there is danger too. Without purpose, and without some sort of structure to the week, time can catch you out. We have to continue making efforts to leave the world a better place than we found it. The hours are ours to use meaningfully.